# Welcome to Horror — Full Content

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## Ep 248 We Have Been Watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-248-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 24 May 2026
Duration: 00:39:41

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Planet of We Have Been Watching”. It’s time for another “We Have Been Watching”, and in a real turn up for the books, everything we’ve watched is from this century! We discuss “Abigail” (2024), “The Gorge” (2025), “Reflections On A Dead Diamond” (2025), “Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come” (2026), “28 Years Later” (2025), “Death of a Unicorn” (2025), “Obex” (2025), “The Lords of Salem” (2012 - Chris bringing the average down slightly), and Lee walks out of “The Bride” (2026). No prep for this ep, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing.

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## Ep 247 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-247-what-ever-happened-to-baby-jane/
Air date: 10 May 2026
Duration: 00:37:01
Film: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? · Year: 1962 · Director: Robert Aldrich

### Description

It’s time for some Hollywood glamour on Welcome To Horror, as we ask “What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?” A film which gives some top tips for the family catering on a budget; introduces us to King Tut’s Cockney mum; and highlights the true diligence and observational skills of the LAPD. When it seems that a film exists primarily to pair two fading movie stars whose off-screen animosity was already legendary; it really shouldn’t be the masterpiece that “What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?” is. Director Robert Aldrich conjures stark Hollywood gothic, with lashings of cynical humour and a truly mean streak of domestic horror. Stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford give career-best performances in territory that is unflattering anathema to their past glories, with their rivalry and begrudging respect for each other’s talents forging absolute gold. Budgetary restraints help the film feel more “real” as normal studio techniques were too costly, giving aspects of the film (particularly the location work) a near-documentary edge. Whilst “…Baby Jane” somewhat revitalised the careers of Davis and Crawford, leading both into further work in the horror genre, nothing can touch this macabre pinnacle. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm writing a letter to daddy.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** In in that voice.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Um, yes, uh, for anyone who's unaware, we are here to cover the 1962 Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.
**Chris:** Um, how do we all sound so upbeat currently?
**Lee:** Oh, because I watched it two weeks ago.
**Chris:** Ah.
**Chris:** Just me that shell-shocked currently then.
**Adam:** Have you literally just come off it, Chris?
**Chris:** Just literally about 10 minutes ago. Oh, wow. Yeah, no, I'm glad I didn't with this one, because, I mean, not wishing to spoil it, but I loved this film so much more than I thought I was going to. I was just.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But, yeah, I wouldn't have wanted to record straight after it.
**Lee:** Because looking back now, having it up on IMDB and seeing the trailer for it, it just keeps reminding me how amazing it was, but yeah, at the time, it's so dark.
**Chris:** However, after the first two minutes, I'm I'm impressed that you got past that that first scene where the singing is going on and.
**Chris:** I was like, will he turn it off at this point? Will he make it?
**Adam:** What, that was the weirdest thing is, I'd never I'd never realized, I mean, obviously, I've seen it, I've saw it years ago.
**Adam:** But and like it was a favorite, you know, I just I genuinely enjoyed it, it was Claire's first time seeing it, but like I was familiar with it.
**Adam:** But reading about it afterwards, um, that song.
**Adam:** He's specially written for the film.
**Adam:** And it is so perfect to that sort of mokish, horrible sort of like two fingers down your throat, sort of Shirley Temple sort of Yeah, cutey, oh God, it's yeah, it was fucking horrendous. Oh, yeah. So.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It is, it is, it's it is painful to watch.
**Chris:** Mm.
**Lee:** Oh, and it only gets worse when she does it when she's older as well.
**Lee:** But I just.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, it's got to be said right up top, there's no other way to describe it.
**Lee:** The performance of Bette Davis in this is quite possibly the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my entire life.
**Lee:** She is so horrendously awful and she plays it so utterly unbelievably and yeah, it's unbelievable.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** And the problem is, I so I I watch lots of old films, but I do, you know, we always say it, you always make an allowance, don't you?
**Lee:** So you go, they were an actor in the 50s, it's very different to actors now, it was a very different time, they didn't have the schooling, it wasn't.
**Lee:** So you wouldn't put someone's performance from the 60s, from the 50s against now.
**Lee:** The performance in this blow anything I've seen in the last 20 years out of the water.
**Lee:** It is so fucking good from everybody in it.
**Chris:** Mm.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, because I mean, that's the thing is you are talking two proper movie stars, you know, it's not sort of because, because I think there's a lot to be said when it's like, you know, I I like a theater actor when they go on to, you know.
**Adam:** A lot of people where they've got a theater background, it's really, you know, they come across really amazingly.
**Adam:** But yeah, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, it was they were, you know, they were big.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The biggest thing at the time.
**Adam:** stars and this is kind of like this is the point where they were, um.
**Adam:** You know, this was the point where that sort of star had started to fade essentially, because I mean, they were sort of like big through the 30s and 40s.
**Adam:** 50s and the usual sort of story is obviously, it's like an actress actress gets older and starts getting less roles or starts getting less flattering roles or starts getting less.
**Chris:** Mm, yeah.
**Adam:** interesting roles or whatever like that. And, you know, so I think the.
**Adam:** they just grasp it with both hands and particularly Bette Davis is just like because it is not a flattering performance in any way, shape or form.
**Adam:** But she is so fucking good in it.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** She gives it everything.
**Lee:** Absolutely everything to be the most.
**Lee:** obnoxious, awful human being I've ever seen, it's just brilliant.
**Adam:** See, I think weirdly enough, I've always found it there is there is a lot of there's a lot of humor in it.
**Adam:** But it.
**Adam:** like the horrific stuff is fucking horrific.
**Adam:** You know, By the way, spoilers and swearing.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, yeah, well done.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Um, but when she's like, when she's the sort of just the that cruelty that she's sort of building on.
**Adam:** But then it's like, you've got the the your bird flew away.
**Adam:** Then she serves her the bird for dinner.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Then she doesn't want to eat the next dinner because she's convinced it was something horrible and then it's not.
**Adam:** And then the rat, and it's like just that sort of horrific sort of mind game thing going on.
**Adam:** But I think and the real thing that gets you though, is that fucking gut punch at the end.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Where it's like, holy shit, she's made her this.
**Chris:** didn't need to be, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I couldn't believe that.
**Chris:** No, I I did not I didn't see it coming.
**Lee:** Wait, what?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I've never heard this twist spoiler.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's incredible, isn't it? Because weirdly enough, it's it's almost to a certain extent, it's only when I put the DVD back in and I'm like I I get to that because obviously, wonderfully.
**Adam:** So they have um they have younger actors playing them as children and then the point where it's the where Blanche has become a star and Jane is.
**Adam:** basically flying on her coattails out of loyalty.
**Chris:** Mm.
**Adam:** is they don't show you them at that point because people know.
**Adam:** A no what Joan Crawford and Bette Davis look like at that point.
**Adam:** They do show old films of theirs, like they use old clips from their from old films.
**Adam:** But so that opening sequence, you don't see them in the car, you don't see their faces and it feels, oh, well, that's a technical thing because obviously they can't portray themselves.
**Adam:** younger.
**Adam:** And then you realize that actually you've been you've been sucker by what you've spotted is like a technical issue.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But it actually, you know, you suddenly go, holy shit, yeah, they didn't see.
**Adam:** what happened at the start.
**Adam:** You just see two people in a car, but it's very non-descript and everything and it's sort of, yeah, just a.
**Chris:** They lead you down that path that's.
**Chris:** It's such a good fucking.
**Chris:** Slight of hand.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It kind of it because it almost is like, oh, we've put that in there and you're going, oh, well, they've done that because it's a limitation.
**Adam:** And then actually it's like, no, you've been.
**Adam:** You didn't you you definitely I haven't seen that coming.
**Lee:** planned from from like scene one, just.
**Lee:** Epic.
**Adam:** It's Yeah.
**Lee:** So good.
**Lee:** But like you said, I had the same as you had it, like I said, it's it was a very dark film, I did laugh most of the way through it.
**Lee:** Just because it's it's it's so brilliant and I was just taken in by.
**Lee:** And even the cruelty, it's so over the top.
**Lee:** It is.
**Chris:** It is, it's kind of reaches that absurdity level, you know.
**Chris:** And yet still believable enough that it could possibly yeah, go that way.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's genuine Gothic.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It's not in not in terms of castles or.
**Adam:** But it is it is that level of sort of macabre.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Um, but I also think and obviously, and so, I mean.
**Adam:** I don't know sort of your awareness of it, but basically Joan Crawford and Bette Davis hated each other's fucking guts.
**Adam:** And that had been a rivalry that had been going since like before.
**Lee:** What before?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** They they basically.
**Lee:** Where did that come from?
**Chris:** I didn't know that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Basically. I mean that might that might explain it.
**Adam:** It does, it does explain a lot. But yeah, so.
**Chris:** Okay, that's that's how you make a great film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I mean, I think what it was is so, um, where are we? Yeah, so it was basically in the 1930s, they sort of like were both stars. They didn't get on and a lot of people put it down to the fact that there was a an actor called Francho Tone, who was in the film Dangerous with Bette Davis.
**Adam:** She fell for him but he ended up marrying Joan Crawford and so there's a lot of but before that they were already a bit sort of like, you know, sort of rival stars basically.
**Adam:** And they would often sort of snipe at each other in the press and in person and stuff like that.
**Adam:** I've got this amazing quote from Bette Davis, one of the one of the things she said was that Joan Crawford slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And sort of things like that, but the weird thing is is that Bette Davis was really obvious.
**Adam:** In the in the same sort of way that Joan is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But Joan Crawford actually was a bit cruler and actually had a sort of like.
**Adam:** So she was sort of like, for example, Bette Davis was nominated for an Oscar for this.
**Adam:** Now, um, Joan Crawford was an Oscar winner, Bette Davis won an Oscar had two best actress Oscars.
**Adam:** And she was up for the best actress for this, Joan Crawford actively campaigned against Bette Davis getting the Oscar.
**Adam:** Better than that.
**Adam:** If you want shady shit.
**Adam:** Listen to this.
**Adam:** On the night, um, Bette Davis doesn't win.
**Adam:** I think it was Ann Bancroft won.
**Adam:** Couldn't make the ceremony.
**Adam:** So Joan Crawford accepted the award on her behalf.
**Adam:** And so the Oscar photos for that night are Joan Crawford standing there with the best actress Oscar.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And it's just like and you see that sort of snippy sort of you know.
**Chris:** That that's a proper counter though, isn't it?
**Chris:** That's why.
**Adam:** And it wasn't it wasn't like an unknown thing.
**Adam:** Everyone knew they couldn't stand each other.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so kind of the film like they they like they were both sort of getting to the doldrums of their careers as it were.
**Adam:** And Joan Crawford basically wanted uh got involved with the director Robert Aldridge and wanted to make Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.
**Adam:** And so she reached out to Bette Davis and Bette Davis agreed on the basis that she got the she got the Baby Jane part.
**Adam:** Because then it's.
**Adam:** She's got the name in the.
**Adam:** What was it the two things she said it was like something like because again, I think Joan Crawford was just fucking hilarious, Um, sorry, Bette Davis was just hilarious.
**Adam:** because she was like, yeah, I accepted it because uh, I needed the money.
**Adam:** And uh, you know, and sort of stuff like that.
**Adam:** But also she said, and also once Robert Aldridge had told me he wasn't sleeping with Joan Crawford, so I knew that I wouldn't just be I wouldn't get any closeups.
**Adam:** And stuff like that and um, so yeah, but so that was kind of the selling point of the film.
**Adam:** Was like, oh, there's these two stars who you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, sure do.
**Adam:** I've spent the last 30 years tearing lumps out of each other.
**Adam:** Now we get to see him do it on screen.
**Adam:** Godzilla versus Kong, you know.
**Chris:** I mean, that is arguably a very good selling point.
**Adam:** Well, and apparently, so during the during the the making of the film, um, apparently Bett got a bit handsy.
**Adam:** And was like, you know, because there is a slap in there where you're like.
**Adam:** That is not, you know, and there's not and there's lots of points where.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** basically they've had to do it where Joan Crawford is reacting to Bette Davis, but they're not in the same shot.
**Adam:** I think because they were like, no, better keep them apart.
**Chris:** You can't, yeah.
**Adam:** But but even.
**Adam:** Even fabulous things like this, so Joan Crawford was on the board of directors of Pepsi.
**Adam:** So Bette Davis got a Coca-Cola machine installed outside her dressing room so that the cast and crew could drink Coca-Cola.
**Adam:** And it was just wonderfully petty.
**Adam:** Um, and the bit where she's hauling, um, where Jane is hauling Blanche around the floor.
**Adam:** Um, Joan Crawford got a load of weights sewn into her clothes so it would put.
**Chris:** Ah.
**Adam:** fucking Bette Davis's back out.
**Adam:** And it's like, you know, it's mental, you know.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** I'll tell you what.
**Chris:** If if they'd made a, you know, behind the scenes documentary of this.
**Lee:** It needs to be a producer film.
**Adam:** Well, this is the thing, there is a TV anthology series called Feud.
**Adam:** And the first series is Bett and Joan with Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford.
**Adam:** And it's the guy, uh, Ryan Murphy, who did American Horror Story.
**Adam:** So he's got pedigree.
**Adam:** Um, I I've never seen it, I just don't think it was on any channel that I was I had access to at the time.
**Adam:** Yeah. But I think it's definitely probably worth seeking out because you know, I think.
**Adam:** Because it basically details the the making of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and it's sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** So it's all sort of like in there.
**Adam:** Um, but obviously, yeah, and and then.
**Adam:** It was a massive fucking hit.
**Chris:** But like, so, all right, how have I not heard of it before?
**Chris:** And Lee, did you say you had heard of it? I mean, you you said you had it like on the verge of.
**Lee:** So I I've heard of it as one of those like great films like Citizen Kane and that kind you need to see.
**Lee:** Uh, yeah, and Jennifer loves it.
**Chris:** Okay, yeah.
**Lee:** So it was one of those when I said I'd never watched it, she was like, I've definitely made you watch it at least three times.
**Lee:** I was like, you haven't.
**Lee:** She said, I've seen it, like I never go that long without seeing it, I must have made you watch it at some point.
**Lee:** I was like, no, you definitely haven't.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, and we started watching it and I was like, why have you never made me watch this?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because again, because again, it's just in that sort of it's in that thing like you were saying, it's it's an older movie, but fuck me, it's.
**Chris:** It holds up.
**Adam:** And and here's the shocker as well, and this is probably stun you.
**Adam:** It's two and a half hours long.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** And it really does not feel it.
**Adam:** Because you think like an older film.
**Adam:** You're expecting like because it's it's such a rarity to see a film an older film at that sort of a length.
**Adam:** Especially like a big well, a successful production because it was actually quite a low budget film really.
**Adam:** It was sort of like.
**Adam:** You know, the the whole point was, oh, we'll bang all this together, we'll get these two together and they'll tear lumps out of each other.
**Adam:** And then it's suddenly just it and it's better than that.
**Adam:** It's better than that should be, Robert Aldridge doesn't piss about.
**Adam:** He makes a fucking amazing film.
**Adam:** Everyone in it is brilliant.
**Adam:** And yeah, and it ended up making like it's box office back in under a month, it was that successful.
**Adam:** And yeah, and like Robert Aldridge did like the Dirty Dozen and the Killin Sisters and Jules and Kiss Me Deadly and, you know, like.
**Adam:** He did a lot a lot of great films.
**Adam:** But this is, you know, this is just a amazing, I think.
**Adam:** And the but the weird thing is is that there's certain touches in it that make it modern.
**Adam:** that are actually because of the low budget.
**Adam:** Like, whenever you see Jane driving around LA.
**Adam:** Usually what you'd do in Hollywood like productions at that point, it would always be back projection.
**Adam:** You know, you get the actor sat in the car and.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** control it more and everything else and it and it always looks shitty and false.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it was just the way it was done.
**Adam:** With this, they couldn't afford to do back projection, the budget was too small.
**Adam:** So when you see her driving around.
**Adam:** It's the cameraman's in the back seat or on the bonnet.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like and and let's face it, she's already an extraordinary looking figure.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And that must have been like quite a stir that there's like this sort of like pale faced doll faced lunatic with a guy on the front of her car driving up and down like Sunset Boulevard or whatever.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's sort of and that was another thing as well.
**Adam:** is um Bette Davis did her own makeup or like devised her own makeup.
**Lee:** Did she really?
**Lee:** It looks so unhinged.
**Lee:** It's perfect.
**Adam:** It's so unhinged.
**Adam:** And literally everyone said that to her, like the director and her because her daughters in it, you know, the next door neighbor, the the girl that.
**Adam:** Because that next door neighbor, Christ on a bike, that woman, you're just like a catalyst for every wrong thing.
**Adam:** That poor unknowing woman.
**Adam:** But her daughter, that's Bette Davis's daughter.
**Adam:** And everyone's like, you've gone way too far with this.
**Adam:** But then when they sort of saw it on screen and in context and everything.
**Adam:** And Bette Davis had said she wanted it to look like women she'd seen in LA, who looked like they didn't clean their makeup off, they just put more on, like every day.
**Lee:** I think.
**Lee:** He's exactly what it looks like.
**Adam:** It it does, it's really.
**Adam:** And yeah, again, there's I think everyone's just powered into this and feels rejuvenated from it.
**Adam:** And I have to put a big, big fucking underline on Victor Buono who plays Edwin Flag, um, who obviously.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** I I this actually I'm currently going through a uh 1966 Batman rewatch because he was King Tut.
**Lee:** Mm.
**Adam:** Okay, but he was the villain King Tut in those.
**Adam:** And I mean, he's fucking amazing in those Batman episodes.
**Adam:** But he is so good in this and so that's part of the I mean, like him and his mom.
**Adam:** as well because that that actress who's I think she's actually Australian, but she is so sort of like perfect.
**Adam:** I'll be your secretary, you know.
**Adam:** And he's like he's this sort of like enormous mummy's boy who's like.
**Lee:** I loved them, too.
**Lee:** Again, it was like and I I hadn't forgotten, but you do because you focus so much on Crawford and Davis.
**Lee:** And then when I opened the IMDB and I saw those two on there, I was like, God, I've forgotten how much I enjoyed their performance as well.
**Lee:** They just yeah.
**Adam:** And that's.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** It's you mean you've got to step up, haven't you if you're performing in scenes with those two like, Jesus.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** And I think well Victor Buono was nominated for best supporting actor for this.
**Lee:** Oh, was he on the on the way surprise.
**Adam:** Well, I think this was like his first film, so that was that was probably another way that Joan Crawford was that her nose put out a joint.
**Adam:** It's like, hang on, so this this who's never been in anything, he's getting best support and she's getting best you get fucked.
**Adam:** But um, also he was.
**Adam:** um, I was listening to it in the week, he did um, because I mean, he he's in um, he's in a really good episode of um.
**Adam:** the uh, what was it bloody called? Awesome Wells's great mysteries, who was a really good about that one.
**Adam:** Um, but he obviously, he did sort of like he did a lot of sort of not slasher films, but sort of films like The Strangler and The Mad Butcher.
**Adam:** And obviously, he's a big imposing figure.
**Adam:** But he is so pathetic in this, that it's just.
**Adam:** But he I mean, he's like, so he's 6'4 and 28 stone. You know, he's fucking enormous.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** But I've been listening to it, he did a comedy album called Heavy in 1971.
**Adam:** And the opening track is just, I'm Victor Buono and I'm fat, not big boned like like friends will try and tell me, but fat.
**Adam:** And it's just like sort of comic performance poetry about being a fat git, basically.
**Adam:** But it was, you know, that was just a genuinely little sort of thing.
**Adam:** And uh yeah, uh Marjorie Bennett who plays his mom.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** She's just so good because me and Claire were both like, oh, she's got to be.
**Adam:** She's got to be genuine cockney.
**Adam:** And then we looked and it was Australian.
**Adam:** It's like, oh, cockney by the sea.
**Adam:** That's what.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was taken.
**Adam:** That's what.
**Lee:** I was taken him by her accent.
**Lee:** Absolutely as well, so yeah, it was great.
**Adam:** Um, and um.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean and and although there are a lot of people in it.
**Adam:** I mean, this could be this could be a stage play.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there's only to a certain extent, there's only really sort of like six main characters maybe.
**Adam:** You know, everything else is kind of incidental.
**Adam:** Also, um.
**Chris:** But it's all about the relationships.
**Adam:** Yeah, well done the LAPD.
**Adam:** You're going to you're going to have dinner, you're going to have breakfast, not checking out, well, there's a car park funny there and uh, oh yeah, we're looking for these two missing women, there's a woman dressed as Annabelle on the freaking beach.
**Chris:** I mean, maybe that's not too unusual.
**Adam:** Oh, possibly.
**Adam:** Who knows.
**Chris:** We see all films, yeah.
**Adam:** But I think that I mean, like I say, I think they're just both so good in it and I mean, it's it's feels redundant to say.
**Adam:** But Claire said something very very true.
**Adam:** And I think it really emphasizes towards the end when Jane.
**Adam:** I mean, she's she's pretty much on the edge the whole way through.
**Adam:** But when she finally it's that last sort of fugue state and everything else like that.
**Adam:** It's not it's not mad, it's arrested.
**Adam:** She's still like a seven-year-old.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** That's what it boils down to.
**Adam:** And actually, there's a lovely bit because she's great as well.
**Adam:** Elvira, the um the maid.
**Lee:** voice very good.
**Adam:** Like the the housekeeper.
**Adam:** But just that bit where she confronts her and it's like, no, you're going to have to grow up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, she she knows what the problem is, she's like, no, you're going to have to grow up and be an adult and deal with these things because you can't treat people like this.
**Adam:** And, you know, it's.
**Adam:** And um.
**Chris:** I suppose that does seem to happen to child stars.
**Adam:** I I think to be honest.
**Chris:** They do get arrested.
**Adam:** I think it's fame.
**Adam:** Look at Ossie Osbourne.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Bless him.
**Adam:** Ossie Osbourne was still a 22-year-old blood from from the.
**Chris:** for a man, that's that's pretty young still, really.
**Chris:** Most have grown up.
**Adam:** Yeah that's where he was.
**Adam:** Right up until Black Sabbath.
**Adam:** He was just, you know.
**Adam:** He that's when the that's when the fame and particularly when the money came in.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, he was stuck at he was just a amiable 22-year-old metaller from Brum.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately Jane was a spoiled monster.
**Adam:** And stayed there.
**Adam:** And I also think it's it's it's a very, I think it's one of those things as well where it's a very telling sort of there's there's a lot of cynicism in it.
**Adam:** But a healthy cynicism where it's like, no, this is the movie industry.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And this is, you know, this is like, well, look, she's she's the big star.
**Adam:** So we have to do what she says even though there's her sister's fucking talentless.
**Adam:** But and it's that whole, yeah, just sort of.
**Lee:** and nepotism that's just unavoidable to some degree.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I mean, I think.
**Adam:** And also, I mean, if you, um, if you ever see it there's the clips from psycho bitches that are up online of Francis Barber and Mark Gatiss playing, um.
**Adam:** Crawford and Davis.
**Lee:** Brilliantly.
**Adam:** They are so good, so fucking spot on.
**Adam:** And even there's uh, that I because I think that was the reason I first watched it is there's a uh Shakespeare Sister did the song Goodbye Cruel World and the start of that is them arguing.
**Adam:** And Marcella Detroit going, well, you couldn't do these things to me if I wasn't behind this if I wasn't trapped behind this guitar.
**Adam:** And she just turned around and go, but you are Marcella, you are.
**Adam:** And it was like, and then I read somewhere, it was like, oh, that's whatever happened to Baby Jane.
**Adam:** And that's I think that was the first prompt of me watching it and it was like, yeah, well, well done ladies because that is a fucking amazing film to have.
**Adam:** Because also weirdly enough, I think the other thing was the only other thing I'd heard about it was my mom who has a very good line in sort of recommending things with like genuinely horrific things in them.
**Adam:** telling me like, oh yeah, no, it's a film where she serves her pet bird to her because she's trying to torment her and it's like, fucking hell, man.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It's a bit strong when you're.
**Lee:** And it is, and that's the thing, after the bird has happened, as soon as she says, by the way, there's rats in the cellar.
**Lee:** And it is, it's that long drawn out of her just looking at the dish going.
**Lee:** I I know and and we know it's under there as well and you go.
**Lee:** Maybe it's not, maybe it's, oh yeah, no, it's it's definitely.
**Lee:** A giant dead rat.
**Adam:** Because it's that classic bully thing as well because obviously there's the dinner in the middle where she's not looked under it, she's too freaked and she's too what.
**Adam:** And then she just sits there and it's just it's just chops and she's just eating one in front of her.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's just oh man, it's just such a terrific film.
**Adam:** And so of.
**Adam:** And I do genuinely think it definitely stands in in horror.
**Adam:** I think it's.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I was I was ready to question it in my mind before we started watching it because I was like, it's just about two women who share a house.
**Lee:** They're di to one another.
**Lee:** I don't think it's horror.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But I started watching.
**Lee:** I was like, no.
**Chris:** It does and and especially the end really solidifies just the whole thing as like, oh, that is I mean, it's bordering on it's like requium sort of territory, isn't it?
**Chris:** Proper like, oh, what's going on there?
**Adam:** Well, because it's you you realize that in in essence.
**Adam:** Blanche has not brought it on herself.
**Adam:** That's that's not.
**Adam:** But she's obviously calling her making.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You've sort of built this, you've built the monster, you know, and it's sort of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You think what should have been good really, isn't it? You surely the whole point of acting and being a star.
**Chris:** that should all be great and yet the whole thing to just be so inside out.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think again, I think that's part of the cynicism.
**Adam:** It is like, this is this is the this is the the this is the underbelly, all these stars that you wanted, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** see golden, yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, they're probably quite and you know.
**Adam:** I mean, to a to a greater or lesser extent, both Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were pretty monstrous in real life in certain ways, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but so obviously this does really well, um, and so both.
**Adam:** both of them sort of rejuvenates their careers and both of them go on and do sort of horror films.
**Adam:** And um, Joan Crawford did.
**Adam:** Um, they both worked for Hammer.
**Chris:** Huh.
**Adam:** Joan Crawford's in the film Trog, which I admit, I've never seen.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Um, and then uh, Bette Davis in The Nanny and The Anniversary.
**Adam:** Um, one of those is in, I think that's one of those is in that Hammer box you've got, isn't it, Lee?
**Lee:** Yes, The Nanny is in it.
**Adam:** Um.
**Lee:** And also I've got a I've got to mention again, Bette Davis in The Watcher in the Woods from 1980.
**Lee:** What a excellent out and out horror that was, isn't it?
**Lee:** I think as well God, that's terrifying.
**Adam:** And and that's the thing is I think both of them, that wasn't really.
**Adam:** It certainly wasn't their genre, you know.
**Adam:** That wasn't where.
**Adam:** They were sort of but um and and like Joan Crawford ended up working with.
**Adam:** William Castle on a couple of films.
**Adam:** Um, what was she, uh, Berserk, uh, no, I saw what you did and Straight Jacket, which is written by Robert Block.
**Adam:** So we're talking proper horror pedigree there and films like Berserk and things like that.
**Adam:** But I mean, and but I mean, she died in 77, um, but Bette Davis went all the way to 1989.
**Adam:** So she was she did a lot more post.
**Adam:** Um, another recommendation I would say is Burnt Offerings with Ollie Reed and um Karen Black.
**Adam:** Fucking great film that is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** You know what, I've got it somewhere and I've tried to watch it and I think I got about 15 minutes in and then I found it a bit uncomfortable.
**Lee:** And I was like, I'm going to have to come back to this when I'm in the mood.
**Lee:** And I don't think I ever went back.
**Adam:** Her last film, um, is a Larry Cohen film called Wicked Stepmother, which apparently is really good.
**Adam:** So, again, might have to might have to check that out.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean, like you say, there's The Watcher in the Woods, Return from Witch Mountain, she did, you know, they both of them sort of.
**Adam:** they realized that.
**Adam:** And actually Joan Crawford's in that really good Night Gallery segment.
**Adam:** Uh, where it's the woman who um has new corneas transplanted.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and um, and again, very much the sort of role of Uber bitch, you know.
**Adam:** She's not.
**Adam:** She's not a pleasant character in that.
**Adam:** So, you know, it's um.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But um.
**Adam:** Yeah, all in all.
**Adam:** This is a thorough recommend.
**Adam:** It's it's I put it in that same sort of place as like.
**Adam:** Because I think there's there's been a few sort of pastiches and things like that.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** It's not.
**Adam:** And actually, the the other one that did.
**Adam:** I think that was when my mom was telling me what it was.
**Adam:** was um French and Saunders did it.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** I was thinking.
**Lee:** I rewatched all of French and Saunders about a year and a half ago and part of me was like, they definitely did, I'm sure they did this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They they they did that because they because a lot of it they did like stuff like Science of the Lambs and the Exorcist as well.
**Adam:** But yeah, they definitely did whatever happened to Baby Jane because they had to because again, that was like.
**Adam:** watching it with watching it with my family and like, what what is this meant to be?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's because again, done like all their film parodies was done so well.
**Adam:** And so true to the look of it.
**Adam:** And you just like, no idea what this is.
**Adam:** And then yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I just as I said, I I yeah, I I do I appreciate old films.
**Lee:** But as I say, the majority of time you do have to give it that kind of handicap to begin with and this didn't need in.
**Lee:** And did you feel the same, Chris, like, it felt modern and.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** brilliant and yeah, I just I love the fact that they were they say big, beautiful stars.
**Lee:** And then they were like, oh, now I'm a bit older, I'm going to play a horrible old bitch. They really, really were.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and that's the thing is I don't think anyone, you know, it's neither of them are flattering roles.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** And in fact, that's the wonderful thing with it, I don't think there's there's it's a very foble thing, the nearest you get to a neutral person is the neighbor.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And she is Andy Harris levels of, you're really, you really don't know how bad you're making this for that woman trapped in that house by just keeping on mate.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Awful.
**Lee:** What a what an amazing film.
**Lee:** Uh, yes, so anybody out there who like me has always thought, oh, it's probably one of those old classics that doesn't hold up.
**Lee:** Yeah, go out and watch it because it is genuinely incredible.
**Lee:** And I saying the the runtime just buzzes by so fast.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** Because that was the thing is when I when I dug it out and I was look because I was going to watch it like one night and it was like, oh, it was a bit late now.
**Adam:** Because I looked at it, I was like, I don't remember it being that long.
**Adam:** And I was a bit worried to be honest.
**Adam:** Because I was like.
**Adam:** But no, it just yeah, just raps along.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely outstanding.
**Lee:** Um, so go and check that out.
**Lee:** We'll be back in a fortnight's time for what we've been watching, so no homework to catch up on this time, people.
**Lee:** Uh, yeah, and we'll see you in a fortnight's time, I'm going to go watch Watcher in the Woods.
**Lee:** I love I'm going to go watch Watcher in the Woods again, so I haven't seen it in years and I love that as a kid.
**Lee:** It's one of those over and over again.
**Adam:** Watcher in the Woods, isn't it?
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Chris:** Yes, you said that thing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's full on horror, it's horrific and horrible.
**Adam:** That's what I think.
**Adam:** Because I've never seen it.
**Adam:** So I'm thinking it might be on Disney Plus, I might have to give it a watch.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, if it is, go and find it.
**Lee:** I loved it as a kid, it's so creepy and horrible.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Lee:** Excellent, right.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Oh, go and check out, Chris has been working on the website.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** so hard, it is absolutely out of this world what he's managed to do.
**Chris:** Thank you.
**Chris:** See what you can find on there.
**Lee:** I I know you keep telling us the new stuff.
**Lee:** But I like just going and clicking on all the buttons and seeing and finding, I was saying if I was a listener, I would be all, I'd be like, right, who's my favorite actor, pull up all of their episodes or my favorite franchise.
**Lee:** Yeah, and just having all that at your fingertips now is.
**Lee:** Oh, it makes it so much more.
**Adam:** It's a phenomenal job, Chris.
**Chris:** I'm not stopping.
**Lee:** Yes, absolutely.
**Adam:** Well, yeah, but I realized just how much we've got in there now that can be cross-referenced.
**Adam:** It's like, yeah, that's actually a really good database full of information.
**Adam:** You know, most of it Adam has unearthed.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** It shows the hard work you've put in.
**Adam:** By the power of Google.
**Adam:** And the excellent insights.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** It's really good.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, it I've I've just blown away, but honestly, I don't think I've seen a website better than that.
**Lee:** So I'm absolutely that amazed by it.
**Lee:** So, well done, Chris.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, phenomenal job, excellent.
**Lee:** Um, yes.
**Lee:** So go and have a play on the website, go and listen to some old back episodes and we'll see you in a Fortnite's time for what we've been watching.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Lee:** Thanks, Chris.

---

## Ep 246 Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-246-dr-jekyll-and-sister-hyde/
Air date: 26 April 2026
Duration: 00:36:51

### Description

It’s Hammer Time once again on WTH, and it’s the turn of 1971’s “Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde”. A film in which we learn that two’s company, three’s a positive deviation; that Burke and Hare were time travellers; and that an alias inspired by a newspaper headline isn’t always the best idea (just ask Mrs Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster). A title that began as a joke has probably not helped the reputation of this late period Hammer movie, with many dismissing it as an unnecessary watch from a studio long past its prime. But this is a mistake, from the combo of stalwart director Roy Ward Baker and Avengers writer Brian Clemens comes an interesting and vibrant film, that feels more modern than a lot of its stablemates, with bags of atmosphere, a line of still effective gore, some lovely directorial flourishes, and a blackly comic streak in both its characters and dialogue. Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick are a brilliant paring as the two aspects of our protagonist, ably supported by a strong cast, notably Gerald Simm’s disreputable Professor and Philip Madoc’s lugubrious mortuary attendant. Whilst “Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde” ultimately fails to adequately explore the concept at its heart, it is certainly the most entertaining of the studio’s few attempts to adapt Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic, and another example of the less well-known Hammer Films being surprising gems that deserve a much greater appreciation. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here as we discussed last time, we're going to be covering 1971's Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, a film that neither myself or Chris have ever seen.
**Lee:** Which, considering it's a Hammer film, I feel somewhat ashamed to admit I've never.
**Chris:** They can't be, there can't be many that you haven't seen.
**Lee:** Well, they did make a lot, but I think what always put me off with this one was it sounded like such a ludicrous trauma.
**Chris:** Right, yeah.
**Lee:** Actually, and we'll come to it, I don't think it was handled badly.
**Chris:** It won't take us very long to get to that.
**Lee:** So yeah, Chris, as it's tradition, why don't you kick us off with your thoughts?
**Chris:** Yeah, within about, you know, three minutes you realize that the the title does not do this film justice.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's like, okay, it's clearly got quirky bits, but done in a often subtle kind of way.
**Chris:** and then you realize actually it's also got some pretty deep bits.
**Chris:** Yeah, and and you know, the comedy is there, definitely, like, and the the darkness hits as well when it when it needs to.
**Chris:** So yeah, I I totally did not expect it to be anywhere near as good and have as many different facets as it it did, and and for the age as well, it felt like very modern.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It it and it's funny, the thing that struck me is how differently it's shot from any other Hammer film, there's like a very kinetic filming style, which isn't what they do at all, and I don't know if it was because they were trying to do a lot of almost like first-person shooting so that they could do the transformations and things, but it didn't it felt like a Hammer film, but it didn't always look like a Hammer film, but it worked.
**Adam:** It it wasn't so stagy, sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** No, exactly, yeah.
**Chris:** And I did expect the transformations to be a bit dated and even that, the way they've done it was like that holds up still.
**Adam:** It's so good that one take, where you just follow around and it's like.
**Adam:** And there's there's I mean it's obviously it's essentially, you know, you move move the mirror.
**Adam:** So it's looking at someone else and everything, you know, it's a fairly simple way of doing it.
**Adam:** But it just works so well.
**Adam:** And it's much better than if you'd have sort of like had like overlay or you'd done like a Wolfman transformation, or the classic, they just go under the table and then come up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It looked fantastic. I was like I knew it was one of the things people talk about with this film is that one-shot transformation.
**Lee:** And as you say, it's very easy to stage, but.
**Lee:** It when it's done like this, it's so effective because, you know, unless you're looking for those.
**Lee:** You're looking for the joint and there just isn't one.
**Lee:** It's brilliant, it's so clever.
**Chris:** And I think using the mirror as well is like symbolic of it's him but her, him, you know, so yeah, it's.
**Adam:** Him well, him him becoming her and sort of like that shock and.
**Chris:** Although ultimately him starting to disappear to her as well.
**Chris:** I mean I don't I don't think I know the story that well aside from the obvious that it's.
**Adam:** I mean it's Because I mean it's split personality type.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz I mean I think cuz I I don't think that this does the classic Jekyll and Hyde thing.
**Chris:** No, yeah.
**Adam:** Where it's the cuz it's always Jekyll's quite saintly and in the original, yeah, and then he expresses himself through Hyde.
**Adam:** But again, it could be like, you know, there's an element of repression that it's because he keeps his darkness in that when it's unleashed, it becomes monstrous and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And I don't think that this follows that pattern, mostly because Jekyll's a fucking murderer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, he is he is killing to achieve his goals.
**Adam:** So it doesn't work in that sense.
**Adam:** But it's just that sort of.
**Chris:** I did quite like the philosophical idea of to some degree it feels like he might be doing good, so he has to do the bad to do good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Obviously, you're still doing a lot of very bad.
**Chris:** But it's.
**Adam:** And it's well, it's that love it's that lovely thing as well where it's like because where he's told, oh well, you're if you're working on this, you know, you're working on a universal panacea.
**Adam:** But if you're going to solve it one disease at a time, you will never have the time to do it.
**Adam:** And it's just like the sort of essentially the arrogance of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, well, okay, well, what I'll do is I'll extend the human lifespan.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And then I'll have time to work on my universal panacea.
**Adam:** And it's you know, quite a bold sort of like idea that you're just going to.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's not it, you know, well, I'll I'll do that, I'll do that first, because that solves that problem.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But I mean I I think this is cuz I think there's there was a lot of there was always this thing, especially when I was sort of growing up and first getting into Hammer and reading about Hammer and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Is there's always a thing that the the first bit of Hammer's really good, then it sort of loses its way and it never gets it back.
**Adam:** And I think there's some excellent later Hammer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which this is, cuz I mean obviously Hammer's running from like the the horror cycle is running from the fifties, through the sixties, through the seventies.
**Adam:** And they only really start losing their way at the point that horror sort of revamps a few years later when you've got like The Exorcist and things like that.
**Adam:** And suddenly like it's the game really changes.
**Adam:** And there's no that sort of gothic horror falls out of fashion essentially.
**Adam:** But these ones, and it's like when we did The Witches and we did Plague of Zombies, it's all these ones that sort of got thrown by the wayside where they were like, well, you've not got Dracula in it, you've not got Frankenstein in it, it's not it's not going to be.
**Adam:** You know, they're they're the sort of lesser ones.
**Adam:** And actually a lot of them are the better ones or they've got more in them.
**Adam:** Or they've been allowed to have more in them, you know, people have given a bit more rein with it.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I struggled, I had to I struggled to find a copy of this to, you know, to to view online.
**Lee:** yeah, and basically ended up having to buy a second-hand copy on DVD, it's the only way I could find it.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** But yeah, I I'm glad I did, cuz I'll definitely rewatch this.
**Lee:** I I found it a lot, it's got that very Hammer pacing.
**Lee:** It is very slow-going.
**Lee:** it say, and all as you say, it's almost still stagy despite the fact the camera works totally different, it's got very much that stage pacing.
**Lee:** but yeah, I I liked it, I thought it was really good, and it had a really good atmosphere to it, and yeah.
**Adam:** It's because what what happened was is that so they.
**Adam:** Hammer brought in Brian Clemens, who wrote, who basically didn't he didn't start The Avengers, like the TV series.
**Adam:** But he was the one who came in, became script editor and producer and wrote loads of episodes and turned The Avengers into what The Avengers sort of becomes known as.
**Adam:** As like that sort of fun, comedy sort of spy, slightly sci-fi, slightly mental 60s sort of show that it was.
**Adam:** And so The Avengers had just finished, and so Hammer started speaking to him.
**Adam:** And this was essentially like a joke at lunch.
**Adam:** He was with the director, because the the Blu-ray was actually I believe Chris got me for Christmas one year.
**Adam:** So thank you very much, Chris.
**Adam:** was there's like a documentary sort of a little 20-minute documentary on there.
**Adam:** But apparently, yeah, they were like pitching ideas.
**Adam:** And he said, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.
**Adam:** They all had a they all thought, well that's funny, and we're moving on.
**Adam:** And then what's his name, Carreras, who ran Hammer was like.
**Adam:** Actually, I think this is there's something in that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Can you go away and write it?
**Adam:** And Brian Clemens, the one thing, cuz he then later on he did like the anthology series Thriller and things like that.
**Adam:** So, but he has a real brilliance of funny dialogue and and it's like, you know, just humorous characterization.
**Adam:** Cuz I think that's the thing is this doesn't have anyone there's some Hammer, you get, there's always a dull lead.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's the guy who gets the girl is a lump of wood.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, but you've got Lee and Cushion or, you know, whoever sort of they're all sort of like in and they are playing the the meaty roles and actually doing the heavy lifting.
**Adam:** And there's always someone quite bland sort of involved.
**Adam:** And with this, I think everyone's like all the characters, like the neighbors, the family of the neighbors, they're great.
**Adam:** Rob Robertson, like the doctor who he's Jekyll's friend.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's.
**Lee:** He's brilliant.
**Adam:** I mean, he is just.
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Such a.
**Lee:** He is a proper and as soon as he turned into a woman, I was like, his mate's going to try and shag her.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** I knew it was going to happen.
**Adam:** You know, he's a pervy old get. I mean, that's the first thing he says when he turns up and Jekyll's going, we're going to end up with the pox and stuff.
**Adam:** And you've got.
**Adam:** I mean, you've got like Philip Madden in there as the multury guy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he's just so fantastically Macab, but again, you've got all these lovely lines in it.
**Adam:** It's like when it's like when Burke and Hare get lynched, well, Burke gets lynched and gets thrown in the lime pit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's just what is it, Burke by name, Burke by nature.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And and the one that got me and Clair most was when Robertson says to her, oh, well, I'll go because, well, two's company.
**Adam:** Three's positively devious.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So there's a lot of there's a lot of humor in it.
**Adam:** And and, you know.
**Adam:** I think that it's and like I say, the neighbors I think are fantastic sort of like like the brother is.
**Adam:** You know, an enjoyable sort of character because he's just a feckless piss-taking arsehole.
**Adam:** And and even the sister, which would be quite a sort of a bit of a nothing role, you at least actually feel sorry for her.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's not cuz usually they're quite whiny, it's that sort of role within a Hammer film is usually quite irritating.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But actually I did found her irritating only because sort of she's had nothing.
**Lee:** She's tried to say hello to him and he's kind of said hello.
**Lee:** And then he goes, she goes down and has dinner.
**Lee:** And then when she suddenly just turned up unexpectedly and there's a woman there, she starts giving him a hard time like he's cheating on her.
**Lee:** And I was like, he literally let you feed him dinner, like this isn't a relationship, you've got no reason to be pissed with him at all.
**Adam:** She does she does have a a massive strop at that point.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** although admittedly it's like, you know, it's Martin Beswick's turned up and you're like, well, that's it, I'm not competing there, am I?
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Because I think Martin Beswick and Ralph Bates are so fucking good in this.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Lee:** Absolutely brilliant, both of them.
**Adam:** And just how alike they look.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, they could they could portray brother and sister.
**Adam:** But it just, you know, I think it's just so well, and the sort of bits where you just suddenly get like a hand.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's quite subtle, you know.
**Adam:** Because I mean, you know, he's given but suddenly sort of like he or she will notice that their hand is changing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's and again, it's something that's really simply done.
**Lee:** But when it's done right, it's perfect.
**Lee:** It doesn't need anything.
**Adam:** And actually, one one one thing cuz apparently when Ralph Bates got offered the role, he thought he was going to be playing Sister Hyde as well, he thought he was going to be, he assumed it was like a drag role basically that he'd be.
**Adam:** which obviously they were like, well, no, that was never that's never the intention.
**Adam:** But I also think it's because it is a film, it has its humor and it has, I mean it has some fucking dark moments, and there's some really proper gore.
**Adam:** I mean, like the knife through the neck and things like that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It really fucking hardcore, because this is the point that Hammer are a bit more sort of like, you know, well, we're getting a bit loose with it.
**Adam:** We, you know, it's.
**Adam:** For a while it's been right, we'll have nudie vampire ladies.
**Adam:** And then at this point, it's just like, right, we can just fucking put blood everywhere, you know.
**Adam:** I mean, when it goes up the white chapel murder.
**Adam:** Poster and things like that, it's it's almost it's almost sort of comic.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But I think that they the one thing that I noticed that watching it this time around, cuz I I saw it.
**Adam:** Like really a long time ago, and I actually now, having watched it again, I'm kind of like.
**Adam:** I don't think I appreciate, I I enjoyed it.
**Adam:** I thought it was a good film.
**Adam:** I just don't think I appreciate how fucking good a film it was when I watched it that first time around.
**Adam:** And but I noticed that that never at any point does Hyde become Jekyll and Ralph Bates is stood in a in a dress.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I know they I think they've made the wise decision that that's an absurdity too far because then it is just ho ho ho, look bloke in a dress.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And so very cleverly, cuz there are bits where clearly that's what's happened, you know, but they sort of they sort of just focus on his face or whatever like that, and it's kind of never spoken about.
**Lee:** But I thought the point when he pulls the dress out of the wardrobe and then gets angry, I was like, all right, he's got the sense.
**Lee:** What he's going to do is he's going to burn that dress and then when she takes over, she can't go out because she's got nothing to wear.
**Lee:** Perfect.
**Lee:** But no, he didn't think of that, silly sod.
**Adam:** Cuz I think there's I I think also there's the cuz there's a bit of inconsistency where like does how much do they remember?
**Lee:** Because clearly.
**Adam:** Because clearly they're they're picking up a bit.
**Adam:** You know, and that sort of changes and varies throughout the film.
**Adam:** And that was another bit that I thought was that was bordering on ridiculous.
**Adam:** Where it's like the headline in the newspaper, and it's like, Mrs. Hyde, Mrs. Hyde.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It was like, yeah, she's Mrs. London London Gazette.
**Adam:** She's Mrs. Torry Landslide.
**Lee:** But it was a couple of things that made me laugh.
**Lee:** One of them was the when it says the killer in a top hat and a cloak.
**Lee:** I was like that is that is literally everybody who is a working class in London.
**Lee:** You haven't got to burn your clothes.
**Lee:** and the other thing is, why did they not lynch that bloody whirlygig player, the blind in air quotes.
**Lee:** Like he was on the street corner for every single one of those murders.
**Lee:** And yet nobody thought it was him, and then as soon as he said, I know who did it, they all went, I bet I'll lynch him then, and just immediately trusted this blind old beggar.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But he's he's Hare.
**Adam:** That is something I never connected the first time around.
**Adam:** Is he's here after cuz when the mob lynch Burke and Hare, they hang Hare and chuck him in a lime pit, and he goes blind.
**Chris:** Right, yeah.
**Adam:** Ang.
**Chris:** I agree.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Up literally this morning, I was watching cuz obviously that's the weird thing.
**Adam:** Cuz obviously they link it up with Jack the Ripper, which is a common thing that happened with Jekyll and Hyde, cuz there's this weird thing where Jekyll and Hyde comes out in 1886.
**Adam:** And then by the time of the White Chapel murders in 1888, there was a adapt of it at the Lyceum Theater that was doing really amazing business.
**Adam:** And and an actual fact, the guy who was playing Jekyll and Hyde in the play, a guy called Richard Mansfield, was questioned by police.
**Adam:** Because like members of the audience wrote to the police and sort of like in that sort of way of, well, he portrays a murderer and a a villain on on stage so well, he can only actually be a sadistic serial killer.
**Adam:** And, you know, it was sort of that sort of absurdity.
**Adam:** And actually there were a few people who at the time was sort of like doing the old video narcissist thing of saying, well, actually, perhaps Jack the Ripper went and saw the play and, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's twisted his mind and now he's gone off to go and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** So weirdly, because they're so sort of recent and there's Christopher Freyling's book Nightmare talks about it.
**Adam:** Where it's like they Jack and Hyde become linked with Jack the Ripper in a weird way.
**Adam:** Because in the book, Hyde kills one person.
**Adam:** But in most of the adaptations, Hyde is a murderer of women.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so, you know, they sort of put those two and two together.
**Adam:** And wisely, again, wisely with this, is at least they don't, it's not explicitly the victims of Jack the Ripper because that would be extremely distasteful.
**Adam:** However, what they do do is transport Burke and Hare 60 years in the future.
**Adam:** And move them to London.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And have them as the body snatchers, and obviously Burke and Hare were real.
**Adam:** But I.
**Adam:** Because what happened was is Burke because they were in Edinburgh in which is where Robert Louis Stevenson came from as well, and he actually wrote a short story called The Body Snatcher, which was based because of the stories of Burke and Hare.
**Adam:** but they were obviously active in yeah, it was exactly 60 years earlier.
**Adam:** So they were like sort of 18 1828.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** When they got found out, Hare basically turned what, would it been king's or queen's king's evidence.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And basically sold Burke out, and so Burke hung and Hare and Hare got away.
**Adam:** And I hadn't heard this before, I knew that Hare got away with it, but I hadn't heard before until I was watching Murder Maps with Vicky McLure this morning.
**Adam:** And it was a Burke and Hare episode, just so happened to be that that's the first one they've done, and I was like, oh, well, I'll watch that.
**Adam:** And apparently there is like a there was a story or a rumor that Hare got then sort of he got sent out of Edinburgh.
**Adam:** But a mob cornered him and threw him in a lime pit, blinded him, and he ended up begging on the streets.
**Adam:** And apparently there's no there's no evidence for that.
**Adam:** But I think it was just one of those things where the story came out mostly because it's a bit more satisfying that.
**Adam:** One half of this brutal duo paid for his crimes as much as the guy who actually got hung, rather than you know.
**Adam:** Oh, because he grazed his mate up, he fucked off.
**Adam:** I think in reality, apparently he just I think they said he just went he like moved to Ireland and died in the poorhouse or something like that.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** You know, so I'd never heard that thing before, and I was like two and two that it's like he's in this that it's obviously so he would know Jekyll.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then that's why sort of like they go to him and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And what cuz it it doesn't make it too clear at the start.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Cuz if if anything, I'm sitting there going, I know that bloke who plays the the the blind guy.
**Lee:** Oh, I thought that, but not enough to have actually gone and checked, otherwise, yeah, I would have yeah.
**Adam:** And then and then it was only when they sort of take him in the pub and then it's like, oh shit, it's here, that's why I'm why I'm saying you know he is.
**Adam:** Because yeah, and that sort of thing of the comeuppance where it's like.
**Adam:** Cuz again, I mean, you know, it's odd it's odd thing that they stick Burke and Hare in there.
**Adam:** But it's it suits it.
**Lee:** It does work.
**Chris:** It doesn't seem to overload it, yeah.
**Adam:** No, I think it's just I mean, really, it's it's in a way, it's shorthand, I suppose.
**Adam:** That it's like, well, we want to put these characters, we want we want this type of character in here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So we might as well just use the two genuine ones.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** And let's face it.
**Adam:** At that point, it's like that's not quite as distasteful in the sense that it's like, well, they're a pair of murdering bastards anyway, so who cares if we fucking defame them by putting them in a silly Hammer film?
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** I've got to say so when I started watching it, when Martine Beswick turned up, at first, I was like.
**Lee:** I've definitely seen her in something.
**Lee:** She looks so familiar.
**Lee:** And then I worked out what it is, I've not seen her in anything, I don't think.
**Lee:** What I recognize her from, and I'm pretty certain about this, there was a there was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
**Lee:** From 1980, it was like a whole series, called The Drak Pack, did anybody remember The Drak Pack?
**Adam:** I remember The Drak Pack, yes.
**Lee:** And Vampira, she's got the same hair, but she's got the same mouth and everything.
**Lee:** It's like they've based Vampira on her.
**Lee:** And she it looks so much like her that it looked familiar, and then I was like.
**Lee:** Hang on a minute, I'm thinking of a cartoon clearly based on this actor.
**Lee:** And that was what it was.
**Lee:** But yeah, then once I watched it, I was like.
**Lee:** Oh my god, it is like they've just taken her face perfectly and that same accent as well and just made it the villainess in The Drak Pack.
**Adam:** Well, cuz cuz Martine Beswick's Jamaican.
**Lee:** Oh, is she?
**Adam:** Which is really when you actually listen to and especially like there's a interview with her on the disc.
**Adam:** And you can hear it more there, but yeah, she was like, she was a former Miss Jamaica.
**Adam:** And she is she's one of the silhouetted women in the first ever James Bond title sequence, the title sequence of Dr. No.
**Lee:** that's cool.
**Adam:** And then she actually was in she was in two Bond films, so she was like a Bond girl, and I think she was like the first.
**Adam:** She was like the first person who sort of certainly the first like returning Bond girl.
**Adam:** cuz she was in Thunderball and from Russia with Love.
**Adam:** And before this, she was in the Hammer films 1 Million Years B.C. and Prehistoric Women.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But also that she was she's lifelong mates with Caroline Monroe.
**Lee:** Oh, is she?
**Adam:** And they they did a they did a film, I've never seen it called House of the Gorgon or something like that, which I think was like a it was fairly recent.
**Adam:** But I think it was like one of those things, you know, where it's like, oh, we can get these stars in these former Hammer stars into bring a bit of that into proceedings, sort of thing.
**Adam:** but no, I mean, I think she's terrific.
**Adam:** Ralph Bates is amazing, do you remember I don't know if you would remember it, Chris.
**Adam:** But do you remember Dear John, Lee?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Because that's that is how in my head, that's Ralph Bates.
**Adam:** Dear John was a sitcom that ran for two years on the BBC, and it basically was he was a hapless bloke whose wife left him.
**Adam:** And he went to a place called the One to One Club, which was like for separated and divorced people.
**Adam:** And it was like, you know, just in a community center once every week, and it was based around all the sort of characters that were there.
**Adam:** And there was a.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** There was a nerdy guy and a bloke who fancied himself as being a bit John Travolta, so he was a flashy sod with a quiff and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And the woman and the woman who ran it.
**Adam:** Who was just a marvelously inappropriate upper-class woman who basically ended every inquiry with like when they were when they would talk about what happened with their relationships or why they were divorced or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And her thing always was, were there any sexual problems?
**Lee:** And.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** So that in my head was that was Ralph Bates, he was in Dear John for two years, and he actually died really young, he was about 50.
**Adam:** Well, young for us, he was he was in his 50s.
**Lee:** Oh, young for us.
**Adam:** And he died of pancreatic cancer in the 90s.
**Adam:** And but yeah, Hammer kind of were grooming him to be their next star.
**Lee:** Oh, he's in Taste the Blood of Dracula, wasn't he?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's in Taste the Blood, he's also in, oh, Taste the Blood, we should do Taste the Blood.
**Adam:** There's there's a lot of there was me sitting there going, oh, you know, the the odd ones are crap.
**Adam:** No, there's some bloody bell in the within the the franchises.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously 80 1972 for Dracula, but Taste the Blood is a fantastic one as well.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Adam:** And yeah, so he's in Taste the Blood of Dracula.
**Adam:** He actually plays Frankenstein in The Horror of Frankenstein, which was kind of like a they decided to try and reboot their Frankenstein cycle.
**Adam:** So they went back to an original.
**Adam:** It's him and I think it's Dave Prows as the monster, and at this point the monster looks like Karlof.
**Adam:** Like they've they've sort of negotiated so they can have him with the square head and the stitches and stuff like that, so it's sort of like, so I think they were hoping to go back to basics on that.
**Adam:** And then he was in Fear in the Night and Lust for a Vampire.
**Adam:** So he did quite a lot with he did quite a fair bit with Hammer.
**Adam:** and I mean this is he is a bloody good actor.
**Adam:** And it's it's just weird for me because like I say, in my head, he's just it's like having I don't know.
**Adam:** Like, you know, Ronnie Barker or something like that, he was just someone who was in sitcoms that I watched as a kid.
**Adam:** So it was sort of, yeah, it always.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I always, excuse me, I always find it he's also in The Monster, the one with Joan Collins.
**Adam:** which is a which is a pretty good, that's a pretty good film.
**Adam:** Because I had it in a the weirdest fucking box set ever, cuz it was that, The Uncanny and Hands of the Ripper.
**Lee:** Oh God, yeah, that's that's a very odd.
**Adam:** That's a very odd little weirdly enough.
**Adam:** I didn't realize this, this was made at the same time as Hands of the Ripper, so Hammer were having a a ripper year or something like that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But also they this got released on a double bill with Blood from the Mummy's Tomb.
**Adam:** But apparently didn't didn't do all that in.
**Adam:** didn't do all that on the box office, you know.
**Lee:** I seem to remember Blood from the Mummy's Tomb being very slow-going, even for a Hammer, very slowly paced.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's again, it's that sort of weird element whereby
**Adam:** Again, the mummy ones are sort of like very hit and miss, because and again, I think it's you had this weird push where some of them I think there was within Hammer, there was like a a bit of a sort of dynamic where some of them were like, no, stick to our guns.
**Adam:** We'll do as we've done for the last 15 years, we do films like that.
**Adam:** And then the other half were kind of like, no, we want to branch out, and so you get things like this.
**Adam:** And after this, Brian Clemens did one other film for them, which was Captain Kronos.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Adam:** And again, and and actually he directed that, it was the one film he directed.
**Adam:** and again, you get that sort of thing where it's quite lively, there's a interesting change on the mythology.
**Adam:** And there's humor in it, it's quite an adventure film, Captain Kronos.
**Adam:** I mean, it's that's one I'd love to do on the show at some point.
**Chris:** They they do seem pretty skilled at, you know, adjusting things without ruining them or arguably making them better without taking away from the original.
**Adam:** Well, cuz I mean Hammer had done they did, I can't remember what one it's called, there's like the strange they did sort of like two other versions of Jekyll and Hyde.
**Adam:** Yeah, so they did The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll in 1960.
**Adam:** And I don't know if you've ever seen that, Lee.
**Adam:** It's fucking dull.
**Lee:** Oh, is it?
**Adam:** It's it's really weird because it's again.
**Adam:** Like you were saying, it's it's everything that we've said this film isn't.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's it's very typically Hammer, apart from the fact that it there's just nothing.
**Adam:** There's not much to it.
**Adam:** It's weird.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** There's it just doesn't but they also did one in 1959.
**Adam:** Called The Ugly Duckling.
**Lee:** Oh, with Bernard Bresslaw?
**Lee:** I've never seen it, but I need to.
**Lee:** I think it's on YouTube.
**Lee:** I keep meaning to watch it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, it's it's it's.
**Adam:** It's funny, but you know.
**Adam:** I mean, but it's a it's a deliberately non-serious take on it, because basically the story is Bernard Breslaw is a meek sort of guy, and then he becomes a Teddy Boy.
**Adam:** Because that was like considered that's that's like the that's the cool criminal of the day, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** So he takes the potion, becomes a Teddy Boy.
**Adam:** And John Pertwe's his dad, and he's great in it.
**Adam:** But it's just.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just that that that that's weird.
**Adam:** And weirdly, like I said, that feels more like a sort of obviously because of the people involved that feels quite carry on, and it's deliberately deliberately funny.
**Adam:** Whereas I think this has just such a a lovely flare to it.
**Adam:** Of it's dark.
**Adam:** And like you say, Chris.
**Adam:** There are there are some meaningful stuff in there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and actually it's it's it's again there's there's not really other than Sandra Spencer.
**Adam:** I the the sister.
**Adam:** other than her.
**Adam:** There's not really a saintly character in it.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Cuz you know, like Paul Whitsun-Jones, like the police sergeant, is fantastic in it.
**Adam:** Because it's like, yeah, I'm diligent in my job, but I will also can you fucking whiskey what I'm sitting here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I did.
**Adam:** And obviously Robertson is like, oh, well he's usually here on time, and it's like, yeah, but he's had a he's had a whiff of fanny.
**Adam:** So he ain't coming, you know.
**Adam:** And actually, lovely little story as well.
**Adam:** Is Betsy, the prostitute who gets murdered by Dr. Jekyll, is Virginia Virginia Weatherall.
**Lee:** Yes, I was about to bring that up.
**Lee:** From Curse of the Crimson Altar.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** But also, that was when they met, and they got married, had two kids, and we're together till Ralph Bates died.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** She's she's the trustee of his like there's a foundation because he died of pancreatic cancer, and it's like the and so she's like the trustee of a charity that's like a research charity for cancer.
**Adam:** and
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Adam:** But also she used to run a shop called Virginia in London that was like a fashion, like a vintage clothing shop.
**Adam:** For years, like she ran it from the 70s to like the mid 2000s.
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Adam:** And half the fashion industry went through there, models, Madonna was a a patron of the shop and stuff like that, and she used to supply two museums and things like that.
**Adam:** So, yeah, I mean she was and she's in like Clockwork Orange and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, she was
**Adam:** Yeah, this is where they met.
**Adam:** And which is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was lovely, you know, do you remember that bloke I bet you was killed you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I know.
**Lee:** I murdered you.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** I murdered you in cold blood and it was love at first sight.
**Lee:** excellent.
**Lee:** but yeah, as I say, it was one of those.
**Lee:** If I'd known I I'd sat quite long, if I'd known how good it was and hadn't always just been on the assumption that it was going to be daft.
**Lee:** Yeah, I would have seen this so much earlier because it it was one of the Hammer ones that.
**Lee:** I am aware of, but just, yeah, it just never appealed.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I'm so glad we suggested it.
**Lee:** well, I wasn't so glad when you suggested it cuz I thought, I've not watched that for a reason, but yeah, no, I was wrong, it was really good.
**Chris:** I mean it's funny it's one of like the title does just sound really silly, and yet I get it because it's Mr. Sister.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You know, it's the right word, really, but it does just make it sound like, what, that's just going to be a bit.
**Lee:** I don't mind it, but I don't mind it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then.
**Chris:** You think it could be all right.
**Chris:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Mind you, if you want undermining, the tagline on the poster warning the sexual transformation of a man into a woman will actually take place before your very eyes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So Hammer was still quite you know, they were like fuck it.
**Adam:** I think that's that was a lovely thing though, is I think it's like Brian Clemens.
**Adam:** And sort of like a few people they come in and it's like, well, actually, while we're doing Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.
**Adam:** Now it's a darf title.
**Adam:** But we can actually, we'll knock up something decent here.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Proper bit of subversion.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Very good.
**Lee:** Great film.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'm glad you enjoyed it.
**Adam:** Gens.
**Lee:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** So if you haven't seen it, go and dig out a copy.
**Lee:** For our next episode, again, we're covering something that neither myself nor Chris has ever seen.
**Lee:** we're going to be covering whatever happened to Baby Jane.
**Chris:** I've not heard of that.
**Lee:** Yeah, a VHS that has been on Lady Jennifer's shelf since we met, I think, and, yeah, I've never seen it.
**Lee:** So, I might even just watch it on VHS at this rate, just to see it how it was supposed to be seen.
**Chris:** That's going to be a bit of an experience now, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It could be fun.
**Chris:** I wonder if it'll feel authentic or awful.
**Lee:** Well.
**Lee:** We shall see, I'll give it a go and I'll let you know.
**Lee:** Yes, so thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, if like me, you've always thought it was going to be ridiculous, it isn't, it's a very good film.
**Lee:** we're all in agreement on that, and we will cover whatever happened to Baby Jane in the Fortnight.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** How many more surprises have we got to come?

---

## Ep 245 The Menu

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-245-the-menu/
Air date: 12 April 2026
Duration: 00:38:40

### Description

Take your place at table, as we partake of Mark Mylod’s “The Menu”. A fine film dining experience in which it’s impossible to fill up on bread; a nasty word in the right ear ensures the meat is correctly hung to mature naturally; and the finger buffet is literally that. As a dark satire, “The Menu” has multiple targets to chew over; the arts and the intentions of those who produce, patronise, parasite off them; the pretensions of Nouvelle cuisine (aka “Poncey Cooking”); the near cult-like status and power that chefs enjoy and abuse; the exploitation and mistreatment those in the service industry can expect (particularly when the customer is rich); the dangers of hero worship and celebration of excess to prove your status and wealth; the list goes on. This means you have the extraordinary scenario where you will feel empathy towards almost every character at various points as the film plays out (with the exception of the 3 business bros, who, like all their sickening kind, can go fuck themselves, and get everything they deserve). Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Supporting cast filmographies and related projects: But it's, um, yeah, and and, um, I love, uh, John uh Lezamo is always. Fucking great in stuff. And I hadn't seen him in anything for a very long time when this came out. … And he played the fiery warlike Tybalt. … Oh, fuck, yes, I love that. … Yes. Yeah. But he was, he's in, um, oh, he's in Land of the Dead, the fourth Romero zombie film. Which maybe we should, I mean, I'd like to get round to doing day at some point and then land. Mostly because it's, oh, look, there's Dennis Hopper providing the blueprint for Donald Trump. You know, it's just as this absolutely appalling human being. But yeah, and and but weirdly enough, I found out that just after this finished, um, just after this came out. Um, he actually did a he did a TV series called, like, I think it was what was it? Uh, I did write it down. Uh, yeah, Lezamu Does America, which is a travel and food show. So even that saying, you know, it's like, I'll just do, I'll do a travel and food show, that's what all the actors are doing. … But yeah, I mean and, um, also, um. Uh Lillian the critic, that's uh Janet Mcteer from. Uh, the Hammer Woman in Black, so she goes all the way back to episode one of the podcast. And, um, yeah, and I think they, they're perfect.
- Director Mark Mylod's extensive filmography: And I didn't really know. I didn't really or I I thought I didn't know much about that Mark Mylod the director has done. Um, and he's done a lot of uh he's British, but he's done a lot of American tele, so he did like Succession. I think he was one of the executive producers on that as well. Uh, he did a few episodes of Game of Thrones, Last of Us, Minority Report, the US version of Shameless. I think he was an executive producer on that Once Upon a Time. Um, film-wise he's done Ali G in the House and a dark comedy called The Big White that's got Robin Williams in it. But and here's the bit that got me, cuz suddenly I was like, I'm really fucking unbold here. Over in the UK, he did episodes of The Fast Show, Shooting Stars, The Royal Family, uh, The Vican Bob Randall and Hotchcock, um, the Dave Saint Show. All rise for Julian Cleary, but Deal Syndrome. Uh, the all six episodes of Bang Bang it's Reeves and Mortimer. And he did, um, there was a thing in '96, they did a thing called Doctor Who Knight and they had some sketches with David Williams and Mark Gatis and he directed two of those sketches. And it's like, oh my god, I've been watching this guy's stuff for fucking years and I didn't even I didn't even realize, you know.
- Nicholas Hoult's early career appearances: On on a side note as well, with Nicholas Holt, when I was again going evoking, uh. Because I mean, he is a fine comic actor as it is. But he's in Bras Eye as a kid, he's one of the school kids in Bras Eye in the drugs episode, obviously. And um and even. And here's another blast from the past from for you, Lee, he's also in World of Pub when he was a kid.
- Casting and character inspiration trivia: And actually, I mean, when I was looking, when I was looking up about this, apparently at one point they were going to um they wanted the movie star. They originally wrote that role for Daniel Radcliff. And for him to be Daniel Radcliff, actually, you know, because I think at that point, people realized that he was out for a laugh. So he'd actually appear as himself and be like, I don't know. I don't know what the shit film would have been. But they were planning about. But he, um, but apparently John Lezamu said that he, um, he pasted it on, um, Steven Seagal. He did a film with Steven Seagal called Executive Decision and yeah, basically Steven obviously left something of an impression there cuz he just, you know, it's like, I've got to play this vain, Odious, good for nothing, toser. Okay, yeah. I I know what I'm going to use.
- Food design and production details: Um, the food was designed by uh four Michelin starred chef Dominic Kren. Um. And all the people all the guys playing the kitchen staff were trained. To actually prepare the dishes properly so that when stuff's going on in the background, whatever the way the camera's pointing, they are doing exactly what they should be doing. And apparently and apparently, um, uh, Ho Chau who played Elsa, who is also fucking fantastic. One of the most intimidating like henchman in anything, she's fucking terrifying, apparently she impressed Dominic Kren so much that she offered her a job at her restaurant. And it's like, oh, it's like, yeah, but that's that that is that doesn't say a lot about your restaurant. That you want someone that intimidating to you know. No. You're not fucking with us. Um, but she was also she did the Netflix series Chef's Table. And they the second unit director on this was the director of Chef's Table because they wanted to get someone who was could to do that sort of food pony. Sort of look, so all the dishes would be sort of presented in that way that they are on those sort of shows. And um which really comes across, I think.
- Prop food vs. actual food on set: apparently I think because obviously the majority of the food was prop food and it had to be there for multiple takes and stuff like that. So obviously. But that that actually the burger is eaten and apparently the cast were fucking salivating because like the first bit of practical food they'd been sat there in front of plates they couldn't eat. For all this time and then suddenly someone comes in with that fucking delicious looking burger.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here this evening with spoilers and swearing to discuss to discuss 2022's The Menu.
**Lee:** a film which if nothing else is a perfect reminder that no matter what you enjoy or you find enjoyable in life, somewhere there's a group of people taking it so seriously that they just try and to fuck it up for everybody else in the world.
**Adam:** Also just as shocker is that I suddenly realized the film's four years old because I've been thinking about it as two years old for some reason.
**Chris:** Yeah, even less than that.
**Chris:** Because I was like, it's been in my mind since you talked about it on what we've been watching, and I was like, oh that's definitely, I've got to watch that at some point, and then just never did.
**Chris:** I was like, what?
**Lee:** Welcome to old man podcast where everybody spends a whole time game, where did that time go?
**Chris:** Every time, you're like, what, this was brand new.
**Adam:** It was so long ago. Yeah, but this is worse, this is me reading the words 2022 regularly for the past two weeks and still thinking for some reason that it's 2024.
**Adam:** That's not just old man podcast, that's Alzheimer's podcast.
**Lee:** I've got to admit so, yes, so I saying it, as you say, it is 2022.
**Lee:** But yeah, I came to this film slightly later because I think it was one of those it came out and people were talking about it as a horror film, but it didn't look like it was going to be a horror film, so it was on the back burner for me for quite some time before I finally got round to it.
**Lee:** but, yeah, it was, so Adam and I obviously saw it, you know, previously.
**Lee:** Chris, would you like to kick us off with your thoughts having seen it for the first time?
**Chris:** Yeah, so I was so put off food for the first, like maybe half an hour.
**Chris:** It was the like, so you're just saying it's not it didn't look horror, but the whole thing just feels so horror uncomfortable from early on.
**Chris:** Yeah, like you just like this is going wrong, but really don't know how, where, and then, yeah, as they're serving that like something so horrible about these dishes, yet they're so amazing.
**Chris:** Just yeah, just the way it's all presented.
**Chris:** It's fascinating. I did not realize who who the actors were in this at all.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Chris:** I didn't think I'd asked.
**Chris:** Yeah, like I did not remember you mentioning any of these and they are fantastic together.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** All of them.
**Chris:** So good.
**Lee:** Perfect cast.
**Adam:** It feels.
**Adam:** It feels utterly redundant because it's almost like brilliant cast, they're brilliant.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, everyone's so good in this, but it's, yeah.
**Adam:** And obviously, I mean it's, I think this is what the third, no, this is the fourth Anna Taylor Joy film we've covered.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And once again, doing that.
**Adam:** I don't know what it is, she just managed to do this excellent job of strong people who, I mean, clearly physically she is not Arnold Schwarznegger.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, she's not an imposing person, but just she manages to always do this thing of people who are strong in the smart way that you're like, oh, you're going to survive.
**Adam:** You know, whether it's the witch, all the films that we Northman.
**Chris:** She does give that impression.
**Adam:** All the films that we've covered with her in before.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's like she doesn't seem to get phased by things, even though she is clearly concerned at points, it's not like she's just finding it all easy, but it's she's dealing with the problems as they come along.
**Adam:** And and everyone, everyone gets, everyone gets where they, where they're pitched, because that's the thing is that yes, it's, it doesn't look like a horror, but it is, it's distinctly a horror comedy.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's or more precisely probably a satire because it is just sort of because it, it pokes at everything.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The thing I got watching it again this time around was just the fact that.
**Adam:** With, with the exception of the three business bros who, you know.
**Chris:** I actually.
**Adam:** From start to finish can go fuck themselves.
**Chris:** I actually completely missed why they were in it.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Chris:** I still don't know why, why they've been brought along.
**Chris:** So I must have.
**Adam:** They work for, well, that's a lovely because there's so many great little nippy lines in this and sort of like snide sort of like remarks and things like that.
**Adam:** And they work for because they say, hey, we're we work with Doug Verick, who's the guy who.
**Chris:** So he was the angel investor.
**Adam:** Yeah, the.
**Chris:** Yeah, right.
**Adam:** So they're like, oh, we work because that's the thing is they go, we work with Doug Verick and he goes, no, you work for Doug Verick.
**Chris:** Yeah, right.
**Adam:** You know, and it's yeah, so I mean, but they're sort of with the exception of them, I think it's weird because it's one of those films where you, you find a sympathy for everyone.
**Adam:** Or you you you follow, you know, I mean Chef, you know, obviously Chef Slowik's doing a monstrous thing.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But you empathize utterly with his motivation for it where because it's, and you know, I mean, let's let's let's be clear here.
**Adam:** Much in the same way that Lee talks about interpretive dance is very much how I am with Nouvelle Cuisine or as we just to put it another way, Ponzi cooking.
**Adam:** And you know, I mean, I one of Claire's requests regularly is for us to watch MasterChef because we can just slag it off.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** continuously from start to finish and these, especially when it's just people saying things like, you know, amazing insights like, the thing is with fish is it's got to be cooked really well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, thanks for that, son, you know, what an insight, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** This is I can tell that was worth your years at fucking, you know.
**Adam:** Cordon Bleu school or whatever it is.
**Adam:** But.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** You know, so but it is still an art and I get that, I love that idea of someone who's just had their art diminished for them to the point that and and that's, you know, I mean, that's the point at the end that really she points out to him that it's like, you're not doing any of this with love.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** That was such a good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Way to to sort of bring in something that finished it.
**Chris:** Yeah, like that works so well.
**Lee:** It is, it's, it's like I said at the beginning, it is, it's that thing of liking something, but then taking it to such a ridiculous extreme that you don't realize that you've stopped loving it and it's, it's you've taken all the joy out of it and you're like, well, if you're not enjoying it, what is the point of any of it, you know?
**Chris:** And and it's all the other humans that added to that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Enjoyment.
**Chris:** and then I think that's what really set me up.
**Chris:** Nicholas Holt.
**Chris:** what was his.
**Lee:** Character?
**Chris:** The way he's talking about all all of the everything.
**Chris:** Just from the start, you're like, you're putting me off all of this.
**Chris:** Which is, of course, the point.
**Chris:** And then when he cooks his dish, that is that is so good.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Because it's just awful.
**Adam:** Again, it's that thing that you can you can, I mean he is very much, you know, I mean, he is an awful person, an awful human being.
**Chris:** But in such a mundane way.
**Adam:** But also that sort of you do understand you do understand fangirling over something, you know, in his case, it's it's it's food and Chef Slowik particularly and everything else.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** So you kind of understand the fangirling of it, but again, he's bled all of his joy out of it by obsessing over it.
**Adam:** And also just at the end of the day where it's like that just the the demeaning him by like, all right, prick, step up.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then just saying to and utterly destroying his sort of dreams and everything else like that.
**Adam:** Because it's because it is that thing that you got sort of like it's like if you meet someone that you're like a hero or whatever like that, and it's not just the sort of thing of I got to meet this person, but there's also that element of, oh, I hope they like me.
**Adam:** I hope they don't like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I hope I'm not an annoying prick or I'm not like, you know.
**Adam:** I'm I don't want to be the guy that ruined their day or, you know, whatever like that, and it's sort of.
**Chris:** And he definitely is.
**Adam:** Yeah, you but you find even in that you find a sympathy.
**Adam:** You know, you do feel sorry for him, even though.
**Adam:** I don't one question, this was something someone it was like on a on a.
**Adam:** Online something online where someone had said about this.
**Adam:** The one thing, and it did make me wonder.
**Adam:** Obviously they say, right, no photographs of the food.
**Chris:** He's photographing the food.
**Adam:** But he also knows from day one, from like the first minute, they're all going to die.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** He knows what they're planning, so he goes there willingly, I mean, that's the ultimate assholeness of it is that he's willing to take someone along.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's the he say, that's the point at which you stop feeling sorry for him very, very quickly.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** I mean, he's an annoying bell from start to finish, but you can't help but feel a slight twinge of pity for him at least, you know, but Yeah, when that comes in.
**Adam:** And when when Erin or Margot, depending on, when she just belts him one.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you're like.
**Adam:** And you're like, yeah, fuck right because I mean, it's literally, oh, thanks, you know, hiring me for a fucking death sentence.
**Adam:** But anyway, yeah, so who's he taking the pictures for, why is he risking?
**Chris:** That's that's a obsessive.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Chris:** It's.
**Adam:** Or is he even that delusional thing where he thinks, oh, well, I'm on side here.
**Chris:** Maybe.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Once Chef sees me and I prepare my lamb and leek.
**Chris:** Tyler's bullshit, inedible shallot, leek, butter, sauce, utter lack of cohesion.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** But it's, yeah, and and, I love, John Lezamo is always.
**Chris:** Yes, yeah.
**Adam:** Fucking great in stuff.
**Adam:** And I hadn't seen him in anything for a very long time when this came out.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** So I was trying to think what else, the only two other films I can actually think of was Romeo and Juliet, which I saw when I was, I don't know, like 16.
**Adam:** And he played the fiery warlike Tybalt.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He's great, isn't he?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But and and Spun, which was another film I loved.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck, yes, I love that.
**Lee:** I've not seen that.
**Chris:** Spider-Man.
**Chris:** He's so funny in that.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But he was, he's in, oh, he's in Land of the Dead, the fourth Romero zombie film.
**Adam:** Which maybe we should, I mean, I'd like to get round to doing day at some point and then land.
**Adam:** Mostly because it's, oh, look, there's Dennis Hopper providing the blueprint for Donald Trump.
**Adam:** You know, it's just as this absolutely appalling human being.
**Adam:** But yeah, and and but weirdly enough, I found out that just after this finished, just after this came out.
**Adam:** he actually did a he did a TV series called, like, I think it was what was it?
**Adam:** I did write it down. yeah, Lezamu Does America, which is a travel and food show.
**Adam:** So even that saying, you know, it's like, I'll just do, I'll do a travel and food show, that's what all the actors are doing.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean and, also,
**Adam:** Lillian the critic, that's Janet Mcteer from.
**Adam:** the Hammer Woman in Black, so she goes all the way back to episode one of the podcast.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and I think they, they're perfect.
**Adam:** Of that sort of, oh, and again, it's that thing like we were saying about where people become.
**Adam:** Because essentially criticism and I include us in this statement because obviously we're you know, I don't know, are we film review or we just talk about films we like.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** That's it, you know, we're a positive force I would hope in certain ways, you know.
**Adam:** We don't like to slag people off unless they unless it's fucking necessary.
**Adam:** But but yeah, critics where it's this sort of thing of, how have you ended up with so much power as a parasite you know, to the to the art.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But you are the ones that make and break.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and they they've sort of turned up with all these pretensions and sort of, you know, it's but again, so spot on.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That you know, it's very much all the world and and obviously Ray Fines just.
**Chris:** He's fantastic.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** funnily enough, it's been a bit of a, it's been a bit of a weekend because I I saw the new Mario Galaxy movie with Ted, and obviously Anna Taylor Joy's in that as she's voice Princess Peach.
**Adam:** And then I finally got around to watching 28 years later.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** What did you think?
**Adam:** And with Ray Fines is fat, I mean, fantastic in that.
**Adam:** And I'm looking forward to now watching the Bone Temple.
**Lee:** Bone Temple.
**Adam:** Cuz that's going to be even more.
**Adam:** but also I have been watching Peter Sarafinowicz's impression of Ray Fines because he reckons that Ray Fines looks like Leonard Roseter.
**Adam:** So he just does it.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Lee:** Actually, I hadn't realized it.
**Lee:** He does, he looks exactly like that.
**Chris:** He has.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Seriously, I'll send I'll send you the clip.
**Adam:** There's this lovely.
**Adam:** thing of it's meant to be a clip from Schindler's List, but he's doing it as Rigsby, and it's just him on the.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** No, Hitler.
**Adam:** But it's, but no, he is just fantastic in it.
**Adam:** It's that.
**Adam:** And but again, you you see where he's gone, I mean, clearly he's gone off the rails.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But there's weird sort of elements.
**Chris:** You're still so drawn along though.
**Chris:** Like you are so sucked into his world and his narrative through it all.
**Adam:** But he's sort of like he's come to recognize that he is as much a problem in this, but in in the spirit of a chef's ego, obviously he's got to take everyone with him and just do himself in, he's got to take the entire kitchen staff and some guests with him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean, and when this goes horror, as you say, like you kind of you do enjoy the satire of it to such a degree.
**Adam:** It is very easy to forget, oh, I know, this is going to turn into horror at some point.
**Adam:** but yeah, when it does, it's so unrelentingly just brutal, it's fantastic.
**Adam:** It's those sudden sort of bursts again.
**Adam:** Because it's not a.
**Adam:** It's all the violence in it is really fucking shocking.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And really realistic in that sort of thing that it comes from nowhere.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** And weirdly goes from goes to nowhere.
**Chris:** Goes.
**Adam:** Because you're in this hostage situation where, you know, I mean, it's such a perfect setup that you, you know, you're stuck on this island.
**Adam:** What, I mean, there is the bit where he says, I mean, realistically, some of you could have put up a bigger fight.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or or something like that, but you know, in the end, yeah, but you have got, you know.
**Adam:** A team of 40 odd people who are very skilled with knives.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, how much of a fight back, you know, is, is going to happen.
**Adam:** But,
**Chris:** I think like for for being all in essentially on one island in in one restaurant, like they did break it up enough, like even the bit where they give the men a chance to run.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** And then that's that's funny, you know, because again.
**Chris:** Gives you a sense it's realistic, they're not doing a great job.
**Adam:** Well, it's when the editor just apologizes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** To Lillian and he's just like, look, sorry, and then just runs.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And also that, that feels really again, it is like that sort of thing where all the women are then resignedly go and have dinner.
**Adam:** It's like, well, what the fuck are we going to do?
**Adam:** And and in a way, they're sort of like sitting there and it's like we are stuck with this, aren't we?
**Adam:** I mean, this is, you know, strangely enough, I don't feel that I'm in the place to speak for women, but,
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** But they made an attempt to to convince the sous chef and then, of course, they find out that she's definitely not going to be helping them.
**Adam:** Oh, she's still.
**Adam:** She's still in the call, even down to that that he has obviously realized that he has been, you know, abusive of her and his power over her and made her life a fucking hell.
**Adam:** But she is still all in like any cult, she is still also and again, it is they do run.
**Adam:** You know, these kitchens and things like that, they are run in an almost cult-like status, so you can imagine if you sort of isolated them, you essentially end up with Waco with better dinners.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Well, arguably.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's true.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** That is the other thing, the food did all look again, it looked good, but it's it's it is, it's that thing of I like nice food and I'd like to go somewhere and eat like that, you know, and you know, it's a big cost or whatever, but it's something you do as a special treat.
**Lee:** But it's the uncomfortableness.
**Lee:** It is, it's that the fact that the waiting staff will make you feel like.
**Chris:** It's almost like you got to play the role.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You just feel uncomfortable and like you're in the wrong place and that's like she says you're you're here, you're paying them to cook you food, you are the boss in this situation, why do you feel oh, is it I'm so sorry, is it possible to just we do, we all do it when you're in like a food situation like, especially when it's somewhere like that where it's.
**Lee:** It is, it is very posh and very high end.
**Lee:** You do feel somehow that the people who are just cooking food and are just waiters are somehow, it's that joke from Mitchell and Webb about the incredibly posh people who are somehow inexplicably still waiters.
**Lee:** It is, it's that thing where they manage to make you feel small, despite the fact they're there working and you are the paying customer.
**Adam:** You are the paying customer.
**Adam:** And it's because that that's what I mean, I love the fact that it has, it has every angle of that.
**Adam:** You know, where it is, it is the thing of, yeah, essentially the service industry is a fucking awful thing to work in and you will be abused, belittled, you know, by both sides of the counter, whether it's the people at the top, or it's the, people that are, you know, the the clientele or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But equally, there has become this weird thing whereby it's like, why am I paying to feel uncomfortable and be told no, you know, when it's like, right, no substitutions and things like that.
**Adam:** And it's he has developed into you know, it's developed beyond essentially, you know, it has developed beyond the I agree that cooking is an art.
**Adam:** But I don't think that it should be art in that sense.
**Adam:** Because that's the thing you always get again running back to bloody, I know it sounds terrible, but running back to bloody MasterChef.
**Adam:** It's always like, oh, well, what's your story behind this, what's your journey and it's like, is he going to fucking fill me up?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and and to to a later, to a further extent, someone should point out to him.
**Adam:** Well, it doesn't matter because it's all going to come out the same color.
**Adam:** And at the end of the day, you know, this is a this is more of a want process.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and actually food is in is in that sort of weird area because it's always like, like the Chuck D quote where it's like people don't need, people don't eat, need art, they need food, shelter and clothing.
**Adam:** After that comes art.
**Adam:** But food has been sort of.
**Lee:** Turned into this.
**Adam:** all of those have their, you know.
**Adam:** I mean, it's like high fashion or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But again, it's these sort of weird things where you're like, you know, go go to any, I mean like I have, but go to any sort of high fashion shop and everything to be told that no, you're you're too fat and poor to wear these clothes, you know.
**Adam:** It's a similar sort of situation.
**Adam:** I love the fact that it's got all of that in here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it sort of is the that it's the horrors of both sides of the table.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Lee:** And I think that's why it's such an original concept and that's what always strikes me with this, you know, it it is horror, but it's, you know, setting it in a restaurant just is weird from the offset unless there's something weird about the restaurant.
**Lee:** But it isn't, it's just a restaurant, but it's but it's ultimately, as you say, really, it's a cult.
**Lee:** It's a cult.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's a cooking cult and it just, yeah.
**Lee:** I I mean, I just, it's so different to anything I've seen and I'll, I really did appreciate that.
**Lee:** And I was a bit pissed off that I didn't watch it sooner because it is such a great concept, but because I knew so little about it.
**Lee:** I yeah, I was like, oh, this probably isn't going to be for me, but I yeah, I was really wrong.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** It was, it was weird as well because again, I I I knew basically, I'd heard it's really good.
**Adam:** And I looked at the cast list and I was like, well, you know.
**Adam:** It's going to they're going to be good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whatever, you know, this I trust these people to have to appear in a good film.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Or sort of like to have been that that's a cast you put together to make something great.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I watched it and I think the weird thing is is that you sort of especially because it's like, right, it's a horror film, you expect at some point that it's going to go cannibalism.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** or poisoning.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it never does.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** That's it, I was I was absolutely, yeah.
**Chris:** Thinking.
**Adam:** Because there's the bit where when he's saying to when Slowik is talking to Erin and keeps keeps saying you're not eating.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he keeps saying, no, it's part of the and he is genuinely talking about the the experience of, no, I've brought everyone here for an experience, this is going to be my ultimate masterwork and you're all going to fucking die as my final statement on food and that's going to be you know what I mean.
**Adam:** That's going to be it's my grand finale.
**Adam:** and so you assume it's like, oh, so is it like a a cumulative effect of poisoning or something like that because he's like, no, you've got to eat the courses.
**Adam:** It's not.
**Adam:** You can't skip and things like that and like no substitutions.
**Adam:** And so.
**Adam:** And obviously, at some point, you do expect that someone's going to get eaten, especially especially because this is weirdly one of the most eat the rich films that you'll see.
**Adam:** That doesn't involve actual cannibalism.
**Lee:** When that guy got his finger cut off, the first time I watched it, I was immediately like.
**Lee:** That wife's going to be eating that at some point.
**Lee:** I was convinced that was what was going to have.
**Lee:** They're going to feed it to him or feed it to her.
**Lee:** I was convinced it was going to come back, I didn't think it was just going to be he's just going to bleed out over the next 90 minutes.
**Chris:** That was such a good choice though to not do any of those tropes.
**Lee:** Not take the obvious route.
**Lee:** And again, that's another thing that speaks to its brilliance.
**Lee:** There are so many easy cliches to fall into.
**Adam:** I mean, it's a cult film, it also oddly feels a bit like say Dr. Fives or seven or something like that.
**Adam:** Because I mean, it's not bumping people off one by one.
**Adam:** But it is the concept.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** The orchestrator.
**Adam:** Yeah, you you've you've created a work of murder.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As it were.
**Adam:** You know, but through through the medium of just like here's a and it's a an exceedingly terrifying meal.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And and I love the sort of like, and again, it's these lovely little sort of bits of pretension where it's like, I'll, serving the lamb the the thigh in is it pork thigh in in a in a phone call.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Because it's inspired by the time his father tried to strangle his mother with a phone called and then stabbed him in the thigh with kitchen shears and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And again, it's sort of it's all these sort of like little touches and things like that, but I think yeah, I I would say probably could be considered.
**Adam:** Again, it's all stuff you don't want to say to people before they watch it, but it's like, cult film because that gives too much away.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and and yeah, it's.
**Chris:** It's it's a little bit of all of it, just the right amount, like a perfect recipe.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And I didn't really know.
**Adam:** I didn't really or I I thought I didn't know much about that Mark Mylod the director has done.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and he's done a lot of he's British, but he's done a lot of American tele, so he did like Succession.
**Adam:** I think he was one of the executive producers on that as well.
**Adam:** he did a few episodes of Game of Thrones, Last of Us, Minority Report, the US version of Shameless.
**Adam:** I think he was an executive producer on that Once Upon a Time.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** film-wise he's done Ali G in the House and a dark comedy called The Big White that's got Robin Williams in it.
**Adam:** But and here's the bit that got me, cuz suddenly I was like, I'm really fucking unbold here.
**Adam:** Over in the UK, he did episodes of The Fast Show, Shooting Stars, The Royal Family, The Vican Bob Randall and Hotchcock, the Dave Saint Show.
**Adam:** All rise for Julian Cleary, but Deal Syndrome.
**Adam:** the all six episodes of Bang Bang it's Reeves and Mortimer.
**Lee:** Oh, wow, brilliant.
**Adam:** And he did, there was a thing in '96, they did a thing called Doctor Who Knight and they had some sketches with David Williams and Mark Gatis and he directed two of those sketches.
**Adam:** And it's like, oh my god, I've been watching this guy's stuff for fucking years and I didn't even I didn't even realize, you know.
**Adam:** On on a side note as well, with Nicholas Holt, when I was again going evoking,
**Adam:** Because I mean, he is a fine comic actor as it is.
**Adam:** But he's in Bras Eye as a kid, he's one of the school kids in Bras Eye in the drugs episode, obviously.
**Lee:** Oh God.
**Adam:** And and even.
**Adam:** And here's another blast from the past from for you, Lee, he's also in World of Pub when he was a kid.
**Lee:** Oh, God.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** He feels like he sprung out of nowhere, but actually he's just always been there in the background.
**Adam:** He's, yeah, he's been doing loads and loads of stuff.
**Adam:** Oh, another one.
**Adam:** Another one for, yeah, he's just so I mean, I I love, I've loved him in everything I've seen him in.
**Adam:** I think he's just so.
**Adam:** And there's a variety of roles because I think the first thing I really noticed him in was Mad Max, like when he was in Fury Road.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And and that is not that is not his usual sort of role whatsoever.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** And if you take that and then compare it to, you know, he then suddenly turned up in Renfield opposite Nicholas Cage, like that's such a again, that's that's why I think him and Anna Taylor Joy are brilliant opposite each other.
**Lee:** Because both of them.
**Lee:** Can can play so many characters so pitch perfectly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And wasn't she in the new Mad Max?
**Lee:** She was, yeah.
**Lee:** Fury Road.
**Adam:** Yes, she was in the prequel because she was Furiosa.
**Adam:** The prequel to Fury Road, yes, she was.
**Adam:** That's good point.
**Adam:** And actually, I mean, when I was looking, when I was looking up about this, apparently at one point they were going to they wanted the movie star.
**Adam:** They originally wrote that role for Daniel Radcliff.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** And for him to be Daniel Radcliff, actually, you know, because I think at that point, people realized that he was out for a laugh.
**Adam:** So he'd actually appear as himself and be like, I don't know.
**Adam:** I don't know what the shit film would have been.
**Adam:** But they were planning about.
**Adam:** But he, but apparently John Lezamu said that he, he pasted it on, Steven Seagal.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** He did a film with Steven Seagal called Executive Decision and yeah, basically Steven obviously left something of an impression there cuz he just, you know, it's like, I've got to play this vain, Odious, good for nothing, toser.
**Adam:** Okay, yeah.
**Adam:** I I know what I'm going to use.
**Adam:** the food was designed by four Michelin starred chef Dominic Kren.
**Adam:** And all the people all the guys playing the kitchen staff were trained.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** To actually prepare the dishes properly so that when stuff's going on in the background, whatever the way the camera's pointing, they are doing exactly what they should be doing.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** And apparently and apparently, Ho Chau who played Elsa, who is also fucking fantastic.
**Adam:** One of the most intimidating like henchman in anything, she's fucking terrifying, apparently she impressed Dominic Kren so much that she offered her a job at her restaurant.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And it's like, oh, it's like, yeah, but that's that that is that doesn't say a lot about your restaurant.
**Adam:** That you want someone that intimidating to you know.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** You're not fucking with us.
**Adam:** but she was also she did the Netflix series Chef's Table.
**Adam:** And they the second unit director on this was the director of Chef's Table because they wanted to get someone who was could to do that sort of food pony.
**Adam:** Sort of look, so all the dishes would be sort of presented in that way that they are on those sort of shows.
**Adam:** And which really comes across, I think.
**Lee:** Yeah, I did love those little cutaways as you say, because it's and that's the thing, the food does look amazing.
**Lee:** But it's it's that thing of I I don't know if I appreciate food enough for the amount of effort that's gone into it for like for those types of things, I think my palette's a bit dull down.
**Adam:** I don't know if it's that, I think, but all I.
**Adam:** All I ever think is, fuck me, where's the rest of it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** If if I'm honest.
**Chris:** There's no no bread, that was funny.
**Adam:** Oh, that's the breadless breakfast.
**Adam:** That was it also reminds me there was a thing, there was a line on in old Harry's game, there's just a bit where it goes, yeah, I'm working on a new cookery show, he's called it, it's food, eat it and be grateful.
**Adam:** Which I think work that way.
**Adam:** So, I think, gentlemen, we should, pop, ponder the question.
**Adam:** So, first off, what dish are you having off the menu?
**Chris:** You want to go firstly?
**Lee:** I mean, it's easy for me, that cheeseburger looked absolutely perfect for me, it's exactly how I would want it for.
**Lee:** I could have had it rare, but it looked so good, it was just dripping and just amazing.
**Lee:** It really made me hungry watching it.
**Chris:** Cook with love.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think that's the thing, is it's that lovely moment of just like the realization for him.
**Adam:** Because then I think it does become his masterwork because it's like.
**Adam:** Oh, and it's actually the only fucking dish he makes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The rest of it is he never touches any of the other ingredients.
**Adam:** He's never.
**Adam:** Physically responsible for any of the rest of the food.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And it's just, I mean, there's a part of me that I.
**Adam:** Man's folly stood out to me because it's like the Dungeon S crab.
**Chris:** So that's that's what I was going to go for.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But I've got to say, I I'm with you, Lee.
**Adam:** I think it's the fucking cheeseburger, it just looked so fucking good.
**Chris:** But that but that I figured they'd sort done that, like they they must have really thought about it, how do we make it so that that just seems like just fantastic at this point?
**Chris:** Because you'd think after watching everything else, you'd be like at no point is food really going to look good in this.
**Chris:** And then they managed to do it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it's not like I don't even eat meat barely, you know, and it still looked pretty amazing.
**Adam:** apparently I think because obviously the majority of the food was prop food and it had to be there for multiple takes and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So obviously.
**Adam:** But that that actually the burger is eaten and apparently the cast were fucking salivating because like the first bit of practical food they'd been sat there in front of plates they couldn't eat.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** For all this time and then suddenly someone comes in with that fucking delicious looking burger.
**Lee:** And that's the thing, like with food, what gets me going is food that looks like it's going to be delicious.
**Lee:** I don't want it to look like a piece of art, I want it to look like a perfectly cooked burger or a perfectly cooked steak or tartare or whatever.
**Lee:** I want to look at it, as you say, and start salivating, I don't want to look at it and go, oh, that's very clever or that's very pretty.
**Lee:** I want it to make me think I I need to eat that, I can't not eat this.
**Lee:** None of the other food does that.
**Adam:** You want to stick your fork through it when it's presented.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I was I was thinking all this and then when when it was a smore.
**Chris:** I was like, actually, a massive smore right about now.
**Adam:** Claire said that the she just thought that the marshmallow ponchos looked really comfy.
**Lee:** Yes, yeah, I thought that as well.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** And again, I know he talks rubbish about smores, but I love him.
**Chris:** Yeah, no.
**Adam:** And I second question has to be, which actor are you inviting to your massacre?
**Chris:** Well, mine's easy.
**Chris:** Mr. Cruz would be there.
**Adam:** Fair enough.
**Lee:** What about you, Lee?
**Lee:** I think mine, as much as I love him, if I had to do it, I think it'd be Anthony Hopkins from Dracula.
**Lee:** Yeah, just cuz.
**Lee:** I just feel like he missed the memo.
**Adam:** Yeah, he really, he really doesn't.
**Adam:** I for me, I don't know, it's it's quite an obscure one, but there's a guy called Lee Poulter.
**Adam:** He's in a film called Video Shop Tales of Terror 2.
**Adam:** Last Revenge and he, he just keeps drawing attention from this really sexy guy with a kettle and I don't know what's going on.
**Adam:** All right.
**Adam:** No, for me.
**Adam:** For me, it's got to be, I can't think of his name.
**Adam:** Fat prick, James Cordon.
**Adam:** For being in not one, but two fucking episodes of Doctor Who, it's like, I thought I'd avoid you, man.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He's.
**Adam:** He's in two.
**Adam:** Two fucking episode.
**Adam:** They invited the prick back.
**Adam:** It's like, so yeah.
**Adam:** No, it's it's him.
**Adam:** That's who I'm cooking.
**Lee:** That's fair.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Good call.
**Lee:** yes, right, so go and watch the menu.
**Lee:** But more importantly, don't go to wanky restaurants, just go and get a really good burger cooked, you know.
**Lee:** Good dirty burger place.
**Lee:** There's nothing like it.
**Chris:** With American cheese.
**Lee:** With American cheese.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because it don't break.
**Lee:** and we will be back in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Adam has come up with a great idea, we're going to be covering Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde as we've mentioned it several times and neither myself nor Chris has seen it.
**Lee:** So, my copy is winding its way through the post to me at the moment, so hopefully I'll have it in plenty of time.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm quite looking forward to it.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** I haven't seen it for a while, I've been waiting for us to cover it so I can give it a watch and yeah.
**Lee:** He's in that pantheon of films, film, you know, that's sort of very Hammer era and that look I love and that feel.
**Lee:** I don't know why, I think it's just because possibly because it's it's one of the lesser known ones.
**Lee:** I've just never had a copy of it fall in my lap.
**Lee:** Or.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know, seen it anywhere to stream, so that's why I've just never.
**Lee:** But yeah, I'll, so I'm very much looking forward to it.
**Adam:** Could be part of the the lesser Hammer.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** It's good to fill in those gaps.
**Lee:** Right, so go and check out Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.
**Lee:** And we'll see you in a fortnite's time, thanks very much.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 244 The Call of Cthulhu

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-244-the-call-of-cthulhu/
Air date: 29 March 2026
Duration: 00:36:52
Film: The Call of Cthulhu · Year: 2005 · Director: Andrew Leman

### Description

There’s more temporal shenanigans as we go all the way back to the 1920s, by going all the way back to 2005 for the HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s film adaptation of “The Call of Cthulhu”. A film that to describe it would bring screaming madness to the mind and blacken to opacity the very soul of man (see what we did there?). The HPLHS’s decision to make “The Call of Cthulhu” as if it were adapted at the time the story was published was a real stroke of genius, and the fact they pulled it off is remarkable. Keeping the story in its original period absolutely sells it more than a modern-day setting, some of Lovecraft’s more melodramatic dialogue sits easier as inter-titles than in actor’s mouths, and the stop-motion Cthulhu is a magnificent take on the creature. The incredible attention to period detail, and the in-camera effects achieved through model shots and other methods of the time really bring a sense of scale. It also means that the film has not dated, by way of it never being of its time in the first place. Possibly the truest adaptation of any of Lovecraft’s work. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Nature of Lovecraft's Elder Gods: Yeah. And, um, and as you were saying, Lee, really, it's his because it's it's curious because essentially it's to a greater or lesser extent science fiction, in so much as there's the, as he termed them, the elder gods, which are treated by human beings as magical creatures or gods or sort of, but are actually probably more likely to be just extraterrestrial, extradimensional beings. And, and as you were saying, Lee, really, it's his because it's it's curious because essentially it's to a greater or lesser extent science fiction, in so much as there's the, as he termed them, the elder gods, which are treated by human beings as magical creatures or gods or sort of, but are actually probably more likely to be just extraterrestrial, extradimensional beings. And their Yeah. Well, it's it's that sort of but also that that lovely sort of thing of they are beyond us. It's not it's not a sort of, uh, malicious. … Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I think, and, because, because a lot of the, a lot of the stories are sort of people, uh, sort of explorers or, um, you know, people doing scientific investigations, anthropologists and things like that, where they look into these things where it's. Yeah, exactly, you know.
- Lovecraftian Crossovers: And, and actually, weirdly enough, I think it's one of those things that's kind of ripe to, and a lot of other mythologies have crossed over with it. There's sort of, uh, Cthulhu Mythos Sherlock Holmes. … there's you know, there's just so many different thing there um they even tied it up at one point there was a a series of what once the original version of Dr the original TV version of Doctor Who finished they had a series of books after that and that actually had um some one of the authors in there linked it up that there were creatures from Doctor Who that they then translated onto the Cthulhu gods so stuff like Uh Naliatep and were analogous to other creatures and things.
- Lovecraft's Atheism and Mythology View: along with, along with his, you know, along with his clear dodgy politics and uh essential racism, you know, he was, um, uh, but I I think he was actually, as a person, he was fairly sort of, atheistic. You know, it was like, well, there's nothing, so, you know, he was. Yeah, he was he was basically sort of, you know, the this I've created this mythology if you want to run with it or whatever like that, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't sort of something he subscribed to. He was very much. Yeah, well, it was yeah, it was very much, no, this is this is the product of my imagination.
- HPLHS Formation & Early Projects: You know, but I think, but I think, um, because funny enough, you're saying about the role playing game, that's how the HP Lovecraft Historical Society formed is originally they were, they formed a live action role playing, uh, version of the Call of Cthulhu RPG called Cthulhu Lives. And it was, uh, Andrew Lehman, Sean Braney and Phil Bell, who sort of formed the society, um, and basically, yeah, it started off that they were larping. And then they started doing a fanzine called Strange Eons and because of that, which was just sort of articles and HP Lovecraft and sort of analysis and things like that. And because of that, they then got such a a sort of build up of membership, um, they began producing their own films, and the first thing they did was called Shoggoth on the Roof. Which is a spoof documentary of, um, a supposed 1970s production of a musical, which was a a Lovecraft version of Fiddler on the Roof. And then, so, and then they they, along with that, they did an original cast recording for the of of it. Um, so you could buy the Shoggoth on the Roof, like the the album, uh, and then after that they did, they did a Christmas album, a very scary solstice. Which is like Lovecraft Carols. And then, and this is this is also like in the 90s, I think they they originally formed in about 87 or like the society officially sort of became together in 87.
- Call of Cthulhu Film Production: And then they thought, well, we'll make Call of Cthulhu because the original story is from uh, published in 1928, I think it was written in 20, uh, 1926, but it was published in Weird Tales magazine, which published a lot of Lovecraft's work. And, um, in 1928, and so they were like, well, we'll make it as if it was a film made in 1928, uh, as we say. And, it's strange that we've done it, it was especially because we did just did House of the Devil, and it's kind of strange that there's, um, you know, we've done a film that was like, right, we want this to look like it was made in 19, uh, like the early 80s. And really stuck to that and everything. And they've done a similar sort of thing, they wanted to make this look like it basically, I think their concept was if someone had bought the rights to the film there and then and made the film the same year that the story came out. So it was like, yeah, they just, um, um, and, you know, so obviously, yeah, it's a silent film. And they've really, I think it's really it's really weird coming back to it because now realizing that it's nearly it's over 20 years old. Mmm. And because of that because they've done it as it's not aged in any way. It still looks fantastic, but it also is because they've done they did such a brilliant job of evoking that sort of 30s look. And when and, you know, it took a long time. I think it was like the best part of two years putting it together. And, you know, and sort of building lots of sort of false perspective tricks and things like that to do like the effects of the city, like the the they on the island. And, and it's all sort of, yeah, they they spent a lot of, um, it's a lot of time and effort to make it it sounds bizarre, but you know, to to make it as close as possible. In as close as possible a way to how it could have been made. They don't cheat it. And everything, and then obviously you're all, yeah, and you get them. Then you get a magnificent stop motion sequence of Cthulhu, which is just, yeah, and done sparingly as well. Which I think is again a strength to it.
- Lovecraft's Short Stories & Adaptations: Because essentially Lovecraft only did sort of short stories and in fact, there's a number of adaptions, what's his name, Stewart Gordon did a lot of adaptions of Lovecraft. And there's a lot of adaptions out there where you're like, that is literally a page and a half. It's a bit like the same you get the same thing with Edgar Allan Poe. You know, where it's like, the Pit and the Pendulum as a story versus the Pit and the Pendulum as the film. It's like, right, you have put a lot in here. And still called it the Pit and the Pendulum. And similarly, there's a lot with the Lovecraft stuff, I mean, it's like even Reanimator follows the story, like of of the actual short story Herbert West Reanimator. The film Reanimator kind of follows that story reasonably closely, but it is updated, it is set in the present day and there's a lot more nudity and gore than probably is in in the story. You know, they sort of. So this this feels like this is probably one of the closest. If not the closest Lovecraft adaptation I've seen.
- Fidelity of Lovecraft Adaptations (Color Out of Space): That is an adaption of HP Lovecraft. And actually, one of the smartest things I ever saw is that I've got a German version of that that, because this has sent me scuttling back to my box of like all the Lovecraft adaptions I bought in the early 2000s. And, um, yeah, I've got a German version of The Color Out of Space, and the smart trick they do with that is it's in black and white. So, you don't have to try and create the color that is driving people mad because it's a totally new color. Yeah. But as it's filmed in black and white, we can't see that color, so it's, you know, it's there's people do the and yeah, like you say, Dagon is, I think, one of the more faithful. Uh adaptations of the stories because a lot a lot of them they sort of spin out from, you know, it'll be literally we'll take the idea or we'll take this and that. Whereas I think, and I mean obviously they are. An HP Lovecraft appreciation society. You know, they are. Yeah. So their love is going to be in there, but I think this is one of the most adherent to the story of any that I've seen. Particularly because they've not only have they made the decision to make it period, but they've actually made the decision to make the film, like the actual concept of the film is the period as well. Yeah. So it's not just, oh, because a lot of the, I mean, Stewart Gordon ones are always modern day, um, when he does them. He never does them sort of as historical. Apart from, no, even, um, Dreams in the Witch House, the, um, Masters of Horror episode he did, I think, is present day as well, isn't it?
- Lovecraft Story Given Poe Title: I can't remember what it's but there's there's an IP film that is basically a Lovecraft film but they gave it a Poe title, isn't there? Haunted Palace, that's it. Yeah. So, but but he's actually a Lovecraft story, but they just gave it an Edgar Allen Poe title.
- Lovecraft Ghostwriting for Houdini: Um, and it was, um, Lovecraft stories that he'd written. But under assumed names, and there were a couple in there that were actually published as Houdini stories. So he was ghost writing for Houdini, and I think Houdini was sort of like basically was like, I want to do something in Egypt. Knock it up for us and so he was doing that, so he was, you know, as a writer for hire he was also doing that sort of thing, you know.
- The Fictional Nature of the Necronomicon: And and actually the Necronomicon. … Oh, so many things. And again, I have seen, you know, I've been on, uh, sort of, you know, I've been on things online and stuff like that that are treating the Necronomicon that it is an actual book. You know, there are people it's it's sort of it's weird that it's sort of got tangled up so much in terms of mythology. That it's it's people who are saying, you know, that, oh no, Lovecraft wrote some stories, but he actually owned this thing called the Necronomicon. And and it's like, no, no, we're Jesus Christ, lads, we're getting really confused now. You know, he made up the book as well, it wasn't that he read the book and then decided, oh, that'd be a good idea for a series of short stories I'll flog to Strangeon. You know. To weird tales, you know, it's bizarre but uh.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here with spoilers and swearing this evening to discuss 2005's the Call of Cthulhu.
**Chris:** Wait, I'm sure I watched a 1920s film.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I love that aesthetic of this. I think it's such a it it just works for the story.
**Chris:** It's excellent.
**Adam:** Yes, yes.
**Lee:** So, so before we get too far into it, for anyone who isn't aware,
**Lee:** this film was made by the Lovecraft Society.
**Chris:** As I
**Adam:** HP Lovecraft Historical Society, I'm sure it was.
**Lee:** Yeah, thank you.
**Lee:** yes, and he's he's a silent film made in the the style of a 1930s silent film.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's it's I mean it really works for the story.
**Lee:** But, I'm assuming our listeners will be, versed in HP Lovecraft, but for anyone who isn't, just in case we start talking and you're like, what are you talking about?
**Lee:** HP Lovecraft, obviously was an author from turn of the last century.
**Lee:** So, actually,
**Adam:** Well, it was it was around the 20s, 30s, 40s, well, actually, the 20s and 30s that he was writing, really. So, yeah, beginning of the 20th century, something.
**Lee:** yes, and he may his stories nearly all, are of about the same world and the same characters, but they're never directly told by the characters themselves who are the old gods.
**Lee:** It's always people's accidental interactions with them, nine times out of ten.
**Lee:** yeah, and it it's just such an amazing world he's created.
**Lee:** That's what it is, it's all, you know, all of these stories are all parts of the same narrative, but kind of told from different people's perspectives and, yeah.
**Adam:** He sort of created his own mythology and, it, weirdly enough, went further than him, so a lot of people then took up the mantle of it like August Derleth and people like that were sort of,
**Chris:** We'll weave it into their own stories.
**Adam:** Yeah, they ran with the mythology and I think and Lovecraft, I believe, was quite encouraging of that because I think he was very much sort of, well, it's it's there to be used.
**Chris:** Yeah, certainly it's referenced.
**Adam:** I've seen it in games.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, certainly now, yeah, it's become.
**Lee:** Oh, it's
**Adam:** Yeah. And, and as you were saying, Lee, really, it's his because it's it's curious because essentially it's to a greater or lesser extent science fiction, in so much as there's the, as he termed them, the elder gods, which are treated by human beings as magical creatures or gods or sort of, but are actually probably more likely to be just extraterrestrial, extradimensional beings.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, and as you were saying, Lee, really, it's his because it's it's curious because essentially it's to a greater or lesser extent science fiction, in so much as there's the, as he termed them, the elder gods, which are treated by human beings as magical creatures or gods or sort of, but are actually probably more likely to be just extraterrestrial, extradimensional beings.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And their
**Chris:** We love to put extra layers on things though, don't we?
**Adam:** Yeah. Well, it's it's that sort of but also that that lovely sort of thing of they are beyond us.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a sort of, malicious.
**Chris:** Well, so in a way, like he almost covers that that tension between science and fantasy.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think, and, because, because a lot of the, a lot of the stories are sort of people, sort of explorers or, you know, people doing scientific investigations, anthropologists and things like that, where they look into these things where it's.
**Chris:** Oh,
**Lee:** What have we found here?
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly, you know.
**Adam:** And, and actually, weirdly enough, I think it's one of those things that's kind of ripe to, and a lot of other mythologies have crossed over with it.
**Adam:** There's sort of, Cthulhu Mythos Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** there's you know, there's just so many different thing there they even tied it up at one point there was a a series of what once the original version of Dr the original TV version of Doctor Who finished they had a series of books after that and that actually had some one of the authors in there linked it up that there were creatures from Doctor Who that they then translated onto the Cthulhu gods so stuff like
**Adam:** Naliatep and were analogous to other creatures and things.
**Adam:** But yeah, certainly Lovecraft sort of, yeah, I mean, I I think, I mean,
**Adam:** along with, along with his, you know, along with his clear dodgy politics and essential racism, you know, he was, but I I think he was actually, as a person, he was fairly sort of, atheistic.
**Chris:** He was like,
**Adam:** You know, it was like, well, there's nothing, so, you know, he was.
**Chris:** That's how it fits with this.
**Adam:** Yeah, he was he was basically sort of, you know, the this I've created this mythology if you want to run with it or whatever like that, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't sort of something he subscribed to.
**Adam:** He was very much.
**Chris:** He's no scientologist, really.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, it was yeah, it was very much, no, this is this is the product of my imagination.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Adam:** It's not sort of like, you know, because I think, in a weird way,
**Adam:** I think it has almost like sort of outlived him, well, not it's obviously it's outlived him, but it's sort of it's gone beyond that into
**Adam:** almost becoming its own sort of, you know, like it's now mythology, but not just from one person's mind, it's sort of fed into so many things now.
**Chris:** It has.
**Lee:** Like, yeah, that's what, yeah, go on Lee.
**Lee:** I was going to say, yeah, like you said, Chris, you know, like, you know, board games and role-playing games and all that, they've really linked onto it because it's such a a huge universe that he's built, it's rough for that type of thing.
**Lee:** Actually, Chris, for Halloween last year, you bought us a a role play game, Cthulhu based one.
**Lee:** Which we did try.
**Lee:** I'd never tried a role play game before, it was the first one I played.
**Lee:** I played it for. Yeah, really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** yeah, and and loved all the little Cthulhu-esque figures and stuff so it's so did you were you aware of Cthulhu and were you aware of HP Lovecraft's work Chris before watching this or
**Chris:** So I think, you know, really what we were just saying there, I heard of Cthulhu, before really knowing who HP Lovecraft was.
**Chris:** So it's yeah, because it had been in like say computer games I'd played over the years and they don't, when the monster appears, it doesn't go,
**Chris:** This is by HP Lovecraft.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like, oh, I've heard of Cthulhu, right, and then you start to realize, oh, yeah, it's,
**Chris:** And, you know, his name, once you, once you're aware of it, then you kind of see it a lot more.
**Chris:** but certainly first, the references can be.
**Adam:** And it has become a description, a descriptive method Lovecraftian for unusual weird fiction and particularly anything that is essentially, you know, nameless horrors and things from beyond that the human mind can't comprehend.
**Adam:** I know that a lot of people have said that that, Lovecraft's sort of
**Adam:** ability as a writer is actually the the the cause of like, well, it was absolutely indescribable and if I tried to, I I would go mad and so would you.
**Adam:** So I wouldn't describe it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is possibly one of the finest sort of get outs.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It works, you know.
**Lee:** It does, but it runs so concurrent with MR James as well because it's that same it's nearly always learned scientists who are the people who are, you know,
**Lee:** running into these things accidentally.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's it's that it's just described as being.
**Lee:** Undescribable.
**Chris:** What would these writers have done before science was a thing?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Who are we going to use, it's just crazy people, basically.
**Adam:** I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure that there would have been people that they would have just regarded as,
**Adam:** he needs the wind taken out of his sales a bit.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** that's you know, he used he used to be pomposity.
**Adam:** That's why that's that's why it was a lot of kings and things like that.
**Adam:** You know, but I think, but I think, because funny enough, you're saying about the role playing game, that's how the HP Lovecraft Historical Society formed is originally they were, they formed a live action role playing, version of the Call of Cthulhu RPG called Cthulhu Lives.
**Adam:** And it was, Andrew Lehman, Sean Braney and Phil Bell, who sort of formed the society, and basically, yeah, it started off that they were larping.
**Adam:** And then they started doing a fanzine called Strange Eons and because of that, which was just sort of articles and HP Lovecraft and sort of analysis and things like that.
**Adam:** And because of that, they then got such a a sort of build up of membership, they began producing their own films, and the first thing they did was called Shoggoth on the Roof.
**Adam:** Which is a spoof documentary of, a supposed 1970s production of a musical, which was a a Lovecraft version of Fiddler on the Roof.
**Adam:** And then, so, and then they they, along with that, they did an original cast recording for the of of it.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** so you could buy the Shoggoth on the Roof, like the the album, and then after that they did, they did a Christmas album, a very scary solstice.
**Adam:** Which is like Lovecraft Carols.
**Adam:** And then, and this is this is also like in the 90s, I think they they originally formed in about 87 or like the society officially sort of became together in 87.
**Chris:** It was oriented.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then they thought, well, we'll make Call of Cthulhu because the original story is from
**Adam:** published in 1928, I think it was written in 20, 1926, but it was published in Weird Tales magazine, which published a lot of Lovecraft's work.
**Adam:** And, in 1928, and so they were like, well, we'll make it as if it was a film made in 1928, as we say.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** it's strange that we've done it, it was especially because we did just did House of the Devil, and it's kind of strange that there's,
**Adam:** you know, we've done a film that was like, right, we want this to look like it was made in 19, like the early 80s.
**Adam:** And really stuck to that and everything.
**Adam:** And they've done a similar sort of thing, they wanted to make this look like it basically,
**Adam:** I think their concept was if someone had bought the rights to the film there and then and made the film the same year that the story came out.
**Adam:** So it was like,
**Adam:** yeah, they just, and, you know, so obviously, yeah, it's a silent film.
**Adam:** And they've really, I think it's really it's really weird coming back to it because now realizing that it's nearly it's over 20 years old.
**Adam:** And because of that because they've done it as it's not aged in any way.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** It's right.
**Adam:** It still looks fantastic, but it also is because they've done
**Adam:** they did such a brilliant job of evoking that sort of 30s look.
**Adam:** And when and, you know, it took a long time.
**Adam:** I think it was like the best part of two years putting it together.
**Adam:** And, you know, and sort of building lots of sort of false perspective tricks and things like that to do
**Adam:** like the effects of the city, like the the they on the island.
**Adam:** And, and it's all sort of, yeah, they they spent a lot of,
**Adam:** it's a lot of time and effort to make it it sounds bizarre,
**Adam:** but you know, to to make it as close as possible.
**Adam:** In as close as possible a way to how it could have been made.
**Adam:** They don't cheat it.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Yeah, or.
**Adam:** And everything, and then obviously you're all, yeah, and you get them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Then you get a magnificent stop motion sequence of Cthulhu, which is just, yeah, and done sparingly as well.
**Adam:** Which I think is again a strength to it.
**Lee:** Yeah, well that is how it would have been at the time, wasn't it?
**Lee:** You know, it was very much the era of you see a shadow in the first 20 minutes, you see a claw after 45 and you sort of peak the monster up.
**Lee:** So,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Chris, for your first viewing of this, as someone who's possibly not as well versed with the the whole backstory of, because I think this is a great one because it this one gives you a lot more story in it.
**Lee:** And a lot more information.
**Lee:** Whereas a lot of the others, it's a much smaller window into the world, you have to read a lot of stories to build the whole backstory up.
**Lee:** But what did you make of it watching it as a kind of standalone?
**Chris:** Yeah, especially as this like, what is it, 47 minutes long?
**Chris:** I mean, they do, they pack, pack a lot of story into it.
**Chris:** But it is, so it's a short story, essentially.
**Lee:** It's one of his longer ones, but it's a short one.
**Chris:** Is it right?
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because essentially Lovecraft only did sort of short stories and in fact, there's a number of adaptions, what's his name, Stewart Gordon did a lot of adaptions of Lovecraft.
**Adam:** And there's a lot of adaptions out there where you're like,
**Adam:** that is literally a page and a half.
**Adam:** It's a bit like the same you get the same thing with Edgar Allan Poe.
**Adam:** You know, where it's like, the Pit and the Pendulum as a story versus the Pit and the Pendulum as the film.
**Adam:** It's like, right, you have put a lot in here.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And still called it the Pit and the Pendulum.
**Adam:** And similarly, there's a lot with the Lovecraft stuff, I mean, it's like even Reanimator follows the story,
**Adam:** like of of the actual short story Herbert West Reanimator.
**Adam:** The film Reanimator kind of follows that story reasonably closely, but it is updated, it is set in the present day and there's a lot more nudity and gore than probably is in in the story.
**Adam:** You know, they sort of.
**Adam:** So this this feels like this is probably one of the closest.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** If not the closest Lovecraft adaptation I've seen.
**Chris:** It certainly like it really comes across as being a labor of love.
**Chris:** In, you know, like it's not a huge budget.
**Chris:** But what they've done really seems to give you a feel for the fact they they love the book, you know, and the the world that he's created.
**Chris:** So it's yeah, it's.
**Lee:** It is, it's it's great.
**Lee:** And as you were saying, Adam, with the other adaptation.
**Lee:** So one of my favorite adaptations is Dagon.
**Lee:** Which is actually The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
**Lee:** but it.
**Chris:** Yeah, why is that?
**Chris:** What's what's good about that?
**Lee:** yes, so it it was done on a slightly lower budget, but it's very good.
**Lee:** And it's it's one of my favorite stories.
**Lee:** So basically a guy is traveling by bus and has to stop in a place called Innsmouth that all the locals shun because it's a bit weird, and without giving too much away, there's a bit of a pact between the people who live there and the things that live in the sea.
**Chris:** okay.
**Lee:** And he's staying overnight there, he kind of uncovers it and finds himself victim where he knows too much and they want to off him.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's it's really good and it's because as you as Adam was saying,
**Lee:** a lot of it is the unmentionable, the indescribable.
**Lee:** What he's putting on screen.
**Chris:** is quite.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Actually, because I mean there's there's obviously there's the HP Lovecraft.
**Adam:** You've seen Color out of Space, haven't you, Chris?
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Nicholas Cage.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** That is an adaption of HP Lovecraft.
**Adam:** And actually, one of the smartest things I ever saw is that I've got a German version of that that, because this has sent me scuttling back to my box of like all the Lovecraft adaptions I bought in the early 2000s.
**Adam:** And, yeah, I've got a German version of The Color Out of Space, and the smart trick they do with that is it's in black and white.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you don't have to try and create the color that is driving people mad because it's a totally new color.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But as it's filmed in black and white, we can't see that color, so it's, you know,
**Adam:** it's there's people do the and yeah, like you say, Dagon is, I think, one of the more faithful.
**Adam:** adaptations of the stories because a lot a lot of them they sort of spin out from, you know,
**Adam:** it'll be literally we'll take the idea or we'll take this and that.
**Adam:** Whereas I think, and I mean obviously they are.
**Adam:** An HP Lovecraft appreciation society.
**Adam:** You know, they are.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So their love is going to be in there, but I think this is one of the most adherent to the story of any that I've seen.
**Adam:** Particularly because they've not only have they made the decision to make it period, but they've actually made the decision to make the film, like the actual concept of the film is the period as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's not just,
**Adam:** oh, because a lot of the, I mean, Stewart Gordon ones are always modern day, when he does them.
**Adam:** He never does them sort of as historical.
**Adam:** Apart from, no, even, Dreams in the Witch House, the,
**Adam:** Masters of Horror episode he did, I think, is present day as well, isn't it?
**Lee:** I think it was, yeah.
**Lee:** But again, so that's a very faithful adaptation because you remember, Chris,
**Lee:** we watched Curse of the Crimson Altar.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's that's basically supposed to be the Dreams in the Witch House.
**Lee:** And if you watch the two side by side, there is almost no correlation between.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but one is.
**Lee:** but one is far more, yeah, one one is far closer to the original book than the other.
**Lee:** I'd been watching Curse of the Crimson Altar for at least 10 or 15 years before I suddenly noticed in the credit,
**Lee:** oh, it's based on Dreams in the Witch House by.
**Lee:** I don't think it is.
**Lee:** I don't think it's anything like it.
**Lee:** But it's.
**Chris:** It is meant to be.
**Lee:** But even if it works as the impetus for creating a great film, then it's fine.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Adam:** I can't remember what it's but there's there's an IP film that is basically a Lovecraft film but they gave it a Poe title, isn't there?
**Lee:** Yes, Hanted Palace.
**Adam:** Haunted Palace, that's it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, but but he's actually a Lovecraft story, but they just gave it an Edgar Allen Poe title.
**Adam:** So it would, because they knew the Edgar Allen Poe ones were selling, and Lovecrafts, Lovecrafts sort of resurgence is
**Adam:** reasonably recent, I would say, I mean, the last sort of 20, 30 years is really when
**Adam:** it's now become a thing where like you say, you know, Cthulhu it it's it's like putting the minitor in something.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, because it's now reached that stage of myth, which interestingly enough, even something like, you know, Slenderman,
**Adam:** Where it's reached that point where,
**Adam:** Ted's heard of Slenderman, and but, you know, he he doesn't know the backstory.
**Adam:** He doesn't know it's creepy pasture and it can be traced to a person who first came up with the idea.
**Adam:** And yeah, I think that a lot of the Lovecraftian mythology is now just mythology.
**Adam:** It's just stuff that people know.
**Adam:** It it rubs shoulders with Griffins and Frankenstein.
**Chris:** Yeah, feels like it's just always been part of our.
**Chris:** Yeah, feels like it's just always been part of our like culture or just.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's passed down.
**Lee:** So much so much of HP Lovecraft stuff.
**Lee:** I mean, my, yeah, my brother has got a T-shirt that I've wanted for ages and I very nearly went and bought myself a hoodie from the the Lovecraft Society, website.
**Lee:** Yeah, the Miskatonic University hoodie.
**Lee:** Like, it's just like all of those and Arkham of course been, you know, brought into the Batman Mythos.
**Lee:** Like, so much stuff that he invented has just absorbed popular culture and as you say, it's as it's as much a a well-known myth as ones that have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years and it gets treated with the same, the same level of respect and which it I mean, it should be.
**Lee:** It's such a huge, I mean, I love Lovecraft.
**Lee:** I got for Christmas, which is why I was so pleased when you suggested we do this, Adam.
**Lee:** I got a box set of HP Lovecraft books, pretty much all the whole series.
**Adam:** Oh, nice.
**Lee:** yeah, in a really nice really nice hard cover but it's lovely.
**Lee:** I'm working my way through and I just read, book of short stories and there are a few in there that I haven't even read before, which was.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like some really good stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah, because Dean, because this this is another thing that at one point he, because Dean got me a book long, long time ago now.
**Adam:** and it was, Lovecraft stories that he'd written.
**Adam:** But under assumed names, and there were a couple in there that were actually published as Houdini stories.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** So he was ghost writing for Houdini, and I think Houdini was sort of like basically was like, I want to do something in Egypt.
**Adam:** Knock it up for us and so he was doing that, so he was, you know, as a writer for hire he was also doing that sort of thing, you know.
**Adam:** and but yeah, I mean this this is the sort of text of of Lovecraft because it's
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cthulhu is the is the one that has really sort of
**Adam:** because obviously you've got, you know, there's all all the others Naliatep and
**Adam:** the goat of the woods with a thousand young and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** It's like there's a lot of these sort of everything seems just about right.
**Adam:** And and actually the Necronomicon.
**Lee:** Like the just about to say the Necronomicon as well, which obviously later gets used in the Evil Dead and all of that.
**Adam:** Oh, so many things.
**Adam:** And again, I have seen, you know, I've been on, sort of, you know,
**Adam:** I've been on things online and stuff like that that are treating the Necronomicon that it is an actual book.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there are people it's it's sort of it's weird that it's sort of got tangled up so much in terms of mythology.
**Adam:** That it's it's people who are saying, you know, that, oh no, Lovecraft wrote some stories, but he actually owned this thing called the Necronomicon.
**Adam:** And and it's like, no, no, we're Jesus Christ, lads, we're getting really confused now.
**Adam:** You know, he made up the book as well, it wasn't that he read the book and then decided, oh, that'd be a good idea for a series of short stories I'll flog to Strangeon.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** To weird tales, you know, it's bizarre but
**Adam:** spurred on by this, I did watch also because they, after they did this,
**Adam:** they also did, they've done a load of plays, like radio plays.
**Adam:** adaptions of his stories that are done like 1930s.
**Adam:** American radio plays like Warson Wells type stuff.
**Adam:** and then I rewatched, the Whisperer in Darkness,
**Adam:** which came out in 2011.
**Lee:** I'm currently reading that and I'm sure we watched it when it first came out, but I don't remember an awful lot about it.
**Lee:** So I think I'm going to have to rewatch that one as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, because that that was basically they decided to make that like a sort of 1930s, a bit like a Universal Horror.
**Adam:** And I think and and it shares a lot of the same cast like Matt Foer who's the the man as he's described in this, you know,
**Adam:** not not bigging him up, you know, I mean that's just it's how he's credited.
**Adam:** I'm not saying that he is the man.
**Adam:** But, and he's like the star of, the Whisperer in Darkness and, yeah, they,
**Adam:** I so I rewatched that and that actually that I think is another one where they've,
**Adam:** really sort of triumphed in making it look of its time or of the time they have chosen.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Not of its time, because it's it's time is actually 2011.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** but yeah, so they've made it look very 1930s.
**Adam:** I mean, the only thing I'd say with that is I think having watched it back.
**Adam:** Maybe it's a wee bit long, but I think that might also just be because again, the majority of like the Universal horrors are maybe an hour and 10 minutes, an hour and something.
**Adam:** And this was like an hour 45, but I get also that they were probably going, well, we actually want to make.
**Adam:** A movie.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because and and because I mean the Cthulhu won a lot of the awards and everything else like that.
**Adam:** But obviously it's 45 minutes.
**Adam:** So it's a short.
**Adam:** So I think they wanted to.
**Adam:** So I think they wanted to make a feature.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And despite the fact, yeah, a feature can be an hour and 10, it's like more commonly these days that you're looking at, you know, between an hour and a half to two hours, sort of counts as a as a film.
**Adam:** but, but yeah, it still that still sort of like, I think again, it very much stood up because it doesn't it doesn't age.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** it was it was already meant to look old then.
**Adam:** So it's.
**Chris:** Mentioning the effects said so this does look, yeah, like really good.
**Chris:** I did notice, I think, the one of the effects they applied was as the like scratches appear in the corners of the film, it's like it looks like tentacles.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Rather than just normal scratches.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and there's well, because they've got the lovely thing as well,
**Adam:** because there's a lot of stuff like the stuff on the sea where it's on the sea, there's a lot of model work and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But there's also just bits where it's guys in boats, but they are doing the old techniques again.
**Adam:** Where it's just literally they're on a billowing blanket.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it looks amazing and, but again,
**Adam:** I'm really pleased that they like like we said again.
**Adam:** Like we said about with House of the Devil, they put in little bits like hair in the gate and the sort of stuff like that.
**Adam:** And sort of stuff that you would see.
**Adam:** But they haven't like, the more I think about it, I mean, we might have to cover it at some point, but like when it sort of got to that point with like Grindhouse like Rodriguez and Tarantino doing Grindhouse.
**Adam:** And it was like, I now look at it going, you really fucking overplayed that of like, we'll put cigarette burns in, breaks and.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, but you don't have to do it every fucking frame, mate, because it doesn't, you know,
**Lee:** It's
**Adam:** Best in the world.
**Lee:** It's distracting.
**Adam:** Yeah, it does.
**Lee:** And it's with this it didn't, it added to the atmosphere and the feel, but you didn't keep going, there's that hair again.
**Lee:** Or or you know, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it didn't keep taking you out of it because you're going,
**Adam:** oh, wow, yeah, they've put in blur or they've put in, you know, sort of.
**Adam:** This is the bit where it's like meant to be that they they had different film stuck because it got edited in a foreign country or something like that.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** it's yeah.
**Adam:** So, no, I think they they really sit on the right side of taste with it, and then, and so, like the,
**Adam:** Andrew Lehman who directs it also plays, Charles Fort in, the Whisperer in Darkness.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And it was really weird because I watched.
**Adam:** Like the sort of.
**Adam:** the behind the scenes stuff on the DVD for Call of Cthulhu, and then I thought, I'll watch Whisperer in Darkness, and then it's like, hang on, that's the director.
**Adam:** He's turned up as Charles, and he's actually in it quite a lot.
**Adam:** You know, I just thought it might have been just a cameo or something like that.
**Adam:** And Sean Braney, who, wrote this or like adapted it, he then wrote and adapted, Whisperer in Darkness.
**Adam:** So, it's, you know, those guys really know what they're doing.
**Adam:** I'm going to have to make one shout out though to of the other stuff that the HP Lovecraft Historical Society have put out is Organ White and the Amphibian Jazz Band live at the Gilman House.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which is basically an Innsmouth version of Tom Waits croaking his way through from sort of Dagon jazz standards.
**Adam:** It's fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** I love.
**Adam:** It's all things, it's all things like my sentimental Cephalopod and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's just, yeah, it's just really great.
**Adam:** And they just all their stuff, I think they it's a the HP LH S
**Adam:** are a really talented group who are on like, you know, they've they've got the right level of humor with it as well.
**Adam:** That they're just sort of like, yeah.
**Adam:** They just, they know what they're doing and they know why they love Lovecraft and yeah, it's
**Adam:** Yeah, this is just, it's, and I'd say it's probably the best adaptation or certainly the straightest.
**Adam:** You know, or most direct adaptation of a Lovecraft story of any of them.
**Adam:** It's like if you leaf through the book, oh, what's it called, Lurker in the Lobby.
**Adam:** which is a book that's just is basically lists all the Lovecraft adaptations.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and they're they're so many out there.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** But I think this is probably the most spot on.
**Chris:** This is like a good origin one too.
**Chris:** Yeah, get going on.
**Adam:** I think, yeah, it just it it's weird because it's like, oh, they've you know, it's it's a product of the 21st century, but they decided to make it look like it was a hundred years older.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** actually, just if you if it's the story beats that you want, they've got it all in there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean it it.
**Lee:** And this story is a great place to start, as I said, because I think it does it gives you a much bigger picture.
**Chris:** It leads you.
**Lee:** Yeah, like it works on its own as a standalone story.
**Lee:** I say, but the others kind of once you get to know the elder gods and stuff.
**Lee:** And then they're mentioned much less and and you just get these kind of glimpses.
**Lee:** But once you're aware of them and you know what it means and what it.
**Chris:** You can fully appreciate it then.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that's why it's so good because you have to read so many and they're all brilliantly written and they're all really good to read.
**Lee:** But they all give you tiny fragments of information.
**Lee:** So you end up wanting to read more and more so you can put more and more of the the overall big picture together.
**Adam:** And that's I think that's what's attracted a lot of other authors to it is because he left those spaces in there is these sort of hints and remarks and you're like, you'll read one thing and then you'll read one story.
**Adam:** And then it's like, oh, hang on, they mentioned Dagon in that.
**Adam:** And then it comes back in another story, or it's like, oh, hang on.
**Adam:** So, oh, so that links to Cthulhu.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or that links to sort of, you know,
**Adam:** the the lost city of Rile or Rale as I like to call it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean it's.
**Lee:** Yeah, Lovecraft stuff is fantastic.
**Lee:** And so I I do, I find them really enjoyable to reread, it's one of the few things that I can go back to.
**Lee:** And because they are fairly short.
**Lee:** I can go back to them and and reread them over and over again.
**Lee:** I mean, the hunter in the dark is one of my favorite and I've read that the hunter of the dark, sorry.
**Lee:** I think I've read that about four or five times.
**Lee:** It's so good.
**Adam:** Is that that's the other thing as well is I just love the fact.
**Adam:** His titles almost always stumble you, you always stumble them up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He has a way of making a title that's just slightly off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like I kept calling it the other day I kept calling it the whisperer in the darkness.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, it's the whisperer in darkness.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and sort of, yeah, so he just has this lovely way of like.
**Adam:** Slightly just tripping you up every now and then.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic stuff.
**Lee:** So, for our next episode, we are going to be covering The Menu.
**Chris:** Oh, I'm getting hungry.
**Chris:** Or or not, who knows.
**Adam:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** Oh, have you not seen it yet, Chris?
**Chris:** I haven't, no.
**Adam:** Oh, cool.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Well,
**Adam:** well, so from from one mysterious island to another mysterious island.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We shall, reconvene for The Menu.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh,
**Lee:** it's funny, so I saw it when it first came out and then I rewatched it about, oh, maybe last summer.
**Lee:** We stayed away somewhere for the evening and went out and got back and were too full of food and tired to move anywhere.
**Lee:** Twitch TV on and it was just starting.
**Lee:** Yeah, so, I've seen it a couple of times but yeah, I am again, it's it's so mental.
**Lee:** It's one of those films that you just need to keep going back to because you keep forgetting just how mental it gets.
**Adam:** Yeah, and actually you probably did the right thing by watching it, full of food.
**Adam:** Because I suspect that I will be watching it in like 15 minute excerpts.
**Adam:** As I keep going off and getting something from the kitchen.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Well, it sounds good or tastes good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** One one last thing before we go is I just want to give you the motto of the HP Lovecraft Historical Society.
**Adam:** Which is Ludo Foramus, which is Latin for we thought it would be fun.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** Very nice.
**Lee:** yes, so go and check out the Call of Cthulhu.
**Lee:** It's great.
**Lee:** Go and check out the Whisperer in Darkness.
**Lee:** because I'll definitely be going and checking that again.
**Lee:** Because I I need to rewatch it.
**Lee:** yes.
**Lee:** And we will see you go and read all of HP Lovecraft stuff.
**Lee:** brilliant. Don't look too much into his politics.
**Lee:** Just read his books.
**Adam:** Don't get involved. Certainly don't Google what he called his dog.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** No, no, no, no.
**Lee:** Don't go there.
**Lee:** and yes, we will see you all in a fortnight's time for The Menu.
**Lee:** Thanks very much.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** Not Fido then.
**Adam:** Oh, no.

---

## Ep 243 The House of the Devil

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-243-the-house-of-the-devil/
Air date: 15 March 2026
Duration: 00:37:21
Film: The House of the Devil · Year: 2009 · Director: Ti West

### Description

We’re heading back to 2009 (or is it 1983?) for Ti West’s “The House of the Devil”. A film which gives us the do’s and don’t’s of babysitting: DO bring a friend along to ensure the employers aren’t weirdos, DON’T then ignore that friend who has spotted every red flag in the situation; DO order pizza that the employers have generously left money for, DON’T then stick on your walkman really loud so you couldn’t hear the doorbell, dance on the furniture, generally run amok and break things; DO accept $400 for a night’s work, DON’T accept $400 for a night’s work from Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov who are both, clearly, scary as all fuck. Before the success of his “X” trilogy brought Ti West’s brand of horror to the attention of a much wider audience, he was already acclaimed in genre circles for a series of outstanding films, of which “The House of the Devil” is a fantastic example. Not only does the film evoke its 1983 setting through a period-truthful aesthetic (not the absurd nostalgia of everyone in neon headbands and ET T-shirts, solving Rubiks Cubes) it also achieves it through the visual language and filmmaking techniques as well. With a superb central performance from Jocelin Donahue, who looks like she could have stepped straight out of the original “Black Christmas”, and a slow burn tension that ratchets up to a manic and visceral last 15 minutes, “The House of the Devil” is both an echo of the past, and a thoroughly modern take on it as well. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Connection between House of the Devil and The Innkeepers: Which actually comes after this because they stayed at, what is it, the Yankee, uh, yeah, that's it, The Yankee Pedler Inn, they stayed there while they were making House of the Devil and heard all the ghost stories that then might led into making The Innkeepers.
- 1983 cultural context regarding smell: Well, because at that point Claire said, well, you wouldn't be able to smell that. And I said. It's 1983, everyone smokes, no one's got everything just smell like everything will smell like old open, you know, no one's no one's got a a sense a sense of smell in their head. And everything will just smell like a humidor, it's like that.
- Ty West's career trajectory and recent trilogy: Six years ago. But since then, Ty West has obviously done the trilogy of, uh, X, Pearl and Maxine, which have obviously just really sort of rocketed his profile. I mean. So how the devil was was big. And, um, uh, The Innkeepers as well, you know, they're all. But but yeah, X, Pearl and Maxine are sort of like the the trilogy that he's done over the last few years that are the things that have really sort of propelled him, uh, you know, his name out there and and have really sort of put him into more public acclaim, more people have seen those than they've seen House of the Devil.
- Tom Noonan's role and structure of Ty West's first film, The Roost: And it starts off with him like it's you're watching like a cable horror host. And then it goes into the actual film and then at the end of it he sort of wraps it up. And it's like, you know. Like Elvira or Dr. Demento or whatever like that, so yeah, and I was just I was just intrigued by that because I I've not seen that.
- The Sacrament's premise and style: Um, which is his, um, sort of version of Jonestown. Which is done really really well. Again, it's that sort of thing of because that's done as if it's Vice reporters going to Jonestown. So it's all sort of like, you know, it's, um, not not quite found footage, but it's that sort of thing that it's presented as it's the the footage that they've shot while they're there. And actually that's the thing with this is because this this looks.
- House of the Devil's authentic 80s aesthetic (titles, camera techniques): And again, it's not flashy, it's not like even though I enjoyed them like stuff like Grindhouse and things like that where it's like. Oh, we'll put a load of lines on it and we'll make it do like screen burn at that point, or we'll put the cigarette burns. There's none of that, but it is just like that those opening titles with the yellow font doing freeze frames is so much more evocative of 1983 because that's just how a film, you know, that's how films looked. And like you were saying, the editing of it and everything and even the fact that he's doing like he's doing camera zooms and things that are much more of that period. You know, it's, um, yeah.
- Score, sound design, and production company details, including Graham Resnick and Larry Fessenden's contributions: Because it's because Jeff Grace does the score, um, but that is by the opening bit is by a guy called Mike Mike Armstrong. And I bought it's it changed over when it came out on vinyl, but I bought the original CD of House of the Devil and it's got the Jeff Grace score on there, but I was so disappointed that the Mike Armstrong piece wasn't on there. Because it was like, no, that's the defining thing for me because it just went with those titles and it's just perfectly of its time, you know, that sort of. Slightly slightly new wave chuggy with the the sort of the keyboards in there and stuff like that, it was just a really great. And actually, the other the other thing as well is that the sound designer on it is Graham Resnick. Um, who, um, who is also the voice of the DJ on the radio in this. Um, but in the week I was listening to he released an album called The Interconsciousness Catalog, which has got some of the soundscapes he did on this because he does like soundscapes and composing and stuff and he's done like he he's worked with Ty West loads because he did The Innkeepers and Sacrament and X and The Roost and stuff like that. Um, but also, um, he worked on, do you remember I Sold The Dead? Film with Larry Fessenden, um, and Ron Perlman film. … Yeah, and I was like, oh shit, when I was I was like, yeah, I've got I've got to watch that again as well, because that was just, um, yeah, that was just a a great film. But this is Glass Eye films. So this is Larry Fessenden's like one of the producers on this. And again, I don't think we've covered a lot to do with Larry Fessenden apart from he's in Session 9. But obviously, you know, his contribution to horror goes far beyond just being an actor. You know, as a producer and writer and director and everything else like that, you know. But yeah, I yeah, that just suddenly came out, I saw the dead and I was like, oh, bloody, I haven't seen that. In so, so long. Um, but also Graham Resnick's actually done directing as well. He did a film called I Can See You, but apparently he's done a series called Dead Wax, which is like a sort of Noir about record dealers. Um like sort of like a like like rare records, um like sort of second-hand record dealing or something like that, but it's like a bit weird.
- Tom Noonan's role in Manhunter and its significance: Because that is the most neon, Sythy like pastel colored thing that you'll ever see and is the first Hannibal Lector film. Back when Brian Cox is playing Hannibal Lector and until Mads Mikkelsen came along, was my favorite Hannibal Lector.
- Mary Waronov's career, including Andy Warhol, Eating Raul, Star Trek connections, Chopping Mall cameo, and Death Race 2000: She's like, she was started off with Andy Warho's factory and she danced with the Velvet Underground as part of the exploding plastic and inevitable. And she's in loads of. Warhall films and stuff like that, um, but also, um, she, um, there's a film called which I really recommend. I think you definitely I think you and Jennifer should watch it, Lee, a film called Eating Raul. Um, and it's her and Paul Bartel and it's a very it feels very sort of a bit John Waltersy. Yeah, but basically, um, they she worked with Paul Bartel low, has worked with Paul Bartel loads. Uh, and they often play like married couples and stuff. But they are basically this married couple who live in an apartment block next to a group of swingers and they find it just so offensive that they end up killing killing off all like pretending that they're swingers as well. So they can get people to their. And they then just kill them off and get a guy to dispose of the bodies and so they can get money for running their, uh, their little restaurant. And, um, yeah, it's a genuine. And weirdly enough. Because Mary Waronov auditioned for the role of Captain Janeway in Star Trek Voyager. And Mr. Chakote from Star Trek Voyager is in eating Raul, he is Raul. Uh, but yeah, but eating Raul is just, yeah, it's it's really, really fucking funny. And the best bit. Just out of nowhere, both Paul Bartel and Mary Waranov play the same characters briefly in Chopping Mall. … Which is just fucking mad because just out of the middle of it all, you've got chopping mall, but there's the bit where they're demoing the security robot right near the start and they're just sitting the audience and it's like, oh, that's very good, isn't it? Yeah. It's like, yeah, we could use one of those in the shop. And that's literally it, but they're there and it's like, but they met doing, um, Death Race 2000. Because Paul Bartel directed it. And she's Calamity Jane in Death Race 2000. The original Death Race 2000, well, actually the only Death Race 2000. Let's not dignify these other pricks with this nonsense, you know. Um. But yeah, so I mean, so she's sort of like both her and Tom Noonan I think are really good gets and they are just excellently excellently creepy. And actually AJ Bowen's pretty good as well. It's good as well as their, um, son as it turns out.
- Comparison to Inside Number 9's 'The Harrowing' and its release date: Also it has to be said, and this is no disrespect to them because as you know, we are very much a league worshipping podcast. Um. But it's also The Harrowing from Inside Number 9, isn't it? … Yeah, it's a proper proper moment that. But I, um. But also I because I literally, I had to check it, but yeah, the Inside Number 9 episode is 2014.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here, spoilers and swearing abound for 2009's The House of the Devil.
**Lee:** yeah, I know that me and Adam have, yeah, this is a film that we frequently talk about about how amazing it is, but for some reason it still had and I think because of its slow burn, might be why we, although we admire the film, we were like, is there a lot to talk about?
**Lee:** But actually having rewatched it for the first time in probably 12 years, yeah, there's a shitload to talk about.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Starting with like how great a job they did of making it 80s.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** It was like.
**Chris:** I yeah, I felt like am I watching the right film? It's just too good.
**Adam:** Well, because the the thing is is that I was, I was watching it with Claire.
**Adam:** And I said 1983 because like at one point I just mentioned, well, that's 1983 for you because that's when it's set.
**Adam:** And it wasn't until sort of she rings the she rings, 911 and I said, oh, the voice, the voice of the emergency operator is Lena Dunham.
**Adam:** And she was like, well, hang on, so how old was Lena Dunham when she did this?
**Adam:** I was like, it's 2000, sorry, I realized, oh no, that's how good a job.
**Adam:** Because it's not, it's not flashy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not sort of like, you know, it's not Rubik's Cubes and you know, literally everything is 1983.
**Adam:** It just feels like it was made at that time.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Everyone's everyone's kind of dressed for want of expression, normally.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there's but there's there's nothing, you know, no one's in a eye shot JR T-shirt or like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's not all like I was going to say yeah and neon legwarmers and all that stuff that like as soon as you, oh if it's the 80s someone's got to be roller skating like they didn't do any of that cliche stuff, they just gave it a genuine film that.
**Chris:** It made it so real just yeah.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Chris:** horribly real.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, grim grimly real.
**Adam:** That's the thing.
**Adam:** That we could have done with here at the minute it was just that sort of it just feels like.
**Adam:** Because I think, and also, I I know it sounds like an odd thing to say, but I think that Jocelyn Donahue who plays Samantha.
**Adam:** Looks very 70s and 80s and I know it's obviously the costume, the hair and everything else like that is done, but she just looks like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** She looks like someone who knows Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween or in a Friday the 13th or something like that.
**Adam:** You know, she just.
**Adam:** She just looks the part really a lot.
**Adam:** You know, and I think it's, yeah.
**Adam:** They've they've done considering it's low budget as well, they've done you know.
**Adam:** I mean, in fairness, you sort of stick you stick to interiors, you stick to sort of a remote house and stuff like that, so you don't have to, you know, it's not like, oh, well, we're going to go to Time Square and it's got to look like it did in 1983.
**Adam:** But still, yeah, they do, you know, it's a tremendous job that they've done.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean it absolutely doesn't need anything like that.
**Chris:** It's it's all about just how it makes you feel.
**Chris:** When she's just even the phone calls you know, early on you're like this is just so creepy it's too like yeah the whole idea creates it's so well done.
**Lee:** Yeah, the whole idea creates is so well done.
**Lee:** And that's one of the things I did want to mention is so obviously it's Ty West, it's the second Ty West film we've covered.
**Lee:** and.
**Chris:** What was the first?
**Lee:** The Innkeepers.
**Chris:** -huh.
**Adam:** Which actually comes after this because they stayed at, what is it, the Yankee, yeah, that's it, The Yankee Pedler Inn, they stayed there while they were making House of the Devil and heard all the ghost stories that then might led into making The Innkeepers.
**Chris:** That's pretty cool.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But so so Ty West wrote, directed and edited.
**Lee:** And editing I think is something that we don't generally discuss a lot on this show because when it's done well, you don't kind of notice it.
**Lee:** Except when it's done exceptional if it's done badly you notice and if it's done exceptionally well you notice.
**Lee:** And I thought the editing in this was perfect it so it really amps it up.
**Lee:** It's just something about the way he's edited it everything just nothing's on too long that it becomes annoying, but everything's there long enough to just give you that unease and that quiet in the back.
**Chris:** And when he ramps it up to the action.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Especially your for.
**Adam:** Last what, 20 minutes, 15 minutes, I think even.
**Chris:** I was also the what was it, the the the inspiration for Trump's ice force.
**Chris:** When when he suddenly hits, I'm like, oh, didn't quite expect that.
**Chris:** Right then.
**Adam:** Oh, yes, that that was that was a proper.
**Adam:** Although although weirdly enough because the the her friend, that's Greta Gerwig.
**Adam:** Who obviously is now fucking hugely famous because she wrote and directed the Barbie movie and you know, and obviously an actress as well like a noted actress as well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But this was like one of her earlier roles.
**Adam:** But she is the voice of sense.
**Adam:** You know, which is which actually is kind of it's half helpful and half not.
**Adam:** Because it's like you still want to shake her and say, look, this is clearly a fucking terrible, terrible idea.
**Adam:** Much as she does.
**Adam:** But she sort of goes along with it, but at least they're addressing it rather than just, why did you do that?
**Adam:** That feels bloody mental.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When, you know, it's clearly a fucking weird set up.
**Adam:** Although to be fair, she's the one who knocks him up to $400.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because because at that point Claire was like, no, that's when I'm out.
**Adam:** As soon as he goes $200.
**Adam:** $300.
**Adam:** And Claire was like, no, that's when I'm out.
**Adam:** And admittedly that was when I was.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** That's when I'm staying because because it's, you know, it's yes, it's easy money, but I, you know, the money's the the key factor there.
**Adam:** But then she goes up to 400.
**Adam:** Now, I'd have admittedly gone 500 and I'll let you bolt.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, that's just me on a personal level. So, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so so how did you find it, Chris, watching it for the apart from obviously as you say being thinking you were watching the room the wrong film because it is too 80 to be made in 2009?
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's it's just one of those where you you think, all right, yeah, they've they have made it to be of the time, but actually they're almost making it too well.
**Chris:** That like could be like you said it didn't go over the top at any point.
**Chris:** It was like, no, this just feels like a very real film so yeah, you know, yeah, nice, happy Sunday, relaxing situation going on.
**Chris:** Just what I needed.
**Chris:** But no, it was like, yeah, it was done so well, it just draws you in and I know what you mean though, like you said it's like a slow burn.
**Chris:** It is, I could kind of think, would I rush back to watch it, probably not necessarily, but absolutely so effective at what it needed to do.
**Lee:** I find that I think with all slow burn movies, I I I watch a slow burn movie like this and I thoroughly enjoy it.
**Chris:** Oh my god, yeah.
**Lee:** I won't go back to it in six months time the way I will with like a Wolf cop or something punching it.
**Lee:** Not because I don't appreciate it, just because you need to sit down and give it the time it needs.
**Chris:** You feel yeah, you feel like you've got to appreciate it for.
**Adam:** You have to let it settle in a weird way.
**Adam:** Because I think that's the thing is this is one of those films where it's like it it worms its way into you.
**Adam:** And actually like when when we said we were going to cover it, I was like, right, I know I've got it on DVD.
**Adam:** Which obviously from when I first, you know, from whenever I first saw it.
**Adam:** And then I was like, oh, well, I've I've definitely I know I've got it on DVD.
**Adam:** Found the DVD, hadn't actually opened the DVD.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And it came from HMV's blue cross sale when they thought they were going into administration.
**Adam:** So we are talking, you know, over about 15 years ago.
**Adam:** And, you know, I'd obviously bought it at that point and still, but it was like, there was no way it wasn't, you know, that that was never a poor decision.
**Adam:** Because it was always like, no, I will watch this again.
**Adam:** But again, it is that you these sort of slow burn things, some of some some of them you have to let them sort of almost become a a memory before you can go back to it.
**Chris:** Yeah, I think you get more out of it.
**Adam:** Yeah, if you if you go if you watch this in six months, you'll be sitting there tapping your fingers going, no, hang on, when's the bit when when does her friend get her face shot off?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or.
**Adam:** When does, you know, when does she.
**Chris:** It's gone to her, that's been spoiled.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When does, I mean, because that's the thing as well.
**Adam:** Is as someone from the point of view of say, Tom Noonan and Mary Warranov are not evil satists, but actually just ask someone to come and look after their elderly mom.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, first thing you do, stick on your headphones, so you can't hear the poor old dear if she's like calling out and she's got around the house, dance on the fucking furniture with your shoes on.
**Lee:** Calling out going, crawling out.
**Lee:** Knock over precious vases.
**Lee:** This is what.
**Lee:** I was like you've just phoned the pizza, they've said they're going to be 30 minutes, you dithered around for 15 minutes and now you've got your headphones on and you're playing Paul, like there's no way you're going to hear that doorbell you tart.
**Adam:** It's it's just bizarre it's just a very because at that point I'd just be I'd be fuming.
**Adam:** You come home and it's like there's footprints on the bloody furniture, you've been playing pull, you've been you've you've been in the the fur coat room.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and everything, it was, and actually it it has to be said, I mean, we obviously we were inspired to watch this because Tom Noonan passed away.
**Adam:** Oh sorry, that was really great.
**Adam:** last week, actually, and here's an interesting little thing in that we sometimes we were obviously watching it, me and Claire were saying about, oh, you know, because take your telescope for Christmas and we were like, oh, well, you know, a lunar eclipse and everything, there was a lunar eclipse on Tuesday.
**Lee:** No, was there?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Apparently, there was a lunar eclipse, full lunar eclipse.
**Adam:** And you're like, we have once again hit the sort of just about the right point of, you know.
**Chris:** Was it cloudy though?
**Adam:** It I think it was.
**Adam:** But, but like, yeah, just Tom Noonan is wonderfully creepy.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, that is the right role for him.
**Adam:** In how because obviously he is such a physically imposing man.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, the very first scene where you see him it's like, yeah, it almost feels like in police, you know, where they had the guy who.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's out of frame because he's just so tall.
**Adam:** And, but also because of he is so sort of gentle and softly spoken, but it feels like it's an effort of putting someone at their ease.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then Mary Warnov comes out and she's just mad and sort of like slightly overfamiliar and everything.
**Adam:** And it's sort of I just think they, you know.
**Chris:** That's interesting as well, the difference between a man and a woman being creepy.
**Chris:** Because like if he was at all like her, then it should have been straight out of there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But yeah, he's almost like he's just plausible.
**Chris:** He's, you know, it took 400 pounds to be convinced, but you know.
**Chris:** It's like it's it's on.
**Adam:** At that point, you've you've you've.
**Adam:** I mean, let's say again, going back to the scenario that it's not devil worshipers, but you you have found you found a couple and their distressed elderly relative that you're looking after and you've decided, no, I'll let's let's push it to 400.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** He's already dug out 300.
**Adam:** I'd be quite happy with that.
**Chris:** I demand a ritual for 400.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** They better be a goat at the end or I'm not interested.
**Adam:** That's true.
**Lee:** I've got to say, so this is one of those films as I say, I've roved about how much I love it.
**Lee:** But actually when I tried to think back, I could only remember two scenes and they were two scenes that were very fast.
**Lee:** So obviously it's the gunshot in the graveyard.
**Lee:** Which.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Is one of my all time favorite moments of a movie. It's it's the pacing of it, it happens so quick, I remember the first time literally jumping in my seat because it's the speed with which he just goes from being very friendly, so that gun comes out and her face is gone.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it looks beautiful. I know it's a horrible thing to say but watching someone get their face shot off.
**Lee:** But it is it looks it's so brilliantly crafted.
**Adam:** It's incredible, yeah.
**Adam:** And the thing was that yeah, when I I was saying to Claire, first time I watched, first time we watched it, first time I watched it, jumped out your skin at that point.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And Claire just went, well, that's male privilege.
**Adam:** Because she was like, no, immediately she was already terrified.
**Chris:** She was already terrified.
**Adam:** And actually I think the more friendly he tried to be.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** The more suspicious she became.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Well, because I love and actually again, I think the friend again, like Greta Gerwig's character has her head screwed on because it's like, oh, it's terribly cold out here.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You're not getting in the fucking car, I don't care, give me a light mate, you're still a strange bloke in the dark, what the fuck are you doing?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's great, so I remembered that and I also remembered the other scene that I I absolutely love, which is the first the next scene where you know something is definitely wrong, where she hears the noise coming from the room and she's talking through the door and you think the old woman is on the other side and then you just get a very quick cut of the family murdered inside and the child nailed down on that pentagram and it's just there long enough for you to take it all in and then it's gone again.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like it's just it's fantastically done.
**Lee:** It's oh.
**Lee:** And again and then it goes back to being subtle and nice and you kind of always forget about it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, because at that point Claire said, well, you wouldn't be able to smell that.
**Adam:** And I said.
**Adam:** It's 1983, everyone smokes, no one's got everything just smell like everything will smell like old open, you know, no one's no one's got a a sense a sense of smell in their head.
**Adam:** And everything will just smell like a humidor, it's like that.
**Adam:** But I mean, I think the, because.
**Adam:** Because actually weirdly enough since we because obviously we did, we did The Innkeepers back in episode 92.
**Adam:** and.
**Chris:** Is that like 20 years ago now?
**Adam:** It feels like it.
**Adam:** But, well, it was it was 2020.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** 2020.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Six years ago. But since then, Ty West has obviously done the trilogy of, X, Pearl and Maxine, which have obviously just really sort of rocketed his profile.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** So how the devil was was big.
**Adam:** And, The Innkeepers as well, you know, they're all.
**Adam:** But but yeah, X, Pearl and Maxine are sort of like the the trilogy that he's done over the last few years that are the things that have really sort of propelled him, you know, his name out there and and have really sort of put him into more public acclaim, more people have seen those than they've seen House of the Devil.
**Adam:** I was interested though, have you ever seen a film called The Roost, Lee, which is his first one?
**Lee:** I have got it.
**Lee:** I've got a feeling I bought it and did watch it, but I don't remember anything about it.
**Lee:** I've still got it on DVD, I think it's on a DVD up in the loft.
**Lee:** Yeah, I've, I don't remember anything about it.
**Lee:** Which doesn't mean it's bad.
**Lee:** It just means.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just because Tom Noonan's in it as a horror host.
**Adam:** And it starts off with him like it's you're watching like a cable horror host.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, I could imagine doing that.
**Adam:** And then it goes into the actual film and then at the end of it he sort of wraps it up.
**Adam:** And it's like, you know.
**Adam:** Like Elvira or Dr. Demento or whatever like that, so yeah, and I was just I was just intrigued by that because I I've not seen that.
**Adam:** Obviously, and the other recommend from for me is I really fucking love The Sacrament.
**Adam:** which is his, sort of version of Jonestown.
**Adam:** Which is done really really well.
**Adam:** Again, it's that sort of thing of because that's done as if it's Vice reporters going to Jonestown.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's all sort of like, you know, it's, not not quite found footage, but it's that sort of thing that it's presented as it's the the footage that they've shot while they're there.
**Adam:** And actually that's the thing with this is because this this looks.
**Adam:** And again, it's not flashy, it's not like even though I enjoyed them like stuff like Grindhouse and things like that where it's like.
**Adam:** Oh, we'll put a load of lines on it and we'll make it do like screen burn at that point, or we'll put the cigarette burns.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's none of that, but it is just like that those opening titles with the yellow font doing freeze frames is so much more evocative of 1983 because that's just how a film, you know, that's how films looked.
**Adam:** And like you were saying, the editing of it and everything and even the fact that he's doing like he's doing camera zooms and things that are much more of that period.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's, yeah.
**Lee:** His attention to detail is phenomenal.
**Lee:** And it it really does come through in the film as you say.
**Lee:** Like if you showed somebody this and said it came out in the 80s, I don't think anyone would go, this is clearly a modern film that's been made in the same way you would with Grindhouse you would see it for what it is.
**Lee:** But yeah, that this is is not that at all.
**Lee:** It's just yeah, it it's so so well crafted.
**Lee:** Everything about it and it's even the story feels like.
**Lee:** You know, The Sentinel or Rosemary's Baby, it's it's yeah.
**Lee:** It's just a brilliant piece of yeah, retro filmmaking that works on so many levels.
**Lee:** The score as well, the score sounds like an 80s.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, because that that opening music is fucking fantastic.
**Adam:** Because it's because Jeff Grace does the score, but that is by the opening bit is by a guy called Mike Mike Armstrong.
**Adam:** And I bought it's it changed over when it came out on vinyl, but I bought the original CD of House of the Devil and it's got the Jeff Grace score on there, but I was so disappointed that the Mike Armstrong piece wasn't on there.
**Adam:** Because it was like, no, that's the defining thing for me because it just went with those titles and it's just perfectly of its time, you know, that sort of.
**Adam:** Slightly slightly new wave chuggy with the the sort of the keyboards in there and stuff like that, it was just a really great. And actually, the other the other thing as well is that the sound designer on it is Graham Resnick.
**Adam:** who, who is also the voice of the DJ on the radio in this.
**Adam:** but in the week I was listening to he released an album called The Interconsciousness Catalog, which has got some of the soundscapes he did on this because he does like soundscapes and composing and stuff and he's done like he he's worked with Ty West loads because he did The Innkeepers and Sacrament and X and The Roost and stuff like that.
**Adam:** but also, he worked on, do you remember I Sold The Dead?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Film with Larry Fessenden, and Ron Perlman film.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I love that film, it's crap as assholes but it's great.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I was like, oh shit, when I was I was like, yeah, I've got I've got to watch that again as well, because that was just, yeah, that was just a a great film.
**Adam:** But this is Glass Eye films.
**Adam:** So this is Larry Fessenden's like one of the producers on this.
**Adam:** And again, I don't think we've covered a lot to do with Larry Fessenden apart from he's in Session 9.
**Adam:** But obviously, you know, his contribution to horror goes far beyond just being an actor.
**Adam:** You know, as a producer and writer and director and everything else like that, you know.
**Adam:** But yeah, I yeah, that just suddenly came out, I saw the dead and I was like, oh, bloody, I haven't seen that.
**Adam:** In so, so long.
**Adam:** but also Graham Resnick's actually done directing as well.
**Adam:** He did a film called I Can See You, but apparently he's done a series called Dead Wax, which is like a sort of Noir about record dealers.
**Adam:** like sort of like a like like rare records, like sort of second-hand record dealing or something like that, but it's like a bit weird.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which could be quite good.
**Adam:** So I'll have to,
**Adam:** And obviously, we saw Tom Noonan in The Monster Squad and yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was, yeah.
**Adam:** And for me, he's always Francis Dollarhide in Manhunter, which I still cannot that is from the 80s and is so from the 80s.
**Adam:** Because that is the most neon, Sythy like pastel colored thing that you'll ever see and is the first Hannibal Lector film.
**Adam:** Back when Brian Cox is playing Hannibal Lector and until Mads Mikkelsen came along, was my favorite Hannibal Lector.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But also like Mary Waronov, who like was with she started off with, who was like Mrs. Olman.
**Adam:** She's like, she was started off with Andy Warho's factory and she danced with the Velvet Underground as part of the exploding plastic and inevitable.
**Adam:** And she's in loads of.
**Adam:** Warhall films and stuff like that, but also, she, there's a film called which I really recommend.
**Adam:** I think you definitely I think you and Jennifer should watch it, Lee, a film called Eating Raul.
**Adam:** and it's her and Paul Bartel and it's a very it feels very sort of a bit John Waltersy.
**Adam:** Yeah, but basically, they she worked with Paul Bartel low, has worked with Paul Bartel loads.
**Adam:** and they often play like married couples and stuff.
**Adam:** But they are basically this married couple who live in an apartment block next to a group of swingers and they find it just so offensive that they end up killing killing off all like pretending that they're swingers as well.
**Adam:** So they can get people to their.
**Adam:** And they then just kill them off and get a guy to dispose of the bodies and so they can get money for running their, their little restaurant.
**Adam:** And, yeah, it's a genuine.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough.
**Adam:** Because Mary Waronov auditioned for the role of Captain Janeway in Star Trek Voyager.
**Adam:** And Mr. Chakote from Star Trek Voyager is in eating Raul, he is Raul.
**Adam:** but yeah, but eating Raul is just, yeah, it's it's really, really fucking funny.
**Adam:** And the best bit.
**Adam:** Just out of nowhere, both Paul Bartel and Mary Waranov play the same characters briefly in Chopping Mall.
**Lee:** Well, yeah, I mean that's very random.
**Adam:** Which is just fucking mad because just out of the middle of it all, you've got chopping mall, but there's the bit where they're demoing the security robot right near the start and they're just sitting the audience and it's like, oh, that's very good, isn't it?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like, yeah, we could use one of those in the shop.
**Adam:** And that's literally it, but they're there and it's like, but they met doing, Death Race 2000.
**Adam:** Because Paul Bartel directed it.
**Adam:** And she's Calamity Jane in Death Race 2000.
**Adam:** The original Death Race 2000, well, actually the only Death Race 2000.
**Adam:** Let's not dignify these other pricks with this nonsense, you know.
**Adam:** But yeah, so I mean, so she's sort of like both her and Tom Noonan I think are really good gets and they are just excellently excellently creepy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually AJ Bowen's pretty good as well.
**Adam:** It's good as well as their, son as it turns out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean he's brilliant in it.
**Lee:** Again, it's just yeah, he he just plays.
**Lee:** And again, it's the it's the way he's introduced, so you see what he's done, yeah, you don't know what his affiliation is, you assume he's part of the cult and then you realize it isn't a cult, it's just a family who are doing it.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** It's just yeah, a great twist.
**Adam:** And actually I think that that bit where she finds where she finds the photographs of the family that is so desperately creepy and that's a proper sort of.
**Chris:** It's like, how do they keep making it get more creepy?
**Adam:** Yeah, especially because there's I'm not sure is is that bit after the bodies?
**Lee:** Before, I can't find the photo.
**Lee:** Yeah, so then when you see the bodies 10 minutes later, you know who they are, you know it's the family who's right.
**Adam:** You know it's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's still, yeah, it's just so sort of.
**Adam:** Also it has to be said, and this is no disrespect to them because as you know, we are very much a league worshipping podcast.
**Adam:** But it's also The Harrowing from Inside Number 9, isn't it?
**Lee:** That's exactly what I said to when we were discussing.
**Lee:** It, I said to Jennifer, you remember.
**Lee:** The House of the Devil and she went, no, and I said, it's it's the last episode of season one of Inside Number 9.
**Lee:** And she was like, no, I don't I don't remember.
**Lee:** And she watched the whole film and said she didn't remember any of it, but I remember watching it with her only because I remember the gunshot and her going, wow.
**Lee:** As well.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's a proper proper moment that.
**Adam:** But I,
**Adam:** But also I because I literally, I had to check it, but yeah, the Inside Number 9 episode is 2014.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think that they've done if if they have seen it, they've just done the wise thing of what's the point in ripping off.
**Adam:** The hugest film ever rather than let's be inspired by.
**Adam:** Because let's face it, The Harrowing is funny.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** This this this is low on last.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, in in that sense, you know.
**Adam:** I think it's sort of,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I certainly it's like, well, it's House of the Devil with jokes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Lee:** And in half an hour.
**Lee:** Which again.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten how short this film is as well.
**Lee:** Because it is.
**Adam:** It's only an hour and a half, yeah.
**Lee:** Well.
**Lee:** Well.
**Lee:** Not even, I think it's just under, is it? Just over, yeah, but it's around that hour and a half mark, yeah, 135.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, and it it just to get a slow burn film in an hour and a half, it yeah, it just it's such a brilliantly and it is brilliantly paced.
**Lee:** Like you say, it's that really it makes you uncomfortable for the entire duration.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And it it's one where the the final 15 minute payoff is nuts.
**Lee:** And it's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And even the very final scene still adds another extra like.
**Chris:** If if you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And that enough now.
**Lee:** Final whisper of the knife.
**Chris:** It's subtle enough and yet powerful enough.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, like you say, in terms of the pacing because obviously you've got like the sort of you've you've got the ordinary girl build up.
**Adam:** You've got the the phone calls that are a bit creepy.
**Adam:** Everything it goes to the house.
**Adam:** You're already uneasy.
**Adam:** You get that blast, literal blast of violence.
**Adam:** And then nothing again, you know, it's like back to her, she doesn't know what's going on.
**Adam:** Although it also did evoke that horrible time when everyone first got a mobile phone and had those fucking.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Answerphone messages, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** And, yeah, but and but it's like you almost have left that behind.
**Adam:** Because of the rest of the buildup.
**Adam:** But then and then, yeah.
**Adam:** Then you suddenly just.
**Adam:** For that last 15 minutes.
**Adam:** And I think that's what it is, is that that sort of like because you're you're literally you're literally post it right now, Chris, and it's sort of like that final sort of like that final sequence is like.
**Adam:** Compared to the rest of it is like just phenomenally sort of brutal and.
**Lee:** Quick.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It is, it's a bleak ending to the film.
**Lee:** Which, yeah, which which is fitting.
**Lee:** I mean, it's.
**Adam:** And absolutely appropriate for a 1983, yeah, horror film certainly.
**Adam:** You know, there was never going to be a fucking happy ending.
**Adam:** Should never be.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** But yeah, I say.
**Lee:** You know, and looking at it, it looks so much like, Black Christmas.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Like the house.
**Lee:** It's got that exact.
**Lee:** And as you say.
**Lee:** You could have taken, is it Jacqueline the main actor?
**Lee:** You could have taken her and.
**Lee:** And put it put her in Black Christmas or in Sorority Row, like and she would just fit, she's just got that look.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** Yeah, Jocelyn Donahue.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Apparently she's also in Doctor Sleep.
**Adam:** I know you've seen it, Lee.
**Adam:** But I've, I've not.
**Lee:** I have.
**Lee:** I I can't remember a lot about it, if I'm being perfectly honest.
**Adam:** Oh, fair enough.
**Adam:** But yeah, she I mean, she's she's she's done a lot of.
**Adam:** She's done a lot of horror actually.
**Adam:** I trapped the devil, off season, The Burrowers, Insidious 2.
**Adam:** Where apparently she's young Lorraine Warren.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, but we can't hold that against her.
**Adam:** Dead Awake, Fast and Furious 7, that's horror on a different scale.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I love them films.
**Adam:** And he's just not that into you, apparently.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is, a hell of a bleak thing to be told.
**Adam:** In your own notes.
**Adam:** So because I thought I was I thought I was well in there.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** So, you know, as we said, it is one of those it doesn't come off the shelf very often, but when it does.
**Lee:** It yeah.
**Lee:** It's it's fantastic.
**Lee:** It's such a good film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Great movie.
**Lee:** I'd love to go and see this on a big screen at some point.
**Lee:** I'd love to see it with people on a big screen who haven't seen it before.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Adam:** Absolutely, this is again.
**Adam:** It's one of those.
**Adam:** Unfortunately, I mean if you've got this far and you haven't seen it, we've spoil it quite extensively.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I don't think we've probably we've probably not done it justice in terms of its.
**Adam:** Own sort of burn.
**Adam:** Oh, but you do know.
**Adam:** Most of the plot points.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Apologies for that.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think.
**Lee:** We didn't spoil.
**Lee:** We didn't spoil the actual ending though, so you know.
**Chris:** The very last bit, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's true.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, we said it got chaotic in the last 15 minutes.
**Lee:** But we didn't actually say what happened.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So there you go.
**Adam:** We told you.
**Lee:** So if you so if you're listening and you haven't already seen it.
**Lee:** Definitely still do.
**Lee:** This film is brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** Couldn't rate it highly enough.
**Lee:** so on that note.
**Adam:** All right, P Tom Noonan.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I know.
**Lee:** He's.
**Lee:** This film is perfect for him as well because as you say, he plays that, he is a big imposing character, but as you say because he's got that gentleness about him.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** This is this is where he belongs in these roles where he's being nice, but it's still coming across as somehow scary.
**Chris:** He's he's both evil and harmless in equal measures.
**Adam:** There's a sort of it's a weird power that comes out of him.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Amazing actor.
**Lee:** yes, so, we will be back in a fortnight's time, we will be covering the, HP Lovecraft Society's release of the Call of Cthulhu, from.
**Lee:** a year in which we saw it.
**Lee:** 2005.
**Chris:** 2005, yeah.
**Adam:** When was it?
**Adam:** 2005?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, cool.
**Lee:** so it's a short film.
**Lee:** I think it's about 40 minutes if I remember correctly, silent film.
**Lee:** made very much in the old again, given that old silent film look.
**Lee:** But with a new edge to it.
**Lee:** So it doesn't.
**Lee:** It's done in that style, but it isn't made to look like an old like an old silent film.
**Adam:** Yeah, it was I mean, basically the premise was they wanted to make the film as if it had been made at the time that the story came out.
**Adam:** So they wanted to give it that 1930s.
**Chris:** That's cool.
**Adam:** Look, so you know, with we're sort of looking silent film, King Kong style.
**Adam:** Stop animation.
**Adam:** You know, that kind of that kind of treatment for it.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah, I've watched it in a very long time.
**Adam:** So I'm looking forward to that.
**Lee:** I have.
**Lee:** I know I know Adam and I bought it when it very first came out.
**Lee:** Literally, I think the week it came out, Adam bought it, told me about it and I immediately all, I can't remember if I immediately ordered it or Adam bought it for me.
**Lee:** But,
**Adam:** I think I might have got it for you.
**Adam:** I can't remember now.
**Adam:** Because I because it was because again, it was one of those ones where you just heard about it.
**Adam:** It was like, I've got to go and get this because this will this will yeah.
**Adam:** This won't see the light of day beyond three weeks.
**Lee:** And it.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** And it's absolutely brilliant and yeah.
**Lee:** It it's really good fun.
**Lee:** It's on Amazon Prime.
**Lee:** We've just had a quick look.
**Lee:** so if you're subscribed to Amazon Prime.
**Lee:** You can watch it on there.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** So go and watch that and we'll return in a Fortnite's time to, to talk about that and all things HP Lovecraft and Call of Cthulhu.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** No night.

---

## Ep 242 Wolfcop

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-242-wolfcop/
Air date: 1 March 2026
Duration: 00:31:28
Film: WolfCop · Year: 2014 · Director: Lowell Dean

### Description

It’s time to dig out the silver and dial 911 as we tackle 2014’s “WolfCop”. A film which is potentially unique for featuring a dick-first werewolf transformation; proves that drinking on the job isn’t necessarily an issue in certain circumstances; and teaches us that 200 years of small town admin really makes you cranky. The title says it all, it’s the concept, the pitch and the advertising. “WolfCop” begins slowly, but once the lycanthropy kicks in, the film becomes a pure comic-book dream - the silliness combined with genuinely visceral practical effects make this a treat for horror lovers looking for a good party film. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Werewolf film genre characteristics and production costs: Oh, yeah, you get you get a it's a that is a proper transformation sequence if you're quote unquote doing a straight werewolf movie. Yeah. Which now I come to think of it, I don't think exists. Yeah. Because all the like American Werewolf, which is the classic, you know, the the Uber Werewolf movie. is a comedy. And then you got stuff like Dog Soldiers, which is a comedy. You know, it seems to be a very good. Area, Well, I don't think there's a gap in the market, I think we've just spotted that that seems to be a very good area for this sort of thing seems to be if you're doing, because we've always said about that there seems to be a lot of zombie ones. But I think that's more a budgetary thing than anything else. Much in the same way reason there's loads of straight zombie movies is because essentially if you've got enough green makeup, you can make a zombie movie. Yeah. And but with this. You know. You have you have to have a bit more. Yeah, it's not just you're not just going to like, you know, buy a buy a bear suit and be able to do a werewolf movie.
- Wolf Cop's practical effects and performance: So I think it's much better when you've got and I enjoyed. the the fact that it's practical. Because I mean, obviously, like like I say, I mean and again, spoilers for anyone listening, as it turns out that the town is basically run, well, the town is run by shapeshifting reptilians. Um, and they've sort of like just shift and everything else like that, felt like anything you'd see on the Sci-Fi channel from. … So and they know the money shot is the werewolf. You want the werewolf transformation to be fantastic. Yeah. But equally, those films that are on the Sci-Fi channel were presented as genuine movies, so it's not like, you know, there's no sort of shame in that, as it were. But yeah, they they knew to go with that's the thing where they wanted to do a practical effect. And obviously, uh the guy who's playing Lou plays Wolf cop as well and, yeah, I think that it's good that you can get some personality out of the.
- Film funding and competition origins (Hobo with a Shotgun comparison): But I mean, I know that's, I mean, certainly Hobo with a Shotgun, that's how that came about. Yeah. Was that one a trailer. competition to like make a trailer and then we'll do the film. Yeah. So and I can't remember. I mean, that's probably slightly that's slightly before this. But I mean, watching the end credits, there was a lot of thank yous in there, so I kind of assume there was some crowdfunding going on for it as well, but and I seem to recall at the time that Wolf cop was being funded in that way or like it was one of those things that sort of seem to be.
- Actor background: English actor in Canadian/US productions: Um, because he was he was a murderer in Hannibal. And I've seen him in a couple of other things. But apparently he's English. Because I had to because I had to look at I mean, I think he I think he's Canada based. But yeah. Actually then I have to explain why he's in Hannibal probably as well. But. You know, and there's lots of like US productions and stuff like that. But I was because at first I was like, I bloody know him from something and then I IMDb and it was like, oh, no, he's English. Okay. So and then and then in my head, I'm like, I must have seen him in a British production. It was like. No, no, no, literally everything on this list is all, you know, it's all American stuff and things like that. So. Cuz he's in he's in uh History of Violence as well.
- Sequel title and naming convention: I think Claire was disappointed when I because I said, oh, there is another Wolf cop, and she was like, oh, Wolf cop too. And I was like, no, the title is another Wolf cop. And she's like, oh, so is it a different Wolf cop? And it's like, no, no, no, it's just it's just that it's another film called Wolf cop.
- Tom Noonan's role in Monster Squad: Yeah, cuz I've cuz I've put I've put up a I've put up a tribute on Instagram, there were quite a number of people who were like, oh, I never realized he was Frankenstein in Monster Squad. They knew him in other things.
- Ti West's filmography (House of the Devil and The Innkeepers): And it's Ti West, isn't it? And because obviously we did um the innkeeper in keepers.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here this evening to discuss 2014's, it's funny, this still feels like it came out about five years ago, but 2014's Wolf Cop.
**Adam:** What are you talking about? 2014 was two years ago.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What are you talking about, mate?
**Lee:** yes, so as previously discussed, I was this is another one of those films. I was desperate for it to come out, I couldn't wait for it.
**Lee:** and yeah.
**Lee:** I I think I watched it two or three times when it first came out and didn't watch it again, not because it wasn't I think I watched it again when the second film came out.
**Lee:** I watched them back to back, but other than that, I haven't seen it again since. So I love it, but yeah, I just yeah, I just slipped from my mind to be honest.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, as it's Adam's first time of watching it.
**Adam:** Okay. Well, first so started off and I was a bit sort of, you know, just sort of going with it.
**Adam:** And you know, I I mean, yeah.
**Adam:** thoroughly fucking entertaining film.
**Adam:** but I think there was I think it was just I I sort of basically until we got to Werewolf.
**Adam:** answering the phone.
**Adam:** That was the that was my That's when it came into its own.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That was my tipping point because at that point it was.
**Adam:** This is a fucking comic I would read.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it felt a bit like there's there's stuff out there like.
**Chris:** It was its transformation really, wasn't it?
**Adam:** Yes, it was.
**Adam:** It was the transformation.
**Adam:** I mean, also, 100%, I am pretty certain that this is the first dick first were- right, right.
**Chris:** You just taken.
**Chris:** You've taken my best point which I'm sure was not was not that difficult for anyone to come up with, but yeah, it was absolutely my favorite werewolf cop film with werewolf transformation.
**Adam:** Of that huge genre that is Well, we're very rarely prepared to.
**Chris:** Well, so so there's a problem though, right?
**Chris:** I was thinking we've actually been a bit spoiled because we've seen, and they came out after, the Wolf of Snow Hollow and the Snarling.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Which are also very good Werewolf cop films.
**Lee:** Yes, true. You're right, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And who would have thought?
**Adam:** Although this is the only one that has genuinely managed to combine the two. I mean, spoilers. Obviously, oh, by the way, spoilers and swearing, so cox and werewolf Willy's.
**Adam:** There you go.
**Adam:** So that's sorry, anyone who hadn't seen the film.
**Adam:** and is now just like, well, there's no point in me seeing that or alternately.
**Chris:** Oh, we haven't we haven't told him about the later, the later bit.
**Chris:** Yeah, there was a.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think that that may have tipped it, you know, there are certain people where it's like, okay, it's got a cop first.
**Adam:** werewolf transformation sequence, I'm in.
**Adam:** But distinctly, yeah, it was I think there was it was the moment where Willie wasn't filming, which felt so perfectly accurate for your fuck up mate.
**Adam:** You know what I mean? your enabling friend who believes all conspiracy theories. Yeah, that's the first thing that happens is, oh, fuck, I haven't pressed record.
**Adam:** So that that got me and then from then on it really sort of snowballed.
**Adam:** You know, it built his own Wolf cop feel.
**Chris:** This is why we've never had decent footage of conspiracy theories and aliens and monsters because they always forget to press record at their most important point.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Chris:** They're so excited.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, no, I mean.
**Adam:** genu genuinely, yeah, just an entertaining dark ride.
**Adam:** and yeah, I mean, I'm just glad that it's I watch I because.
**Adam:** I I've this is my first time seeing it and it was on shutter.
**Adam:** I think they're they're both on shutter, actually another Wolf cop.
**Adam:** and I would definitely, I definitely feel I'm going to watch another Wolf cop, so, you know, that's, you know.
**Adam:** That that if anything suggests, you know, should sort of say that, yeah, how how the movie went.
**Adam:** So like I say, in those sort of first initial sort of things, I was like, you know, just rambling along.
**Adam:** Okay, I'm essentially anything like this.
**Adam:** You are waiting for, let's get some werewolves on the screen.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then, but yeah, once once that sort of what once it sort of breached that point and.
**Adam:** absolutely embraced its ludicrousness.
**Chris:** They know what they're going for.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the and the fact that it's not just werewolves, it piles on.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's like, yeah, and.
**Adam:** spirals out from there.
**Adam:** So anyway, so yeah.
**Adam:** So on on initial wash initial watch, I, yeah, I did I I enjoyed the mental ride that it was.
**Adam:** And like I say, this is the sort of thing I read comics for.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's bat shit and it's it's unapologetically bat shit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it it's excellent.
**Lee:** I love and again, decent runtime, hour and 20, just.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely perfect that was as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Chris, what were your highlights?
**Chris:** I mean, Adam has covered the majority of it.
**Chris:** I I might be jumping right to the end by saying as I was about three quarters of the way through, I was thinking, I wonder what sort of parts or style they've decided to take from this to make into the sequel.
**Chris:** And I'm assuming it maybe is more of the full on crazy comedy.
**Chris:** But.
**Lee:** It is. So the second one is more comedic, but it's also they go again, they keep that gore, if I remember correctly, because again, another Wolf cop, I think I've only seen once and as I say, I saw it, I ordered, I pre-ordered it, if I remember correctly, and I watched the first one when it arrived and then watched the second one immediately after.
**Lee:** Yeah, and they keep the level of gore.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** at least where it is.
**Lee:** Which is.
**Chris:** I mean that.
**Chris:** The transformation is a bit it was quite unusual, wasn't it in compared to some of the other transformations you see because he comes from the inside.
**Lee:** Yeah, so the werewolf comes out of the man and leaves his skin behind.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then.
**Lee:** Which yeah, I again is a novel thing, but it did make for like an excellent transformation sequence, all the skin splitting open and.
**Chris:** They definitely went for that.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, you get you get a it's a that is a proper transformation sequence if you're quote unquote doing a straight werewolf movie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which now I come to think of it, I don't think exists.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because all the like American Werewolf, which is the classic, you know, the the Uber Werewolf movie.
**Adam:** is a comedy.
**Adam:** And then you got stuff like Dog Soldiers, which is a comedy.
**Adam:** You know, it seems to be a very good.
**Chris:** Oh, there's a gap in the market here.
**Adam:** Area, Well, I don't think there's a gap in the market, I think we've just spotted that that seems to be a very good area for this sort of thing seems to be if you're doing, because we've always said about that there seems to be a lot of zombie ones.
**Adam:** But I think that's more a budgetary thing than anything else.
**Adam:** Much in the same way reason there's loads of straight zombie movies is because essentially if you've got enough green makeup, you can make a zombie movie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but with this.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** You have you have to have a bit more.
**Chris:** It's quite intricate.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's not just you're not just going to like, you know, buy a buy a bear suit and be able to do a werewolf movie.
**Adam:** So I think it's much better when you've got and I enjoyed.
**Adam:** the the fact that it's practical.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Because I mean, obviously, like like I say, I mean and again, spoilers for anyone listening, as it turns out that the town is basically run, well, the town is run by shapeshifting reptilians.
**Adam:** and they've sort of like just shift and everything else like that, felt like anything you'd see on the Sci-Fi channel from.
**Chris:** Yes, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** So and they know the money shot is the werewolf.
**Adam:** You want the werewolf transformation to be fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But equally, those films that are on the Sci-Fi channel were presented as genuine movies, so it's not like, you know, there's no sort of shame in that, as it were.
**Adam:** But yeah, they they knew to go with that's the thing where they wanted to do a practical effect.
**Adam:** And obviously, the guy who's playing Lou plays Wolf cop as well and, yeah, I think that it's good that you can get some personality out of the.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Although at one point, I was watching it with Claire and she couldn't understand what he said at the end when he was when he's what what are you looking for and it was promotion or whatever.
**Chris:** Promotion, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So if I remember correctly, there's a slight discrepancy between my memory and what it says on IMDB, so I'm not sure which is true. I'm sure when I heard this film was coming out, it was basically it was a competition and they'd made a it was a trailer competition.
**Lee:** You make a trailer and the best one gets a million pounds a million dollars to go and make the full length film.
**Lee:** I'm sure is how I remember it being told.
**Lee:** But on IMDB it says that the film was made and then it won a it won a competition and got given a million pounds to help push it and to get distribution, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I'm not sure which of, I'm not sure whether the podcast I listened to.
**Lee:** it mentioned on, had the information.
**Lee:** wrong or if it's IMDB.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** It could be either way.
**Adam:** But I mean, I know that's, I mean, certainly Hobo with a Shotgun, that's how that came about.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Was that one a trailer.
**Adam:** competition to like make a trailer and then we'll do the film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So and I can't remember.
**Adam:** I mean, that's probably slightly that's slightly before this.
**Adam:** But I mean, watching the end credits, there was a lot of thank yous in there, so I kind of assume there was some crowdfunding going on for it as well, but and I seem to recall at the time that Wolf cop was being funded in that way or like it was one of those things that sort of seem to be.
**Lee:** Yeah, I may have confused it then with
**Lee:** but yeah, and it's and on the IMDB, it does say suspected cost of the film $1 million.
**Lee:** So I was like, oh, maybe it was.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Either way.
**Lee:** I mean, it's it's a great film, I mean, for what that what it cost to make, it looks.
**Lee:** and it's so entertaining.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Adam:** Yeah, it it doesn't it doesn't fall down, it doesn't look cheap.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** You know, it's it doesn't certainly not effects wise, but just in general, you know, there's there's shots in this that just were.
**Adam:** you know, beautiful Canadian landscape anyway, but it's sort of, you know, there's and I like that wintery.
**Adam:** feel to it, you know, that well, I mean, going to be but yeah, I because weirdly enough, I think that was probably in the opening sort of end of it.
**Adam:** That felt more in the sort of, I don't know, that felt more in the true crime sort of stuff that I watch.
**Adam:** So maybe that's where I wasn't getting quite the vibe of the humor of it because at that point it is kind of like one of those things where it's like, oh, he's he's he's a cop who there's takeaway everywhere.
**Adam:** I mean, exaggerated to a fantastic level where it's like.
**Adam:** Oh beer bottles in the fish tank and stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But essentially, you know, it is a thing that we've seen a lot where it's like the the cop who's life is Alkie cop.
**Adam:** who's life has spiraled out of control.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and then but, you know, and but then I think, yeah, as as it went on.
**Adam:** And it sort of there's some.
**Adam:** Is subtle the right word?
**Adam:** Probably not.
**Adam:** But you know, I I mean, I actually I actually picked up on clues and stuff like that where it was like, Jessica runs the bar and it was like, well, so she's in on it then of whatever is going on and stuff.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And you start to build that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** conspiracy and then and then wonderfully they just don't they go beyond that where it's like, no, it's shapeshifting aliens.
**Adam:** actually running this town.
**Adam:** And I do I love that as well where it was the sort of thing about why why are you running.
**Adam:** This is really small fry, guys.
**Adam:** You're shapeshifting aliens and you're just running like a sort of tiny backwater town in the mountains.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the fact that they were still complaining that like, well, you don't know that this this actually takes a lot of administration.
**Adam:** It's a lot of.
**Lee:** Yeah, I say, I really like this.
**Lee:** And that's why I was so glad with the sequel, yeah, that they bring back the, you know, the same main characters.
**Lee:** So it it's Lou is back, obviously, because he's Wolfcop.
**Lee:** But yeah, his best mate is back, Amy, the other police officer is back.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Tina.
**Lee:** Huh?
**Adam:** Tina?
**Lee:** You could be right.
**Lee:** When did I get Amy from?
**Lee:** It is Tina, you're quite right.
**Lee:** I know it was a short name.
**Adam:** Oh, so will.
**Lee:** Yeah, the actress the actress name is Amy, that's probably it.
**Adam:** Oh, there we go then.
**Adam:** but, oh, so Willy's back for the second for the second one as well.
**Lee:** Willy's back for the second one as well.
**Lee:** I can't remember how they work it.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** But yeah, again it's.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, in fairness, if it's alien shapeshifters, it could just be another alien who shapeshifted into it or something.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** We did have.
**Lee:** This discussion, so I watched it and Lady Jennifer, who definitely was not going to watch this film.
**Lee:** And I've always suggested it multiple times.
**Lee:** She's always said, no, absolutely not.
**Lee:** yeah, sat all the way through it and actually really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** and but yeah, that was her question at the end was when they were.
**Lee:** when the shapeshifters were changing.
**Lee:** afterwards, she said, so were the shapeshifters playing multiple being multiple people in town, or was it that they were one person in town and could shapeshift to look like other people in town?
**Lee:** And I was like.
**Lee:** I assumed they were playing those people.
**Lee:** Because of the three of the six characters played by the three shapeshifts.
**Lee:** You never saw them, you know, so the ones that were played by the same shapeshifter.
**Lee:** You never saw in the same place at the same time.
**Lee:** So it could be that each one of them was playing too.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** So I can't remember enough, so I am looking forward to watching the second one.
**Lee:** And reminding myself of yeah, just how they managed to get that character back again.
**Adam:** I mean, and less face it as as it stands, I don't think that there's you know, I don't think it's something that's going to bear too much too much examination.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's not it's not going to be too of.
**Lee:** I don't see anyone getting five minutes in and going, oh, right.
**Lee:** So so they've got one right, that's it.
**Lee:** And just throwing the from the TV.
**Chris:** That's the problem.
**Chris:** I'm out of here.
**Adam:** You know what, I cannot watch this film about a law enforcement werewolf.
**Adam:** Because it is it's jumped the shark at this point.
**Adam:** You know, that's.
**Adam:** That's that's very true.
**Adam:** I think we've probably offend Saint Brown there.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But I think that the
**Adam:** Yeah, because because that was the the one person I recognized because I I didn't.
**Adam:** I didn't research it mostly, I mean mostly as a timing issue.
**Adam:** But also.
**Adam:** I didn't want to sort of trip across anything and spoil any of the film or anything else like that.
**Adam:** and so I I mean, I recognized I recognized the guy who was like the the chief, like the sheriff.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** because he was he was a murderer in Hannibal.
**Adam:** And I've seen him in a couple of other things.
**Adam:** But apparently he's English.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Because I had to because I had to look at I mean, I think he I think he's Canada based.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Actually then I have to explain why he's in Hannibal probably as well.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** You know, and there's lots of like US productions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But I was because at first I was like, I bloody know him from something and then I IMDb and it was like, oh, no, he's English.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** So and then and then in my head, I'm like, I must have seen him in a British production.
**Adam:** It was like.
**Adam:** No, no, no, literally everything on this list is all, you know, it's all American stuff and things like that.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Cuz he's in he's in History of Violence as well.
**Adam:** But I don't I mean, it's been years since I saw that film and it's been.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I don't think I've seen that.
**Adam:** Because I think because the the other thing as well is I think there was weirdly enough, I think I was expecting it to be.
**Adam:** slightly not slightly more 80s, if you see what I mean.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In that because I think as a concept, it's it's a very.
**Adam:** as a concept, it sounds like a movie that the Simpsons would have created.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like you like, you know, that's that's a film that they'd go and see Wolf cop.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it would have been an action film with Rainer Wolf Castle and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And actually I did notice that because when it's the missing pets.
**Adam:** the list of missing pets at the start and you've got nipples the cat.
**Lee:** I spotted that and laughed at that this time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But there's there's one called McBain.
**Adam:** Yeah, right.
**Adam:** And again, I was.
**Adam:** Maybe.
**Adam:** And I it has to be said also, the one thing I was really the the thing that horrified the bit that I found most horrific was.
**Adam:** I think I'm developing terrible misophonia.
**Adam:** And the idea of the heightened senses, sort of like it's like that and it's like, shit.
**Adam:** It's bad enough just with normal hearing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** when someone's tapping or someone's doing stuff or whatever like that, but yeah, when it's like I can hear the freight trains and things like that.
**Adam:** I thought that was really.
**Adam:** Although I did find it a bit weird when his boss went to him, oh, you could have shaved and it's like.
**Adam:** You hadn't before, Eddie.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but yeah, it's sort of it's.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just think there was a lot of and I think, yeah, once once it once it embraced the daftness to its full extent.
**Adam:** Then, yeah, so I'm assume I'm assuming that number two, the good thing is, is obviously you don't have to build.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** the premise, you can just go straight into it.
**Adam:** Go straight in.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And obviously there's I mean, there's a like like all these things, there's a backlog of bad werewolf puns and wolf jokes and stuff like that.
**Adam:** You can spot in there and stuff like that.
**Adam:** I mean even just the fact that he's Lou Garu.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah, I and it yeah, I just loved I loved it again, I know we say it quite often, but this is one of those comedy horrors that gets both of them right in the right.
**Lee:** It's definitely not scary in any way, shape or form, but it's really funny, the gore is excellent.
**Lee:** The effects as you say are fantastic, you could have put that transformation in a serious movie and I've definitely seen way worse transformations in a serious movie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I just and now I've watched it again for the first time in maybe a decade.
**Lee:** I think this is going to become a more frequent return for me because, yeah, it's just it's really good.
**Lee:** And it's a short film as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, you've only got an hour and a half, you can squeeze it in, it's not like I fancy watching so and so, but you know, if I watch half tonight, I won't get to watch the other half for two days because I'm doing stuff.
**Lee:** Like it's a nice short run time.
**Lee:** and I think it's easily accessible.
**Lee:** I think this is a great one for like a watch party.
**Chris:** Yeah, I was thinking that definitely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So you can.
**Adam:** No, this is this is this is a definite one.
**Adam:** Because it's look, I mean, let's be fair, there there is a plot, but it's not like it's it's.
**Chris:** It's not the most important part.
**Adam:** No, no, the most important thing is Wolf cop.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** The concept's in the title, that's the that's the important bit and just the fact that.
**Chris:** I don't like that the title tells you what you're going to get.
**Chris:** The film doesn't mess around, it gives you what you're expecting.
**Chris:** Like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's I mean, it's sort of like, you know, it's sort of when he when he responds to the the liquor store raid and stuff like that.
**Adam:** That's just sort of like.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just sort of wonderfully done.
**Adam:** I mean, we were saying, I mean, before we started recording, you know, we were saying, you know, what's the.
**Adam:** is is there a is there a moral message here or is there a, you know, is there a deeper meaning?
**Adam:** I mean, other than that, I mean, the message seems to be that
**Adam:** You can still be a good cop as long as you stick keep drinking.
**Chris:** Yeah, I was going to say, that is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because that because you know, that's the sort of the the element that's in there that's sort of like, oh, well, I think I think the reason why he's not as bestial a werewolf as what we're used to.
**Adam:** is the fact that he's lethe all the time.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and again, like you say, it is it is a film you can sum up very quickly.
**Lee:** You could sum it up with one two second sound bite, which is the bit when they turn up to the raid at the liquor store.
**Lee:** And he just says to the to the guy who runs it, tell me again what happened?
**Lee:** And he went, fucking big wolf.
**Lee:** And that's it.
**Lee:** That's all you need to know.
**Adam:** I mean, literally the title is the pitch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The title is the pitch, the concept and the point.
**Adam:** And that's that's that's that's very rare, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah, again, this is one of those if this was shown somewhere, you know, like Lumi or Prince Charles or horror.
**Lee:** Like yeah, this would be a great one to watch with a big drunk crowd.
**Lee:** I just think it's.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Such a even just sitting on the sofa watching it, it's a party atmosphere, it's just excellent.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and as I say, the the sequel is basically a cross between this film and Strange Brew.
**Lee:** if you've ever seen Strange Brew.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Well.
**Lee:** You you should, Rick Moranis, it I'm sure we've definitely discussed it before.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** They used to do, so on SNL, it was him and another guy and they used to do a
**Lee:** like a segment and basically the idea was they were two Canadian brothers who just drunk beer and liked hockey.
**Lee:** And they just sat on their sofa doing a cable access show and slagging each other off and that was that was the whole thing.
**Lee:** And then they gave him a film and Max Von Sidow was in it.
**Adam:** Oh right, okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And basically they.
**Lee:** They tried to get free beer from the local brewery, but the guy Max von Sidow who owns the brewery is creating, for some reason that I can't quite remember, a murderous ice hockey team.
**Lee:** And I can't remember if they're people who are being controlled by a signal or something, or if they're robots.
**Lee:** I can't remember which of the two it is, but that's the premise.
**Lee:** yeah, and basically Wolf cop two is that plus Wolf cop.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I I can't wait to start that.
**Chris:** Oh, signed me up.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** It wasn't.
**Lee:** For the fact I literally finished watching this an hour and a half before we started recording and I had to go and have dinner, I would probably have just rolled straight into another Wolf cop, so.
**Adam:** I think Claire was disappointed when I because I said, oh, there is another Wolf cop, and she was like, oh, Wolf cop too.
**Adam:** And I was like, no, the title is another Wolf cop.
**Adam:** And she's like, oh, so is it a different Wolf cop?
**Adam:** And it's like, no, no, no, it's just it's just that it's another film called Wolf cop.
**Adam:** Like when they use mind you, it's it's quite good, it's like that I can't remember who it was.
**Adam:** Someone had a horse called another horse.
**Adam:** So that when it was the commentary on the horse racing it'd be like, and that's followed by another horse.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's great.
**Lee:** And again, it's one of those I'm so glad that they managed to get a sequel because.
**Lee:** I clearly enough people were taken by it that Kevin Smith, I don't know whether he funded it or what, but he's in the second movie and he's.
**Adam:** Oh right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Lee:** So are we going to are we going to cover another Wolf cop for our next episode or have we got something else lined up on deck?
**Adam:** Well, I mean, I was going to say, I mean, we could certainly do there's the possibilities there.
**Adam:** We could do another Wolf cop.
**Adam:** but also in the week, I was wondering.
**Lee:** We did.
**Adam:** We lost Tom Noonan.
**Lee:** We did.
**Lee:** Unfortunately.
**Adam:** And I was wondering if we should maybe do House of the Devil.
**Lee:** Oh, now that is a very good call.
**Adam:** Because I haven't seen that for a very long time now.
**Lee:** Nor have I.
**Adam:** But it's I you know, pretty damn good.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I think that'd be a fitting tribute.
**Lee:** Talking of fitting tributes to Tom Noonan, funny enough.
**Lee:** this weekend was the start of the Romford Horror Film Festival.
**Chris:** Oh, yes, of course, yeah.
**Lee:** And so I bought tickets back in January.
**Lee:** But yeah, so Jennifer and I last night with my brother and our friend Chris and.
**Adam:** That's not you, Chris.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** No, it's a different Chris.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and watched Monster Squad.
**Adam:** Oh, cool.
**Lee:** Which I'd never seen on the big screen.
**Lee:** And was excellent, but yeah, I say it seemed a fitting fitting tribute, only a couple of days after his the news of his passing reached us.
**Lee:** Yeah, we were going to see Monster Squad.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz I've cuz I've put I've put up a I've put up a tribute on Instagram, there were quite a number of people who were like, oh, I never realized he was Frankenstein in Monster Squad.
**Adam:** They knew him in other things.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** He's so heavily made up in it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, he is he's Frankenstein, he's going to be but.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah, in fairness, I mean, it's a bit much like when we were playing zombies and they blacked your teeth out and then said mine were fine.
**Adam:** It'd be it's a bit of a fucking insult if you turn up playing Frankenstein.
**Adam:** And they just go.
**Adam:** You're good as you are, mate.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So I've I've been there and I've felt that pain.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, you want you want to you want at least a couple of layers of latex if you're playing Frank.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh, House of the Devil.
**Lee:** is yeah, I don't want to give anything away, but it was one of those.
**Lee:** I thought it was going to be a bit crap and it was one of those I'd heard about and it just didn't really.
**Lee:** draw me in concept and the artwork and stuff.
**Lee:** But, oh, yeah, what an absolute.
**Lee:** classic out of nowhere.
**Adam:** And it's Ti West, isn't it?
**Lee:** It is Ti West.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And because obviously we did the innkeeper in keepers.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Quite some time ago, didn't we?
**Adam:** Which was obviously that was his follow up to House of the Devil.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** yeah, so no, I think we're definitely.
**Adam:** I think was so what so you think House of the Devil then?
**Lee:** Yep.
**Lee:** 100%, I'm definitely up for that.
**Lee:** Again, another film.
**Lee:** I saw it a couple of times when it first came out, I've got a habit of doing that.
**Lee:** A film comes out and it's amazing and I love it and I'll watch it maybe a month later and then I just completely forget it exists.
**Adam:** But that's the thing is, is, you know, things roll on and stuff like that and if anything, I I hopefully, I think that.
**Adam:** it offers a service sometimes because, you know, everyone knows that you're meant to watch Rosemary's Baby.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But sometimes, you know, if the film's been out for a few years, like like Bubba Hopp.
**Adam:** The number of people who were like, oh, you know, Christ, I haven't seen this for years.
**Adam:** or sort of.
**Adam:** you know, people who didn't know it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again, it's sort of like, well, if I if we if we can resurrect some of these films because this this so much good shit out there.
**Adam:** and has been, you know.
**Adam:** There's peaks and troughs.
**Adam:** But essentially, there's probably always been at least one fucking classic made every year.
**Lee:** Yeah, Oh yeah, something that.
**Adam:** in one way or another.
**Lee:** the beers rewatch it on a regular basis, definitely.
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, okay then.
**Lee:** So to wrap up, thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** go and check out Wolfcop.
**Lee:** Go and check out another Wolfcop.
**Lee:** We may well return at a later date and and cover that separately.
**Lee:** I'm probably going to be watching it in the week.
**Lee:** yes, and we'll be back in a fortnite's time for House of the Devil.
**Lee:** So if you haven't seen it, go and watch that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening and good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 241 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-241-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 15 February 2026
Duration: 00:38:02

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Day of We Have Been Watching”. News flash, it’s time for a summary of the various visual adventures the team have experienced in between episodes. We discuss Shudder’s “The Haunted Season: The Occupant of the Room” (2025): the remake of “Suspiria” (2018); new Disney+/FX series “The Beauty” (2026); 2009’s “Zombieland”; R.L. Stine’s “Pumpkinhead” (2025); Folk Horror Play For Today “Robin Redbreast” (1970); and Ben Wheatley’s psychedelic sci fi noir “BULK” (2026). No prep for this ep, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Adam's Research

- Woody Harrelson's dad's alleged activities and family connections: His dad, on the other hand, seems like a right villain. No, his dad was pictured on the grassy knoll during the JFK assassination. And he may also be Matthew McConaughey's half-brother. Because basically Woody Harrelson's dad was putting it about so much that he said to him one day, 'He could well be your half-brother.' … Hmm. … Well, from what I gather, Woody Harrelson's dad when he wasn't assassinating presidents was putting it about a lot, so, you know. All bets are off. So I think Woody Harrelson is sort of been I think Woody Harrelson in a weird way is sort of making up for the sins of the father by being apparently a very nice man.
- Production secrecy and crediting practices for Bill Murray's Zombieland cameo: So it was, yeah, it was a hell of a surprise like when when it actually came out, they'd managed to keep him very like out out of the limelight of it, you know, he wasn't. I'm not even sure if he's credited for it. He might I can't remember like because sometimes they just do that where someone won't take an actual credit so it's not showing on IMDb or that sort of thing.
- Ease and cost-effectiveness of producing zombie films: But there's because there's there's a hell of a lot of zombie comedies because they're, you know, a zombie film is one of the easier or cheaper ones that you can do. Um, but unfortunately that means that there's also quite a lot of cack out there where.
- Shudder's 'Haunted Season' series as a BBC 'Ghost Story for Christmas' analogue, including episode details, director, source material, music, and visual techniques: uh, had their next episode because Haunted Season is the one they're trying to build up similar to Ghost Story for Christmas on the BBC. So every Christmas they're bringing out an episode and I'm so impressed that they stuck to their guns. So there was one for 2024 and, uh, so 2025's one was The Occupant of the Room. Uh, directed by Kira Lazunis who, um, also is the curator of the series. And also she also was the director of the, uh, that really good folk horror documentary that came out a couple of years back. And, um, and yeah, and it was, uh, based on Algernon Blackwood's story. Yeah, and I think it was just it again, I think it very much fits into that ghost stories for Christmas tradition. It was just so atmospheric and everything. And he basically it's a man goes to stay at an inn, um, they don't have any rooms and then they say to him, 'Well, we've got one room, but we are expecting the occupant back, but she's been missing for days.' And so if she comes back, you're going to have to find, you know, you're going to have to you'll be turfed out. But he takes the room on that basis and a distinctly unsettling night follows. And it's got some incredible atmosphere. The music by, uh, Andrew Sing, who is also called The Nausea and it introduced me to The Nausea as well because that is. It's what I can only describe, I saw someone describe Fetus as baroque and roll and I think that this sort of follows. Because it's basically the most heavy distressed strings that you can hear. It's like someone gave some a cello of like, you know, just like walloping sort of density and discordance from from, you know, from from stringed instruments. It's just really, uh, really good. And there are sort of stop motion animated sequences in it that where they're sort of overlaying the imagery to sort of give the sense of unease and the what's occurring to the main character in terms of just like freaking out and everything. And it's just done really, really, really well. And I think I I like I say, I know we're we're sort of out of season now for ghost stories for Christmas, but the Haunted Season stuff. Uh, Occupant of the Room and the previous one from, uh, the the one from the previous year, both really good, really worth a watch. Sort of low budget, but terrific. Yeah, small cast but just excellent excellent work all both both of them. And I just long may it continue, frankly. I just hope that Shudder sort of is going is going in 20 years time when we're still going to. So we'll have like 20 odd episodes we can watch at Christmas rather than just two. But, um, I'm glad they haven't sort of like they didn't sort of backtrack on it or say, 'Well, we've got this thing here that's haunted season.' It's like, 'No, we're doing these ghost stories.' And they usually crop up just the sort of week before Christmas. So.
- Phenomenon of multiple films with similar concepts releasing simultaneously: Because you often you often find that it's like when you suddenly it's like when suddenly there's like three movies about meteors hitting the planet or coming out within six months of each other. You sort of like there's this it's like idea space seems to everyone everyone hits on the same thing around the same sort of time, so it's probably probably been in development all this time. And then just sort of comes out just after the substance or just just around.
- Ben Wheatley's career pattern, 'Bulk's low-budget production (black and white, iPhone, cardboard props, model cars), cast, narration, and unique touring distribution strategy: Because Bulk is basically, uh, in between sort of bigger films, Ben Wheatley tends to it is now seems to be a thing of he'll do something like The Rebecca that he did on Netflix and then he'll go off and do In the Earth. And then he did The Meg 2, which I've still not seen, but according to former, uh, former guest, Darney, I don't need to have necessarily seen The Meg 1 to catch The Meg 2. I don't think that they're that, you know, I don't think I'm going to miss out on too many plot points if I do so. Um, but, um, yeah, and this is the sort of next smaller film that he's done. And it is, I mean, definitely not for everyone, but I absolutely loved it. And it's basically you've got a cast of four people and it's set in a house where there has been a essentially a reality explosion. And so every part of the house is now a different dimension and it's the main character going through and meeting various splintered versions of other characters and himself as he goes around. And it's done so low budget, it's uh, it's black and white, there are bits that are filmed on iPhones. It is, you know, which is insane that I went to see it at the IMAX because, you know. Um, but it it really does look spec it did look spectacular. And it makes a real, um, it makes a real sort of, uh, it really embraces the fact that there's low budget elements to it. They people are using cardboard guns in it. And stuff like that. And it's like because the guns look great until you sort of see them a few times and then you realize that actually they're cardboard. But it's this whole thing that it's these fractured realities. So, and there's like, there's bits where there's car chases with obvious model cars. But then they'll do things like a helicopter gets shot out the sky and literally just drops like a Looney Tunes cartoon sort of thing and there's, um, bits where they're sort of saying, oh, can we we that, you know, they're sort of like looking for this hermit on a beach. And they're going, 'Right, that's where he lives over there.' And they're going, 'Well, we don't seem to be getting any closer to him.' And it's like, 'Well, we can't actually get there, it's a model.' But. And it all sort of really, it's really, it's one of those things where it's really, really smart but really playful with it as well, so it doesn't, you know, it's like. It has its cake and eats it of taking itself too seriously and not taking itself seriously at all. And I just really sort of loved it and like I say, it's a tiny cast. It's, uh, Alexandra Maria Lara and Sam Riley, uh, Noah Taylor and Mark Monero. And Bill Nighy's doing the narration on it and Bill Nighy's almost like it's like a Hitchhiker's sort of narration. You know where it's like, it's authoritative but then you realize that it's gibberish or sort of just freaking mad. And, um, yeah, and I just really. It's really it was really, really fun. It was like sort of somewhere between like a 2000 AD story and, um, bits of Jerry Cornelius and stuff. And a detective story but like a bit like, you know, that's the best way I can think of it is you know right at the end of spoilers for this film, but right at the end of Pontepool where they suddenly have gone off into this weird William Burroughs black and white world where he's a detective and she's like a like a nightclub gangster's moll. It feels like it's like from that it's that bit has gone off and done its own film. It's just yeah, just really, really great sort of Noir and just but so much fun. And afterwards I I met Ben Wheatley before because he was signing stuff at the booth and. He was really great and, uh, I nearly I nearly walked right into Sam Riley because most of the cast were there doing a Q&A and that was great afterwards as well. So, uh, but yeah. No, it's really good and just roll on when it actually comes out on DVD. Because on Blu-ray rather. Because I think, I think it's one of those things that might just disappear because it's so sort of because basically what's happened is Ben Wheatley's toured it round the country. So he made it on a shoestring, he's toured it round and he like did first screening, they did was at The Nickel, so it was like about 40 people and then you're doing like the IMAX and they sort of toured it over Ireland and, uh, up down the country and everything else like that. So, yeah, but. A definite recommend if you can get to see it.
- Goosebumps' role as a gateway horror for a younger generation and its lasting cultural impact: And you see from you you can see how they are still talked about with such reverence by a younger generation to us. And sort of like, yeah, no, these these things they made their mark. And they were they were there, they were a lot of people's gateway.
- 'A Bunch of Amateurs' documentary about the oldest film club in Britain, their films, and online availability: Uh, mine is just, uh, I watched a thing called A Bunch of Amateurs, which is about the Bradford Movie Makers, the oldest film club in Britain. And I just enjoyed it because it was it was a great sort of nice just general documentary. But, uh, they I've then looked up a couple of the films that these guys have made because they're on YouTube including The Haunted Turnip and Nice Jam by director Phil Wayman. And, um, both of those felt like we'd see them at Horror on C. That sort of like proper low budget, just like five minutes just great stuff.
- The preservation history of 'Robin Redbreast', including the loss of the color version and the survival of the black and white backup: I believe I believe actually the version that we've got is the is the hold over in the BBC. Because originally it was in color, but I think they I think they wiped the color version. So they but fortunately some bugger had the backup tape on black and white. So they so that's why we can still see it.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here again for an episode of what we've been watching. There will be some spoilers, there will be some swearing, and hopefully we've all watched enough stuff to talk about. So.
**Chris:** -
**Lee:** Yeah. Or too much normally we've end up watching, but yes. So.
**Chris:** I've almost made a mistake of watching a non-horror film, but we'll get into that.
**Lee:** Oh. I've been, as I just mentioned to you off air, I luckily had watched quite a lot because I've just in the last three days just watching the ice hockey on the Olympics. So luckily I already had stuff to talk about, otherwise I'd been in shit as well.
**Adam:** Has has the ice hockey been a horror story though?
**Lee:** From a perspective.
**Lee:** No, it's been I've really enjoyed it. The men's starts on Thursday, so it's the women's at the moment, all the preliminary stuff. But yeah, it's been, yeah, highly entertaining, so always good. Always good.
**Adam:** Good.
**Lee:** Right. So, Chris, would you like to kick us off with your first choice?
**Chris:** Yep. So, so I decided I would follow on from the film that I was very impressed with at Horror on C. All all you need is blood.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I've said it so many times now, showed it so much I I liked it. But yeah. I thought, what other comedy zombie films are there aside from Shaun of the Dead? There's got to be loads, really, but anyway.
**Chris:** I'd heard someone mention Zombieland.
**Lee:** Yeah, yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Last week. Okay. Now, I didn't remember I was talking about it.
**Chris:** But I had seen clips of it and I think it was, yeah, so it's 2009, which that I'm sure it was way newer than that.
**Chris:** But I know they've got sequel one, maybe two. I haven't checked yet.
**Lee:** One sequel, yeah.
**Lee:** Not as good as.
**Adam:** Isn't this Zombieland as well?
**Lee:** that Zombieland came out long before, I think.
**Adam:** right, okay.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** but yeah, so I thought, all right, give it a go and started watching and instantly it was very good. It is very funny.
**Chris:** it sort of feels like it's it's somewhat applicable to to current US politics. I won't go too much into that, but it didn't feel as far off as perhaps it would have done in 2009.
**Chris:** So, yeah, like who's in it? It was, we got Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson, and Abigail Breslin.
**Chris:** And I really like Woody Harrelson.
**Chris:** Now, I think the last time I saw him was, was it Solo? Was he in that? Oh, yes, yes, of course. He's like his mentor, wasn't he? Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, that's it.
**Chris:** So that was quite a long time ago as well, worryingly.
**Chris:** Now, what I was hoping is you weren't both going to tell me that he's done something terribly wrong. And we have to, you know, ignore him.
**Adam:** No, no. Woody Woody Harrelson remains firm.
**Adam:** His dad, on the other hand, seems like a right villain.
**Chris:** All right, okay.
**Adam:** No, his dad was pictured on the grassy knoll during the JFK assassination. And he may also be Matthew McConaughey's half-brother.
**Adam:** Because basically Woody Harrelson's dad was putting it about so much that he said to him one day, 'He could well be your half-brother.'
**Chris:** Because while watching this, I was like, he keeps reminding me of Matthew McConaughey.
**Chris:** I was like, okay, I mean, they're both from Texas.
**Chris:** So I was like, is that enough? There's just loads of people that are like that in Texas.
**Adam:** Well, from what I gather, Woody Harrelson's dad when he wasn't assassinating presidents was putting it about a lot, so, you know. All bets are off.
**Adam:** So I think Woody Harrelson is sort of been I think Woody Harrelson in a weird way is sort of making up for the sins of the father by being apparently a very nice man.
**Chris:** Pretty decent. Okay. Yeah.
**Chris:** And he is he's excellent in this. I mean, they they do work so well together, yeah, the two of them.
**Chris:** And yeah, he's he's very funny.
**Chris:** Especially when, very unexpectedly they had, totally forgotten his name. Bill Murray.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Amazing.
**Lee:** Just amazing.
**Chris:** That was great.
**Lee:** How they kept that out of the limelight when that film came out? Because I was, I was desperate to see it. It was supposed to come out a week before I got married, I think. So I was going to be like, not doing a stag do, guys, I'm going to watch Zombieland. And that was going to be my.
**Lee:** And then they put it back and it didn't come out until November or December, I think.
**Adam:** Yeah, then we all went and saw it, didn't we? And.
**Lee:** Yeah. Just yeah, totally blown away by it. So much fun, ridiculous amount of fun.
**Adam:** Well, especially at that point, Dean was having like what can only be described as a full Bill Murray love affair because he was just watching like all stuff like Royal Tenenbaums and, Lost in Translation as well as like, you know, the usual stuff, Ghostbusters and Scrooged and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And then suddenly out of the blue, we were all like, 'That's Bill Murray.'
**Adam:** So it was, yeah, it was a hell of a surprise like when when it actually came out, they'd managed to keep him very like out out of the limelight of it, you know, he wasn't.
**Adam:** I'm not even sure if he's credited for it.
**Adam:** He might I can't remember like because sometimes they just do that where someone won't take an actual credit so it's not showing on IMDb or that sort of thing.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And but yeah, no, and no, I I Zombieland.
**Adam:** It's weird because I think I only ever I saw it at the pictures that first time, and I've seen it a couple of times since it's been on the TV, but it never fails to make me laugh. I do think that.
**Chris:** It is, it's a genuinely entertaining, yeah.
**Chris:** And I it does have, you know, there's there is some deeper philosophy there if you fancy thinking about it.
**Adam:** Well, I think that the whole thing with Woody Harrelson where it's like, you know, there's like because it's the lovely thing of, you know, it's just quite sweet that it's like, 'Oh, it's my dog.' And then you realize that actually, no, it wasn't his dog. And, you know, it's sort of like that's actually quite moving.
**Adam:** But also just just lovely stuff like where it's like, have you got any words of wisdom for me? That will do, pig.
**Chris:** Yeah, there you go.
**Chris:** So yeah, so that was a good one. Nice follow on from from the horror and see.
**Adam:** In many ways when we when we were saying about, because I was thinking the same when I was like, all you need is blood. And then we got Shaun of the Dead. And it was like, I was trying to think and I was like, actually, yeah, Zombieland's freaking great, you know.
**Adam:** But there's because there's there's a hell of a lot of zombie comedies because they're, you know, a zombie film is one of the easier or cheaper ones that you can do.
**Chris:** Right. Yeah. Yeah.
**Adam:** but unfortunately that means that there's also quite a lot of cack out there where.
**Lee:** Yeah, but no, great choice, Chris.
**Lee:** That film is just again, another one of those I can't believe we haven't covered because of how much I absolutely love.
**Chris:** I was thinking that, yeah.
**Adam:** Because because it's also because it's got that lovely thing as well where it's like it does because it does the zombie lessons, doesn't it? All the way through.
**Lee:** Yes, which comes up in text on the screen, which I loved that. I love that.
**Chris:** That was yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah. And those sort of touches, you know, it's got some really lovely stylistic flourishes to it that I think are really great.
**Lee:** It's I've I've got the Pico VR headset and the game I've played far more than anything else on there is Zombieland Headshot. It's fucking brilliant. It's such a.
**Lee:** It was one of those, it was like six quid and I was like, they've taken the name, it's probably just a bit of a, but it isn't. It's all the characters and they all talk to you and it it's just it's, yeah, it's brilliant. I love it.
**Adam:** Oh, that's good.
**Adam:** Yeah, nothing nothing worse when it's just like, oh, they've just got the name.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly. But yeah, no, it's it's got that feel to it and all the zombies have got that same, yeah, it's a fantastic game. So.
**Lee:** Anyone on VR go and check out Zombieland Headshot. It's amazing.
**Lee:** Fantastic. Adam, what's your first choice for this evening?
**Adam:** well, my first choice I'm going to go with something, because obviously we, we're sort of back now after the after the Crimbo break and, we horror on C and stuff like that. And I realized that we haven't really spoken about there was a glut of.
**Adam:** very good sort of ghost story for Christmas items.
**Adam:** So the one I really want to toss in first is, The Haunted Season on Shudder.
**Adam:** had their next episode because Haunted Season is the one they're trying to build up similar to Ghost Story for Christmas on the BBC.
**Adam:** So every Christmas they're bringing out an episode and I'm so impressed that they stuck to their guns.
**Adam:** So there was one for 2024 and, so 2025's one was The Occupant of the Room.
**Adam:** directed by Kira Lazunis who, also is the curator of the series.
**Adam:** And also she also was the director of the, that really good folk horror documentary that came out a couple of years back.
**Adam:** And, and yeah, and it was, based on Algernon Blackwood's story.
**Lee:** Lovely stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I think it was just it again, I think it very much fits into that ghost stories for Christmas tradition. It was just so atmospheric and everything.
**Adam:** And he basically it's a man goes to stay at an inn, they don't have any rooms and then they say to him, 'Well, we've got one room, but we are expecting the occupant back, but she's been missing for days.'
**Adam:** And so if she comes back, you're going to have to find, you know, you're going to have to you'll be turfed out.
**Adam:** But he takes the room on that basis and a distinctly unsettling night follows.
**Adam:** And it's got some incredible atmosphere.
**Adam:** The music by, Andrew Sing, who is also called The Nausea and it introduced me to The Nausea as well because that is.
**Adam:** It's what I can only describe, I saw someone describe Fetus as baroque and roll and I think that this sort of follows. Because it's basically the most heavy distressed strings that you can hear. It's like someone gave some a cello of like, you know, just like walloping sort of density and discordance from from, you know, from from stringed instruments.
**Adam:** It's just really, really good.
**Adam:** And there are sort of stop motion animated sequences in it that where they're sort of overlaying the imagery to sort of give the sense of unease and the what's occurring to the main character in terms of just like freaking out and everything.
**Adam:** And it's just done really, really, really well. And I think I I like I say, I know we're we're sort of out of season now for ghost stories for Christmas, but the Haunted Season stuff.
**Adam:** Occupant of the Room and the previous one from, the the one from the previous year, both really good, really worth a watch. Sort of low budget, but terrific. Yeah, small cast but just excellent excellent work all both both of them.
**Adam:** And I just long may it continue, frankly. I just hope that Shudder sort of is going is going in 20 years time when we're still going to.
**Adam:** So we'll have like 20 odd episodes we can watch at Christmas rather than just two.
**Adam:** But, I'm glad they haven't sort of like they didn't sort of backtrack on it or say, 'Well, we've got this thing here that's haunted season.'
**Adam:** It's like, 'No, we're doing these ghost stories.' And they usually crop up just the sort of week before Christmas. So.
**Adam:** yeah, that's that's a definite recommend.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Adam:** especially when it's still cold.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent. Oh, yeah, I'm planning on, catching up with those at some point or together. So I might wait a while until there's a few and then and then binge them all one year.
**Adam:** They are well worth it, definitely.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** right, so my first choice, I don't think I've discussed this yet on the podcast.
**Lee:** so I finally caught up a couple of months ago with the 2018 Suspiria remake.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** I was not in a rush to do so because as everybody knows.
**Chris:** You're not too keen.
**Lee:** I'm not fond.
**Adam:** You weren't you were let's face it. You weren't keen on the original as it's so.
**Lee:** But the reason I liked the idea of a remake is for me, this was a perfect remake because I love the concept, I hated the execution.
**Lee:** So I was like, if someone does it, takes it in a new direction, this could be it for me.
**Lee:** This could be.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** Brilliant.
**Adam:** It's it's the litmus test as well.
**Adam:** Because like we always say, why don't people remake crap films?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And if you, you know, you like you say, you like the concept of Suspiria, you don't have a problem with it. You just don't like the way it's the way it's directed. And everything else like that.
**Adam:** So this should be the the sort of thing for that, yeah.
**Lee:** Don't like the direction.
**Chris:** It does still have dancing in it though.
**Lee:** Don't like the music well.
**Lee:** I thought, I don't like I don't like ballet, but I if it's got ballet in it, I can kind of put up with it and my.
**Lee:** However, it turns out ballet is not the worst type of dance.
**Lee:** Because if you take Suspiria and replace the ballet with interpretive dance, which is more pretentious by about 1000%, it just makes me angry every time. It's just it's it's so. I mean, the concept of it angers me. That's how much it upsets me. It's just the idea of people going into a room and going, 'Right, no words, just using your dance and your body, I want you to tell me what your cup of coffee tastes like.'
**Lee:** Or what a unicorn looks like when it's having a shower. Like and it's just it's pretentious nonsense. And it makes me so, so angry.
**Chris:** Just just want to check, did you get abused by your drama teacher?
**Adam:** I don't think I liked my drama teacher any more than any of the other teachers anyway.
**Chris:** Just.
**Adam:** They had for him, I'll be honest.
**Lee:** So, it was a shame because the the it was it.
**Chris:** Take that out of it.
**Lee:** If you took that out of it, it was it was okay.
**Chris:** Still not great.
**Lee:** again, it's a brilliant concept, but I think they did try to stick a bit with the original.
**Lee:** With the strange angles and things which I just found a bit jarring.
**Lee:** The gore in it is incredible.
**Lee:** That I mean, you can't take away from that.
**Chris:** It was, yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, it was just so much nonsense dancing and just watching people throwing themselves around aimlessly like idiots.
**Chris:** No, which one was the worst, though? The original or the remake?
**Lee:** I thought I thought the remake had more good points, but I still still came away.
**Chris:** It's still it's still only a two out of 10. You.
**Adam:** You balked at you balked at, interpretive dance.
**Lee:** Yeah, it just spoiled it for me so much.
**Lee:** And again, I I'd been told that the last 10 minutes, it was worth sticking around for the last 10 minutes.
**Lee:** And the final scene is okay.
**Adam:** Right. Okay. So it wasn't even.
**Lee:** So I sat through two and a half hours waiting for this great crescendo. And then when it happened, I was like, I could probably have saved my time.
**Lee:** To be everybody in it is brilliant. It is one of those, it's brilliantly acted. It just it isn't for me, it's too much stuff I don't like and it's trying.
**Lee:** Again, it's trying to slightly channel the original in ways that I didn't like of the original.
**Lee:** So it it definitely was not for me. I mean, don't get me wrong.
**Lee:** If you like interpretive dance.
**Lee:** I mean, I've got questions about you, but this could be the film for you.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** So I I did enjoy it and I'm sure I'm sure Lee has got questions for me.
**Adam:** I was going to say for that.
**Chris:** Not just because of this.
**Adam:** Lee's judging you, but the but Suspiria might be your cup of tea.
**Adam:** So, so there you go. I told you, Chris, you know when you said about can we move into an interpretive dance podcast? I just said, 'I think Lee's going to put the brakes on this, mate.'
**Lee:** You know.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** He didn't he he wouldn't go and see La La Land human steps with us, you know.
**Adam:** So it was, yeah.
**Lee:** Just.
**Adam:** Didn't happen.
**Lee:** Oh, it's so painful. Just so, so painful.
**Adam:** Did you did you get the sense of, 'Brother Cat is portraying envy?'
**Lee:** Yes, from that.
**Adam:** Right to walk.
**Lee:** It is exactly that.
**Lee:** Oh, it's oh. I just couldn't get past it. It just angered me.
**Lee:** You know when you just don't like something so much that it just makes you angry every time someone's.
**Adam:** It's what it is these days. Well, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** I'm like, I'll just pull yourself together.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Anyway, so, let's move on before I get any more irate.
**Lee:** Chris, what else did you watch?
**Chris:** bit bit of a quick one.
**Chris:** I decided to follow on from my previous, another previous because this just happened to get released recently and I kept advertised and it is the beauty, which I'm sure was inspired a bit by The Substance.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Chris:** And I really enjoyed The Substance and I thought, let's give this a go.
**Chris:** so I've seen episode one and so far I do really like it.
**Chris:** But of course, I don't know a huge amount about it because it's whatever it is a five five-part, series.
**Adam:** Well, I can honestly say you know a damn sight more than I do because I do not know I've not heard of this at all.
**Lee:** Nor have I.
**Chris:** Oh, we go.
**Chris:** So it's just just been released on Disney Plus.
**Adam:** -huh.
**Chris:** like a few weeks ago, I think I first saw it.
**Chris:** the characters are Matthew Hodgson and Ryan Murphy.
**Adam:** Oh, right, okay.
**Chris:** And so far, I haven't recognized anyone in it. That doesn't necessarily mean a lot because I do not recognize a lot of people.
**Adam:** Well, also sometimes it's better. I, you know, I think sometimes you can be disappointed.
**Chris:** It's like.
**Adam:** Yeah. You have an idea of like certain actors, but there's also things like, oh, you mean I got to sit through this shit just because I really like that one actor who's in it.
**Chris:** Your expectations.
**Adam:** I wish they'd just pick better films.
**Chris:** But but what I like so far, it is, it's certainly got, a it's sort of giving you a taste of the horror to come so far.
**Chris:** but it's also seemed like quite a good mystery, like detective mystery at the same time.
**Adam:** Oh, cool.
**Chris:** So you sort of got two threads going.
**Adam:** So so what's the what's the premise? What's it.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, okay. So, so essentially you find this out fairly quickly, I think, that, there is a a way to kind of become, I suppose, the most perfect version of yourself.
**Adam:** -
**Chris:** but it's it's by getting an STD.
**Lee:** Oh, I have seen the trailer for this. Sorry, yeah. It did look interesting.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean, so I I can't remember if either of you.
**Chris:** I don't think either of you did see The Substance, did you?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** I've still not seen either.
**Chris:** So so I still think that was amazing.
**Adam:** I still I still need to see it.
**Chris:** I thought.
**Adam:** I still need to see it. I I do got.
**Chris:** I would absolutely, yeah, recommend that.
**Chris:** And so I was sort of thinking, is this going to be just, you know, a walked it down version of that, just not quite there.
**Chris:** Or trying to be too too higher production and, you know, just not getting what's good about The Substance.
**Chris:** But at the moment, it's definitely got potential.
**Chris:** And so it looks like the six episodes have been released so far.
**Adam:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** Yeah, and the fact that it's it is similar, but with its own unique take on it. So, yeah, I think it could be could be good.
**Chris:** I know, you know, I suppose it's looking at loneliness and, yeah, people wanting to be beautiful and, you know, which of course affects a huge amount of the world.
**Chris:** and and it's got some brutal scenes as well, which, you know.
**Adam:** I see what you mean because I see what you mean. I think it's obviously sort of in the same sort of ballpark as the substance, but it's got its own unique take on it and everything.
**Adam:** Because you often you often find that it's like when you suddenly it's like when suddenly there's like three movies about meteors hitting the planet or coming out within six months of each other.
**Adam:** You sort of like there's this it's like idea space seems to everyone everyone hits on the same thing around the same sort of time, so it's probably probably been in development all this time.
**Adam:** And then just sort of comes out just after the substance or just just around.
**Chris:** Yeah. But where The Substance is very focused on women aging and not wanting to age, this this is anyone, so, you know, again, it could be different enough.
**Chris:** It's it's interesting to see different people's perspectives on what's making them miserable and what they think may help them.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Chris:** I'm going to have to look more into this and, yeah.
**Chris:** Well, I'll I'll watch some more and I'll report back to see if it's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Stays good.
**Adam:** You you are you are our cosmic, you know, come.
**Adam:** You you beat the path and let us know, sir.
**Chris:** I will do that.
**Lee:** Good job.
**Lee:** Adam, what's your next, choice?
**Adam:** my next choice is, this I suppose is more horror adjacent.
**Adam:** But, I went to see, Ben Wheatley's new film, Bulk.
**Adam:** in the IMAX, BFI IMAX.
**Adam:** Which as I learned when I was there, is the biggest screen in the country.
**Adam:** which is quite intriguing.
**Adam:** Because Bulk is basically, in between sort of bigger films, Ben Wheatley tends to it is now seems to be a thing of he'll do something like The Rebecca that he did on Netflix and then he'll go off and do In the Earth.
**Adam:** And then he did The Meg 2, which I've still not seen, but according to former, former guest, Darney, I don't need to have necessarily seen The Meg 1 to catch The Meg 2.
**Adam:** I don't think that they're that, you know, I don't think I'm going to miss out on too many plot points if I do so.
**Adam:** but, yeah, and this is the sort of next smaller film that he's done.
**Adam:** And it is, I mean, definitely not for everyone, but I absolutely loved it.
**Adam:** And it's basically you've got a cast of four people and it's set in a house where there has been a essentially a reality explosion.
**Adam:** And so every part of the house is now a different dimension and it's the main character going through and meeting various splintered versions of other characters and himself as he goes around.
**Adam:** And it's done so low budget, it's it's black and white, there are bits that are filmed on iPhones.
**Adam:** It is, you know, which is insane that I went to see it at the IMAX because, you know.
**Adam:** but it it really does look spec it did look spectacular.
**Adam:** And it makes a real, it makes a real sort of, it really embraces the fact that there's low budget elements to it. They people are using cardboard guns in it.
**Adam:** And stuff like that.
**Adam:** And it's like because the guns look great until you sort of see them a few times and then you realize that actually they're cardboard.
**Adam:** But it's this whole thing that it's these fractured realities.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So, and there's like, there's bits where there's car chases with obvious model cars.
**Adam:** But then they'll do things like a helicopter gets shot out the sky and literally just drops like a Looney Tunes cartoon sort of thing and there's, bits where they're sort of saying, oh, can we we that, you know, they're sort of like looking for this hermit on a beach.
**Adam:** And they're going, 'Right, that's where he lives over there.' And they're going, 'Well, we don't seem to be getting any closer to him.' And it's like, 'Well, we can't actually get there, it's a model.'
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** And it all sort of really, it's really, it's one of those things where it's really, really smart but really playful with it as well, so it doesn't, you know, it's like.
**Adam:** It has its cake and eats it of taking itself too seriously and not taking itself seriously at all.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And I just really sort of loved it and like I say, it's a tiny cast. It's, Alexandra Maria Lara and Sam Riley, Noah Taylor and Mark Monero.
**Adam:** And Bill Nighy's doing the narration on it and Bill Nighy's almost like it's like a Hitchhiker's sort of narration.
**Adam:** You know where it's like, it's authoritative but then you realize that it's gibberish or sort of just freaking mad.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and I just really.
**Chris:** It sounds great.
**Adam:** It's really it was really, really fun. It was like sort of somewhere between like a 2000 AD story and, bits of Jerry Cornelius and stuff.
**Adam:** And a detective story but like a bit like, you know, that's the best way I can think of it is you know right at the end of spoilers for this film, but right at the end of Pontepool where they suddenly have gone off into this weird William Burroughs black and white world where he's a detective and she's like a like a nightclub gangster's moll.
**Adam:** It feels like it's like from that it's that bit has gone off and done its own film.
**Adam:** It's just yeah, just really, really great sort of Noir and just but so much fun.
**Adam:** And afterwards I I met Ben Wheatley before because he was signing stuff at the booth and.
**Chris:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** He was really great and, I nearly I nearly walked right into Sam Riley because most of the cast were there doing a Q&A and that was great afterwards as well.
**Adam:** So, but yeah.
**Adam:** No, it's really good and just roll on when it actually comes out on DVD.
**Adam:** Because on Blu-ray rather.
**Adam:** Because I think, I think it's one of those things that might just disappear because it's so sort of because basically what's happened is Ben Wheatley's toured it round the country.
**Adam:** So he made it on a shoestring, he's toured it round and he like did first screening, they did was at The Nickel, so it was like about 40 people and then you're doing like the IMAX and they sort of toured it over Ireland and, up down the country and everything else like that.
**Adam:** So, yeah, but.
**Adam:** A definite recommend if you can get to see it.
**Adam:** I'm hoping that it will come on streaming and so on.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** I'll be looking out for that.
**Lee:** so next thing I'd like to cover, family friendly horror. I know we talk a lot about, the things that inspired us as kids and are they still making those types of things as much as they were when we were younger?
**Lee:** so I was very pleased to see that there was a two-week exclusive came out at the end of last year. R L Stine, of course, did the Goosebumps books.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Did a pumpkin head one-off movie.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Lee:** and yeah, I I really enjoyed it. It is very much in that kind of it is horror aimed at young teens.
**Lee:** or not even aimed at young teens because I thoroughly enjoyed it, but there's nothing in it that you couldn't show, you know, a younger audience.
**Lee:** But yeah, yeah, really good.
**Lee:** And it it really felt like a like a feature length Goosebumps episode but brought more up to date. So it looked really nice, it sounded really good, yeah, excellent cast, nobody I'd ever seen in anything before, but it was it was really good.
**Lee:** I say and it's it's good to see that R L Stine's still doing stuff. Because obviously, I know the Goosebumps stuff came out a little bit late for us.
**Lee:** We were kind of already we'd already gone from the family friendly into the more horror by the time those things came out.
**Chris:** But I heard good things about them generally.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean, Goosebumps was I've seen a few episodes and yeah, and they are quite good.
**Lee:** It's, you know, they're still entertaining even now as an adult. I mean, obviously they are very tame because they are aimed at a younger audience.
**Lee:** But quite good at building atmosphere and introducing kids to the concept of horror, really.
**Adam:** I mean, they were K's generation and she she's literally just mouthed to me, 'Terrified me.'
**Lee:** So you know.
**Adam:** They I think.
**Chris:** Did it achieve its job.
**Adam:** And you see from you you can see how they are still talked about with such reverence by a younger generation to us.
**Adam:** And sort of like, yeah, no, these these things they made their mark.
**Adam:** And they were they were there, they were a lot of people's gateway.
**Lee:** Yeah. So it's great to see that he's doing it now again for an even younger generation. He's continuing to bring more people into the fold.
**Lee:** yeah, and it was just really well done, really entertaining, it had some really good, suspense in it and but again, it had comedy and things, so it sort of brought that levity into so again, you know, you'd you get a bit of a you get a bit of a scary bit and then they put a little funny bit at the end just to take the edge off.
**Lee:** So the kids don't walk away terrified. It's always broken by these comedic characters and.
**Lee:** yeah, and it was really, I say it was one of those, I watched it, I was like, I know it's going to be family friendly and it's aimed at a younger audience, so I might find it a little bit twee and a little bit, you know.
**Chris:** Tame.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** But I did, I found it really entertaining and really good fun, so.
**Lee:** Yeah, very pleased to, to see hopefully it's going to bring more people to replace us when we get too old to keep doing this shit, really.
**Adam:** Oh, what by next Tuesday, you think?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So I think.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Right, so just a very quick run through.
**Lee:** Just title and, you know, a couple of lines.
**Lee:** Chris, anything else?
**Chris:** Well, my one's easy because this is my non-horror one, which I I reckon I can figure out how there's a bit of horror in it.
**Chris:** It's The Shape of Water.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, it's horror.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is horror.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, but it's it's the human is the horror.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** You know.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Clearly, it's a very nice monster.
**Chris:** now, I mean, that might be giving things away, but I realized it's 2017.
**Chris:** Now, I totally thought this came out like a year or two ago.
**Chris:** I'm sure you both watched this when it came out.
**Adam:** It won an Oscar, man.
**Adam:** It was, you know, it's been it's been quite some time, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's crazy.
**Chris:** But anyway, I really enjoyed it.
**Chris:** It was like, yeah, it was it was fascinating. It hooked me right from the off and, yeah.
**Chris:** So but the thing that I thought was, how have I not seen more Guillermo del Toro horror? Like, I think, I can only think of Pan's Labyrinth.
**Adam:** Yeah. That's I mean, we we need to do we need to do more Guillermo del Toro on on the show, I think.
**Chris:** I I definitely want to.
**Adam:** I mean, he's particularly, I mean, I I his English language stuff, but I love his Spanish stuff.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Is my.
**Lee:** Yeah, and The Orphanage are brutal.
**Chris:** Oh, okay. Yeah.
**Adam:** Everything is good as Pan's Labyrinth.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** There we go. That's that's the takeaway.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent. Well done.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Adam:** mine is just, I watched a thing called A Bunch of Amateurs, which is about the Bradford Movie Makers, the oldest film club in Britain.
**Adam:** And I just enjoyed it because it was it was a great sort of nice just general documentary.
**Adam:** But, they I've then looked up a couple of the films that these guys have made because they're on YouTube including The Haunted Turnip and Nice Jam by director Phil Wayman.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, both of those felt like we'd see them at Horror on C.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** That sort of like proper low budget, just like five minutes just great stuff.
**Adam:** But, the actual documentary itself really worth seeking out and as I say, from there you can spin out and see they've put, you know, they've got stuff online of like the various guys there what they've made over the years.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, really good.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** so mine very quickly, Chris, for Christmas bought me as we'd discussed it previously on the show and I hadn't seen it.
**Lee:** Robin Redbreast, the play for today 1970.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Black and white folk horror made for British TV, very slow burn, completely psychological horror.
**Lee:** Absolutely brilliant, so unsettling, so uncomfortable.
**Lee:** hilarious in places where it's maybe not supposed to be, but it's equally just.
**Adam:** I defy that because the the the guy who they've got in, the Kung Fu the Kung Fu naturist who, you know, he's got one point of conversation, which is Nazi German.
**Adam:** I was like, Christ, this just probably feels like very, very, there's probably a lot of women who can tell this horror story.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's listening to this boring bastard.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh, just yeah, really good, really brilliant. I I definitely want to see more of that series if there's more stuff like that.
**Lee:** It's just so, say just uncomfortable the whole thing.
**Lee:** Even the cast, apart from the Kung Fu guy.
**Lee:** The three main the main character in it, actually, yeah, four of them from it are, you know, British TV standards. You'd know them as soon as they come on, you're like, 'Oh, it's her. Oh, it's him.'
**Lee:** Couldn't tell you anything they've been in, but as soon as you see them, they look so familiar, they're like an.
**Adam:** Yeah. Oh, it's him from that.
**Lee:** Old uncle you ain't seen.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** So that's just come out on BFI Blu-ray, so if anyone.
**Adam:** I believe I believe actually the version that we've got is the is the hold over in the BBC.
**Lee:** is into the folk horror and hasn't seen Robin Redbreast, do treat yourself because it's.
**Adam:** Because originally it was in color, but I think they I think they wiped the color version. So they but fortunately some bugger had the backup tape on black and white.
**Adam:** So they so that's why we can still see it.
**Lee:** It looks better in black and white.
**Lee:** It looks so much better.
**Adam:** It looks amazing in black and white.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** I I think it really does add to it to be honest.
**Lee:** right, so we will be back, in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Adam, what are we going to be talking about in a fortnight's time?
**Adam:** Oh shit. we haven't even thought of anything, have we?
**Lee:** No, we haven't. That's why I thought I'd throw it over to you.
**Lee:** You sort.
**Adam:** Okay, let's have a think.
**Chris:** We did have The Wicker Man on the list.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But unless we've got a theme planned for that.
**Adam:** Well, I I think The Wicker Man, I might have to wait till summer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Right. Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You can't you can't you can't do the solstice in the winter. It's just just what.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** I'll tell you what.
**Lee:** I'll tell you what.
**Lee:** Tell you what then.
**Lee:** As, it it is a Winter Olympics and there's lots of ice hockey going on at the moment.
**Lee:** I know there's no ice hockey in the first one and we should probably watch the first one before the second one. What about WolfCop?
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** WolfCop?
**Lee:** WolfCop.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Brilliant.
**Adam:** I've still not seen WolfCop, so yes.
**Lee:** And the second one has got, what's his name who did Clerks and Kevin Smith's in it.
**Adam:** Kevin Smith.
**Lee:** So it's basically a horror film about werewolves, ice hockey and beer. So we can watch the first one and talk about it and I will use it as an excuse to watch the second one.
**Lee:** And I'm sure Chris will because there's.
**Chris:** I'll try and get both of them in.
**Adam:** Yeah, if if they if they're both there, we'll roll over.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** Like a good WolfCop.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** Clutch from the air, I love it.
**Lee:** Right. Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody. Go and check out all the stuff we've suggested, apart from Suspiria, because it was wank.
**Lee:** And we'll see you in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.

---

## Ep 240 Horror on Sea 2026

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-240-horror-on-sea-2026/
Air date: 1 February 2026
Duration: 00:38:13

### Description

We’re back like a vertebrae and ready to tell you all about our day at the 2026 Horror-on-sea Film Festival. Always a joy to attend this ever-brilliant event, this year we opted for the second Saturday (23rd of January), and we hit a brilliant seam of great new horror. Features covered are “Borley Rectory: The Awakening”; “All You Need Is Blood” and “Horror-on-sea: 13 Bloody Years”. Short films covered: “Mirror, Mirror: Matryoshka”; “Medieval Maze”; “Knell”; “Kindness”; “Antebody”; “Fox and The Hen”; “Say Bye Bye To Blood Sausage” and “She-Bear”. No prep needed for this episode, as these are all brand new we will try to stay spoiler free, so just tune in and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Nell film availability: And uh, incidentally, um, I'll send you the link because the they had the QR code there. That is something you can see on YouTube. Yeah, they've they've put that up on YouTube and it's well worth a watch. If you look for um Nell K N E D L uh Dean Ferris is the director.
- Short film distribution challenges: because shorts shorts is a very difficult thing because usually they're supporting a main feature you may if someone then goes on to direct a feature film they may include them as extras but that's not even you're not even guaranteed a physical release now because things are not moved in that direction. So a lot of these things, hopefully they'll surface on stuff like YouTube because it's going to be the only way to see them. And it's, you know, surely it's got to be an effective calling card to be able to point someone in that direction. Yeah. You know, and go, right, if you want to see what I can do, here's this, you know, 15 minutes of um just great folk horror. It was, yeah, pretty good, very well acted and yeah.
- Borley Rectory director's filmography: Yeah, because he's done he's done quite a he quite done quite a number of films if you look on looking on his sort of IMDB credits. Um, but there's there's a couple of previous Borley Rectory as well, which I I'm not sure, you know, obviously we haven't sort of investigated those further, but I am intrigued to do some.
- Borley Rectory cast details: But they, um, but yeah, and I and quite a few, I mean, there are a number of familiar faces in there, but actually across the board, the cast were brilliant and they were I've got to sort of like say, they were um, I'm hoping I'm saying it right, Corneel Dion Willis. And Jess Inchbold, who were like the uh, the main sort of the. The brother and sister. Were so damn good. You know, they were because a lot of the time, you know, you sort of find it's like, oh, well, you've got familiar faces in there, but then the lesser known faces might not be. They were, they were brilliant to the point where I'm like, I'm convinced I've seen them in other things just because, surely I've seen them in other things because they were really, really good. But in terms of other names, you had Patsy Kensit in there and Julian Glover at the start, uh, Vicky Michelle, uh, Helen Ledrer who was great. She turned up as a doctor and was just, yeah, and Mark Winger from uh, who was Carver in the bill. Utterly unexpected. He was really great in it and um, yeah, just just all round the cast were fantastic.
- Antibody title etymology: Because it's Antibody with an E as in anti. Meaning before. Not anti as in against. So, yeah, so it's before body essentially is Antibody.
- All You Need is Blood actress's debut: Also, we've got to mention Emma Chase who was playing um the aspiring actress. This is her only film.
- Shebear silent film style: It's black and white and done like a silent film. Yeah. So you would have the and and the wonderful thing that you because we you we've watched we've watched silent stuff on the show on the show. Obviously we've watched Nosferatu. And and it's that lovely thing where someone says the dialogue and then it black the black card comes up with. The writing with the dialogue on this, you know, it's been said. And then this one they would subvert that occasionally where clearly they were saying something quite different. But they made it slightly more polite on the card.
- Horror on Sea festival submission policy: And I mean the best well the best will in the world, then it's not always the most comfortable seat in. And you know. But I mean, I'm a I'm a sucker for a documentary as it is, so I was quite happy with the run time, but my God, it was just such a just such a lovely evocative tribute of just how fun. And how oddly wonderfully amazing horror on sea is. And it taught me things that I didn't realize. I didn't realize that they don't charge people. To submit films, which is such a rarity within. You know, within filmmaking, certainly within film festivals, they don't charge people to submit their films. That's fucking amazing because that's the best thing. For for any struggling filmmaker, money is everything. You don't need to spend. And not only that also but but also you don't you don't think about it, but that's paying to submit your film. They may not even show it. You know, and that's like however much money you've wasted for someone's not going to show your film. And just again, much like being in the bar, it was just seeing all the familiar faces. Realizing how many people sort of met up and projects that spiraled out of people. And just this lovely little confluence of local, well, not even local, but like nationwide talent that has sort of been connected through Horror on Sea and which is all been brought together by Paul Crove. I mean, he's obviously he was the focal point of the documentary in a lot of ways, and he was a talking head in it as well. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's great to see the because it was hilariously funny the documentary.
- 13 Bloody Years documentary production: Because of the love of everyone involved, there was no problem with getting. Clips of the films and stuff like that and the stuff that's been break out of the and you know, everyone from people who just bring in mad shorts every year. To people who've made sort of like three or four feature films and stuff like that. And but you say you had clips from the films. And stuff like that to illustrate it as well. In fact, and I don't know if this rates for our IMDB, Lee. But I think we're in this more than we are in Video Shop Tails of Terror II. Because they were using off cuts from that. In there as well. … It's still in there, but it's part of the it became part of the governor trailer, didn't it, which is Paul. Paul's cameo role. … Yeah, they freeze frame. You can see us really. Yeah. Yeah. So. So we'll get we'll get we'll put that on IMDB. We've got to be putting us I don't know, archive footage or something like that.
- 13 Bloody Years documentary origin: And yeah, it's just it was just hilarious, but also it apparently it's spun from. It was going to be a DVD extra, it was just going to be like a 10-minute thing saying, Oh, here's the Horror on Sea festival, and so many people wanted to contribute and so many people that they ended up with this thing that then became half an hour. And then an hour, an hour's a feature-length documentary, and I'm hoping that I hope I hope that it comes out like in some physical form or is available somewhere.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** Hi, I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here again to discuss the Great Horror on Sea Film Festival that we all attended yesterday.
**Chris:** Yep.
**Lee:** excellent as always.
**Chris:** Yeah, it really was.
**Lee:** It was really exciting, loads of people, loads of good films, so we're going to try and rush through it all quite quickly, because obviously there is a lot to get through.
**Adam:** And we don't want to spoil anything, so you know,
**Chris:** a good thing that we can there will be swearing.
**Adam:** You're present.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** But there won't be spoilers, hopefully, so.
**Chris:** We'll keep each other in check.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** yes, so we've managed to watch three main films, as well as we saw eight shorts along the way.
**Adam:** About that, yeah, I think it was, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so we had a nice early start for a Saturday morning. We started with Borley Rectory The Awakening.
**Lee:** Which was at 10:00 AM, but before that, we had a few shorts.
**Lee:** first we had was Mirror Mirror.
**Chris:** Mirror Mirror.
**Adam:** Matr, Matroshka.
**Chris:** Matroshka. Oh, there you go. That's the pronunciation.
**Adam:** Well, that's that's my pronunciation. I'm probably doing it wrong.
**Chris:** They did get debated on the day, didn't it? A little bit.
**Adam:** Probably, probably best speak to a Russian.
**Chris:** Sounds good.
**Lee:** So we, so that was brought to us, it was the first of what's going to be a much larger story by Martin Payne.
**Lee:** We, I, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was good. It was nice and short. It was only eight minutes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** it was very creepy and weird. It was really well done. We didn't give too much away, so I'm looking forward to the rest of the parts, because he said they're all going to fit together to create one large narrative.
**Chris:** Yeah, because it seemed to top and tail with what looks to be what links it to the larger piece and then you've got the actual thing in the middle of it that was essentially standalone, yeah.
**Chris:** I think the title does give you the hint really as you know, roughly what you can expect.
**Adam:** But certainly the mirror mirror aspect, yeah.
**Lee:** yes, so that was a great start to the day.
**Lee:** that was followed by Medieval Maze.
**Lee:** I liked this one as well. It was good.
**Adam:** The Ne Ne remains very, very short.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** like five minute, pretty much presumably done pretty much on an iPhone, but yeah.
**Chris:** It did, it did look like it, but it totally worked for this.
**Chris:** I like, it does make me think it would be kind of fun to try and do something like that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely, yeah.
**Chris:** They're just gone to this medieval village and yeah, just used all the props that are there and
**Chris:** yeah, managed to create a story around there.
**Adam:** You use what you've got and, you know, it was an effective little sort of moment, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Very, very good.
**Lee:** so but yeah, I get the same, Chris. I do every year when I come away from horror on sea, I'm like, maybe we should think about doing something, yeah.
**Lee:** I've not yet, but
**Lee:** It, it, you never know.
**Chris:** I think, I think one day.
**Lee:** Maybe.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** we also then saw a longer short Nell,
**Lee:** which was a folk horror.
**Adam:** And that's Nell with a K, so as in the toll of a bell.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Not Nell as in Jodie Foster.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** directed by Dean Ferris.
**Lee:** yeah, this was super creepy.
**Lee:** I like, I thought the effects in this one at that very end were really, really impressive.
**Adam:** It was, it was a very good, very simple sort of like little folk horror moment like you say, you know, someone disturbs something they shouldn't in the woods and that follows them out. I think in everything about this, I really enjoyed. I thought the like the visually it was brilliant because they because it moves from the woods to the city and I think both were invoked.
**Adam:** Really, really well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, there was the, the sound design and music was great on on it as well. And yeah, it was a very effective and, you know, excellent, you know, there was nothing about it that bespoke that spoke of small budget. It looked
**Chris:** It it was really high quality, very high quality, really sort of well put together editing.
**Adam:** You know, just just the whole thing. I think that was a great.
**Adam:** And incidentally, I'll send you the link because the they had the QR code there.
**Adam:** That is something you can see on YouTube.
**Lee:** Oh, is it?
**Chris:** That's good.
**Adam:** Yeah, they've they've put that up on YouTube and it's well worth a watch.
**Adam:** If you look for Nell K N E D L Dean Ferris is the director.
**Chris:** That would be really great if if more could do that, because, yeah.
**Chris:** Sometimes I really want to go back and watch them.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Well, this the thing with a lot of these, it's sort of they come out and they do the festival.
**Lee:** And you know, some of the bigger films obviously get a Blu-ray release or whatever.
**Lee:** But so much stuff that we watch that's fantastic, we you just never get the chance to see it again and it's such a shame at times, but I mean I know why.
**Adam:** because shorts shorts is a very difficult thing because usually they're supporting a main feature you may if someone then goes on to direct a feature film they may include them as extras but that's not even you're not even guaranteed a physical release now because things are not moved in that direction.
**Adam:** So a lot of these things, hopefully they'll surface on stuff like YouTube because it's going to be the only way to see them.
**Adam:** And it's, you know, surely it's got to be an effective calling card to be able to point someone in that direction.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Adam:** You know, and go, right, if you want to see what I can do,
**Adam:** here's this, you know, 15 minutes of just great folk horror.
**Adam:** It was, yeah, pretty good, very well acted and yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh yeah, great, great start to the day.
**Lee:** then we had our first main feature, so that was Borley Rectory The Awakening.
**Lee:** so this was, Stephen M. Smith.
**Lee:** and he mentioned that he's done he's he's doing Borley Rectory through the ages. So this is the first of these I've seen, but judging by this, I will definitely be looking for more of these.
**Lee:** It was,
**Adam:** Yeah, because he's done he's done quite a he quite done quite a number of films if you look on looking on his sort of IMDB credits.
**Adam:** but there's there's a couple of previous Borley Rectory as well, which I I'm not sure, you know, obviously we haven't sort of investigated those further, but I am intrigued to do some.
**Lee:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** on the basis of the awakening.
**Adam:** Because, yeah, it was really good.
**Adam:** Nice, slow burn, supernatural horror.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** obviously I think, I think they're using Borley Rectory just as a name. It wasn't really the the story the actual you know what I mean, the actual story of the believer story of the Borley Rectory, you know, of the haunting at Borley Rectory.
**Chris:** I mean, they hinted at you know, potentially there have been many stories.
**Chris:** But you know, or things that have gone wrong through any particular building through the ages.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But they, but yeah, and I and quite a few, I mean, there are a number of familiar faces in there, but actually across the board, the cast were brilliant and they were I've got to sort of like say, they were I'm hoping I'm saying it right, Corneel Dion Willis.
**Adam:** And Jess Inchbold, who were like the the main sort of the.
**Chris:** Brother and sister.
**Adam:** The brother and sister.
**Adam:** Were so damn good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, they were because a lot of the time, you know, you sort of find it's like, oh, well, you've got familiar faces in there, but then the lesser known faces might not be.
**Chris:** Like it stands out a little bit.
**Adam:** They were, they were brilliant to the point where I'm like,
**Adam:** I'm convinced I've seen them in other things just because,
**Adam:** surely I've seen them in other things because they were really, really good.
**Adam:** But in terms of other names, you had Patsy Kensit in there and Julian Glover at the start, Vicky Michelle, Helen Ledrer who was great.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** She turned up as a doctor and was just, yeah, and Mark Winger from who was Carver in the bill.
**Adam:** Utterly unexpected. He was really great in it and yeah, just just all round the cast were fantastic.
**Adam:** Reminded me somewhat of the original TV version of the Lady in Black.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** The Woman in Black.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** You know, it's kind of that sort of a slow burn that there were apparitions and ghosts.
**Adam:** But it was done very, it was done very much in camera, you know, things would you would move and a figure would be there or the figure wouldn't be there and stuff like that.
**Adam:** There wasn't a lot of, you know, ostentatious effects in that sort of sense.
**Adam:** It was much more creepy and sort of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was a very classic ghost story, wasn't it the way it was told and it was kind of drip fed to you as well, which I really, like, I love that old classic style when I I think in that setting, it worked, it worked brilliantly.
**Chris:** Yeah, it was building up the explanation throughout.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And like again, speaking about sound design with it, I love the fact that when there were apparitions occurring, people's you you the the soundtrack would sort of distort so it was people who were drawn into the apparition were not hearing the rest of the world.
**Adam:** Correctly. They sort of sounded muddy, like they were underwater, sort of thing.
**Adam:** And I just thought that was a lovely effective touch that made you go, that that was like the hairs on the back of your neck. It was right, shit's going down because it's done that, you know, and
**Adam:** Yeah, I think, I think I would like to see more stuff from Stephen M. Smith.
**Adam:** Especially if there's other Borley Rectory.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** so so,
**Lee:** then we broke for lunch.
**Lee:** Caught up with a few people.
**Lee:** Not as many people that was the thing we we got a lot of films in, well we got three films and as I say eight shorts.
**Lee:** but yeah, I next year I'm thinking I might try and allocate more time for talking with people, because the people who were there like Michael Fausti and Sin Law,
**Lee:** Tommy Lee Rutherford was there, Philip Rogers, there were so many people I would have liked to have had more of a chance to catch up with.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was it was lovely catching up with Tom, especially because he was so lovely about making sure I got my pocket film of Superstition Blu-ray through because.
**Chris:** Yeah, he's dedicated.
**Adam:** He's officially an arsehole and just never shows up.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** but no, yeah, it was great, great speaking to him and obviously you got to speak to Michael Fausti as well and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You we saw Law and it was just yeah, it was just a nice sort of flying. Yeah, it was good to see everyone.
**Adam:** We'll sort of catch up in that sense, but.
**Adam:** Like you say, it'd probably be nicer to actually concentrate more on that side of it, the social side of it rather than the film side of it in a way, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, like I could almost do two days next week and spend next year, sorry. Yeah, and just so that I get as many films in but break them up over two days, so we have more time to sort of socialize, or I might just bite the bullet, stay overnight and end up in the next yeah, because I mean, you know, we'll talk about it, but it was.
**Chris:** Well, that's that's probably the way to do it.
**Adam:** early hours.
**Chris:** Yeah, we're doing around.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You're there in the wee smalls, yeah.
**Lee:** so following that, our next feature that we went in for, was All You Need is Blood.
**Lee:** so before this, we had again a couple of shorts.
**Lee:** So we had, Antibody was the first, which was James Gleeson.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** yeah, this was I know he said this is an older film, so.
**Adam:** It was 2004.
**Chris:** Yeah, but this was like amazing production.
**Adam:** No, that was, that was really, really good.
**Adam:** Basically, a body is washed up in the LA River.
**Adam:** the police go around to the woman's house to tell go go around to the the victim's house to tell his wife that his body's been found and then he walks through the door.
**Chris:** There he is.
**Adam:** And they're trying to work out how his body that is clearly it's not a mistake.
**Adam:** It's clearly him, everything matches, dental records, fingerprints, all this stuff.
**Chris:** I like that the way that like he is hiding some details from them, but we know essentially.
**Chris:** Like, it it seems like it has to be him, because, yeah, because we're sort of knowing a little bit more than they do and the way that unfolds.
**Adam:** But that was that was really effective, but what I really liked about it was I liked the fact that it kept it simple because it was kind of like,
**Adam:** you could not not see where it's going is the wrong sort of thing, but you were like, right, this this has got to inevitably end in a certain way.
**Chris:** Yeah, it can't.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And once it got to that point, it was like,
**Adam:** right, that's it, finished.
**Adam:** We're not having.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You it it it knew the audience were like, right, we know what's happened now.
**Adam:** It sort of, you know, or, well, not that we know what's happened now, but right, that makes sense and now this.
**Adam:** Because it's Antibody with an E as in anti.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Meaning before.
**Adam:** Not anti as in against.
**Adam:** So, yeah, so it's before body essentially is Antibody.
**Adam:** and the other short we saw was Jeff Harmer's kindness, which was a dark short.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Very short piece that was really just
**Adam:** you know, a single a single hander, the actress straight to camera.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Just doing a sort of quick monologue, very effective, very sort of, again, great.
**Adam:** As he was saying, great calling card for her and just sort of like, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was really punchy and really, yeah, it it it it was.
**Chris:** Certainly showed off her acting skills.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Perfectly, especially when you've got nothing to act against.
**Chris:** Yeah, I know.
**Lee:** Like that down the barrel.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, it was really good.
**Adam:** Well, as as we also know, if you're worried about doing that, you can put a cat around the camera.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Oh, you're, you're showing your hand.
**Adam:** Which leads us.
**Adam:** Yeah, which leads us nicely to our feature film.
**Chris:** Or or segway nicely.
**Adam:** Segway nicely to our feature film, which was All You Need is Blood directed by Bucky LaBouf.
**Chris:** So I mean, this this blew me away. This might even be in like you know,
**Chris:** my top 20 films of all time.
**Lee:** Wow, wow.
**Chris:** Like, I just, I just seriously was not expecting it to hit the marks.
**Lee:** Oh, was it?
**Chris:** Like so well.
**Lee:** Like.
**Adam:** That it really sort of came came from under.
**Adam:** It was like.
**Adam:** Oh, well, I kind of know where I am with this.
**Adam:** And again, not a particularly well-known cast.
**Adam:** Mina Sava is in there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and just fantastic.
**Adam:** but the the concept the concept of this.
**Adam:** Is basically it's a a boy and his friend are sort of amateur filmmakers.
**Adam:** They're just it's setting the late nineties, so they're recording on VHS cameras and he has aspirations to be a sort of auteur director.
**Adam:** And so he wants to make dramas, he's very sniffy about, you know, sort of popcorn fodder films or trash or you know.
**Adam:** So anything that's hokey or whatever like that, so he's has all these aspirations.
**Adam:** But then, strangely enough, his dad is infected by a meteor right that turns him into a zombie.
**Adam:** And they slowly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I was just gonna say the start, the very start where you where we're shown the effects of the meteor right.
**Chris:** Like even that was really funny, very quickly.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Like and that just drew you straight in. It's like, oh yeah, no, these seem like they know how to make a comedy.
**Chris:** Okay, now what are they going to do with the horror aspect?
**Adam:** You kind of knew you were in safe hands.
**Adam:** And they and they and we remained in safe hands.
**Chris:** Yes, absolutely.
**Adam:** And so, yeah, so they realized, well actually, we can make a horror film or, you know, despite resisting it, we can make a horror film because we've we don't need special effects as we have a zombie.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And it sort of spirals out from there, they advertise for actresses, but there's also an aspiring actress.
**Adam:** Who has terrible stage fright and sort of cannot act to a camera.
**Adam:** So she comes along and offers her services just as researcher, gofer, you know, second assistant, whatever, you know, and makes a pickle sandwich turns up as very highly strung, very sort of demanding.
**Chris:** The main job.
**Adam:** actress who actually wants to play the part and it's the sort of misadventure that spirals out from there.
**Chris:** I mean, she has got a pretty impressive cocaine habit as well, like that. That was some serious dedication.
**Adam:** That's that's within the universe of the film, rather than you're saying.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** You're saying the actress actually, but yes.
**Chris:** Like that, I mean, that scene was just so good.
**Chris:** It was basically it's like Mission Impossible escape, but the whole point is to get the cocaine.
**Adam:** I think because I and certainly, I mean, we were sort of saying, and I, I think you could be right, Chris.
**Adam:** I think this could be the best zombie comedy since Shawn of the Dead.
**Chris:** Like, for me.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was consistently funny.
**Adam:** And oddly enough, for it was it had a lot of heart to it.
**Chris:** Right, that's it.
**Chris:** That's where really that came out just at the right points.
**Chris:** Like his character arc was fantastic.
**Chris:** Because he was kind of a completely, you know, sort of a loser, essentially.
**Adam:** Logan Riley Bruno, who's playing that character.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like just a miss, you know.
**Adam:** A proper misfit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And but yeah, but yet figures it out in the end and at points throughout is sort of showing clearly he's got skills, and he's got understanding, but he's almost just missing the mark a lot of the time.
**Chris:** And then, yeah, it comes together so well.
**Chris:** And especially with his friend. I mean, that's that's really sweet as well, their friendship.
**Chris:** Because his friend is mute.
**Chris:** and they yeah, but like the way they communicate, that's a fantastic touch.
**Adam:** I think because yeah, I think it's just it's it's it's clearly it's clearly a tribute to growing up wanting to be a filmmaker.
**Adam:** And that love of making stuff with your friends and but also you know,
**Adam:** but not it wasn't sort of when I say it's got heart, I don't mean in a sort of cloying sense or anything else like that.
**Adam:** There's a lot in there that's like, you know, there's a lot of horrible bits in there.
**Adam:** There's proper gore, there's proper guts.
**Adam:** you know, and but also it's never sort of, yeah, it's never sort of sickly.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** You know, it's just like, no, this this film feels genuine. This is, you know, this is this this comes from a good place.
**Adam:** But it's not afraid to still it's not pulling punches or anything else like that.
**Adam:** It's still.
**Lee:** It had everything in the, as you say, everything in the right proportions.
**Lee:** So the gore was excessive and hilarious. The comedy was laugh a minute.
**Lee:** Like there wasn't there wasn't a two-minute scene without a real laugh in it.
**Lee:** but yeah, at the same time the connections between him and his dad and the whole, you know, him and his friends and everything, yeah, it was really, really well done and really well polished.
**Lee:** It was great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and I've got to say my favorite character though was, the detective.
**Lee:** Played by Eddie Grim.
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** He was.
**Chris:** He was fantastic.
**Lee:** He was just off his head.
**Lee:** He was brilliant.
**Chris:** Like when he's talking to himself, you're just like, yeah, you know where he's going through.
**Chris:** Trying to do all of this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You do not want to be here.
**Adam:** Also, we've got to mention Emma Chase who was playing the aspiring actress.
**Adam:** This is her only film.
**Chris:** Is it?
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again, it's one of those things where you're just like, this felt like, you know, this felt like somebody's been acting forever.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again, it's it's that thing, it's an independent film, but there were no there were no loose, there were no loose threads.
**Adam:** There was no one who was like, you know, not, you know, again, we're looking at something where it's like,
**Adam:** this is professional, you know, on a proper, proper level.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And I hope that all you need is blood goes on to be like a bit of a cult hit. I think it's in that same sort of it feels like in that same sort of area like something like Zombieland or something like that, you know, that it could be.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Something that really.
**Adam:** Sort of runs and runs.
**Lee:** If this hit streaming, I will 100% be.
**Lee:** And that's if I don't just go out and buy it, because like you said earlier, Chris,
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah.
**Lee:** I could watch this again in six months time without a doubt. It was such a fun ride.
**Lee:** Yeah, so excellent.
**Lee:** Yeah, so we had that in the middle of the day.
**Lee:** And Chris quite rightly when we came out then said, well our main film for the evening better be pretty freaking because it's got a lot to compare to if it's going to
**Lee:** gonna follow that.
**Lee:** So our last film of the evening was actually a a feature link documentary.
**Lee:** so Horror on Sea 13 Bloody Years, which was the story of Southend on Horror on Sea Film Festival.
**Lee:** But before that, of course, we had our shorts again.
**Lee:** which were.
**Adam:** there was the Fox and the Hen.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I, you know what, that caught me off guard.
**Lee:** I watched the first half and I was like, everything in this has been so predictable.
**Lee:** It's painful and then it had a beautiful twist.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Really did.
**Adam:** Yeah, because I was kind of I was the same. I think I got to the point where I was like, you know, where's this going? Because we know we've seen this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And then we had, oh, no actually.
**Adam:** Yeah, done, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, nice, nice rug pull there, certainly. Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it was perfect ending.
**Lee:** Great gore as well. I loved that.
**Lee:** It was
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually it looked, it looked brilliant.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Basically the tale of two girls who got who get lost on their way to a hen night and have to take shelter in a farm with a creepy farmer.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** And you don't know for sure, or you think you know for sure, but even if at some point.
**Adam:** Well, I think it's one of those ones you can definitely, you can definitely put that down as sort of like, stick with it because you could quite easily just be going, no, I've seen this a million times before and.
**Adam:** Oh, no, actually, you know, we're sort of we're going a bit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Take it somewhere else.
**Lee:** But yeah, it was.
**Lee:** It was great. I really.
**Lee:** Yeah, as you say, I mean, considering the budget and it was all shot in very low light in a, you know, in a sort of abandoned barn, it it did look really good. I was really impressed with it.
**Lee:** that was followed by another another very short short, which was say goodbye to blood sausage, by Caleb Thresher.
**Lee:** yeah, just a very comedic, very quick.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think they said it was their first their first attempt and they came up with the name first, which really made me laugh.
**Lee:** They said, wouldn't they were at a film festival and joking about and said, wouldn't it be funny to see something ridiculous on one of these, you know, lineups, came up with the name, then went away and shot the film.
**Lee:** And yeah, it was it was really funny. I enjoyed it. It was good laugh.
**Chris:** It was very entertaining.
**Chris:** It it's definitely more in line with I guess what I would expect from a short indie.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This this felt like if Troma had a sketch show.
**Adam:** This is like a five-minute sketch in the middle of a trauma show, you know, that.
**Chris:** It totally worked for what it needed to do, like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** and then finally, we saw Shebear.
**Lee:** Again, another short that was made, I think the director, Madeleine Malum said that it was made in three months.
**Lee:** Basically, it was a, oh, we should do something quick for the film festival and made it.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** And I, I, I found this so funny.
**Lee:** It was.
**Chris:** I love the unique, like unique take on showing the text on the screen with it and also quirky aspect.
**Adam:** It's black and white and done like a silent film.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So you would have the and and the wonderful thing that you because we you we've watched we've watched silent stuff on the show on the show.
**Adam:** Obviously we've watched Nosferatu.
**Adam:** And and it's that lovely thing where someone says the dialogue and then it black the black card comes up with.
**Adam:** The writing with the dialogue on this, you know, it's been said.
**Adam:** And then this one they would subvert that occasionally where clearly they were saying something quite different.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** But they made it slightly more polite on the card.
**Adam:** It was really good.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** But I don't think I've seen that used for him for a short.
**Adam:** I.
**Lee:** No, I haven't.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** But basically, yeah, the story of a.
**Adam:** ornithologist and his girlfriend who are out looking for a a very rare bird.
**Adam:** she is molested by a bear while he's looking the other way looking for this bird.
**Adam:** And then later she reappears having having become yeah, she reappears and.
**Adam:** I mean, can can you spoil something that quick? Possibly. I don't know, but yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, I mean, you know, yeah.
**Lee:** I mean it's called Shebear. You know she's gonna she's gonna become a bear.
**Adam:** And yeah, so basically she she's aware bear at that point and yeah.
**Adam:** But really well done and knowing its limitations.
**Adam:** So keeping keeping the silly, very silly, which I think was, yeah, and just.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And worked in its favor so massively for this.
**Adam:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Adam:** It was it was the real they turned that into a real strength.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, that it was going to be sort of the effects were going to be daft and yeah.
**Adam:** And just.
**Adam:** And but that but also that thing where it's like, you know, when that sort of thing can actually have a ton more personality.
**Adam:** Than some model that the creature workshop spent months developing or something like that.
**Chris:** Trying to do it perfect.
**Adam:** Whereas actually, you know, just a an effective mask with a good performer and it's like, no, this is that's that's the thing.
**Chris:** Like getting the right camera angle for it just to give it that extra edge, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** They clearly knew what they were doing.
**Lee:** Yeah, so much fun.
**Lee:** yes, and then the final piece for the evening, Horror on Sea 13 Bloody Years.
**Lee:** I I I I was not concerned, but.
**Lee:** An hour and a half documentary is a very long run time.
**Lee:** And I was worried it might dry up or feel stretched.
**Lee:** I don't know about you guys, I could have watched another hour of this so easily.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Chris:** I was thinking we've been sat down for quite a long time now. We've seen some amazing films.
**Chris:** Like, this has really got to do something and it absolutely did.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I mean the best well the best will in the world, then it's not always the most comfortable seat in.
**Adam:** And you know.
**Adam:** But I mean, I'm a I'm a sucker for a documentary as it is, so I was quite happy with the run time, but my God, it was just such a just such a lovely evocative tribute of just how fun.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And how oddly wonderfully amazing horror on sea is.
**Adam:** And it taught me things that I didn't realize. I didn't realize that they don't charge people.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** To submit films, which is such a rarity within.
**Chris:** The film.
**Adam:** You know, within filmmaking, certainly within film festivals, they don't charge people to submit their films.
**Adam:** That's fucking amazing because that's the best thing.
**Adam:** For for any struggling filmmaker, money is everything.
**Adam:** You don't need to spend.
**Chris:** Every, yeah.
**Adam:** And not only that also but but also you don't you don't think about it, but that's paying to submit your film.
**Adam:** They may not even show it.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and that's like however much money you've wasted for someone's not going to show your film.
**Adam:** And just again,
**Adam:** much like being in the bar, it was just seeing all the familiar faces.
**Adam:** Realizing how many people sort of met up and projects that spiraled out of people.
**Chris:** Yeah, the way they all collaborate with each other over time.
**Adam:** And just this lovely little confluence of local, well, not even local, but like nationwide talent that has sort of been connected through Horror on Sea and which is all been brought together by Paul Crove. I mean, he's obviously he was the focal point of the documentary in a lot of ways, and he was a talking head in it as well. but yeah, I mean, it's great to see the because it was hilariously funny the documentary.
**Chris:** It was.
**Lee:** But yeah, you could feel how much everybody involved, how much respect and love everybody has got for him.
**Lee:** And everything he does.
**Lee:** To put this together.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And the impact, as you say, the impact it's had.
**Lee:** On the the people who've produced films specifically for this and just the collaborations that have come out of.
**Lee:** And I, I thought it really captured the essence of it, when you could, you know, the shots where it was just everyone just hanging out in the bar area and all the writers and actors and people who do special effects all get into chat to each other.
**Lee:** And and projects coming out of the film festival, so it's not just a place to to show your film, it's a place to make those connections and network while having a nice time and it not feeling like, right, I've got to go and I've got to find someone to do this and do that.
**Lee:** It's just, it's it's such an amazing event.
**Lee:** And so to have it put to put a film like this by it was Alex Churchyard, wasn't it, who
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Who put it together, yeah, along with Michael Holiday and Hannah Patterson.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I, I, yeah.
**Lee:** I was totally blown away by it. I thought it was, yeah, enjoyable.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Because of the love of everyone involved, there was no problem with getting.
**Adam:** Clips of the films and stuff like that and the stuff that's been break out of the and you know, everyone from people who just bring in mad shorts every year.
**Adam:** To people who've made sort of like three or four feature films and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And but you say you had clips from the films.
**Adam:** And stuff like that to illustrate it as well.
**Adam:** In fact, and I don't know if this rates for our IMDB, Lee.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think we're in this more than we are in Video Shop Tails of Terror II.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Because they were using off cuts from that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In there as well.
**Lee:** I love that.
**Lee:** I don't know if I don't know if we mentioned it when we we discussed so we obviously we were extras on Video Shop Tails of Terror II.
**Lee:** And we also shot a fake trailer for a ninja film that then got cut from the film, unfortunately.
**Lee:** you know, as these things are, like you end up.
**Adam:** It's still in there, but it's part of the it became part of the governor trailer, didn't it, which is Paul.
**Adam:** Paul's cameo role.
**Lee:** Oh, you know what, it doesn't matter how many times I see that, I laugh out every single time.
**Lee:** but yeah, so we were very surprised when we sat down and got 10 minutes in and then found that they'd put the put the trailer for the ninja film into the documentary and then we were like, oh shit, yeah, that's us, we were there.
**Adam:** Yeah, they freeze frame.
**Adam:** You can see us really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So we'll get we'll get we'll put that on IMDB.
**Adam:** We've got to be putting us I don't know, archive footage or something like that.
**Adam:** On.
**Lee:** It's funny, I normally with documentaries, they're one of those things. Once I've watched it and I've learned the information, I don't generally go back to a documentary very often.
**Lee:** But this, literally, I said to you guys, we walked out and I said, if I could get my hands on a copy of that, I'd watch it again tomorrow.
**Lee:** Because it's so fast.
**Lee:** There was so much going on.
**Lee:** It was so fast.
**Lee:** I think we missed a lot of what was going on because we were still laughing at the previous scene.
**Lee:** It was just.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think that's.
**Adam:** That's the other thing as well is it's just so many lovely and funny people all together.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's just it was just hilarious, but also it apparently it's spun from.
**Adam:** It was going to be a DVD extra, it was just going to be like a 10-minute thing saying,
**Adam:** Oh, here's the Horror on Sea festival, and so many people wanted to contribute and so many people that they ended up with this thing that then became half an hour.
**Adam:** And then an hour, an hour's a feature-length documentary, and I'm hoping that I hope I hope that it comes out like in some physical form or is available somewhere.
**Adam:** Just because, yeah.
**Adam:** I could happily watch this again and it's just it's also a lovely thing if you've been to Horror on Sea.
**Adam:** It's a lovely little sort of it's a souvenir.
**Adam:** It's a souvenir from your time in Southend.
**Adam:** It's a stick of rock with horror on sea written all the way through it.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** And again, and it's for people who haven't been, people who maybe aren't so close to us and aren't just, you know, 40 minute drive away and are like, well, it's a long journey and you don't.
**Lee:** If you watch that, there is no way you would not go.
**Lee:** So I think they should release it as advertising.
**Lee:** If nothing else.
**Chris:** Yeah, it made me want to stay the night and go back again the next day.
**Chris:** I was like, what what else am I doing?
**Chris:** This is obviously the best thing I could be doing right now.
**Lee:** But yeah, so excellent work to the team who put it together.
**Lee:** I know they I think they said they literally the day before it was airing.
**Lee:** So the festival was already running before they'd finished editing it.
**Lee:** You know, actually sent it over.
**Lee:** but yeah, it was just a fantastic.
**Lee:** It was a perfect end to the day.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And we've been going, we worked out since 2018.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** yeah, so we've been, you know, several times, four or five times, I think we've been now.
**Lee:** and and always have a great time, yeah, and just seeing it and but it is good because all the stuff you miss as well.
**Lee:** so many films that they mentioned that were classics that we were there for, the Snarling and films like that.
**Lee:** but also stuff that we missed, Day of the Stranger was mentioned.
**Lee:** Tom's film, which we had picked up on DVD.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, thank you, Chris.
**Adam:** Because Chris got that for me for my birthday.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** My birthday.
**Adam:** Because I've been I've been desperate to get hold of that as well.
**Adam:** Because it's what he's made an acid Western.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, I want to see that.
**Chris:** Yeah, once I'd heard you both talking about it, I'd just grab a copy on the way out.
**Chris:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, so you bought it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it like you say though, in that documentary, clearly there are some others that absolutely we need to get hold of at some point.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So much stuff we need to track down.
**Lee:** yes, so thank you everybody for an amazing day.
**Lee:** It it always is, it's such a.
**Lee:** You know, it's I just wish I I had I could clear more of my calendar.
**Lee:** To make it. I think I should make more of an effort next year to clear the whole weekend really and maybe put the money off, but we'll see how it goes.
**Lee:** yes.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** go and check out all of those film, go and find them, say, some of I don't know if all you need is blood might be streaming somewhere.
**Lee:** Because it's a couple of years old now, but if you can track it down, do.
**Lee:** Yeah, Borley Rectory the Awakening and obviously when this documentary comes out.
**Lee:** When we hear about it, we'll let you know because yeah.
**Lee:** We'll be getting hold of it and and.
**Adam:** Yeah, we'll be first in line to grab copies, certainly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** So, what are we covering next, Adam?
**Adam:** oh, next time we're going to do a we have been watching.
**Adam:** Because we've been away for a few weeks, so and that gives us plenty of time to vamp.
**Adam:** Until we've actually worked out what we're going to watch next.
**Lee:** Excellent. Good plan.
**Lee:** I like that one.
**Lee:** Right, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, and goodnight.
**Chris:** Goodnight.
**Adam:** Night, night.

---

## Ep 239 Bram Stoker's Dracula

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-239-bram-stokers-dracula/
Air date: 4 January 2026
Duration: 00:38:27
Film: Bram Stoker's Dracula · Year: 1992 · Director: Francis Ford Coppola

### Description

Following our Muppet version of the film, and in the spirit of not doing too much work over Crimbo, we’re looking at “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. A film in which Ted goes on a less than excellent adventure; Withnail keeps Tom Waits on a remarkably protein-rich diet; and Hannibal Lecter clearly cannot be arsed having just won an Oscar. Unleashed with much fanfare in 1992, director Francis Ford Coppola wanted to bring to the screen a definitive version of Stoker’s novel (except for all the extra bits he bunged in for good measure). This ambition weirdly highlights some of the pitfalls of a faithful adaptation, with a number of characters usually dispensed with or amalgamated in other versions left to clutter up the narrative. It features what is a genuinely stellar cast both for now and then, but with some actors not necessarily suited to their roles. However, it’s still Coppola, so it still remains a well-made, beautifully shot gothic romance; which certainly equals the novel for pace and drama, and even adds some iconic imagery to the old myth which is still appearing over 30 years after the film’s release.

### Adam's Research

- Film's unique 'making of' video release strategy: But I also had the thing that I sent you that's on YouTube, which was they it's the weirdest thing I was explaining it to Clare and she found it insane. Was that, so, the film came out at the cinema, but obviously wasn't going to come out probably a good six months to a year on rental. So, the only way obviously I saw it by a pirate. But what they would do, and they I think they did it for a few films, but this is the only one I really remember it with. They released the making of as like a little 25-minute video. Like almost like how they did Thriller. Where the video was the making of Thriller, but you still had Thriller at the end of it. But it meant that you weren't just buying a music video, but you got the long form music video and all the back story on it and everything else like that. So they released this video, Sarah bought it, and so we were just watching it, because obviously it's got clips from the film in there. But also it was like sort of it was basically, I think what it would be called now is um, like um, a video press kit. It was like what they'd send out to people for as part of the sort of promotion of the film and the buff and to TV stations they might show it. Uh, like America has a lot more, had a lot more channels then, so they had a lot more entertainment news and things like that. So it was the sort of thing that would crop up like, I remember I had on video somewhere a making of Batman Returns, same sort of thing, 25 minutes, a few talking heads, a few clips, and that was it. And, but, so that in my head was kind of an integral part of it. And I became fascinated with how they sort of Coppola's process of how he made the film.
- History and adaptations of Dracula films: Oh, there's there's so many and Universal span them off, um, into sort of team-ups and Because weirdly enough, Bella Lugosi only played him twice. But then obviously he had Hammer who also would do like Hammer House of Horror. … Yeah. … He's basically the Count von Count. Um, you know, that's that's why it's still the accent and the cape and the medallion is all Bella Lugosi. And it still sort of retains now. Hm. But yeah, over the years, loads of people have done adaptations of it. When when Universal made the first one, they made the Spanish one at the same time. So that's two made exactly the same point. And um, yeah, so there's a lot there's lots out there.
- Film's controversial eroticism and rating: But yeah, I think it's also, Because I'm thinking about it, I think that was probably the thing is you we would have been like, like we'd have been 13. Hm. So obviously, obviously had blood, obviously had boobs, you know, it was sort of a bit poly, a bit sort of, … They make it because I I remember reading just before we it was the blurb, I think, when we looked at it on because we had the recording off of Film 4 that we watched before we did the Muppets. And it was like sort of like, you know, uh, with the controversial eroticism for its time. And that's like, was there? And I and I realized that obviously as a 13-year-old, having a movie film. This probably kept it top 10. for at least another three years after I first saw it. You know what I mean?
- Film's deviation from and challenges of adapting the original book: Well, I I think it's just he's a seducer. You know, in whatever way that is meant, you know, it's sort of that's the characterization of it. So it definitely is a romantic sort of. element that comes into it. When I was watching it actually, because because obviously Francis Ford Coppola was like, oh, um, we want to do the book. Hm. You know, and the book's not been done properly. And I think there's an element there when it's like, yeah, but the reason the book's not been done properly. is because as a movie, you've got too many characters in there. That's why they usually just have they usually combine the three suitors and sometimes just remove them completely and just have Jonathan. Because I think that's sort of yeah, I'm making an hour and a half movie. I'm not doing a book. Which is because the because the book is alway is made up of diary entries and letters and stuff like that. And it suddenly occurred to me, is that the only way you could do the book properly? Is you almost make a series of smaller movies, so you do it from Mina's perspective, um, Jonathan's perspective, uh, Dr. Steward and so on. Like all the people who contribute in the book. So you almost have like a you know, almost like have a completely different aesthetic for each person's thing. I mean, it'd be disjointed as fuck and people would hate it. But I think that's possibly, you know, if you really want to do the book. Because I mean, obviously then puts on the Vlad the Impaler stuff at the start and again, that's not the book. No. So it's kind of it's a weird choice to then call it Bram Stoker's Dracula. Especially because it's technically Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.
- Iconic visual designs and cultural impact: I think I I think it has managed to sort of have its own iconic nature. Because the older Dracula with the hair hair and the red cape and everything, that has that's the Dracula that gets taken from this film. You know, if people want to use that, I mean, obviously the Mr. Burns is dressed as it in the Simpsons at one point and so on and so forth. And it's that's it's always that look that is the iconic one that sort of come from it. And Lucy's um sort of like once Lucy's vampirized and it's like her funeral gown. I've seen loads of people like uh use that look and stuff like that. That's obviously really sort of taken.
- Film score composer and reuse in other media: and didn't they reuse it in They used it in American Horror Story, I think. In the first series of American Horror Story, I think this was like the music that accompanied the black Dahlia. Dr. Murder bits. Because they they reuse a lot of scores and things like that, they use Candyman and things. But um, and then obviously at the end of it, you've got Annie Lennox's love song for a vampire.
- Demanda Gallas's contribution to sound design: But I hadn't there's a couple of things, music-based that I didn't know about. So one of the things, because I was going, I remember going when it's the brides attacking Mina and Van Helsing, I loved all the sort of cackling and the weird shrieks and everything that was going on on there. And then in the end credits, I noticed that um Demanda Gallas is uh there's a song of hers in here, but also apparently she I I looked it up and she was actually contributing to the sound design. And she's like a um, uh, she's a a singer, but she does the most extraordinary like operatic disturbing gothic weirdness and um, yeah, I've got I've got a few of her albums and she's like like a sort of um, activist and uh composer and stuff like that. And so she does all those sort of weird bits. So I was in a way, I was quite pleased, I was like, Oh, this has obviously been resonating with me since. Since before I knew her. Because I got introduced to her through the Netball Killers soundtrack a few years later. Hm. So, but that point I was really, but but here's the one that got me.
- Lux Interior performed Dracula's scream: When he stabs the cross and screams, that's not Gary Oldman. No. Because apparently Gary Oldman couldn't quite nail it. I mean, I don't know if you guys watched those makings of, but … Yeah. Too sweet. Doesn't he? … But I mean we we'll have to discuss how they do that weird make. how they made it weirdly. But before I forget, so Gary Oldman couldn't nail the scream. At the suggestion of Sophia Coppola, uh, Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, who's director and Oscar-winning screenwriter in her own right these days. She suggested, why don't we get Lux Interior from the Cramps in? And that is who did the fucking scream. … Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. She was just a. Yeah, Lux Interior, scream. You feel amazing. So, yeah. So basically, yeah, so that's Lux Interior's scream, not Gary Oldman.
- Coppola's unique rehearsal process: But you can see from the making of that there's a lot of headbanging going on. It's a weird. Yes. But also the fact that that always fascinated me that sort of France. Because in a weird way, I watched this making of and that I didn't appreciate at the time. How fucking unusual a setup it was, where it was like, Come to my house. This is Coppola, come to my house. Live here. I'll just put you up bed and bored, we'll fuck around, do drama games. Rehearse on a sort of half built sound stage of what you you know, so you can really work it through and give it that sort of rehearsal time that you'd normally get for like a play or something. Hm. You know. But and then we'll go off and do the fucking film. And you're like, that is incredible.
- 90s trend of 'high brow' horror adaptations: Because there's also that because the 90s is a weird. sort of period in terms of horror. And certainly, like this sort of seemed to be part of a trend of, well, we're going to do a horror. It's not not absolutely a horror. You know, it's almost like we'll sneak it in by putting in romance. or, you know, it's or sort of it's like, look, it's not really horror, so normal people could come and see it. It's okay. And. Yeah. But you also got because there was um, but it's this sort of weird thing of you Kenneth Branagh did Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Which again is kind of I find it similar to this. I mean, I haven't seen it for bloody. years and years and years, but. I find it similar to this because as I remember, it's like, we're doing the book. Oh, except for those bits that we're not doing from the book. You know. And. But when they, you know, you've slapped the author's name on it, you're pretty, you're making a statement that there. But there was also a weird one where it was like and this sounds like a fever dream, I'm sure it's not, but I'm sure there was a Jekyl and Hyde, but it was all told from the perspective of the made who was Julia Roberts. Yeah. And it was. No, but that's a. Do you know what I mean? It's like. So they would have all these sort of like, no, no, we can be high brow about it. You know, we can, you know. Horror is a literary genre. They did seem to want to do them as as movies all of this point.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Jennifer:** I'm Jennifer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yay!
**Lee:** Jennifer has returned as you can hear from our poor recording quality.
**Jennifer:** Hey!
**Lee:** Well, no, it's not no.
**Lee:** I don't what I mean is I'm not upstairs in the room with the microphone. I'm just on the webcam and the my isn't as good.
**Adam:** rubbishing you.
**Adam:** He's he's not got he's not got his professional with pop shield.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Adam:** He can do.
**Unknown:** Hello late night callers.
**Chris:** And it's not rubbishing you yet, but we'll see by the end of the episode.
**Lee:** Well,
**Lee:** yeah, so as promised, we're back this evening following our Muppets Bram Stoker's Dracula episode. We are covering Bram Stoker's Dracula, which yeah,
**Lee:** I still can't believe we haven't covered, but
**Jennifer:** He wouldn't let me.
**Lee:** Not true.
**Chris:** And probably the right way around, maybe.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I've had a bit of a different time with this film yet again, but we'll get into that in a bit.
**Lee:** So both of you had seen this film previously.
**Lee:** What's your history with it, Chris?
**Chris:** I knew all about it.
**Chris:** I knew that some people liked it.
**Chris:** I knew that Jennifer liked it a lot, that probably made me think, you know, I don't need to watch that, really, do I?
**Chris:** It's probably not that good.
**Chris:** Turns out I was wrong.
**Chris:** I'll let her off.
**Jennifer:** Hey!
**Chris:** I'm sure, I'm sure that's been the case for a few other films.
**Chris:** I've never seen Legends of the Fall, but let's not go too far down that road because
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We were doing this on this podcast show.
**Chris:** No, this is not.
**Jennifer:** Except it's probably not a good film, it just had Brad Pitt in it, apparently.
**Chris:** well,
**Chris:** I'll I'll also let you have that after I've seen some of his great films, but anyway, let's let's go back to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Having watched it for the Muppets, I definitely should have watched it many years ago, because it's exactly the sort of film I like.
**Chris:** And having seen some of these makings of.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** They've added a they've added a few little extra flavors for me to think, yeah, I like what they did there.
**Lee:** and how about you, Adam, what's your history with this?
**Adam:** Well, it came out.
**Adam:** Obviously, it was a Dracula film, it was Gary Oldman, it was Francis Ford Coppola, Winona Ryder, Sadie Frost, Anthony Hopkins.
**Adam:** It was Keanu Reeves. You can't No, I don't think Keanu Reeves was a selling point at that point.
**Adam:** And certainly wasn't a selling point much long after.
**Adam:** It's only in recent years that I have truly begun to appreciate that that man is a Christ who walks among us.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** I like He is just a decent fucking human being.
**Chris:** Also, he may not be the best actor,
**Chris:** but I actually still He's not the worst.
**Chris:** He doesn't put me off.
**Chris:** He doesn't put me off any film that he's in.
**Chris:** I don't think I'm not watching that because this is bad.
**Chris:** Like somehow he slots in and it's it's good.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** perfectly fine.
**Adam:** And like I say, I think that the fact that he appears to be I mean, this is this is me tipping the scales here.
**Adam:** There'll be some controversy comes out now.
**Adam:** But no, but seriously, it just seems like a decent human being.
**Adam:** And that seems which is not something I can say for even actors I like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** really.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** you know, Or or many humans, really.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** You know, he so, yeah.
**Adam:** He definitely wins on that scale now.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, I think at the time I was kind of just I was caught up in the hype a bit.
**Adam:** And I enjoyed it.
**Adam:** I actually, I mean, I had a pirate version of it.
**Adam:** Sarah did, but massive Gary Oldman fan as well, massive Dracula fan, so she she went and saw it.
**Adam:** I assume I was too young.
**Adam:** Possibly.
**Adam:** What have been in '92, because I don't think this was an 18.
**Adam:** It might have been a 15.
**Lee:** Yeah, so we were coupled here shy, I think of the
**Adam:** Yeah, so, so she saw it in the cinema, but my mate, had a pirate VHS of it.
**Adam:** Which I can only describe in one word, red.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Seriously, even watching it now, it doesn't work the same.
**Adam:** I saw like a fantasmagoric Dario Argento lit version of this.
**Adam:** Everything was light, like light punching you in the eyes.
**Adam:** Just everything was so like fucking vivid.
**Chris:** That must have been good for the blood at the start.
**Adam:** Oh, it it worked brilliantly.
**Adam:** But like I say, I mean, the the main palette of this film in my head is just red.
**Adam:** Because that's, you know, it's it was the overriding quality of it.
**Adam:** But I also had the thing that I sent you that's on YouTube, which was they
**Adam:** it's the weirdest thing I was explaining it to Clare and she found it insane.
**Adam:** Was that, so, the film came out at the cinema, but obviously wasn't going to come out probably a good six months to a year on rental.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, the only way obviously I saw it by a pirate.
**Adam:** But what they would do, and they I think they did it for a few films, but this is the only one I really remember it with.
**Adam:** They released the making of as like a little 25-minute video.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Like almost like how they did Thriller.
**Adam:** Where the video was the making of Thriller, but you still had Thriller at the end of it.
**Adam:** But it meant that you weren't just buying a music video, but you got the long form music video and all the back story on it and everything else like that.
**Adam:** So they released this video, Sarah bought it, and so we were just watching it, because obviously it's got clips from the film in there.
**Adam:** But also it was like sort of it was basically, I think what it would be called now is like a video press kit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was like what they'd send out to people for as part of the sort of promotion of the film and the buff and to TV stations they might show it. like America has a lot more, had a lot more channels then, so they had a lot more entertainment news and things like that.
**Adam:** So it was the sort of thing that would crop up like, I remember I had on video somewhere a making of Batman Returns, same sort of thing, 25 minutes, a few talking heads, a few clips, and that was it.
**Adam:** And, but, so that in my head was kind of an integral part of it.
**Adam:** And I became fascinated with how they sort of Coppola's process of how he made the film.
**Adam:** But also I have gradually just really I just gradually fell out of love with it.
**Adam:** I don't think it's that good a film.
**Adam:** You know, that's that's I've so it's one that at the time I enjoyed, the more I watch it.
**Adam:** And certainly, I think also weirdly enough, I think it's one of those things where actually as a big Dracula fan.
**Adam:** I don't think it is, you know.
**Adam:** It's not certainly not top five, if top 10. No.
**Chris:** So, so one of the things that I I noted from the making of, that there are about 200.
**Chris:** Dracula films.
**Adam:** Oh, there's there's so many and Universal span them off, into sort of team-ups and
**Adam:** Because weirdly enough, Bella Lugosi only played him twice.
**Adam:** But then obviously he had Hammer who also would do like Hammer House of Horror.
**Chris:** I thought she was very iconic, he kind of set the standard.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's basically the Count von Count.
**Adam:** you know, that's that's why it's still the accent and the cape and the medallion is all Bella Lugosi.
**Adam:** And it still sort of retains now.
**Adam:** But yeah, over the years, loads of people have done adaptations of it.
**Adam:** When when Universal made the first one, they made the Spanish one at the same time.
**Adam:** So that's two made exactly the same point.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, so there's a lot there's lots out there.
**Adam:** But yeah, I just think and I think also going back to it now, I'm a bit just like again.
**Adam:** I love everyone in this, but I don't love everyone in this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's like they're all great people.
**Adam:** But I mean,
**Adam:** like for a start, Anthony Hopkins just feels like
**Chris:** Oh,
**Chris:** it has to be one of his one of his, yeah,
**Adam:** worst.
**Adam:** It's sort of just he just don't seem to I don't think I think I don't think he gives a fuck.
**Adam:** I think I think maybe Gary Oldman gives too much of a fuck.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Keanu's miscast, Winona's miscast,
**Adam:** Sadie Frost is great, but I think that the the whole point with Lucy is that she becomes weird and sort of lusty and sexy once Dracula's involved.
**Adam:** Whereas this version sort of is a bit more,
**Adam:** She's kind of already there, you know.
**Adam:** And sort of, you know, because the whole point is kind of like Dracula turns up and then she stops being Victorian repressed femininity and starts to You did have three suitors at the start, Adam, so
**Jennifer:** You did have three suitors at the start, there.
**Adam:** Exactly, I mean, there's still that sort of element there, definitely.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** So, yeah, and I just think that's sort of,
**Adam:** it Renfield's fucking great.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Tom Waits is Renfield's great.
**Adam:** Richard E Grant's brilliant because it's Richard E Grant and around the time when Richard E Grant just could turn up and be brilliant immediately.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** yeah, it's sort of so,
**Adam:** but yeah, and and it's obviously Francis Ford Coppola, it's like fucking, you know, got the Godfather and Apocalypse Now.
**Adam:** These are,
**Adam:** you know, and then it's like, and he wants to do Dracula.
**Adam:** And he does it and the music's fantastic.
**Adam:** The the sets and everything else like that, the makeup's great.
**Adam:** But I just, yeah, it's just sort of gone a bit,
**Adam:** for me, as a film.
**Adam:** You know,
**Lee:** See, I so having checked, yeah, so it was an 18, yeah, so we would have been 13 when we came out.
**Lee:** So we wouldn't have got into the cinema to see it.
**Lee:** So I when this film first came out and I got it on VHS, I so I think I rented it to begin with and then when it came out to buy, I bought it and watched it a few times and really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** and then I didn't watch it for years and then I went back and watched it again probably in my early 20s.
**Lee:** And was like, what did I like about this?
**Lee:** It's all.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's awful.
**Lee:** And then I left it a number of years and went back to it maybe 10 years later.
**Lee:** I watched it again.
**Lee:** And was like, oh, it's not as bad as I thought.
**Lee:** It's just the casting, as we say, you know, apart from Tom Waits, Gary Oldman.
**Lee:** it just it's not yeah, everybody's just wrong in it.
**Lee:** Which isn't their fault, they've just been put in the wrong place.
**Adam:** No, they haven't.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** But yeah, having gone back and watched it today with this, this is going to be a slog.
**Lee:** I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to.
**Lee:** I think it's got I think it's got more positive things about it than I remember.
**Lee:** And I think that poor casting has set me so against it.
**Lee:** And on which is why yeah, when Jennifer said, oh, I want to cover a film.
**Lee:** and gave three options for a birthday choice, I was like, well, we're not watching that pile of garbage.
**Lee:** But yeah, but actually going back and watch it, I was like, it has got a lot of redeeming features.
**Lee:** And I think it's I don't think it's a terribly made film.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** It's it's just.
**Lee:** And I mean, and some of it is things like the effects.
**Lee:** So the effects of the train and stuff, this is the year after Terminator 2 and that train looks like a toy, a kid's toy.
**Adam:** As far as I can tell, apart from green smoke and things like that, basically everything in it is practical.
**Lee:** It's all practical.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They try to do as much in camera as possible.
**Adam:** Which is also why some of the, you know, floating for want of a better description whenever Mina and Dracula are together looks a bit,
**Adam:** hey.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or like or the really weird way in which Jonathan Harker's picked up and put into the couch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, by the hand, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's odd, it's just but not that's not to say that odd isn't in, you know, that's still interesting.
**Chris:** I I didn't find it the effects too bad.
**Chris:** I
**Chris:** it's got a the whole thing feels like it could be slightly quirky in that
**Chris:** you know, in a way they're all going a bit mad, that kind of fits for me, so didn't I wasn't taken out too much by the effects with that in that regard.
**Lee:** I think it is just the little things like it's all the stuff with the train and the eyes in the sky and that stuff I just didn't think I just thought looked.
**Chris:** I I quite liked those.
**Adam:** See, I think I think it's the I think it's the choice as well.
**Adam:** Because there's a part of me that feels that maybe Francis Ford Coppola was even going or or Coppola, was going, you know, almost wanted to make it look like an old old film.
**Adam:** If you see what I mean.
**Adam:** He it was deliberately like, no, I want to do I don't want to do it as a model shot.
**Adam:** And then we'll sort of map on the eyes over the start and it's like, but weirdly at that point, unless I think now you would emphasize that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As an aesthetic, it would be like,
**Adam:** Oh, they've decided to make it like it was made in 1930.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think at this point it was sort of like it's a weird sort of marriage.
**Adam:** So they're just sort of okayish.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think it's also,
**Adam:** Because I'm thinking about it, I think that was probably the thing is you we would have been like, like we'd have been 13.
**Adam:** So obviously, obviously had blood, obviously had boobs, you know, it was sort of a bit poly, a bit sort of,
**Chris:** I was surprised there was actually less of that than I expected.
**Chris:** I think that was made into a big thing.
**Adam:** They make it because I I remember reading just before we it was the blurb, I think, when we looked at it on because we had the recording off of Film 4 that we watched before we did the Muppets.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it was like sort of like, you know, with the controversial eroticism for its time.
**Adam:** And that's like, was there?
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** I and I realized that
**Adam:** obviously as a 13-year-old, having a movie film.
**Adam:** This probably kept it top 10.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** for at least another three years after I first saw it.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Lee:** Think think for me was, although I I liked horror and I liked horror aesthetic, I think I was hoping this was going to be more of a horror film and less of a
**Chris:** So I
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely. I was going to say, for me, this feels more like a tragedy with some nice horror elements.
**Chris:** But there is definitely not that much horror.
**Chris:** Which in a way, aside from all of the the what do you call it, Adam?
**Adam:** Sexy track.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** aside from the porn aspect, it's almost family-friendly in that regard.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** I mean, there's a few beheadings and stuff.
**Lee:** Sorry, I just realized Jennifer, so what was your,
**Jennifer:** you know, your What initially?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, well at the time, you know, any team goth girl, obviously, was you know, very keen on it.
**Jennifer:** And I think,
**Jennifer:** yeah, like it's quite impressive for what they did and sticking more to the book, I think it's quite clever looking back at it.
**Jennifer:** And as you say, it probably was more love story, but again, I guess that's perhaps what the book was sort of trying to do in a way, wasn't it?
**Jennifer:** It wasn't meant to be a horror as such.
**Jennifer:** It was meant to be a sort of Gothic novel.
**Adam:** Oh no, because I think because the the thing of Mina being a reincarnation is not the book at all.
**Jennifer:** No, no, no.
**Jennifer:** But everything else, I mean, the whole like that sort of thing for me.
**Adam:** Well, I I think it's just
**Adam:** he's a seducer.
**Adam:** You know, in whatever way that is meant, you know, it's sort of that's the characterization of it.
**Adam:** So it definitely is a romantic sort of.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** element that comes into it.
**Adam:** When I was watching it actually, because because obviously Francis Ford Coppola was like, oh, we want to do the book.
**Adam:** You know, and the book's not been done properly.
**Adam:** And I think there's an element there when it's like, yeah, but the reason the book's not been done properly.
**Adam:** is because as a movie, you've got too many characters in there.
**Adam:** That's why they usually just have they usually combine the three suitors and sometimes just remove them completely and just have Jonathan.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I think that's sort of yeah, I'm making an hour and a half movie.
**Adam:** I'm not doing a book.
**Adam:** Which is because the because the book is alway is made up of diary entries and letters and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And it suddenly occurred to me, is that the only way you could do the book properly?
**Adam:** Is you almost make
**Adam:** a series of smaller movies, so you do it from Mina's perspective, Jonathan's perspective, Dr. Steward and so on.
**Adam:** Like all the people who contribute
**Adam:** in the book.
**Adam:** So you almost have like a you know, almost like have a completely different aesthetic for each person's thing.
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** it'd be disjointed as fuck and people would hate it.
**Adam:** But I think that's possibly,
**Adam:** you know, if you really want to do the book.
**Adam:** Because I mean, obviously then puts on
**Adam:** the Vlad the Impaler stuff at the start and again, that's not the book.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** So it's kind of it's a weird choice to then call it Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Adam:** Especially because it's technically Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Jennifer:** Turning in his grave, would he?
**Lee:** He wasn't staked down.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, no.
**Jennifer:** I think I think I would watch it again now, as in, I think like it's what is it, 30 years old, so I think like, you know, it's not bad, but,
**Jennifer:** I was saying, I'd only want to watch the Mark Gage's one again now because that to me was so much better.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** done in a way, wasn't it? And Matt, I'm trying to remember what it was like.
**Jennifer:** But was that almost like the three parts with different stories?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Because they're basically,
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, because it was the John it was the Jonathan Harker section, then it was the voyage of the Demeter, which is very rarely.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, done at all.
**Adam:** Yeah, done at all.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'm still not seen the film of that.
**Adam:** You did, didn't you, Lee, you said it wasn't all that though.
**Lee:** It wasn't great.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** fair enough.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's a shame, because that that did seem like a good idea. I mean, I have to check it out at some point when I can, when it's just on or whatever.
**Adam:** Oh, excuse me.
**Adam:** But the and then, yeah, the last episode was the modern day update as it were, like sort of, you know, it was basically Dracula AD 1972.
**Adam:** But whatever it was, 2015, I think it was or something like that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But But yeah, I mean,
**Lee:** when they
**Jennifer:** many looks.
**Lee:** many looks, all of his looks.
**Lee:** When they get to the castle with that strange hair and the long flowing cloak.
**Lee:** I thought that I liked his armor.
**Lee:** Like that was a totally different new.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'd never seen anything that looked like that.
**Lee:** I mean, it was very, a bit Armageddon.
**Jennifer:** a bit Armageddon.
**Lee:** He did look a bit like an Armageddon.
**Lee:** But yeah,
**Lee:** I I thought all that was great.
**Lee:** yeah,
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** and the stuff that's from the book that was brought in like the ring's of blue fire and all that kind of stuff, all that was used slightly differently, yeah, it was nice to at least see it in there just as a.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Almost an Easter egg or whatever to anyone who's read the book.
**Lee:** and has not.
**Lee:** yeah, seen that done before.
**Lee:** So I I did think it it did a lot more this time than I remembered thinking previously.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** I think I I think it has managed to sort of have its own iconic nature.
**Adam:** Because
**Adam:** the older Dracula with the hair hair and the red cape and everything, that has that's the Dracula that gets taken from this film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, if people want to use that, I mean, obviously the Mr. Burns is dressed as it in the Simpsons at one point and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And it's that's it's always that look that is the iconic one that sort of come from it.
**Adam:** And Lucy's sort of like once Lucy's vampirized and it's like her funeral gown.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I've seen loads of people like use that look and stuff like that.
**Adam:** That's obviously really sort of taken.
**Adam:** But I I but also I think the the music.
**Adam:** as well was weirdly admittedly it does also come from that time.
**Adam:** where you can honestly say, yeah, everyone wants to sound like Batman.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's all variations on.
**Lee:** Da da da da.
**Adam:** But
**Jennifer:** he was a Batman, he was a man.
**Chris:** It's true.
**Adam:** Well, yeah.
**Adam:** He's original man back.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** So, Wojciech Kilar's
**Adam:** music he also did the Ninth Gate.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Oh, that's good, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and
**Adam:** and didn't they reuse it in They used it in American Horror Story, I think.
**Adam:** In the first series of American Horror Story, I think this was like the music that accompanied the black Dahlia.
**Adam:** Dr. Murder bits.
**Adam:** Because they they reuse a lot of scores and things like that, they use Candyman and things.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** and then obviously at the end of it, you've got Annie Lennox's love song for a vampire.
**Lee:** Oh, see, that was on MTV.
**Lee:** I probably saw that more than the film.
**Lee:** because they probably couldn't watch the film at the time, but we had MTV.
**Lee:** So that was just like probably made me like the film without watching the film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's also that lovely thing where it doesn't really fit with the film.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Adam:** In a way, because it's like,
**Adam:** what it's it's it's the 90s, how you sell a soundtrack album is you had a hit single on it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, it's just it's just an Annie Lennox song.
**Adam:** It's a good song.
**Adam:** I like it, but it's like sins and like crashing symbols and stuff like that.
**Adam:** and you sort of.
**Adam:** But I hadn't there's a couple of things, music-based that I didn't know about.
**Adam:** So one of the things, because I was going, I remember going when it's the brides attacking Mina and Van Helsing, I loved all the sort of cackling and the weird shrieks and everything that was going on on there.
**Adam:** And then in the end credits, I noticed that Demanda Gallas is there's a song of hers in here, but also apparently she I I looked it up and she was actually contributing to the sound design.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Jennifer:** Oh, clever.
**Adam:** And she's like a she's a a singer, but she does the most extraordinary like operatic disturbing gothic weirdness and
**Adam:** yeah, I've got I've got a few of her albums and she's like like a sort of
**Adam:** activist and composer and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And so she does all those sort of weird bits.
**Adam:** So I was in a way, I was quite pleased, I was like,
**Adam:** Oh, this has obviously been resonating with me since.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Since before I knew her.
**Adam:** Because I got introduced to her through the Netball Killers soundtrack a few years later.
**Adam:** So, but that point I was really, but but here's the one that got me.
**Adam:** When he stabs the cross and screams, that's not Gary Oldman.
**Jennifer:** Oh, it's not.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Because apparently Gary Oldman couldn't quite nail it.
**Adam:** I mean, I don't know if you guys watched those makings of, but
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** I was laughing at his accent, bless him, he just sounds too sort of normal and.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Too sweet.
**Adam:** Doesn't he?
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It it both takes away from the magic and also makes you realize how impressive they are when they're acting.
**Adam:** But I mean we we'll have to discuss how they do that weird make.
**Adam:** how they made it weirdly.
**Adam:** But before I forget,
**Adam:** so Gary Oldman couldn't nail the scream.
**Adam:** At the suggestion of Sophia Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, who's director and Oscar-winning screenwriter in her own right these days.
**Adam:** She suggested, why don't we get Lux Interior from the Cramps in?
**Jennifer:** Oh!
**Adam:** And that is who did the fucking scream.
**Lee:** Wow!
**Jennifer:** Was that an excuse because she liked the band or something.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Adam:** She was just a.
**Jennifer:** Dad, can we get them in, please?
**Adam:** Yeah, Lux Interior, scream.
**Adam:** You feel amazing.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** So basically, yeah, so that's Lux Interior's scream, not Gary Oldman.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** But you can see from the making of that there's a lot of headbanging going on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's a weird.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** But also the fact that that always fascinated me that sort of France.
**Adam:** Because in a weird way, I watched this making of and that I didn't appreciate at the time.
**Adam:** How fucking unusual a setup it was, where it was like,
**Adam:** Come to my house.
**Adam:** This is Coppola, come to my house.
**Adam:** Live here.
**Adam:** I'll just put you up bed and bored, we'll fuck around, do drama games.
**Adam:** Rehearse on a sort of half built sound stage of what you you know, so you can really work it through and give it that sort of rehearsal time that you'd normally get for like a play or something.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But and then we'll go off and do the fucking film.
**Adam:** And you're like, that is incredible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That is that's such a revolutionary way of doing it.
**Lee:** It's
**Lee:** But I mean it does pay off.
**Lee:** I think and I think that's why this film does have its own cult.
**Lee:** following the way it does.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** when we as I say Adam shared some links when we've watched some some other shots and stuff.
**Lee:** And one of them was the South Bank show talking about Dracula.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** and they showed you then the Dracula experience at Whitby, as it then was.
**Lee:** So we went a few years ago, two, maybe three years ago, and that is now basically just entirely the Francis Ford Coppola.
**Lee:** One.
**Adam:** Oh,
**Adam:** really.
**Lee:** The Dracula experience is just the Bram Stoker's Dracula experience.
**Adam:** Oh, okay.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, it's few other bits in there, but.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's very purely the aesthetic of it and everything.
**Adam:** I wonder if it was a link up.
**Adam:** from both being in the South Bank show, because that South Bank show's kind of a,
**Adam:** half promo, that came on that was just the South Bank show were doing Dracula.
**Adam:** Coincidentally, at the time that Dracula's on at the cinema, and we've got loads of behind the scenes bits talking to the people.
**Adam:** We did Dracula.
**Adam:** It was kind of half and half.
**Adam:** You know,
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** no, that's really interesting, maybe they just, you know, there was a connection forced there.
**Adam:** So they were like.
**Jennifer:** They gave the ghost what they wanted.
**Jennifer:** They were like, we know which Dracula they want, let's not pretend.
**Lee:** young romantic goth.
**Lee:** Right, rather than full-on horror fans.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think so.
**Lee:** So yeah,
**Lee:** it does feel more with it.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Because there's also that because the 90s is a weird.
**Adam:** sort of period in terms of horror.
**Adam:** And certainly, like this sort of seemed to be part of a trend of,
**Adam:** well, we're going to do a horror. It's not not absolutely a horror.
**Adam:** You know, it's almost like we'll sneak it in by putting in romance.
**Adam:** or, you know, it's or sort of it's like, look, it's not really horror, so normal people could come and see it.
**Adam:** It's okay.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But you also got because there was but it's this sort of weird thing of you Kenneth Branagh did Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
**Adam:** Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
**Adam:** Which again is kind of I find it similar to this.
**Adam:** I mean, I haven't seen it for bloody.
**Adam:** years and years and years, but.
**Adam:** I find it similar to this because as I remember, it's like, we're doing the book.
**Adam:** Oh, except for those bits that we're not doing from the book.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But when they, you know, you've slapped the author's name on it, you're pretty, you're making a statement that there.
**Adam:** But there was also a weird one where it was like and this sounds like a fever dream, I'm sure it's not, but I'm sure there was a Jekyl and Hyde, but it was all told from the perspective of the made who was Julia Roberts.
**Lee:** That's a weird dream of yours.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it was.
**Adam:** No, but that's a.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** So they would have all these sort of like, no, no, we can be high brow about it.
**Adam:** You know, we can, you know.
**Adam:** Horror is a literary genre.
**Adam:** They did seem to want to do them as as movies all of this point.
**Chris:** I suppose, yeah.
**Chris:** They were trying to make these as big as possible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** They want to draw people.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I think that's that's that.
**Lee:** That goes so much in the casting choices.
**Lee:** It was just who's famous at the time, just bang them all in the same film together.
**Lee:** and it's it's bound to.
**Chris:** Oh,
**Chris:** I didn't mind Winona Ryder in this.
**Chris:** So either I was totally not seeing the things that both of you saw.
**Chris:** or which she's all right, but she's all right.
**Jennifer:** She's all right.
**Adam:** I think she's.
**Adam:** Let's face it, Keanu saves a lot of people because the poor can be the scapegoat.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, but sort of if if if they had got if you'd have had Richard E Grant playing Jonathan Harker, you know, because I think he could do the trauma side of it, you know, better.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually,
**Adam:** the other idea I had was because I I watching all the making of and everything else like that, I just get the impression that Gary Oldman was it was never a part that they suggested to him to play.
**Adam:** It wasn't like a part that he was fighting for or something that he had wanted to play.
**Adam:** But weirdly enough, Francis Ford Coppola would have had in his phone book, imagine phoning Nicholas Cage and saying, do you want to play Dracula, boy?
**Adam:** Because I don't think Nicholas Cage would have played it any differently to how he does it in Renfield.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough, I think that would work on both versions.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think he would work in the in the serious context as he would have worked in the other.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Again, that was another one, I'm surprised that much I enjoyed Renfield.
**Lee:** I could think I could go back and give that another rewatch again soon.
**Jennifer:** That was good fun.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, I I I think I think is there are so many the other reason I don't come back to this very often.
**Lee:** I've only seen it a handful of times.
**Lee:** I think there are a lot of other versions, because as we said, there are so many out there.
**Lee:** yeah, and I'm never really in the romantic mood. I like I want the horror violence or I want the black and white.
**Lee:** or I want that very British feel, or whatever.
**Lee:** And so this one just never comes to the four as if I'm going to watch a Dracula film.
**Lee:** This one isn't going to be, as you said, Adam, it's not going to be in my top five, but actually, yeah, it's it's choice of Dracula.
**Jennifer:** might make it top 10. Does not make it top five.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean, I I think everyone involved could not help but make a good film.
**Adam:** Just it's just not the best of Dracula Dracula films, really.
**Adam:** That's the thing.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Pleasant surprise, really.
**Lee:** So you glad we finally covered it.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, glad we finally covered it.
**Jennifer:** Yes, because, you know, feel like we should do.
**Jennifer:** Should go there.
**Jennifer:** I mean, how many Dracula have we covered now?
**Jennifer:** Have you got a sort of list of,
**Adam:** I'll have a check.
**Adam:** I think we've about three.
**Jennifer:** Put the.
**Jennifer:** Put the numbers up on, you know, Instagram and, you know.
**Adam:** I'll have a check.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think I think we've only done three actual Dracula films.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, okay.
**Jennifer:** Fair enough.
**Adam:** Oh no, four, Abbott and Costello meet Frank.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** So has everyone got a favorite Dracula film then?
**Jennifer:** That they can just name off.
**Chris:** Did we actually
**Chris:** cover the Nosferatu remake.
**Chris:** I can't remember if we actually covered it or not.
**Adam:** No, we talked about it on a we have been watching.
**Adam:** because I think two of us had seen it at that point, but the other.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** haven't.
**Adam:** And also,
**Adam:** it also if we're going down that route, I'd love us to do the Werner Herzog.
**Adam:** Nosferatu.
**Adam:** Just so I can, it's got the best Renfield.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Clare is an absolute devotee of Roland Topper's Renfield.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's just astounding in it.
**Adam:** So,
**Lee:** But there's.
**Lee:** I'll tell you what there's.
**Lee:** Weirdly enough, there's a BBC one with Louis Jordan, which is really good.
**Lee:** Which is much more.
**Lee:** the idea of doing the book.
**Lee:** essentially.
**Lee:** I've got that on DVD and I've tried started watching it, I think I got about halfway through and then planning to finish it at a later date and never did and just forgot it was on the shelf.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** yeah, I I would quite like because it is actually shot in Whitby and stuff.
**Lee:** So it's quite
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So it's got all of that going for it. So yeah, I would quite like to go back and give that another go perhaps.
**Lee:** But
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Not great example.
**Adam:** Actually, the ultimate, the ultimate one is the radio adaptation from 1991. That's perfect. It's exactly the book, it's done. And Frederick Jagger is Dracula and
**Adam:** Oh, I can't remember a bloody name now, but yeah, I I don't think it's it's mostly it's mostly Felicity Logan.
**Adam:** That's it, that's what I'm thinking of, Felicity Logan's Meana.
**Adam:** yeah, and lots of voice voice people.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** He's all voices.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** But I've got to say,
**Adam:** That's that's the thing, makes it you sort of just yeah.
**Lee:** But I say having rewatched Bram Stoker's Dracula, I still stand by every choice I made for my Muppets recasting.
**Jennifer:** Oh yeah.
**Jennifer:** I think the Muppets would definitely be better still.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Well, well, I'm still on the honeymoon period for this one.
**Chris:** So we'll review this again in another 10 years and see if it's gone downhill or or up.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, so very quickly.
**Lee:** Having,
**Lee:** we've got some news.
**Lee:** we are going to be taking a regular yearly break that we do.
**Lee:** We don't always have it in the same month.
**Lee:** So this episode will be dropping on the 3rd of January, I think, no, no.
**Lee:** It'll be dropping on the 4th of January.
**Lee:** It's the Sunday.
**Lee:** and then you will not hear from us again until the 1st of February.
**Lee:** we've got stuff going on.
**Lee:** So we're all going to be very busy.
**Lee:** but.
**Lee:** we will be returning as long as everything aligns as it should.
**Lee:** We'll be returning on the 1st of February.
**Lee:** With our horror on sea episode that we do.
**Jennifer:** Everyone.
**Jennifer:** should go and see horror on sea because this will come out in enough time that people can get a ticket horror on sea at Southend. It is a super festival, two weekends of all of the.
**Jennifer:** What do we call them?
**Lee:** Pretend horror films.
**Jennifer:** what are they called?
**Lee:** They call it.
**Jennifer:** No, they called independent, thank you.
**Jennifer:** Indie horror.
**Chris:** Indie.
**Jennifer:** Which I'm getting more and more keen on.
**Chris:** I think the more.
**Chris:** We've seen some of the best films we've ever seen here.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** She still keeps calling it.
**Jennifer:** No, I can't remember what they call it.
**Jennifer:** Indie makes it easy.
**Chris:** It's.
**Chris:** It's an endearing mocking.
**Adam:** I love the idea of the number of people you've wound up so.
**Jennifer:** I'm not being rude.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** We're trying not trying to be.
**Jennifer:** But yeah, Indie's just like, you know, dodgy bands.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, I love them. They're good people now.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, so it's a horror.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** we'll be back for that.
**Lee:** also Ghost story for Christmas, we've just watched, but a lot of people haven't watched it yet, so.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** We will be covering that at a later date.
**Lee:** Because obviously we don't want to spoil it for anyone who's been too busy over the festive period.
**Jennifer:** Has everyone here.
**Jennifer:** watched it?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Chris is shaking his head.
**Lee:** yeah, so we couldn't discuss it anyway.
**Lee:** But yes, so if you haven't seen it, I do because we will be discussing it.
**Adam:** I think I think most of when we do we have been watching, I think most of it will be ghost stories for Christmas.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** that have been there was a bumper crop this year and it's quite quite lovely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** And and the guys from Broken Vale came back and gave us another very good Ghost Story for Christmas radio show that was absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** An individual like a standalone episode that Adam posted about.
**Jennifer:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Tond for anyone who's looking for it. Yeah, so go on Spotify, look up Tond or Broken Vale.
**Lee:** And it is sinister as all hell, it's fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And there was the new Haunted season episode on Shutter.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** again, yeah.
**Adam:** Just so many.
**Adam:** Yeah, lots of lots of goodies.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** So, go and check out all of those, have a lovely January.
**Lee:** we hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year.
**Lee:** And we will see you on the 1st of February to discuss Horror on C.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.

---

## Ep 238 Muppets Dracula

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-238-muppets-dracula/
Air date: 21 December 2025
Duration: 00:55:38

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Muppet’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. It’s Christmas, and the Welcome To Horror team have decided to celebrate by honouring one of the finest Christmas movies of all time, The Muppet Christmas Carol, but with a horror twist. Our premise is to take “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and recast it with the Muppets! We’re keeping Gary Oldman as our token human, but the rest of the cast are up for grabs! Join Lee, Chris, Adam and Lady Jennifer for our jolly Christmas Party of Gothic Horror and Muppet Mania.

### Adam's Research

- Keanu Reeves' portrayal of Jonathan Harker's aging: My favorite thing here that actually, you know, just on the Bram Stoker's Dracula thing is watching it because similar sort of thing, Claire had never seen Bram Stoker's Dracula, she's a Muppets fan and obviously she suggested it and I'd sort of like thought, well, Dracula will be the one because there's enough characters to go around. If you did like the Shining, well that's only three Muppets and one of them's got to be a real actor, you know, so. … Yes, exactly. But so, you know, it seemed like it had a big enough cast and everything else like that. So we watched it with a view to Claire had never seen it and also, you know, you can just go through and start casting as you go, something. Um, but the one thing I'd forgotten about with Bram Stoker's Dracula is the fact that Jonathan Harker as played by Keanu Reeves has to age prematurely. And it's like, Keanu Reeves hasn't aged in the last fucking 30 years. And strangely enough, when he was a young whippersnapper, putting talcum powder on his luscious hair does not in any way shape or form age him.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Brave.
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Jennifer:** I'm Jennifer!
**Unknown:** Yay!
**Chris:** Why is Adam on the side? Is that just me?
**Lee:** Yeah, no, Adam's playing up and he's going. I'll be honest, you're all on the side at the moment.
**Chris:** You're on the side.
**Lee:** So, we are here for our Christmas staff party episode as always that we do every year, but this year we're doing something very new.
**Lee:** a fantastic suggestion from Claire, so just to remind everyone in case you didn't hear the end of the last episode. This evening, in the style of Muppet's Christmas Carol, we are going to be recasting Dracula with Muppets.
**Lee:** So, like Muppet's Christmas Carol, our main character will still be Gary Oldman, but we will be doing Bram Stoker's Dracula and we're each have come up with a list of which characters we would replace with which Muppet.
**Chris:** Now, is Claire trolling me because she knows I've never seen Bram Stoker's Dracula and I basically only know who Kermit and Miss Piggy is.
**Lee:** Did we not cover this as an episode? I thought we did Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Adam:** We've never done Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Chris:** We've never done it. We've done lots of Draculas but never the old Bram Stoker.
**Jennifer:** I think Lee refuses to watch it.
**Chris:** Yes, it's not his favorite. However, it turns out it's one of my favorites having now watched it.
**Lee:** Oh, have you watched it?
**Jennifer:** Oh, he went to me.
**Chris:** Oh, I thought I got at least watch this and try and watch some Muppets as well, you know.
**Chris:** Well, I should know Muppets, but there you go.
**Adam:** Well, this was a similar thing because Claire had suggested the Muppets thing and I was kind of like, well, we need to find a film that's got a big enough cast and you know, is reasonably well.
**Chris:** An interesting enough cast to be able to place each of the characters.
**Chris:** As I was going through it, I was like, this is actually a seriously great idea and I was loving it.
**Chris:** But I also feel like I need about a year of studying both to fully appreciate it, but we'll see.
**Adam:** Well,
**Chris:** I've actually come up with two versions as well.
**Lee:** Oh, you went around?
**Chris:** I'm not messing around here. I've I've put some effort in.
**Lee:** You have.
**Chris:** well, yeah, yeah. But you can see which one you like the most.
**Jennifer:** The one, the X-rated version.
**Chris:** Well, where I've called it the hyper-modern comedic version.
**Chris:** Versus the serious Muppet version.
**Lee:** See now you say Chris that you've put some serious effort in.
**Lee:** I would like to point out for the listeners because it might there might be a giggle or two.
**Lee:** every time I give my recommendation, I'm going to share my screen and share an image because I spent somewhere in the region of three hours today on AI getting it to recreate each of the characters as a Muppet.
**Lee:** And have even, I'll say I'll say that for later. I'll say, but yes, but I've done that and I will share them with Adam.
**Lee:** So, and I'll put them on our socials.
**Adam:** Oh, good.
**Chris:** No one can argue your your diligence.
**Adam:** For a good cause.
**Chris:** But which AI have you incorporated?
**Lee:** Oh, so I used two different ones.
**Lee:** The first one I used brought back pretty much like a very similar image for both.
**Lee:** but some of them were brilliant. So I kept some of them, then I went and used a different AI.
**Lee:** where you can add photos as well. So I would add a character, a photo of the character, a photo of the Muppet and then say, I want this Muppet as this character.
**Lee:** And it did it.
**Lee:** I laughed my absolute cock off for about an hour and a half today.
**Lee:** I was in absolute bits just sitting in the house on my own.
**Lee:** Laughing at these images.
**Chris:** So Lee has actually put some serious effort into this one.
**Chris:** No one can take that away from him except possibly Jennifer sitting to his left or right.
**Jennifer:** No, no, I put minimal effort into this, but it sounded so much fun. I was like, I need to come out of retirement to get involved.
**Jennifer:** But no, no, I am.
**Adam:** It's like, it's Godfather III, we've pulled her right back in.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, that's it.
**Lee:** I mean, just to discuss why we haven't covered it.
**Lee:** I think my issue with it is.
**Jennifer:** You refused.
**Lee:** I didn't refuse. I definitely wouldn't have refused.
**Jennifer:** You definitely voted it before.
**Lee:** I think you might have come up with some and I went with one of your other options.
**Lee:** The reason is, I I think it's an awful film because it it it's just the casting.
**Lee:** But it's it's an amazing cast. Everybody in it is brilliant as an actor.
**Lee:** They are all.
**Chris:** Well, well, surely, surely you cannot apply that to Mr. Reeves.
**Chris:** Who I love he's amazing, he's definitely not a good actor.
**Adam:** It's
**Adam:** Yeah, but he is a good person.
**Chris:** He's about as good as me as an actor.
**Adam:** Quite frankly, having seen the number of really good actors who have been outed in various ways of, you know,
**Adam:** horrible people and horrible events and so on and so forth, I'm going to give Keanu a break on this one.
**Adam:** It's like, actually you're a decent human being and that seems to be a thing in Hollywood than a good actor.
**Chris:** He gets a bit better throughout because he's in it a lot less.
**Lee:** I think he's one of those, he's like.
**Lee:** If you cast him in the right film, look at like John Wick and stuff, he is incredible.
**Jennifer:** The same film four times, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, all right, yeah, he is.
**Chris:** I mean, I actually like, I think he's great in the Matrix as well.
**Lee:** He works.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, as a robot.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** My
**Adam:** My favorite thing here that actually, you know, just on the Bram Stoker's Dracula thing is watching it because similar sort of thing, Claire had never seen Bram Stoker's Dracula, she's a Muppets fan and obviously she suggested it and I'd sort of like thought, well, Dracula will be the one because there's enough characters to go around.
**Adam:** If you did like the Shining, well that's only three Muppets and one of them's got to be a real actor, you know, so.
**Chris:** A lot of them play the blood, but yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, exactly.
**Adam:** But so, you know, it seemed like it had a big enough cast and everything else like that.
**Adam:** So we watched it with a view to Claire had never seen it and also, you know, you can just go through and start casting as you go, something.
**Adam:** but the one thing I'd forgotten about with Bram Stoker's Dracula is the fact that Jonathan Harker as played by Keanu Reeves has to age prematurely.
**Adam:** And it's like, Keanu Reeves hasn't aged in the last fucking 30 years.
**Adam:** And strangely enough, when he was a young whippersnapper, putting talcum powder on his luscious hair does not in any way shape or form age him.
**Adam:** He just looks like he's had an accident at the a club, you know.
**Lee:** It's such a bad movie.
**Lee:** And it's funny because previous guest on the show Chris Jones whenever we have this discussion, always argues it and he's like, no, no, it's supposed to be a comedy.
**Lee:** It's supposed to and I was like, no, it isn't.
**Lee:** It's just awful.
**Adam:** I I think actually the worst and the worst thing is, is it is very much.
**Adam:** Year zero for modern sexy Dracula.
**Adam:** And that pains me to have.
**Adam:** The one horror film that's got, well, the one horror film I can think of that's got Gary Oldman in it isn't actually all that cop.
**Adam:** And it's Dracula, you know, it's.
**Lee:** I know.
**Lee:** How do you get it wrong?
**Adam:** Actually, I'll tell you what.
**Chris:** But is it, wait, but is it that sexy?
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** Well, they decided to give it a.
**Chris:** I mean, obviously start.
**Chris:** A few, a few moments, really.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But on the whole, it's not what I would think of as that sexy.
**Chris:** I mean, basically look, Keanu Reeves gets pleasured, that's most of his scenes, it seems, he's getting pleasured, right?
**Chris:** So sure, that side of it.
**Chris:** But the rest of it is not that.
**Adam:** I I love the fact that the Victoriana has has is seeped into you, Chris.
**Adam:** That it's like, this man was pleasured.
**Adam:** Couple of weeks back, it'd been like, Keanu's got gets noshed.
**Adam:** Right, so, so let's get stuck in.
**Adam:** So for anybody who missed what we were doing this week and would like to go and do their own very quickly, pause this, go and write some down and come back.
**Adam:** Adam, would you like to list the characters that we will be recasting with Muppets, please?
**Adam:** So, obviously, as we said, so this is the Muppets Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Adam:** which is actually technically the Muppets Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Adam:** there's a lot of a lot of apostrophes in there.
**Adam:** but basically Dracula will be played by Sir Gary Oldman.
**Adam:** He's not been knighted, but he is in my head.
**Lee:** Yeah, and mine.
**Adam:** I'll call him sir because he has earned the title.
**Adam:** And yeah, so Gary Oldman will still be playing Dracula.
**Adam:** and then we're recasting the essential characters.
**Adam:** So we have Jonathan Harker, who is the state agent who visits Dracula at his castle.
**Adam:** Mina Murray, his fiance.
**Adam:** Lucy Westenra, her dirty mate.
**Adam:** and then her three suitors.
**Adam:** Lord Arthur Holmwood, Dr. Jack Seward, and Quincy P. Morris.
**Adam:** there is also Renfield, who used to work at Jonathan's company but has gone Doolali and is enthralled to Dracula.
**Adam:** Professor Abraham Van Helsing, who is brought in to deal with the terrible curse of the of the vampire, and then there's also Dracula's Brides and the crew of the Demeter.
**Adam:** So, you know, there but they're they're sort of that that's more just a sort of a generic thing.
**Adam:** So essentially, yes, so it's Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Lucy, Arthur Holmwood, Dr. Seward, Quincy Morris, Renfield, Van Helsing.
**Adam:** Are the characters that we are recasting.
**Adam:** And obviously there's plenty of moments where rats walk across the go across the cellar.
**Adam:** So there'll be plenty of bits for the rats to appear in Muppets Treasure Island to do their thing.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Chris:** And is Anthony Hopkins?
**Chris:** I did not know that.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Sir, Anthony Hopkins.
**Chris:** Not not necessarily.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** I don't know I'd give him a sir from this film.
**Jennifer:** He's good.
**Lee:** He's not.
**Chris:** He's good.
**Lee:** You really want a sir from this film.
**Adam:** I I he is he's phoning it in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He really is.
**Adam:** Because I was watching it, I was going, I can already think of three other people who play this better.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** Because they've given Van Helsing a bit more of his sort of you know, eccentric humor that is in the book.
**Adam:** but Hopkins is playing it like a bleeding wet fish in this.
**Chris:** Stop flopping around.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I also, because I get that and weirdly enough, this is be the last thing about Bram Stoker's Dracula, but I get the idea that obviously so Mina is the reincarnation of Elizabeth that who is Dracula's bride who dies.
**Chris:** I did like that backstory. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But why the fuck is the priest also played by Anthony Hopkins?
**Adam:** That adds fuck all.
**Adam:** And just seems a bit shit.
**Lee:** This whole film is just a series of mistakes.
**Jennifer:** It saved them on an extra actor.
**Adam:** That's true.
**Chris:** I thought why is it it feels a bit like it's just seen stitched together with seen rather than a total sort of following thread, but anyway. I I still loved it.
**Adam:** I mean the book is what's the term for it? epistolary as in it's made up of letters and documents and everything else like that.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, okay.
**Adam:** So I I suppose that could kind of come out of it.
**Chris:** decided to go with that. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right, Adam, if you would like to lead us in.
**Lee:** And then call each of us out for our our choices.
**Adam:** Okay, so.
**Adam:** We have we have Jonathan Harker.
**Adam:** So personally, I went with.
**Adam:** It seemed obvious that that would be Kermit to me.
**Adam:** But so Chris, what what what say you, sir?
**Chris:** I also thought that was an obvious Kermit.
**Chris:** Earnest, observant, a little naive.
**Chris:** His decency makes Oldman's Dracula feel even more predatory.
**Chris:** He asked the right questions too late every time.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Adam:** Mr. Lee and and are you and Lady Jennifer doing separate?
**Lee:** Oh, we've done separate.
**Chris:** Oh, separate.
**Adam:** In which case, sorry, I should have gone ladies first.
**Adam:** Lady Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** Thank you.
**Jennifer:** well, so my initial thought was obviously Kermit because that would work.
**Jennifer:** I was like, sorry, Keanu is no Kermit.
**Jennifer:** So, I went Cookie Monster.
**Jennifer:** Hasn't got a clue what's going on, generally just interested in one thing, you know, thought that was more appropriate.
**Chris:** What what did Adam say earlier?
**Chris:** Getting noshed.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** That's it.
**Jennifer:** It's noshing the cookies, that's all that was going on there.
**Jennifer:** So, yes.
**Adam:** And and what say you, Mr. Lee?
**Lee:** so I have got this one, which I'm hopefully sharing with you now.
**Lee:** Can you see that?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** I have gone with Beaker.
**Lee:** he would give the same performance as Keanu Reeves, guys.
**Chris:** That is, that is.
**Jennifer:** Formless, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, beautiful.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's it just for some reason, as soon as you said it, I just immediately went well, it's Beaker, it can't be anyone.
**Lee:** Because he's he would just be.
**Adam:** especially especially as he's being pleasured by the brides, you know, that's that's quite something, isn't it?
**Adam:** Yeah, if he was to be there.
**Adam:** Can I can I also just say that that that image has reminded me that I'm just going to say this this episode has to be dedicated to our fallen friend, Mr. Wesley Smith.
**Adam:** Because quite frankly, he'd have been fucking in for this and also, he'd have done us a brilliant poster.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Also, as soon as he took his glasses off, bless him, that was his best impression of Beaker.
**Lee:** yeah, I would like to say, I'm not taking work away from anyone with this AI.
**Lee:** If I hadn't been doing this, I wouldn't have paid somebody, I would have just sat on the sofa reading a book and drinking tea, so.
**Chris:** That is a good job though, that that is a Beaker Keanu Reeves.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** Beaker Reeves.
**Adam:** Imagine that was his nickname at school.
**Chris:** What were you saying Lee? Sat on the sofa doing what?
**Lee:** I'd have been sat on the sofa drinking tea and reading a book. I wouldn't have been doing anything productive.
**Lee:** I certainly wouldn't have been paying someone to do this artwork, so.
**Adam:** Would you would you've been pleasuring?
**Lee:** I mean, at some point maybe, who knows, I mean, it's a Sunday.
**Adam:** Depends on how good the book is, I suppose.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Oh, or the anacne.
**Lee:** No, it wouldn't be an acne, yeah.
**Chris:** Can I follow up with my alternate?
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** You got.
**Chris:** I got for Animal.
**Chris:** Sent as an assistant by mistake.
**Chris:** Cannot read.
**Chris:** Cannot write.
**Chris:** Communicates via screaming, drumming and intense eye contact.
**Chris:** Dracula generally unnerved, legal documents are eaten.
**Jennifer:** Good ending.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** I like that.
**Adam:** I I'd love to.
**Adam:** I I have to I have to say there's because I well, I'll we'll come to it.
**Adam:** I because I did I thought I think I know where where I had Animal and Beaker peg for this one.
**Lee:** Oh, obvious.
**Adam:** There we go, right, so.
**Adam:** So that's Jonathan Harker.
**Adam:** So next up is Mina Murray.
**Adam:** Now, continuing obviously where it was Kermit, I obviously went with Miss Piggy.
**Adam:** because it just seemed like not only that, but also just.
**Adam:** I can't begin to say how much I suspect Gary Oldman would enjoy romancing Miss Piggy, much in the same way that do you know what I mean, all all the best guest guest stars on the Muppet show were always the ones who were flirting with Miss Piggy, not the ones who.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And I just really feel that, you know, and and let's face it, it's there are there are.
**Adam:** There are lady Muppets but truly there is only one ultimate lady Muppet.
**Adam:** And so you've got to give her the female lead of the film, I think so personally I went with Miss Piggy.
**Adam:** So, Jennifer, what say you, sir?
**Chris:** I'm starting to think this might get us on a list saying that Gary Oldman would enjoy flirting with Miss Piggy.
**Chris:** But I absolutely agree.
**Chris:** That is who I would choose for Mina.
**Chris:** Devoted, intelligent, barely restrained fury.
**Chris:** She's not passive, she is love sharpened into a blade.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** No, I again, first of all, put down Miss Piggy, but I was like, no.
**Jennifer:** We know a rider, sorry, a bit in zipped in this, a bit floaty around.
**Jennifer:** So I went with Camilla, who I didn't even know that was her name.
**Adam:** Is that the chicken?
**Jennifer:** It's the big eye one.
**Jennifer:** I think, is it?
**Jennifer:** Or was it a chicken?
**Jennifer:** I can't remember now.
**Jennifer:** It's the only other woman I could find.
**Adam:** Janice?
**Jennifer:** On the Muppets.
**Jennifer:** I don't know who Janice is.
**Adam:** Not Janice the bass player from the Electric Mayhem Band.
**Jennifer:** No, not her.
**Jennifer:** No, I wrote down Camilla.
**Adam:** okay.
**Jennifer:** Just someone that was a bit bland.
**Jennifer:** No, you know what, that was fair.
**Jennifer:** Sorry, you know, you've done a lot of good things since.
**Adam:** Don't worry, I'm don't worry, I'm about.
**Chris:** She's she's the chicken apparently.
**Adam:** Yeah, Camilla's Camilla's Gonzo's chicken bride, yeah.
**Jennifer:** Oh, a bit like.
**Adam:** I can sort of see that actually, yes.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** And then Lee?
**Lee:** Okay, so if Winona was upset with her, it's going to get worse.
**Chris:** What what's Lee got?
**Lee:** For Mina Murray, I have gone with Fozzie Bear in drag.
**Lee:** It's it's a large role.
**Adam:** I love the fact that's he was out of.
**Lee:** What's that?
**Jennifer:** It's a good hustle.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** I wanted someone with presence who was going to bring the character to life.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm doing a it does look a bit like I'm gesturing for boobs, but I yeah, I like.
**Lee:** Someone who needs to be an important role in the film.
**Lee:** I mean, and and you can't not have Fozzie Bear as an important character in the film.
**Lee:** So therefore I have gone with that.
**Jennifer:** Fair.
**Chris:** He brings some color to an otherwise very drab looking but impressive scene.
**Adam:** Again, I I think that Gary Oldman would have plenty of fun romancing Fozzie Bear and Camilla the Chicken as well as as well as Miss Piggy, so.
**Lee:** Once I'd seen the picture, in my mind, all I kept hearing was Fozzie Bear's voice going, but take me away from all this death.
**Lee:** And then I I kept why didn't you take me away from all this death?
**Adam:** By the way, on the subject of the Muppets doing the Shining, obviously Fozzie would play Danny.
**Adam:** Because he's got someone who lives in his finger in Muppets Treasure Island.
**Adam:** So it would sort of follow on that just as a little offside there, I have to mention it, so yes.
**Chris:** My alternate here.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** I was going for Gonzo.
**Chris:** Gender curious.
**Chris:** Victorian chaos poet.
**Chris:** In love with Jonathan in theory.
**Chris:** Dracula in practice and danger in general.
**Chris:** Treats the entire situation as an immersive art project.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, this was something that Claire said, she she said she wished that we'd decided who was going to play.
**Adam:** Who was going to be played by a human, so that Gonzo could have been Dracula because it would have just been great when his shadow is walking around.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, you could see the yeah.
**Adam:** So clearly.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Adam:** Right, so.
**Adam:** Next up and this this is an interesting one.
**Adam:** So we've got Lucy West Endra.
**Adam:** Obviously played by Sadie Frost in the film.
**Adam:** And and this is a because again, I was like.
**Adam:** Oh, do we go with Janice from the Electric Mayhem Band because she was one of the only lady Muppets that I could think of.
**Adam:** and then Claire came up with Rizzo.
**Adam:** Because she felt he was the only one who had the same matched the same energy that Sadie Frost brings to Lucy of like this sort of crazy scaty bastard.
**Chris:** Lucy is a bit scaty, I'll give her that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I thought again, we're we're talking so obviously it'd be Rizzo basically Rizzo in drag is his Lucy from on my version.
**Adam:** So, Chris, who do you have?
**Chris:** Well, I went.
**Chris:** For Janice, soft-voiced, drifting presents.
**Chris:** A sweetness that curdles beautifully into tragedy, her slow fading feels dreamlike rather than comic.
**Chris:** A fragile candle in the fog.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** Very very beautimus.
**Adam:** Lady Jennifer?
**Jennifer:** are we on to Lucy?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Lucy, yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, so, you know, yeah, so Miss Piggy, because again, I feel like this is where Miss Piggy should have been.
**Jennifer:** Because this this role is the whole.
**Jennifer:** Like nymph fat kind of, isn't it?
**Chris:** She's got the energy.
**Adam:** She have the energy and she she would also be happily battling off three hunters.
**Jennifer:** Three.
**Chris:** Three suitors.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Which I think really.
**Jennifer:** Grace Miss Piggy.
**Lee:** I went with exactly the same.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Miss Piggy.
**Chris:** Oh, let's.
**Chris:** Let's see your your piggy.
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Amazing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Exactly the same reasons.
**Lee:** Really, yeah.
**Lee:** I was like, Lucy is in the you know, is the sex crazed one with all the boyfriends and Miss Piggy is always the most sexually like, not sexualized.
**Lee:** But yeah, she's the most sexually active of the Muppets, I would say.
**Lee:** So yeah, it seemed only right to put her in that role.
**Chris:** On my first viewing, appreciating the scene where they start looking through the book together, I was like, I did not expect to see them kind of giggling about different positions in this film.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** I'd forgotten because because I I had I had it stored on the fucking digital box from when Film 4 showed it.
**Adam:** On we watched it on I think like exactly the same date I recorded it last fucking December.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** and it starts off and it was like, you know, please bear in mind that there is this is a highly charged erotic film with.
**Lee:** I was like.
**Adam:** Is it?
**Chris:** Is it?
**Adam:** You know, and it's sort of like.
**Adam:** I mean, there's there's yeah, there's there's boobs, but then that's that's it's an erotic.
**Chris:** Is that the Ghostbusters scene with Keanu Reeves this time?
**Chris:** You know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Sure.
**Chris:** But it's a little bit dreamlike, but then they showed all those pictorial versions of
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean there is.
**Chris:** The doggy position.
**Chris:** I was like, oh, okay.
**Chris:** This is.
**Adam:** There is erotic there.
**Adam:** Isn't it?
**Adam:** Well, I mean that.
**Adam:** That would obviously be Ralph.
**Adam:** In the Muppets version, wouldn't it?
**Adam:** So it just be a picture of Ralph.
**Adam:** Oh my God, I've now suddenly just in my head a Karma Sutra of Muppets.
**Adam:** I don't need to think about that.
**Lee:** Thankly Lee.
**Jennifer:** Your AI.
**Adam:** Do not.
**Chris:** It's got to be it's got to be Gonzo doing his thing there somewhere.
**Adam:** Naughty.
**Adam:** Hell.
**Lee:** So what was your second one for this one, Chris?
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Oh, right, so Lucy.
**Chris:** Lucy.
**Chris:** Sam the Eagle, deeply repressed.
**Chris:** Accidentally the most erotic presence in the film.
**Chris:** Slowly discovers vampirism is freeing, confusing, and frankly a relief.
**Chris:** Still insists, it's deeply improper.
**Jennifer:** Fair.
**Jennifer:** I went with Beaker for this one.
**Jennifer:** Because kind of like, you know, whatever.
**Jennifer:** Just saying.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, Adam.
**Lee:** You hit the nail on the head for this one.
**Lee:** I did go with the reporter.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Just because.
**Lee:** Again, it it he's the main character in the majority of them, so when they do these weird spin-offs, they like to make bigger characters of some of the other.
**Lee:** Well, yeah, so I thought putting him in a smaller role would be
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's the most forgettable character in the film potentially.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** my my scientific advisor has just passed me this urgent piece of paper, apparently it's Guy Smiley is the guy I'm thinking of.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** who who was the journalist on Sesame Street.
**Adam:** So sorry, so you and you went with Kermit.
**Lee:** They like.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And who was your alternate, Chris?
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Let's check that.
**Chris:** Lord Harker.
**Chris:** It's Miss Piggy.
**Adam:** You know who he is.
**Chris:** No, I do I'll put up a picture of him.
**Chris:** I definitely remember him in the film now.
**Chris:** But yeah, I think he was overshadowed by the Texan a little more.
**Chris:** But Lord Arthur Holmwood, Miss Piggy.
**Chris:** Entitled aristocrat with big emotions and bigger entrances.
**Chris:** Furious that Lucy does not belong to her, challenges Dracula to duels, ballroom dances and eventually a reality TV style confrontation.
**Jennifer:** Fair.
**Jennifer:** Oh, so like Miss Piggy.
**Adam:** Love it.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** So, next up, we have Dr. Jack Seward.
**Adam:** Who, runs the mental asylum where Renfield is is resident and is obviously adjacent to Carfax Abbey.
**Adam:** I, at this point, I have dug out someone who's already been mentioned a couple of times on here.
**Adam:** And you'll probably see my working when we get onto a later character.
**Adam:** This is who I decided should have been Beaker.
**Adam:** Just because I just love the idea, particularly, of everyone having to translate for him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** During certain points.
**Adam:** There was a part of me that thought maybe maybe Bunsen and Beaker, the head of heads of the asylum, or like Bunsen make him Dr. Seward and then Beaker would be one of the guys with truncheons who knocks Tom Waits about.
**Adam:** but I thought Beaker, I thought Beaker.
**Chris:** I love their helmets.
**Chris:** As well.
**Adam:** Jack Seward, I thought Beaker.
**Adam:** So I've gone with Beaker.
**Adam:** So Chris, who did you go with?
**Chris:** I went with Fozzie Bear for this, kind, capable, quietly breaking under pressure.
**Chris:** His jokes falter as the horror deepens, which somehow makes it sadder rather than silly.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Lady Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** so I went with.
**Jennifer:** Bunsen, because I thought.
**Adam:** okay.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, why not? Seems right.
**Lee:** So I went with Gonzo for this one.
**Lee:** Because I thought he would add gravitas to this
**Lee:** to this character, which I mean, I'm not sure it needs it, but.
**Adam:** I I have to say, he rocks that suit.
**Lee:** He does.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Very.
**Lee:** Sharp as fuck, isn't he?
**Jennifer:** I don't think that's AI, that's real.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** Wearing that suit.
**Adam:** Fantastic.
**Chris:** Now, I did quite like their interactions Seward and Renfield in this.
**Chris:** No, I.
**Chris:** I did watch, we did watch A Dracula, we've watched Nosferatu, you know.
**Chris:** So I'm starting to get a feel for these characters, yeah, and in this, it was like, okay, you know, they've got a sort of a connection that I didn't realize they had to begin with.
**Adam:** I think also they, well, because he because he runs the asylum, so he's the one who's basically the gateway to Renfield.
**Adam:** and also, I have come to the conclusion, not only the fact that I am a fat old git and quite short.
**Adam:** That I will I will have to do the thing that every goth has to do and go.
**Adam:** I will never play Dracula.
**Adam:** I've come to accept that now.
**Adam:** Much in the same as I've had to come to accept I'll never play Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** But but fuck me, Renfield.
**Chris:** I don't know.
**Chris:** We're assuming like this Gonzo.
**Chris:** I reckon you're in there.
**Adam:** Well, that's the thing, are no, Renfield.
**Adam:** I reckon I can do that.
**Adam:** And I also now go that Dracula films live or die on their Renfield.
**Chris:** Yes, yes.
**Adam:** And if despite a great deal of miscasting in this, Tom Waits is fucking great.
**Lee:** He is.
**Lee:** He is fantastic.
**Lee:** The only person in the right role.
**Adam:** And and interestingly enough, the only American doing a convincing fucking English accent.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's like, oh, well, these are the proper trained actors and there here's the musician who's come in.
**Adam:** It's like his side job.
**Adam:** And yeah, he's just blown you out of the fucking water.
**Adam:** Guys, come on.
**Chris:** I mean, I I think I I'm I'm I quite like Gary Oldman.
**Chris:** But possibly he could play any role ever at any time, so maybe that's.
**Adam:** Have you ever seen that thing online where it's like you you were do you ever get that for there was a thing that someone wrote online.
**Adam:** It was, do you ever get that feeling where you'll be just doing something in the middle of the day and then suddenly you'll hear cut and you turn around and there's the director and it turns out you were being played by Gary Oldman the whole time.
**Lee:** That's how good an actor he is.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I wish I could.
**Chris:** I'll report to that.
**Adam:** that that just got me that did.
**Adam:** It really did.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** do you have an alternate on Mr. Dr. Seward?
**Chris:** Seward.
**Chris:** Yeah, I went for Beaker on this.
**Chris:** Runs the asylum alone, no one knows how.
**Chris:** Screams constantly while making accurate diagnoses.
**Chris:** Is always right, but tragically ever listened to.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** That was that was what I was thinking with Beaker in charge, you know.
**Adam:** Is that he would be, you know, it'd just be like, well, that's one of the greatest scientific.
**Adam:** You know, just people are just like, well, that was very profound.
**Adam:** You know, sort of like.
**Chris:** No one knows.
**Chris:** What are you talking about?
**Adam:** Right, so.
**Adam:** Next up is.
**Adam:** The big Texan.
**Adam:** Quincy P. Morris.
**Adam:** The P stands for penis.
**Adam:** And that was who I decided.
**Adam:** I decided that's where I was putting Fozzie.
**Adam:** Because I just thought Fozzie's got the big P energy.
**Adam:** He'd just be there, he'd be sort of romancing.
**Adam:** admittedly.
**Adam:** Rizzo in drag, Claire is actually laughing over in the corner after that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That is literally the most basic thing I've ever done.
**Chris:** That's got legs.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, so I went with Fozzie because I just I could just see him in a Stetson with his Bowie knife hanging out.
**Adam:** And giving it large.
**Adam:** So Chris, who do you have?
**Adam:** For Quincy P. Morris.
**Chris:** For Quincy.
**Chris:** I had Animal.
**Chris:** All instinct.
**Chris:** All loyalty.
**Chris:** No hesitation.
**Chris:** He barrels towards danger without overthinking.
**Chris:** Chaos, but purposeful chaos.
**Adam:** Ooh.
**Adam:** No, nice.
**Adam:** I like.
**Jennifer:** Fair.
**Adam:** Lady Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** Yes, well, I snap with you.
**Jennifer:** I felt Fozzie would have been just right in this role.
**Jennifer:** So, you know.
**Lee:** Yay.
**Jennifer:** There we go.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Lee:** What about Lee?
**Lee:** So I personally have gone for Cookie Monster.
**Lee:** yeah, again, just because he's large.
**Lee:** He's like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He suits the.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Dressed like that.
**Lee:** It works, it works.
**Jennifer:** That suits.
**Jennifer:** That's good.
**Chris:** A cookie and a double barrel shotgun.
**Chris:** What more do you need?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And did you have an alternate for Quincy?
**Chris:** Quincy.
**Chris:** Swedish Chef.
**Chris:** Speaks exclusively in violent culinary metaphors.
**Chris:** Tries to kill Dracula using improvised cookware.
**Chris:** Accidentally seduces half the cast.
**Chris:** Heroic death involves a flambé.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Garlic, surely garlic for the chef.
**Jennifer:** Nice.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** Well, moving on to Renfield.
**Adam:** Now, as I say, any Dracula film lives or dies on the basis of its Renfield.
**Chris:** used quite a lot now.
**Adam:** And so I had to do my favorite Muppet, so I had to give this to Gonzo, there was also the possibility that Rizzo would be in the cell with him, so we can recreate that lovely double act from Muppets Christmas Carol, but yes, I I I thought I it just seemed an obvious one that Renfield would be Renfield Gonzo would be Renfield in all his fucking mental glory.
**Adam:** So Chris, who did you have for Renfield?
**Chris:** As you predicted, I went with Rizzo the Rat, perfectly scaled madness.
**Chris:** Scrappy devotion, hunger, twitching fear.
**Chris:** He believes, he knows, he is the warning everyone wants to avoid.
**Lee:** That's good.
**Adam:** I think that would have been.
**Adam:** The other thing I was thinking as well because obviously Renfield's eating increasingly large animals.
**Chris:** A kitten, I want a kitten.
**Chris:** How about a cat?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** A large cat.
**Chris:** I did not know.
**Chris:** This film had any humor.
**Adam:** Lady Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** Yes, well.
**Jennifer:** I went for Animal.
**Jennifer:** Cause surely he's a crazy one, surely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he spends a lot of a lot of his time.
**Adam:** A lot of his time in chains.
**Adam:** So.
**Jennifer:** So, I thought it was ready.
**Jennifer:** He's got the outfit.
**Adam:** He's got the straight jacket.
**Adam:** aka the cover coat.
**Lee:** I also went for Animal.
**Chris:** Oh, there we go, two for Animal.
**Adam:** Two for joy.
**Adam:** Two for a girl, one for a boy.
**Lee:** And let's see Animal in his.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** Oh, that's.
**Lee:** It's nice. It works.
**Adam:** That's rather Muppet.
**Adam:** We will definitely we'll definitely get these up on we'll we'll definitely get these up on the Insta so that people can enjoy.
**Chris:** He's eating some good things there.
**Adam:** Spectacular looking Muppets there.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Chris:** My alternate was Kermit for this one.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Chris:** Soft spoken.
**Chris:** Polite.
**Chris:** Emotionally articulate.
**Chris:** Genuinely believes Dracula understands him.
**Chris:** Delivers devastating monologues about devotion, boundaries, and disappointment.
**Chris:** While being completely ignored.
**Jennifer:** Fair, fair.
**Adam:** I can see Kermit sort of like.
**Adam:** I love the idea that the calmest, most sensible Muppet is the one who's locked up because frankly, yeah, this film is quite, you know, the whole thing is fucking mental.
**Chris:** It's pretty backwards.
**Adam:** Right, so.
**Adam:** Next up is the last of the sort of big cast, so it is Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
**Adam:** I went with Bunsen.
**Adam:** Because I was linking it up that if Beaker was my Dr. Seward and he calls in his scientific mentor and etcetera.
**Adam:** And I also just thought Bunsen's got the right sort of Van Helsing E air to him.
**Adam:** You know, he's sort of just a wise calm figure.
**Adam:** And frankly.
**Adam:** Plays it a lot better than Anthony Hopkins.
**Adam:** But that's that's the thing.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's that's the story.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So Chris, who did you have for Van Helsing?
**Chris:** I'm joining you with the Bunsen on this one.
**Chris:** Brilliant.
**Chris:** Unshakable confidence.
**Chris:** Wildly experimental.
**Chris:** His seriousness never wavers, even when the methods are questionable, that contrast keeps the tone buoyant without breaking it.
**Adam:** Lovely.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** Stuff.
**Lee:** Do we have any others?
**Jennifer:** Well, I saved the you know, ace as it were up my sleeve for Gonzo.
**Adam:** Yeah, I can see it.
**Jennifer:** Didn't go too excited with him earlier, waited.
**Jennifer:** So just the right choice.
**Adam:** And what about what about you, Mr. Lee?
**Lee:** So I have a pair of Van Helsings.
**Lee:** I've gone for Statler and Waldorf.
**Adam:** Oh man, that looks fucking amazing.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Don't convince me that AI is good.
**Lee:** That's work.
**Chris:** That's good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I I want to watch that film, particularly as that is the most Christopher Lee.
**Lee:** I've ever seen a Muppet look.
**Lee:** Well, this is what I'm doing, so I add a picture of Peter Cushing in the outfit and a picture of the two of them.
**Lee:** And I put the two pictures in and just said.
**Lee:** Statler and Waldorf as Van Helsing and this is what it came out with.
**Lee:** And no exaggeration, I probably asked for about 45 seconds non-stop and annoying volume just by that image, it just made me absolutely.
**Jennifer:** Oh, it's good.
**Lee:** It's the anticipation.
**Lee:** Because you put it in and you have to wait like a minute, maybe two minutes for it to generate.
**Lee:** And then when it suddenly pops up, it just fucking nails you out of nowhere, it's so good.
**Adam:** But yes.
**Adam:** Oh, well, that's.
**Adam:** That's bloody marvelous.
**Lee:** Well.
**Lee:** I just thought.
**Lee:** They'll be arguing, which I thought would add to the.
**Adam:** No, it's not you're not going to kill the vampire.
**Lee:** Well, the one isn't it then.
**Jennifer:** Nice.
**Adam:** So, we have so that is our main cast gone through.
**Adam:** Now, we also have a couple of sort of wild cards but also mopping up of sort of if you've if you felt that you'd got.
**Adam:** there's Muppets that are always going to be in there but they're always going to be minor roles and so on.
**Adam:** So, first of all, we've got Dracula's three brides.
**Adam:** Now, bearing in mind, whoever this is will be pleasured, aka noshed off by these by these three brides at a certain point.
**Adam:** And I went with Animal, Sweetums, you know, the giant full-bodied Muppet.
**Adam:** And the Swedish Chef.
**Adam:** Mostly because of the bit where Dracula is talking to the brides.
**Adam:** Now.
**Adam:** Also, that's my last that's this is genuinely my last bit of Bram Stoker's Dracula thing, he definitely says salad tits in that bit.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** If I must watch that that scene again.
**Lee:** I will do it.
**Adam:** Oh dear, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, that.
**Lee:** If I really.
**Adam:** What a what a erroneous task for you there, Chris.
**Adam:** I'm so sorry.
**Adam:** so yeah, so I've got yes, so Sweetums, Animal and the Swedish Chef.
**Adam:** do we have any others for the for the brides?
**Adam:** Chris?
**Chris:** I did the Electric Mayhem.
**Chris:** Ethereal, seductive.
**Chris:** Unsettling.
**Chris:** Slow music drifting through corridors.
**Chris:** Glamour edged with menace.
**Chris:** They feel like temptation given form.
**Adam:** Ooh.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Adam:** See, I thought I.
**Adam:** I also thought and this is one that obviously we're not sort of necessarily casting.
**Adam:** But I did think that it'd be good that when Jonathan Harker is picked up by the monastery.
**Adam:** That it was actually just a cult run by Dr. Teeth and it was the Electric Mayhem who rescued him.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But that was.
**Lee:** No, it wasn't.
**Adam:** That was just a thing in my head.
**Adam:** So.
**Jennifer:** So, Lady Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** Do you have brides?
**Jennifer:** Well, I mixed this up a little bit.
**Jennifer:** So, yeah, I mean we've still got the picture up, imagine these two, but slightly sexier.
**Lee:** Statler and Waldorf.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, and I Big Bird in.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** It's a bit wrinkly.
**Adam:** And who?
**Jennifer:** Opportunities, you know, some people like everyone.
**Lee:** Some people like a big bird.
**Jennifer:** Exactly, that's what I'm saying.
**Adam:** I I nearly put Big Bird in actually.
**Adam:** But then that's.
**Lee:** I see.
**Adam:** But then that then followed because I just wanted to initially I just wanted to find the biggest ones, so I had Sweetums and then I was like, oh, Big Bird and then I went Mr. Snuffleupagus.
**Adam:** And now you've got the image of Mr. Snuffleupagus Snuffleupagus thing around the crotch of Keanu Reeves.
**Adam:** Or whoever is playing Keanu Reeves, like the Cookie Monster being pleasured by Mr. Snuffleupagus.
**Chris:** this this all makes more sense when you actually see that they're sort of deformed and you know, they're a bit they're a bit odd.
**Chris:** Not what you not what you initially think they are.
**Jennifer:** This is what I was thinking, you see.
**Adam:** Whereas I I.
**Adam:** Just went blately.
**Adam:** Where it was just like, yeah, that's who are the three most horrendous people to be coming on to you.
**Lee:** I say it's the size as well.
**Lee:** That's the thing, isn't it?
**Lee:** Like if you go for the big one, like it's just menacing, there's something about three huge people just coming at you at once like this.
**Lee:** You're not going to escape from the room, they're going to block everywhere you can, oh, yeah.
**Lee:** So I I'd say.
**Lee:** I've got to admit.
**Lee:** I had the same, so I had the rats who worked in Scrooge's Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, that's perfect.
**Adam:** I'm I'm I'm going to I'm going to sort of pull rank there, I reckon crew of the Demeter is all the rats.
**Adam:** And Sam the Eagle is the captain just because he's got the right level of pomposity to try and deal with this situation while all the rats probably quite literally leaving a sinking ship.
**Lee:** Oh, that's.
**Jennifer:** Yes, as well, they would all leave, wouldn't they at the right point.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** No, that would be quite clever.
**Adam:** Well, I think that that is I've.
**Adam:** I've thoroughly enjoyed going through this list.
**Adam:** And everything else like that.
**Adam:** Do we want to try and get?
**Chris:** I I actually think this would make a decent film.
**Chris:** Now, the more I was going through it.
**Chris:** The more I was like, yeah, I could actually.
**Adam:** It doesn't have to be.
**Adam:** Dracula, the Muppet's Dracula, I think.
**Chris:** Wouldn't be really good.
**Adam:** I think we'd have to.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Jennifer:** Disney.
**Lee:** Well, I I tell you what I do think, as we haven't actually picked what we're going to be covering next as our next episode.
**Lee:** It's going to be Christmas, we're going to be busy for the next fortnight.
**Lee:** As you've both watched Bram Stoker's Dracula again, and Jennifer is always keen to be, we cover it as our next episode the actual movie.
**Adam:** No, yeah.
**Lee:** And that way.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'll be too.
**Chris:** I absolutely would like to.
**Chris:** Yeah, it is way better than I imagined.
**Chris:** I, you know, you think it's very good, but.
**Adam:** It also.
**Adam:** Looks like.
**Lee:** I can.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think I lost.
**Lee:** I think I fell out of love with it for a long time.
**Lee:** Again, like one of those ones.
**Adam:** Was was that?
**Lee:** I'd seen it too much.
**Lee:** And I just I'd seen it so much.
**Lee:** That I'd got bored of it.
**Lee:** So when everyone kept raving about it, I was like, oh, it's not that good.
**Lee:** You need to, you know, get your balls a target.
**Lee:** Like it's all right, but it's not.
**Lee:** What are they serious?
**Lee:** Yeah, and then if you don't watch it for a while and you watch it again, you go, yeah, no, this really is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I think that's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think that's exactly what happened on the episode because I think I was prepared that it was like, oh no, I don't like the lost boys and everything.
**Adam:** Then I watched it.
**Adam:** It was like actually it's bloody fucking good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's it's funny, it's got some proper horror elements.
**Chris:** But but I I even I even again, against against some people's wishes, I even showed it to Toby and he was like, it wasn't it wasn't that scary.
**Chris:** And there was actually, I tell you I tell you what, no but there is a lot more graphic scenes than I remembered.
**Chris:** I was like, oh yeah, his face is melting at that point, okay, that's stereo.
**Chris:** I'm just I just watched.
**Chris:** What was it?
**Chris:** what's the melting guy?
**Chris:** Robocop.
**Chris:** And I was like, he probably does melt.
**Chris:** And and that apparently was bad.
**Adam:** No, he does.
**Chris:** That was bad.
**Chris:** And I totally forgot that that was banned, but it is.
**Chris:** And I was like, actually, there's a similarity here, there's definitely some melting going on.
**Adam:** The melting guy in Robocop was one of the great pub quiz questions I had with Lee.
**Adam:** once about.
**Adam:** No, you know, when it's like, right, we're a bit worse for where, so obviously we need to go into business making T-shirts because that's that's the sort of conversation you have, you need a T-shirt with the only one we came up with was the guy from Robocop melting with acid casualty written under it in like.
**Chris:** Oh, I'd probably buy that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** also, as a sidebar, just to let everybody know, we covered nearly two years ago.
**Lee:** We spoke to the writers and directors of Vampire.
**Lee:** and they were making this film and they were trying to crowd fund to get the film finished to get it completed and released.
**Lee:** This morning, I received my digital download of the film.
**Chris:** Oh, cool.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, sorry.
**Chris:** Did we pay for it?
**Lee:** I spoken to them, they have said they would like to come back and discuss our thoughts on the film, and they're going to do like a wind up to the streaming release.
**Lee:** So, they're going to keep us posted as to when it's it's it's going to be imminent, but yeah, so in the couple of weeks in the run up to that, obviously we'll watch it and we'll jump back on a call with those guys and have a discussion about how the film turned out and everything just before it's available to everybody else for streaming.
**Lee:** So yeah, if you did buy the pre-order, which I did.
**Lee:** Go and check your email because it's there and waiting.
**Lee:** And if not, we'll be back very shortly to discuss it just before it goes live for streaming or just after, yeah, just before it goes live for streaming.
**Lee:** But
**Adam:** And and it's just fantastic because they were so enthusiastic and so positive and everything about and it's like, I really hope this they it felt like they were going to get it made.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But the fact it has now, I'm really, really.
**Lee:** It's so good.
**Lee:** Absolutely like the fact it's made it all the way to fruition and they're so proud of it as well.
**Lee:** I know they were at that point when they'd they'd filmed it.
**Lee:** But the the finished product hadn't yet been done, but they were so excited about it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and their excitement's only ramped up since it's been finished, so it's clearly everything they dreamed it'd be.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening everybody, we hope you enjoyed this.
**Lee:** Let us if if you disagree with our choices, or not if you disagree with our choices, don't just call us mug, but if you have a better suggestion, drop it in the post for this on our social media and stuff.
**Lee:** Drop us an email.
**Lee:** and go and rewatch Bram Stoker's Dracula and we'll see you in somewhere around a fortnight's time probably.
**Lee:** Once we're into another new year if we fucking make it.
**Lee:** Thanks so much for listening and good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night and a Merry Christmas to everyone at home.
**Chris:** Merry Christmas.
**Jennifer:** Merry Christmas, everyone.
**Adam:** God bless this one and all.

---

## Ep 237 League of Gentlemen Christmas Special

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-237-league-of-gentlemen-christmas-special/
Air date: 7 December 2025
Duration: 00:37:50

### Description

Well Ho Ho Ho (to quote Santa when he was counting your three mums), it’s Christmas! Weirdly enough for a LoG-worshipping podcast, we’ve never actually got round to “The League of Gentlemen’s Christmas Special” (also known as “You’ll Never Leave”). Which is a tad strange as this was the time when the League truly revealed and revelled in their love of horror; with references galore in an anthology structure honouring the greats of Amicus; and three twisted tales that looked forward to where the Gents were heading in their subsequent careers, whilst also being worthy of inclusion in a “serious” horror anthology. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Guest actors and their roles/filming: Yeah, this was really the first one where they actually started. You know, they had guests. Playing characters because obviously the the first two series it's. You know, apart from apart from the Dent and kids who are, who were two little girls. Which would have been very difficult for them to have played. Essentially, yeah, they. Because so this was the first time that they actually had sort of guests in because obviously you got Lee Tarbuck and. Freddy Jones and I still can't believe that this is the first thing we've covered with Freddy Jones in it. … Yes. Yeah, cuz he had a couple of them actually, isn't it? … Yeah. And obviously, and obviously he is the father of Toby Jones and, you know, the a great lineage of. Creepy and comedic possibilities in that sort of in that family, definitely, because. Because because so Freddy Jones is Magnus Perblind, Chris, who does the curse of Carrick Poe. And yeah, I think he is. He's spot on with the league where it's that thing of yet you're playing this absolutely straight. Except you're also saying knackers. And I was fucked and so you know, it's that being able to sort of drop those in and get it exactly pitched right. And similarly, Lisa Tarbuck's fucking great. And apparently she was in for a day. All of her stuff was done in a day. And, you know, and she I mean, particularly the the twist of that story. Where, you know, she she is cold as fucking anything when it's like the reveal of that twist of the Charlie and Stella story.
- Director, crew, and visual quality: So there was always this team and I think they managed to get back pretty much everyone each time. Mostly because I think everyone really just enjoyed doing it. Also, yeah, that so I think. Because I've been weirdly enough, I've been listening to League of Gentlemen's just been getting a mention a lot on some podcast. I've been listening to, like just general TV once. And a lot of people are making the point and again watching this is it's like when you look at drama from around 2000. It doesn't look as good as this. Yeah. You know, they Steve Bendellac really shoots the hell out of this. This it looks great.
- Focus on 'second tier' characters: Because I think they didn't, because they don't really, because Charlie and Stella are sort of like in a couple of sketches over the period of the first series, hair lips in the second series and that's just like a single sorry. And Dr. Chinery again is kind of like a a running joke where it's just like, oh, Dr. Chinery is going to mutilate. … Yes, yeah. … I think you might need to take a seat as I've some rather distressing news. And. But again, so they sort of picked up on all these characters who weren't really, you know. If you were thinking, oh, the League of Gentlemen at this point doing a Christmas special, it would be. Tubbs and Edward, Pauline and the job seekers and you know, those were the sort of big characters from the show. So they kind of go slightly on like second tier almost of characters. But it works so fucking well. And Bernice, like Reverend Bernice is just fucking amazing anyway, cuz it's just such a great character of just.
- Production intent, filming details, and spin-off book origin: They also, I think we're very much cuz at the time, especially like in the sort of 90s. If anyone did a like if any comedy show did a fucking Christmas special, it was always an excuse for the cast to go on holiday. So it always so it always been like only fools and in Florida. Or, you know, like one foot in the Algar was one as well. And it was always like, well, we're doing a Christmas special, but actually it's going to be a knees up. And we'll just fucking go to Spain or whatever like that. Whereas they were like, no, we want to do snow, we want to do proper, you know, Christmas decorations and everything else like that. Cuz I think they filmed it in like August and September. So it wasn't exactly. One of the statues in the graveyard was used in Sleepy Hollow. So they said, oh, we we try to get that. Get that in as much as possible. … Exactly. So, but but they do, they do. Like you said, they've got the they know their anthologies. So they've got the wrap around story, then they've got like you have Charlie and Stella story's present day, then Hairlip story is 70s. And then the Chinery in the 1890s, or 1895, I think that comes up or whatever like that. But weirdly enough, the Chinery one was actually there was. Around the time they made this, there they also brought out a local book for local people, which was their first spin-off book. And. It was fucking great, cuz I remember buying it and it was one of those things where. Because there were a lot of comedy time books that were shit. But they actually gave a shit and wanted to do like a quality book. You know, it wasn't just a reprint or whatever like that. And. One of the things in there is this story, the Curse of Carrick Poe, like the Chinery story. He's in there as an actual sort of like piece of prose written by Mark Gatis. And on the DVD there's also him reading it, like Jack and Ory style, so it's also. And that's that's really good and I think it was I think it was actually just filmed in his house because he used to have the place all decked out all Victorian and everything. So it was just like, yeah, we'll just go and film in that Victorian corner of the house and. I'll put on a smoking jacket and we'll read it like it's Jack and Rory.
- Alternative casting for Freddy Jones's role: Well, apparently Freddy Jones. They did at one point they offered it to David Warner, who they obviously ended up working with in the film in the League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse. And I think David Warner would have been great. And David Ryal, I think they offered it to as well. But Freddy Jones, I think just again, like I say, I think he just he's perfect. He just he's just obviously walked in and just gone, no, I totally get this. And same as Lisa Tarbuck has, I think they just hit. Pay dirt with the guests in this and stuff.
- Francis Cox's role and Jeremy Dyson's cameos: But you've also got. Francis Cox in there playing Mrs. Traffic, who is the the lady with the rabbit, who is in the first two series of the league. She plays. Annie Reigns, so she she. Basically, she has a lot of animals slaughtered by Mr. Chinery. And. And again, that's that's that opening gag where it's like reading out the letter. And it's actually she's reading it over Benjamin Shoulder. Which I just think is. Yeah. It's just so good. Yeah. But this was her last this was her last sort of appearance in it because she I think she died a couple of years afterwards. But obviously, yeah, she was she was already part of the league, so it's quite it's nice that she's in there sort of a lot. Um. But also in the because Jeremy Dyson the non-acting member of the league is in there as. He's the student who snaps his glasses in Chinery's lecture hall. He's the hooded figure, he's dubbed, but he's the hooded figure who's who Dr. Chinery walks in on. But he also he is, if you look in the background at the line dancing, he's dressed as he's playing Mike King, you know, the DJ that Reece Smith plays the hospital DJ. Yeah, he's dressed as Mike King, so cuz Mike King there's a voice over of Mike King, but obviously he Reese Smith was playing Stella at that point. So it's just easier to get him him dressed up.
- Horror influences and homages: Because and that's that's the thing is I think that they they always just um, you know, again, this this is one where all the influences are on the sleeve, so you've got eyes wide shut, you've got Nosferatu, you've got and basically the entire of Victorian horror fiction. You know, to to a greater or lesser extent in the Chinery. Because I mean you've got the railway children where he gets his ass out. And it's clear point there. It was really good that they managed to get a truly horrible ass. You know what I mean? It's it's just an old man's one, Yeah, just an old man's like plated ass. You know, no. But they also do mention eating an onion as if to were an apple. You know, another which we we've we've talked about before. But. I also the Hairlip actually has a line from. The Werner Herzog Nosferatu. Because he says that the the absence of love is the most abject. And that is. … Yeah. And and the overhead shot of hair lip being attacked by the boys. Is very is in Vampire. And you've got Psycho when he's looking through the hole in the wall and things like that. And it's again, they've just really gone to town where it's like, just put it all in because it's all. Again, I think they there's like there's almost like a freedom of like, right, we know this is a bubble, this isn't the continuing story necessarily, this is just right. We're going to which oddly enough, we'll have to maybe we'll have to do it next year, but like Psychoville, which was recent, um, Steve's follow up. They did a Halloween special. Very much in the same vein where it's characters that you know are familiar with, but it doesn't actually then not actually real events if you see what I mean.
- Composer, other cameos, and cast connections: But also he is the guy holding a sheep in Dr. Chinery's waiting room. So he he did get a cameo in this. And he also did like Psychoville and the Pitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie from 2005. No, it's yeah, it's pretty good. And and actually soundtrack wise, fucking great, cuz you got the song thanks for all the fish song, which was just brilliant. Um. And actually the other you've also got David Arnold, the bond composer is the guy holding the fox in the thing. And again, that was. You know, he. But the one I hadn't actually realized is the guy who plays old Matthew, like who comes in for like for the hair lip flashback, because obviously, again, Reese is already playing Bernice, so he can't play the older version. Uh. But that it's an actor called Andrew Melville. Um, and I'd never put two and two together, but and this means this will mean fuck all to anyone. But for me. He is Rory Spotwood, the Minister of Fisheries in the nine Lives of Thomas Cats. And I hadn't put two together and now I'm like, oh, course it's fucking. … I I'm going to say. I've been saying it's my favorite film.
- Originality of Hairlip's vampire twist: That reveal that Hairlip isn't a vampire, but everyone around him is. With the mirror. I can't think of that actually being in a horror film. Or like something that I've seen. People people could let us know if there if if it is from something. But I genuinely do not recognize that and it seems like such a brilliant sort of. Yeah, just way of telling that sort of tale or whatever like that. But I think, yeah, it's just I think it's genuinely something they've hit upon. That's just really sort of, you know, a proper wow. If that was in a film, that would be the bit that everyone remarked upon. But weirdly it's in a in a Christmas special.
- Mark Gatiss's Ghost Stories for Christmas: Because I mean Mark Gatis obviously, I mean he did crooked house. But I mean he's been doing the ghost stories for Christmas. For the past what, 10 years or whatever it's been. You know. On and off. Yeah. Oh, nice. But again, that's like, you know, that seem to be like a ball this is kind of the ball rolling for that of. He's always. He's always busy at Christmas. Usually telling a Victorian ghost story.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here for the first of our December run-up to Christmas episodes.
**Lee:** Where we're going to be discussing well, kind of Christmassy stuff. This is definitely Christmassy. Next episode is Christmas adjacent, but we'll get to that at the end of the episode.
**Lee:** So, this evening we are covering the League of Gentlemen Christmas special from 2000.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Lee:** Which I didn't realize I'd come to this show so much later than it was on.
**Lee:** I didn't come to this till I don't know, probably two years later, I think.
**Adam:** Because I assumed you were watching it when it first went out, same as I was.
**Lee:** No, I didn't. I've got a feeling we borrowed the box sets of seasons one and two.
**Lee:** Yeah, from Sharon had convinced us to watch it.
**Lee:** And I found it incredibly difficult to get into, but once I got into it, I was like, why did I not get this? But it's just so grim. Anyway, we'll get.
**Chris:** So, so you watched it, let's say, we'll give you 2002. That's still 23 years that you managed to keep this quiet from me.
**Lee:** See, that was going to be my next question. Have you ever seen the League of Gentlemen, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** I, well, yeah, I have, it turns out I've probably seen a few episodes from season one, definitely, or at least I think a couple from season two, because is it season two where Papa Lazarou?
**Adam:** Yes, comes into it.
**Chris:** Yeah, right, so I've definitely seen him.
**Chris:** That might have been my introduction to it.
**Chris:** It might have been you and Jennifer showing me, I'm your wife now, Dave.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Someone else needs to do the voice.
**Lee:** Quite possibly.
**Lee:** Because Adam came once to one of our fancy dress parties as Papa Lazarou.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** So, yeah, that that could have been what you why you were like, what is this and then went home and Googled it perhaps.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But I've definitely never seen this Christmas special, did not know they did a Christmas special and support.to.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's that's and that's the thing with league. It's it is that very British hammer amicus horror all the way through, but yeah, when they dropped this obviously as their Christmas, as they, yeah, as I say, the amicus type with the great wrapper around, I just loved it. But it.
**Chris:** Well, because how do you step up more than legal already.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Somehow they managed to.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** And I was wondering how you'd take it, Chris, as someone who didn't know all of the characters.
**Lee:** Because I imagine it still works, but.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, so I did start watching.
**Chris:** Season one to to just remind myself of all the characters and and what like.
**Chris:** I don't know if I'd, I must have known it at the time, but I really appreciate just how it's mostly three of them playing so many different characters.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And on even on this they've got new ones.
**Adam:** Yeah, this was really the first one where they actually started.
**Adam:** You know, they had guests.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Playing characters because obviously the the first two series it's.
**Adam:** You know, apart from apart from the Dent and kids who are, who were two little girls.
**Adam:** Which would have been very difficult for them to have played.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Essentially, yeah, they.
**Chris:** Well, to be it's amazing the characters they do manage to play.
**Adam:** Because so this was the first time that they actually had sort of guests in because obviously you got Lee Tarbuck and.
**Adam:** Freddy Jones and I still can't believe that this is the first thing we've covered with Freddy Jones in it.
**Lee:** I mean, that's a crime, isn't it?
**Lee:** I mean, I love Freddy Jones, but yeah, I think of him more I mean, I always think of him from like the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes and.
**Adam:** Yes. Yeah, cuz he had a couple of them actually, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah, and he plays a real slimy dickhead.
**Lee:** He's fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And obviously, and obviously he is the father of Toby Jones and, you know, the a great lineage of.
**Adam:** Creepy and comedic possibilities in that sort of in that family, definitely, because.
**Adam:** Because because so Freddy Jones is Magnus Perblind, Chris, who does the curse of Carrick Poe.
**Adam:** And yeah, I think he is.
**Adam:** He's spot on with the league where it's that thing of yet you're playing this absolutely straight.
**Adam:** Except you're also saying knackers.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I was fucked and so you know, it's that being able to sort of drop those in and get it exactly pitched right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And similarly, Lisa Tarbuck's fucking great.
**Adam:** And apparently she was in for a day.
**Lee:** No, really.
**Adam:** All of her stuff was done in a day.
**Lee:** Bloody hell.
**Adam:** And, you know, and she I mean, particularly the the twist of that story.
**Adam:** Where, you know, she she is cold as fucking anything when it's like the reveal of that twist of the Charlie and Stella story.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** I loved it. I thought all of it.
**Lee:** You know, normally we've said before with anthologies, you've normally got a weak link in there somewhere.
**Lee:** Every one of these, the wrap around and all three of these stories are just perfect.
**Lee:** They are all so.
**Lee:** And it is some of my favorite league moments in this.
**Lee:** When the guy comes in on the bike, Reese Smith comes in on that bike and he's just talking ridiculously fast and chasing him round and round the table and it's just as he falls off.
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** It just fucking nails me every time.
**Lee:** I laugh so hard at that.
**Lee:** I I must have seen it a dozen times.
**Adam:** Because I think that's the thing is you've got cuz you get the lovely.
**Adam:** Because weirdly enough, what you we I bought the box set like the Blu-ray and we've watched it in all the.
**Adam:** So literally we watched this about two months ago.
**Adam:** And now and it was going to get rewatched for Christmas, so we've, you know, if combined that with with with the podcast so that it's, you know, I've done done done the double there in a weird way.
**Chris:** But there is so much in this that it's there is a lot of rewatchability.
**Adam:** But it's I think this was this was almost like the sort of right the gloves are off horror.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's all the way through the first two series of the League of Gentlemen.
**Adam:** It's in there as a flavor, but you've also got.
**Adam:** Because the thing I always forget with the league is when you especially watching like watching back the first series and stuff like that, is I always forget those intros where they have so many just quick visual gags and there's puns and you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, like yeah.
**Adam:** And they're like in a weird way, not to sound sort of not I'm sort of doing them a disservice or anything.
**Adam:** But it's like, oh, this is normal comedy, this is like a normal comedy show.
**Adam:** You know, it's just gag, gag, gag, like like airplane or something.
**Adam:** Which you don't necessarily think of with the league, but they, you know, they're they're hit rate on jokes is great anyway.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But this seemed to be the first watching it sort of at the time and also rewatching it now.
**Adam:** This definitely felt like this was like, no, we're just going to say, right, here's all the horror stuff we love.
**Adam:** And, you know, we we will go balls out. It's it's a horror thing. As they say, it's kind of a bubble, like a bit like a tree house of horror.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Where it doesn't necessarily exist in the league world.
**Adam:** But then there's a lot of stuff in there that kind of feeds in like Val Denton being a witch sort of eventually really does become part of like the anniversary episodes.
**Adam:** When they came back in 2017, whatever it was.
**Lee:** Which were excellent.
**Lee:** I've got to say.
**Lee:** They're one of those shows how they managed to not do it for 15 years and then just come back and not miss a beat.
**Lee:** It felt perfect.
**Lee:** It didn't it didn't feel like one of those, oh, we're doing a new cash in on an old.
**Lee:** Like, it absolutely felt part of the universe.
**Lee:** And it was.
**Adam:** It wasn't forced.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And it but and it but it wasn't just let's do the same shit again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** It was it was new and it was different, but it it felt, yeah, it it it.
**Adam:** It was part of it, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It really sort of.
**Adam:** Yeah, you didn't but then I think that was cuz Steve Bendelach, who directed this, is their was their director all the way through and he came back for it and a lot of the crew came back and like Eve Bar, who does the costumes, who did the costumes for Psychoville, inside number nine, and he even did the the theater inside like the live stage right, the live inside number nine and stuff like.
**Adam:** So there was always this team and I think they managed to get back pretty much everyone each time.
**Adam:** Mostly because I think everyone really just enjoyed doing it.
**Adam:** Also, yeah, that so I think.
**Adam:** Because I've been weirdly enough, I've been listening to League of Gentlemen's just been getting a mention a lot on some podcast.
**Adam:** I've been listening to, like just general TV once.
**Adam:** And a lot of people are making the point and again watching this is it's like when you look at drama from around 2000.
**Adam:** It doesn't look as good as this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, they Steve Bendellac really shoots the hell out of this.
**Adam:** This it looks great.
**Chris:** I kind of think what they really get right is that that balance between the costumes and the acting and the characters are all on this sort of level of they should be ridiculous, and they are in many ways, but they also really have this depth of just likeness or uncanny.
**Lee:** They are sinister.
**Lee:** Everything about it is sinister, and I love that about it.
**Lee:** Even when it is pure comedy, there's a sinister edge underneath.
**Chris:** Something underneath.
**Adam:** I think also there's a lot of heart in it, there's a lot of truth in it, isn't there?
**Adam:** Charlie and Stella, it's a very sad sort of relationship, you know.
**Adam:** It's it's just.
**Chris:** Yeah, even from the start like really when they're shouting at the doctor who's not even there and.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** It's just that there was small bits of normal talk after everything.
**Adam:** They've been saying to each other.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's just how we are.
**Adam:** Because I think they didn't, because they don't really, because Charlie and Stella are sort of like in a couple of sketches over the period of the first series, hair lips in the second series and that's just like a single sorry.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** And Dr. Chinery again is kind of like a a running joke where it's just like, oh, Dr. Chinery is going to mutilate.
**Chris:** He's the one who who killed the healthy dog, wasn't he?
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Lee:** The sleeping one.
**Chris:** By the fire.
**Adam:** I think you might need to take a seat as I've some rather distressing news.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But again, so they sort of picked up on all these characters who weren't really, you know.
**Adam:** If you were thinking, oh, the League of Gentlemen at this point doing a Christmas special, it would be.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** They got you.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Tubbs and Edward, Pauline and the job seekers and you know, those were the sort of big characters from the show.
**Adam:** So they kind of go slightly on like second tier almost of characters.
**Adam:** But it works so fucking well.
**Adam:** And Bernice, like Reverend Bernice is just fucking amazing anyway, cuz it's just such a great character of just.
**Lee:** One of my favorite bits in this whole thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, is in that opening, which as you say, this whole thing is horror, but the opening is the normal comedy.
**Lee:** And it's just the seeing the piss hit the snow and then rolling it up in a ball and throwing it at Santa Claus.
**Lee:** It just.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And the shocked elf's face is brilliant.
**Adam:** It has to be.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I I mean, I love also just the sort of like the little bits and pieces.
**Adam:** Like I've got a load of, I've got.
**Adam:** I've got.
**Lee:** 3,000 m.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Adam:** Do you want one?
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Lambert and Butler.
**Adam:** You're all right.
**Lee:** You're all right.
**Adam:** And but also they do the lovely.
**Adam:** Because on the DVD and now on the Blu-ray, they've got it, but they've got Jonathan Rigby interviewing them about anthology films.
**Adam:** Because they're saying about how they love them and they sort of obviously that's what they decided to do.
**Adam:** They also, I think we're very much cuz at the time, especially like in the sort of 90s.
**Adam:** If anyone did a like if any comedy show did a fucking Christmas special, it was always an excuse for the cast to go on holiday.
**Adam:** So it always so it always been like only fools and in Florida.
**Adam:** Or, you know, like one foot in the Algar was one as well.
**Adam:** And it was always like, well, we're doing a Christmas special, but actually it's going to be a knees up.
**Adam:** And we'll just fucking go to Spain or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Whereas they were like, no, we want to do snow, we want to do proper, you know, Christmas decorations and everything else like that.
**Adam:** Cuz I think they filmed it in like August and September.
**Adam:** So it wasn't exactly.
**Adam:** One of the statues in the graveyard was used in Sleepy Hollow.
**Adam:** So they said, oh, we we try to get that.
**Adam:** Get that in as much as possible.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** Is that the big robed figure?
**Lee:** Because I remember seeing it and being like, I I think if I saw that in a cemetery, that'd really.
**Lee:** Especially one that size as well, it'd really stand out.
**Lee:** But yeah, so that makes sense that it's been borrowed.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** So, but but they do, they do.
**Adam:** Like you said, they've got the they know their anthologies.
**Adam:** So they've got the wrap around story, then they've got like you have Charlie and Stella story's present day, then Hairlip story is 70s.
**Adam:** And then the Chinery in the 1890s, or 1895, I think that comes up or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But weirdly enough, the Chinery one was actually there was.
**Adam:** Around the time they made this, there they also brought out a local book for local people, which was their first spin-off book.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It was fucking great, cuz I remember buying it and it was one of those things where.
**Adam:** Because there were a lot of comedy time books that were shit.
**Adam:** But they actually gave a shit and wanted to do like a quality book.
**Adam:** You know, it wasn't just a reprint or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** One of the things in there is this story, the Curse of Carrick Poe, like the Chinery story.
**Adam:** He's in there as an actual sort of like piece of prose written by Mark Gatis.
**Adam:** And on the DVD there's also him reading it, like Jack and Ory style, so it's also.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that's that's really good and I think it was I think it was actually just filmed in his house because he used to have the place all decked out all Victorian and everything.
**Adam:** So it was just like, yeah, we'll just go and film in that Victorian corner of the house and.
**Adam:** I'll put on a smoking jacket and we'll read it like it's Jack and Rory.
**Lee:** I'm going to watch that when we leave here.
**Lee:** I never watch extras. I miss out on so much stuff.
**Adam:** It's really fun.
**Adam:** It really is.
**Adam:** But I think that that I love the fact that the curse of Carrick Poe is the bit where it also just like, right, we are doing Royston and Vazy.
**Adam:** So we'll we'll put in cameos for Pauline and Mickey and Ross at the start of it and there's Harvey Denton collecting for Toads and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And there's the handsome cab, but it's Barbara doing driving it and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, there that that one is just perfect, I think, is just the Victoriana because they just get that.
**Adam:** They get the language right, but also the sort of that undercutting of it.
**Adam:** And it possibly has my favorite league moment of anything.
**Adam:** Which is just the stupid joke about the he goes into the room and there's the crying figure.
**Adam:** And it's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Dr. Perblind, next star.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** All right.
**Adam:** I just love the stupid and like the again the Victorian undercutting.
**Adam:** Where he sort of like saying, he never leaves his room except to go for a wee.
**Lee:** The bare butler, I forget that every time as well.
**Lee:** I.
**Lee:** Are you going to a costume party?
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And he.
**Lee:** And then he just goes outside and picks up a man.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, apparently Freddy Jones.
**Adam:** They did at one point they offered it to David Warner, who they obviously ended up working with in the film in the League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse.
**Adam:** And I think David Warner would have been great.
**Adam:** And David Ryal, I think they offered it to as well.
**Adam:** But Freddy Jones, I think just again, like I say, I think he just he's perfect.
**Adam:** He just he's just obviously walked in and just gone, no, I totally get this.
**Adam:** And same as Lisa Tarbuck has, I think they just hit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Pay dirt with the guests in this and stuff.
**Lee:** I'm such a massive fan of Lisa Tarbuck.
**Lee:** She's because she turned up a lot in the new French and Saunders series as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh, and she's just whenever she's in something like this, she's just so good.
**Lee:** She really.
**Adam:** She's always great.
**Adam:** And I I am under strict instructions that just in case Lisa Tarbuck is listening to this, my wife wants to be your friend.
**Lee:** Who doesn't want to be Lisa Tarbuck?
**Adam:** Exactly, that's what I said.
**Adam:** That's what I said.
**Unknown:** I'll do an offer.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, but she will she will make sure that you get some good chips.
**Adam:** Which she felt.
**Adam:** But I mean, I can just see them with, you know, giggling filthily together.
**Adam:** You know, I think that's I think I think they'd get on famously, but I think no, Lisa Toback's great and obviously, you know, actress, but also present.
**Adam:** She was like, she presented the big Brit big breakfast for Youngs.
**Adam:** And that was what during one of its sort of better periods, I would say, like one of its heydays.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Lee:** But then she did that TV the weirdest TV show ever, which was the thing about people's pets.
**Lee:** And it was her and the guy from the fun loving criminal.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I was just, what the fuck is going on with who came up with that idea?
**Lee:** But I mean, it must have worked, it was Saturday night prime time, it was clearly crushing it, but.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, whoever came up with that idea was drunk.
**Adam:** Because I think the first thing I ever saw in there was a sitcom used to be called watching and she played like the one of the the the main it was like a couple and the reason it was called watching is they went bird watching.
**Adam:** And she was the like, she was the sister of the woman.
**Adam:** And that and that was just the that was just a key moment in sort of family life.
**Adam:** Where every time it came on, my dad would have to say, that's Jimmy Tarbuck's daughter.
**Adam:** And we go, yes, we know, Dad, you tell us every fucking week.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But you've also got.
**Adam:** Francis Cox in there playing Mrs. Traffic, who is the the lady with the rabbit, who is in the first two series of the league.
**Adam:** She plays.
**Adam:** Annie Reigns, so she she.
**Adam:** Basically, she has a lot of animals slaughtered by Mr. Chinery.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And again, that's that's that opening gag where it's like reading out the letter.
**Adam:** And it's actually she's reading it over Benjamin Shoulder.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Which I just think is.
**Chris:** That was such a perfect introduction.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's just so good.
**Chris:** Summed up basically everything.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But this was her last this was her last sort of appearance in it because she I think she died a couple of years afterwards.
**Adam:** But obviously, yeah, she was she was already part of the league, so it's quite it's nice that she's in there sort of a lot.
**Adam:** But also in the because Jeremy Dyson the non-acting member of the league is in there as.
**Adam:** He's the student who snaps his glasses in Chinery's lecture hall.
**Adam:** He's the hooded figure, he's dubbed, but he's the hooded figure who's who Dr. Chinery walks in on.
**Adam:** But he also he is, if you look in the background at the line dancing, he's dressed as he's playing Mike King, you know, the DJ that Reece Smith plays the hospital DJ.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's dressed as Mike King, so cuz Mike King there's a voice over of Mike King, but obviously he Reese Smith was playing Stella at that point.
**Adam:** So it's just easier to get him him dressed up.
**Lee:** And I love that when when she first goes in and you know the the cover and are kind of sitting there and they've all got masks on this whole characters you know, but they can't be playing all of them at once so they put these blank masks on all of them and then they just put the voices over.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, and the orange juice thing just again is one of those every time I forget and it just makes me absolutely die.
**Lee:** Because then it reminds me of that sketch and yeah, it's just.
**Adam:** Because and that's that's the thing is I think that they they always just you know, again, this this is one where all the influences are on the sleeve, so you've got eyes wide shut, you've got Nosferatu, you've got and basically the entire of Victorian horror fiction.
**Adam:** You know, to to a greater or lesser extent in the Chinery.
**Adam:** Because I mean you've got the railway children where he gets his ass out.
**Adam:** And it's clear point there.
**Adam:** It was really good that they managed to get a truly horrible ass.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's it's just an old man's one, Yeah, just an old man's like plated ass.
**Lee:** He's a real old man's one.
**Adam:** You know, no.
**Adam:** But they also do mention eating an onion as if to were an apple.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I loved it.
**Adam:** You know, another which we we've we've talked about before.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I also the Hairlip actually has a line from.
**Adam:** The Werner Herzog Nosferatu.
**Adam:** Because he says that the the absence of love is the most abject.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And that is.
**Chris:** Getting getting things like that in there does definitely add to a sort of depth of.
**Lee:** And I I feel with that one.
**Lee:** That one feels like the ghost stories for Christmas because of that 70s shooting and 70s clothes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just, oh, it's just brilliant.
**Lee:** And I I think it it holds up so well.
**Lee:** yeah, of the one of the of the of all of the stories in this, which I think all of them are brilliant.
**Lee:** That's the one I always remember, yeah, is the hair lip one.
**Lee:** And then of course, the Nosferatu style bald head and twin teeth in the center, a bit like that and a bit like Salem's lot, it's got that really, oh, yeah, Roden E, oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and the overhead shot of hair lip being attacked by the boys.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Is very is in Vampire.
**Adam:** And you've got Psycho when he's looking through the hole in the wall and things like that.
**Adam:** And it's again, they've just really gone to town where it's like, just put it all in because it's all.
**Adam:** Again, I think they there's like there's almost like a freedom of like, right, we know this is a bubble, this isn't the continuing story necessarily, this is just right.
**Adam:** We're going to which oddly enough, we'll have to maybe we'll have to do it next year, but like Psychoville, which was recent, Steve's follow up.
**Adam:** They did a Halloween special.
**Adam:** Very much in the same vein where it's characters that you know are familiar with, but it doesn't actually then not actually real events if you see what I mean.
**Lee:** Have we not covered that?
**Lee:** I thought we'd covered that.
**Chris:** We've never done that.
**Chris:** We've definitely talked about it.
**Adam:** We never did this and we've never done Psychoville for Halloween.
**Adam:** We'll have to.
**Adam:** I think because, yeah, it just seems like a it seems like a an odd one that we've missed.
**Chris:** What I was going to bring up was how good the theme tune is.
**Chris:** I remember liking it before and then this I was like, it just so takes you back and it it really manages to to portray the quirkiness along with a sort of strange progression.
**Chris:** It's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** Again, again, they always had the same composer, a guy called Joby Talbot, who's a member of the Divine Comedy.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Like the the group, the Divine Comedy.
**Adam:** But also he is the guy holding a sheep in Dr. Chinery's waiting room.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** So he he did get a cameo in this.
**Adam:** And he also did like Psychoville and the Pitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie from 2005.
**Lee:** I quite liked that.
**Adam:** No, it's yeah, it's pretty good.
**Adam:** And and actually soundtrack wise, fucking great, cuz you got the song thanks for all the fish song, which was just brilliant.
**Adam:** And actually the other you've also got David Arnold, the bond composer is the guy holding the fox in the thing.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And again, that was.
**Adam:** You know, he.
**Adam:** But the one I hadn't actually realized is the guy who plays old Matthew, like who comes in for like for the hair lip flashback, because obviously, again, Reese is already playing Bernice, so he can't play the older version.
**Adam:** But that it's an actor called Andrew Melville.
**Adam:** and I'd never put two and two together, but and this means this will mean fuck all to anyone.
**Adam:** But for me.
**Adam:** He is Rory Spotwood, the Minister of Fisheries in the nine Lives of Thomas Cats.
**Adam:** And I hadn't put two together and now I'm like, oh, course it's fucking.
**Lee:** I still haven't seen that and you've been telling me to watch it for at least the last two decades.
**Adam:** I I'm going to say.
**Adam:** I've been saying it's my favorite film.
**Adam:** I'm not necessarily telling people to watch it because I don't want them to be disappointed.
**Adam:** But for me, it's just brilliant.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I just love that film.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I don't want people to just I don't want to sort of like sell it as in like.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** Everyone's going to love this.
**Chris:** This is for you.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's probably not for you.
**Chris:** But it's it's amazing.
**Adam:** It's it's this may not be for you.
**Adam:** But for me, this this this hit all the buttons, this hit all the right notes.
**Lee:** The other thing I loved about that hair lip one and again, it's a fantastic character and I always loved it.
**Lee:** It's the speed of those, they're not puns, they're him getting English very slightly wrong, but it's every sentence is a word is out that just makes me laugh.
**Lee:** And that's why I can keep watching this because I'm laughing at one thing.
**Lee:** And I've missed the next two jokes because they're just in such rapid fire succession.
**Adam:** Absolutely, I think that's the thing that people in a way forget, particularly with the league, because I think everything that's happened subsequently, obviously inside number nine is very much its own beast, it's an anthology, you can have moving stuff, funny ones, scary ones and everything else like that.
**Adam:** The humor is always still there.
**Adam:** But the league, it's a proper hit rate.
**Adam:** It's genuinely gag, gag, gag, it's funny all the way through.
**Adam:** And yet still has character, atmosphere, you know, sort of plot.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** To a greater or lesser extent.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it sort of.
**Adam:** Certainly with this one, you know, there is they you have to have a twist, so you have these sort of things and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And I think cuz actually there's stuff in there like.
**Adam:** I I'm I was trying to I was saying to Claire, I was trying to think.
**Adam:** That reveal that Hairlip isn't a vampire, but everyone around him is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** With the mirror.
**Adam:** I can't think of that actually being in a horror film.
**Adam:** Or like something that I've seen.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** People people could let us know if there if if it is from something.
**Adam:** But I genuinely do not recognize that and it seems like such a brilliant sort of.
**Lee:** Don't sit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, just way of telling that sort of tale or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But I think, yeah, it's just I think it's genuinely something they've hit upon.
**Adam:** That's just really sort of, you know, a proper wow.
**Adam:** If that was in a film, that would be the bit that everyone remarked upon.
**Adam:** But weirdly it's in a in a Christmas special.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** Actually, I like, yeah, it wasn't until watching it this time because I remember they were all horror stories, but I'd forgotten that the twists in all of these work.
**Lee:** Like so many of the the amicus and stuff, the twist at the end, I mean, you can see it coming an absolute mile away.
**Adam:** Because they're old cliches, stories, you know.
**Adam:** They're based on stuff we've like EC Comics and stuff like that, like, you know, we've heard them before.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** But all of the all of the twists in these land, every like when I saw it for the first time, every one of them was so far out of left field that I didn't see any of them coming, which just made it all the better.
**Lee:** So it it looks great, it sounds great, it's funny, it's sinister and all of the all of it's scary and all of the twists work.
**Lee:** It works on every single level.
**Lee:** It's an absolute masterpiece.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** And it's and this has been this has definitely been a Christmas staple for 25 years.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And sort of when Claire had never watched the league, so she came very late to the league and everything else like that.
**Adam:** Because it was only me and I, you know.
**Adam:** And now I think Claire has such a love for the program and the the the league, the team of guys and all the other stuff they've done and things like that.
**Adam:** That it's a real sort of.
**Adam:** Snowball from there, but we watch it every year, don't we?
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** It's this is this is like Black Christmas Carol.
**Adam:** This just has always been no, this we're doing that at Christmas.
**Adam:** Like, you know, like waking up or you know, brushing your teeth.
**Adam:** It's just, yeah, that's happening.
**Adam:** That's that's obviously going to be, yeah.
**Lee:** So I I so we didn't see, I think Adam, you bought us this box set of the league.
**Lee:** A few years ago.
**Adam:** That's right, yeah.
**Lee:** and yeah, and I think until that point, we saw it, well, we didn't see it when it first aired, so I think we saw it when we first watched the box set.
**Lee:** And then we didn't watch it again for yeah, a long time, but yeah, I think it's not every year for us, it's probably every two or three years, but yeah, when it comes out.
**Lee:** It's one of those you don't think of every year because you think of all the traditional movies.
**Lee:** Whereas the TV specials.
**Lee:** There's you know, we shop and change what we do.
**Lee:** But yeah, every time it comes out, it I I'm just blown away.
**Lee:** By how pitch perfect it is on every level.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely epic.
**Adam:** And actually.
**Adam:** I suppose.
**Adam:** Because I mean Mark Gatis obviously, I mean he did crooked house.
**Adam:** But I mean he's been doing the ghost stories for Christmas.
**Adam:** For the past what, 10 years or whatever it's been.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Well, working my way back through those in reverse order currently.
**Adam:** On and off.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** But again, that's like, you know, that seem to be like a ball this is kind of the ball rolling for that of.
**Adam:** He's always.
**Adam:** He's always busy at Christmas.
**Adam:** Usually telling a Victorian ghost story.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** So this is an absolute recommend from all of us.
**Chris:** Yep.
**Lee:** As is all of the league stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I would say, yeah, this does work on its own, but yeah, I think you just get a lot of the smaller references.
**Lee:** If it if it.
**Chris:** Yeah, cuz they are packing so much into it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You will get more from it.
**Adam:** It is that sort of tree house of horror.
**Adam:** That sort of tree house of horror thing where it's like the Simpsons, you know.
**Adam:** If if you watch, you can watch a tree house of horror if you'd never seen an episode of the Simpsons.
**Chris:** And it would still be great.
**Adam:** And it's.
**Adam:** And it's still great, but it's much better when you are familiar with the characters and they're following the archetypes and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** But yeah, fantastic.
**Lee:** So, for our continuation of December.
**Lee:** we've had an excellent well, an excellent suggestion from Claire.
**Lee:** Adam, would you like to tell people what we are going to be doing for our episode that will drop on the 21st of December?
**Adam:** Well, my good lady wife had suggested that we should.
**Adam:** Think of a horror film and then recast it as a Muppet movie.
**Adam:** You keep one human being, obviously, because in the grand tradition of Michael Caine and in Muppets Christmas Carol.
**Adam:** And Tim Curry in Muppet Treasure Island.
**Adam:** So you have one essentially you have one human and then the rest of the cast of Muppets.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** So we are going to basically discuss that.
**Adam:** Should we reveal what film we've decided to go with?
**Lee:** Yeah, go on.
**Lee:** Let us know.
**Adam:** So, so we are going with Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** So we will be we will be keeping the Magisterial Mr. Gary Oldman in the role.
**Chris:** We got to do that, really.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But beyond that, we shall be discussing exactly which Muppets are playing the rest of the characters.
**Adam:** You need something with a big cast.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** You know, that that that film that film's.
**Adam:** You know, it's properly like the book, it's packed with characters.
**Adam:** So you've got plenty that you can play with.
**Lee:** I can't wait to do this.
**Chris:** tempting to try and come up with some now, but I'll get torn off.
**Adam:** Keep your powder dry and we'll we'll we'll do it in a couple of weeks time.
**Lee:** Honestly, I am so looking forward to putting a couple of hours aside and just bringing up the cast and bringing up all of the Muppets on another screen.
**Lee:** And just trying to put it all together. I think I'm going to laugh my tits off even just on my own doing this.
**Lee:** It's going to be so much fun.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yes, you've got time listeners, go and do the same yourselves and see if you come up with the same ones as we do.
**Lee:** And we will be yeah, basically.
**Lee:** are we going to do it like a like a vote system or whatever?
**Lee:** Are we going to argue?
**Adam:** I think we'll.
**Lee:** Each of us.
**Adam:** We'll trash it out, see I mean, because it might be that we stumble across similar characters for similar things.
**Adam:** Or, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** If it sort of like, yeah, but no, it's got to be.
**Adam:** You know, of course, of course the Swedish chef has got to be the man from the boat company.
**Adam:** You know, that's it.
**Lee:** I will be expecting you Adam to be keeping the admin on this.
**Adam:** Yes, no problem.
**Lee:** As you are very much our.
**Lee:** Our paperwork guy.
**Lee:** yeah, just because you more rest of us really.
**Adam:** No, I.
**Adam:** I promised.
**Adam:** I promised to keep track and and shockingly remain sober.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Such a legend.
**Lee:** I won't be.
**Adam:** Certainly will.
**Chris:** Dying your duty.
**Adam:** That's the best way.
**Lee:** But yes, so thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out the League of Gentlemen Christmas special and all of the episodes of the League of Gentlemen.
**Lee:** Go and watch.
**Lee:** Muppet's Christmas Carol.
**Lee:** I will be going to see it at the cinema next weekend as part of my.
**Chris:** Nice.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm going to be going to a cinema and spending the entire day trolling through they're doing loads of Christmas stuff.
**Lee:** So, yeah, Lumiere in Romford are showing loads of Christmas films, loads of stuff I've never seen before on the B screen, some I have, but I'm I'm going to go and watch like four Christmas films in the day.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** Nice.
**Lee:** really trying to get in the Christmas spirit as a Grinch type character that I normally am.
**Lee:** So we'll see how that turns out.
**Lee:** But yes, so thanks ever so much for listening everybody, have a great December, not Christmas, cuz it's not Christmas yet.
**Lee:** And we'll see you just before Christmas.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Night, night.

---

## Ep 236 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-236-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 23 November 2025
Duration: 00:39:32

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Power of We Have Been Watching”. Yes! Get it here. If by “it” you mean a rundown of all the stuff the Welcome To Horror team have been sticking in their faces in between episodes. We discuss Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” (2025); Korean horror “The Wailing” (2016); true crime/folk horror documentary “The Last Sacrifice” (2024); “From Dusk Til Dawn” (1996); “Heretic” (2024); 70s anthology series “Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries”; “The Substance” (2024); David Lean’s “Blithe Spirit” (1945); and Brontë Schiltz’s Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies lecture on “Televisual Gothic”. There should be no need to prep for this ep, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Adam's Research

- Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies talk on Televisual Gothic: And um, but yeah, so uh, but it's the it's an ongoing series they called the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. And they've been running for years, I've I've sort of I went to a I think I went to one quite early on, there was one I was meant to go to and then it got canceled, and basically I'm always sort of aware of it and just sort of seeing what's what's on. Um, but I went to a talk by Bronte Schiltz called Televisual Gothic, mediation, manipulation and exploitation in British broadcasting. And it's basically sort of going running from Nigel Kneale, who did Quatermass and the Stone Tape and stuff. And it was sort of like a look at how television sort of the definition of television Gothic, which is basically the nasty side of television, how it intrudes into life and how it's sort of been viewed over the years. So not just television but the idea of recording mediums and things like that. So it was covering stuff like the first Quatermass story ends with a live broadcast from Westminster Abbey, where the aliens have the alien has infected the very building and it's sort of broadcast live. But how that has changed over the time that it was people won't believe it till they've seen it on the telly to the point now where people don't believe it because they've seen it on the telly and have realized that telly is another means of lying to you or manipulating you, etcetera, etcetera. And it was really just a really good talk if if um, if they're doing it again, I would sort of I would recommend getting the chance to to see it. Because they like, mostly it was initially starts off with Nigel Kneale, so it's Quatermass and Quatermass and the Pit. Because they're the ones that have the sort of television angle, because again, the end of Quatermass and the Pit takes place during a live broadcast from the Pit. And then they did Year of the Sex Olympics, which is Nigel Kneale's thing, which I I don't know it would cover, I don't know if it's something we'd cover, but it's science fiction, but essentially Year of the Sex Olympics predicts reality TV before reality TV. This is like, it was like 1968 and basically it's set in the future where a population the TVs are used to sort of just nullify the population by just giving them everything they want, like meaningless entertainment, pornography and everything else like that. Yeah, very much so and people were sort of like, basically the audience have just become nullified and the producers are all like, well, what's the next big thing, how can we get it and then someone is accidentally killed live on air. Yeah, and someone's accidentally killed live on air so the and the audience figures go through the roof because they actually enjoy it and the audience are pissing themselves laughing at this man sprawled across the floor and stuff like that. … Yeah, so they come up with the concept that if you go to if why don't we do a show where we get people to live on an island and we'll film them 24 hours a day. And they start doing that and then because that's not quite as exciting as it could be, the producers then send in a murderer. To um, sort of like and it's and again, it's a well worth checking out, but then sort of moved on, talked about Ghost Watch. And again, with that sort of thing of the manipulation of TV and also the fact that particularly from the BBC where it's always very much is a middle-class sort of thing but pumped mostly into working-class homes that with that sort of like, well, we know better, don't we? And it's like, yes, you know better enough to have caused a fucking a mass seance and Michael Parkinson to wander around singing Mary Had a Little Lamb. And it's yeah, and just sort of talking about that and Doctor Who was involved, Doctor Who was mentioned and stuff, but also something I'd never heard of before called Red Rose. Which sounds like very much in the Black Mirror sense, because it moved on to talking about reality TV where obviously a lot of reality TV shows have been linked to real-life tragedy where people have topped themselves because of how it's gone and things like that. And moving into social media where essentially, you know, YouTube and TikTok are telly these days, where you have the opportunity to be either the content provider or the focus of the content whether you're willing to or not.
- Year of the Sex Olympics connections and casting: Well, I mean, and the weird thing is obviously Big Brother coming from 1984 and Nigel Kneale had also done an adaption of 1984. So it's inextricably linked. Uh, two more reasons to recommend the Year of the Sex Olympics would be a very young Brian Cox and Leonard Rossiter are two of the main characters in it, so yeah.
- Dubbing vs. Subtitling in foreign films: And it's something that even even in the sort of traditional method of that, you run the risk of someone who is like an un, you know, someone not getting the thing correctly. I forget what it was, I think it was I'm pretty sure it was Aguirre Wrath of God, I was watching it, and I tried watching it with the English dub. And the English dub seemed to be much more sort of I don't know, sort of received pronunciation for want of a better word, you know, everything was sort of in medieval language or whatever like that, whereas the subtitled version was very much colloquial, sort of felt modern, and I don't know, because I can't, because I don't speak German, I didn't know which way round it was, whether it was something that they'd done, you know, like something like say the Witch, where they've done it in the language of its time. Or whether it's one of those ones where they've actually gone, no, we'll just do it colloquially so people understand from a modern audience perspective, we'll use modern language. Because like the subtitles were like, hey, you guys, messing about in that river. Whereas the the dubbed version was like, those men over there.
- Guillermo del Toro's use of practical effects: That's that's that's Guillermo del Toro, he will he will use practical where he can and he enhances with CGI, which is kind of the best, the best you can hope for, really, that's the best way you can do it.
- The Last Sacrifice documentary and the Charles Walton murder: Uh, well, I'm kind of still reasonably up to date here as well, because this is actually from 2024. Um, but I watched it's literally just come on a lot of the streaming sites, because it's been doing the festival circuit for a little while, um, and it is a film feature length documentary called The Last Sacrifice. And it's directed by Rupert Russell, son of Ken Russell, and um, who actually is quite, you know, has done a lot of documentary filmmaking and stuff. But this is this looks at the still unsolved murder of Charles Walton, um, who was killed in a Warwickshire village called Lower Quinton in 1945. And it's one of those cases that has sort of spiralled out because it's never been solved, but basically this poor sod was found pinned to the floor with his own pitchfork, and a bill hook through his neck and, you know. And a bill hook through his neck and, you know, and but it became as time went on. Basically, Fabian of the Yard came and tried to solve it and couldn't get anything out of the locals. Presumably because, yeah, you're a stranger, you're up from that London, you're not going to, you know, no one wants to help them anyway. Um, but he he didn't solve the case and then it became a bit of a sort of hotspot for investigators of sort of, you know, people like people who investigated witchcraft and like Margaret Murray went there and, you know, various people over the time and sort of and the case had sort of spiralled out from a particularly gruesome murder to the point where it's like, is it human sacrifice? Is this related to and basically this looking at this unsolved murder and it's sort of um, how it influenced folk horror. And the sort of that movement within British films and everything. And it is packed to the gills with um sort of for want of a better expression, quotes as like sort of clips from various horror movies. Obviously the Wicker Man is in there and, I mean, it practically, I mean, most of it, it's it's almost like our like our output for the past year. As as a because like they they do Blood on Satan's Claw, Plague of the Zombies gets is in there, The Witches, Curse of the Crimson Altar, Virgin Witch and all things like that. So they're using those as illustrative clips of how this murder has sort of spiralled out into folklore and created bigger myths around itself rather than just, you know, in a way it's now got to the point where it's never going to be solved and never going to be solved to satisfaction because there's far too much in it now that people are like, well, until you actually prove that every single person in that village is a fucking pagan. You know, and there's there's really great talking heads in there, Jonathan Jonathan Rigby is in there, who's always great fun anyway, but there's also like people who um were with um, like with um witchcraft there's sort of like some lovely there's a woman on there who was like involved with Alexanders and stuff and. She uh sort of talking about, oh well, you know, me and my friend went to this place and they said do you want to be part of a satanic ritual and I said, well, in for a penny, in for a pound. And um, you know, and just just this lovely sort of mixture of the prosaic with also but, you know, trying to look at this from a point of view of what actually did happen with this crime, but also the fact that it is resonated through so much pop culture and horror pop culture from Britain since.
- Sophie Thatcher's role in Book of Boba Fett: Sophie Thatcher, she was in um she was in Book of Boba Fett, I think.
- Orson Welles Great Mysteries series: Very quickly, it is on YouTube, all of it, 26 episodes. Orson Welles Great Mysteries, it's an anthology series. Um, and you're adapting there's original stuff in there, but also adapt stories by like Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dickens, Balzac. And um, basically it's uh, yeah, an anthology show. They got all these great um sort of stories in there and you've got amazing cast members. You got Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence, John Collins, Jeffrey Bayldon, Joss Ackland, it's, you know, proper really good actors. Really solid stuff, some fascinating things in there, and the added treat that each one is presented by Orson Welles in extreme close-up because he's a vain man who by this point is the size of a fucking house and has decided that he's going to introduce them.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here for a what we've been watching extravaganza.
**Lee:** It's been a while since we've done one of these, so we've had to narrow down our watch lists.
**Lee:** But there will be swearing, there might be spoilers, and I mean, who knows, we'll see what happens.
**Lee:** So, Adam, let's start with you this time.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** right, first thing, this is something that unfortunately no one else can watch, but tough shit, it was just good.
**Adam:** but I went to a talk at the at the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury in London, just around the corner from Russell, Russell Tube, Russell Square Tube.
**Adam:** So I was able to walk through there with the Fang to Death line on my headphones as well, so that was just fun.
**Adam:** And but yeah, so but it's the it's an ongoing series they called the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies.
**Adam:** And they've been running for years, I've I've sort of I went to a I think I went to one quite early on, there was one I was meant to go to and then it got canceled, and basically I'm always sort of aware of it and just sort of seeing what's what's on.
**Adam:** but I went to a talk by Bronte Schiltz called Televisual Gothic, mediation, manipulation and exploitation in British broadcasting.
**Adam:** And it's basically sort of going running from Nigel Kneale, who did Quatermass and the Stone Tape and stuff.
**Adam:** And it was sort of like a look at how television sort of the definition of television Gothic, which is basically the nasty side of television, how it intrudes into life and how it's sort of been viewed over the years.
**Adam:** So not just television but the idea of recording mediums and things like that.
**Adam:** So it was covering stuff like the first Quatermass story ends with a live broadcast from Westminster Abbey, where the aliens have the alien has infected the very building and it's sort of broadcast live.
**Adam:** But how that has changed over the time that it was people won't believe it till they've seen it on the telly to the point now where people don't believe it because they've seen it on the telly and have realized that telly is another means of lying to you or manipulating you, etcetera, etcetera.
**Adam:** And it was really just a really good talk if if if they're doing it again, I would sort of I would recommend getting the chance to to see it.
**Adam:** Because they like, mostly it was initially starts off with Nigel Kneale, so it's Quatermass and Quatermass and the Pit.
**Adam:** Because they're the ones that have the sort of television angle, because again, the end of Quatermass and the Pit takes place during a live broadcast from the Pit.
**Adam:** And then they did Year of the Sex Olympics, which is Nigel Kneale's thing, which I I don't know it would cover, I don't know if it's something we'd cover, but it's science fiction, but essentially Year of the Sex Olympics predicts reality TV before reality TV.
**Adam:** This is like, it was like 1968 and basically it's set in the future where a population the TVs are used to sort of just nullify the population by just giving them everything they want, like meaningless entertainment, pornography and everything else like that.
**Chris:** That sounds like a Black Mirror precursor.
**Adam:** Yeah, very much so and people were sort of like, basically the audience have just become nullified and the producers are all like, well, what's the next big thing, how can we get it and then someone is accidentally killed live on air.
**Chris:** Well, this this feeds into Running Man.
**Adam:** Yeah, and someone's accidentally killed live on air so the and the audience figures go through the roof because they actually enjoy it and the audience are pissing themselves laughing at this man sprawled across the floor and stuff like that.
**Chris:** What's the new hanging in a public square now?
**Adam:** Yeah, so they come up with the concept that if you go to if why don't we do a show where we get people to live on an island and we'll film them 24 hours a day.
**Adam:** And they start doing that and then because that's not quite as exciting as it could be, the producers then send in a murderer.
**Adam:** To sort of like and it's and again, it's a well worth checking out, but then sort of moved on, talked about Ghost Watch.
**Adam:** And again, with that sort of thing of the manipulation of TV and also the fact that particularly from the BBC where it's always very much is a middle-class sort of thing but pumped mostly into working-class homes that with that sort of like, well, we know better, don't we? And it's like, yes, you know better enough to have caused a fucking a mass seance and
**Adam:** Michael Parkinson to wander around singing Mary Had a Little Lamb.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, and just sort of talking about that and Doctor Who was involved, Doctor Who was mentioned and stuff, but also something I'd never heard of before called Red Rose.
**Adam:** Which sounds like very much in the Black Mirror sense, because it moved on to talking about reality TV where obviously a lot of reality TV shows have been linked to real-life tragedy where people have topped themselves because of how it's gone and things like that.
**Adam:** And moving into social media where essentially, you know, YouTube and TikTok are telly these days, where you have the opportunity to be either the content provider or the focus of the content whether you're willing to or not.
**Adam:** And it's sort of yeah, it was just a really interesting study.
**Adam:** I also just love the horse hospital because it is a wonderful little arts venue that until I went there, I hadn't actually fully realized just was previously a hospital for horses.
**Adam:** Because you go in there and it's just like a little it's like a little sort of brick like sort of Victorian brick building.
**Adam:** With a ramp where obviously they would lead them in so they could sort of look after them and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And it's just yeah, just a great little venue, really good experience.
**Adam:** I saw Jason was there as well, Jason Bron, who was at Worldwide Weird, so I got to speak, got to have a chat with him as well.
**Adam:** So he's a he's a regular fixture, I don't think that man ever goes home, I think he just appears at all these sort of things.
**Adam:** but yeah, so saw him down there as well, and yeah, just a really good night.
**Lee:** That's great.
**Adam:** That that's that and it's left me a lot to chew on as well, which is really good.
**Lee:** Sounds good.
**Lee:** So I've not seen Year of the Sex Olympics, I remember you talking about it for decades, and it's one of those things that I've just never, you've mentioned it, and every time you do, I think, oh yeah, that sounds really interesting, you know, like as you say, seeing Big Brother decades before it happened.
**Lee:** Like, I should, you get the impression they wanted to call Big Brother Year of the Sex Olympics because it's more fitting, but they couldn't because they'd have just pulled in the wrong crowd, I'm assuming, or the right crowd.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, and the weird thing is obviously Big Brother coming from 1984 and Nigel Kneale had also done an adaption of 1984.
**Adam:** So it's inextricably linked.
**Adam:** two more reasons to recommend the Year of the Sex Olympics would be a very young Brian Cox and Leonard Rossiter are two of the main characters in it, so yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** Yeah, so mine very nicely progressed from yeah, this is pretty decent, right up to, oh my God, how have we not been talking about this film? And you're probably going to tell me, we have talked about it, and you've both seen it, and I just totally missed that. Anyway, right, so I'm going to start off with the first one, of course.
**Chris:** And it is the Wailing, 2016, which is a Korean, essentially sort of a folk horror blended with a police procedural.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** I guess I'd say a I'd say a bumbling police procedural.
**Adam:** -huh.
**Chris:** And and you don't know where it's going really, and it's it's got elements of everything, it's it's got psychological, it's got infection, superstition, so yeah, you know, you're you're wondering which way is it going to go all the way to the end.
**Chris:** And yeah, decent acting.
**Chris:** I did try out I watched it on Prime, and I didn't know this was a thing, apparently they've got AI voice over now, so it must translate the Korean into an English sounding voice.
**Chris:** I thought, let's turn it on just to see, and, you know, it works for some things, it's one of those where you're like, this is both mind-blowing and still kind of rubbish.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Chris:** Because it's like, it's amazing how good it is, and yet it doesn't even reach the uncanny valley, yeah.
**Chris:** It's still like, yeah, no, that's really not right, even though that's that's fantastic what you've done, it still doesn't fit what's going on here perfectly.
**Chris:** So, you know, I'm sure eventually it's going to be perfect, you know, fine.
**Chris:** The downside of course is, there's people out of jobs, so it's not great, really.
**Adam:** Well, it's like when you see it on YouTube when, you know, the sort of the AI generated subtitles.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** They're always slightly off. They're always one word. I mean, I would say, I would say that's a lot better still compared to this.
**Chris:** Now, you probably it probably depends on the film to some degree, but because you know, it can manage to do whispers and you're like, that's pretty good, but it's still probably not quite what they're doing here.
**Chris:** So, you know, anyway, I I turned it on and off a few times just to see, and probably I still would recommend not using it for certain films, probably this one.
**Chris:** But but yeah, so so the film itself is is very good, and it definitely big psychological and there's some really, really horrible bits that you know, they it it does involve a child and it's it's, you know, possession.
**Chris:** So it's it's not horrible in one way, but it's still pretty gritty, and yeah, I would I would recommend it.
**Chris:** Now, I was just going to say, I did have the director director and writer Nah Hong-jin.
**Chris:** However, I have not heard of them, I don't know what else they've done.
**Adam:** I mean, I'll be honest, the Wailing is a new one on me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I've not heard of it either, but I'm definitely going to watch it now.
**Lee:** Because I mean, it sounds fantastic, really.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's got all the elements you would want, really.
**Chris:** So yeah, recommendation from me.
**Adam:** Also, let's face it, if there's one if there's, you know, in terms of horror horror cinema and that kind of thing, you know, Korean cinema is you know, they're definitely getting some things right. It's going to be fucking great.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** They very rarely miss the mark, Korean horror is exceptional.
**Lee:** Yes, so yeah, that is going on my watch list.
**Lee:** Thank you very much.
**Lee:** Chris, and I'm very excited, again, I'd be very keen to know, so we did, because the thing is with those films, I don't want them remade.
**Lee:** But equally, I end up having to watch them twice, because I spend so much time reading, especially with Korean and Japanese, because they speak so much faster, by the time I've finished reading, the action stopped, and I've looked up.
**Lee:** Because I watch it on quite a big screen, it's a it's a bit of an idiot.
**Lee:** So yeah, so this replacing the voices is an excellent idea, however, it's getting the intonation, that'd be the interesting.
**Chris:** So that's it, so that's where I was fascinated to see, yeah, you're absolutely right to bring that up and it does get it, I think correct some of the time, but not enough for me to go, switch to that completely.
**Chris:** But, you know, check it out.
**Lee:** That's fantastic though. I mean it's one thing getting it getting voice capture and then getting a word to read it, but getting it to read it and sound panicked when it should be panicked and relaxed when it should be relaxed, that's a whole algorithm ball game that I can't even conceive, that's mental.
**Adam:** And it's something that even even in the sort of traditional method of that, you run the risk of someone who is like an un, you know, someone not getting the thing correctly.
**Adam:** I forget what it was, I think it was I'm pretty sure it was Aguirre Wrath of God, I was watching it, and I tried watching it with the English dub.
**Adam:** And the English dub seemed to be much more sort of I don't know, sort of received pronunciation for want of a better word, you know, everything was sort of in medieval language or whatever like that, whereas the subtitled version was very much colloquial, sort of felt modern, and I don't know, because I can't, because I don't speak German, I didn't know which way round it was, whether it was something that they'd done, you know, like something like say the Witch, where they've done it in the language of its time.
**Adam:** Or whether it's one of those ones where they've actually gone, no, we'll just do it colloquially so people understand from a modern audience perspective, we'll use modern language.
**Adam:** Because like the subtitles were like, hey, you guys, messing about in that river.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Whereas the the dubbed version was like, those men over there.
**Adam:** You know, it was sort of.
**Adam:** You know, and I don't know who was who was the failure there, you know, I don't know who was sort of there.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's interesting.
**Lee:** Excellent. But yeah, I'll sure be looking that up.
**Lee:** so for myself, I've gone with something very modern.
**Lee:** So I've I wanted to discuss the new Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** have I have you seen it?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Do.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** It's, I mean, I mentioned at the end of the last episode we'd been to the exhibition so we'd seen the costumes.
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** It's it's they told the story very well.
**Lee:** I will say he has made some very big changes later in the story as well as a couple of little ones earlier on.
**Lee:** But I I think they work quite well.
**Chris:** Oh okay.
**Lee:** I wouldn't yeah, it didn't spoil the film for me, but he he has changed the story.
**Lee:** But again, it's enough that you know the story inside out, so putting a slant on it is fine.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, essentially you do need that in in a way because it has to be someone's interpretation of it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** It's their version. It seems yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** But it is one of the most beautiful, rich-looking films I've seen in a long time. I mean, you know what he did with was it Crimson Tide he did?
**Adam:** Crimson Peak, that's it.
**Lee:** yeah, so it's that, it's all it's Victorian, but it's all really bold, bright color, and stunning costumes. I mean, they're they're just out of this world.
**Lee:** It's why I was so pleased to have seen them in.
**Lee:** Because they look great on screen, but when you see them, the level of intricacy in detail.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Everything in it. So Mia Goth wears a choker, and it looks like it's covered in sort of turquoise stones, but when you see it like up close from a foot away, which is where we were, the tiny scarab beetles, so obviously the scarab is the symbol of rebirth and like.
**Lee:** There's so much he puts into it that just I mean, it's it's incredible.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, let's face it, Guillermo del Toro, it's going to be rich.
**Adam:** That's that, you know, because weirdly enough, because I was talking to someone, I was talking to someone in the week about it and saying I was sort of like, you know, I'll probably watch it, I haven't got Netflix at the moment anyway, so that's sort of put it put it on the back burner.
**Adam:** And I was kind of, I'm going to watch it, but I'm sort of Guillermo del Toro, I'm definitely always the Spanish language stuff is the stuff I really love.
**Adam:** And funnily enough, you know, Crimson Peak we were talking about just because it was like, you know, Crimson Peak was okay.
**Adam:** But again, I think that was the point where I was like, I mean, it looks fucking amazing, no problem, but weirdly enough, I think what Crimson Peak is missing is Vincent Price.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it needs to be that kind of that and Poe sort of, you know, everything glaring out, it needed just that sort of that sort of streak because I don't think Tom Hiddleston really sort of.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** but then weirdly enough, I think that's probably because you need someone who's unafraid to be as big as Vincent Price.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And this is what got me this time. So the casting obviously is amazing, so Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth, Kristen Wiig, Charles Dance is in it. Like, yeah, it was amazing.
**Adam:** Oh, that's what I was recommending.
**Lee:** But the standout for me, it's got to be said, the creature being played by Jacob Elordi.
**Lee:** Who I'd only seen previously playing the pretty boy in what was it called? Oh, cock.
**Adam:** Oh, cock.
**Lee:** Oh, cock. Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** it was the horror movie that everyone loved a couple of years ago, it was weird.
**Lee:** Hang on, I'll get it.
**Lee:** Somewhere. Where are you, bastard?
**Lee:** I can't remember names at the minute. I've just done it again.
**Lee:** no.
**Lee:** Saltburn.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** So he was the young man in Saltburn.
**Lee:** and and he was, I hated that film, but he was great in it, in his character. but yeah, as the creature, because he's he's so covered in or doesn't look it, he's very covered in prosthetics. Like his entire body is layered with this kind of rubber that gives it that scarred look.
**Lee:** so his face hasn't got an awful lot of movement, he he's acting in it is just amazing. I was honestly, I was so impressed with it. He does such an amazing job under such tight constraints.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and he he made a really as I say, because he's such a pretty boy. I was like, how is he going to be the creature?
**Adam:** That was.
**Lee:** That he does.
**Adam:** Yeah, because that was another thing, when I saw pictures of that, I was like, oh no, we're not doing sexy Frank now, are we?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, like we've spoken many times about how sexy Dracula is a pain in the ass. And I was like, oh no, don't make, you know, it kind of spoils the whole issue of the thing if it's like, actually it's quite all right from certain angles, you know.
**Lee:** Well, this is the thing, so I I said I turned to Jennifer while we were watching it, like, so he he comes back later in the film and says, I want you to make me a mate, because I and I'm like, right, but he only meets one female in the whole film, and she falls for him instantly.
**Lee:** I'm like, you've got 100% batting average, dude, I think you're doing all right, I don't I don't think you need a person made, I think you just need to go out to Goth clubs.
**Lee:** Like people used to fancy that Frankenstein looking motherfucker from Type O Negative, like this guy definitely looks better than that even covered in scars, I think you'll be all right.
**Lee:** but yeah, and then it's and the lack of CGI.
**Lee:** So there is CGI in it because there's things that like the rats and stuff, they needed them to behave in a way they obviously couldn't.
**Lee:** but yeah, so there's obviously the giant icebreaker, they actually made that full size.
**Adam:** Oh, so it's like ripping yarn.
**Lee:** Yeah, ripping.
**Adam:** It's, you know. What's that? It's an icebreaker, sir.
**Lee:** It's not a model.
**Adam:** Not a model if it's full size.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** But yeah, so all of that is all real, and the people when he throws people around, it's all actors on wires, it's not CGI.
**Lee:** And it really comes across so solid because of that.
**Lee:** I mean, it's a again.
**Adam:** That's that's that's Guillermo del Toro, he will he will use practical where he can and he enhances with CGI, which is kind of the best, the best you can hope for, really, that's the best way you can do it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and all of the very heavy CGI stuff is like dream sequence stuff, where it's where, you know, it is going to have that uncanny valley to some degree.
**Lee:** yeah, and I I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I thought it was really good, I thought everyone gave a good performance, yeah, and it it just looked gorgeous.
**Lee:** Again, it's one of those I probably won't go back to over and over again, but I reckon in six months I'll end up putting this back on again, because it was a good watch, and it was yeah, really well put together.
**Lee:** It is a bit of an epic two and a quarter hours, but yeah, it's well worth the time. So yeah, when you get the opportunity, gentlemen, check it out.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I will. I haven't got Netflix at the moment, but I think next we we end up on there somehow. It's almost like falling on a, you know, just accidentally I pulled my wallet out of my pocket, oh bang, I'll subscribe Netflix, right.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** So that's.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Adam, what else have you been watching?
**Adam:** well, I'm kind of still reasonably up to date here as well, because this is actually from 2024.
**Adam:** but I watched it's literally just come on a lot of the streaming sites, because it's been doing the festival circuit for a little while, and it is a film feature length documentary called The Last Sacrifice.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And it's directed by Rupert Russell, son of Ken Russell, and who actually is quite, you know, has done a lot of documentary filmmaking and stuff.
**Adam:** But this is this looks at the still unsolved murder of Charles Walton, who was killed in a Warwickshire village called Lower Quinton in 1945.
**Adam:** And it's one of those cases that has sort of spiralled out because it's never been solved, but basically this poor sod was found pinned to the floor with his own pitchfork, and a bill hook through his neck and, you know.
**Lee:** I remember this.
**Adam:** And a bill hook through his neck and, you know, and but it became as time went on.
**Adam:** Basically, Fabian of the Yard came and tried to solve it and couldn't get anything out of the locals. Presumably because, yeah, you're a stranger, you're up from that London, you're not going to, you know, no one wants to help them anyway.
**Adam:** but he he didn't solve the case and then it became a bit of a sort of hotspot for investigators of sort of, you know, people like people who investigated witchcraft and like Margaret Murray went there and, you know, various people over the time and sort of and the case had sort of spiralled out from a particularly gruesome murder to the point where it's like, is it human sacrifice? Is this related to and basically this looking at this unsolved murder and it's sort of how it influenced folk horror.
**Adam:** And the sort of that movement within British films and everything.
**Adam:** And it is packed to the gills with sort of for want of a better expression, quotes as like sort of clips from various horror movies.
**Adam:** Obviously the Wicker Man is in there and, I mean, it practically, I mean, most of it, it's it's almost like our like our output for the past year.
**Lee:** Really?
**Adam:** As as a because like they they do Blood on Satan's Claw, Plague of the Zombies gets is in there, The Witches, Curse of the Crimson Altar, Virgin Witch and all things like that. So they're using those as illustrative clips of how this murder has sort of spiralled out into folklore and created bigger myths around itself rather than just, you know, in a way it's now got to the point where it's never going to be solved and never going to be solved to satisfaction because there's far too much in it now that people are like, well, until you actually prove that every single person in that village is a fucking pagan.
**Chris:** Sure.
**Adam:** You know, and there's there's really great talking heads in there, Jonathan Jonathan Rigby is in there, who's always great fun anyway, but there's also like people who were with like with witchcraft there's sort of like some lovely there's a woman on there who was like involved with Alexanders and stuff and.
**Adam:** She sort of talking about, oh well, you know, me and my friend went to this place and they said do you want to be part of a satanic ritual and I said, well, in for a penny, in for a pound. And you know, and just just this lovely sort of mixture of the prosaic with also but, you know, trying to look at this from a point of view of what actually did happen with this crime, but also the fact that it is resonated through so much pop culture and horror pop culture from Britain since.
**Adam:** And it's just really well put together and just a really just fantastic hour and a half. It really, you know, really great and yeah, it's just turned up on the streaming sites.
**Adam:** I definitely think it's one I will watch again, I do love a documentary anyway, but you know, I think they've packed it to the gills with so many clips.
**Adam:** And so many interesting sort of ideas and mentions in there and things like that, and yeah, just really, really well worth a watch and to boot it has a soundtrack that would rival any good folk horror anyway.
**Adam:** So it's yeah, definite recommend that one.
**Lee:** That sounds so high up my list now.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's really good as I say, yeah, the last sacrifice.
**Adam:** And you can always tell a good documentary because it's actually got a logo.
**Adam:** When you look it up, you'll see that it's got like a lovely font for the last sacrifice and you're just like, yeah, exactly, it's like killing of America, you know, where it's actually it it feels like it's part of a franchise.
**Adam:** It's just a documentary, but it's like, you know, it's like, you've got a logo, essentially, you haven't just got a type, you've got a logo, guys.
**Chris:** They've put in some effort.
**Adam:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** And yeah, and I yeah, it's that is a definite, definite, recommend that one.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** I'll be checking.
**Chris:** Yeah, sounds great.
**Lee:** Thank you very much.
**Lee:** Chris, what's your next pick?
**Chris:** Okay, so this is the first of the two that I thought we must have talked about, surely.
**Chris:** Now, I saw it advertised a few times, and I thought, well, it looks pretty good. It's like, okay, one day, anyway.
**Chris:** I was having a look, what shall I watch, and I became and it is the no, it's just Heretic from 2024 with Hugh Grant. Yeah. Now, have we talked about it? No, I have not seen either. Also, funnily enough, I've got it on my bloody watch list, that's yeah, because Claire really wanted to watch it as well, because he'd seen lots of sort of stuff about, you know, Hugh Grant's doing a horror film and it looked rather good, you know.
**Lee:** Would Hugh Grant.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** I haven't seen.
**Chris:** Yeah, so I'll have to be a little bit careful then. As I should be anyway from a 2024 film, but, yeah, so I hadn't even quite penciled it in, but in my mind it was like, I'll that definitely looks like something I would want to watch.
**Chris:** Turns out, it is absolutely something I would want to watch. Like Hugh Grant, seriously, he can play a a horrible, the most horrible, while still being unbelievably charming.
**Chris:** So uncomfortable, so awkward, but do you leave, do you leave now? What what is going on with this man? He's intelligent, he's educated, he's fascinating, he's absolutely so horrible.
**Lee:** Like.
**Chris:** He is yeah, this clearly was a very good role for him.
**Adam:** Do you feel that this should be on the list, Chris? Do you think this is one that we should cover in a future episode?
**Chris:** I mean, it's it's got it's got everything I probably like from a film. it's it's got definitely some humor if you can if you can see it there.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's it's a fascinating look at and and deep enough look at religion and you know, belief.
**Chris:** What we all think, what's going on, it's it's covered covered a decent amount of that, and also what decisions do you take at what point?
**Chris:** And yeah, trying to figure out what situation have we got into.
**Chris:** So it's yeah, it really progresses well, and I I think for me, I was like, I I don't know what they're going to do next, and I'm worried they're not going to be able to improve on what they've just done, but they do.
**Chris:** So it's like, all right, well done, all right, that's that's that's good.
**Chris:** So yeah.
**Chris:** and and the the other two actors.
**Chris:** Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher, fantastic.
**Chris:** Like yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Sophie Thatcher, she was in she was in Book of Boba Fett, I think.
**Adam:** She was one of the.
**Adam:** She was one of the slightly crap gang, you know, they were like sort of like bikers who were like, why are you on Tatooine? You're clearly like, you're clearly like a sort of William Gibson setting.
**Adam:** You know, why are you on a desert planet, but anyway, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, so great, you know, they they convinced me that they're probably Mormons and but potentially something else going on.
**Chris:** So yeah, no, really, really good, absolutely recommend that. and we should we should certainly add it to our list of potential.
**Lee:** I'll definitely.
**Lee:** Because I it was one of those, I wasn't sure if it was going to be horror or if it was just going to be a bit of a drama. So that's why I kind of passed me by and then I forgot all about it.
**Lee:** But definitely hits horror notes at points.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I am in for that then. Yeah, that's great.
**Lee:** Yes, we've got to get that in the list then for upcoming episodes.
**Lee:** so my next one is a little bit out of left field, if I'm honest.
**Lee:** so I watched 1945's Noel Coward written Blithe Spirit.
**Adam:** Oh, brilliant.
**Lee:** Have you seen it, Adam?
**Adam:** I have I've seen I've seen that film.
**Adam:** I also used to have a radio version of it that was absolutely brilliant, yeah.
**Lee:** It was it was one of those, I think I was it was a late evening, and I was in the mood for something, you know, sort of British and quaint and fun. So I think I put in old British movies into YouTube and was just scrolling through and I was like, oh, Noel Coward, I've heard his name, I know he writes plays and stuff, but I've never seen anything he's done.
**Lee:** I was like, oh, Margaret Rutherford's in it, I mean, Margaret Rutherford's amazing.
**Lee:** So I was like, but I didn't realize she was so young in this.
**Lee:** So it was really weird.
**Lee:** I was like, oh, I only know her as a bumbling old lady.
**Lee:** So to see her.
**Adam:** Yeah, she's like, she's like Miss Marple essentially, yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, I I thought it was really good, really lighthearted, fun. It's it's kind of a family film. So the the story of it for Chris, basically a guy is going to write a book.
**Lee:** So his wife passed away some years ago.
**Lee:** He's going to write a book.
**Lee:** And the main character is a fraudulent medium.
**Lee:** So he invites the village medium, who is Margaret Rutherford, to his house to do a seance, and the idea is he just wants to get a bit of sort of character feel for what a medium is like, but he doesn't believe in them.
**Lee:** So the medium turns up, she does the seance, and then the ghost of his ex-wife appears, and she turns up every night at dark.
**Lee:** but he's remarried since this point, so he's got a current wife.
**Lee:** And he sits up all night arguing with his ex-wife, who won't go away and leave him alone.
**Lee:** Oh, and it's just it's really good fun, it's like it's it is very lighthearted and sort of soft British comedy type, but I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** And it is, yeah, it had a few turns in it I didn't see coming.
**Lee:** And I just I had a great time with it. It it really surprised me how much I enjoyed it.
**Adam:** I I to be honest, it's one of it's one I've always suspected that Jennifer would have watched or seen.
**Lee:** And she hasn't, but she would absolutely love it.
**Adam:** Yeah, it just it's just absolutely I'd imagine just totally in her wheelhouse that I would have thought, oh yeah, no, when you said it, I was like, oh, I thought oh, Jennifer said watch that.
**Chris:** I mean, I'm definitely thinking I should have watched that instead of what I did watch for the third of.
**Lee:** It was yeah, so it's.
**Lee:** It's all on YouTube, I think it's in like 4K.
**Lee:** It's really it looks really clean and really nice.
**Lee:** Yes, so as we are running low on time.
**Lee:** Adam, very quickly, what's your last one?
**Adam:** Very quickly, it is on YouTube, all of it, 26 episodes.
**Adam:** Orson Welles Great Mysteries, it's an anthology series.
**Adam:** and you're adapting there's original stuff in there, but also adapt stories by like Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dickens, Balzac.
**Adam:** And basically it's yeah, an anthology show.
**Adam:** They got all these great sort of stories in there and you've got amazing cast members.
**Adam:** You got Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence, John Collins, Jeffrey Bayldon, Joss Ackland, it's, you know, proper really good actors.
**Adam:** Really solid stuff, some fascinating things in there, and the added treat that each one is presented by Orson Welles in extreme close-up because he's a vain man who by this point is the size of a fucking house and has decided that he's going to introduce them.
**Adam:** Clearly just phoning it in for the money, he can't be bothered to take his cigar out of his mouth and he just presents it.
**Adam:** He's Orson Welles speaking.
**Adam:** And he's clearly reading off Q cards all around the camera because he never looks down the barrel of it.
**Adam:** But he sort of tops and tails all the episodes, but yeah, they're genuinely good, and there's the entertainment factor of Orson, have you finished eating?
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Adam:** Orson, take your cigar out of your mouth, you're talking to people.
**Adam:** You know, he's just yeah.
**Adam:** Definitely worth a recommend.
**Adam:** And like I say, the whole lot's on YouTube.
**Adam:** Me and Claire went through it and had a fucking whale of a time with it.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Lee:** I'll definitely be checking those as well.
**Lee:** I'm after something new serial-wise, so that's perfect.
**Lee:** Chris, what's your last choice?
**Chris:** Yeah, so another one that I, as I started watching it, I was like, surely, surely we we talk about this.
**Chris:** And and how could it have ramped up after Heretic?
**Chris:** I did not see this coming.
**Chris:** Anyway, it's the Substance from 2024.
**Chris:** Director, writer, Coralie Fargeat, I think you pronounce it.
**Chris:** Yeah, Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid, who really plays such a despicable man, producer. Of yeah.
**Chris:** anyway, like yeah, it's I'll tell you what.
**Chris:** It it it seems reminiscent of Darren Aronofsky.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** I can see that.
**Adam:** It also has.
**Chris:** The way you're saying that. Yeah, yeah, definitely elements of that, just yeah, body horror.
**Chris:** But psychological, and also social commentary, but just really again, it progresses so well throughout.
**Chris:** You know, there's a point where you think, you've managed to portray a finger in a way that I did not expect a finger could affect me this much, but you've done it.
**Chris:** And what are you going to do next?
**Chris:** And no.
**Chris:** They of course they do something next.
**Chris:** And you're like, this is this is painful, but so well done.
**Chris:** So yeah, Demi Moore, fantastic, really.
**Chris:** So yeah.
**Adam:** again, been meaning to check it out and just haven't.
**Chris:** I really way way better than I expected, I guess it's hard not to sort of expect can they really make a modern horror film?
**Chris:** Frankenstein we've got tonight, this I would say, yeah, really good stuff.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's definitely.
**Lee:** I went back over Halloween and rewatched From Dusk Till Dawn from 1996.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I saw it three or four times when it first came out and definitely haven't seen it in the last 25 years.
**Lee:** So I decided it was time for a rewatch.
**Lee:** And yeah, it held up so much better than I thought it was going to.
**Chris:** Good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Honestly, I haven't seen it for a long time either, so yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's one of those you forget it's a horror film because you get drawn into the crime drama element of it.
**Lee:** And spend the whole time wanting George Clooney to lose his shit and shoot his brother in the fucking face.
**Lee:** because he's such a shitbag.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then all of a sudden you go, you're 50 minutes in, then you go, oh shit, yeah, vampires have just.
**Chris:** That's what happens.
**Lee:** And they start.
**Chris:** I remember when I did not know, you know, I guess loads of people didn't know.
**Chris:** And you yeah, when it happens, you're like, what? And how is this working so well?
**Chris:** But it really does.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** such a solid cast.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's an outstanding movie, it's still again, it's another one of those I regret not taking off the shelf more frequently because it really does hold up really well.
**Adam:** I I that was another one, I did show I when I showed it to Wez, I didn't tell him it was a horror movie. I just said I was basically because I was like, into Reservoir Dogs and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So I was like, try this, it's like a crime movie.
**Adam:** I know they're not really your cut and say, but this is good, I promise you.
**Adam:** And then we got to that mark and it was like, because I think he was enjoying it, but yeah, we got to that mark and it was like, fucking hell.
**Chris:** It was.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** Such a solid cast.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's an outstanding movie, it's still again, it's another one of those I regret not taking off the shelf more frequently because it really does hold up really well.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** I went back over Halloween and rewatched From Dusk Till Dawn from 1996.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I saw it three or four times when it first came out and definitely haven't seen it in the last 25 years.
**Lee:** So I decided it was time for a rewatch.
**Lee:** And yeah, it held up so much better than I thought it was going to.
**Chris:** Good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Honestly, I haven't seen it for a long time either, so yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's one of those you forget it's a horror film because you get drawn into the crime drama element of it.
**Lee:** And spend the whole time wanting George Clooney to lose his shit and shoot his brother in the fucking face.
**Lee:** because he's such a shitbag.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then all of a sudden you go, you're 50 minutes in, then you go, oh shit, yeah, vampires have just.
**Chris:** That's what happens.
**Lee:** And they start.
**Chris:** I remember when I did not know, you know, I guess loads of people didn't know.
**Chris:** And you yeah, when it happens, you're like, what? And how is this working so well?
**Chris:** But it really does.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** such a solid cast.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's an outstanding movie, it's still again, it's another one of those I regret not taking off the shelf more frequently because it really does hold up really well.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** I went back over Halloween and rewatched From Dusk Till Dawn from 1996.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I saw it three or four times when it first came out and definitely haven't seen it in the last 25 years.
**Lee:** So I decided it was time for a rewatch.
**Lee:** And yeah, it held up so much better than I thought it was going to.
**Chris:** Good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Honestly, I haven't seen it for a long time either, so yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's one of those you forget it's a horror film because you get drawn into the crime drama element of it.
**Lee:** And spend the whole time wanting George Clooney to lose his shit and shoot his brother in the fucking face.
**Lee:** because he's such a shitbag.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then all of a sudden you go, you're 50 minutes in, then you go, oh shit, yeah, vampires have just.
**Chris:** That's what happens.
**Lee:** And they start.
**Chris:** I remember when I did not know, you know, I guess loads of people didn't know.
**Chris:** And you yeah, when it happens, you're like, what? And how is this working so well?
**Chris:** But it really does.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** such a solid cast.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's an outstanding movie, it's still again, it's another one of those I regret not taking off the shelf more frequently because it really does hold up really well.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** I went back over Halloween and rewatched From Dusk Till Dawn from 1996.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I saw it three or four times when it first came out and definitely haven't seen it in the last 25 years.
**Lee:** So I decided it was time for a rewatch.
**Lee:** And yeah, it held up so much better than I thought it was going to.
**Chris:** Good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Honestly, I haven't seen it for a long time either, so yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's one of those you forget it's a horror film because you get drawn into the crime drama element of it.
**Lee:** And spend the whole time wanting George Clooney to lose his shit and shoot his brother in the fucking face.
**Lee:** because he's such a shitbag.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then all of a sudden you go, you're 50 minutes in, then you go, oh shit, yeah, vampires have just.
**Chris:** That's what happens.
**Lee:** And they start.
**Chris:** I remember when I did not know, you know, I guess loads of people didn't know.
**Chris:** And you yeah, when it happens, you're like, what? And how is this working so well?
**Chris:** But it really does.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** such a solid cast.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's an outstanding movie, it's still again, it's another one of those I regret not taking off the shelf more frequently because it really does hold up really well.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** I went back over Halloween and rewatched From Dusk Till Dawn from 1996.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I saw it three or four times when it first came out and definitely haven't seen it in the last 25 years.
**Lee:** So I decided it was time for a rewatch.
**Lee:** And yeah, it held up so much better than I thought it was going to.
**Chris:** Good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Honestly, I haven't seen it for a long time either, so yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's one of those you forget it's a horror film because you get drawn into the crime drama element of it.
**Lee:** And spend the whole time wanting George Clooney to lose his shit and shoot his brother in the fucking face.
**Lee:** because he's such a shitbag.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then all of a sudden you go, you're 50 minutes in, then you go, oh shit, yeah, vampires have just.
**Chris:** That's what happens.
**Lee:** And they start.
**Chris:** I remember when I did not know, you know, I guess loads of people didn't know.
**Chris:** And you yeah, when it happens, you're like, what? And how is this working so well?
**Chris:** But it really does.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** such a solid cast.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's an outstanding movie, it's still again, it's another one of those I regret not taking off the shelf more frequently because it really does hold up really well.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** I went back over Halloween and rewatched From Dusk Till Dawn from 1996.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I saw it three or four times when it first came out and definitely haven't seen it in the last 25 years.
**Lee:** So I decided it was time for a rewatch.
**Lee:** And yeah, it held up so much better than I thought it was going to.
**Chris:** Good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Honestly, I haven't seen it for a long time either, so yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's one of those you forget it's a horror film because you get drawn into the crime drama element of it.
**Lee:** And spend the whole time wanting George Clooney to lose his shit and shoot his brother in the fucking face.
**Lee:** because he's such a shitbag.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then all of a sudden you go, you're 50 minutes in, then you go, oh shit, yeah, vampires have just.
**Chris:** That's what happens.
**Lee:** And they start.
**Chris:** I remember when I did not know, you know, I guess loads of people didn't know.
**Chris:** And you yeah, when it happens, you're like, what? And how is this working so well?
**Chris:** But it really does.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** such a solid cast.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's an outstanding movie, it's still again, it's another one of those I regret not taking off the shelf more frequently because it really does hold up really well.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** I went back over Halloween and rewatched From Dusk Till Dawn from 1996.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I saw it three or four times when it first came out and definitely haven't seen it in the last 25 years.
**Lee:** So I decided it was time for a rewatch.
**Lee:** And yeah, it held up so much better than I thought it was going to.
**Chris:** Good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Honestly, I haven't seen it for a long time either, so yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's one of those you forget it's a horror film because you get drawn into the crime drama element of it.
**Lee:** And spend the whole time wanting George Clooney to lose his shit and shoot his brother in the fucking face.
**Lee:** because he's such a shitbag.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then all of a sudden you go, you're 50 minutes in, then you go, oh shit, yeah, vampires have just.
**Chris:** That's what happens.
**Lee:** And they start.
**Chris:** I remember when I did not know, you know, I guess loads of people didn't know.
**Chris:** And you yeah, when it happens, you're like, what? And how is this working so well?
**Chris:** But it really does.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** such a solid cast.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's an outstanding movie, it's still again, it's another one of those I regret not taking off the shelf more frequently because it really does hold up really well.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** I went back over Halloween and rewatched From Dusk Till Dawn from 1996.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I saw it three or four times when it first came out and definitely haven't seen it in the last 25 years.
**Lee:** So I decided it was time for a rewatch.
**Lee:** And yeah, it held up so much better than I thought it was going to.
**Chris:** Good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Honestly, I haven't seen it for a long time either, so yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's one of those you forget it's a horror film because you get drawn into the crime drama element of it.
**Lee:** And spend the whole time wanting George Clooney to lose his shit and shoot his brother in the fucking face.
**Lee:** because he's such a shitbag.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then all of a sudden you go, you're 50 minutes in, then you go, oh shit, yeah, vampires have just.
**Chris:** That's what happens.
**Lee:** And they start.
**Chris:** I remember when I did not know, you know, I guess loads of people didn't know.
**Chris:** And you yeah, when it happens, you're like, what? And how is this working so well?
**Chris:** But it really does.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** such a solid cast.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's an outstanding movie, it's still again, it's another one of those I regret not taking off the shelf more frequently because it really does hold up really well.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.

---

## Ep 235 Razor Blade Smile

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-235-razor-blade-smile/
Air date: 9 November 2025
Duration: 00:38:31
Film: Razor Blade Smile · Year: 1998 · Director: Jake West

### Description

It’s time to visit the misspent youth of the team, hurtling back to 1998 for Jake West’s “Razor Blade Smile”. A film that shows that a coffin can make a lovely centrepiece gun rack in any bedroom; highlights that vampires are the only ones not showing off their fangs at a Goth club; and bravely needle drops “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” like “The Hunger” just didn’t happen. Razor Blade Smile made something of a splash when it came out - a flashy/trashy horror with camp laughs, nudity, gore and an icon in the form of Eileen Daly’s rubber cat-suited vampire assassin, it felt utterly different to anything else emerging from the doldrums of the British film industry. Made on a shoestring budget, but never aiming for anything less than spectacle; time hasn’t necessarily been too kind to it visually, although ironically it’s the (then) state of the art computer generated imagery that has dated the worst. More importantly; it’s shoot-outs and fetish wear aesthetic predates both The Matrix and Underworld franchises. Whilst some minor roles may feature less than stellar acting, the main cast are giving their all, with Daly cementing her place as a British scream queen, and a genuinely brilliant turn from Christopher Adamson as the villain. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Razorblade Smile's release and UK independent cinema context: It was probably, probably, cuz I mean it was late '98, it came out. It got theatrical release sort of. Yeah, yeah, and it, it sort of got a run up, it was released in October. So it was like sort of, you know, Halloween, so we've got a vampire movie, you know, so that was part of the. Uh, part of the promotion as it were or whatever, but yeah, so it was probably when it went to video that you saw it, Lee. … America has a better sort of, at that point, America was pumping out a lot of independent cinema. But yeah, this was Brit cinema very few and far between, you know, even, even had a, there was a bit of a resurgence, you know, you had like sort of stuff with like mostly Danny Boyle, actually, it was like, but yeah. For someone to do like a completely independent horror film, um, at that point was pretty unheard of, yeah.
- Eileen Daly's career and Redemption Films: I-Ileen Daly was an adult film star. And then she sort of, but she also was doing like modeling and so she would crop up in bizarre magazine and skin two and places like that, and she wrote for the, she was a columnist for the Dark Side magazine, like the horror, uh, movie magazine. And so she was around and people knew her. And but this was sort of like, I think this was the first thing I saw her in, you know, like the, like a proper film. Um, and yeah, she's, and she remains like we, we met her at, um, I was going to say because that's like in a way I sort of wish I'd seen this before we went to horror on C that was the first time. So you went, now you know why me and Lee were a bit starstruck. … So, you know, it's there's, um, and she, she, she's pretty skilled. She's, she did a band called Jezebel. Like there was a sort of like metal goth rock sort of thing. Apparently she's in a, she did a band or is in a band called Eileen and Ben, and they actually went on The X Factor. And did quite well, apparently. So, yeah, but no, so she's sort of like she's been a figure who's been sort of like. And basically, one of the other things was is that there's a, there was a label called Redemption Films, which was a video, which was a video label, and it was started by, um, Eileen Daly and. Oh, what is his name? I've, bear with me while I check my notes because I cannot for the life of me remember his name. … Yeah, that was that was it, yeah. Yeah, Nigel Wingrove, that's it. So, and um, yeah, so they started Redemption Films and basically it was a video label that at the time was releasing all the stuff that you didn't get. Uh, that wasn't getting much of a video release, like a lot of sort of euro horror and sort of border line porn sort of horror and stuff like that. And, um, like nunsploitation films and sort of Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci and all sort of. And weirdly enough, they were like the first label that was kind of like, oh yeah, you can't actually see these, you know, they, they weren't getting a release over here, so they sort of started that gap and were filling that. And um, and Eileen Daly was like, basically the sort of, the logo that, Redemption Films had this really elaborate logo and it was her face in the middle of it. And because Redemption film like Redemption Films like they, they, um, Nigel Wingrove said that a lot of the films that he was releasing didn't necessarily have decent artwork or artwork that he could use or stuff like that. So what they started doing was is all of Redemption's releases are, um, like staged photographs with models, including like Eileen Daly was in loads of them. And basically, it would be a black and white, you know, sort of like artistic interpretation of the film. So, you know, it just wasn't, wasn't necessarily like you weren't copying a scene from the film, but it was almost like you gave it a front cover. … They were always really extraordinary. … Yeah, so so she was part of Redemption and and um, yeah, they, I mean that was where, I mean, they released, they released some amazing stuff. That was, do you remember, Lee, I had the video, that was the first place I got the video, which was the Clive Barker student films. Um, yeah, those I can't remember what they're called now but those two um, the Forbidden and something else. But yeah, so they were but they they were also releasing like some really amazing horror movies that at the time you couldn't see and weren't necessarily going to show up on telly or whatever like that. And um, yeah, it was that was sort of like where I remembered her from, I think, initially. But um, but yeah, and um, yeah, so.
- Razorblade Smile's influence on films like The Matrix and Underworld: But it predates The Matrix, it predates Underworld, which I think is even more this whole sort of, you know, the sort of leather-clad shoot 'em ups. And sort of like, you know, trying, trying to do John Woo sort of style gun fights in rubber catsuits and stuff like that. And Underworld in particular is very sort of comes from this, I think.
- Razorblade Smile remaster and upcoming documentaries: Incidentally, there is a, this is something I would be quite interested to see is apparently the, they've, by the looks of it, certainly from like credit lists on IMDB, there's a load of documentaries in the offing. About it that are going to go on some presumably on a DVD Blu-ray release. Because they they've remastered, uh, Jake West, the director's remastered it. And apparently showed it at a, um, showed it at a horror like showed it at a horror festival last year. So they've, I'd be interested to see it once it's been remastered to see whether, cuz I mean, there's sort of, there's, the limitations of a low budget are there, you, you know that. And, uh, let's be frank, there's, it's not an across the board amazing cast. There are a, there are a few weak links here and there. Fortunately, no one actually in a major role, essentially.
- Manga Entertainment's distribution and financial contribution: Cuz yeah, cuz it was on, um, cuz again, another tale of a great '90s sort of or 2000s label, um, Manga Entertainment who were distributing all anime over here and in the States. So again, it was like, I've already got a load of these sitting, you know, I've got a load of this label sitting there anyway. So you, but this was apparently they put money in like afterwards, for I think mostly for the visual effects, so like the sort of and the title sequence and stuff like that. Basically Manga Entertainment were like, oh, we could move into live action.
- Film budget and inflation: I had to look it up cuz I wanted to see if that translated, that's still only 40 grand now, which admittedly, if anyone's got only 40 grand, I'll take it off them. You know, I'll be quite happy with 40 grand. But it really does not make a film.
- Visual effects company (The Mill): Do you know what I mean? like there's just sort of bits in there where it's like, it's, it's very, um, I actually I saw that the, the company who did the visual effects for it, The Mill, who ended up doing, um, the Revive series of Doctor Who. So I didn't realize they'd actually been going that long doing like CGI and stuff like that. And obviously it sort of moved, moved on somewhat.
- Director Jake West's filmography and documentary work: And actually the thing is Jake West who directed it, um, has made some, I mean, he's made other films because he did, um, oh crap, what's it called? Evil Aliens. … Yeah, so you see again, it's very much in the in a similar sort of vein. Um, he also did Doghouse. Which was a Danny Dyer film that, I'll be frank, never saw cuz it looked shit. Um. Um, but he also did the third Pumpkinhead film. Um, and there's a, an anthology that I've never seen called Midnight Peep Show that he did a segment for, and he did a segment for ABC's of Death. Um, but the the thing I really love, Jake West has made some fucking incredible documentaries. The yeah, cuz he did the video nasties moral panic one that came out on three discs. And then the follow-up video nasties Draconian days, which weirdly enough, just out of the blue, me and Claire had watched like maybe a month or so ago. And yeah, his documentaries I, to be honest, that's where I hope he keeps going. Cuz you know, I think, um, but he also did the documentary that's on the Extro DVD, so, um, uh, Extro Blu-ray, so and. He's also done one that I didn't know was him but I really wanted to see it anyway, which is, uh, Mancunian Man, the legendary life of Cliff Twemlow, which was who was a, apparently he's like some northern nightclub bouncer who just made a load of independent like action and horror films and stuff like that. … Um, so but yeah, and he also is the, um, he runs the DVD label Nucleus. … And so there's a lot of, um, oh, and he's, um, I think he produces Stark Raving Cinema podcast, which I've listened to a few of that, that's a pretty good show. And, um, but yeah, the, um, yeah, Nucleus Films who again, it's like, I've got quite a few of their releases and they're always like more obscure stuff. And actually, um, some documentary stuff as well, like horror documentaries. So that's definitely where, you know, that's that's another string to Jake West that I think is really interesting and they and yeah, I heartily recommend those, um, video nasties documentaries cuz they're just so well put together. And speaking to all the right people. Because yeah, you know, it's just. I mean, he's got the connections, so, you know, that'd be that'd be why.
- David Warbeck's cameo and horror film background: And and the other thing that we've got is, um, uh, David Warbeck is, um, you know, the pathologist horror movie guy, cuz that's because that for a minute feels like a weird thing where you're like, this guy's getting a lot of air time here. And then I realized it was David Warbeck, who's in like the Beyond and, um, like quite a few '70s like horrors and stuff like that, and yeah, sci-fi and things. … But um. But yeah, so and again, I think that's just like, oh, well, we'll get, that's, that's the old horror star that we get into this. That sort of yeah, you know, it's almost like you always, always with British independent films, I love the fact that there's always like, right, we want to get a, we want to get a touchstone in, we want to get someone who's, who's been there, who's touched the cloak.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here this evening to discuss 1998, independent classic, in my opinion, Razorblade Smile.
**Lee:** there will be spoilers, there will be swearing, and yeah, and I, I think that's everything we need to cover, really.
**Lee:** so before, sorry, I'm full of cold and my brain is working on about 50% at the moment, so I do apologize if I keep just forgetting what I'm supposed to be doing.
**Adam:** Don't worry, we'll, we'll just put, we'll just put it down to age, like you do with us.
**Chris:** At least we did, we did remember to actually do this tonight, so that, that was something.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, I remembered 20 minutes before we turned the microphones on.
**Chris:** There you go. Well done.
**Adam:** And...
**Lee:** so Chris, obviously, I know this the, the format of this show has been always that you are, these will be new films to you the majority of the time, but something tells me you would very probably have seen this when you were a teenager.
**Chris:** Absolutely not.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Chris:** No. I, I mean, I, it seems surprising to me.
**Chris:** Cuz clearly, I was watching, I was like, yeah, I absolutely should have watched this.
**Chris:** 1998, so yeah, I was 18, I was just legal enough to watch this at the time. So that would have been perfect.
**Chris:** But yeah, no, like it's got everything you could want really, hasn't it, in, in a film about vampires.
**Chris:** And, you know, like it's a tongue-in-cheek, satirical view, and I think done perfectly.
**Chris:** And there's a very good twist, which really finishes the film perfectly.
**Lee:** Yes, it does. And so, just for as a very quick for anyone who hasn't seen the film, the plot of the film is it follows a sexy vampire played by Eileen Daly, who also has taken the very smart choice to also be an assassin because as she explains, she's got to kill people to live, so why not get paid to do it?
**Lee:** It's a, it makes perfect sense, it's a, yeah, it's a great story.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's, it follows her, the police investigation to find her, and an occult group who are manipulating the police to try and catch her, and we don't know why.
**Lee:** yeah, this film opened my eyes to British independent cinema. I'd never seen anything like this and it blew me away.
**Chris:** Yeah, I could imagine that.
**Chris:** If so, I'm assuming you did watch it pretty much when it was released.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I think I saw it around 2000, 2001.
**Lee:** No, it must have been earlier than that. No, so it must have been around '99, I think I must have seen this.
**Adam:** It was probably, probably, cuz I mean it was late '98, it came out.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** It got theatrical release sort of.
**Chris:** I was going to say, yeah, was it, it was shown in cinemas.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, and it, it sort of got a run up, it was released in October.
**Adam:** So it was like sort of, you know, Halloween, so we've got a vampire movie, you know, so that was part of the.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** part of the promotion as it were or whatever, but yeah, so it was probably when it went to video that you saw it, Lee.
**Chris:** Yeah, I imagine that's rough. Yeah.
**Lee:** Well it yeah, so so then already had it in his collection and mentioned one day that he'd seen Eileen Daly.
**Lee:** I'm pretty sure he said she was in the Ford in Romford.
**Chris:** Oh right.
**Lee:** and he said, yeah, you know, the vampire from Razorblade Smile, and I said, I've not seen it.
**Lee:** Yeah, so he brought it round the next day and lent it to me, yeah, and it was one of those films, I think I watched it about three times in the first two weeks.
**Lee:** Cuz I was like, this is so different to anything I've ever seen before and it really, it really drew me in.
**Lee:** Like the idea that people could outside of the studio system just make a film on a low budget and it'd be entertaining and fun.
**Lee:** It, yeah, it was so new to me that idea, yeah, and this was the only example of it I had.
**Lee:** Like obviously, I'd seen the Trauma movies and stuff, but yeah.
**Adam:** America has a better sort of, at that point, America was pumping out a lot of independent cinema.
**Adam:** But yeah, this was Brit cinema very few and far between, you know, even, even had a, there was a bit of a resurgence, you know, you had like sort of stuff with like mostly Danny Boyle, actually, it was like, but yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** For someone to do like a completely independent horror film, at that point was pretty unheard of, yeah.
**Adam:** And..
**Chris:** So, was this the first time anyone heard of Eileen Daly? Had she done anything before this?
**Adam:** I-Ileen Daly was an adult film star.
**Chris:** Oh right, okay.
**Adam:** And then she sort of, but she also was doing like modeling and so she would crop up in bizarre magazine and skin two and places like that, and she wrote for the, she was a columnist for the Dark Side magazine, like the horror, movie magazine.
**Adam:** And so she was around and people knew her.
**Adam:** And but this was sort of like, I think this was the first thing I saw her in, you know, like the, like a proper film.
**Adam:** and yeah, she's, and she remains like we, we met her at, I was going to say because that's like in a way I sort of wish I'd seen this before we went to horror on C that was the first time. So you went, now you know why me and Lee were a bit starstruck.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Totally, I'd been like.
**Chris:** Totally, I'd been like, oh yeah, that's great.
**Chris:** But I mean it was still, it was a good introduction to her.
**Chris:** What was the name of the film we watched, I cannot think of that now, Mr. Crispin? It was Mr. Crispin.
**Chris:** Oh right.
**Chris:** Because that was pretty funny.
**Chris:** I mean, yeah, very entertaining. Yeah, and that that was one she, she wrote and directed that herself.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So, you know, it's there's, and she, she, she's pretty skilled. She's, she did a band called Jezebel.
**Adam:** Like there was a sort of like metal goth rock sort of thing.
**Adam:** Apparently she's in a, she did a band or is in a band called Eileen and Ben, and they actually went on The X Factor.
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Adam:** And did quite well, apparently.
**Chris:** That's great.
**Adam:** So, yeah, but no, so she's sort of like she's been a figure who's been sort of like.
**Adam:** And basically, one of the other things was is that there's a, there was a label called Redemption Films, which was a video, which was a video label, and it was started by, Eileen Daly and.
**Adam:** Oh, what is his name? I've, bear with me while I check my notes because I cannot for the life of me remember his name.
**Lee:** I didn't realize she was involved in Redemption.
**Lee:** I'm like, I knew she was in a lot. I seem to remember her being in promo, like shoots.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was that was it, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, Nigel Wingrove, that's it.
**Adam:** So, and yeah, so they started Redemption Films and basically it was a video label that at the time was releasing all the stuff that you didn't get.
**Adam:** that wasn't getting much of a video release, like a lot of sort of euro horror and sort of border line porn sort of horror and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And, like nunsploitation films and sort of Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci and all sort of.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough, they were like the first label that was kind of like, oh yeah, you can't actually see these, you know, they, they weren't getting a release over here, so they sort of started that gap and were filling that.
**Adam:** And and Eileen Daly was like, basically the sort of, the logo that, Redemption Films had this really elaborate logo and it was her face in the middle of it.
**Adam:** And because Redemption film like Redemption Films like they, they, Nigel Wingrove said that a lot of the films that he was releasing didn't necessarily have decent artwork or artwork that he could use or stuff like that. So what they started doing was is all of Redemption's releases are, like staged photographs with models, including like Eileen Daly was in loads of them.
**Adam:** And basically, it would be a black and white, you know, sort of like artistic interpretation of the film.
**Adam:** So, you know, it just wasn't, wasn't necessarily like you weren't copying a scene from the film, but it was almost like you gave it a front cover.
**Lee:** And they were incredible. It's got to say, like.
**Adam:** They were always really extraordinary.
**Lee:** Stuck so well in my mind because they were, they were always beautiful, always and they were sinister, oh yeah, they just, they were the full package, their artwork was incredible.
**Adam:** Yeah, so so she was part of Redemption and and yeah, they, I mean that was where, I mean, they released, they released some amazing stuff.
**Adam:** That was, do you remember, Lee, I had the video, that was the first place I got the video, which was the Clive Barker student films.
**Lee:** Yes, yes.
**Adam:** yeah, those I can't remember what they're called now but those two the Forbidden and something else. But yeah, so they were but they they were also releasing like some really amazing horror movies that at the time you couldn't see and weren't necessarily going to show up on telly or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And yeah, it was that was sort of like where I remembered her from, I think, initially.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** But but yeah, and yeah, so.
**Lee:** So Mr. Crispin, she did, that we saw, there's also Hollywood Betrayed, First Bite is the Deepest and Witches Can Be Bitches, which is like, that's it.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So she's done a series of those movies where they, which are kind of like, they're like a sort of piss take of Most Haunted almost, aren't they where it's like, they go and investigate a, they're supposedly the crew that's gone there to document a supernatural event or a happening or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And it sort of, it follows a lot from, the, the sort of area where Razorblade Smile is. It's that same sort of, you know, it's the same sort of comedy, it's the same sort of.
**Lee:** It's they're always great fun. I remember Mr. Crispin being fantastic and I'm sure I'm, I'm sure I saw Witches Can Be Bitches as well.
**Adam:** That might have been the following like the following year or something like that. I'm sure, yeah, cuz I'm, I'm sure she's been there she's pretty regular there anyway.
**Adam:** But yeah, so
**Adam:** But I think, yeah, that was, that was the sort of my introduction to her.
**Adam:** And then Razorblade Smile, but yeah.
**Adam:** I mean watching it, I was struck by, it got to a point where I was like, this might be too '90s for me.
**Lee:** (chuckles)
**Adam:** And you know, and I'm saying, you know, and it's not, it's not an aesthetic that does not please.
**Adam:** but the thing that struck me with it is in no way am I saying that it's on the effects level par.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Shall we say.
**Adam:** But it predates The Matrix, it predates Underworld, which I think is even more this whole sort of, you know, the sort of leather-clad shoot 'em ups.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And sort of like, you know, trying, trying to do John Woo sort of style gun fights in rubber catsuits and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And Underworld in particular is very sort of comes from this, I think.
**Lee:** Totally.
**Lee:** I think, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And it's and, you know, as I said, that's why I was surprised Chris hadn't seen it because, as you say, those films when they came out, I really enjoyed them.
**Lee:** But when this came out and I was, you know, 19, 20, and still quite into Goth music and stuff, this was so me.
**Lee:** That was why it hit so hard, it was independent and it was British and it felt like it had been filmed around places just round the corner.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Probably was.
**Lee:** Yeah. (laughs)
**Lee:** yeah, and it just, oh, it was, it was perfect, it was so good.
**Lee:** yeah, and that's why it's really stuck with me. And it is one of those films that I do regularly still go back to.
**Lee:** Probably every two, three years, this comes out and yeah, I give it another re-watch. I'm always surprised how much it holds up.
**Lee:** As you say, it is very '90s.
**Adam:** It's very '90s.
**Adam:** I mean, I, I have to say, I haven't seen it for near enough 20 years, I think.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah, no, cuz I, I saw it at the time and yeah, I've, I, I actually had to go and get a copy cuz I realized I didn't own a copy of it.
**Adam:** but,
**Adam:** Incidentally, there is a, this is something I would be quite interested to see is apparently the, they've, by the looks of it, certainly from like credit lists on IMDB, there's a load of documentaries in the offing.
**Chris:** Oh, interesting.
**Adam:** About it that are going to go on some presumably on a DVD Blu-ray release.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Because they they've remastered, Jake West, the director's remastered it.
**Adam:** And apparently showed it at a, showed it at a horror like showed it at a horror festival last year.
**Adam:** So they've, I'd be interested to see it once it's been remastered to see whether, cuz I mean, there's sort of, there's, the limitations of a low budget are there, you, you know that.
**Adam:** And, let's be frank, there's, it's not an across the board amazing cast. There are a, there are a few weak links here and there. Fortunately, no one actually in a major role, essentially.
**Chris:** See yeah, I think on the whole they kind of work well enough. It has that real sort of feeling, especially when they're chatting in the club or pub and it's like, you know, they kind of do that those scenes well.
**Chris:** And especially, I think the dialogue's funny and, I do like the.
**Lee:** I was going to say, those goth scenes, you are just missing in the background cuz that did look like everyone you were friends with at that time.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's again, that is why you it does seem extraordinary that you've not seen, you hadn't seen it because it was like, you could possibly show up walking around the back of it, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, this this is, let's face it, this is a film that a lot of patrons of Cyberdog in Camden saw at the time.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Oh yeah. And I think I must have just been a couple of years past that.
**Chris:** And I mean, it was, well, I was off to university in 1998, so, I don't know, there's probably just some things going on.
**Adam:** Hopefully you had bigger fish to fry, young man.
**Lee:** I hope you did.
**Adam:** I hope you didn't squander that opportunity for further education.
**Lee:** you're saying about the cast as well, it's got to be said.
**Lee:** Yeah, Christopher Adamson, Jonathan Coe and, Kevin Howarth, all are really good in this.
**Lee:** Like, they really, yeah, I mean, Christopher Adamson particularly gives such a menacing performance.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was something that really struck me as I totally forgotten about him, and I think in a way there's almost like, you know, he did, he deserves, he deserves to get to play a major villain in something again.
**Adam:** Because I think it's sort of, he is totally committed to it, but also I feel he's got the tone, you know, he knows the, he knows the bits where it's like, no, we're doing genuine menace here.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But also, and particularly towards the end where you get the twist, and then it becomes quite playful and sort of, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, it's a perfect adjustment.
**Adam:** Yeah, he, and I mean, he's obviously like, cuz that's the thing as well, you have to have someone standing next to Eileen Daly in a catsuit, you have to have someone quite striking in their appearance.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** but yeah, and actually that was the stuff, the stuff I really enjoyed this time round, I think was the, the police stuff.
**Adam:** I think that's the, that for me was the, the best aspects of the humor was the idea of, you know, that usually in films where it's the one cop who's gone, you know, who knows that it's a supernatural occurrence, you know, and it's almost, it's almost a bit Cold Case where everyone else is just like, yeah, really, what?
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and I think that sort of, that's quite sort of, that's quite an those scenes, I thought worked really, really well.
**Adam:** And and as you say, that was, Jonathan Coe, so as the, inspector.
**Adam:** And I think yeah, those bits were really great.
**Adam:** And cuz one of the guys was in, I recognized one of the coppers who was with him, showed up a lot in The Comic Strip.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Like later series of The Comic Strip, yeah.
**Adam:** There was a, what was it, the, yeah, Mark Kaven, who was one of the detectives when they brought, he was the guy who when they bring Lilith in and start questioning her.
**Adam:** And I thought that, that, that I thought was a great, because the weird thing is is that I think that Eileen Daly, strangely enough, Eileen Daly's best stuff is actually the, the sort of, the more emotional stuff, I think she's, that's the, that's the better aspect of the performance than the sort of badassery.
**Adam:** If you see what I mean, you know.
**Adam:** It's like sort of, yeah, I think she really, when she's going through the book of faces and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's because obviously he's researched.
**Adam:** And and I've been I sort of started re-watching The X Files recently. So he's very much in the Mulder and Mulder of like sort of this like, oh here's this case notes and everyone else is like, yeah, what, she's been killing people for 200 years, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's.
**Lee:** (chuckles)
**Adam:** And, yeah, so I, I, no, I thought those, those, those aspects of it were really great.
**Adam:** But, but like I say, I'd be really interested to see what it looks like remastered.
**Adam:** Because the, the version I got was just like the old Manga DVD.
**Lee:** That's what I got as well.
**Adam:** Cuz yeah, cuz it was on, cuz again, another tale of a great '90s sort of or 2000s label, Manga Entertainment who were distributing all anime over here and in the States.
**Adam:** So again, it was like, I've already got a load of these sitting, you know, I've got a load of this label sitting there anyway.
**Adam:** So you, but this was apparently they put money in like afterwards, for I think mostly for the visual effects, so like the sort of and the title sequence and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Basically Manga Entertainment were like, oh, we could move into live action.
**Chris:** Yeah, so you say it was based on a comic book series.
**Chris:** So is that why they.
**Adam:** I no, no, there is, I think there is a comic book series of it, but it's not based on a comic book series.
**Adam:** Cuz the, cuz weirdly enough that was the only thing that I thought there was a couple of things that I thought that could predate it, and one of them was Durham Red from 2080, who was a bounty hunter who was also a vampire, so it's, you know.
**Adam:** But, but not, it doesn't because that's part of like the 2000 AD dog stuff. So it's not quite as.
**Adam:** And actually, that was the one thing I have seen Christopher Adamson in, he's in the, Sylvester Stallone Judge Dredd.
**Lee:** Yeah, now.
**Lee:** I was going to say this, like when you look at his film credits, I think it's, I mean, obviously he's a star in rolling this and he's smaller parts in other stuff.
**Lee:** But yeah, he'd been in Judge Dredd, he'd been in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, like he's had some really big role.
**Lee:** And I love the fact that he came, I think he's, I think, I think Robin Hood he just says soldier, so I don't know if that's going to be a big part of it.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah. It might be just but yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I mean, it's, it's good and I've seen he's done loads of stuff later as well, so I definitely, what was the one cuz I can't remember who he is in it, but he's they said he's in Legend.
**Adam:** What was the one cuz I can't remember who he is in it, but he's they said he's in Legend.
**Adam:** Like the, that's the one with Tom Hardy as the Kray Twins, not Tom Cruise and, right, the Devil.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** And he's in Leatherface in 2017. So, it's good to say, see, he's still getting roles,
**Lee:** Yeah, but yeah, I thought he was excellent and I thought it was perfectly cast as well. He's that cuz he works on both of those levels.
**Lee:** So, so the twist we should probably, yeah, I think we've gone far enough for a spoiler.
**Chris:** I was wondering, like, how, you, you both seem to say, you know, it can be re-watched and enjoyed as much. Cuz I was like, I mean, that's big enough twist and the fact they held it to the end.
**Chris:** So, yeah, now you can say it, Lee, and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, so the twist is that he and Lilith have known each other for centuries and this is just a game they play where they, it's basically role-playing for vampires, and the whole thing has just been a game, with lots of people dying very violently in order for them to have a bit of a laugh.
**Adam:** It's basically role-playing for vampires.
**Lee:** But it, it's that, that's a thing, so he plays such a terrifying, powerful character.
**Lee:** But then to see that love when the two of them come back together, like he manages to do that really well.
**Adam:** He does. Yeah, he does the sort of affectionate side of it of the once the pretense is gone and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And actually.
**Chris:** And it seems so believable at that point, whereas you would have thought that could have seemed really stupid, but it's like, oh no, that totally makes sense.
**Chris:** And yet also, I don't think it was obvious there wasn't anything that gave it away throughout, even though it seemed so obvious when they.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz I don't, I don't think they put it in there. You get flashbacks to how she became a vampire because he turned her into a vampire.
**Chris:** Yeah, and that makes sense, you're like, I believe that, yeah, sure. Yeah, they they they they, they're actually, they're actually together and you know, it's and yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, like I say, I mean, I think anyone coming to it, I mean it's, I think it was something like, I think they made it for about 20 grand, or like filmed it for about 20 grand, that's great, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** That's great.
**Lee:** That's great, isn't it?
**Adam:** I mean.
**Lee:** That's a lot of film for 20 grand.
**Adam:** Strangely enough.
**Adam:** I had to look it up cuz I wanted to see if that translated, that's still only 40 grand now, which admittedly, if anyone's got only 40 grand, I'll take it off them.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, I'll be quite happy with 40 grand.
**Adam:** But it really does not make a film.
**Lee:** But to make a film and probably even less so nowadays. Yeah, and it's so influential, as you said, you know, things like Underworld and everything, definitely took. The Matrix is too close. I think that that and I know that that aesthetic mainly come from came from the same inspirations, it's basically from hanging around goth clubs listening to Ministry, that's it.
**Adam:** The Matrix is too close. I think that that and I know that that aesthetic mainly come from came from the same inspirations, it's basically from hanging around goth clubs listening to Ministry.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so I you know, so I get the Matrix is like a sort of parallel to it.
**Adam:** But Underworld, I really feel is like, yeah, you just, you saw this and just thought, right, we can do that but with real like with good effects for the guns.
**Lee:** Bigger budget, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, we, we can get a fight choreographer in rather than, right, just hack at each other with two with the swords and we'll, we'll go from there, you know.
**Lee:** So that's the only thing with this that hasn't aged well, but again, it's, it's not because of the film.
**Lee:** It's because of the time is that they obviously introduced a lot of CGI into it for the, for the background sequences and stuff.
**Lee:** which hasn't aged well, but again, that's the, this is the issue. When you've got a super modern technology that's only just come out and you're doing it on a budget, it isn't going to age. But at the same time, this doesn't look any worse than fucking Spawn, which cost an absolute fortune. And this is this is the point, weirdly enough, I think like in terms of the CGI, the CGI just looks like, that's the points where it's like, oh, I can music videos.
**Adam:** And this is this is the point, weirdly enough, I think like in terms of the CGI, the CGI just looks like, that's the points where it's like, oh, I can music videos.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean? like there's just sort of bits in there where it's like, it's, it's very, I actually I saw that the, the company who did the visual effects for it, The Mill, who ended up doing, the Revive series of Doctor Who. So I didn't realize they'd actually been going that long doing like CGI and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And obviously it sort of moved, moved on somewhat.
**Adam:** But yeah, those sort of, cuz it just, they just feel like, you know, like cheap metal videos that you'd see in 1998, you know.
**Adam:** It's sort of, they're they're not, they're not too bad. I I it's unfortunate and again, I know it's a budget thing, but you can see a lot of day for night shooting, but again, so hammer, it's just fucking expensive to shoot at night.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's at night and everyone's wearing black PVC, you're not going to see fuck all unless you.
**Adam:** You're not going to be able to light it in in a decent a way as you can. And I think actually, I think the flashback footage is shot really well.
**Lee:** That looks awesome.
**Adam:** Still looks really, really good.
**Adam:** What it weird thing is, I think it's also, it's also worth, cuz I've been watching those sort of spin-off stuff that they started doing straight to video when Doctor Who got canceled.
**Adam:** And this ain't too far in terms of, I mean, this is, this is higher budget than those were. I mean, that's how cheap they are.
**Adam:** But I don't think it's no, it doesn't look any worse than that. And a lot of that stuff, it still feels like 90s tele. You know, if you've watched that, that's, it doesn't look, you know, there it doesn't look poor for its time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, this, this would have, this was cutting edge when it came out.
**Adam:** Yeah, when it came out. It's got a lot more, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it's only it's actual age that's dated it and not the fact that it was done obviously on a much lower budget.
**Lee:** As I say, than something like Spawn, which is a massive Hollywood film, it looks so much worse than this.
**Adam:** So, yeah, and I think I think they they there's, I mean, and weird and also not only that, but also when you get into the thing of.
**Adam:** Oh, the grand conspiracy is the Illuminati, it's like, hello the '90s.
**Lee:** (chuckles)
**Adam:** There you are.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It sort of just, but again, I think for its time that was sort of the zeitgeist, you know, that was part of it, it wasn't as cliched as it is now.
**Chris:** I know, but that's so funny in it to think at the time people would have been like, oh yeah, and now like how quickly they've just disappeared, like they're not doing much anymore.
**Adam:** And this film would have introduced people to the concept of the Illuminati.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that, I mean, cuz I mean, by the way, I just, just the other day on Instagram, I got a message from the Illuminati saying that they really like my stuff and would I like to join them.
**Lee:** Oh, you love it.
**Adam:** So long, bitches.
**Lee:** I had one of them. Yeah. It's come out years ago. I forgot all about it.
**Chris:** Either you're on your way up or or they're on their way down.
**Adam:** I was going to say, yeah, this is if they're recruiting me, they're shit.
**Lee:** Look at me here in my 10-pound Tesco's Halloween T-shirt and you know where all that money's going.
**Adam:** No, I think it sort of, there's still a part of me that has an affection for it, I think.
**Adam:** Because it's very, I just admire the spirit of it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually the thing is Jake West who directed it, has made some, I mean, he's made other films because he did, oh crap, what's it called? Evil Aliens.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, that was great fun.
**Lee:** Yes, that was really fun.
**Adam:** Yeah, so you see again, it's very much in the in a similar sort of vein. he also did Doghouse.
**Adam:** Which was a Danny Dyer film that, I'll be frank, never saw cuz it looked shit.
**Adam:** but he also did the third Pumpkinhead film.
**Lee:** What?
**Adam:** and there's a, an anthology that I've never seen called Midnight Peep Show that he did a segment for, and he did a segment for ABC's of Death.
**Adam:** but the the thing I really love, Jake West has made some fucking incredible documentaries.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** The yeah, cuz he did the video nasties moral panic one that came out on three discs.
**Adam:** And then the follow-up video nasties Draconian days, which weirdly enough, just out of the blue, me and Claire had watched like maybe a month or so ago. And yeah, his documentaries I, to be honest, that's where I hope he keeps going. Cuz you know, I think, but he also did the documentary that's on the Extro DVD, so, Extro Blu-ray, so and.
**Adam:** He's also done one that I didn't know was him but I really wanted to see it anyway, which is, Mancunian Man, the legendary life of Cliff Twemlow, which was who was a, apparently he's like some northern nightclub bouncer who just made a load of independent like action and horror films and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** so but yeah, and he also is the, he runs the DVD label Nucleus.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** And so there's a lot of, oh, and he's, I think he produces Stark Raving Cinema podcast, which I've listened to a few of that, that's a pretty good show.
**Adam:** And, but yeah, the, yeah, Nucleus Films who again, it's like, I've got quite a few of their releases and they're always like more obscure stuff. And actually, some documentary stuff as well, like horror documentaries.
**Adam:** So that's definitely where, you know, that's that's another string to Jake West that I think is really interesting and they and yeah, I heartily recommend those, video nasties documentaries cuz they're just so well put together.
**Adam:** And speaking to all the right people.
**Adam:** Because yeah, you know, it's just.
**Adam:** I mean, he's got the connections, so, you know, that'd be that'd be why.
**Adam:** And and the other thing that we've got is, David Warbeck is, you know, the pathologist horror movie guy, cuz that's because that for a minute feels like a weird thing where you're like, this guy's getting a lot of air time here. And then I realized it was David Warbeck, who's in like the Beyond and, like quite a few '70s like horrors and stuff like that, and yeah, sci-fi and things.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But yeah, so and again, I think that's just like, oh, well, we'll get, that's, that's the old horror star that we get into this.
**Adam:** That sort of yeah, you know, it's almost like you always, always with British independent films, I love the fact that there's always like, right, we want to get a, we want to get a touchstone in, we want to get someone who's, who's been there, who's touched the cloak.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah, no.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** yeah, so this is a massive recommend for me, I say I it opened a whole new world of of cinema. And as I say, it did everything I wanted at the time, I loved that goth scene, and I loved vampires, and metal and women with guns and it, and it did it all.
**Chris:** Still does quite a lot now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I am, I'm definitely going to check out more Eileen Daly.
**Chris:** What, what would be the next one to go for?
**Adam:** There's a very good electric blue I saw once.
**Lee:** (chuckles)
**Adam:** And I, and I mean that.
**Chris:** Well, if you if you recommend it.
**Adam:** Yeah, I, I do, yeah.
**Lee:** If you've got to watch it as part of the show, Chris, then you know, you've got to watch it as part of the show.
**Adam:** Again, I would have the caveat about budgetary restraints, but, you know, I think.
**Lee:** just very quickly before we sign off.
**Lee:** I just wanted to say if this gets out to people in time, I don't know when the exhibition finishes, but I went this weekend because we're recording this on November 2nd.
**Lee:** So I went yesterday to Selfridges in Oxford Street, they're doing an exhibition of a lot of the costumes and props from the Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein that's has been out at the cinema and is hitting Netflix in five days.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** if you get a chance to go to the exhibition, it's incredible.
**Lee:** you get one hour to go around it, but that's plenty of time because there's no filler. It's just incredible costumes, fantastic bits and scenes and yeah, it's just, it's great, it's really good.
**Lee:** it's a free thing, you just have to book your time slot. yeah, and it's in Selfridges, so it's, it's not hard to get to.
**Lee:** But yeah, in Selfridges itself, which it doesn't tell you, behind Selfridges, you have to go out of the food court and follow the building round and there's like an exhibition room behind it. I don't know if it's storage or what they normally do with it, but it's not in the building itself.
**Lee:** But yeah, I was the third person in the queue at the cinema, cuz they've got a cinema in Selfridges, so when we got there, there was no post sign post for it or anything.
**Lee:** But I saw that it was showing in the cinema, so I went to the cinema, yeah, and then realized that the two people who'd been stood in front of me in the queue for the cinema who had then spoken to the lady and walked out, were also about to go in looking for their tickets on their phones as we got there.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** That's.
**Lee:** Where it is, but yeah, it was really good and I haven't seen the film yet. Obviously, Guillermo del Toro and Frankenstein, I'm really excited for it, but yeah, this has absolutely peaked my excitement and I'm so keen to see it. It looks absolutely phenomenal.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** So, go and check those out.
**Lee:** we'll be back in a fortnight's time where we'll be doing what we've been watching.
**Lee:** it's been the Halloween period, so I'm hoping people have been watching lots of exciting Halloween stuff. I've been shit this year and I've gotten through maybe three or four films.
**Lee:** Whereas normally, I'd do about 30, but I think that's a new job that takes up way more of my time.
**Adam:** I'll I'll be honest, I think that this year for Halloween, it's basically been, I've stumbled into Halloween and anything that I've done that's Halloween related, I would have been doing anyway if it just if it was a Tuesday. You know, I'm watching a, I'm watching a horror film, I'm doing that anyway.
**Lee:** But yes, so go and check out Razorblade Smile, go and check out the Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein exhibit if you can.
**Lee:** If not, watch the film cuz it looks like it's going to be, I mean, it's going to be good, isn't it?
**Lee:** If you're going to put that in anyone's hands, he's the person I'd trust more than anybody.
**Adam:** I'm I'm hoping it'll be good, yeah.
**Adam:** I think, yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** So go and check those out, go and check out Razorblade Smile.
**Lee:** And, and we will see you all in a fortnight's time for what we've been watching.
**Lee:** Thanks very much.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** All right.

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## 6 Feet Deeper - Blood On Satan’s Claw

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/6-feet-deeper-blood-on-satan-s-claw/
Air date: 31 October 2025
Duration: 00:19:00
Film: The Blood on Satan's Claw · Year: 1972 · Director: Piers Haggard

### Description

Adam returns to the Welcome To Horror Fact Library for a bonus episode of extra material left over from our recent episode on “The Blood On Satan’s Claw”. As always, we recommend you listen to our main episode (number 234) first, before plowing into this fiendish field of facts. We hope you enjoy this little transmission from the Welcome To Horror Fact Library.

---

## Ep 234 The Blood on Satan's Claw

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-234-the-blood-on-satans-claw/
Air date: 26 October 2025
Duration: 00:35:40
Film: The Blood on Satan's Claw · Year: 1972 · Director: Piers Haggard

### Description

The team have unearthed something terrible under the cabbages in the Welcome To Horror allotment, so it’s time for “Blood On Satan’s Claw”. A film in which Mr Kipling leads exceedingly angry mobs; The Master gets in trouble for playing with his snake in the woods; and Simon Williams receives the worst kind of handjob. Part of the Unholy Trinity of Folk Horror, “Blood on Satan’s Claw” is the only one that features the genuinely supernatural. Originally conceived as a kind of anthology, those roots still show, but the decision to make it one tale was the correct one. Combining some of the most picturesque and beautiful imagery with some of the cruelest and horrific events to befall a seemingly innocent community; this is no mere Hammer knock-off. A marvellous script and a cast all bringing their best make for a disturbing glimpse of festering corruption, with our only hope being the intervention of harsh authoritarian powers seemingly as nasty and uncaring as the evil they confront. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Folk Horror Trinity and Historical Setting: It's it's weird, there there's an the the sort of Trinity of folk horror as they call it, which you'll be unholy Trinity, which is um, Witchfinder General, The Wicker Man and. … Yeah, we still need to do The Wicker Man, definitely. We'll do We definitely need to do that, but I think do it near summer. Because it's the right film to watch in summer, yeah. Yeah. And um. Yeah. Yeah. I just meant bucolic, lazy days. Which is which is rare for me. But um. Yeah, so the they all came out within like only a few years of each other. Um so it's weird that they're there's this little flourish and and also the fact that they are from. uh two of them are from Tygon as well like Tygon studios. And um, I I whichfinder general I think was first, which was what led them to sort of do a similar setting for Blood on Satan's Claw. Because it's um, it's sort of this is this is sort of post Civil War this is but this is around what is it the the the glorious revolution when uh James II got knocked off the throne. And that's why there's the toast to King James III because after he after James II died his son James was referred to as James III but he wasn't actually the king at that point.
- Patrick Wymark's age and death: Also, you're saying that about um Patrick Wymark, like the judge, he's 44 in this film. Yeah. And and actually, I mean but he actually didn't get to see the film come out because he died very shortly afterwards. … Yeah. Uh but yeah, he died yeah, died of a heart attack. But um, yeah, I mean he's clearly a sort of hard-living fellow, you know.
- Michelle Dotrice's career: Because I hadn't put two and two together and then I was watching it and I was going. She's in two she this was her specialty, she was like a folk horror specialist. Before she got dragged into um. Yeah. So before Frank, it was yeah.
- Linda Hayden's filmography: Taste the Blood of Dracula. She's one of the daughters, isn't she? … Yeah, because she's in uh she's in Madhouse as well, the um oh, the Vincent Price movie. Yeah, the Peter Cushing Vincent Price one, yeah. Yeah. Um, and the film that had made her name was something called Baby Love, which was like a sort of lated thing or something. So which obviously plays into what she's playing in this with a.
- Baffle Gab audio adaptation: one thing I'd forgotten about and I don't even remember how I sort reminded my just somehow reminded myself. I was on Baffle Gab's looking up Baffle Gab productions, they're the people who do the uncanny podcast and Enville Park podcasts and stuff like that. But I've always listened to them because they did like for years they've done really good sort of plays and stuff like that. They didn't an adaption of Blood on Satan's Claw and Linda Hayden's in it. but she's playing like the uh the lady of the house. Mistress Banner or whatever, you know, um so she's playing that character and it's um. Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith playing well they've the the judge they've conflated with the Squire. So it's Squire Middleton, which is Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith is the Reverend Fallowfield. And uh yeah, so I had a I had a listen to that as well in the weekend and I was like, oh, this is a really good it's a really good like take on it.
- Original anthology concept and Tygon book: It was uh publicizing uh John's book uh beasts in the well, not publicizing, but he was there and he had beasts in the cellar. The Tygon story, the book, didn't he? Which we all purchased and are all um. Genuinely essential reads, you know, I think. And um. the And I've completely lost me thread there. So that makes great podcast. Oh yes, with the doctor. Um no, I just I just love his um what we learned from John. it's John Harrison, isn't it? Hamilton, sorry. I knew I'd get it wrong, I feel pretty bad, sorry, John, if you are listening. It's been a very busy busy busy time. And um. Yeah, he was explaining that originally it was a anthology. It was conceived as an anthology where and they were saying the various characters would sort of pop in and out and across and things like that. And I think you can still see that sort of thread essentially. If you watch it as three separate stories of the fiance in the in the attic. The children becoming a cult and the. end sequence where the part with um where Michelle Dotrice is um hunted like the children are being hunted. And that's the the climax, you know, sort of thing. And. Yes. So there's those sort of three there's the three stories you can sort of see the lines there. But again, I when you hear it sort of like said, oh, it'll be with characters entwined. It's like, that just is this film. This is, you know, I don't think they did. But it is lovely that you've got all these characters. Who sort of drift in and out.
- Director's background and film's aesthetic/score: um Piers Haggard who directed it has sort of like was um he came from like BBC TV and classic serials and things like that. And you can see. Because the the way I worded it to Clare was these bits feel like boring things I wouldn't have watched on Sunday. When they used to repeat like Black Beauty or Foyfoot or something like that. They've got that sort of real sort of classic series, like, I'm not watching this, it's gonna be boring. But. But it has that sort of really, you know, it's a beautifully shot film about really ugly things. And that is so incredible at what I a thing to pull off, you know. … Mm. Yeah, those kind of things. … Because I think because I think, you know, I think there is a way of making this where you would shoot it ugly and really go for it. But it's actually the fact that it is the everything about it looks. I mean it's it's I mean similarly with the music. is you've got these long sort of again the sort of passages that you would see, you know, it's like sort of Von William's stuff as they're doing the pans across the landscape and things like that. But then when you get any of the weird bits, it goes utterly avant-garde and weird and disjointed. And that Mark Wilkinson's score and that sort of like. I mean because it's essentially all all the way through it. And it's weird because that's the like impish part of the devil, that's the mischievous part of the devil in a way that isn't in the film. Because you know. And just that the the weirdness of oh, so what happens is we have to stitch the devil together. from everyone else's bodies. And at the end of it he's hopping because he still hasn't got his leg.
- James Hayter (Squire Middleton) trivia: Well, also if you reckon you might have recognized him because that guy is James Hayter, um who is the voice of Mr. Kipling. You know as well. He makes exceedingly good cakes. You know, and he's got that just that because he played he played loads of um like Charles Dickens adaptions and things like that. You just an absolute you know, he's just absolutely perfect for it. But he was also in, are you being served, he played Mr. Tebs who took over from Mr. Granger. But he was only in it for one series and I recently found out that's because Kipling's basically said to him, would you mind not appearing in, are you being served, because your character's slightly unpleasant? And. We don't want to sort of damage the brand as it were. Yeah. And. He said, no. And they said, what if we offer you three times your fee from the BBC? And then he said, yes. Yeah. Absolutely. I was like, but what if you, well, I'm glad all I do know is I'm glad I said no the first time. Because if you've just been really sort of obliging.
- Doctor Who actors in the cast: But the guy who plays um the Reverend Fallowfield. is a guy called Anthony Ainley. And when I first saw this because I I realized I I was looking at my Tygon box they had the DVD box. Sets that came out in coffins. Um there was Amicus and um Peter Walker ones and stuff. I've got the Tygon one as well, which I realized has got Virgin Witch in it. I've just never seen it, but I've obviously got it on DVD. Which was the other film we saw at uh Worldwide Weird. And poor Chris had to walk in in the middle to a room. Basically, a room full of men sat in chairs watching what clearly looked like a porno. And the look he gave me was I'm not in the right room, am I? Until until I managed to catch his eye. … Oh, bloody hell, okay. That's worth knowing because I mean I've got I've got thingy on Blu-ray. So, you know, that's that might be. There we go, we might be able to make an investment have actually genuinely made an investment. That'd be such such a moment in my life. But um. But yeah, so but the the first time that I saw this was a look like on telly. Late probably BBC because I don't remember any adverts or anything. And. The reason I was watching it is because the Reverend Fallowfield, Anthony Ainley. um was the master in Doctor Who for the entire of the 80s. And so and and obviously because he's the master. I was immediately like. He's fucking doing it, he's the devil, he's because he was. That's how I was tuned to Anthony Ainley, he's he's gonna he's a villain. So, you know. But so when it actually turns out that he's like just a sort of he's an okay Yeah, he's a nice if somewhat again, ineffectual sort of person, you know. Um. But the weird thing was is that uh poor Kathy Vespers, um is um played by Wendy Padbury who was a companion of the second doctor. Uh like Patrick Trouton. So before she did this, she was Zoe in Doctor Who. So there was again, so when I was watching it, it was like, oh no, fucking hell, Wendy Padbury's turned up, right, okay, so that's why I stuck with it. And I was seriously rewarded, you know, it was.
- Supernatural element in folk horror trinity: And this is the weird thing that sort of occurred to me was, like I said, unholy Trinity of folk horror, Wicker Man. Yeah. And Witchfinder General in this, this is the only one that actually got a supernatural element to it. Well, I'm just. Well, I mean, but but but both yeah, both Wickerman and uh Witchfinder General. there isn't a supernatural element, there's, you know, what's in there could be. Yeah, it's it's people. The monsters in those. And I mean it it could have been in this in a way, except that there definitely is a monster at the end. Yeah. And he's got lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror, I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here with spoilers and swearing and an awful lot of snot from my end, to cover 1971's Blood on Satan's Claw.
**Lee:** as we mentioned previously, we went to Worldwide Weird recently and saw this up on the big screen with a great audience.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And John Hamilton there, expert on Tygon, to do a Q&A afterwards.
**Lee:** And we decided, why not cover the film because it's a a classic that I had only seen for the first time last year.
**Lee:** So this is still a very new film to me.
**Adam:** Oh, that's a lovely, yeah.
**Lee:** So yeah, it's still very fresh.
**Lee:** But Chris, what did you think of Blood on Satan's Claw?
**Chris:** So I thought we were going there to watch Witchfinder General.
**Adam:** I don't know how.
**Adam:** In fairness, I think that was the possibility originally.
**Chris:** Oh, okay, right.
**Adam:** And Witchfinder General is also a Tygon film.
**Chris:** Aha.
**Adam:** And it would have made sense.
**Chris:** And it does make sense.
**Chris:** Okay, so I wasn't being completely insane.
**Chris:** But yeah.
**Chris:** Well, you know, you have expectations when you realize it's an older film.
**Chris:** And don't know a lot about it aside from the title, and I'd say this is not for the faint of heart.
**Chris:** There's a quite a bit more in this than I expected to see.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So yeah, a lot of atmosphere.
**Chris:** Good characters.
**Chris:** I also thought one of them was Pete de Lori.
**Chris:** Patrick Wymark for a moment.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Lee:** Oh, I.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, I can kinda see it.
**Lee:** Actually, yeah.
**Chris:** You should forgive me a little bit on that.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** No, I can I can kind of see it, especially sort of like, like a few looks, he does, comedy of tears.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Same sort of look, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, but it it does and, you know, it starts off and it's it's not high-paced action as you could imagine, but I'm sure this must be, I think I said this fairly recently when we're watching another one, it's gotta be a fairly early folk horror.
**Chris:** Story, isn't it?
**Adam:** It's it's weird, there there's an the the sort of Trinity of folk horror as they call it, which you'll be unholy Trinity, which is Witchfinder General, The Wicker Man and.
**Chris:** well, that's.
**Chris:** Which Witchfinder General and we meant to watch The Wicker Man, I'm sure about six years ago.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, we still need to do The Wicker Man, definitely.
**Adam:** We'll do We definitely need to do that, but I think do it near summer.
**Adam:** Because it's the right film to watch in summer, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Lee:** When you feel like you're burning alive.
**Lee:** Is the time.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I just meant bucolic, lazy days.
**Adam:** Which is which is rare for me.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, so the they all came out within like only a few years of each other.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** so it's weird that they're there's this little flourish and and also the fact that they are from.
**Adam:** two of them are from Tygon as well like Tygon studios.
**Adam:** And I I whichfinder general I think was first, which was what led them to sort of do a similar setting for Blood on Satan's Claw.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because it's it's sort of this is this is sort of post Civil War this is but this is around what is it the the the glorious revolution when James II got knocked off the throne.
**Adam:** And that's why there's the toast to King James III because after he after James II died his son James was referred to as James III but he wasn't actually the king at that point.
**Adam:** Sorry, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is this is all fantastically interesting stuff that I sort of.
**Chris:** Well, you have you have you've hinted at something that yeah, it's got a bit of a almost documentary style feel.
**Chris:** Like it does feel very realistic.
**Adam:** It's very real and I mean even like the gore is not.
**Chris:** Not over the top.
**Adam:** No, it's it well, it's it's not Hammer, you know, Hammer's always like that sort of vivid crimson sort of like gore.
**Adam:** Whereas this is this feels like, I mean, the the leg the taking the skin off the leg.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, actually, I mean, do we do we have to do like a pressy of the film for people or whatever?
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** In as much as basically, a plowman uncovers a a fiend, as they refer to it, probably the devil, who then rebuilds himself piece by piece via the skin of the children of the village that he's been dug up in.
**Adam:** And sort of corruption and horror ensues along the way.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Also, you're saying that about Patrick Wymark, like the judge, he's 44 in this film.
**Lee:** He really?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and actually, I mean but he actually didn't get to see the film come out because he died very shortly afterwards.
**Lee:** Oh, he's fantastic actor.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah, he died yeah, died of a heart attack.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean he's clearly a sort of hard-living fellow, you know.
**Lee:** You could see that in.
**Lee:** I mean the cast in this is awesome.
**Lee:** So obviously, Michelle Dotrice, who we covered recently when we spoke about when we watched The Witches.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I hadn't put two and two together and then I was watching it and I was going.
**Adam:** She's in two she this was her specialty, she was like a folk horror specialist.
**Adam:** Before she got dragged into
**Lee:** Some mothers do have them.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So before Frank, it was yeah.
**Lee:** And Linda Hayden obviously went on to do Hammer as well.
**Lee:** She's in
**Adam:** Taste the Blood of Dracula.
**Lee:** It is Taste the Blood of Dracula, yeah, which is one of my favorite.
**Adam:** She's one of the daughters, isn't she?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And she's excellent.
**Chris:** She was great in this.
**Lee:** Yeah, she's one of those actors who yeah, I don't know what happened.
**Lee:** I mean, she might have moved on moved out of horror and therefore I wouldn't have seen her so much.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, she's excellent in this and she's fantastic in in Taste the Blood of Dracula as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, because she's in she's in Madhouse as well, the oh, the Vincent Price movie.
**Lee:** Oh, the Vincent Price movie.
**Adam:** Yeah, the Peter Cushing Vincent Price one, yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and the film that had made her name was something called Baby Love, which was like a sort of lated thing or something.
**Adam:** So which obviously plays into what she's playing in this with a.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** There's a bit bit of that going on.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Lee:** It might be one of those things where because she's so young in this, if you give it another five years and put her in something, I wouldn't necessarily recognize her because she's a similar age in this and the Hammer film.
**Lee:** Whereas, yeah, when she gets into her 20s as a lot of people do, they change quite a lot facially.
**Lee:** So I might have seen her in stuff and just not even picked up who she is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, I but I but I mean, basically, I mean, actually.
**Adam:** one thing I'd forgotten about and I don't even remember how I sort reminded my just somehow reminded myself.
**Adam:** I was on Baffle Gab's looking up Baffle Gab productions, they're the people who do the uncanny podcast and Enville Park podcasts and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But I've always listened to them because they did like for years they've done really good sort of plays and stuff like that.
**Adam:** They didn't an adaption of Blood on Satan's Claw and Linda Hayden's in it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** but she's playing like the the lady of the house.
**Adam:** Mistress Banner or whatever, you know, so she's playing that character and it's
**Adam:** Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith playing well they've the the judge they've conflated with the Squire.
**Adam:** So it's Squire Middleton, which is Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith is the Reverend Fallowfield.
**Adam:** And yeah, so I had a I had a listen to that as well in the weekend and I was like, oh, this is a really good it's a really good like take on it.
**Adam:** and it has it has aftermath.
**Adam:** where because I mean this this ends pretty abruptly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, this it's it's it feels like it almost feels like.
**Adam:** You've look, you've you've done you've done so many beautiful landscapes, but we've got we've got to wrap this up in five.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then curiously then also slow motion.
**Adam:** is added in at that point as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Again, like you were saying, Chris, but it a weirdly documentary sort of one because it's that sort of just a series of poses.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And stuff like that and it sort of feels again sort of documentary-esque and yeah.
**Lee:** And it always surprises me, so right at the end, yeah, when the the judge comes out and his his helper is carrying that great big thing.
**Lee:** I this is the third time I've seen the film, I'm always convinced it's a giant crucifix.
**Lee:** Until they take the take the cover off.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's that fucking great like double-handed Highlander sword.
**Lee:** Like a.
**Adam:** Well.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** It's both, isn't it because the bottom half like the hilt is essentially a crucifix.
**Adam:** It's fucking massive, isn't it?
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** I don't know where he even holds it.
**Chris:** He's got to be.
**Lee:** He's got to be eight foot long and he's just waving it around like a lunatic.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's a fantastic ending.
**Lee:** Love that.
**Adam:** Because it's because it's weird as well where again the sort of realistic nature of it is the judge's a bastard.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Chris:** He is a.
**Adam:** He's not.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's he's not the nearest this gets to a hero is the guy who digs him up in the first place.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like he's decent throughout trying to.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But he then fails to Ralph, sorry.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, just check my notes.
**Adam:** but yeah, Ralph but then he doesn't get to be a hero at any point.
**Adam:** Like he doesn't save Kathy.
**Adam:** Because you think that that that's sort of bit sort of like because that is horrendous that the sequence where they kill Kathy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and more is.
**Adam:** a real fucking hard watch.
**Chris:** I suppose that's if they did make him actually successful, it would change the whole film.
**Adam:** It doesn't work as part of the plot.
**Adam:** And similarly, like Simon Williams' character is like the the the guy who cuts his hand off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, again, similarly, you feel that he would be the heroic role and it it doesn't happen.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's weird and so, yeah, the the nearest that the nearest it's got to a proactive hero.
**Adam:** Is a is the guy who's a bit of a shit Franklin.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Especially because he he genuinely just takes over that house.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's like he sort of the the the lady of the house goes missing and then it's basically, oh, well, you know, well, I'll kip here till I piss off back to London.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And even down to that, I think that's a very it's a weird moment where he's basically saying, right, I let this fester and grow.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then I can deal with it almost.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's so that feels a bit but equally, well, I'm gonna let it faster and grow.
**Adam:** I'm not going to hang around while that happens.
**Chris:** So that's that's yeah, that was what I was trying to work out is did he have a plan really or was he like, I've sort of had enough of this for a bit and, you know.
**Adam:** I I think I think genuinely I think it's almost like he's waiting for absolute proof.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because by this because there's a the lovely thing with this as well is how much is how everyone is, well, certainly the judge is enlightened in as much as it's like, what are you talking about, witchcraft is nonsense, it's been proven that there's no such thing.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's much because it's later than Witchfinder General, you know, that sort of thing, everything's.
**Adam:** You know, the witch Charles and everything have been discredited by this point and the you know, there's still superstition, but hence the guy's chucking Michelle to Treat into the lake.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** But but basically the judge is like, no, we can't acknowledge this, this is a, you know, if you stir up that nonsense.
**Adam:** People just believe it and it's we've gone past this.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** And so it's almost like he's waiting for, no, this is Reagan's head spinning round, right, fair enough, this is demonic energy that I've got to deal with in the old way.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Then he take the book away, which I guess he was reading through then, studying.
**Adam:** Yeah, which he never returns to the doctor.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** The doctor's a great character as well, he's just a really great little character in it, you know.
**Adam:** Just.
**Adam:** It's because obviously, when we went to Worldwide Weird.
**Adam:** It was publicizing John's book beasts in the well, not publicizing, but he was there and he had beasts in the cellar.
**Adam:** The Tygon story, the book, didn't he?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Which we all purchased.
**Adam:** Which we all purchased and are all
**Lee:** Desperate to read.
**Adam:** Genuinely essential reads, you know, I think.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** the And I've completely lost me thread there.
**Adam:** So that makes great podcast.
**Chris:** It was it was the the doctor.
**Adam:** Oh yes, with the doctor.
**Adam:** no, I just I just love his what we learned from John.
**Adam:** it's John Harrison, isn't it?
**Lee:** Hamilton.
**Adam:** Hamilton, sorry.
**Adam:** I knew I'd get it wrong, I feel pretty bad, sorry, John, if you are listening.
**Chris:** It's been a a busy busy weekend and week.
**Adam:** It's been a very busy busy busy time.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, he was explaining that originally it was a anthology.
**Adam:** It was conceived as an anthology where and they were saying the various characters would sort of pop in and out and across and things like that.
**Adam:** And I think you can still see that sort of thread essentially.
**Adam:** If you watch it as three separate stories of the fiance in the in the attic.
**Adam:** The children becoming a cult and the.
**Adam:** end sequence where the part with where Michelle Dotrice is hunted like the children are being hunted.
**Adam:** And that's the the climax, you know, sort of thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** So there's those sort of three there's the three stories you can sort of see the lines there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But again, I when you hear it sort of like said, oh, it'll be with characters entwined.
**Adam:** It's like, that just is this film.
**Adam:** This is, you know, I don't think they did.
**Adam:** But it is lovely that you've got all these characters.
**Adam:** Who sort of drift in and out.
**Adam:** Some of their.
**Adam:** I mean, the judge, quite frankly, pulls a Hound of the Baskervilles and disappears for most of the.
**Adam:** For most of the middle of the film.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** But it does it mean it does seem to work.
**Chris:** Like, it didn't stand out to me as as odd really.
**Adam:** No, not at all.
**Adam:** And I think they do a fantastic job of it.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Piers Haggard who directed it has sort of like was he came from like BBC TV and classic serials and things like that.
**Adam:** And you can see.
**Adam:** Because the the way I worded it to Clare was these bits feel like boring things I wouldn't have watched on Sunday.
**Adam:** When they used to repeat like Black Beauty or Foyfoot or something like that.
**Adam:** They've got that sort of real sort of classic series, like, I'm not watching this, it's gonna be boring.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But it has that sort of really, you know, it's a beautifully shot film about really ugly things.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And that is so incredible at what I a thing to pull off, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're right though, he has got that feel, it reminds me a lot of the Dick Turpin TV show.
**Lee:** That I've been watching again recently.
**Adam:** Yeah, those kind of things.
**Lee:** Yeah, which was Sunday night viewing as I seem to remember from my childhood of being oh, maybe five or something.
**Lee:** But
**Lee:** But yeah, it's got that same look to it and yeah, I do find it's it's strange, it's somehow warming and grubby at the same time.
**Lee:** But yeah, I don't quite know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I think because I think, you know, I think there is a way of making this where you would shoot it ugly and really go for it.
**Adam:** But it's actually the fact that it is the everything about it looks.
**Adam:** I mean it's it's I mean similarly with the music.
**Adam:** is you've got these long sort of again the sort of passages that you would see, you know, it's like sort of Von William's stuff as they're doing the pans across the landscape and things like that.
**Adam:** But then when you get any of the weird bits, it goes utterly avant-garde and weird and disjointed.
**Adam:** And that Mark Wilkinson's score and that sort of like.
**Adam:** I mean because it's essentially all all the way through it.
**Adam:** And it's weird because that's the like impish part of the devil, that's the mischievous part of the devil in a way that isn't in the film.
**Adam:** Because you know.
**Adam:** And just that the the weirdness of oh, so what happens is we have to stitch the devil together.
**Adam:** from everyone else's bodies.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And at the end of it he's hopping because he still hasn't got his leg.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because the last bit's gonna be Ralph's leg.
**Adam:** And you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** it's but it is it's those little characters as you say, who come in and out of it as well.
**Lee:** So as you said with with the doctor, yeah.
**Adam:** With the doctor.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** And similarly with the the priest, the reverend.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like that's such a great characterization, yeah, and like his whole.
**Lee:** Him getting accused of trying to seduce the girl and they arrest him and they're on the verge of like torturing him and then they go, oh, something else has happened and he goes, right, take it all off, he's fine, right, you're going to come and help us and he goes, you're gone.
**Adam:** Because that's because you you've you've put two in there though because I also love Squire Middleton.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because he is such a pompous tit of, you know, he is absolutely perfect, this sort of puffed up ineffectual moron who's been who's somehow in charge.
**Chris:** But that seems like a slightly more modern idea.
**Chris:** I I didn't quite expect them to portray him like that from this era.
**Adam:** Well, also if you reckon you might have recognized him because that guy is James Hayter, who is the voice of Mr. Kipling.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** You know as well.
**Adam:** He makes exceedingly good cakes.
**Adam:** You know, and he's got that just that because he played he played loads of like Charles Dickens adaptions and things like that.
**Adam:** You just an absolute you know, he's just absolutely perfect for it.
**Adam:** But he was also in, are you being served, he played Mr. Tebs who took over from Mr. Granger.
**Adam:** But he was only in it for one series and I recently found out that's because Kipling's basically said to him, would you mind not appearing in, are you being served, because your character's slightly unpleasant?
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** It'll put people off the character.
**Adam:** We don't want to sort of damage the brand as it were.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** He said, no.
**Adam:** And they said, what if we offer you three times your fee from the BBC?
**Adam:** And then he said, yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Quite rightly so.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** I was like, but what if you, well, I'm glad all I do know is I'm glad I said no the first time.
**Adam:** Because if you've just been really sort of obliging.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But the guy who plays the Reverend Fallowfield.
**Adam:** is a guy called Anthony Ainley.
**Adam:** And when I first saw this because I I realized I I was looking at my Tygon box they had the DVD box.
**Adam:** Sets that came out in coffins.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** there was Amicus and Peter Walker ones and stuff.
**Adam:** I've got the Tygon one as well, which I realized has got Virgin Witch in it.
**Adam:** I've just never seen it, but I've obviously got it on DVD.
**Adam:** Which was the other film we saw at Worldwide Weird.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And poor Chris had to walk in in the middle to a room.
**Adam:** Basically, a room full of men sat in chairs watching what clearly looked like a porno.
**Chris:** It did it did.
**Adam:** And the look he gave me was I'm not in the right room, am I?
**Adam:** Until until I managed to catch his eye.
**Chris:** I saw I saw a couple of wave, yeah.
**Lee:** that Tygon box incidentally, I've I've been I was after a couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to get hold of it.
**Lee:** Oh, and it's so expensive now.
**Lee:** Second hand, it's ludicrous.
**Adam:** Oh, bloody hell, okay.
**Adam:** That's worth knowing because I mean I've got I've got thingy on Blu-ray.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, that's that might be.
**Adam:** There we go, we might be able to make an investment have actually genuinely made an investment.
**Adam:** That'd be such such a moment in my life.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But yeah, so but the the first time that I saw this was a look like on telly.
**Adam:** Late probably BBC because I don't remember any adverts or anything.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** The reason I was watching it is because the Reverend Fallowfield, Anthony Ainley.
**Adam:** was the master in Doctor Who for the entire of the 80s.
**Chris:** Aha.
**Adam:** And so and and obviously because he's the master.
**Adam:** I was immediately like.
**Adam:** He's fucking doing it, he's the devil, he's because he was.
**Adam:** That's how I was tuned to Anthony Ainley, he's he's gonna he's a villain.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** But so when it actually turns out that he's like just a sort of he's an okay Yeah, he's a nice if somewhat again, ineffectual sort of person, you know.
**Adam:** But the weird thing was is that poor Kathy Vespers, is played by Wendy Padbury who was a companion of the second doctor.
**Adam:** like Patrick Trouton.
**Adam:** So before she did this, she was Zoe in Doctor Who.
**Adam:** So there was again, so when I was watching it, it was like, oh no, fucking hell, Wendy Padbury's turned up, right, okay, so that's why I stuck with it.
**Adam:** And I was seriously rewarded, you know, it was.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Also if you can, because I believe the box set has this version, but if you can, there is a one of the releases because 88 Films are releasing all of Tygon's films at the moment.
**Adam:** They're re-released them, they're doing them all on Blu-ray.
**Adam:** I had tempted to upgrade me Witchfinder General, I'll be honest.
**Adam:** but
**Adam:** Yeah, they've but I haven't bought Blood on Satan's Claw.
**Adam:** Because I already had the Blu-ray, but also their version doesn't have the commentary with the League of Gentlemen.
**Lee:** yes.
**Adam:** Which is it's well, it's not it's not all the League of Gentlemen, it's Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson.
**Adam:** Which is, oh, that was just that.
**Adam:** That was just a real treat that was.
**Adam:** When it's like, oh, Blood and says, Claus coming out, I'll get that and then, oh.
**Lee:** Hang on.
**Adam:** This.
**Lee:** That's a.
**Adam:** This is a double whammy here, so I it's much the same as Theatre of Blood.
**Adam:** Has all of the League of Gentlemen doing a commentary on the DVD I've got of that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they've become like a they've become double-edged films they have.
**Adam:** Because it's like.
**Adam:** You know, if I'm in the mood for the actual film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But sometimes it's like, well, I can watch the film, but we just funny people talking over it, you know.
**Lee:** I never listen to commentaries, but I really, really, do need to remember that that's a thing.
**Lee:** And every time you mention it, I think, I'm definitely going to rewatch it with that.
**Lee:** And every time I forget.
**Lee:** As I'm full of cold at the moment, my brain is not working at its up most, so I'll definitely forget this time again.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, there was other just trying to think what.
**Adam:** Oh, apparently they were looking to get Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee to play the judge.
**Adam:** but they were immediately they're probably too expensive.
**Adam:** And then they were saying about Donald Pleasants and Michael Goff as well.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I'll be honest.
**Adam:** I I mean, I this film is, I mean, even the girl who plays Susan in the movie versions of Doctor Who is in this.
**Adam:** So there's loads of people I recognize like Michelle Dotrice and, you know.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I think I'm glad that there's no like, you know, Linda Hayden is a name to drop.
**Adam:** In the right horror circles, but it wouldn't necessarily be that a name that the public knows or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So I think it's quite nice because it allows it to be its own thing.
**Adam:** And it.
**Chris:** Yeah, it does seem to work well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not all the the stars in it at this point.
**Adam:** Like, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, I think it works perfectly.
**Lee:** And and yeah, as you say, I mean, love Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and but.
**Chris:** But they would steal it in a way or you'd think it's for that, whereas.
**Lee:** You're waiting for them to come back, whereas there's.
**Chris:** You want to be left not entirely sure.
**Chris:** You know, like you said, it could have been the priest, what was he up to and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Even now.
**Adam:** Every time I watch it, I'm just slightly waiting for him to go, oh, doctor, you've been so foolish.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** But yeah, I mean, this is a great film for a rainy afternoon.
**Lee:** It's
**Lee:** Yeah, it's such a as you say, it's that sedate.
**Lee:** But I do love that, as I say, the the ending of it.
**Lee:** You know, it's one of those where you think, oh, you're probably never actually going to see the monster.
**Lee:** But you do.
**Lee:** You totally get it.
**Lee:** It looks great.
**Lee:** It's a really.
**Adam:** It's again, it's just odd, it looks it looks like the wood carving that they're looking at in the doctor's book.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's not right.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's all out of.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's gross and brilliant and it's fantastic.
**Adam:** I think there's one of the worst bits is because obviously there's there's various bits where you can see where the kids have had bits removed.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And there's one kid who's not got a hand but has got a twig coming out of a bloody stump and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But I think it's just when like when Ralph pulls pulls back his sock when he catches his leg.
**Adam:** It's the fact that it's sticky.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Just it's just like, oh, you know.
**Adam:** It's really horrible looking and like is it feathers, is it fur, is it what is it, you know.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** They make a really good sort of mishmash of the creature of of the devil.
**Adam:** Because he's just.
**Adam:** Sort of like, it looks a bit like a bat, but it's also.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's just weird.
**Lee:** It's all lopsided.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's all it's wrong.
**Adam:** Very wrong.
**Lee:** So many ways.
**Lee:** But yeah, I'm what a fantastic movie and again, I think this is a film I'm glad I didn't see until later on.
**Lee:** Because yeah, I I think coming to it as an adult and seeing it, like I don't think as a kid this film would have worked for me.
**Lee:** And I might not have come back to it.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** seeing it as an adult, it it it's.
**Lee:** It's excellent.
**Lee:** It's so good.
**Lee:** So it is nice when you find a film like again, it's one I'd heard talked about so much, but they always talk about the same thing.
**Lee:** And that was what put me off to be honest.
**Lee:** They always talk about, you know, the scene with the children.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, if if I'd heard that, I'd be like, I don't really want to watch it.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Adam:** And and again, I mean, it's it's just horrible, it really is a grim thing to watch.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** I can see it works.
**Adam:** A testament to the film that it's that I you returned to the film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And still like it and still can enjoy it.
**Adam:** And it's not.
**Adam:** Enjoy that.
**Adam:** You know what I mean.
**Lee:** It's all right that film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** It's not the sort of thing.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think it's just again, it's just part of that whole realness that the whole thing has.
**Chris:** It is.
**Adam:** And it's unfortunate that that has.
**Adam:** You know, that has to be as real as everything else.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It absolutely does.
**Adam:** Although.
**Adam:** And this is the weird thing that sort of occurred to me was, like I said, unholy Trinity of folk horror, Wicker Man.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And Witchfinder General in this, this is the only one that actually got a supernatural element to it.
**Chris:** Oh, don't give too much away.
**Adam:** Well, I'm just.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, but but but both yeah, both Wickerman and Witchfinder General.
**Adam:** there isn't a supernatural element, there's, you know, what's in there could be.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's people.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It often is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The monsters in those.
**Adam:** And I mean it it could have been in this in a way, except that there definitely is a monster at the end.
**Chris:** Oh, there's definitely a monster.
**Chris:** And he hops.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he's got lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** yes, so just very quickly before we wrap up.
**Lee:** Ghost Story for Christmas has been announced.
**Adam:** Hey.
**Lee:** Very excited for that, it's a story I don't know but the cast looks fantastic.
**Lee:** So I am so in for this one, I can't wait, I actually am looking forward to Christmas in a strange vague way, not yet, come December 1st, I will be looking forward to Christmas Eve.
**Lee:** So I can sit down with a nice mug of mulled wine.
**Lee:** And and watch this, I think.
**Adam:** because I mean the way they've been talking about it, I was actually shocked that we're getting one, because I know that every year they sort of say, oh, this will be the last one because we've had to do this with the budget, or we've had to sneak in under this radar or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So he's good to see that it's still there.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** And it is one of the TV highlights of the year for me.
**Lee:** yeah, it is one of the only things every year that I genuinely look forward to and I'm excited for the announcement announcements for.
**Lee:** So yeah, so I'm glad it has continued.
**Lee:** And many years may it do so.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Right, so for our next episode, we are going in a very different direction.
**Lee:** from the dark gritty world of The Blood on Satan's Claw.
**Lee:** we are going to be covering a film that I can't remember the title of.
**Lee:** I am really unwell, aren't I?
**Lee:** The vampire film with Eileen Daly.
**Adam:** Oh, Razor Blade Smile.
**Lee:** Razor Blade Smile.
**Lee:** Okay, that's the one.
**Adam:** I remember now.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I I could picture the cover and I just couldn't see the text.
**Lee:** It wouldn't.
**Adam:** It's like he was distracted.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't know what could be causing that.
**Lee:** yes, so we'll be covering Razor Blade Smile.
**Lee:** The film that got me into it, the the first film that made me realize independent cinema.
**Lee:** In the UK was even possible.
**Lee:** So it's yeah.
**Lee:** It it needs to be discussed.
**Lee:** And yeah, it it's great fun.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Lee:** If you have not seen this film, it is 100% like you, I can't believe that you wouldn't have seen it.
**Lee:** In the late 90s, early 2000s.
**Chris:** Like I mean I've heard the name but yeah, no, I definitely haven't.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Adam:** I I'm thinking about it, I see what you mean, Lee.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's all goth in PVC, it's so Chris.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** It's so Chris back then, anyway.
**Chris:** Back back in the day, yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** But yes, so we will be back.
**Lee:** In a fortnight's time to discuss Razor Blade Smile.
**Lee:** Go and check out The Blood of Satan's Claw if you haven't.
**Lee:** and we will see you in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Enjoy the spooky season.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 233 House II: The Second Story

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-233-house-ii-the-second-story/
Air date: 12 October 2025
Duration: 00:33:00
Film: House II: The Second Story · Year: 1987 · Director: Ethan Wiley

### Description

It’s weird sequel time, and there’s few that come weirder than “House II: The Second Story”. A film in which we learn that portals are a common problem in old houses (a bit like dry rot, but with more murder); that old cowboys don’t die (they just get rat-arsed in the basement); and that Bill Maher is an oily heap of shit. Whilst an anthology film franchise should endeavour to make each entry as different to what has gone before as possible; it is still is a hell of a whiplash to view this after the first “House” film. Certain things remain - the humour, marvellous practical effects, and a guest star role for someone from “Cheers”, but the differences are far greater. Whilst the first film is definitely a horror, this falls much more into the category of family adventure; and could be an entry level horror film for kids, with nothing too scary, a set of goofy, likeable characters and amusing puppets. This family-friendly spookiness was possibly influenced by the huge success a few years earlier of the likes of “Ghostbusters”, “Gremlins” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. After this, the franchise went into more obvious horror territory, but, unfortunately, never quite achieved the inventive potential displayed in the first two entries. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- John Ratzenberger's casting: On that on that subject, so that's that's probably the most famous person in the film because that's John Ratzenberger who was in Cheers for years. And I didn't mean that to be rhyming. And yeah, he plays uh Bill uh Bill the electrician and slash adventurer.
- Anthology nature of the House franchise: Which kind of in a way adds to the idea that like it's not it's totally blank it's totally fresh start from the first house. It is a completely different house, completely different characters. And the but in house the premise is the same where it's like the house becomes portals to the past of the main character's via Vietnam experience. And I like the idea that this is just a general problem that houses have. So Bill sees enough of them. You know what I mean? He he actually probably sees some work at that place. And met and met his mate from Cheers as well. You know, when for a drink with Norm. At the same time, but yeah, it's it's weird that it adds to that sort of anthology shared universe of like, oh, well, you know, there's a few houses like that. This is a slightly more benevolent one than the um than the first one.
- Origin of the House franchise as an anthology: Hmm. Because I think, because the first film. That's where the first film came from is they wanted to make an anthology film. It was Sean S Cunningham who obviously did the Friday the 13th franchise. And uh Fred Decker who wrote Die Hard and he's he did uh like Night of the Creeps and you know just where's where's where's the list? The Monster Squad as well. … Monster Squad, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, I'm just thinking it's like such a it's a good little he's got an excellent little rap sheet. Yeah. Um, and wrote oh sorry, no, wrote The Predator. That's what I'm thinking of. Um, and um, yeah. But so him and Ethan Wiley wrote the first House film. And they were like, oh, originally it was going to be they made they were going to make an anthology movie and then they just took the one story that they'd written and expanded it to make the film house. So it's weird cuz I think yeah, it's almost like, well, we can still do the anthology idea. Now we just do it across the series rather than within a feature length film. And um, so this is directed by Ethan Wiley who was co-writes it with Fred Decker and had co-written with Fred Decker the first one. … And um, yeah, it's uh.
- Cameos and casting of character actors: Yes, he's the because the gorilla who gets knocked out by the cave man. And um and obviously you've got Bill Bill in there. Yeah, playing a smarmy shit, so that's that's great quite spot on. I think that's that's the weird thing as well is that you've also got um Royal Dano, who we have seen twice before now because he's in Killer Klowns from Outer Space, he's the farmer. Uh, with a fringe jeans or whatever it is who gets who gets killed right at the start. And he was also in The Dark Half. And he's I believe he's the guy who gets beaten to death with his own false leg. … Yes. … And he's um obviously he was the judge in Twin Peaks, the one who comes up when uh Cooper's in stuck. I can't remember quite what the which the point is, but like he comes in for a couple of episodes and he's just a sort of basically it's like. oh, well, John Huston won't do it, so we'll get Royal Dano and he'll he'll bring off the same sort of gravitas. But him as Gramps, I think I think that's possible.
- Shift in tone for House 2 and its cultural context: And then the sequel is 87 and it's, you know, it's pretty much. almost rolls immediately into it. They've like, right, we've made this first film, we'll do a second film and and possibly because of that thing of just like, well, we we haven't got any more story to tell of that first film, you know. Cuz they were like and so they've made the decision, no, we'll we'll just write a new story and everything. And um, yeah, I wonder if also. Cuz I was like, but how do you go from house to essentially what I would describe as certainly a kid-friendly a family film. This is a family horror vaguely film. It's I don't I would not consider it a horror film. It's a family-friendly horror film. That's like like Ghostbusters or something like that. And I do feel that they did have after the first one came out, obviously you've got Gremlins and Ghostbusters. And they were like, shit, maybe we could get like You know, we can get you can get a family audience to this stuff. Where it's like effects heavy and adventure and sort of cuz that's what it is, it's an adventure film.
- Special effects and Phil Tippett's involvement: Oh, it's amazing. Yeah. They called in all favors, that's like the stop motion, I think that's like Phil Tippett who was like who did Mad God and Star Wars. And ended up having to be called in when they were doing Jurassic Park because they still needed someone to do a stop motion dinosaur to for them to teach the computer how to do a dinosaur, you know. That's sort of level of um yeah, so you got a lot of and I think there's some cuz like when you watch the making of cuz the arrow Blu-ray is what I watched it on. And um, so I watched the making of afterwards and it was uh it was really good. Um, but a lot of the time they're all like oh, well, we know the effects aren't all that and we know this and I was like, I think this pretty much stands up. And I think because of its nature, it doesn't matter that your Terradactyl is is a muppet.
- Casting and behind-the-scenes for the 'virgin' character: And also there there's another person that we've seen before cuz the um the girl who's going to be sacrificed who I think who is literally credited as virgin. Yes. … Um, that's um she was in society. She's like the they're Well, that's a bit different. She's the the main girlfriend in Society. Yes, so apparently because she it's um. Devin De Vasquez and she is at that point was a Playboy model and this was her first film. And she saw like, right, I'm a sacrificial virgin. you know, like on an altar and assumed she was doing it naked and then they were like and then she turned up and she was like really surprised that she was going to be clothed. Because and I that I totally get. You told you're doing a horror film and you are a former playmate. You know, you sort of like. Yeah, you you assume you've been hired for that. But also some did drop a prop skull on her head so and she had to go, she had to go to hospital. So. Um, yeah, and and let's face it, that is a that is a thankless fucking role.
- Analysis of 'weird sequels' and production teams: And I I think also again, like we've we've dealt with a lot of weird weird sequels, there's sort of but like total change but from the same team essentially, you know, is quite something. Cuz like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, like the difference between the first and second of those where one is grueling and the second one is hilarious. And but but it's still the story of Leatherface. It's not like they came up with a, you know, it is a there're still continuing the story. Whereas this was just like, no, slam it, fuck this. probably the nearest would have been would be Halloween 3. And again with Halloween 3, we always we said if they'd have done it as the second film, probably people would have taken it was only cuz you did two Michael Myers films and then say, oh, it's an anthology. that people didn't wouldn't have it. But yeah, I think if they'd have done if Halloween 3 had been Halloween 2. probably Halloween with Michael Myers would have just been the very successful start of a uh anthology franchise. … Yes, actually, yes. Oh, yeah, that is a very good analogy. Also, I'm going to have to put in a vote that we do it at some point, but we've got to do obviously we'd have to do the first film first um is The Howling and Howling 2. They are remarkably different films. … but in fairness with with with the Howling, I don't think it's I don't think that's the same team doing the second one. Not I might be way off, but I'm pretty sure it's like different director and different writers and so on. … Well, cuz it the first one based on is that Whitley Strieber? Is that The Howling or is that Wolfen? I can't remember. But it's yeah, but I no way on God's earth is Whitley Strieber right howling 2.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening with a sick Chris, but he is soldering on, so if he sounds croaky, it's not that we're
**Chris:** Not as sick as Gramps.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, but we are here as promised this evening, with spoilers and swearing to cover 1987's House 2: The Second Story.
**Adam:** And just just full stop under that. Excellent.
**Chris:** Excellent work.
**Adam:** The second story, perfect.
**Lee:** It is a fantastic.
**Lee:** So just a quick rundown for anyone who hasn't seen it, it's a completely, it is a completely new story, so it's just another story about a different haunted house effectively.
**Lee:** A young man inherits his his family home, once owned by his great, great-grandfather who's an explorer, who he who he discovers was once buried with a mystical crystal skull and decides to dig it up and see if it's worth some money.
**Lee:** Only to discover that in fact it has kept his grandfather alive, but buried for the last 70 years, and now the skull is back out, people are coming across time and space to try and steal it for nefarious purposes.
**Adam:** Because somehow the skull opens up dimensions in rooms within the house.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes, so the reason I wanted to cover this is because we were discussing last time about Batshit sequels and this is one of the batshitest sequels ever, I think, it's fair to say.
**Lee:** It just, it just gets wackier and wackier and weirder and then, and then Bill the electrician turns up, who's just one of my favorite characters in anything ever.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's just crazy.
**Chris:** Bill the electrician slash adventurer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On that on that subject, so that's that's probably the most famous person in the film because that's John Ratzenberger who was in Cheers for years.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I didn't mean that to be rhyming.
**Adam:** And yeah, he plays Bill Bill the electrician and slash adventurer.
**Adam:** And is it, I mean John Ratzenberger obviously we've seen him in loads of stuff and you know him from Cheers and things like that. Just watching it the other day, he is a real Nick Frost performance.
**Lee:** Yes, it is very. Yeah, you're right.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean? I was like, I've it's not a connection I'd ever made before, but yeah, it's it's a very
**Adam:** I could see Nick Frost if you were to remake this for whatever reason.
**Chris:** He would be perfect. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he would that's that's who you'd.
**Chris:** electriciang going on, mostly adventuring and.
**Chris:** in quite a nonchalant way he's like, yep, I'm just I'm good at this.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's he's obviously happened regularly enough.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's not this isn't an outlier for him, you know.
**Adam:** Which kind of in a way adds to the idea that like it's not it's totally blank it's totally fresh start from the first house.
**Chris:** Yeah, wait, so is it a completely different house then?
**Adam:** It is a completely different house, completely different characters.
**Adam:** And the but in house the premise is the same where it's like the house becomes portals to the past of the main character's via Vietnam experience.
**Adam:** And I like the idea that this is just a general problem that houses have.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So Bill sees enough of them. You know what I mean? He he actually probably sees some work at that place.
**Adam:** And met and met his mate from Cheers as well. You know, when for a drink with Norm.
**Adam:** At the same time, but yeah, it's it's weird that it adds to that sort of anthology shared universe of like, oh, well, you know, there's a few houses like that.
**Adam:** This is a slightly more benevolent one than the than the first one.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then the of course the next film, House 3 is just shocker. There isn't even a house in it as far as I remember.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I think that one's I I can't remember whether it's that one or the last one, but one of them is a film that was developed and then they said, oh, we can call it house.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I'm guessing that was the third. And then the fourth one is actually back to the original guy in the original house, but I don't understand why the original house is now in the middle of a desert.
**Adam:** Yes and.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's.
**Adam:** Yeah, let's just say for anyone curious, I think that I think you can watch house first one, excellent. Second one, excellent. Don't even necessarily have to bother with the other two. They're just like not.
**Adam:** I can't you remember them far better than I do, Lee.
**Adam:** But as you're saying it, I'm like, oh yeah, that is what happens.
**Adam:** But if you'd asked me 10 minutes ago, I could not have told you what happened in three and four.
**Chris:** I mean, third one is always going to stick out in my mind just because I watched it like it was one of those that we watched very young and there was a group of us who was like sleepover and you know, and it and the bit where he's turning up the voltage was just like, oh my God, I've never seen anything like this. What is going on? This is insane, you know, so.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's always going to stick in my head.
**Adam:** So you've got house experience as well, that's how.
**Chris:** That was that was it. So that's how I just imagined all of them to be and then when we saw number one, I was like, okay, that's a bit different than this.
**Chris:** I mean, really this for a for a film that has pretty stupid dialogue, pretty stupid story, pretty stupid characters, it's surprisingly fun.
**Adam:** Oh, it's absolute fun.
**Chris:** It shouldn't, it shouldn't has no right to be as good as it is.
**Adam:** I mean, the two the two the two main guys who aren't Gramps. So obviously it's it's Gramps's great, great, great, great grandson or whatever it is.
**Chris:** So so Jesse and Charlie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And Charlie who's the best, who's the sort of best mate who's turned up. Just just about a friend, really. Who to start with, you're like, cuz when we were watching it, Clare went, does he get killed? Because she was just like, he's really But oddly enough, one of the most endearing, bumbling sidekicks of very very almost very similar to the burbs.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** The way that relationship sort of plays out.
**Chris:** The the way you just just creates a, you know, a party and invites everyone. Oh, yeah, I've forgotten about this.
**Chris:** Just.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** It's that it's that level of obnoxious friend that you only see in 80s movies.
**Lee:** They don't exist in real life or any other type of film.
**Adam:** They don't exist in real life cuz they'd get murdered very early.
**Adam:** You know, it's like the the guy who organizes a party at your house and forgets. He's said he'll have been punched a few times before now.
**Lee:** and we have actually seen him before. I don't know if you remember Chris, so Jonathan Stark who plays Charlie, was also the day dwelling helper in Fright Night.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's the one who looks after Chris Sarandon while he sleeps.
**Chris:** -huh.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean, he's he does play the character well, you know.
**Chris:** He does a good job.
**Lee:** He is great.
**Chris:** I like that he was the first one to knock over the the post as well.
**Chris:** I mean, that's that's a funny bit, isn't it?
**Lee:** Just. Yeah.
**Chris:** And who who keeps fixing it as well?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's you know it's poor Jesse that he's just like.
**Adam:** But yeah, so you so Chris, you said to us that you watch this with your son.
**Chris:** Yeah, well.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean, I'd seen a little bit of it and then I watched the rest today, so I'd seen like the first 20 minutes or so yesterday and
**Chris:** Then yeah, put it on on our main TV, which normally I definitely can't do, but I was like, there's nothing so far. I'll just put it on and he just heard some of the, you know, some of the talking. He was like, what is going on?
**Chris:** And then he he started watching it. I said, this could be bad. I said, I was trying to remember. I was like, what references does he know? So I said, in the first one, they did have a Cronenberg type monster, so be prepared just in case and no, there was nothing.
**Chris:** That's completely fine.
**Lee:** Yeah, the big bad in this one is the placeholderly named Slim Razer, which is Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, which I'd completely forgot about and I was like, how can I forget?
**Lee:** But I loved, I've got to say, I have very vague recollections of coming downstairs, while I think my dad must have been watching this film.
**Lee:** And I wasn't old enough. I'd have been nine at the time, I'm guessing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I remember coming down and it was one of those, oh, I come down to get a drink of water, and it was, go to the kitchen, don't look at the television, and I just remember it had obviously been paused on a scene with Slim Razer and it's stuck in my head for years.
**Lee:** And I I couldn't find out what it was. I never spotted it.
**Lee:** And then one day I put on House 2 unexpectedly and went, oh, that's what he was watching that night.
**Chris:** Yeah, quite iconic looking.
**Lee:** It's a great look.
**Lee:** But yeah, and and I've got to say the anthology idea of this of not carrying on the story and just having a separate house is a really good idea.
**Lee:** I mean, it it fell apart very much after three.
**Lee:** And then they did the Halloween thing of trying to go back to bring the old characters back to rekindle it.
**Lee:** Awful, but yeah, the idea of having a separate haunted house each time but in the same as you say Adam, wacky dimensions opening up and stuff is a really good idea.
**Adam:** Because I think, because the first film.
**Adam:** That's where the first film came from is they wanted to make an anthology film.
**Adam:** It was Sean S Cunningham who obviously did the Friday the 13th franchise. And Fred Decker who wrote Die Hard and he's he did like Night of the Creeps and you know just where's where's where's the list? The Monster Squad as well.
**Lee:** The Monster Squad as well, I think.
**Adam:** Monster Squad, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, I'm just thinking it's like such a it's a good little he's got an excellent little rap sheet. Yeah.
**Adam:** and wrote oh sorry, no, wrote The Predator. That's what I'm thinking of.
**Adam:** and yeah.
**Adam:** But so him and Ethan Wiley wrote the first House film.
**Adam:** And they were like, oh, originally it was going to be they made they were going to make an anthology movie and then they just took the one story that they'd written and expanded it to make the film house.
**Adam:** So it's weird cuz I think yeah, it's almost like, well, we can still do the anthology idea. Now we just do it across the series rather than within a feature length film. And so this is directed by Ethan Wiley who was co-writes it with Fred Decker and had co-written with Fred Decker the first one.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's
**Lee:** Did you Did you I don't think I've spotted it before, but watching it this time. Adam, did you spot Kane Hodder?
**Adam:** Yes, he's the because the gorilla who gets knocked out by the cave man.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and obviously you've got Bill Bill in there.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah. That's surprise.
**Adam:** Yeah, playing a smarmy shit, so that's that's great quite spot on.
**Adam:** I think that's that's the weird thing as well is that you've also got Royal Dano, who we have seen twice before now because he's in Killer Klowns from Outer Space, he's the farmer.
**Adam:** with a fringe jeans or whatever it is who gets who gets killed right at the start.
**Adam:** And he was also in The Dark Half.
**Adam:** And he's I believe he's the guy who gets beaten to death with his own false leg.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And my favorite role of his though, it's got to be says it's got to be said is something Wicked This Way Comes.
**Lee:** where he plays the Lightning salesman.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's so good in that.
**Adam:** And he's obviously he was the judge in Twin Peaks, the one who comes up when Cooper's in stuck.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** I can't remember quite what the which the point is, but like he comes in for a couple of episodes and he's just a sort of basically it's like.
**Adam:** oh, well, John Huston won't do it, so we'll get Royal Dano and he'll he'll bring off the same sort of gravitas.
**Adam:** But him as Gramps, I think I think that's possible.
**Chris:** I mean you do feel for him when he when he realizes he doesn't look quite as good as he used to.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's weirdly enough, I think you've Lee, I when as we were watching it, I was like, you really hit on a lovely pairing with Bubba Ho-Tep because you've got the sort of obviously the Western theme in this is much more pronounced than it is in Bubba Ho-Tep because this is you are dealing with the old West and sort of stuff from that.
**Adam:** I have also discovered that on the soundtrack, it's a bass harmonica, which is a sound that I've now discovered that's what it is, but it's a sound that I love it turns up on loads of sort of library music and bits from the Twilight Zone and stuff like that where it's just that really deep. sort of thing on the soundtrack, which is just pure sort of like, right, it's the Wild West. That's right. So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I love how Jesse enters the Wild West as well.
**Lee:** So he's in his house, he sees a window at the end and through it he can see the Wild West. Instead of looking for a latch or an opening, he just throws himself through it like he's been chucked in a bar fight for no reason whatsoever. There must have been a better way of getting to the other side of that glass.
**Adam:** Also, that's I think that's going to be Kane Hodder cuz he did all the stunts on this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As well as the as well as like being the the gorilla cameo.
**Adam:** But but yeah, no, I just think Gramps is just such a it's a brilliant creation, like the performance, the look and the story, you know.
**Adam:** I think there is just and this again falls into that category.
**Adam:** Cuz I hadn't seen this until very relatively recently, last few years or whatever it was was the first time I saw it.
**Adam:** And the one thing I don't like about it is that I didn't watch it when I was younger and have like this really great film and plus that sort of love of if you'd have discovered it at the time, you know. Cuz this is this is a great, this is a great kids film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and I'm pretty I'm pretty certain I'm probably cuz Ted has been saying he wants to watch a proper horror film because obviously he's on YouTube.
**Adam:** And he hears talk of that's the thing cuz it's children friendly YouTube.
**Adam:** don't actually see anything. They're not going to put clips in or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But he knows the name Chucky. He knows the name of Ghostface or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And it's sort of yeah, so he's been like, you know, I'd like to watch a horror film.
**Adam:** And there was I'm trying and I was trying to think of something that was up to date enough.
**Adam:** You know, there was no way actually a best way of describing it, Ghostbusters. He loves Ghostbusters.
**Chris:** Well.
**Adam:** So it was like, you know, that we're we're.
**Adam:** And I suddenly realized actually that when this came out was obviously just after cuz you watch house and house is like, I know I've got my date down.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So house is 85.
**Adam:** And then the sequel is 87 and it's, you know, it's pretty much.
**Adam:** almost rolls immediately into it. They've like, right, we've made this first film, we'll do a second film and and possibly because of that thing of just like, well, we we haven't got any more story to tell of that first film, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz they were like and so they've made the decision, no, we'll we'll just write a new story and everything.
**Adam:** And yeah, I wonder if also.
**Adam:** Cuz I was like, but how do you go from house to essentially what I would describe as certainly a kid-friendly a family film.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** This is a family horror vaguely film. It's I don't I would not consider it a horror film.
**Chris:** No. Yeah. But it could it could be if they'd really wanted to.
**Adam:** It's a family-friendly horror film. That's like like Ghostbusters or something like that. And I do feel that they did have after the first one came out, obviously you've got Gremlins and Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** And they were like, shit, maybe we could get like You know, we can get you can get a family audience to this stuff.
**Adam:** Where it's like effects heavy and adventure and sort of cuz that's what it is, it's an adventure film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, really.
**Adam:** but yeah, I just I so I.
**Chris:** I mean they got some pretty good stop motion creatures in there.
**Adam:** Oh, it's amazing. Yeah.
**Adam:** They called in all favors, that's like the stop motion, I think that's like Phil Tippett who was like who did Mad God and Star Wars.
**Adam:** And ended up having to be called in when they were doing Jurassic Park because they still needed someone to do a stop motion dinosaur to for them to teach the computer how to do a dinosaur, you know. That's sort of level of yeah, so you got a lot of and I think there's some cuz like when you watch the making of cuz the arrow Blu-ray is what I watched it on.
**Adam:** And so I watched the making of afterwards and it was it was really good. but a lot of the time they're all like oh, well, we know the effects aren't all that and we know this and I was like, I think this pretty much stands up.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think because of its nature, it doesn't matter that your Terradactyl is is a muppet.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No. Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's a character. Yeah.
**Chris:** I mean, when when you get him to sit down to dinner, like you don't need to worry too much.
**Adam:** Very much. Thank you, Chris. There you go. That is exactly the thought I needed. Yes.
**Adam:** If you're having the puppy or pupperpillar or dog a pillar or.
**Lee:** It's the only thing I don't like about this film. It is too twee and it's just.
**Adam:** It is too cute.
**Adam:** But fortunately it's but then in a weird way, it's like that sort of thing of again with a kids film or it's like Uni in Dungeons and Dragons, but unlike Uni in Dungeons and Dragons where they forced the little fucker into everything and there's a pain in the ass and you want to slap her and Bobby fucking senseless because you're like, you're just fucking trouble, the pair of you.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas I think the dog just turns up, is a dog, Gramps feeds it beer, and you know.
**Lee:** It.
**Lee:** But it is funny. So a bit like yourself, Adam, I saw this for the first time probably four or five years ago. and I've only seen it the once. Yeah, and all I remember is Bill the electrician. It was the bit I remember and I was like, that is I I just remember how out of place it was and how it takes such a sudden turn when he turns up. And I was like, I I remember having very fond memories of it, so I wanted to go back and revisit it and I thought it's. I did think it'd probably be a very good companion piece. But I was surprised just how well it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah. Well, especially because it's also got that sort of it's got a nice little heart to it.
**Adam:** that you do sort of it's Gramps sort of, you know, realizing these well, not just old, but dead and maybe it's time to move on, you know.
**Chris:** Has a right in Halloween party though.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is the thing as well we've done weirdly, weirdly for October, we've got a film with a Halloween party in it and we didn't even plan that.
**Adam:** We we usually just rattle through October. It's kind of like, well, of course we're watching horror films.
**Adam:** What do you mean? Oh, Halloween. Oh, oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, so yeah, I think it's nice that we've we've coincided with a bit of Halloween there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely. even if it was unintentional.
**Lee:** But yes, and again, this is another one of those films. It's only an hour and a half like it's a nice quick. and it feels like a film of various parts.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** The first bit, yeah, is like a sort of the bits with Gramps are it's like a buddy comedy bit and then you've you know, towards the end you've got your adventure and then after your adventure with Bill, then you get your going back to the Wild West and fighting a ghost of a yeah, a ghost of an old cowboy.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's just it slots together really well.
**Adam:** And you you fight very Indiana Jones.
**Adam:** I'm not even going to offend anyone by claiming to know what ancient people they might be in that tent.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, I've no idea. They're very not.
**Chris:** They're not the best fighters. We know that.
**Adam:** That's true. That's true.
**Lee:** That's true.
**Adam:** And also there there's another person that we've seen before cuz the the girl who's going to be sacrificed who I think who is literally credited as virgin.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** that's she was in society. She's like the they're Well, that's a bit different. She's the the main girlfriend in Society.
**Chris:** Well, that's a bit different.
**Adam:** Yes, so apparently because she it's
**Adam:** Devin De Vasquez and she is at that point was a Playboy model and this was her first film.
**Adam:** And she saw like, right, I'm a sacrificial virgin.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** you know, like on an altar and assumed she was doing it naked and then they were like and then she turned up and she was like really surprised that she was going to be clothed.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because and I that I totally get. You told you're doing a horror film and you are a former playmate.
**Lee:** You would assume.
**Adam:** You know, you sort of like.
**Lee:** Wouldn't you?
**Adam:** Yeah, you you assume you've been hired for that.
**Adam:** But also some did drop a prop skull on her head so and she had to go, she had to go to hospital.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** yeah, and and let's face it, that is a that is a thankless fucking role.
**Adam:** Both as a character and as a as a performance cuz it's like.
**Adam:** that's the only bit where you're like, yeah, I think that's that's just you've gone because you're going down the adventure route.
**Adam:** Of course he has to get the girl.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, but under the circumstances, this just is very sudden this film, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yes, it just to spoil the end for anyone who hasn't seen it.
**Lee:** I do like that end where they basically just decide their lives are crap where they are and it's fuck much more fun to just go into one of these other dimensions and live there, which is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I I think it's also probably because it's also because it relates back to cuz I love that bit where.
**Adam:** they're just listening to pops telling his stories.
**Adam:** And Gramps, sorry, not pops, they're listening to Gramps telling his stories.
**Adam:** And it is almost like, well, what should we do now? You know.
**Adam:** Well, Gramps made that sound fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** Should we go and do that?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is that is a good scene as well.
**Lee:** And the fact that it shows you how much, you know, every time it cuts away and comes back there's more and more beer cans to show you just how long they've just sat listening to him all day basically and got through a whole case of beer.
**Lee:** It's Yeah, it's it's yeah, there's just so much about this that I really like.
**Lee:** I think it's really.
**Adam:** It did put me in mind of Abe Simpson, no, I was thinking. No, Homer, no, Homer, Homer Simpson from my youth with the style at the time.
**Lee:** No, Homer, Homer.
**Chris:** Homer, yeah.
**Lee:** And I liked his relationship with Charlie as well, despite the fact Charlie isn't the descendant of him.
**Lee:** The two of them just going, you know, waiting until Jesse goes to bed and then taking the car.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Just going and sitting on a hill and drinking whiskey until they're both drunk and then driving home.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that and also, I mean, I just love the fact that all the way through it, Gramps remains wonderfully disreputable, but but is, you know, he's he's I keep going to say he's older now.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's dead, so he's pretty that's that's as fucking old as you get, really, you know.
**Adam:** Well, he's undead, that's really as old as you get and but I still love the thing like where the two guys take the like the two.
**Adam:** whatever cultists take the skull and they find him on the floor and he's like, oh yeah, there was about must have been 20 or 30 of his whole bullshit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and and oddly enough, one of those is one of those films where it's like of. oh, they're going to have the whole thing where that No, the wife turns out to be a bastard.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** She is just like, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Yeah, they all do. They all kind of abandon.
**Lee:** And again, you know, that whole thing is yes, so it's his friend who he hasn't seen in ages comes in and gives him a kiss.
**Lee:** And then she walks up, slaps him in the face and then starts kicking him when he's down.
**Lee:** You're like, well, I mean, I.
**Lee:** that's you know, that's slightly over the top, but secondly, she didn't even see it.
**Lee:** It was just the, you know, the producer told her.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He pointed to her by slimy Bill Mayer.
**Lee:** She immediately believes it and just attacks him.
**Chris:** To be fair, his his explanation did sound a little bit far-fetched.
**Adam:** The delay as well, where it's like he opens the cupboard and reveals a pterodactyl.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** See.
**Lee:** But yeah, just a good fun film all around really.
**Lee:** It's as you say, it's very family-friendly, it's a nice rainy afternoon film, I think, really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Very very comforting in its own sort of way.
**Adam:** And I I think also again, like we've we've dealt with a lot of weird weird sequels, there's sort of but like total change but from the same team essentially, you know, is quite something.
**Adam:** Cuz like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, like the difference between the first and second of those where one is grueling and the second one is hilarious.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but but it's still the story of Leatherface.
**Adam:** It's not like they came up with a, you know, it is a there're still continuing the story.
**Adam:** Whereas this was just like, no, slam it, fuck this.
**Adam:** probably the nearest would have been would be Halloween 3.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with Halloween 3, we always we said if they'd have done it as the second film, probably people would have taken it was only cuz you did two Michael Myers films and then say, oh, it's an anthology.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** that people didn't wouldn't have it.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think if they'd have done if Halloween 3 had been Halloween 2.
**Adam:** probably Halloween with Michael Myers would have just been the very successful start of a anthology franchise.
**Lee:** Whereas what we got here was Troll and Troll 2, effectively.
**Adam:** Yes, actually, yes.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, that is a very good analogy.
**Adam:** Also, I'm going to have to put in a vote that we do it at some point, but we've got to do obviously we'd have to do the first film first is The Howling and Howling 2.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** They are remarkably different films.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh yeah, 100%.
**Lee:** Again, they definitely sits in the same the same sort of.
**Adam:** but in fairness with with with the Howling, I don't think it's I don't think that's the same team doing the second one.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Not I might be way off, but I'm pretty sure it's like different director and different writers and so on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I think you're right. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't.
**Adam:** Well, cuz it the first one based on is that Whitley Strieber? Is that The Howling or is that Wolfen?
**Lee:** I'm not sure.
**Adam:** I can't remember. But it's yeah, but I no way on God's earth is Whitley Strieber right howling 2.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** so yes, so we're going to be back in a fortnight's time.
**Adam:** we went to an event, which we will discuss when it when we discuss the film on the next episode.
**Adam:** But we all went and together on a lovely little day out and we saw what did we what's Oh, my God.
**Lee:** What did we what's Oh, my God.
**Adam:** Virgin Witch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But the one that we're going to be covering is.
**Chris:** Blood on Satan's Claws.
**Lee:** I just couldn't remember the title for some reason. I just completely escaped.
**Lee:** Yes, so Blood on Satan's Claws will be covering next.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Not not quite as family-friendly.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Absolutely not.
**Lee:** But again, well, again, we'll discuss it at the time, but that anthology connection again.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** But yes.
**Lee:** So we will be back for that in a fortnight's time, so go and check out House 2.
**Lee:** Shout out to your kids, it's fine. Apart from the, you know, the cowboy getting his head shot off at the end.
**Lee:** But even that is.
**Adam:** That I think's fine. The only bit I'm worried about is I'm just thinking maybe the early bit.
**Adam:** Like when you just see him in silhouette in the I might I might dive in when they arrive at the house.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, when Jesse turns up, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, when Jesse turns up, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yes, so go and check that out.
**Lee:** Go and check out Blood on Satan's Claw.
**Lee:** And we'll be back in a fortnight's time to discuss that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening. Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Lee:** Stay awesome, Chris.
**Chris:** Thank you.

---

## Ep 232 Phantasm

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-232-phantasm/
Air date: 28 September 2025
Duration: 00:38:22
Film: Phantasm · Year: 1979 · Director: Don Coscarelli

### Description

We’re sticking with the work of Don Coscarelli, and going back to the classic that made his name; “Phantasm”. A film in which Angus Scrimm shows that, despite being older, he can still shoot his balls round corners; we learn how to make some of the most dangerous improvised explosives outside of the Anarchist’s Cookbook; and we meet a Jawa with a porn-moustache. Coscarelli’s third feature film, made independently over 2 years with a cast and crew of mostly friends and family, would go on to be a staple of the horror section in video shops for the next decade, with its striking poster image (entirely unrelated to anything in the actual film) burned into the minds of a generation. Unlike a lot of its VHS counterparts; “Phantasm” is an utterly unique beast; a horror/sci fi hybrid with surreal set pieces and a mythology that obfuscates the more it reveals; coupled to a domestic coming-of-age story of two orphaned brothers (and their singing Ice Cream Man buddy). It would follow the route of successful 80s horrors in spawning a franchise, but this too would be unlike any others, with (mostly) the same cast returning each time, the story being picked up pretty much from where the last film left off, and lore explorations that again only deepen the mystery. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror, I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam. Booy.
**Lee:** And we are here again this evening with spoilers and swearing to discuss 1979's Phantasm.
**Lee:** a film in which there's some strange goings on at a cemetery including a tall man, some jawas, and a woman with strange boobs.
**Lee:** But it it turns into something far more sinister because our protagonist is one of the creepiest people to have ever been on film, but we'll we'll get to Michael in a bit.
**Lee:** Before we get into that, Chris, what did you make of your first viewing of this movie?
**Chris:** Fortunately, I did watch the correct Phantasm.
**Chris:** But I don't know that I know any more than I would have done if I'd watched the other one.
**Chris:** There's a, it's quite a surreal.
**Chris:** I mean, am I asleep, am I dreaming?
**Chris:** Or is it all really happening?
**Adam:** It does play a lot on that, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And quick shout out to the the music, which
**Chris:** is it a bit of a bit of tubular bells?
**Adam:** It sounds like tubular bells going on maybe mixed with with Carpenter.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Sort of.
**Chris:** Kind of.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's a guy called Fred Miro and I fucking love that piece of music.
**Adam:** It is just
**Chris:** It is so.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's really it really reminds me of like Goblin, so it is that sort of tubular-bellsy sort of sounds.
**Adam:** But also you've got the sort of like choir pads and stuff like that, and.
**Chris:** It really does set the atmosphere.
**Adam:** It really, really does.
**Lee:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Because they because because it's credited Fred Miro and Malcolm Seagrove, but Malcolm Seagrove basically what we would now call a sound designer on it.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** And he does like the sound of the spheres and the gateway and sort of and everything, you know, so he's more that end of it, but yeah.
**Chris:** The spheres are pretty weird.
**Adam:** Oh, mate, yeah.
**Lee:** There's a lot of imagery in this film that works really well, whether the story works or not.
**Lee:** It's something we'll get into later, but it's definitely got a lot of really good ideas.
**Lee:** A lot of really sinister imagery in it, which I think is good.
**Lee:** So, so so that works for you, Chris.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** I you know, assuming I do know what's going on, which, as you just suggested, I don't know if I definitely do, but
**Chris:** you know, is it is it that there's really a guy doing some weird stuff with some other world realm and what do you call them, jawas who were were dead people, or is it I mean is it partially Mike dealing with death and these are his fever dreams to do with his parents having died and his brother having died.
**Adam:** His or his brother leaving him, yes, of like and then it yeah.
**Lee:** I think that's why we haven't covered it, I know we said, you know, last week when we said, oh, how come we've never covered this?
**Lee:** I think I know the reason we've never covered it.
**Lee:** Like I don't can't decide how I feel about it.
**Lee:** And I don't think I ever have.
**Lee:** It's one of those films, like I've seen it a lot.
**Lee:** I've seen it loads of times.
**Lee:** so it does come off the shelf quite often.
**Lee:** But I think the end upsets me.
**Lee:** I don't like the end and I
**Chris:** At first I was like,
**Chris:** Who is he talking to, is it definitely, I mean, it looked like it was Reggie, I was like, am I definitely getting this?
**Chris:** Like, because I'm pretty sure I just saw him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So he was dead.
**Lee:** So if it was all a dream and his brother's really dead and everything that we've just seen was all just a dream.
**Lee:** Why is the tall man then there at the end?
**Lee:** Like it doesn't make any sense.
**Lee:** And it drives me wild.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** See, this is the this is the sort of shit that excites me, because I just love that level of obscurity.
**Adam:** especially because it kind of is a proper horror film.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Adam:** In the initial stages and the tall man is a proper horror.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then it goes fucking mad.
**Adam:** And you've got and then it becomes sci-fi, but not in it's it's hinting at it.
**Chris:** It's hinting at it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's kind of like there's it's kind of like that sort of thing of it's like Scooby-Doo, but in Scooby-Doo, it's like, oh, there can't really be a vampire monster.
**Adam:** And it turns out to be a guy in disguise who's using it and everything.
**Adam:** Whereas this is like, oh, he can't really be an undead sort of like stranger.
**Adam:** Oh, no, he's from another dimension and actually what he's doing is he's kidnapping the dead, shrinking them so that they will fit in his high gravity environment and pushing them through a tuning fork that branches across realities.
**Lee:** But again, the problem with that is,
**Lee:** Then if and I got that, they were shrinking them down because of the gravity on the planet.
**Lee:** So why is the tall man, the tallest man ever?
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** He can't come from there, is he just coming here?
**Chris:** He's got special powers.
**Lee:** I mean he has because he manages to to turn into.
**Lee:** So he's definitely something.
**Chris:** Turn into a.
**Lee:** supernatural or alien woman.
**Chris:** I like the fact that he he waited till the end.
**Chris:** of of the session to turn back into the guy to stab him.
**Adam:** There is a there is a sort of question there that you hope that it's a fully physical transformation and not just a glamour.
**Adam:** And they are shagging Angus Scrimm.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And not realizing.
**Lee:** I should have known that that woman wasn't really that woman from the fact of her unnatural positioning.
**Lee:** When she's laying with that Andy Nyman look alike right at the very beginning, her her legs are front down laying as if she's laying on top of him facing him.
**Lee:** But then every time it cuts to his face, she's upright as if she's sitting on him, I was like, so she's bending at her hips backwards.
**Chris:** She's got some good contortion skills.
**Lee:** Like that's not right.
**Lee:** There's something going on there.
**Lee:** I mean, that's a problem for the start.
**Adam:** I I love I also love the fact that they've they've given Andy Nyman as you called him, they've given him distinctive facial hair so you can realize that it's him shrunk into a goblin.
**Adam:** Yes, halfway through the film, you know.
**Adam:** And again, I love that when it's like.
**Adam:** It it's like that's the thing I love like I'm saying the Scooby-Doo thing is because it's kind of like here's explanations, but they're more fucking weird than what we thought was going on initially.
**Adam:** And similarly with that, it's like we're being chased by a driverless car. Oh, no, it is being driven by like a shrunk down human being who can't see over the fucking steering wheel.
**Adam:** And you're like,
**Adam:** that's more mental.
**Adam:** That's more insane and strange and I just, yeah, I can't help it.
**Lee:** It did make me laugh that bit with the car as well.
**Lee:** When he jumps out the roof with the shotgun, he's like, I'm going to nail this bastard.
**Lee:** I was like, nobody in there.
**Lee:** What are you going to shoot, like you've just said nobody's driving this car.
**Lee:** And then immediately, I'm going to kill him.
**Lee:** Who are you going to kill, the car?
**Lee:** What are you doing?
**Adam:** Well, he does aim at the engine block, so, but yeah, he does seem to personify that car as as it's driver in a way.
**Adam:** Also, that's the other thing as well that I just I always forget that it's really oddly like irresponsible.
**Adam:** In the way that a 13 year old being brought up by his 20 year old brother with, you know, they've they've got money and time on their hands.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** There's there's a lot of guns knocking about the shop and the improvised explosive that he makes out of a fucking shotgun shell.
**Lee:** The whole time I was watching that, I was like, that someone has got to think, put in a pin in the bottom of a shotgun cartridge and then banging it on a desk with your hand.
**Lee:** I was like, he should have blown his hand up.
**Lee:** And I wish he had, because that character, the actor's very good, that character is the most annoying human being I've possibly ever seen on TV.
**Lee:** He drives me up the fucking.
**Lee:** I know he's supposed to be our protagonist.
**Lee:** But I hate everything about the character.
**Adam:** He's awful.
**Adam:** He he's I I he's definitely annoying as well.
**Adam:** You you do sort of sit there and sympathize with Jody and you're like.
**Adam:** fuck sake, yeah, just.
**Adam:** I just want to play guitar with the ice cream man.
**Adam:** Are you just leave it.
**Adam:** I'm I'm trying to sleep, I'm trying to sleep with an undead mortician disguised as a woman, will you not run out the bushes, please?
**Lee:** Oh, that's right.
**Lee:** When you're talking about the bit when they're on the porch and he's got that tuning folk that's in the key of foreshadowing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I caught that with that.
**Adam:** That said, in fairness, the first time that someone sees this, there is no way that that foreshadowing would be you you would decrypt that.
**Chris:** Yeah, anything from.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, it's not like sort of like.
**Chris:** Aside from it seeming quite an odd like there's something there, but.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's quite.
**Adam:** Oh, and once again, it's like, oh, it's quite odd.
**Adam:** Oh, the explanation is far odder.
**Chris:** It's true.
**Adam:** Yeah, right.
**Adam:** Okay, thanks.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** Top top work.
**Adam:** I do get that sort of thing, I think that's one of the things I like with it is I do get that feeling that it's again, if you encountered something supernatural or something alien or pan-dimensional.
**Adam:** Yeah, it'd be really fucking weird and confusing and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** There was like, yeah, and then his fingers turned into an insect.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Hey.
**Lee:** You know.
**Lee:** I always forget that.
**Lee:** That is such a weird random.
**Lee:** But again, it it fits with this film because it's.
**Lee:** It's got so many ideas and it just throws them out and it goes, I don't doesn't matter if they don't yell together.
**Lee:** Just throw it all in.
**Lee:** And it and and I mean, obviously, there was an element of that in the 70s, like films that if these films were made now, everyone would tear them to pieces because they want a level of realism.
**Lee:** But films like this and The Gate and films like that, they are just mental and you do just go with it for some reason.
**Adam:** This I think it would get it would get lauded a lot more for its inventiveness if it was Italian.
**Adam:** Yes, people would go down that because a lot of Italian.
**Adam:** horror is very sort of jump and jumpy and multi-realities and you know, it's like we're piling on effects here.
**Adam:** But not necessarily in any rational way to the plot or whatever.
**Adam:** And but also I think also if you release this now, you do it in black and white and release it on A24.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they and you know.
**Adam:** And people would be like, oh, this is.
**Adam:** this is incredible.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I think that's the thing is I don't think it gets the credit for being fucking a nice like absolutely surreal fucking thing.
**Adam:** It's its own myth.
**Adam:** It's not drawing on anything, you know, it's not.
**Adam:** Oh, it it doesn't even work as like, oh, it's an alien film.
**Adam:** But it's not any alien film you've ever fucking seen, it's not Fire in the Sky or.
**Adam:** Body snatchers or something.
**Lee:** No, and that.
**Lee:** And and and when he goes to see the old woman, the old fortune teller.
**Lee:** And they just have this who who apparently is from Dune because she's got a black box that you put your hand in for no reason.
**Lee:** Like, none of that has any reason being in this film.
**Lee:** But you just go with it.
**Chris:** I assume that was a tribute to Dune.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** I was thinking, I'm pretty sure this was after.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And the bar was called.
**Adam:** Yes, it's after the book, but obviously it's before anyone actually made a film of Dune.
**Adam:** So it's coming from the book at this point.
**Adam:** But also if you're talking about things that ripped off Dune, just an interesting little note, Captain Phasma in the later trilogy is called Phasma because she JJ Abrams named her after the spheres from Phantasm.
**Adam:** Because she's like she's like a mirror suit, she's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's pretty cool.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but but yeah, no, I knew you'd spot the but but also the.
**Adam:** bar where Jody drinks is called June's Cantina, so it's I think it's definitely in there.
**Adam:** It's like, no, I know what I'm doing.
**Adam:** But also, yeah, it sort of that at that point, that was just a lot of very literate stoners nodding along in the cinema.
**Adam:** Rather than sort of people had seen the the the blockbuster version, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it's it's and it's a strange pacing as well, I always find with this film.
**Lee:** It's it's a very short film, but it somehow feels longer than it is.
**Lee:** Not in a in a boring way, but it feels like a lot of story goes in and there's a lot of different twists and turns, yeah, for under an hour and a half.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, because I it is a lot.
**Adam:** Yeah, there's a lot packed in.
**Adam:** You know, and and not.
**Adam:** And quite like very.
**Chris:** And a lot to unpack.
**Adam:** Disjointed in a way because you're like.
**Adam:** Because it's a really weird version of the cop out of oh, it was all just a dream.
**Adam:** And then as you're saying, then they just flip it at the end and it's like, no, this is the this isn't the dream, this is really happening.
**Chris:** I liked it when his brother says, Jody says, oh, look up the house title or something.
**Chris:** And it's like, I'm thinking,
**Chris:** I think you're going to need to put up some serious boarding on those windows and yeah, just just straight through, no problem.
**Adam:** Also, I mean, I love that, I mean, even down to that, like I said, there's a there's that weirdly sort of.
**Adam:** I think now if you made this, this would get a high rating more on the basis of imitable behavior for a like for a young teenager.
**Adam:** Of like, oh, yeah, no, I'll just sit up all night with a shotgun under me arm, you know, when Jody comes in and has to like.
**Adam:** I'm not going to make him.
**Adam:** I'm not going to wake him up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I think he might be a bit jumpy.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Well,
**Lee:** what do you expect?
**Lee:** He spends the his daytimes joy riding around the cemetery between the gravestones on a motorbike.
**Lee:** Like he's a dick.
**Lee:** This kid is a nightmare.
**Lee:** And then he's and then he just spies on his brother.
**Lee:** Which is really.
**Lee:** Like I mean that's like that is full on stalking for his brother, isn't it?
**Lee:** That's proper wrong.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** No wonder his brother wants to move away.
**Lee:** They drive you mad.
**Adam:** Again, I think we get to that like we said about with Nope, you know, is that it's an again.
**Adam:** It's weird to have that family dynamic in something.
**Adam:** Where it's just like the like the older and younger brother.
**Adam:** And and again, it's like, well, it's literally the only reason they'd be hanging around because if Jody wasn't related to Mike, he would have had him arrested or kicked his fucking ass.
**Adam:** Told him to fuck off.
**Adam:** Who are you, mate?
**Lee:** But I mean, he's the only one who can fix the car by the looks of it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I'm sure that car is only in there because this is one of those films that I always watch.
**Lee:** And it starts off and it's everyone's haircuts and everyone's clothes.
**Lee:** And I get about 15 minutes in, I'm like, I hate everything about the 70s.
**Lee:** Nothing good ever came out of the 70s, and then that Barracuda turns out every time I go, oh, that's so pretty.
**Adam:** I knew the I knew the car would be the selling point, so.
**Adam:** but I can assure you because I've I've got the the marvelous Arrow box set that comes with a sphere.
**Adam:** on Blu-ray.
**Adam:** And I decided, right, that's it.
**Adam:** Cuz I hadn't seen, I don't think I've I don't think I've ever seen anything past two.
**Adam:** The box set's been sitting there and I was like, right, I'm doing the lot.
**Adam:** Can I assure you that in terms of mythology and things, you know, within the story, they reveal a lot.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It makes less sense.
**Adam:** It's fucking.
**Adam:** It's it's like everything they do is almost like,
**Adam:** So now you know what's inside the sphere.
**Adam:** Right, okay, I'm not going to spoil it for you.
**Adam:** But it's like, once you know what's inside the sphere.
**Adam:** I was like, well, of course it fucking is.
**Adam:** Okay, right, come on, crack on.
**Adam:** This is you're still a weird film.
**Adam:** And you still have that sort of reality problem, you know.
**Lee:** It's sort of.
**Lee:** I'm definitely, I'd say I.
**Lee:** I think I might have seen two but nothing else.
**Lee:** But it was a very long time ago.
**Lee:** But I've got your old box set, Adam, because when you pulled the Arrow one, you gave me your old box set, didn't you?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And this has prompted me, I am going to go and watch the other films.
**Chris:** What, so how many are there?
**Adam:** There's five in total.
**Chris:** Five including the recent one.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** So you've got, obviously you've got Phantasm 79, you've got Phantasm, then 88 they do Phantasm 2 and Jody's not in it and they've recast Michael.
**Chris:** It's quite a long quite a long time between.
**Adam:** Yes, so there's quite a long time.
**Adam:** It's a different actor and basically it was because.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** A Michael Baldwin, A Michael Baldwin.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Not D Michael Baldwin, the woods are full of them.
**Adam:** He he basically he'd retired from acting.
**Adam:** So Universal were backing Phantasm 2, so they said, I, we want a working actor in like someone who's actually currently an actor.
**Adam:** Not someone who'd just be returning because they've given up.
**Adam:** You know, not given up, but retired, he'd gone on to like he's he's an acting teacher now.
**Lee:** He's very that's what I've said earlier.
**Lee:** He's a very good actor, it's the character that's annoying.
**Adam:** Character's bloody annoying.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But that's the thing so, so they replaced him in two.
**Adam:** And Jody's dead.
**Adam:** But the way they sort of do it is that at the end of the first film, Reggie was basically trying to get Michael to go like leave it.
**Adam:** By sort of saying to him, oh, it was all a dream and you've just imagined it and everything so that he wouldn't get hurt, basically.
**Adam:** And and then he has to rescue him for.
**Adam:** Literally, it comes in from the start of the film.
**Adam:** So you've got the original Michael in there in this sort of flashback reality.
**Adam:** And then it's cut to, seven years later.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** And there's a different there's a different guy playing him.
**Adam:** And then you get Phantasm 3, Lord of the Dead in 1994.
**Adam:** So again, there's quite a big gap, there's like six years between that.
**Adam:** and Mike's back, like the original Mike is back playing him.
**Adam:** So he after after that Michael Baldwin comes out of retirement to do Phantasm films.
**Adam:** But other than that, he's a working like acting teacher, so he's not, you know, he's not he's not an actor.
**Adam:** He's but yeah, he comes out retirement and does them.
**Adam:** And actually, it's really weird to see him older.
**Adam:** Even though and I think it's because you like when I was watching them, I didn't quite realize the timeline that was going on.
**Adam:** Because it's like.
**Chris:** That's what I was wondering.
**Adam:** You know, he he is noticeably older.
**Adam:** You know, and and and he would be because he is old.
**Adam:** And also standing next to Reggie who, you know.
**Adam:** Bald men don't age.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, the the the ponytail, yes, that ages.
**Adam:** But no, but like the, you know.
**Adam:** So he Reggie doesn't look much different.
**Adam:** but then also they introduce other characters, they introduce Jody comes back because again, the guy who plays Jody, Bill Thornberry is a musician.
**Adam:** That's his own song that they play on the porch.
**Chris:** Oh, I didn't wonder.
**Chris:** Because they they did seem decent, so it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, Reggie Bannister who plays who plays Reggie, is also a
**Adam:** musician as well, I mean he's he's an actor primarily, but he's released like albums and stuff.
**Adam:** But yeah, Michael sorry, Bill Thornberry again comes back to acting to be in Phantasm films, but other than that, he's a working musician and like songwriter and stuff.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** So, yeah, so Phantasm 3 comes along.
**Adam:** And so you've got the original Mike's back and Jody comes back, but Jody is now a sphere who can who can project himself.
**Adam:** Like who who sort of can project a human form but basically has to keep turning back into a sphere.
**Adam:** And basically.
**Chris:** And going and killing people.
**Adam:** He basically becomes Al to Reggie's Dr. Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap.
**Adam:** He can basically appear and talk to him and advise him, but that's it, he's not really.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, like I say, it it gets fucking stranger.
**Adam:** Then you've got Phantasm 4 Oblivion and that uses because when they filmed the original Phantasm, they had about six different endings that they filmed.
**Adam:** So they used those in Phantasm 4 as flashbacks.
**Adam:** So there's all new bits of the original Phantasm film in that, which is really good because obviously it's the same actors but looking younger and it's of the time, so it really is great.
**Adam:** and that was 98, and then in 2016 they did Phantasm Ravager, which is the first one that Don Coscarelli doesn't.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** He writes and produces it, but he doesn't direct it.
**Adam:** So another guy comes along and does that.
**Adam:** If I'm honest, the one thing I will say is that I think the Phantasm films could be a brilliant study for someone of the progression of horror cinema through the 80s.
**Adam:** Because so 79 it's basically the 80s.
**Adam:** But it just like you say, it's clearly the 70s because everyone looks like they're in the full guy and you know.
**Adam:** Is.
**Adam:** But you're sort of getting into that video era of this is one of those films like we said was a video shop staple, that's where we all sort of saw it originally and stuff.
**Adam:** And then but then by the time you get to 88, obviously it's got better production values and stuff like that, but it's also sort of added different elements and things.
**Adam:** And then then you've got 94 and 98 and they feel so 94 and 98 in terms of the production and horror and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And then in 2016 you get one that's not the original director but it's a fan, so it feels like when they did like Halloween 2018 and things like that.
**Adam:** But also the great thing is apart from number two where Mike is Mike's replaced and Jody isn't in it at all.
**Adam:** You have the same cast.
**Chris:** Yes, all of them.
**Adam:** And again, that's a real rarity with like a horror franchise where you've got.
**Adam:** You know, pretty much everyone's come back and well, everyone's come back and no one's been canceled as far as I'm aware, so it's like, you know.
**Adam:** I think it's pretty good going as in terms of like.
**Adam:** Like a sort of production to be that consistent.
**Adam:** But also.
**Chris:** And what were the budgets like?
**Adam:** It's so woefully mad.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You you're not building a mythology, you're obscuring a mythology.
**Adam:** That's what you're doing.
**Adam:** You're you're just getting this weirder and fucking weirder, guys.
**Adam:** I love you for it, you know, so.
**Adam:** So,
**Chris:** So it doesn't get explained to a point of normalcy even by the end of of the fifth.
**Adam:** No, no.
**Adam:** It's it basically.
**Adam:** I mean, you you get interesting things in there.
**Adam:** You find out that you find out there's someone who looked like the tall man.
**Adam:** Who might have created a dimensional gate and then possibly that became the template for the infraction of the alien entity that inhabits the tall man.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I mean, I love it because I'm it's the sort of it's it's mad.
**Adam:** But has a mythology, but it's one that you can barely grasp.
**Adam:** And I really like that.
**Adam:** I just sort of think it's just.
**Adam:** Yeah, it just it just does it for me.
**Adam:** I mean, that the the lovely thing I think with it as well is you've got this going back to the original.
**Adam:** Is that mausoleum, I think they go in later films, they go and film at real mausoleums and everything.
**Adam:** And it just doesn't have the look of that.
**Adam:** I mean, it's clearly bubble paper on cardboard, you know.
**Adam:** It's not.
**Adam:** Amazing, but it's got it's it's really got a look to it and a style to it.
**Adam:** And it's it's genuinely gothic, but not in the sort of castles and rampart sort of way.
**Adam:** It's just that what it presents of itself.
**Adam:** And I mean, the tall man is a tall blow, it's a 6'4 man in lifts in a tight suit.
**Adam:** It's like, you know what I mean, it's not but somehow it's the fucking best look for this.
**Adam:** Yeah, and the and I think the effects work really holds up.
**Adam:** I mean, the spheres look great.
**Lee:** They do look fantastic, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And I mean that was that was like, obviously some of it's wires.
**Adam:** And even on the Blu-ray, you can't really see where it's wire shots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But also one of the crew was a baseball pitcher, so they used to just get him to throw it, yeah, like stunt spheres past the camera and then they'd reverse it.
**Adam:** That's how they do all those like the thing zooming down the corridor.
**Adam:** It's literally that basic, it's a guy throwing it.
**Adam:** Because it's like Don Coscarelli's third film and he's like about 22 or whatever when they started making it.
**Adam:** And they filmed it over two years, but it's a genuinely independent production.
**Adam:** Like his dad's stomped up some of the money.
**Adam:** His mom is credited under pseudonyms throughout the cast throughout the credits list, because they didn't want the name Coscarelli appearing so many times in the, you know, like Garth Morringy, music by Garth Morringy.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And because his mom was doing visual effects and costumes and makeup and stuff like that and.
**Adam:** You know, there's there's a lot, there's a lot going on in it.
**Adam:** And and it's but it's fiercely its own thing, they basically managed to get it distributed.
**Lee:** Unbelievable.
**Adam:** That was it, I think.
**Adam:** Yeah, because Don Coscarelli had done two films, but they were like coming of age films.
**Adam:** And like Reggie's in both of them, and
**Adam:** Michael Baldwin is a a secondary character in in one of them, and that's where he spotted him and was like, he's a good actor, we'll get him in.
**Adam:** And but yeah, it's sort of he he comes into it and yeah.
**Adam:** Basically, there's a bit I think there's a bit in one of the films that set at Halloween and they did a jump scare and that was like, he just he was sitting in the cinema and everyone jumped and it was like, I think I'll do a horror film next.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I like this feeling, you know, of everyone sort of reacting like that, so, yeah, that's.
**Chris:** That's good.
**Chris:** And the the the gore from the sphere, that seemed quite excessive, the amount of blood they sprayed out.
**Chris:** In 79, was that unusual at that point?
**Adam:** It's 79.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think they got they I think they wanted an R-rated and they nearly got an X, but they just, I think they basically just told them that they'd cut more of the blood out.
**Adam:** And didn't, I think that was basically it.
**Adam:** But, but actually they got more in trouble because obviously the guy who gets attacked with the sphere then wets himself.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** He's literally piss slooshing across the floor and you're like, and apparently, that was a bit much for the censors.
**Adam:** That was like, we might have gone a bit far here.
**Adam:** So it gets all.
**Adam:** Because watching it on Blu-ray, it's the first time I've ever been actually able to tell it's piss.
**Adam:** Because it's just so washed out on on video prints and stuff like that, you know.
**Lee:** Go, yeah, see.
**Lee:** That's you this that's when I used to watch this film a lot, I so say how long ago it was.
**Lee:** Obviously, there was the big battle between VHS and Betamax, and we had both of those.
**Lee:** But we also had a machine called a V2000, which was like a great big.
**Adam:** Oh, like giant video cassettes, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** With like a pull down head and you could record on both sides of them.
**Lee:** Yes, and we had Phantasm on that.
**Lee:** that had been ripped from a VHS from a video shop, yeah.
**Lee:** And I used to watch it over and over again as a kid.
**Lee:** and I don't and that's the thing, I like I remember as a kid, you just watch it and take it all in and go.
**Lee:** And it's only then I hadn't seen it for probably 15 years, and then watched it again, I think it might have been when you gave me the box set, Adam.
**Lee:** And I watched it again, I went, oh, yeah, no, this doesn't make any sense.
**Lee:** I'm not on the storyline, the storyline.
**Adam:** I I think that's to its favor in a weird way, because also it does mean that you forget bits of it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Oh, I haven't watched that. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's not, it's not sort of, this event leads to this event and this event leads to this event.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten all about the the the two girls with the antique shop and all.
**Lee:** Like all of that I completely forgotten.
**Adam:** Because I think most of it, most of it's like sort of friends of Don Coscarelli, hardly anyone in this has gone on, Reggie Bannister is the only one who's gone on to have a film career.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** because he does a lot of horror films and stuff like that, but he always comes back.
**Adam:** Because that's the weird thing as well, Reggie, this is probably the thing you least expect, Reggie becomes the main focus of the films.
**Adam:** In a sort of almost Jack Burton way, where he's not quite, he's not quite an action hero, but he's doing his best.
**Adam:** And and it weirdly enough, again, like the sort of idea of tracking it through the the series of how movies changed.
**Adam:** It becomes so full of guns and equipment and things like that, and like Reggie ends up with like a double double barrel shotgun.
**Adam:** So it's four sawn off four barrels and that becomes his signature weapon.
**Adam:** And you know, and weirdly enough, I think it's sort of yeah.
**Adam:** This is an odd because it becomes like a basically they become like a road movie.
**Adam:** They decide to chase the tall man down.
**Adam:** That that's kind of.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That that's kind of the the literal through arc.
**Adam:** Is that the tall man is going from town to town doing this.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** And they decide to follow him.
**Adam:** And basically it's also this really lovely, brings it a really lovely creepy Western thing to it, because I'm you're beginning to get the feeling that Don Coscarelli loves a Western, especially after Bubba Ho-Tep.
**Adam:** But, you know, watching these, they they have that because there's lots of ghost towns.
**Adam:** Because they go to places where the tall man's been and he just it just rips the heart out of the place.
**Adam:** And it's just a ghost town and there's no one left there, but the graves are fucking wide open.
**Adam:** And you know.
**Adam:** And but so they become like.
**Adam:** The sort of occult A-team.
**Adam:** Is like Reggie.
**Lee:** I want to watch the rest of these now.
**Adam:** Reggie buys out sort of like drive around.
**Adam:** And by the way, the other thing that I will say, which is so fucking good is because it it has a through plot.
**Adam:** And you can watch them all as a thing.
**Adam:** But if there's a character that you didn't think was working or there's a character that you're like, oh, that's it.
**Adam:** Don't worry, they're gone by the next film, which usually without explanation or finished off extremely quickly.
**Adam:** And then they just crack on.
**Adam:** And it's almost like, no, but again, it's a lovely thing of.
**Adam:** No one's sitting there, you know, Don Coscarelli wasn't obviously going, well, what if the what when are the fans?
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's pre-internet.
**Adam:** So it's going to be, you know, the fans aren't going to be happy that Tim, the gunslinging.
**Adam:** 10 year old isn't in this one.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, you're not going to have, well, what happened to this person?
**Adam:** They don't care.
**Adam:** I love that for that.
**Adam:** It's almost like, no, just go with it for fuck sake.
**Adam:** If you haven't gone with this after the first maybe, you know, it's it's not for you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, they they sort of go on this sort of mission.
**Adam:** They're like sort of and like they pick up people along the way.
**Adam:** And Reggie becomes this sort of almost Mad Max figure.
**Adam:** But all the time they keep fucking around with you and going, but is this real, is this reality the last the the final film Ravager.
**Adam:** Really plays with that where it's like.
**Adam:** Is it the because the whole thing becomes that the tall man is essentially the tall man can fuck with reality.
**Adam:** And so he can fuck with your perception so you think things are happening that are not.
**Adam:** Or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Which brings me back to the fact that.
**Adam:** Some people have spaffed into Angus Scrimm because you know.
**Adam:** Obviously if he is the is the lady in just a projection.
**Adam:** But she comes back as well.
**Adam:** So yeah, so that's good.
**Adam:** But yeah, by by then they're sort of like, well, is this the is reality reality?
**Adam:** Is are you hopping through reality, are you dreaming this bit, oh.
**Adam:** By the way, this might be, this might be a complete fever dream that you're completely having to ignore it.
**Adam:** Because reality's got so horrible you're rejecting it.
**Adam:** And you're like,
**Adam:** What the, you know.
**Adam:** It it's it's entertaining.
**Lee:** It's heavy stuff.
**Adam:** It's heavy stuff.
**Adam:** It's sort of but but always remains fun.
**Adam:** And and basically Reggie Bannister spends his whole time getting more fancyman's legal.
**Lee:** Extra.
**Lee:** Yeah, right.
**Lee:** That's it, I'm definitely going to work my way through those.
**Chris:** And I is there a plan for doing another one?
**Adam:** Well, I would say, have a if if Lee, if if you start watching through them.
**Adam:** Because weirdly enough, I I don't know which of the which of the other four.
**Adam:** Would be the best.
**Adam:** Because I don't think working through.
**Adam:** I mean, maybe we work our way through them, maybe they become like a thing where we can define it.
**Adam:** That this is like, right, here we've done the very start of 80s rental.
**Adam:** And then by 88 you've got to, oh, here we've got to.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, you can make money off horror films on video, we'll bung a bit more money towards you.
**Adam:** But, you know.
**Adam:** And so, yeah, they they sort of work in that sense.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Let let me know how you get on with them, like, cuz it's like.
**Adam:** And and.
**Adam:** It has to be said.
**Adam:** Like I said.
**Adam:** It just gets weird that Mike.
**Adam:** Basically Mike comes back but ends up having his own like sort of psychedelic battle of minds Western in the desert.
**Adam:** While Reggie's going around trying to shoot the little Jawa men.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Do you know, this has given for some reason, when I was watching this today, it made me think of what we should cover next.
**Lee:** Because I know we haven't planned anything, and what you're saying now has definitely made me think.
**Lee:** that what I was thinking was right.
**Lee:** So, how about we cover House 2, because I know we kept talking about it.
**Lee:** Adam's little face lit up at that.
**Adam:** No, we need to cover House 2 because I just I I need happiness.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** House 2's just a fucking giggle.
**Lee:** It really is.
**Lee:** It's one of the most mental sequels to a a proper horror film.
**Lee:** Part one, proper horror.
**Lee:** Part two, absolute lunacy musical.
**Lee:** I don't know what's going.
**Lee:** It's amazing.
**Lee:** So, yes.
**Adam:** Because obviously and we and we have covered House.
**Lee:** We have.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** So I know Chris has seen it.
**Lee:** So I know we're all good to go.
**Chris:** It was it was proper horror, but it was quirky proper horror.
**Adam:** Yeah, there was the one where Vietnam lived in his cupboards basically.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, if you think what's in his cupboard's bad, wait until you find out what's beyond his sideboard.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** That's it, we'll wrap up there.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, go and check out Phantasm.
**Lee:** If you like me, Adam has sold you on the entire rest of the series, I can't wait to work through them.
**Adam:** Seriously, I I went through it through a week and and I'll admit in in every in in a lot of ways, not a particularly fantastic week.
**Adam:** But I stuck with it and yeah.
**Adam:** And it's it's weird because it's very disjointed, but also really consistent.
**Adam:** And I.
**Adam:** No, I just love that.
**Adam:** It's the same as like, oh, you you see that guy in the caf.
**Adam:** Yeah, he was in three seasons ago, he was a cafe owner, he was he owned the cafe in that episode.
**Adam:** They've got the same bloke back.
**Adam:** I'm almost like that.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** Oh well, you know, you've got all the you've got all the people here, but fuck me if you've really deviated from where this was.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So, yes, go and check that out.
**Lee:** Go and check out House 2 and we'll be back to discuss that in a fortnight.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 231 Bubba Ho-Tep

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-231-bubba-ho-tep/
Air date: 14 September 2025
Duration: 00:35:40
Film: Bubba Ho-Tep · Year: 2002 · Director: Don Coscarelli

### Description

This week, we’re discussing Don Coscarelli’s “Bubba Ho-Tep”, and usually at this point, we would write a few amusing sentences about the film. But nothing we can come up with beats this premise: Elvis Presley didn’t die and is now stuck in an Old People’s Home in Texas. He teams up with a fellow resident (a black man who claims to be a post-assassination JFK) to fight a soul-sucking Mummy in Cowboy boots. Seen and loved by many at the time of release, now 23 years later, “Bubba Ho-Tep” seems, sadly, overlooked. Despite its horror royalty combination of “Phantasm” creator Coscarelli behind the camera, and a magnificent portrayal of a bitter and forgotten Elvis/delusional Elvis impersonator by Bruce Campbell (in possibly his best role outside of “The Evil Dead”’s Ash), it just doesn’t seem to get mentioned much anymore. Which is a shame; Campbell’s marvellous double act with the impeccable Ossie Davis as JFK give this mondo idea some real humour and heart. Despite the madcap premise, the film is also a reflection on the regrets, sadness and indignities of old age, with Elvis mourning his lost potential, and his body’s decline (in a scatalogically graphic narration). Like its protagonists, this film shouldn’t be forgotten as it ages, but allowed its time to shine forever. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Ossie Davis's career and historical significance: I will tell you the one place that you have definitely seen him. He is Osmond Poitfoi from that first episode of Night Gallery. You know the one with Roddy McDowell where he's complete shit to him the whole way through. And he keeps calling him Potfoi. Osmond Potfoi. Yeah. That's Ossie Davis. But I mean Ossie Davis is like fucking royalty, you know, I mean he was um, you know, like part of the civil rights movement, he gave the eulogy at JFK's uh at Malcolm X's funeral. you know, he is like and he is a name, you know, certainly in terms of like um like black actors and stuff like that, you know, he was a serious contender.
- Joe R. Lansdale's work and collaboration with Don Coscarelli: Because so obviously it's based on the story by Joe R. Lansdale and Joe R. Lansdale's a great author and he does sci-fi and true crime, not true crime like crime, mystery sort of stuff, he does sci-fi and westerns and horror and things like that. And um actually speaking of Dean, he he bought me. Joe R. Lansdale's book, I think it was Zeppelin, it's like Zeppelin's, Flaming Zeppelins, that was it, which was at two novellas to put together. Which is basically like a steampunk western with Jules Verne and Dracula in it. It's it's brilliant. Seriously, yeah, Dean bought it for me like, we're talking 20 odd years ago, you know, like a Christmas present or something like that. But it was just yeah, and it's a it's a great book, definitely, I recommend Joe R. Lansdale to as as an author to watch out for. And actually, him and Don Coscarelli um you know, Masters of Horror, um there's uh what is it, Incident on and off a mountain road, which is the very first episode. And that's Don Coscarelli again adapting a Joe R. Lansdale story. So. And I mean, I mean it's it's okay, I mean. Incident on and off a mountain road is not my first go-to of any of Masters of Horror. It's it's it's good, you know, it's pretty good. It's the very first one where it's a woman gets stuck like she it's a woman who's traveling alone in a car. And then it crashes and she ends up with this guy with a sort of like this giant bold. Possibly undead guy who takes her back to his cabin and he's got like he's basically going to kill her and then she turns it round and kills him. It's it's it's not it's it's sort of, you know, it's a pretty sort of bog standard slasher almost as as it sounds. It certainly is the least Don Coscarelli thing I've seen. If you see what I mean, is that it doesn't so it's it's a fairly straightforward narrative rather than. Oh this is popping up in it or this theory is coming to it or this narrative weirdness or whatever. So um but yeah, and um but yeah, so he wrote Bubba Ho-Tep for an anthology called The King Is Dead, which was like a sort of uh I which is like a it was 1994 like an anthology of stories about Elvis Presley basically. And. Like Clive Barker wrote in there as well. And stuff like that, but this is where Bubba Ho-Tep comes from.
- Origin of the Bubba Ho-Tep story: Don Coscarelli was like. Well, fuck me, I want this because that premise alone, I think it was almost like without reading. That's much as I was with the film. It was like, right, I need to see this, this is, you know, there's there's and then just things it was like I I read the I read about the premise, then I saw the director, then I saw Bruce Campbell, and I'm like, right, I'm in.
- Planned sequel, its development, and related media: Well, apparently, because the sequel Bubba Nosferatu Curse of the She-vampires, which is mentioned at the end of the film, it's at the end credits, it says Elvis will return in. Um and that was. Um Don Coscarelli and Joe R. Lansdale were both up for it. And then. But like you said, it's been that's basically been in development since this film came out. And still nothing's happened. Apparently Bruce Campbell said that he wasn't interested in doing the sequel at some point, and then at that point they were looking to get Ron Perlman to play Elvis maybe. Which I couldn't quite see. But I'm thinking, if you're still serious about doing this, while he's still around. Get fucking Nicolas Cage to play Elvis, because it's all he's wanted to do. Since he fucking grew pubes. You know what I mean? That's all he's wanted to do. So and I think he would be the right guy to play especially because the the premise of it cuz obviously again, we're back to spoiler alert, but obviously Elvis dies at the end of this. Yes. Um but. So uh Bubba Nosferatu is set before he shifted swap places and so it's Elvis back in the day with like Colonel Tom Parker his manager and everything. And they go to I think they're like touring and they go to Louisiana and meet a load of female vampires and Bubba Nosferatu and that's like, yeah. And there is there is a book of it, there is a book called called Bubba and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers. Because I think basically Joe R. Lansdale was like, well, we've written the fucking thing, the film's never going to happen, I might as well, you know, I might as well actually release it. So and it also got released as a comic. Um at some point. Um but that was when did he do, yeah, Bubba and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers came out in 2017, so I'm going to try and get hold of that, I think, because I need to know the rest.
- Army of Darkness Bubba Ho-Tep comic crossover: Apparently there's also an Army of Darkness Bubba Ho-Tep crossover that came out in the comics a few years back as well. But I think that's just again, people were like, well, it's Bruce Campbell and Bruce Campbell, so we'll put that together at the you know, so. I'm not entirely sure how the evil dead Elvis thing would work, but there you go. And that might be interesting to see because it'd be like surely that would highlight the differences between Ash and Elvis. Because he's not playing Ash in this, you know, this is a, you know, this is a this is a much different beast. And. Yeah, just incredibly, incredibly, it has to be said.
- DVD special features, Bruce Campbell commentary: That the DVD, by the way, also has, I think yours would be the same, Lee, because I think they carried it across all the releases. Because it did get a it did get a UK release in the end and so on. Um but um there's two commentaries on there. There's one which is Don Coscarelli and Bruce Campbell just doing a standard commentary. But there's also uh Bruce Campbell in character as Elvis doing a commentary. But. But it's not Elvis as in watching himself in the film, this is Elvis has has survived, but he's watching this film that is a fictional account of his life. And he's like going, I will this guy Bruce Campbell who done he he can't get me, he can't do me. And so and it's it's beyond like textural at that point. It's like a joke on a joke on a joke, it's really. mad, I think I I I remember watching that at the time. Uh but uh. I had imagine I was in a very uh very elaborate mental state at that point. So an enhanced state. So I can't really I can't recall that much about it, but I do remember laughing my tiny little butt off at it.
- Film's independent production and marketing: You know, just a a small film. And it's packed with stuff, you've got you know, on there, you've got so many delete scenes and everything else like stuff that you would really unlikely to get on something this independent. Because I mean that's the thing, this this that the publicity for this film was Bruce Campbell was doing a book tour for if Chins could Kill. And he took the film with him as part of the as part of the tour. So you've got to you've got to meet Bruce Campbell. He'd signed the book, he'd do a Q&A and then you'd watch Bubba Ho-Tep, it's a pretty fucking good night out, you know.
- Comparison to 'The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot': Well, there was that there was a slightly similar film um a few years back. What was it the the man who killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot? And it's a it's kind of similar but just it's just not it's not in the same it's not in the same league as Bubba Ho-Tep as far as I'm concerned. It just it was that film weirdly enough for what it was, felt like it was taking itself just a wee bit too seriously. Even even with that title, you know. It was it it's it's a good film, but I mean the trouble is now if you watched it, you've just watched Bubba Ho-Tep and you'll just go Bubba Ho-Tep did this better. Because it is the same thing, it's basically a guy recalling his youth where he was part of the assassination squad who killed Hitler. And then his old CIA buddies come round and he has to kill Bigfoot because Bigfoot's carrying a disease. And. It's it's a similar sort of thing, you know, it's sort of a man in the woods with a guy who's had the skills but has no longer as able as he was or whatever like that. But again, it just that weirdly enough is just a bit more. A bit more sort of genuinely depressing.
- Film's budget constraints and music/footage usage: Because because obviously on a budget level, they couldn't use any music. They couldn't use anything like the bit where it's they're saying a marathon of Elvis films, none of those are clips from Elvis films because they couldn't fucking afford them. They're just like off cut stock footage of like people from the 50s, you know.
- Supporting cast and their connections: I I think it does. I mean and curiously enough, I think that's the thing is also we're not really talking because there's not really it's basically a two-hander. Because obviously Bubba Ho-Tep is a character but not. Uh it's not a speaking part, he's a monster who's just there. And then you've got Ella Joyce who plays the nurse who's brilliant, I think she's so good in this, she really is for you know. And it's it's a she's basically the next major role. And she's not in it that much, you know. And then and then you've got Reggie Bannister who's the head of the care home who's obviously from Phantasm that we'll we'll probably get into Reggie Bannister at a subsequent date, shall we say.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** No, I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're back this evening again for another classic movie. well, I know Adam and I believe so, we'll get Chris's take in a second. We are here to discuss 2002's Bubba Ho-Tep.
**Lee:** just a very quick run through. There will be spoilers and swearing. for anyone who hasn't seen this movie and just needs a rough idea of what it's about.
**Lee:** Elvis is not dead. He swapped place with an impersonator and the impersonator died. He was unable to get his identity back.
**Lee:** He now lives in a retirement home in Texas. He shares a room with a black man who believes that he is JFK, who has been dyed by the CIA.
**Lee:** and a mummy is coming into the old people's home and sucking their souls out. And Elvis and JFK decide that nobody else is going to save all the old folks so they're going to do it.
**Lee:** Is that a fair rundown of this bat shit story?
**Adam:** That's good, that's a pretty good rundown, yeah.
**Adam:** And that is what I come to movies for.
**Lee:** It is, it's one of those, if you just told somebody that.
**Lee:** I mean, I think I did, I think Adam when this was first going to come out, I think you told me new Don Coscarelli film is coming out, this is the story. And I was like, well, I don't think I've ever been so excited for a movie. This really.
**Adam:** Especially when you drop in the name Bruce Campbell. That's the added little touch.
**Lee:** Yes, yeah, absolutely.
**Chris:** I do have to say though, that set me up for expecting something slightly different, because you're like, well, I've seen Evil Dead, I know I know what's going to happen in this. And then there's a curveball thrown at you, and you're like, whoa, there is quite a bit more going on in this than you first expect.
**Chris:** Oh, really?
**Chris:** Especially, I mean, you know, the premise, like, Elvis Presley. I mean, it's got to be the best Elvis Presley death conspiracy story ever.
**Adam:** Yeah, already fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah. That on its own is a great movie.
**Chris:** But you think it's going to be just so absurd and then it's got this kind of tragic, actually, pretty serious, and the way he plays it, he's like really impressive.
**Chris:** Because you're like, yeah, he is silly, they're in a weird situation, clearly, or with JFK as well. And then, but then it's actually got some kind of real sadness to it as well. It's like.
**Adam:** It's got a real heart to it because it's, weirdly enough, it's kind of a meditation on.
**Adam:** Aging and getting old, yeah, getting old and the sort of disappointments of life and not having the wherewithal that you used to have or the oomph.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** But it's also a mummy film with Elvis and JFK.
**Adam:** And to to my mind, that is far more appealing than someone I I mean, I've I've had my sort of teenage goth phase with movies, where it's like, oh yeah, it's it's a film about how depressing it is to get old, it's in Russian, in snow, in black and white, you could barely, you know, you will be disturbed by the end of it.
**Adam:** Whereas this, you know, it's like, I got all of that plus a fun ride.
**Chris:** strips the line perfectly. It's so well balanced.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah, as you say, his kind of monologues and things are quite, yeah, are quite serious and quite heartfelt and then.
**Lee:** Then you remember.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, there's a mummy running around.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I love, I mean, the one thing I would say with your with your synopsis there, Lee, is that he doesn't share a room with JFK, because the interesting thing is, I'm assuming that JFK's family are pretty well off because he's got a lovely room. Whereas, where he's here. Yeah, whereas, which is also I just love the details of he's got all the suspects on the wall and he's got like clay shore and Lee Harvey Oswald and everything else like that, and he's got the diarama and everything. It's yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's rich.
**Lee:** It's huge.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Whereas because Elvis or possibly Sebastian Harf, because that's the that's the other thing I like with the film is the film has like as far as Elvis is concerned, JFK's delusional.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's like clearly the CIA didn't take JFK, replace his brain with sand and him black to hide him away.
**Adam:** But as far as Elvis is concerned, as far as everyone else is concerned, that's as delusional as I'm actually Elvis. I'm not Elvis. I'm impersonator. I'm Elvis. And and the film kind of lets you live with both.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, if you want to read it as two delusional men or one delusional man and one who actually is telling the truth or both are.
**Chris:** And either way, somehow, it manages to make them look good, and it doesn't matter which of those stories are true.
**Chris:** They look good if they're made if it's all made up, they're doing, you know, they're having sort of one last great heroic time, or they're making a comeback and that's also great. And they're not, they're delusional, but they're still capable.
**Adam:** Well, I think that's one of the the lovely bits because I mean it's quite I mean that's the thing the film doesn't I think that's the when someone tells you that, like you say, especially with Bruce Campbell involved, you assume it's going to be just a wacky. Yeah, and it's actually quite sedate, it's a bit, you know, it's quite a slow start to it and everything.
**Adam:** You've got the lovely sides with the two guys from the funeral home, keep picking up bodies and everything.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Just just about picking them up.
**Adam:** One one of whom's in he's the ruler in John dies at the end, another Don Coscarelli film that we've covered. Again, Don Coscarelli, batshit crazy films.
**Adam:** And yeah, and he's also Grandpa Munster in the Rob Zombie Monsters.
**Lee:** Is he? I didn't recognize him from that.
**Lee:** I need to rewatch I only saw it when it I saw it the day it was released and I haven't watched it again.
**Lee:** I think it might be due a second watch.
**Adam:** Yeah, but I but I think that yeah, you and it's yeah, there's there's just some lovely sort of touches in it and everything else like that that sort of.
**Adam:** Because the interesting thing is he's obviously yes, it's Elvis, but it's not Elvis that it's it's not Elvis as he was because you're not playing that Elvis, you're playing an Elvis who's been left out in the wild for years.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Four.
**Adam:** Because I was because I was trying to look I was trying to work it out in terms of so Elvis dies in 77 and Priscilla leaves him in 72 and they're divorced by 73, so it's got to be in that window that they switch over.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So and he's not quite, you know, he's not quite bloated Vegas Elvis.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** In the flashback sort of sequence, is he? So he's he's fast approaching it, obviously.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's and I just love that idea that it's just like, well, he loved the drink and drugs as much as I did, he just couldn't take it as well as.
**Lee:** So so it wasn't quite what you expected, Chris.
**Lee:** But did you still enjoy it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, like, absolutely should have seen this, whatever, basically when it came out 20 odd years ago.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Chris:** You should have shown me this like about six years ago, maybe seven.
**Chris:** What we on now?
**Lee:** Yeah, seven, eight, seven, yeah.
**Adam:** Well, this also, thinking about it, we were bitching or certainly I was at the start of the year, we've never done a mummy film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Now we have.
**Adam:** And then it's like, and now we've well we did the mummy, but also we've now done this and it's like, why didn't that even occur?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean it doesn't it doesn't feature quite the same what you'd imagine the tropes from a mummy film.
**Adam:** I do I do love the idea that he's writing hieroglyphic on the fog wall.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, trying to make it easy and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's it.
**Lee:** Cleopatra does that too.
**Lee:** That's those lines that just make me laugh, so that may be love and the other one that may be fully laugh out loud was the serious look on JFK's face when he says.
**Lee:** And I woke up, I was face down and his mouth was right on my asshole.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Which wasn't what I expected.
**Adam:** I I to be honest, it's it's obviously been quite a while since I've seen this.
**Adam:** Especially because now now I'm now I'm realizing how fucking old it is.
**Adam:** That it's like 23 years and more to the point, I'm like, in the back of my head, oh yeah, everyone's watched Bubba Ho-Tep, everyone knows Bubba Ho-Tep and now I'm beginning to think, maybe they haven't.
**Adam:** Maybe this is something that's been left behind in the midst of time and I I think more people, you know, it should still be getting it should still be doing the rounds.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And this would absolutely appeal to people not into horror as well, like it's just so well told.
**Adam:** I mean the horror aspect is window dressing really. There's nothing.
**Adam:** The mummy is, I mean, the bit walking down the corridor is quite eerie and quite scary, but in essence, that's not what it's about, you know, I mean, it's yeah, it's more their story and their sort of like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Buddy movie.
**Lee:** Yeah, the camaraderie between them rather than it being a straight up.
**Lee:** Yeah, we need to kill this. Like and that and that's I like that because as you say, you're definitely right, you could show this to somebody who doesn't like horror because as you say, even the scene in the hallway, the lighting and everything is so over the top.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's not scary to anyone but it's just brilliantly done and it's never going to be scary because it's not that movie. It's a it's a ridiculous movie. So like it's never going to be scary and that's why it's just.
**Lee:** So, did Claire watch this as well, Adam?
**Adam:** Claire watched it. Unfortunately, Claire has had what can best be described as a fucking long week back at school. She's I mean, the other day, I mean, I presume obviously we had downpour to, you know, and she's taking Ted to school and got soaked to the skin and you know, it's just been it's been a long week.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** And it's quite a mellow movie.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And Claire basically tapped out like literally fell asleep about an hour in.
**Adam:** At which point I'm like.
**Adam:** Go to bed.
**Adam:** But, and here's the telling thing.
**Adam:** Is last night when we we watched it Friday.
**Adam:** And we're recording on the Sunday if anyone's keeping track.
**Adam:** and then yesterday, just before we went to bed.
**Adam:** Claire just went to me.
**Adam:** Are you going to sleep now?
**Adam:** And I was like.
**Adam:** Why?
**Adam:** And she said.
**Adam:** What happens at the end of Bubba Ho-Tep?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So she still wanted to know, you know.
**Adam:** And it was but I think bless her, yeah, just.
**Adam:** But I mean that was the thing the thing that Claire really enjoyed was the idea that once they've.
**Adam:** Once they have established there is a soul sucking mummy with sort of Texan influence wandering around this old folks home sucking people's souls out of their ass holes.
**Adam:** They've then got to they've got to try and tell that to people who are already going, oh of course, yeah, from the two guys, one of them's Elvis and one of them's JFK.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, because you guys are like, you know.
**Adam:** Model witnesses. And even even that sort of level of self-knowledge of like.
**Adam:** Well, of course we couldn't tell them that. What would be the point? Is anything going to happen.
**Adam:** And yeah, I think it's.
**Adam:** I I love, I mean, that Interestingly enough cuz she she she tapped out and and it was just just before that bit.
**Adam:** That is the bit where your hair stand up on the back of your neck.
**Adam:** Where it's like they're going through their list, they've decided, right, fuck it, we're tackling this mummy. They're going through the list and it's check, check.
**Adam:** And then it's like battle dress.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** A big check where he's got the he's got the white rhinestone jumpsuit.
**Adam:** And JFK's got the fucking sharpest suit you've seen and you're like, you know, he looks the business.
**Adam:** And just them going down the corridor despite the fact one of them's on a walker, one of them's on a on a wheelchair.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the music's going and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, you you really sort of it has that's when it feels a bit it's almost a bit western at that point because it feels like, you know.
**Adam:** That's a proper showdown entrance, you know, that they're going to. and but again, it's that lovely thing as well where just, you know, they're out there waiting for him and then Elvis is sort of thinking in his head.
**Adam:** What the hell are we doing? You know, what all that's going to happen is he's going to turn around and he's is it?
**Adam:** He's going to shove that wheelchair up Jack's ass and then he's going to shove both of them up me.
**Adam:** Like.
**Lee:** It's it's got to be said so Ossie Davis who plays Jack JFK.
**Lee:** I haven't seen him in anything I don't think particularly.
**Adam:** I will tell you the one place that you have definitely seen him.
**Adam:** He is Osmond Poitfoi from that first episode of Night Gallery. You know the one with Roddy McDowell where he's complete shit to him the whole way through.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And he keeps calling him Potfoi.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Osmond Potfoi. Yeah.
**Adam:** That's Ossie Davis.
**Adam:** But I mean Ossie Davis is like fucking royalty, you know, I mean he was you know, like part of the civil rights movement, he gave the eulogy at JFK's at Malcolm X's funeral. you know, he is like and he is a name, you know, certainly in terms of like like black actors and stuff like that, you know, he was a serious contender.
**Adam:** But I mean he is so good in this.
**Lee:** Incredible, absolutely incredible.
**Lee:** Like he's he's got that seriousness down.
**Lee:** But he's he's just got such a lovely soft edge to it and he's he's comedy timing, like I was saying with the the line about waking up when Bubba Ho-Tep's over.
**Lee:** It's just impeccable, he is so funny.
**Adam:** It's it's lovely as well because him and Bruce Campbell compliment each other.
**Adam:** But like they're, you know, Ossie Davis is like sort of, you know, stage and screen and sort of, you know, real sort of heavyweight projects and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And Bruce Campbell, you know, is a man who fought himself in a shed in a woods.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And has been doing so ever since, you know, but it's.
**Chris:** And they somehow they work so well together.
**Adam:** Together, they are so good. And actually, one of the thing, one of the touches I really love is the first is the one time he calls him Mr. President is when he phones him to say, right, I'm in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yes, yes.
**Adam:** You know, because what is it your care home can do for you, not what you can do for your care.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He's like taking my lungs, taking my lungs.
**Adam:** And it's just yeah.
**Adam:** So, oh yeah.
**Adam:** I just.
**Adam:** I think Bruce Campbell does play a very good not quite obvious.
**Chris:** As well. I think Bruce Campbell does play a very good not quite Elvis.
**Chris:** Because it's like he's not meant to be exactly Elvis, you know, as you said, this is a he's later on and.
**Chris:** So he would be slightly more toned down.
**Chris:** So he just captures that just right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not Elvis at his excessive peak.
**Adam:** This is Elvis who tapped out and basically ended up.
**Chris:** But you can absolutely still still get a serious Elvis result from him. He's like, yeah, that's it's not a ridiculous one.
**Adam:** I mean, the one thing I must say is I'd completely forgotten quite howological the film is, I'd forgotten quite how much he goes on about his dick rotting off.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's funny. I was chatting to my brother last night and he's doing so him and his son, he's showing him a lot of films at the moment like RoboCop and those type of things. And I and I mentioned to him and I said, oh, you should show him Bubba Ho-Tep and he said, I don't think he's ready for all that talk about what's wrong with his dick. And I was like, I thought I don't remember it being that much and then what I put it on, I was like, oh, it's we're five minutes in, he's mentioned his cock three times already.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he and he has a singing detective moment of having to have himself greased and everything else.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Sorry to break your flow there, Adam, but.
**Adam:** But but no, I think I think that's the thing is I'd just forgotten that it was.
**Adam:** Because so obviously it's based on the story by Joe R. Lansdale and Joe R. Lansdale's a great author and he does sci-fi and true crime, not true crime like crime, mystery sort of stuff, he does sci-fi and westerns and horror and things like that.
**Adam:** And actually speaking of Dean, he he bought me.
**Adam:** Joe R. Lansdale's book, I think it was Zeppelin, it's like Zeppelin's, Flaming Zeppelins, that was it, which was at two novellas to put together.
**Adam:** Which is basically like a steampunk western with Jules Verne and Dracula in it.
**Lee:** What?
**Lee:** Why have I never heard of this?
**Adam:** It's it's brilliant.
**Adam:** Seriously, yeah, Dean bought it for me like, we're talking 20 odd years ago, you know, like a Christmas present or something like that.
**Adam:** But it was just yeah, and it's a it's a great book, definitely, I recommend Joe R. Lansdale to as as an author to watch out for.
**Adam:** And actually, him and Don Coscarelli you know, Masters of Horror, there's what is it, Incident on and off a mountain road, which is the very first episode. And that's Don Coscarelli again adapting a Joe R. Lansdale story.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And I mean, I mean it's it's okay, I mean.
**Adam:** Incident on and off a mountain road is not my first go-to of any of Masters of Horror.
**Lee:** Which one is that?
**Adam:** It's it's it's good, you know, it's pretty good.
**Lee:** Which one is that?
**Adam:** It's the very first one where it's a woman gets stuck like she it's a woman who's traveling alone in a car.
**Adam:** And then it crashes and she ends up with this guy with a sort of like this giant bold.
**Adam:** Possibly undead guy who takes her back to his cabin and he's got like he's basically going to kill her and then she turns it round and kills him.
**Adam:** It's it's it's not it's it's sort of, you know, it's a pretty sort of bog standard slasher almost as as it sounds.
**Adam:** It certainly is the least Don Coscarelli thing I've seen.
**Adam:** If you see what I mean, is that it doesn't so it's it's a fairly straightforward narrative rather than.
**Adam:** Oh this is popping up in it or this theory is coming to it or this narrative weirdness or whatever.
**Adam:** So but yeah, and but yeah, so he wrote Bubba Ho-Tep for an anthology called The King Is Dead, which was like a sort of I which is like a it was 1994 like an anthology of stories about Elvis Presley basically.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Like Clive Barker wrote in there as well.
**Adam:** And stuff like that, but this is where Bubba Ho-Tep comes from.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** Don Coscarelli was like.
**Adam:** Well, fuck me, I want this because that premise alone, I think it was almost like without reading.
**Adam:** That's much as I was with the film.
**Adam:** It was like, right, I need to see this, this is, you know, there's there's and then just things it was like I I read the I read about the premise, then I saw the director, then I saw Bruce Campbell, and I'm like, right, I'm in.
**Adam:** You don't have to keep it.
**Adam:** And and unlike a lot of the time when that sort of thing happens, you know, where you're like, oh, this is going to be amazing because it's got this person in it, and they've brought that in, and they're doing this, and that musician's doing it, whatever like that.
**Adam:** And then the end you're like, yeah, it was okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But your brain has told you it's going to be so much more. Whereas this, I think it was like, yeah, just there was a lot of there was a lot of expectation.
**Adam:** But I think it sort of it.
**Adam:** It it certainly works.
**Adam:** You know, it's so sort of.
**Adam:** Yeah, again, I just wonder that people should see it more.
**Adam:** Or it should be spoken about more.
**Adam:** Because I think it's just one of those fun little gems that people might miss.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** Yeah, I don't I don't think it gets mentioned anywhere near as much as it should.
**Lee:** And and obviously there was the talk of a sequel as well, a few years back, unfortunately, never came to fruition, but
**Lee:** I I yeah, I I could have definitely done with the sequel to that.
**Adam:** Well, apparently, because the sequel Bubba Nosferatu Curse of the She-vampires, which is mentioned at the end of the film, it's at the end credits, it says Elvis will return in.
**Adam:** and that was.
**Adam:** Don Coscarelli and Joe R. Lansdale were both up for it.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** But like you said, it's been that's basically been in development since this film came out.
**Lee:** Yeah, for 20.
**Adam:** And still nothing's happened.
**Lee:** Years.
**Adam:** Apparently Bruce Campbell said that he wasn't interested in doing the sequel at some point, and then at that point they were looking to get Ron Perlman to play Elvis maybe.
**Adam:** Which I couldn't quite see.
**Adam:** But I'm thinking, if you're still serious about doing this, while he's still around.
**Adam:** Get fucking Nicolas Cage to play Elvis, because it's all he's wanted to do.
**Adam:** Since he fucking grew pubes.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** That's all he's wanted to do.
**Adam:** So and I think he would be the right guy to play especially because the the premise of it cuz obviously again, we're back to spoiler alert, but obviously Elvis dies at the end of this. Yes.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** So Bubba Nosferatu is set before he shifted swap places and so it's Elvis back in the day with like Colonel Tom Parker his manager and everything.
**Adam:** And they go to I think they're like touring and they go to Louisiana and meet a load of female vampires and Bubba Nosferatu and that's like, yeah.
**Adam:** And there is there is a book of it, there is a book called called Bubba and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers.
**Lee:** Oh, is there?
**Adam:** Because I think basically Joe R. Lansdale was like, well, we've written the fucking thing, the film's never going to happen, I might as well, you know, I might as well actually release it.
**Adam:** So and it also got released as a comic.
**Adam:** at some point.
**Adam:** but that was when did he do, yeah, Bubba and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers came out in 2017, so I'm going to try and get hold of that, I think, because I need to know the rest.
**Lee:** I have.
**Adam:** Apparently there's also an Army of Darkness Bubba Ho-Tep crossover that came out in the comics a few years back as well.
**Adam:** But I think that's just again, people were like, well, it's Bruce Campbell and Bruce Campbell, so we'll put that together at the you know, so.
**Adam:** I'm not entirely sure how the evil dead Elvis thing would work, but there you go.
**Adam:** And that might be interesting to see because it'd be like surely that would highlight the differences between Ash and Elvis.
**Adam:** Because he's not playing Ash in this, you know, this is a, you know, this is a this is a much different beast.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, just incredibly, incredibly, it has to be said.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just so much fun.
**Lee:** It's it's it's a film I've seen yeah, several times, but I don't know what I think when it first came out, it was one of those films that was almost a fortnightly watch.
**Lee:** So I think I probably watched it six or seven times in the first year or so of it coming out and then sort of burnt out on it a bit, so yeah, it's just been sitting on the shelf and still in the cellophane.
**Lee:** Sitting on the shelf for the last 10 or 15 years and I hadn't quite got it down, but yeah, it's.
**Adam:** Well, I had to dig out my I I had to dig out my multi-region DVD player, because my DVD was import, because obviously when it first came out, it was it wasn't coming over here anytime soon.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** You know, just either as a theatrical release or on fucking DVD.
**Adam:** So I yeah, I've imported it.
**Adam:** I got an import DVD of it back like when it first came out.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** That the DVD, by the way, also has, I think yours would be the same, Lee, because I think they carried it across all the releases.
**Adam:** Because it did get a it did get a UK release in the end and so on.
**Adam:** but there's two commentaries on there.
**Adam:** There's one which is Don Coscarelli and Bruce Campbell just doing a standard commentary.
**Adam:** But there's also Bruce Campbell in character as Elvis doing a commentary.
**Lee:** Of course there is.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But it's not Elvis as in watching himself in the film, this is Elvis has has survived, but he's watching this film that is a fictional account of his life.
**Adam:** And he's like going, I will this guy Bruce Campbell who done he he can't get me, he can't do me.
**Adam:** And so and it's it's beyond like textural at that point.
**Adam:** It's like a joke on a joke on a joke, it's really.
**Adam:** mad, I think I I I remember watching that at the time.
**Adam:** but
**Adam:** I had imagine I was in a very very elaborate mental state at that point.
**Adam:** So an enhanced state.
**Adam:** So I can't really I can't recall that much about it, but I do remember laughing my tiny little butt off at it.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I am definitely going to have to go back and rewatch it again soon and I think that is the tipping point for me. That will get it back off the shelf in the next few weeks maybe if I'm going to watch it with that that'd be great.
**Adam:** Well, it's that lovely time as well where it was like, oh yeah, people actually gave a shit about DVD extras and things like that.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** You know, just a a small film.
**Adam:** And it's packed with stuff, you've got you know, on there, you've got so many delete scenes and everything else like stuff that you would really unlikely to get on something this independent.
**Adam:** Because I mean that's the thing, this this that the publicity for this film was Bruce Campbell was doing a book tour for if Chins could Kill.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** And he took the film with him as part of the as part of the tour.
**Adam:** So you've got to you've got to meet Bruce Campbell.
**Adam:** He'd signed the book, he'd do a Q&A and then you'd watch Bubba Ho-Tep, it's a pretty fucking good night out, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That is amazing.
**Adam:** But that but that's weird that it's almost like, you know.
**Adam:** It's it's Bruce Campbell a Bruce Campbell film directed by the guy who did Phantasm and still it was like, can we pick you back on your book tour because we we need to get this out here.
**Adam:** But there's no.
**Adam:** Oddly enough.
**Adam:** Again, it's that thing of what why people don't want because I think people do want novelty, that's the key, whereas something like this, you know, if you if they'd have publicized this or or got it out there.
**Adam:** I think far more people would have seen it, and like you say, it doesn't have to be it's not for a strictly horror audience, you know.
**Adam:** It's it.
**Adam:** You don't have to be hardcore horror or a Bruce Campbell fan or even a an Elvis fan or anything like that to enjoy this film, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, there's something there for you, whatever.
**Lee:** Yeah. And I think that's why I thought it was going to have a massive, so after it's initial, you know, release at the cinema, that's what I thought, well, obviously it was a long wait, as you say, for it to come out on DVD, and I thought, when it comes out on DVD, it's going to be one of those ones that doesn't do much at the box office, and then as soon as it lands on DVD, word's going to be out and it's going to go mental, and it didn't, it just kind of fizzled out a release.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** I know it's it has got a cult following, but it definitely deserves so much more than it's getting.
**Adam:** I I think it's one of those films where all of us who were watching horror at the time or were sort of had our ears to the ground on sort of cult movie, weird movie or whatever like that.
**Adam:** We all saw it, but it never sort of ingrained into the consciousness of.
**Adam:** You you know, more people where it's not like one people have heard of Evil Dead even if they're not seen it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, you could it's but this is like you know, if I said to someone I watched Bubba Ho-Tep at the weekend, that's probably that's probably 95% blank looks.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And a couple of but also a couple of people where you've made their fucking day.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Oh my God, I haven't seen that in years. It's a great film.
**Chris:** I I'm going to blame the title slightly because I remember when you both first mentioned it, I was like, I I don't I don't have any idea what that's going to be about.
**Chris:** But also I didn't know what Ho-Tep meant at the time.
**Chris:** Only really learned that, I think when we watched The Mummy.
**Adam:** I think that's the thing.
**Adam:** Is maybe they should have gone for a more like Kiss versus the Martians.
**Adam:** They should have just been Elvis and JFK fighting a mummy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, I yeah, I check that out.
**Lee:** That sells itself, wouldn't it? All day long.
**Adam:** Well, there was that there was a slightly similar film a few years back.
**Adam:** What was it the the man who killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's a it's kind of similar but just it's just not it's not in the same it's not in the same league as Bubba Ho-Tep as far as I'm concerned.
**Adam:** It just it was that film weirdly enough for what it was, felt like it was taking itself just a wee bit too seriously.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's what I.
**Adam:** Even even with that title, you know.
**Adam:** It was it it's it's a good film, but I mean the trouble is now if you watched it, you've just watched Bubba Ho-Tep and you'll just go Bubba Ho-Tep did this better.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it is the same thing, it's basically a guy recalling his youth where he was part of the assassination squad who killed Hitler.
**Adam:** And then his old CIA buddies come round and he has to kill Bigfoot because Bigfoot's carrying a disease.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It's it's a similar sort of thing, you know, it's sort of a man in the woods with a guy who's had the skills but has no longer as able as he was or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But again, it just that weirdly enough is just a bit more.
**Adam:** A bit more sort of genuinely depressing.
**Adam:** Whereas it's like, yeah, but he also trapped a scarab beetle in a bedpan.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and and did the kung fu.
**Adam:** And I love I love the fact that taking care of business, which obviously catchphrase keeps coming up as well.
**Adam:** Because because obviously on a budget level, they couldn't use any music.
**Adam:** They couldn't use anything like the bit where it's they're saying a marathon of Elvis films, none of those are clips from Elvis films because they couldn't fucking afford them.
**Adam:** They're just like off cut stock footage of like people from the 50s, you know.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But but yeah, I I think that.
**Adam:** I I mean, I don't know, I'm sure there's hardcore Elvis fans when they think it's a bit disrespectful to the king.
**Adam:** But I always just think of that bit from the day to day where it's like, is this disrespectful to the memory of the to the memory of Elvis Presley?
**Adam:** No ma'am, King did there himself by dying on the john in a big nappet.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there is there is a certain amount of truth to that.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah, if anything, this kind of redeems him if you.
**Adam:** I think.
**Chris:** Think.
**Adam:** I I think it does. I mean and curiously enough, I think that's the thing is also we're not really talking because there's not really it's basically a two-hander.
**Adam:** Because obviously Bubba Ho-Tep is a character but not.
**Adam:** it's not a speaking part, he's a monster who's just there.
**Adam:** And then you've got Ella Joyce who plays the nurse who's brilliant, I think she's so good in this, she really is for you know.
**Lee:** She's fantastic.
**Adam:** And it's it's a she's basically the next major role.
**Adam:** And she's not in it that much, you know.
**Adam:** And then and then you've got Reggie Bannister who's the head of the care home who's obviously from Phantasm that we'll we'll probably get into Reggie Bannister at a subsequent date, shall we say.
**Adam:** but yeah, I think that the, you know.
**Adam:** It's it's a very small film, but it's a small film with a real lot heart to it as well.
**Adam:** Because I think it's one of those things that just weirdly enough, like you said, it bypasses the cynicism at the end.
**Adam:** You know, because normally I'd be like, a man expires and sees a message in the sky, that's fucking shit.
**Adam:** I'm fucking.
**Adam:** Over the moon in this because it's like, thank fuck for that.
**Adam:** Elvis got to got his final Hurrah, you know. And I mean even down to that, that's a lovely bit where they're just sitting there going.
**Adam:** well, we could have both been better fathers to our children, couldn't we? stuff like that. And he like, yeah, probably JFK and Elvis certainly could have.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yes, so on that note.
**Lee:** As Adam has just alluded to, we have decided that for our next episode in a fortnight's time, as we haven't yet covered it, we're going to stick with Don Coscarelli and we are going to cover Phantasm.
**Lee:** A film that the poster is ingrained in my childhood.
**Lee:** It's just it was in you know, like the Elm Streets and everything that that poster was in every video shop window, every off license that had a video rail had that on it.
**Lee:** and it's bat shit.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That is that that is one of those Phantasm is definitely one of those things.
**Adam:** Where it's like it's it's said it's uttered in those video shop lists or like Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street and all that.
**Adam:** Phantasm, fuck me, Chris, you're in for a you're in for a trick.
**Adam:** You might because.
**Adam:** Boy does this this has big ideas and they are presented in such a mad way.
**Lee:** And they don't always line up with one another.
**Lee:** But we'll allow that to cuz it's it's a lovely film.
**Lee:** oh and it's so 70s.
**Lee:** It makes me feel sick.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** We won't talk too much about that now.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** go and check out Bubba Ho-Tep.
**Lee:** Yes, go and reassociate yourself with Phantasm and we will see you in a fortnight's time for that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good everyone, thank you.

---

## Ep 230 Popcorn

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-230-popcorn/
Air date: 31 August 2025
Duration: 00:35:39
Film: Popcorn · Year: 1991 · Director: Mark Herrier

### Description

Get yourself a costume and slap on your face - we’re off to the cinema for 1991’s “Popcorn”. A film in which we learn that reggae bands cannot be stopped by a power cut; your favourite Martian now owns a movie memorabilia shop; and, as always, if Dee Wallace is your mum, shit’s gonna get weird. Made at that curious cusp of 2 decades, this should be standard 80s slasher fare, but it’s knowing references to horror film lore and elevated tone actually predict the direction the genre would take through the 90s. A fractious production with director and lead actor swapped out a few weeks into shooting, this could have been a real mess - the fact it’s as entertaining and coherent as it is is a testament to all involved. With a likeable cast exhibiting genuine camaraderie and some fine spoofing in the films within the film, this is a neglected little treat for the curious. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Popcorn as a progenitor of Scream and its one-word title: I have seen a few people online saying. I've seen a few people online saying it's a progenitor of Scream even down the fact that it's unlike all eighties horror films. It's got a one word title. Because most of them after Texas Chainsaw.
- Original films-within-the-film and their genre/era influences: I like I like the fact that rather than they they made their own, they create their own films for it. And unlike say well, for example, Scream, obviously they actually watch Halloween. And talk about it, but it's like, oh, that exists blah, blah, blah, and so on. Whereas these, they were like, no, we're going to we're going to make the films and the the three that they do are so perfect for a like horror film festival, especially like sort of slop. Because you basically you've got two sort of proper that sort of fifties atomic age sci-fi but not really that sci. Um, horror. And uh but also the fact you you've also got like a a clearly sort of like um uh like a Japanese film that with that and and it has that proper it the same time period look. It has that sixties um Japanese film look like the sort of um like the Kaiju films and stuff and like Godzilla franchise things. And yeah, I just love they they all look perfect and are done perfectly.
- John Waters' use of scratch-and-sniff cards in cinema: Yeah, John Waters did for a film, didn't he? John Waters did he gave out scratch cards and you could and you like scratch and sniff sort of thing. So it would come up, it would flash up on the screen and say scratch this card, don't get it wrong though, and it would be the smell of cannabis or whatever it was. Because apparently there was apparently they when they did it the first time round, one of the smells was glue and they just put glue on there. But obviously that's you know, they couldn't do it if they were to do it subsequently. Because you are actually that everyone comes out with that face. You know, to achieve that smell, you wouldn't just like, oh, we'll chuck a bit of glue on the card.
- Initial directorial offers and Allan Ormsby's involvement: But the cuz so I looking at this. Because I've only like I said, I saw it at yours Lee, and I was like, oh, I don't know, you know, I don't know a thing about it, apart from D Wallace, I don't recognize anyone in it. So uh so I like had had a look back on it. But um originally it was meant to be or it was offered to Bob Clark who did um Black Christmas. That obviously we did a few years back. But obviously he he did Porky's and uh a Christmas story. And uh loads of sort of um, you know, uh Murder by Decree, which I I still think we could fit in on here somewhere. … Yeah. Loose Cannons. Children should. Yeah, Death Dream. So. You know, he he and he was basically like he'd started because he'd done PORKY'S and things like that and even though that's not, that's not something anyone should be proud of, you know, he was like basically he was moving away from doing horror. So he was like, oh, I don't I won't do it, but he recommended um Allan Ormsby to direct it. And Alan Ormsby was a guy who'd worked with Bob Clark doing makeup effects and was a writer for some of his horror stuff. So he was like involved with um Children should Play with Dead Things. And um so he got him in, um and he was directing it, and then very quickly in the production, he got replaced by a guy by the credited director Mark Harrier.
- Allan Ormsby's replacement, lead actress change, and Mark Harrier's debut: Uh, and from what I can gather, it's basically because Alan Ormsby was taking so long doing the films within the films. That the actual film proper was falling behind. No. Um. And the so. Essentially what you see in the film is Allan Ormsby directs the the actual films you watch, the Electrified Man and uh Mosquito and is it Mosquito? Yes. Yeah. Um. And uh and the stanch. The stench. And yeah, so he directed all of those, and then uh but and they also had a different lead actress. And so they replaced Alan Ormsby because he was taking too long and they were falling behind schedule. And at that point, they were like, right, we're restarting and they hadn't really the original actress wasn't working out. So. Um, then um so then uh what's her name, uh Jill Jill Showen, Showen came in to play Maggie or Sarah. And um and Bob Clark apparently was kind of still doing second unit directing on it and advising it and. So it seems a bit strange. But I mean, the weird thing is Mark Harrier who they brought in, this is the only film he's ever directed. And he's actually an actor and he's in he's Billy in all three of the PORKY'S films. And he's like been in Murder She Wrote and Freddy's Nightmares and stuff like that. But yeah, this is the only actual film that he's done. And you know, I mean, fair play. Yeah. This is the thing is I I think to to be called in and do do it under those circumstances where it's like, right, we're already behind. We're replacing a lead actress. And you've got to walk in. And get the crew on side, cuz obviously everyone's worked with the first director. And kind of used to him and everything else like that. So I think you know, it's what could have been an absolute shit show. You know, there's no there's no failing in this of competency or anything like that. You know what I mean, it still it still looks good. It still makes sense. And you know, they didn't lose anything, so it's maybe maybe it was just the fact it was such a fucking. Shit show that it's like, do you know what, I don't want to direct anymore. So, you know, maybe maybe that's the case.
- Filming location in Jamaica, derelict cinema, and cast living conditions: Yeah, so and also it was filmed in Jamaica. Which is why there's reggae all the way through the soundtrack and they've got the the band in who who can miraculously play during a power cut. … They were acoustic ketars that they're playing and they. But yeah, it's so it's so and I think that's something that comes across is that so the cast were there but literally. living together. Because they're they've gone to Jamaica to film it, they're filming it in like this derelict cinema or theater. Apparently it was a theater that then got turned into a cinema, like a lot of older theaters did. So it was really old and that's why it's so grand and everything else like that. Apparently, and unfortunately I I saw an interview with Dee Wallace and she was just saying that it just stunk of like piss. Because basically it had just been squatted for like homeless people were using it and stuff for years. And so they were like and presumably also they're on not the biggest of budgets. So it was probably just like just hold your nose and go outside after you've done your take. … Yeah. And um, but yeah, so they were sort of living together. And I do genuinely think that comes across. Is I think everyone, you know, like any film, there are levels of acting chops. But I believe they all know like are a gang. They still I mean, you know, I I sort of feel they're all. Yeah. I think it was you know, I mean obviously there was a lot of stop starting and fucking around and changing actress and directors and uh so on and so forth. And um, yeah, it was even then, they they still managed to have a good time and sort of, you know.
- Creative conflict and director change insights from Blu-ray making-of: And weirdly enough, I I wonder because there's sort of again, there's a there's a good making of on the 88. uh Blu-ray. Um, and sort of like they've they've got some of the cast there and stuff like that. And but it's quite interesting because the mainly they sort of like say, oh, um Alan Ormsby was taking a long time on the thing. But also they were saying that the stuff he was doing the present day for some reason, they don't really describe it, but the producers are sort of talking about it wasn't quite working or whatever like that. And and even like the guy who came in to take over as director's like, oh, I watched all the short films and I was like, what's your problem? This looks great. But then they showed me the other stuff and I was like, oh, okay, that's why I've had to come in and. And I wonder if they were trying to go in a weird way, I wonder if they were trying to make the proper story. feel eighties slash. So it's like, you've done a spot on parody of like them, like the giant ant movie, or you've done a a spot on sort of attack of the 50-foot woman sort of here and stuff and stuff, and now it's like, but also we'll make the film quite, you know, it's here's all the eighties elements that would be in there and stuff like that. So I maybe wonder if he was going in that direction and it was like, no, it needs to we can't undermine this. You know, it's it's sort of it's too close for you to do an affectionate parody, so it's just going to feel like a dick.
- Film's intended PG-13 rating, lack of nudity, and impact of killer's makeup: What I think, I think weirdly enough, as well, is because at that point, you're like, he's an excellent mimic, but the mask somehow helps the fact that his lips are fucked. Because like you say, when he when he's in sort of like his O Naturall form. Um. Which actually that that was another thing, I think I saw that it was um they thought they were going to get PG 13 for this. And actually it does the one thing that is missing for something that would be an 87 horror film is nudity. You know. … And a lot of the kills are not quite they're not horrific. You know what I mean. They're very comedic or they're sort of done like the electrocution is quite OTT. And reflective of the um the movie that they are watching and stuff like that. And um. But I think genuinely, I think it's that makeup that probably tipped it. Because the makeup is really fucking it's terrific, it's a real look. You know, and I think it's sort of probably rang too many sort of Freddy Krueger bells. … Clare put it, it was like, well, you either have the mask but not the burnt eyes or you have the eyes but not the mask. Because altogether, it really is, you know, that's a. You know, that's a a real shocking sort of look. And it has to be said, I mean Tom Villard.
- Actor Tom Villard's performance, death from AIDS, and career challenges: Like who the the killer, Toby. Um. is um fucking brilliant. And once he once he's sort of outed as the killer and he's given free reign. He is fucking extraordinary. … And. Uh, but I mean it's cuz he um he died about three years later. Um, yeah, he died died of AIDS which he'd actually he wasn't, he told the, he told the director. But he hadn't been telling anyone because obviously in terms of like film, like insurance and things like that, you know, you could not as an actor, you would not get you would not be able to work. And so he'd kept it obviously he was trying to keep it to himself but he sort of opened up and told the director. I think out of courtesy more than anything else that it was just so but um. But it's such a shame because he's so good in it and you know, plays just the right level of over the top for a villain for this. Because it really becomes sort of Grand Guignol at the end. And yeah. And uh yeah, it's I think he would have gone on, you know, he would have gone on to have quite a good career. I mean the stuff where he's doing like sort of puppet arms and things like that as well where you're like, you know, he's an incredible like physical actor and so sort of like tall and extraordinary looking that it's sort of like yeah, he would have been um, you feel he would have like been. He probably would have been. A lot of villains. And a lot of memorable ones as well.
- Authenticity and quality of the films-within-the-film: And that's the thing, apart from apart from the stench, unfortunately. You but you you get you you see a lot of um the other two films. You know. And and and they are perfect. You know, because they they are the right sort of thing. Where it's like, no, we've got you know, wooden performances or sort of, you know, sort of bits where it's like, well. If it wasn't for the intervention of God. And it's like, yeah. These are absolutely perfect and the fact that you watch an audience. watching them as you do watch you you would be at a film festival watching these old like Return of the Fly or.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening as promised for 1991's Popcorn. a film that I cannot believe came out the same year as Terminator 2, but, you know, there you go.
**Adam:** What are you talking about? I think they're comparable in effects.
**Lee:** yeah, so just I I realized we we've stopped kind of giving you a rundown of the story, so just a very quick, a rundown of what happens in the film or the setup for it.
**Lee:** so it's a young student at film school, and they are she keeps having recurring dreams.
**Lee:** they they are doing an all nighter at their local cinema to raise a bit of money, and they find an old tape by a guy who ran a film cult, and his the plan for the cult was to run the film and at the end lock the doors and kill everybody, which happened, and they found the the tape and when she watched it, she realized that that was her dream, and then when they do the all nighter, people start getting bumped off all over the place.
**Lee:** So that is the very quick setup for this movie.
**Lee:** yeah, you've seen this before, haven't you, Adam?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** I've seen this, I saw this once before at your house.
**Adam:** So that's that's the only time I've seen it before.
**Adam:** And I remember I I mean, I enjoyed it then, and equally enjoyed it this time.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** It's great, so this was one that Lady Jennifer picked up in Tesco's or somewhere in a pound bin.
**Adam:** Yeah, I can see that.
**Lee:** Yes, DVD for a quid.
**Lee:** The cover is the cover alone.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I, I, because because I felt because we were doing it, I I thought I'll invest, so I got the 88 films Blu-ray.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But yeah, that cover is pure video rental shop.
**Adam:** It's lovely, and exactly exactly the sort of film you should find in an off license or on a rack in a garage.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** 20 years ago.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic. so Chris, with it being your first viewing, what did you make of it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** so I had a sense that it it was funny.
**Chris:** So, as it went on, it was one of those that for me got better and better.
**Chris:** And at the end, I sort of felt like it suddenly seemed like it was ahead of its time.
**Chris:** And then I was like, it's not 1991, but for some reason, it felt earlier.
**Chris:** And then I don't know if that was eighties.
**Lee:** It was very eighties.
**Chris:** Was, yeah, right, it really that became clear.
**Chris:** But also, I think because of the three films they show, you kind of like you have a sense of those.
**Chris:** Because they're all through those are old ones as well, I think.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I think they were, I think they were made by them.
**Lee:** But but the idea is, so William Castle used to do these two.
**Lee:** We've covered some of his films before.
**Lee:** And he used to do.
**Adam:** I was I quickly wrote it down, if you go back to 2018 an episode 33, was when we did House on Haunted Hill.
**Adam:** And we discussed a lot about William Castle and his career and stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, so that having something flying across the cinema and having the electric shock seats.
**Lee:** And all that that was all stuff that William Castle used to do.
**Chris:** Yeah, I'd say yeah, I thought that was quite good. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Right.
**Lee:** Yeah, so they use it in this.
**Lee:** which I like, I like, I think it's a really good nod to and.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, but yeah, I think that it's that, again, I think it's because it's that one massive screen cinema.
**Lee:** That feels so eighties, like you don't you don't feel like you'd see one of those still in 1990.
**Lee:** So I think that's possibly why you that part of and the graininess of the film, and the fact Dee Wallace is in it's probably.
**Lee:** But
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** All of those are great things in my opinion.
**Lee:** Sorry, Chris.
**Chris:** And it's.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, so I think the film really starts to kick in when they all go to the cinema.
**Chris:** And the amount of different costumes they're wearing, it's like all of a sudden it looks like they probably had a lot of fun making this.
**Chris:** And it starts to become more comedic.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And of course, as it goes on, it becomes even more and then the twist.
**Chris:** It was almost like a kind of thinking it was like an early draft of.
**Chris:** Of Scream almost in that, I suppose the character became.
**Chris:** Very different as well from what you originally think it's going to be.
**Chris:** So I was like, yeah, it's like that's quite good.
**Adam:** I have seen a few people online saying.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I mean it was.
**Adam:** I've seen a few people online saying it's a progenitor of Scream even down the fact that it's unlike all eighties horror films.
**Adam:** It's got a one word title.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because most of them after Texas Chainsaw.
**Chris:** Wait, we keep calling it 1991 Popcorn, but I guess it's not actually called that, is it, it's just called Popcorn.
**Lee:** It's Popcorn.
**Chris:** But is that There are other films called Popcorn?
**Adam:** No, it's because that's the only way you can find anything about this online if you Google it.
**Chris:** Because if you search.
**Adam:** Because because popcorn and film just does not give enough.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's terrible.
**Adam:** They're quite intertwined, so you have to go through a few pages before you get there.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Chris:** That must be why the year was stuck in my head so much, because I was like, I know it is 1991, but yeah,
**Chris:** So no.
**Chris:** So it's kind of funny, so yeah, it definitely felt ahead of its time in that sense, even though it was perhaps a bit later than you kind of think it is, while you're watching it.
**Chris:** but yeah, and so it did it it sort of kept changing.
**Chris:** And and the characters are fun.
**Chris:** And I I did really like Mark's character arc, because he is awful.
**Adam:** Oh, the the the pseudo boyfriend.
**Chris:** The attempting yeah, trying to become boyfriend.
**Chris:** And then he's like he's quite a sweet end with him.
**Chris:** You're like, yeah, that's all kind of fun.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He's he's useless still, but at least he's trying now.
**Adam:** It reminds me of a bit of Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China.
**Adam:** It's someone who's like, I'm fulfilling the hero role, but I'm actually not very good at it.
**Chris:** Yeah, like anti-hero, an early kind of yeah.
**Chris:** But also he's he's not he's he seems like he could be charming to begin with, but he's just really not getting it right at all.
**Adam:** Oh, no, he's a dick.
**Chris:** And then later on he's like almost matured slightly.
**Chris:** So yeah, so I thought that was quite good.
**Chris:** So yeah, the characters worked really well together.
**Chris:** and I liked the whole setup, you know, it being.
**Chris:** Films within films and it's a film school and like, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And the whole angle.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz I I like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I like I like the fact that rather than they they made their own, they create their own films for it.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's really good.
**Adam:** And unlike say well, for example, Scream, obviously they actually watch Halloween.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And talk about it, but it's like, oh, that exists blah, blah, blah, and so on.
**Adam:** Whereas these, they were like, no, we're going to we're going to make the films and the the three that they do are so perfect for a like horror film festival, especially like sort of slop.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you basically you've got two sort of proper that sort of fifties atomic age sci-fi but not really that sci.
**Adam:** horror.
**Adam:** And but also the fact you you've also got like a a clearly sort of like like a Japanese film that with that and and it has that proper it the same time period look.
**Adam:** It has that sixties Japanese film look like the sort of like the Kaiju films and stuff and like Godzilla franchise things.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, I just love they they all look perfect and are done perfectly.
**Lee:** Yeah, they did.
**Lee:** They really sold it.
**Lee:** Also I was funnily enough I was listening to a thing a podcast recently where they were talking about because obviously in this one of the gimmicks was they had the smell that came into the cinema.
**Lee:** and apparently that was a thing that did that in a sixties, I think they were saying.
**Chris:** All right.
**Chris:** Yeah, they tried.
**Lee:** They sort of built a couple of cinemas specifically for it, but it ended up costing so much money that it cost you the equivalent of like £350 in today's money for a ticket to go to the films because all the equipment was so expensive to make it work.
**Chris:** Oh, so you couldn't make that money back on this?
**Lee:** They must.
**Chris:** I'd be amazed if people actually really liked it as well.
**Chris:** Because surely like pumping bad smells can't actually be fun, can it?
**Adam:** It depends on your what you're watching, but I certainly wouldn't want it on a scap movie.
**Lee:** I think it was things like like cigar smoke and coffee and flowers.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, John Waters did for a film, didn't he?
**Adam:** John Waters did he gave out scratch cards and you could and you like scratch and sniff sort of thing.
**Adam:** So it would come up, it would flash up on the screen and say scratch this card, don't get it wrong though, and it would be the smell of cannabis or whatever it was.
**Adam:** Because apparently there was apparently they when they did it the first time round, one of the smells was glue and they just put glue on there.
**Adam:** But obviously that's you know, they couldn't do it if they were to do it subsequently.
**Adam:** Because you are actually that everyone comes out with that face.
**Chris:** That's everyone comes out with that face.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, to achieve that smell, you wouldn't just like, oh, we'll chuck a bit of glue on the card.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** That would add to the fun of the film, I'm sure.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely, yeah.
**Adam:** The audience of people huffing.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** But the cuz so I looking at this.
**Adam:** Because I've only like I said, I saw it at yours Lee, and I was like, oh, I don't know, you know, I don't know a thing about it, apart from D Wallace, I don't recognize anyone in it.
**Adam:** So so I like had had a look back on it.
**Adam:** But originally it was meant to be or it was offered to Bob Clark who did Black Christmas.
**Adam:** That obviously we did a few years back.
**Adam:** But obviously he he did Porky's and a Christmas story.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And loads of sort of you know, Murder by Decree, which I I still think we could fit in on here somewhere.
**Lee:** Yeah, I rewatched that about a month ago, actually.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Loose Cannons.
**Adam:** Children should.
**Chris:** If it's good enough, we should find a way.
**Adam:** Yeah, Death Dream.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You know, he he and he was basically like he'd started because he'd done PORKY'S and things like that and even though that's not, that's not something anyone should be proud of, you know, he was like basically he was moving away from doing horror.
**Adam:** So he was like, oh, I don't I won't do it, but he recommended Allan Ormsby to direct it.
**Adam:** And Alan Ormsby was a guy who'd worked with Bob Clark doing makeup effects and was a writer for some of his horror stuff.
**Adam:** So he was like involved with Children should Play with Dead Things.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so he got him in, and he was directing it, and then very quickly in the production, he got replaced by a guy by the credited director Mark Harrier.
**Adam:** and from what I can gather, it's basically because Alan Ormsby was taking so long doing the films within the films.
**Adam:** That the actual film proper was falling behind.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** And the so.
**Adam:** Essentially what you see in the film is Allan Ormsby directs the the actual films you watch, the Electrified Man and Mosquito and is it Mosquito?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and the stanch.
**Chris:** And the stench.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** The stench.
**Adam:** The stench.
**Adam:** And yeah, so he directed all of those, and then but and they also had a different lead actress.
**Adam:** And so they replaced Alan Ormsby because he was taking too long and they were falling behind schedule.
**Adam:** And at that point, they were like, right, we're restarting and they hadn't really the original actress wasn't working out.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** then so then what's her name, Jill Jill Showen, Showen came in to play Maggie or Sarah.
**Adam:** And and Bob Clark apparently was kind of still doing second unit directing on it and advising it and.
**Adam:** So it seems a bit strange.
**Adam:** But I mean, the weird thing is Mark Harrier who they brought in, this is the only film he's ever directed.
**Adam:** And he's actually an actor and he's in he's Billy in all three of the PORKY'S films.
**Adam:** And he's like been in Murder She Wrote and Freddy's Nightmares and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, this is the only actual film that he's done.
**Adam:** And you know, I mean, fair play.
**Lee:** I thought we did a really good job.
**Lee:** Like you know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is the thing is I I think to to be called in and do do it under those circumstances where it's like, right, we're already behind.
**Adam:** We're replacing a lead actress.
**Adam:** And you've got to walk in.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And get the crew on side, cuz obviously everyone's worked with the first director.
**Adam:** And kind of used to him and everything else like that.
**Adam:** So I think you know, it's what could have been an absolute shit show.
**Adam:** You know, there's no there's no failing in this of competency or anything like that.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, it still it still looks good.
**Adam:** It still makes sense.
**Adam:** And you know, they didn't lose anything, so it's maybe maybe it was just the fact it was such a fucking.
**Adam:** Shit show that it's like, do you know what, I don't want to direct anymore.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, maybe maybe that's the case.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, so and also it was filmed in Jamaica.
**Adam:** Which is why there's reggae all the way through the soundtrack and they've got the the band in who who can miraculously play during a power cut.
**Chris:** All right.
**Lee:** I said that.
**Lee:** I said.
**Lee:** Oh, luckily they've all got acoustic acoustic instruments, and then he said acoustic weapons.
**Adam:** They were acoustic ketars that they're playing and they.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's so it's so and I think that's something that comes across is that so the cast were there but literally.
**Adam:** living together.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because they're they've gone to Jamaica to film it, they're filming it in like this derelict cinema or theater.
**Adam:** Apparently it was a theater that then got turned into a cinema, like a lot of older theaters did.
**Adam:** So it was really old and that's why it's so grand and everything else like that.
**Lee:** It looks incredible.
**Lee:** I mean, what.
**Adam:** Apparently, and unfortunately I I saw an interview with Dee Wallace and she was just saying that it just stunk of like piss.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Because basically it had just been squatted for like homeless people were using it and stuff for years.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** And so they were like and presumably also they're on not the biggest of budgets.
**Adam:** So it was probably just like just hold your nose and go outside after you've done your take.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** They can't afford to have the entire place fumigated.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but yeah, so they were sort of living together.
**Adam:** And I do genuinely think that comes across.
**Adam:** Is I think everyone, you know, like any film, there are levels of acting chops.
**Adam:** But I believe they all know like are a gang.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They still I mean, you know, I I sort of feel they're all.
**Chris:** It seems like they are having a bit of fun together.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think it was you know, I mean obviously there was a lot of stop starting and fucking around and changing actress and directors and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And yeah, it was even then, they they still managed to have a good time and sort of, you know.
**Lee:** And I love that like the eighties montages and all that like it's just.
**Lee:** I think that's what adds to the fun of this, like you say, it's although it's you know, 91.
**Lee:** It does feel like a mid-eighties film, you say, you can kind of see why they were originally going for the director of PORKY'S because it's got that same like college kids feel about it.
**Lee:** but yeah, just with a lot more death.
**Adam:** I think certainly, apart from what even actually even the sort of like drum machine soundtrack is more 87, I mean certainly the one thing me and Clare have been watching.
**Adam:** we've been rewatching the complete League of Gentlemen, so we've done the series, we're doing the live shows now.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** And the rap song at the end of this really feels like when Legz Akimbo come out and try and do a rap to look cool to the.
**Adam:** When the name is Johnny and I'm in London now.
**Lee:** Yeah, it it does feel like that.
**Lee:** I I mean, I I normally sit through for the half of the credits or anything just to see if anyone have knows pops up or anything interesting.
**Lee:** But yeah, it was so bad, literally as soon as the first card come up, I was like, nope.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's it's actually weird cuz like the the the reggae side of it sort of like pretty good and pretty unusual for a horror film that you're like, you know.
**Adam:** But yeah, I but I I yeah, showed this to me, I'd say 87.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, you're nearly in the nineties.
**Adam:** But yeah, that's where I would have sort of pegged it.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough, I I wonder because there's sort of again, there's a there's a good making of on the 88.
**Adam:** Blu-ray.
**Adam:** and sort of like they've they've got some of the cast there and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And but it's quite interesting because the mainly they sort of like say, oh, Alan Ormsby was taking a long time on the thing.
**Adam:** But also they were saying that the stuff he was doing the present day for some reason, they don't really describe it, but the producers are sort of talking about it wasn't quite working or whatever like that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and even like the guy who came in to take over as director's like, oh, I watched all the short films and I was like, what's your problem?
**Adam:** This looks great.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then they showed me the other stuff and I was like, oh, okay, that's why I've had to come in and.
**Adam:** And I wonder if they were trying to go in a weird way, I wonder if they were trying to make the proper story.
**Adam:** feel eighties slash.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's like, you've done a spot on parody of like them, like the giant ant movie, or you've done a a spot on sort of attack of the 50-foot woman sort of here and stuff and stuff, and now it's like, but also we'll make the film quite, you know, it's here's all the eighties elements that would be in there and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So I maybe wonder if he was going in that direction and it was like, no, it needs to we can't undermine this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's sort of it's too close for you to do an affectionate parody, so it's just going to feel like a dick.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, I and it and it's it's funny, yeah, you say that, you know, they obviously shipped everybody out to Jamaica and did it.
**Lee:** but yeah, that that that theater is just so, but like you say, you can.
**Chris:** It works perfectly, doesn't it?
**Lee:** As soon as you see it, you can smell popcorn.
**Lee:** It's that like it is, it's just like you know yeah, and the the stuff of them cleaning it, you know, sort of tidy it and getting the prepping everything ready.
**Lee:** It's an incredible building, so yeah, if it'd be derated, it must take ages for them to make it look good again.
**Lee:** You know, like.
**Adam:** It looks sort of, yeah, it looks habitable.
**Adam:** I'm, you know, I think a lot of that cleanup was probably what was going that that must have been what was going on anyway.
**Adam:** As you say.
**Adam:** Cuz it's sort of fact that's probably the easiest way to do it is you do do your opening sequence while it's derelict and then.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I do think like even though I enjoyed it as much as I did watching it on my own.
**Chris:** It definitely does lend itself to, you know, a fun night of putting on a movie at a party.
**Chris:** And not not worrying too much about it, having laughed in the background.
**Lee:** Yeah, something daft in the background.
**Chris:** There's there's a few inconsistencies, there's a bit like, but it's just not, you know, you don't need to think too hard.
**Chris:** You just.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** It has a weird thing where it's like there's little bits where you go, is this supernatural and it's not?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But in a weird way, that's kind of a lot of slashers.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I thought that they they managed to get that balance okay.
**Chris:** I thought, yeah, certainly from the start, you definitely think it's going in that direction and then it doesn't and it yeah, and it worked.
**Lee:** So I normally find that very disappointing if I think it's going to be supernatural and then it is and I'm like, oh, it's Scooby Doo me again.
**Lee:** But actually it isn't.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I thought it it made it a lot more believable and a lot more I mean, not believable, obviously, but yeah.
**Chris:** The bit with just how great he was doing making the faces now quickly, I was like, that's impressive technology there.
**Chris:** I'm sure they wouldn't look quite that good.
**Chris:** But that was even really entertaining when he was showing her and Sarah.
**Lee:** But that's what made me laugh.
**Lee:** So they, you know, all right, so spoilers from here on in people, just to let you know.
**Lee:** So when the killer is revealed and yeah, he's doing that talking to a bit, why don't they just keep him as the face that he has assumed?
**Lee:** Because when they then put those stupid rubber lip things on him, he can't talk through them and you can't understand him.
**Lee:** And I was like, just you there, we know who it is.
**Lee:** You can just show him the way that we know he should look.
**Lee:** You don't need to do.
**Adam:** What I think, I think weirdly enough, as well, is because at that point, you're like, he's an excellent mimic, but the mask somehow helps the fact that his lips are fucked.
**Adam:** Because like you say, when he when he's in sort of like his O Naturall form.
**Adam:** Which actually that that was another thing, I think I saw that it was they thought they were going to get PG 13 for this.
**Adam:** And actually it does the one thing that is missing for something that would be an 87 horror film is nudity.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, I was actually expecting a little bit from the way it was going.
**Adam:** And a lot of the kills are not quite they're not horrific.
**Adam:** You know what I mean.
**Chris:** No, they are.
**Adam:** They're very comedic or they're sort of done like the electrocution is quite OTT.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And reflective of the the movie that they are watching and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But I think genuinely, I think it's that makeup that probably tipped it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because the makeup is really fucking it's terrific, it's a real look.
**Adam:** You know, and I think it's sort of probably rang too many sort of Freddy Krueger bells.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I was getting a little bit of that.
**Adam:** Clare put it, it was like, well, you either have the mask but not the burnt eyes or you have the eyes but not the mask.
**Adam:** Because altogether, it really is, you know, that's a.
**Chris:** It's memorable enough.
**Adam:** You know, that's a a real shocking sort of look.
**Adam:** And it has to be said, I mean Tom Villard.
**Adam:** Like who the the killer, Toby.
**Adam:** is fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** And once he once he's sort of outed as the killer and he's given free reign.
**Adam:** He is fucking extraordinary.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He is really, really good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** but I mean it's cuz he he died about three years later.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** yeah, he died died of AIDS which he'd actually he wasn't, he told the, he told the director.
**Adam:** But he hadn't been telling anyone because obviously in terms of like film, like insurance and things like that, you know, you could not as an actor, you would not get you would not be able to work.
**Adam:** And so he'd kept it obviously he was trying to keep it to himself but he sort of opened up and told the director.
**Adam:** I think out of courtesy more than anything else that it was just so but
**Adam:** But it's such a shame because he's so good in it and you know, plays just the right level of over the top for a villain for this.
**Adam:** Because it really becomes sort of Grand Guignol at the end.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's I think he would have gone on, you know, he would have gone on to have quite a good career.
**Adam:** I mean the stuff where he's doing like sort of puppet arms and things like that as well where you're like, you know, he's an incredible like physical actor and so sort of like tall and extraordinary looking that it's sort of like yeah, he would have been you feel he would have like been.
**Adam:** He probably would have been.
**Adam:** A lot of villains.
**Adam:** And a lot of memorable ones as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He does, he's got that California look about him as well, doesn't he, that works quite well in in Hollywood in the nineties.
**Lee:** So, yeah, I I think, yeah, I think he would have gone on to do really well.
**Lee:** But I mean, yeah, he's excellent in this.
**Lee:** And and you say, I love I love the the way that he he changes so much when he stops being the character of Toby, and then just becomes and that's when he starts, he starts seeing it all fall apart as soon as he's got the mask off and people know.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** It it it's yeah, it's really, really good.
**Lee:** And I've I've seen this film probably three or four times and I had forgotten that it was him, so I watched it the whole time thinking as you're supposed to, that it was the bloke who body was never found from the initial.
**Chris:** The old lanyard gate.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Only when Toby sits down and puts his arm around Maggie that I was like, oh, hang on a minute, there's something not right with this.
**Lee:** Yeah, then that's when it all come flooding back to me.
**Lee:** I was like, oh shit, yeah, it is him.
**Adam:** It.
**Adam:** And it's quite it's quite nice that it's a sort of double step reveal because it starts off she's having the dreams, then they see the the movie and she realizes it's not dreams, it's memories.
**Adam:** And at that point, you're like, all right, so she's the little girl in the dream, blah, blah, blah.
**Adam:** And that feels like we've blown your twist quite early.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But not not that it's a twist, but you know what I mean, you've you've blown the sort of like uncovering thing.
**Chris:** Yeah, we definitely know what's going on now, but.
**Adam:** And then they spent so long misdirecting you and then it's like, oh, nothing to do with this, you know, what he he is the cause of this.
**Adam:** But, you know, he is dead, and this person this other person just happened to be the misfortune to be there.
**Adam:** And sort of go on from there.
**Adam:** And it's actually quite nice that you've got that sort of because you like I say, you think, oh, well, it's a bit bit basic.
**Adam:** And it's like, oh, no, actually, now you've gone you've gone.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's a lot of film for 91 minutes as well.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** You.
**Adam:** You get almost.
**Adam:** And that's the thing, apart from apart from the stench, unfortunately.
**Adam:** You but you you get you you see a lot of the other two films.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And and and they are perfect.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because they they are the right sort of thing.
**Adam:** Where it's like, no, we've got you know, wooden performances or sort of, you know, sort of bits where it's like, well.
**Adam:** If it wasn't for the intervention of God.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah.
**Adam:** These are absolutely perfect and the fact that you watch an audience.
**Adam:** watching them as you do watch you you would be at a film festival watching these old like Return of the Fly or.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** What.
**Adam:** Whatever it is.
**Lee:** And I love that, I mean, I think the closest we've ever been was when we went to the John Carpenter all nighter at the Prince Charles.
**Lee:** But that that like it's films that everybody knows and you've all seen them, so you're all going to shout at the screen and you're all going to throw popcorn at one another.
**Lee:** Like I love that.
**Lee:** And I I just wish that that were a real thing.
**Lee:** But yeah, I think in my now 40 something head, all I kept thinking the whole time they were frying that popcorn was.
**Lee:** Someone's got to clean all that shit up at the end of the night.
**Lee:** Like it.
**Lee:** It's going to be everywhere, that's going to be a nightmare.
**Lee:** What are you going to do?
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Chris:** Probably makes that place smell better, but.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's true, yeah.
**Adam:** Give it give it back the old feeling.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah, so yeah, always it is always a fun watch this film.
**Lee:** And I think it's why I go back to it quite often, but yeah, like you were saying, Chris, it's it is one of those, I think that's why I forget the twist.
**Lee:** Because this is a late night movie for me, this is the I should be going to bed.
**Lee:** But I've got a half an hour left, so I'm going to chuck something on for an hour.
**Lee:** yeah, because you can just come in and just enjoy it, and if you don't get to the end, it doesn't matter, you've had a nice, you know, you had a nice half an hour getting there.
**Lee:** So, yeah, so I think that's why I've.
**Lee:** I I go for it quite often and again, it's that whole, I love the old cinema look and feel and that.
**Lee:** So, yeah, so it's just a like comfort food movie for me, really, this one.
**Lee:** So
**Adam:** And I can I can see that.
**Adam:** But then I but also and this is the bit where it gets controversial.
**Adam:** Prefer it to Scream.
**Lee:** Oh, do you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Cuz we did.
**Chris:** We didn't we covered Scream fairly recently.
**Chris:** I mean, it's probably about 10 years ago now, but it feels fairly recently still.
**Chris:** But and and.
**Adam:** Every 18 months for the past two 1998.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But I did actually quite enjoy watching that again.
**Chris:** I mean, I hadn't seen it, I probably had only seen Scream once or twice.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** So I I still kind of liked that.
**Chris:** I did quite like the similarities.
**Chris:** It was also the other one was Who Framed Roger Rabbit because there's a bit of a manic twist to a Christopher Lloyd.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, I've not seen that in a very long time.
**Lee:** I could rewatch that, I think.
**Lee:** I think I saw that at the cinema when it first came out.
**Lee:** I might have seen it once or twice since then.
**Chris:** But yeah, I can remember being young enough when I saw it at the cinema and that was a bit a bit of a bigger twist than I was expecting.
**Adam:** This is something that I've seen come up, maybe we'll get people to, we'll have to get we'll we'll discuss it off air.
**Adam:** But I know that Roger Rabbit comes up as a child horror.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Chris:** I mean, it felt a bit.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's a bit where you're like, actually, this is a bit fucking much.
**Chris:** When he was in the steam boiler and he's like and he's gone proper manic.
**Chris:** You like what.
**Adam:** I know that it's quite that level.
**Adam:** But yeah, maybe we'll have to look into this and you know, we'll find these ones where it's not they're not necessarily a horror film, but they they have particularly kids films because they'll be.
**Chris:** Some shocking moments.
**Adam:** And and I mean, let's face it, kids films and fucking like the the orphaning being orphaned and everything else like that, you know, I mean, that's like part and parcel.
**Adam:** I mean, Disney wipes out families sort of left right center.
**Adam:** You know, that's that's almost the thing, he's like, no, make make sure they're an orphan.
**Adam:** Come on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Mild peril, my fucking ass.
**Lee:** I'm so.
**Lee:** so, speaking of mild peril, we will be should apologize again for the fact that we took we missed an episode, yes, it's been the school holidays.
**Chris:** Long time.
**Lee:** So we've all been really busy and honestly.
**Lee:** We just couldn't find time, I know that sounds ridiculous.
**Lee:** But we couldn't find a time for the three of us to sit down and get together for an entire two weeks.
**Lee:** so, yes, we do apologize about that.
**Lee:** But hopefully, you're all out doing things.
**Lee:** In the middle of the crazy heat and everything anyway, so you won't have missed us too much.
**Lee:** It's fine.
**Lee:** But yes, so to make it up for to you, we're going to be back in a fortnight's time and we are finally.
**Lee:** I can't believe we haven't done it yet and I say that all the time.
**Lee:** We are going to be coming back to discuss Baba Hotep.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** yeah, I mean, just so looking forward to.
**Lee:** Again, this is one of those films, I really, really enjoy, but I don't know why it doesn't come off the shelf as much as it should.
**Adam:** I haven't seen it for a long time.
**Adam:** I'm hoping that it that's not going to be like a reaction to, I don't think it is, but, you know, it will be interesting to watch.
**Adam:** And I again, it's one is for me, it's one of the list of stuff.
**Adam:** Oh, I really have why have I not shown Clare.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Baba Hoep.
**Adam:** You know, cuz cuz that's face it, this is more than this is more than a horror film.
**Adam:** This is a concept.
**Adam:** And a fucking extraordinary one.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** Unbelievable.
**Lee:** I mean, yeah.
**Lee:** How he.
**Lee:** How he came up with it, I will never know, but I'm very glad he did.
**Lee:** Because I think it was one of those things when Adam first told me about it coming out and what it was going to be about, I don't think I believed him.
**Lee:** I think I felt that he was winding me up.
**Lee:** Because it sounded so completely impossible as a.
**Lee:** Nobody's going to fund that, nobody's going to make that movie.
**Lee:** Well, they did, and we're going to watch it and discuss it in two weeks time.
**Chris:** Oh, I'm definitely looking forward to that.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** I take it you've not seen it before, Chris.
**Chris:** No, I just remember both of you talking about it excitedly, probably several times, you lucky bastard.
**Lee:** You lucky bastard.
**Adam:** You lucky.
**Lee:** You lucky bastard.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Thank you so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out Popcorn from 1991.
**Lee:** go and check out Baba Hoep.
**Lee:** Because we will be spoiling the absolute life out of it.
**Lee:** and we will see you in a fortnigh's time.
**Lee:** Thanks very much.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Hat and Hat.

---

## Ep 229 Happy Ending

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-229-happy-ending/
Air date: 2 August 2025
Duration: 00:33:57

### Description

We present a spoiler free look at director Jennifer Wolfe’s debut feature “Happy Ending”. A couple losing the spark in their relationship seek advice from friends who recommend a trip to a massage parlour with “extras”. An already uneasy and awkward visit for the pair is reflected in the back rooms of the parlour, where the workers are troubled by their situation and the obsessive attentions of a dangerous former customer. Events spiral into an eruption of chaos and violence, drawing everyone into the maelstrom. Whilst that may sound like pure thriller fare, what sets “Happy Ending” apart is that it’s also extremely funny; our two main leads are engaging and realistic, their comfortable but strained partnership brings the laughs as they navigate their way through the tribulations of their relationship, and, latterly, attempt to get out of the deadly situation alive. A big thank you to Jennifer Wolfe for reaching out to us (on recommendation from previous guest, “Bampire” director Zoë Wassman) and giving us the opportunity to view this excellent comedy/thriller. “Happy Ending” is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Plex and Fandango ar Home, and we urge you to seek it out!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here this evening with swearing and probably not too many spoilers because this is a new film out this year. we are discovering discovering, discussing 2025's Happy Ending. for those who are in any way unsure because there seem to be a lot of films out this year with this it is the Jennifer Wolf directed, written by Jennifer Wolf and Corey Moss.
**Lee:** who contacted us and asked if we'd be interested in covering this film and yeah, here we are. So,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Big big shout out to Jennifer, thanks for getting in touch with us and offering us the chance to view the film.
**Chris:** and also big shout out to she's friends with Zoe Weman who we interviewed about vampire that's still in production so, yeah, she's sort of passed on and said oh, you know, Welcome to Horror.
**Chris:** So thanks to Zoe and yeah, again, thanks thanks for reaching out, Jennifer, it's yeah, a real privilege to whenever anyone sort of asks us to review to view their stuff, you know, and a look at it on the show.
**Lee:** Absolutely and I've got to say right off the bat that, you know, I know I've said before, my love of horror generally is more like the supernatural end and the you know, the slasher that just people being awful to one another generally rubs me up the wrong way, but
**Lee:** I thought this was excellent, I really enjoyed this, I think because the two main characters were so engaging and so genuine, it really drew me in and and engaged me in a way that I was like, I genuinely care about these two people.
**Chris:** Yeah, character development really was very good for almost all the characters.
**Chris:** Before before we go any further, can I just can I just make one suggestion, if you feel that I or any of us, if you feel like the person speaking is edging towards a spoiler,
**Chris:** just use the safe word cucumber and we'll back back and come away from that.
**Chris:** So, very quickly.
**Lee:** yeah, so for anyone who wants to see this film, it is currently already available on Amazon, it's on Plex, it's on via, so it's it's out there and you can get your hands on it for immediate streaming.
**Lee:** yes, so Chris, what did you make of this film?
**Chris:** Yeah, so I I've thought this before, when you read the title and a short synopsis, you can't help but be set up based on your previous experiences to expect something.
**Chris:** And as we mentioned last last episode, when I asked about exploitation, I really thought there was going to be an amount of that in this.
**Chris:** And as you're going through, it got better and better to the point where you're thinking they've really captured something here that I was not expecting and developed it, so yeah, I love the premise and it had me on the edge.
**Chris:** there's something about the the filming was very intimate and I kept thinking this is going to move into eroticism proper, right?
**Lee:** It was never felt like,
**Chris:** No, like it really really done.
**Chris:** It balanced it so well.
**Chris:** There could be a very trashy version of this film.
**Chris:** And that's that's that's not to take away if, you know, if trash is what they want, that's what they can have.
**Chris:** They've got some grittiness in it though, they've they've still achieved like proper, edgy, horrific, you know, parts, scenes, but yeah, does not feel trashy at all.
**Chris:** So, I think for obviously we will avoid spoilers and so just to give the viewers an idea.
**Chris:** so, the premise is that you've got the couple, Brin and Ezra, and they're sort of clearly their relationship's lost some of its spark or it's lost some, you know, they're and they are sort of getting in a position between themselves of, you know, is this relationship actually working, are we are we after the same things within it?
**Chris:** And I'm going to say, right, I'm not hoping I'm not suggesting I'm exactly like them, but I thought I thought they felt realistic to me.
**Lee:** 100%.
**Chris:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah, they really did, like the the the way they discussed their and the bits that they scared, yeah, did feel like,
**Chris:** the kind of the mistakes, but also the attempts to try and understand each other, it's like, yeah, that's that is definitely how that could play out.
**Chris:** And and then they they go to dinner with two nauseatingly intimate friends and sort of like so they sort of and those friends suggest that if they're losing some of that intimacy or excitement in the relationship, they went to a massage parlor and basically a massive parlor offering happy endings and then the relationship just bloomed from there.
**Chris:** So the couple go to the go to this massage parlor but they happen to coincide with one of the girls who works there, Joy, is being stalked by a former client who's become obsessed with her.
**Chris:** And the there's And if I just want to say, even up to this point, right, there's been a few nice little twists where they're leading you somewhere where you think you're going to, and it's like, it's not quite, but then that also twists a little bit, and it's like, and there's a lot of foreshadowing I thought for quite a lot of the the sort of twists, but yeah, still even more.
**Lee:** It's subtle you could there and they're all subtle that you don't you like one of these is going to become the through line and you don't know which one it's going to be.
**Chris:** So you're kind of hooked, you know, even at this point.
**Chris:** And they and they all join up as well, there's because there's there's a particular part of it that seems random that then comes in still randomly at the end, but it means that there is a a point to it but to to the to it being there.
**Chris:** but basically yeah, so they go to the massage parlor at the same time, one of the girls is having this terrible problem with this stalker and one of the other girls decides once this guy's come in and sort of like thrown his weight around that she's going to teach him a lesson and sort of spirals from there.
**Chris:** So that's and yeah, so that's that that's the premise of that's the the plot of it that I think is so yeah.
**Chris:** And they managed to flesh out far more than that suggests.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It does, again, it's one of those there's an awful lot of movie in the air and 40 minutes, there's a lot of things going on.
**Lee:** And it like it did, it keep, I, it was one of those ones where I got an hour and an half in and thought, I haven't even looked at my phone.
**Lee:** Like I I'm a nightmare for that, like I I won't text or anything, but I do every 15 minutes I'll pick it up and just make sure I'm not missing.
**Lee:** And yeah, and we nearly got to the end and I thought, I haven't even touched, he's just sat there, I've just been absolutely engrossed.
**Lee:** and it looked gorgeous.
**Lee:** That was as well.
**Lee:** It really well and, you know, I know we've said whenever we cover indie films, we always say you have to make allowances for sound quality because that's something that's really difficult, there was none of that.
**Chris:** Great soundscapes, great music matched, brought out the atmosphere just right.
**Chris:** The the soundtrack I really want the soundtrack.
**Chris:** and and actually the the guy who the guy who plays Ezra like the in the main couple, also wrote the song that's at the end.
**Adam:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** All right, nice.
**Chris:** So, but Bradford Downs.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah, who who I believe it's also he's also one of the producers on it as well.
**Chris:** So,
**Chris:** but but yeah, I think that there's cuz there's a cuz at first I was kind of like there was a part of me that was sort of the back, for want of a better expression, back stage at the massage parlor.
**Chris:** is obviously not as, you know, overtly comic as the main relationship, you feel like you could be watching a a good sitcom.
**Lee:** The opening couple of minutes with them doing their own little you know, try to get in the mood for the other one secretly and him looking at anime and really bad erotica that just makes her laugh.
**Lee:** And then thing with the shoe and his like really made me laugh out loud, that really got me.
**Lee:** yeah, so it does, it kind of sets you up and puts you at ease.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But the backstage at the massage parlor stuff's a bit sort of more tense, it's more sort of and,
**Chris:** and I think because there was a part thinking, that's a bit disjointed and then the other part just went, yeah, but that's the bloody point in so much as their relationship difficulties, you know, that that is comic because it is the fables of two people together, whereas actually the the genuine grim reality of, you know, what's happening in in the massage parlor and for the women working there and everything.
**Chris:** And it sort of like, oh yeah, there ain't going to be much there ain't going to be many laughs or, you know, zingers at that point, you know.
**Lee:** The the discrepancy between front of house and back of house in a place like that has got to be night and day, I'd imagine, I mean.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I've never been front or back of house, I'd like to point out, but I would imagine it would be a scenario just like this.
**Lee:** That's too long a pause guys, fucking hell, come on, don't drop.
**Lee:** Don't leave me there.
**Chris:** For the benefits of the tape, no one was like hand signaling at that point.
**Chris:** You know, doing doing zip across the mouth movements or anything like that, you know.
**Chris:** Cuz I cuz I think cuz weirdly enough, I think the trailer doesn't bring that out into it, the trailer is very much on the sort of thriller tone of it and it loses what are, you know, genuinely, a genuinely funny, see.
**Chris:** Cuz that was the thing is it started off and you're sort of like, you're not sure where it's going and she's reading the erotica and it was like, oh, he's his dick was as big as a shoe and then I laughed and then she laughed and did, but and it was like, right, okay, now we're fine.
**Chris:** You know what I mean, we're in the I I we know where the tone is, we know that they know that that's not great, you know what I mean?
**Chris:** And it sort of, yeah.
**Chris:** But I I found I also found I thought that again, it's what we often get with independent movies, it's very small cast but in no way shape or form does that detract from it, if anything, it's such a help.
**Chris:** Yeah, because there's it's it's a it's a it's a cast with no, you know, there's there's nothing there that's there's no one there who's just filling in a role or, you know, sort of.
**Chris:** I suppose only only the characters like the sort of a landlord or someone who's, do you know what I mean?
**Chris:** Like maybe the friends at the dinner party, but they played their role and that was right.
**Chris:** They didn't need to come back.
**Lee:** The smaller cast almost made it feel claustrophobic when they were stuck in there and couldn't they were stuck in that building with all the things that were going on.
**Chris:** But the dialogue between all of them and and their interactions did seem that was really good like throughout.
**Chris:** You know, that's that again seem realistic and yeah, it really worked for that environment.
**Lee:** Yeah, it it it did.
**Lee:** And and yeah, I I I just thought it was really well scripted as well, there wasn't there wasn't anything that felt yeah, I don't know, like it was trying to push a plot point, it all felt like genuine discussions as well.
**Lee:** Which is another thing you get quite a lot is the the conversations between two people when you're thinking one of them already knows this and the other one must be aware.
**Lee:** How are you It like it it managed to skirt that quite nicely and make it all feel like it was a natural work environment really.
**Chris:** And I thought especially I sort of noticed that kind of thing with the sort of profound learning element that happens with with one of the characters about halfway through.
**Chris:** And I thought how are they going to deal with that, is it going to be too cheesy, you know, but actually, again, it seemed to me kind of reasonable, it it was again unfolded it didn't feel too forced.
**Chris:** No, that had a natural feel to.
**Chris:** And and just to double check, did you guys see the post credit sequence?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** Right.
**Lee:** No, I didn't either.
**Chris:** Right, so because I wanted to double check because I wanted to make sure Thanos didn't turn up at the end.
**Chris:** That is all I'm ever going to say about when I fast forward through, you know, I just didn't want to miss, you know, or whatever, actually probably more than anything and shows my age more is I just didn't want to I don't want to miss Don Deloise getting slapped like the end of Canon Ball Run or smoking a bandage films, you know.
**Chris:** but no, so, and there's they do have a little bit and again, not going to spoil it because but for you guys, there's a there's a sort of thing of, oh, here's our lives now and it's like, oh no, yeah, they have learned and they are closer and yeah, and I will, well, I'll reveal to you off camera what actually happens at that point, but, but yeah.
**Chris:** So, do for anyone listening, do stick around for the end credits because it's not it's not like a it's not a end of carry thing or anything like that, but it's just a little addendum that you go, actually that's really I'm really glad you've put that in, but also I know why you've done it because it's it's it adds it adds an emotional conclusion rather than a punchline or sort of, you know, like a sort of right, we're we're done, you know, or whatever like that.
**Lee:** Oh, excellent.
**Lee:** Oh, that's good, I'll definitely be going and check it out when we finish recording.
**Adam:** More to enjoy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But yeah, that's I think I think we need to start, I think people need to start flagging movies.
**Chris:** I think they should have.
**Chris:** Actually, what am I talking about, all I need I'm assuming that I Google that some bless them some obsessive will have made a comprehensive list of all films that have bits after the credits.
**Chris:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's the thing, the amount of times I've been stung with something I expect to have something at the end of the credits and I've sat through eight minutes and then nothing and I go, oh, shit, I'm not doing that again.
**Lee:** Yeah, so so something like this didn't feel like it was going to, but I'm very glad that it it did because sometimes, yeah, it's just that little extra bit that it doesn't need to be there, but it's just that little extra thing, thank you, just at the end, and I do appreciate it, so
**Lee:** Yeah, I'll definitely go and watch that.
**Chris:** And I think I'm I mean, it's I mean, certainly, I don't think there's.
**Chris:** I mean, the cast are all fantastic and like we said, you've got the the central couple that it's such a it's such a it feels such a real relationship, you know, there's no it really does feel like you're watching two people like who have been together.
**Chris:** Cuz that's the interesting thing as well is I don't think they specify how long they've been together, just they've been together a while, you know, it's not and so it allows you to read into that, you know, what you consider that, you know, oh, they've been together for years or they've been together for months or whatever, you know, so it's sort of, yeah.
**Chris:** So I liked I I liked that element to it.
**Chris:** But I think that like the the rest of the cast, I mean, the stalker is you know, he feels like from another movie.
**Chris:** He's just sort of terrifyingly horrible.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** and but in that lovely way that it's like, great, I'm not having to wait for the end of this film to see this guy get what's coming to him.
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** You know, it he gets it that's the kickoff.
**Chris:** Cuz I think I thought we were going to get a bit more assault on massage parlor 13, rather than it's like, oh, this person who is actually, you know, there there's there's the character who Victoria who deals with who who is the person who kicks off the events like that and but then becomes the villain or become, you know, becomes the threat having dealt with the threat, which is interesting as well.
**Chris:** It's a much more fascinating way of doing it and yeah, I just think that there is like you said, Chris.
**Chris:** I think it's something where you're like this could but because there are plenty of like, oh my God moments in it or sort of like, call me, you know, whoa.
**Chris:** There's a couple of those moments in it, but it's not, yeah, trashy is the only word I can use, you know, it doesn't.
**Chris:** You know, this film could have been made in 1982, but my God, would it have a fucking awful reputation and you know, be sort of, you know, it would be one where sort of like people are like, yeah, no, that don't that don't hold well, you know, this is this is this is just grim.
**Lee:** It'd be one of those films that somehow has more pairs of boobs than people in it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** How is it got 12 pairs of boobs and eight actors, I don't understand how they've managed to squeeze it in, but somehow they always seem to, yeah.
**Lee:** But it did, it totally avoided it.
**Lee:** Again, like similar to the film I covered on our last episode on the what we've been watching, that horny house of horror, the story was actually very, very similar to this and although it went more for comedy and like super over the top goal, the story was was fairly close to it.
**Lee:** And I found it the same, I went in thinking, is this going to be a funny enjoyable film or is it going to be just exploitative ta.
**Lee:** And both times I was surprised by.
**Lee:** Because you do, you hear the word, it's a horror film in a massage parlor and you're immediately going, it's going to go one or two ways, this is going to be funny or it's just going to be filth and I.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's just.
**Lee:** And both times I've been pleasantly surprised, so yeah.
**Chris:** Maybe maybe we've discovered a whole new sub genre.
**Adam:** The class here time.
**Chris:** Yeah, classy massage parlor horror.
**Chris:** That's what we.
**Lee:** So horny house of horror was not classy, this was, that wasn't.
**Lee:** I loved it but he was in no way classy.
**Chris:** And that's the thing with this, I mean, certainly, I mean, direction wise, I mean, it looks great and.
**Chris:** There's again that sort of that sort of difference between them at home that is very sort of straightforward, the back of the parlor which gets almost documentary style.
**Chris:** And then goes Grand Guignol and, you know, then and almost sort of like, you know, goes susperia with lots of filters and sort of, you know, really sort of like stark lighting and things like that and yeah, which is, you know, and very indicative of the characters spiraling into this fucking chaos.
**Chris:** and just the the the sort of I I think if anything, I think you know, it it's really weird to see it like you know, you've been aware of what is going wrong utterly that the main two characters done.
**Chris:** You know, they they are it's literally they're doing another film and they're mapped on top of this by accident.
**Chris:** They just happen to go to the, you know, sort of like disgruntle slasher parlor.
**Chris:** That unfortunate timing, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it take and I love I love the sort of the bits where they're talking at cross purposes.
**Chris:** So, so Ezra's accusing Brin of like having an affair or playing away or whatever like that.
**Chris:** But she's literally just seen a murder and is trying to tell and he's like, no, you're you're trying to get out of this.
**Chris:** And it's like and, you know, just the sort of, no, I've, you know, and it's I've just seen something fucking awful.
**Chris:** And cannot get it out because it's so, you know, such a thing.
**Chris:** But yeah, and it just again, plays wonderfully the humor of it as well.
**Chris:** And then cuz I mean the one thing I was going, I mean with also at one point I was just very much, fuck Ezra, you know, because I no, because I thought it's sort of like, nah, you're you're getting a bit you're getting a bit of a prick about this.
**Chris:** But he's actually a prick learning to not be a prick, which is, you know, that's that's good.
**Chris:** Because usually, especially in a horror film, people don't learn, they just pay for it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You know, He very nearly did like no, but, you know,
**Chris:** there is a there is a there is redemption here.
**Chris:** It's not.
**Lee:** Yeah, he does have a story ark as opposed.
**Chris:** Yeah, you can you can pull yourself out of this attitude or mindset that clearly the another character clearly has been unable to.
**Chris:** You know, and sort of gone down a far darker fucking path.
**Chris:** So, yeah, no, I think it's yeah, and oh it's because I also got a serious 90s vibe from it, which is in no way a bad fucking thing from me.
**Chris:** Because I was young in the 90s and I look at it fondly like it was the best time in the world because I was still capable of sleeping for a night without having to get up for a wee.
**Chris:** So, you know.
**Chris:** It was yeah, I liked I liked that aesthetic to it.
**Chris:** Because certainly like the exterior stuff or anything else like that, I felt it had that sort of, you know, when everyone was shooting in Vancouver in the 90s.
**Chris:** Yeah, because it was cheaper.
**Chris:** but and obviously this is Portland in Oregon that this is filmed in.
**Chris:** incidentally, I can only hear that as Portland, Oregon because of Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me.
**Chris:** So that's.
**Chris:** But that that's that's just a personal thing.
**Chris:** But I have to say, I mean, for me, I don't absolutely no spoilers, but there was a let's just say there was a joke about 9/11 in it that really fucking got me.
**Chris:** So, and that that may sound wrong for people, but it's not not in any way shape or form inappropriate, but just, yeah, again.
**Chris:** It had a tasteful 9/11 joke.
**Chris:** There you go.
**Lee:** Not often you can say that.
**Lee:** Yeah, so yeah, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Jennifer Wolf does moving forward because,
**Lee:** Yeah, I I really enjoyed this and as I say, it didn't it felt really well constructed, it had lots going on, it had lots of red herrings and misdirection.
**Lee:** yeah, which I always that is quite often you do find that with people's earlier work, it takes them a while to get confident to to flesh it out and sometimes it almost feels a little bit too linear, but this didn't have that.
**Lee:** It felt it felt, yeah, like and as you say until maybe 45 minutes, 50 minutes in, you had no idea who somebody is going to fuck all this up, you know that that's going to happen, you just don't know which of the volatile people is going to be.
**Lee:** Yeah, which is why I just, yeah, I found it, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.
**Lee:** I say, because I cared about the main characters and there was a lot of dangerous shit going on that as you said, Adam, that the the main characters were entirely oblivious to because they were just shut in a room on their own and all this was going on around outside.
**Lee:** So, yeah, it it just, yeah, I I've really enjoyed it.
**Chris:** And I loved I loved Ezra's sort of chat with Joy where you felt that it was trying to sort of do a profound thing and then just in the end it was like, look,
**Chris:** it's not all about you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** with him sort of just I get that you're trying to tell me something, but you know.
**Lee:** That would be me, that would me, you have to keep dumm it down until you literally explain it in words of one syllable.
**Chris:** And and visual representation and diagram, like.
**Chris:** I feel I've always felt this is why I could never be involved with criminal activity, because when it's you know, so yeah, that will be we're collecting collecting the fish on Friday, that does mean we're doing the bank job on Friday.
**Chris:** Just be clear.
**Chris:** Now I'm not wearing a wire, but you know, this is all a bit vague for me and I need, you know, I need clear sign posting.
**Lee:** I am very Mr. Jolly lives next door, if someone says take him out, I think you mean take him out to dinner, that's me.
**Chris:** Oh no.
**Chris:** You're Dorchester, yeah, that's it.
**Lee:** We get to take out Nicholas Parsons.
**Chris:** I I I mean, I was going through I was going through the cast IMDB, must confess there was there were not a lot of stuff that I I recognized, but Zoe Rose Kersey who plays Victoria, who is you know, the the character who let's say takes matters into her own hands.
**Chris:** I think that's what someone I think that's how the the the blurp for it reads or the synopsis for it reads or something.
**Chris:** she's apparently in she's like one of the main characters in a YouTube series called Good at Everything.
**Chris:** but also in a podcast that sounds called it's getting late, which looks like sort of like Southern Gothic horror sort of podcast.
**Chris:** that might be worth checking in.
**Chris:** Yeah, sounds good.
**Chris:** and absolutely cuz we've already said Bradford Downs, but Lex Helgerson, the pair of them are just so so good.
**Chris:** And need to be famous and more and, you know, cuz I think they could really sort of that they just together, they were just brilliant.
**Chris:** They you just felt like you're flying a wall for a couple, you know, you you've accidentally stumbled into the kitchen during a party while they're having a row.
**Chris:** Sort of, you know, like I'm going to I'll just I'll just get me drinking and go, you know, so.
**Chris:** But also I have to say China Ray shirts Dash who's one of the other women in the massage parlor, really glad she made it to the end.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** You know, because she was absolutely fantastic and and weirdly enough, I think because she was she was the level voice of that end of the story.
**Chris:** That yeah, again, I think she did a lot of, you know, a lot of great work and probably became my favorite character at one point by the end of it, I think so, yeah.
**Chris:** But yeah, all in all.
**Lee:** It was again, it was another one of those films where there were no weak links.
**Lee:** Like there was nobody in it who every time they come on, you you know, you cringe or you go, oh, no, like everyone was solid.
**Lee:** Which again, we've we've lower budget stuff as we've said, sometimes can be a thing that you have to make allowances for and I didn't find that once during this.
**Lee:** It was all everything looked perfect, sounded perfect, the acting was awesome, I loved all the soundtrack and the the the music and stuff, yeah, it just it it was a perfectly constructed film.
**Lee:** And I was surprised how much I enjoyed it for a film, which as I say, is a a film about people being pricks, really.
**Chris:** Cuz that was because what, you know, before before we having watched it, I was like, nope, I think I'm pretty sure I know that the guys will have enjoyed this.
**Chris:** But at first I was sort of like, oh, is it going to sort of, is it going to certainly like in your wheelhouse, like you say, Lee, I thought, is it going to be, you know, on that, on what we knew of the plot, you know, obviously, you know, and it was sort of always that going to that might not be in his wheelhouse.
**Chris:** So I'm glad you had as good a time watching it as we all did, you know, so.
**Lee:** I I honestly, I think I will be going back to and rewatching this in the next six months or so because I was watching it and kind of taking notes and now I know where it goes, I I'd like to go back and rewatch it again, you know, you know, a bit like once you know the end to go back and.
**Chris:** I don't think that does spoil it, I think there is still a lot to really enjoy on a second watch.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah, so yeah, fantastic.
**Lee:** Thoroughly enjoyed that, excellent job.
**Lee:** so, thank you again, thank you so much Jennifer for reaching out and giving us a chance to see this film.
**Lee:** It definitely isn't something I would ever have picked off the shelf to watch because I thought it wouldn't have been my type of thing at all, but it it absolutely was and I had an absolute blast watching it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, yeah, fantastic work, can't wait to see what you do next.
**Chris:** Expectations subverted.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so, ladies and gentlemen, I say we've told you where you can go and see that, so just to repeat it, it is available on Amazon, Fandango, VR and Plex, so you can go and watch it in all of those places.
**Lee:** we will be back in a Fortnight's time when we will be discussing popcorn.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** just to bring up the year to make sure that you're all watching the correct popcorn.
**Chris:** 90.
**Adam:** One.
**Lee:** I think it is 1991, yes.
**Chris:** There we go.
**Lee:** yeah, another horror set in a movie theater and oh God, I love this film.
**Lee:** I'm I'm I'm sure I'll mention it in the episode.
**Lee:** But I think this is one Lady Jennifer picked up in a pound bin somewhere in like a cash goes or something and just brought it home and went, that's got an awful cover, you'll probably watch, you'll probably enjoy it this.
**Lee:** Oh, and it just went into my top 50 movies immediately as soon as I saw it.
**Lee:** It's incredible.
**Chris:** See, I'm excited to rewatch it because I've only seen it yours.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Chris:** Yeah, I've only seen it that the one time at yours, yeah, so.
**Lee:** what a gem, what a gem.
**Lee:** Right, so, thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out happy ending from this year, absolutely amazing and we will see you in a Fortnight's time for popcorn.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 228 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-228-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 20 July 2025
Duration: 00:36:18

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The We Have Been Watching Master Plan”. It’s one of our semi-regular rundowns of all the visuals we’ve been spaffing into our eye globes, betwixt our regularly scheduled programming. We discuss “The Devil’s Rejects” (2005); “Sinners” (2025); “Dellamorte Dellamore” (aka “Cemetery Man” 1994); “The Autopsy of Jane Doe” (2016); “The Monkey” (2025); BFI Southbank’s screening of Sophie Sleigh-Johnson’s “Code Damp: Experimenta Mixtape” and some honourable mentions. There should be no need to prep for this ep, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening for a roundup of what we've been watching.
**Lee:** There will potentially be be spoilers, there will probably be swearing.
**Lee:** I think that's everything we need to warn about.
**Lee:** Before we get into what we've been watching, Adam, would you like to tell people about what happened this weekend, our little excursion?
**Adam:** What do you mean when we got arrested? Oh no, sorry, the other.
**Adam:** Yes, we, yeah, we want to thank everyone who joined us, we had an invite only screening at Romford's Lumiere cinema.
**Adam:** We supported them, they had a crowd funder and one of the tiers that you could go for was.
**Adam:** being able to have a private screening, so we went for that.
**Adam:** but mostly to support premier because we like the cinema and it, you know, it's a great place to go.
**Adam:** sorry, Lumiere.
**Adam:** Did I say Lumiere first?
**Lee:** You did.
**Chris:** I was like, oh, he's got it, he got it right that time, that was good.
**Adam:** I got it right first time, that's better.
**Adam:** Get it right, don't get it right second time.
**Adam:** That's that's the rules of bomb disposal, isn't it?
**Adam:** But, yes, obviously, yeah, the Lumiere cinema.
**Adam:** We sort of thoroughly recommend it to everyone.
**Adam:** It's a great little place independent cinema.
**Adam:** And we had a screening there for various guests, thanks to everyone who could come, thanks to everyone who we invited who wasn't able to make it.
**Adam:** But, you know, we understand because it's not the easiest thing to get to Romford from various points around the country and so on and so forth.
**Chris:** Quite easy for mine and yet somehow I still didn't manage it.
**Adam:** there you go.
**Adam:** So, you know, if if Chris can't be us to show up, we're not going to have a.
**Adam:** And yeah, and we showed Peach's Christ's film all about evil, which we did in 2023.
**Adam:** It's episode 151, I believe.
**Chris:** Bonus points to Adam.
**Adam:** It was only because I looked it up before I was posting about it.
**Adam:** But, yeah, and we had a great time.
**Adam:** And thanks to Lumiere for like the whole team there because it was just brilliant.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it was really well organized and put together.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And apparently we our guests drank a fair bit, so that's that support.
**Adam:** That's there you go, there's there's a lovely way of supporting a local cinema.
**Lee:** which is a.
**Adam:** at the car.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So so we might do it again.
**Lee:** potentially, I say we were chatting to people afterwards because everyone hung out afterwards which was nice.
**Lee:** Yeah, and a couple of people said, oh, you should do it again and maybe, you know, do like watch the film and then stick some recording equipment on and do a quick 30 minutes podcast there and then in the cinema.
**Lee:** Which I thought wasn't a bad idea.
**Lee:** So, something we might look into in future, if we can get enough people together to cover the cost between us and what not.
**Lee:** I think that could be a yeah, could be a good venture, could be a bit of fun.
**Lee:** And yeah, so that's something we'll be looking into in the future.
**Chris:** You're only allowed to do that if you let me at the dungeon that day.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You were given full dungeon access.
**Adam:** Don't don't play up in front of the listener.
**Adam:** You were you were.
**Chris:** They know it's true.
**Chris:** They they can read the subtext.
**Adam:** You had a hall pass.
**Adam:** And you were allowed your one family moment of the year.
**Adam:** The rest of the time you stay in that dungeon, you watch those films.
**Adam:** Young man.
**Chris:** Well behaved.
**Lee:** And on that note, what have you been watching, Chris?
**Lee:** Would you like to kick us off?
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Chris:** Well, I will start off by saying, I've had a fun, borderline traumatic day.
**Chris:** Really, and in the choice of film that I made.
**Chris:** So I'll start by telling you what really happened.
**Chris:** I had our our friends from the colder end of the chessboard decided to visit one of my websites.
**Chris:** and scam me for 300 pounds through a Google service that I it turns out I should have looked down a little more than I did.
**Chris:** not realizing that it was possible to find out the API key.
**Chris:** Now, you know, it's not the worst thing that's ever happened to me.
**Chris:** But Google said they might be able to do a billing readjustment.
**Chris:** Which that sounds like it could be a refund, but you know, we'll find out once I fill in all of the details.
**Lee:** Well, that's not fun.
**Chris:** But well, yeah, you know.
**Chris:** Bad things happen.
**Chris:** Now, so that was a bit traumatic, so I spent the day trying to sort that out.
**Chris:** Luckily, I think I've stopped it, so no more will happen.
**Chris:** But anyway, that'll teach you to read the, you know, the documentation that's long.
**Chris:** But anyway, yeah.
**Chris:** Then I decided to watch the Devil's Rejects today.
**Chris:** Now, I'm just going to look at your your face.
**Chris:** Okay, right.
**Chris:** Now, as I was watching it, I was like, is this the one that Lee hates?
**Chris:** And as some of the scenes came up, I was like, I might hate this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because.
**Chris:** Right, now.
**Chris:** You know, I got I got there's tons of films I could choose to watch.
**Chris:** But I went it onto Shutter and it came up featured.
**Chris:** I was like, oh, yeah.
**Chris:** I mean, the first one was great.
**Chris:** I'm just going to do it.
**Chris:** I'm going to click play.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Chris:** I'm I'm in.
**Chris:** And it starts off and it is it's fun.
**Chris:** And I'm like, oh yeah, I remember these characters.
**Chris:** Great, like this is going to be an entertaining couple of hours.
**Chris:** And then they have the Star Wars discussion scene.
**Chris:** I'm like, this is definitely, I'm well into this.
**Chris:** You know, not for the completely obvious reason that she might do a a Princess Leia scene.
**Chris:** But the fact that they're just chatting like that, you know, yeah, all right, this is going to be it's going to be lots of action, some gore, I did not quite expect the full on, you know, traumatic relentless descent from all angles.
**Chris:** Where it turns out you really don't know whose side you're on.
**Chris:** They're all sometimes got a little bit of good, but everyone's got a lot of bad in them.
**Chris:** And you know, it essentially does turn out that we we did all evolve from filthy monkey men.
**Adam:** it is a it is a very moral free zone.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's that's a nice mile.
**Adam:** You don't really have a you don't really have a protagonist.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** You know, and yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, no.
**Lee:** Well remembered, Chris, it's a yeah, it's one of those.
**Lee:** I love the first one, now the first one is just.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** people being horrible to one another, I do get that, but it's it's in such a an over the top and exaggerated.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** sort of cartoony way.
**Lee:** But yeah, the second one isn't, it's a lot more.
**Chris:** Real.
**Lee:** sort of real and gritty, yeah, and I I did not like that.
**Chris:** And and it it pushed some boundaries further than I.
**Chris:** think I would like them to be pushed as much as I you know, in my mind I think, yeah, I could probably handle watching anything.
**Chris:** But you know, maybe that was like 20 years ago.
**Chris:** Now.
**Chris:** Is is this really what I want to be watching?
**Chris:** But you could probably edit a few of them and be left with.
**Lee:** a good film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, I'm assuming that that was Rob Zombie's aim was to push those boundaries.
**Chris:** But yeah, it's like I haven't watched.
**Chris:** Hostel.
**Chris:** we've talked about saw a few times, getting like like the premise of it.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** I haven't done the first film, don't need to watch it again when it's when it does feel like it's gratuitous.
**Chris:** now it it.
**Chris:** Now you've both mentioned the word exploitation.
**Chris:** several times when we've watched films.
**Chris:** Now I haven't fully grasped that term yet, so I thought it was worth you reminding me of what that is meant to be.
**Adam:** well, essentially it's question I suppose it's questionable taste.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** In terms of observing a subject.
**Adam:** So it's as as a very sort of bog basic example, I suppose, you know, there's a lot of films that are exploitative of mental illness.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** you know, but that is that is the reason that they're the killer is.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean is it's.
**Adam:** So but exploitation can go across anything, I mean, typically in like, you know, in its early sort of stages it would be nudity, drug use.
**Adam:** Anything that's.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** shocking.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and a lot of the time there was kind of like this weird thing where it was almost like educational, I suppose is the best way of putting it, like there would be like a it would be like, oh, this is a film about, you know, they're claiming a moral high ground of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is a film about how drugs can fuck you up and it's like, or it's a very good excuse to have lots of women walking around top and.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay, that definitely makes sense.
**Adam:** Freakouts and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** So I it so I certainly had that on my mind while watching it.
**Chris:** It's like, yeah, I don't it it felt like there was an element of.
**Chris:** we're trying to take a view of humanity here.
**Chris:** But yeah, at what point does it go over into just.
**Lee:** I don't need to see that.
**Chris:** just displaying this, yeah, like you're not gaining as much.
**Chris:** So I for me the jury's out on it, but yeah, it felt a bit too much.
**Chris:** I mean like the what was the scene where he he smacks the the boy's mom and then he gets in the car.
**Chris:** And this is a ding.
**Adam:** ding, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and and it's like, oh, I mean there could have been like okay and it could show you just how horrible he is.
**Chris:** But for some reason it just felt a little bit too.
**Chris:** Wrong.
**Chris:** And so yeah, I don't know if that was.
**Chris:** You know, it's always hard to know, is it my state of mind?
**Chris:** You know, or are you are you seeing something for what it is?
**Chris:** I suppose that's where discussion comes in.
**Adam:** I do think it's a distinct, there's a distinct thing where I think Rob Zombie went deliberately away.
**Adam:** From the style and sort of feel of House of a Thousand Corpses.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it was the same characters.
**Adam:** And there's.
**Adam:** Because weirdly enough, you just saying that it's made me think it's almost like the inverse of how the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies went.
**Chris:** Right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Adam:** So you have the first one which was like very realistic, very sort of brutal and real life and sort of, you know.
**Adam:** To the point of unpleasant.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** versus the fucking insane ludicrousness and camp essentially of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's funny, you could think that might not work for some reason because I think that's he drew us in with this sort of like.
**Chris:** And it's funny you could think like.
**Adam:** wildly cartoony and and that end point as well.
**Adam:** where he sort of put the different ending in where it goes into the sort of fantasy of Doctor Satan and.
**Adam:** stuff like that because you know it's all that stuff is absent from Devil's Rejects, there are deleted scenes where there's like Doctor Satan's in hospital and things.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** But I think by that point it was like, no, I want to go more realistic with this and that it feels more like a film about serial killers than House of a Thousand Corpses does.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Even though it's it's as brutal, but I think it's also that thing of you have here's your for want of a better expression Scooby Doo team who are sort of like mildly annoying and.
**Adam:** to varying degrees.
**Adam:** It's much more sort of like, oh, here's how a lot of innocent people had a fucking shit day because they ran into these other.
**Adam:** And, you know, it's sort of not, I'm not saying that necessarily the characters deserve what happened to them.
**Adam:** The House of a Thousand Corpses.
**Adam:** But it's much more on that.
**Adam:** 80s sort of like slap not slasher film necessarily, but the thing of like, you know, a group of youngsters get dispatched and whittled down.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** to one survivor, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So tell me, remind me again, now you've definitely said it before, what would be Rob Zombie's film to watch next?
**Chris:** And I'll make a note and then at some point.
**Lee:** I mean I'd go with Lords of Salem.
**Lee:** I love Lords of Salem.
**Adam:** I haven't watched Lords of Salem in a long time.
**Adam:** And I was talking to Dean about it former guest, Dean, and yeah, he said that it doesn't really stand up these days.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Adam:** Not as good as it was.
**Adam:** But I'd be.
**Adam:** But I don't know, I've not seen it for such a long time, so I'd be quite interested.
**Adam:** But yeah, because I was that the next live action one he did.
**Lee:** I believe it was, yes.
**Adam:** Cuz there's in between there's El Super Beast, the thingy world of El Super Beast though, isn't there?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because Rob Zombie did.
**Adam:** an animated cartoon about a Mexican wrestler who solves monster crimes.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Essentially, that's the best one I could put it.
**Adam:** and it's very sort of Frits the Cat with lots of nude.
**Adam:** giggling babes and stuff like that and monsters.
**Adam:** and the devil's in there.
**Adam:** That feels that feels kind of like the Rob like the old white zombie album sleeve.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's that sort of look to it.
**Adam:** But yeah, probably Lords of Salem would be the next one to go.
**Adam:** And if I remember, I mean, I, I haven't watched Devil's Rejects for a long time.
**Adam:** I did like Devil's Rejects.
**Adam:** But I'm also a deeply cynical man who doesn't believe there's any good in the world.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's just nice to have your biases reaffirmed in a way.
**Adam:** But I much preferred Lords of Salem at the time.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I think that was because it was yeah.
**Adam:** It just sort of hit the right sort of thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I watched it again about three years ago, yeah, and I I I enjoyed it as much.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** But.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'll have to rewatch.
**Adam:** I'll give it a rewatch myself because it's been a long time.
**Adam:** And I did really used to like it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool, Adam, what did you watch?
**Adam:** well, I yesterday I watched oddly enough, Ted's been watching Shrek, so,
**Adam:** There's Rupert Everett plays Prince Charming in Shrek 2.
**Adam:** And I understand Shrek 3.
**Adam:** We haven't got that far yet.
**Adam:** and that made me think, oh, I haven't watched Delamorte Delamoro for a long time.
**Adam:** So I dug that out.
**Adam:** And, so yeah, so you got, so it's Delamorte Delamoro.
**Adam:** sometimes called Cemetery Man.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and it's have you seen it, Lee?
**Lee:** I've not, no.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** And it's basically it's a it's Rupert Everett the playing Francisco Delamorte who is the groundskeeper and gravedigger at the at this the cemetery in this Italian village.
**Adam:** but after seven nights, the dead rise from the grave and he has to blow their brains out.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** It's that lovely thing of you come into it and that is already established.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So he is now bored with it, it's it's just a relentless pain in the ass job.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's a a bit like, you know, like troll hunter or whatever like that, so he is licensed by the like by the local mayor.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** who is kind of aware of what's going on, but he gets to live there rent free.
**Adam:** And as long as he's killing all the zombies, they're quite happy.
**Chris:** It is definitely a job.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** As a job entails everything.
**Adam:** And so, but it's a it's a tough one to describe.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Basically, so you've got that's the premise and then it gets sort of weirder from there.
**Adam:** And he becomes fixated on a woman who, well, several women who are all played, by, Anna Falchi.
**Adam:** And it's not quite sure whether it's him imposing her on people he's meeting or he's just meeting a group a lot of women who all look exactly the same.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** he so he runs this, he runs this cemetery where the dead are coming back to life and there's fighting off zombies in the night with his, sort of Igor-like assistant who only says.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The best way I can describe this is this feels like it feels like Guillermo Del Toro made it.
**Adam:** in.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** that he's incredible to look at.
**Adam:** It is like seriously.
**Adam:** Some of the shots it's Michelle Sovi who did, the church in the sect.
**Adam:** But this it's just so well shot.
**Adam:** And you have all these things like so Francisco Demorti's having conversations with the Angel of Death.
**Adam:** And so you've got like these zombie designs, but it's zombies where they've been in graves where trees have rooted into them, there's one guy who they they bury someone who's killed in a motorcycle accident with his motorcycle and he is reborn from erupting from the grave melded into the bike.
**Adam:** as and but still with the same sort of like, just he's a fuck you attitude and everything else like that, so everyone everyone comes back not so much as the dead, but sort of annoyed versions of themselves.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and it's,
**Adam:** like I say.
**Adam:** It's it's really fucking funny.
**Adam:** And but really old.
**Adam:** and not that it's.
**Adam:** weirdly enough as I was watching it, and I was thinking because I'd I'd like to do it, I'd like to do it on the show, but I know that the not for everyone guys.
**Adam:** This feels like one that's not for everyone.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** If you get this, you get this.
**Adam:** Because it feels, you know, it feels kind of I don't know, sort of near sort of evil dead.
**Adam:** But it's not quite a slapstick.
**Adam:** and things like that, but it's that it's that vibe.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and Rupert Everett's just fantastic as as like the main character.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It's basically him, I mean, what there was a lot.
**Adam:** I had to write it down, there was a line in it that I loved that was,
**Adam:** Oh, I'd give up my life to be dead.
**Adam:** Or something like that, I can't.
**Adam:** I didn't write it down.
**Adam:** Hey, what was it?
**Adam:** Give my life.
**Adam:** That's it, I'd give my life to be dead.
**Adam:** So he sort of narrates the thing as he goes along in a sort of series of sort of little sort of bored asides and things like that.
**Adam:** But it is basically, you know, he's like a bin man.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, he's just disposing of a public health issue.
**Adam:** Meanwhile, the rest of the town taunt him.
**Adam:** and he's sort of, yeah, he's having this series of weirdly escalating affairs with all these women who look are all played by the same actress who all die in various ways.
**Adam:** And it's sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** And then he basically he has an argument with death itself, who is one of the most spectacular Grim Reaper renderings I've ever seen is in this.
**Adam:** And basically the death says to him, well, if you're bored of this, why don't you just start shooting living people in the head, because then their brains will be destroyed before they get to your graveyard?
**Adam:** And you're like.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** It is a wonderfully fucked up film, but and it has lovely touches of surrealism.
**Adam:** But it's it never gets into.
**Adam:** because I know sometimes a lot of the Italian more 70s and 80s Italian horror gets too sort of dream logic for you.
**Adam:** a lot of the time, this doesn't have it.
**Adam:** As I say.
**Adam:** The one thing it has that doesn't have that because it all of it feels quite Del Toro, both the look and the sort of attitude of it.
**Adam:** The one thing it doesn't have is a monstrous antagonist.
**Chris:** Yeah, like.
**Adam:** like a monstrous villain.
**Adam:** That's probably the only thing it doesn't have.
**Adam:** because it's the 90s, so he's as much a villain as he is a hero, it's sort of that thing.
**Adam:** But yeah, haven't watched it in a long time.
**Adam:** And it was just, yeah, just a really, really good film.
**Adam:** Couple of off moments in there where you go, oh yeah, we're watching an Italian film, so there's a few sort of attitudes that you go, oh yeah, that's a bit.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** Yeah, there's nothing, you know, I think that it's really, it's definitely so worth checking out.
**Adam:** Because it's it's one of those quirky ones where you sort of like, if you get it, you really get it.
**Adam:** And it becomes a it becomes a favorite.
**Lee:** Cool, yeah, I've put it on the list, I think I'm just going to check that out.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** We'll have to keep it on the list, yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** Adam, what was your next viewing?
**Adam:** well, I had an excursion out to the BFI South Bank.
**Adam:** And I watched the Code Damp Experimental Mixtape.
**Adam:** Now, I've spoken about it on here before, I think Code Damp is Sophie Slay Johnson's book about.
**Adam:** sort of it's like a sort of a cult look at British sitcom through Leonard Rossiter.
**Adam:** And basically, what this was is she put together a sort of mood compilation to give you an idea of the the sort of tone of the book, as it were.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And so it was all mixed in, and at the end of it, if this wasn't pretentious enough, at the end of it, Stuart Lee came out and did a Q&A with.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** I was well fucking happy.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** So it's got bits of rising damp and Reginal Perron and Bottman up Pompey and mixed them in with Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Tle, the band play for the day did, a warning to to the curious.
**Adam:** the Christmas ghost stories.
**Adam:** a bit from the frighteners, which is an anthology series which I have seen a few episodes of Lucifer over Lancashire, which is a news report about devil worship in Lancashire.
**Adam:** And Donald Pleasant's Huston Pills advert and if that wasn't enough for you, you also had Dr. Feelgood live at the Curzel.
**Adam:** So that was just to give you this this whole encompassing thing of because the book is kind of like, yeah, sitcoms, esoterica and isn't Essex really muddy?
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Anyway, but yeah.
**Adam:** very great night out.
**Adam:** bloody great night out.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think I'll have to watch that.
**Lee:** That sounds great.
**Lee:** for my final movie, again, one from this year, I watched the Stephen King movie The Monkey.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** that's thingy, isn't it?
**Adam:** Oscar Perkins, isn't it?
**Lee:** I believe it is.
**Lee:** It is, yes, yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's daft.
**Lee:** It's super daft.
**Lee:** But it's fantastic.
**Lee:** I didn't know anything about it going in.
**Lee:** except that people were fans of it and you know, it gone over quite well.
**Lee:** And I know.
**Chris:** And is it based on a book of the same name?
**Lee:** I'm guessing it's a short story.
**Adam:** short story, isn't it?
**Lee:** Story, yeah.
**Lee:** It's very the concept is there is a toy monkey.
**Lee:** And you wind it up and it plays a drum and when it finishes, somebody dies in a horrific accident.
**Lee:** Not necessarily in the location where the monkey is, but somebody somewhere a linked to the person who wound the thing up.
**Chris:** I was going to say, so yeah, like, but also then why would someone wind it up?
**Chris:** I'm assuming they don't know.
**Lee:** Well, no, yeah.
**Lee:** So that.
**Chris:** This is perhaps the.
**Lee:** It does get covered in it, yeah, so there is a long period where people expressly try to hide the monkey.
**Lee:** But it has a way of keep getting itself found again.
**Lee:** And then someone who has no idea.
**Lee:** Doesn't.
**Lee:** By the time they put two and two together, there's half a dozen people dead.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's it's really good.
**Lee:** It's really daft and over the top, it's got some really creative kills in it.
**Lee:** It's it's very sort of final destination.
**Lee:** the kills in it.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz.
**Adam:** I heard Oscar Perkins wanted to basically.
**Adam:** it was because he'd done long legs, he was like, right, now I want to do a silly one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Fair enough.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it it's just as I, it was one of those, if it wasn't for the fact that somebody.
**Lee:** had suggested it to me specifically, I would never have watched this because it just looked too daft.
**Lee:** But actually, I'm so glad I did because it's it is daft in a kind of 80s over the top way.
**Lee:** that I really, really enjoy it a lot more than I thought I was going to, to be fair.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Chris:** Cool.
**Lee:** Good.
**Lee:** For our next film.
**Lee:** Adam, would you like to tell us about Happy Ending?
**Adam:** yes, so we were approached by the director of Happy Ending and asked if we wanted to, take a look at it.
**Adam:** So we'll be doing a certainly less spoiler.
**Adam:** rifi, review than we do of sort of stuff that's more out there and everything, or indeed hundreds of years old.
**Adam:** so, yeah.
**Adam:** We'll be back for that.
**Adam:** I believe it is streaming currently, so people should be able to see it.
**Adam:** But obviously, we're not going to spoil anything.
**Adam:** So that should be a review they can just come to.
**Lee:** Excellent, fantastic.
**Lee:** Right, thanks so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 227 The Comedy of Terrors

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-227-the-comedy-of-terrors/
Air date: 6 July 2025
Duration: 00:31:15
Film: The Comedy of Terrors · Year: 1963 · Director: Jacques Tourneur

### Description

Settle in your best (and only) coffin, grab a drink or twelve and join us for “The Comedy of Terrors”. In film in which we hear possibly the only use of the phrase “Toss Pot” outside of the UK; Orangey displays why he was considered one of the finest cactors of his generation; and Osgood Fielding III gives the best scream this side of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Sadly, this is the last time that Vincent Price and Peter Lorre demonstrated their magnificent comedy double act as part of this amazing ensemble with Joyce Jameson, Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone, all of whom totally embrace the grotesque insanity of their characters and the tale itself. “The Comedy of Terrors” is a real refinement of the dark vein of humour the various cast members had begun exploring with Roger Corman in the Poe adaptations “Tales of Terror” and “The Raven”, but this time, it’s the legendary Jacques Tourneur behind the camera, with an original script from the pen of the great Richard Matheson, both of whom mould this original gem of Gothic Black Comedy. Sadly, “The Comedy of Terrors” failed to perform at the box office, and with Lorre’s death only a few months after release, it closed a chapter on what could have been a far more interesting direction for producers AIP. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Film's place in Poe cycle and cast continuity: I mean that's that's the thing as well is I think we've I'm kind of glad we've watched it in the right order because this is obviously kind of like a you've had the kind of the same you've had most of the same cast in either Tales of Terror. … Or The Raven. And and like The Raven comes out the same year as this, it's earlier, but it's so we've we've watched them in the right order. And it's a real shame because like the Tales of Terrors the last of that sort of series. Because just as it starts to sort of get to the best of itself. Because you got because Tales, Tales of Terror is a straightforward horror film. But it has humorous elements in it and the bits with Peter Lorre and Vincent Price are really fucking humorous. And and Joyce Jameson, sorry, yes, yes, and because obviously she's in there as well and yeah and it's the same thing of a love triangle basically between the three of them. And but also you get Basil Rathbone in Tales of Terror as well. And then obviously there's The Raven where you bring Karloff in and you've got Price and Lorre again. And yeah, this is like this feels like, right, we've refined it now. We get Richard Matheson to write an original. We don't, you know, it's not a Poe adaption.
- Director, box office, Peter Lorre's death, and stunt trivia: And um uh and Jacques Tournier directed, which is which is weird. That again, there's someone who I mean, his two most sort of celebrated films are Cat People, the original Cat People. And um Night of the Demon. And really that certainly Night of the Demon is a film that we should do at some point. Because it's basically M R. James casting of the Rooms, but done, yeah. … We've done no, we've done Night of the Demons with um the eighties horror. … No, but. Oh, we've done Night of the Eagle, which is kind of similar. And maybe that's what you're thinking of, yeah. Um, but yeah, so we're not done Curse of the Demon. But yeah, and you get and we just get to this point and then. Apparently, it didn't do well, didn't do too well at the box office and then Peter Lorre died two months after it came out. I. I I would argue the opposite if I'm honest. I think with that fact in mind, he does look a bit. Sort of I mean, it doesn't it's not being disrespectful, but it's like. … Yeah. … Apparently a lot of a lot of stunt a lot of the stunt work when Peter Lorre is like jumping off roofs and stuff like that. It's a guy wearing a the stunt man's wearing a mask of Peter Lorre.
- Hearse prop at Disney Haunted Mansion: It's all studio based, so it's like, yeah, they have that real control and everything looks incredible. Apparently the hearse, you know the coach drawn horse drawn fucking coach drawn horse. Jesus. The horse drawn coach, um that's apparently outside the Disney Haunted Mansion nowadays. I'm not sure if that's still the case cuz this is, you know, dusty old facts on the internet that may have never been updated for lies. For 20 odd years, so who knows.
- Unproduced sequel 'Sweethearts and Horrors' and AI film recreation: But apparently there was Richard Matheson did write a sequel. And it's I've now found that it's apparently it's published in some of like Richard Matheson collections, there's like stuff that's collected writings and things like that. And the script is in there, but what's it called? It was Sweethearts and Horrors. And it was so it would have had the cast returning, you would have had Price as a ventriloquist. So I'm assuming this is all like theatrical thing or whatever. But you'd have had Price as a ventriloquist, Lorre, a magician, Karloff, a children's TV presenter and Basil Rathbone, a musical comedy star. And they were going to get Tallulah Bankhead in as well to play a part in it. And um but it didn't obviously that didn't happen because this didn't perform very well and then Peter Lorre died as well. Uh. But um. Yeah, I now have to go. I'm going to have to find that. … Yeah. Cuz I think. … Well then, then I can piss off. … I know and this is obviously on a very, very severe budget. I know that there is a guy who's a Doctor Who fan who's extremely wealthy. Who has made AI versions of missing episodes using using what what he has so far of like he has price wise so far, as well as technology. And apparently. They are real dog shit. We might be some way away before we get London After Midnight as it was. Or or as near as damn it. The thing is London After Midnight now is such an old film. That it's like. Well, actually potentially. You know, this could come out, no one knows whether it was right. Cuz no one alive was seeing it, you know, so. Um, but no, definitely I've got to track down the script on this. Cuz that script. Because. Yeah. Yeah. I think it. Oh, yeah, just just to live in that hope that you that they'd have they'd have continued the the style of this.
- Casting changes for Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone: Cuz but funny enough because that was originally originally when they were doing when they were casting this. They were going to get Boris Karloff was going to play the Basil Rathbone role. So he was going to play Mr. Black. But they realized that by that point, Boris Karloff's like arthritis. Was just too, you know, it was just going to take too physically heavier toll on him to be. Well. Chasing two fuckers around with a bloody sword and screaming, you know, screaming the last the last part of fucking Macbeth. So, um yeah. So they decided so he got the, so he was then given the. Uh old boy role, like the father role. And um they got Basil Rathbone in for Black. And it's like. Oh, that's a much better movie. Because Basil Rathbone's just got he has got that sort of bulldozer intensity in this where it's like. You know, it would be laughable, someone running around in their pajamas shouting Shakespeare on you. But he's just like he's such a fucking force. Yeah. That you're like. No, that would be abjectly terrifying. You've broken into his house, but, you know, you think you've got him on the back foot and it's like, oh, no, he is fucking mad and this is, you know, this is.
- Peter Lorre's filmography and typical roles: Oh, no, and and like we've said, Price and Lorre. I mean, the weird thing is, is I realized that this is the third film we've watched with Peter Lorre. But it's always been part of this what I'm going to loosely call a trilogy of, you know, the Price Lorre double act. Because you've got Tales of Terror, you've got The Raven and then this. Um. So I think at some point, much like we've said, we haven't done Curse of the Night of the Demon. Um, I think at some point we need to look at other Lorre films and just to see what a sinister bastard he can be. Cuz you're only seeing. And it's lovely to see him in this role, but it's in that same way that you're watching. Cuz actually I think of all of them, he is probably the most sort of usually playing the scarier characters. You know, Vincent Price it sort of can go either way and Karloff has his own menace. But it's a very gentle sort of menace, I think that's why he wouldn't necessarily have been great as Black. Like as Mr. Black in this. Um. Because he does do looming menace, but you know, is it the right. Kind of looming menace that you'll need for that. But yeah, Peter Lorre can be um fucking like despicable, you know, as. The key one I would say is there's M, literally the letter M. Which is. Yeah. No, M, M is. Well, we're we're definitely we're definitely stick M on the list just because Peter Lorre and that is that's. I mean that's a fucking masterpiece, but um. What's the oh, we were talking about it the other week. Mad love. Yes. That's I mean that's another Peter Lorre film that's fantastic. Um. He's also he's in a lot of film noir and stuff and he was with um what's his name. He like Humphrey Bogart, he's in The Maltese Falcon. And he's I mean The Maltese Falcon, it's not a horror film, but it's a fucking great film. And that's definitely worth checking out and he's um. Really good in it. He's in Casablanca. He's in. He plays a lot of basically, if he'd have been alive, he'd have played Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark. But Ronald Lacey plays him instead. So, you know. He that would have been, but he's literally he's like channeling Peter Lorre in that, I think, you know, he really is.
- The cat actor 'Orangey' (Rhubarb) and his filmography: Orangey is his real name. And yes, what a fine character or actor. Orangey is. Cuz he cuz he's called Rhubarb here because that was the first film he did. He was one of 14 cats who played who played the title character in the 1951 film Rhubarb. Cat owns a baseball team or something. It's like. It's like the cat had an eccentric owner who leaves it all his estate and so the cat owns a baseball team. I think that's like the premise of that. Um, he was owned and trained by animal animal handler Frank Inn. And he's the only cat to have won two Paty Awards, that's the picture animal top star of the year, the animal Oscars. So. So. So often he was credited as Rhubarb because that was the the the film that made his name. Um. And uh. In other films, he's he was in 35, he's got 35 credits on IMDb. And uh he was he was Cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's. So quite a big role there. Butch in The Incredible Shrinking Man. Neutron in the Island of in this Island Earth. Um, giant cat in Village of the Giants. Ginger in Darby O'Gill and the Little People. And to prove that he could do, you know, he was as happy with drama with comedy. He was Moushey in The Diary of Anne Frank. Um, he was the Beverly Hillbilly's Cat Rusty for in 18 episodes. Um. He was the main character's cat in uh four episodes of something. Called Our Miss Brooks, which was basically throughout his career. And um. But he was also in The Twilight Zone, um The Night of the Meek. Outer Limits, Mission Impossible, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian, The Fugitive, Mr. Ed Dick Van Dyke Show and he's in three episodes of the Adam West Batman. Two of which cat and also one of one of which he is. Um, I can't think of her name, who plays Morticia in The Addams Family. Um. Caroline. Oh. In the original one. Yeah. I can't. Sorry. But he's he's her cat in an episode of that as well. But um, yeah. And I just I think there we go. That's so. Orangey. You know. That's. Was I would have liked to have seen Orangey come back. They don't say what part Orangey would have played in the film that they didn't make, but you know. That might have been a.
- Original film title: Apparently, so apparently the first time. … Originally, this was called Gravestone Story instead of Westside Story. I think they were just like, oh, let's try and think. But Comedy of Errors works so much better. Because you've got Basil Rathbone doing bloody huge swaths of Macbeth. So you've got the Shakespeare connection, so it makes more sense.
- Biography of actress Beverly Powers (Beverly Hills): I mean, I love that where it's just cuz um the actress who plays the widow is um. She's. Her name Beverly Powers, but she's credited here as Beverly Hills. Hm. She was a I uh I'll just write it down. I'll write it down. Yeah. She was a burlesque and striptease artist under the name Miss Beverly Hills, appeared in three Elvis movies. And then in 1986, she became an ordained minister and a year later moved to Hawaii, where she founded the Living Ministry in Maui. A non-denominational non-profit ministry that's still going. She also served as Chaplin at the Maui Memorial Hospital and Maui's Prison Ministry. Uh she's now retired after 25 years of service and released a memoir of her time in Hollywood passing the Baton of Light in 2014. Wow. So, but it's just it's just really weird. Because I mean all of her credits are like topless swimmer in Jaws, nightclub stripper in Breakfast at Tiffany's. And and so on and so forth. So yeah, and and like I say, she her her stage name. If you like was Beverly Hills. So. It's but. Again, I just love that where it's just she with all the thing.
- Richard Matheson's writing approach and Jacques Tourneur's view on film's reception: It's weird because you kind of to get to this, the weird thing is, is the bit you remove is. Well, the bit you remove is Corman and Poe. But particularly I think Poe, cuz what was the quote I saw, Richard Matheson was like. I got bored of writing about people being buried alive, so I thought I'd make a joke out of it. Which. Was his take on it. And like, and but I mean, where it didn't do very well. I think I've got the quote from Jacques Tourneur where he said. It was um, you know, it didn't it didn't do very well, but where is it? Uh. He felt the film's poor reception. Was because it was too sophisticated and satirical and cynical to appeal to the teens who expected the same kind of horror from the AIP Poe adaptations. So in a weird way, cuz it cuz when you watch the. When you watch the Poe cycle as it is, The Raven is brilliant, but it's the outlier. The rest of them are pretty they're straight. You know, and to varying degrees of success, but they are, you know, straight horror films basically. And it's only that sort of the Cask of Amontillado bit in Tales of Terror, which is the Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Joyce Jameson bit. That becomes comedic and becomes, you know, brings out that sort of flair to it.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Sounds
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Unknown:** What place is this?
**Lee:** We are here this evening to cover one of my absolute favorites of this era. 1963's The Comedy of Terrors.
**Lee:** A film we've mentioned dozens of times and I was so convinced that we'd already covered it that I didn't suggest it until now.
**Lee:** But Adam quite rightly said, we talk about this film a lot, we really should cover it, so.
**Lee:** And now we have.
**Lee:** Chris, what did you think of The Comedy of Terrors?
**Chris:** Is there no morality left in this world?
**Chris:** I got I got one bad thing to say. Yeah, how did we leave it like, what, 20 years before we watched this?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I'll I'll give you both black marks for that.
**Lee:** Well, I'm glad that's a good downgrade to get. You're quite right to bring it up.
**Chris:** You could, I reckon, if you just had.
**Chris:** Vincent Price and Peter Lorre, not it is Lorre, isn't it? Yeah. And like just them doing this for the whole film.
**Chris:** That would be a really good film.
**Chris:** Add in the rest of the cast and it just, yeah, it is amazing.
**Adam:** I mean that's that's the thing as well is I think we've I'm kind of glad we've watched it in the right order because this is obviously kind of like a you've had the kind of the same you've had most of the same cast in either Tales of Terror.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or The Raven.
**Adam:** And and like The Raven comes out the same year as this, it's earlier, but it's so we've we've watched them in the right order.
**Adam:** And it's a real shame because like the Tales of Terrors the last of that sort of series.
**Adam:** Because just as it starts to sort of get to the best of itself.
**Adam:** Because you got because Tales, Tales of Terror is a straightforward horror film.
**Adam:** But it has humorous elements in it and the bits with Peter Lorre and Vincent Price are really fucking humorous.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Joyce Jameson is married to it.
**Adam:** And and Joyce Jameson, sorry, yes, yes, and because obviously she's in there as well and yeah and it's the same thing of a love triangle basically between the three of them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but also you get Basil Rathbone in Tales of Terror as well.
**Adam:** And then obviously there's The Raven where you bring Karloff in and you've got Price and Lorre again.
**Adam:** And yeah, this is like this feels like, right, we've refined it now.
**Adam:** We get Richard Matheson to write an original.
**Adam:** We don't, you know, it's not a Poe adaption.
**Adam:** But it's the same.
**Chris:** But it it does feel very, yeah, yeah, he has nailed it, definitely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and Jacques Tournier directed, which is which is weird.
**Adam:** That again, there's someone who I mean, his two most sort of celebrated films are Cat People, the original Cat People.
**Adam:** And Night of the Demon.
**Adam:** And really that certainly Night of the Demon is a film that we should do at some point.
**Adam:** Because it's basically M R. James casting of the Rooms, but done, yeah.
**Chris:** Not to you up with Night of the Demons.
**Lee:** We definitely we definitely must have covered Night of the Demon.
**Lee:** We can't.
**Adam:** We've done no, we've done Night of the Demons with the eighties horror.
**Lee:** The Canadian one.
**Lee:** You know, I'm sure we covered it, I remember.
**Adam:** No, but.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, we've done Night of the Eagle, which is kind of similar.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** That might be what we.
**Adam:** And maybe that's what you're thinking of, yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah, so we're not done Curse of the Demon.
**Adam:** But yeah, and you get and we just get to this point and then.
**Adam:** Apparently, it didn't do well, didn't do too well at the box office and then Peter Lorre died two months after it came out.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Chris:** He looked, he looked.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** I.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** I I would argue the opposite if I'm honest. I think with that fact in mind, he does look a bit.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Sort of I mean, it doesn't it's not being disrespectful, but it's like.
**Chris:** But you could think he's playing it though because he works in undertakers.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah. Oh, okay.
**Lee:** He plays it so well.
**Lee:** That's the thing.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean, he's fighting with with Vincent Price.
**Lee:** I love the fact that you can see it's actually them doing so much of the stuff.
**Adam:** Apparently a lot of a lot of stunt a lot of the stunt work when Peter Lorre is like jumping off roofs and stuff like that.
**Adam:** It's a guy wearing a the stunt man's wearing a mask of Peter Lorre.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is so, yeah.
**Chris:** That's one way to do it.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But no.
**Adam:** I think it's what I love about this is that this is a film with it's that thing of not having any straight men.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean? Everyone's a character, everyone's funny, everyone's weird or grotesque or humorous or fallible in some way or another.
**Adam:** Cuz I was when I was watching it, weirdly enough I watched it with Claire and it's like.
**Adam:** And I just got a distinct Black Adder vibe.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it was like.
**Adam:** Vincent Price is obviously Black Adder because it's a lot of verbal put downs so, you know, and then Lorre's Baldrick essentially, but then Joyce Jameson's almost like Mrs. Miggins or like Nursie or something.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** And no, actually Boris Karloff's like Nursie.
**Adam:** So you know, one of those weird sort of you know characters.
**Chris:** Not with it. Yeah.
**Adam:** And then but Basil Rathbone's character is a fucking grotesque who's weird and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And he's like a sort of when they get the Duke of Wellington in or Dr. Johnson in the third, those sort of bullish antagonists.
**Adam:** But they're exactly the same as.
**Chris:** I'm going to have to watch it again now with this in mind.
**Adam:** They're all comic monsters or sort of comic characters.
**Adam:** So there's no there's no one there going, oh, look at all this.
**Adam:** It's just no, this is the setup and you just get to enjoy it.
**Adam:** And it's so fucking quotable.
**Lee:** That's the thing Vincent Price's dialogue in this is just one of my absolute favor Like like you say, everything he said almost is gold.
**Lee:** I mean I still at least once a fortnight will say to my wife.
**Lee:** Your mouth, madam, shut it.
**Lee:** I don't think she knows the quote, she just accepts her fate.
**Adam:** So she just she she just assumes you're gaslighting.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I mean, I don't know why it was.
**Adam:** But the one that got me really got me this time was, and you're sitting on my money.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz.
**Adam:** I think it's it's very it's very cartoony.
**Adam:** It's very sort of do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** Again, it's that thing of like, you know, the characters because they're all larger than life and everything else like that.
**Adam:** It's let's face it.
**Adam:** He celebrates like a cartoon character.
**Adam:** He throws money over his head.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's Daffy Duck.
**Adam:** Sort of.
**Chris:** And they almost none of them actually converse, like they don't exactly talk to each other.
**Chris:** They're just talking at each other.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It doesn't actually matter really what they've been said.
**Lee:** I think the thing I love about the Basil Rathbone character in this is that he initially, as you say, looks like he's going to be a straight, like the straight man, the straight character.
**Lee:** And he's going to be very sensible and down to earth because he's a big businessman.
**Lee:** But yeah, then when you see him in his bedroom at night and he just takes a sword off the wall and starts running around and shouting Shakespeare and stabbing things.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's doing in the bedroom the way he's doing like basically does like the last third of Macbeth throughout the end of this film.
**Lee:** Oh, it just makes me absolutely die.
**Lee:** It's so.
**Adam:** Oh, it's.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** Go sorry.
**Lee:** Go sorry.
**Adam:** No, no, no, I was just agreeing with you.
**Adam:** I think we're.
**Lee:** I think everything about this, I love the it's got that very sort of slap sticky.
**Lee:** music to it, which goes with the the element of the comedy.
**Lee:** But as you say, it looks like those Roger Corman films.
**Lee:** So it looks beautiful.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's still.
**Chris:** Quite atmospheric.
**Adam:** It's all studio based, so it's like, yeah, they have that real control and everything looks incredible.
**Adam:** Apparently the hearse, you know the coach drawn horse drawn fucking coach drawn horse.
**Adam:** Jesus.
**Adam:** The horse drawn coach, that's apparently outside the Disney Haunted Mansion nowadays.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Really?
**Adam:** I'm not sure if that's still the case cuz this is, you know, dusty old facts on the internet that may have never been updated for lies.
**Adam:** For 20 odd years, so who knows.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** I'd be tempted to fly over just to see in person.
**Chris:** There's a mission for you.
**Adam:** Cuz like you say, the Les Baxter music, they're.
**Adam:** Which I'm going to have to track down because.
**Adam:** Again, like I say, it's it's like Carl Stalling stuff, it's like Looney Tunes sort of stuff.
**Adam:** In that it's got that right bit of let's be overly dramatically serious and then crazy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And everything.
**Adam:** And I have to say the Joyce Jameson singing.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** He is not dead.
**Adam:** But sleepeth.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'll I'll I'll hold my hands up.
**Adam:** I've got I listen, I've got a few albums that sound like that.
**Adam:** I mean more professionally vocalized, but not far off that.
**Adam:** And yeah, that was just again, really good, just a lovely little moment.
**Adam:** Of just cuz everyone at that point, I mean Joyce Jameson's obviously given it that just amazingly.
**Adam:** Because it's just teetering on.
**Adam:** Can do it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** And then it goes and yeah.
**Adam:** And then you've got them playing like operating the organ at the back and everything.
**Adam:** And they're just like look.
**Adam:** And just a series of looks and sort of, you know, it's just they're so.
**Adam:** I just it's really annoying because you sort of watch it and go, this should have been the first of like.
**Adam:** Five movies where they're all doing this.
**Adam:** And and yeah, it just doesn't happen.
**Adam:** But apparently there was Richard Matheson did write a sequel.
**Adam:** And it's I've now found that it's apparently it's published in some of like Richard Matheson collections, there's like stuff that's collected writings and things like that.
**Adam:** And the script is in there, but what's it called?
**Adam:** It was Sweethearts and Horrors.
**Adam:** And it was so it would have had the cast returning, you would have had Price as a ventriloquist.
**Adam:** So I'm assuming this is all like theatrical thing or whatever.
**Adam:** But you'd have had Price as a ventriloquist, Lorre, a magician, Karloff, a children's TV presenter and Basil Rathbone, a musical comedy star.
**Adam:** And they were going to get Tallulah Bankhead in as well to play a part in it.
**Adam:** And but it didn't obviously that didn't happen because this didn't perform very well and then Peter Lorre died as well.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, I now have to go.
**Adam:** I'm going to have to find that.
**Lee:** I've just written it down because I'm definitely going to have to read it.
**Lee:** If I won't ever get to see it, the least I can do is read it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz I think.
**Chris:** The rate we're going, give it two years and I will make it for you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well then, then I can piss off.
**Chris:** Depends if, you know, if the Lord is get sent to the correct people.
**Lee:** That's true.
**Lee:** You're true.
**Lee:** Actually, see, I never thought of that, yes, if stuff like London After Midnight.
**Lee:** If you could feed AI the story and the script, which we've still got and enough images that have been that have made it from it.
**Lee:** Maybe it could produce something that would actually be watchable.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I know and this is obviously on a very, very severe budget.
**Adam:** I know that there is a guy who's a Doctor Who fan who's extremely wealthy.
**Adam:** Who has made AI versions of missing episodes using using what what he has so far of like he has price wise so far, as well as technology.
**Adam:** And apparently.
**Adam:** They are real dog shit.
**Chris:** I could expect, I could expect they would be yet.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** We might be some way away before we get London After Midnight as it was.
**Adam:** Or or as near as damn it.
**Adam:** The thing is London After Midnight now is such an old film.
**Adam:** That it's like.
**Adam:** Well, actually potentially.
**Chris:** You might.
**Adam:** You know, this could come out, no one knows whether it was right.
**Adam:** Cuz no one alive was seeing it, you know, so.
**Adam:** but no, definitely I've got to track down the script on this.
**Adam:** Cuz that script.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think it.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, just just to live in that hope that you that they'd have they'd have continued the the style of this.
**Lee:** Oh, absolutely.
**Lee:** I'm sure we've mentioned it on the show before.
**Lee:** But there was an evening when my brother came over and Adam.
**Lee:** And we'd we'd planned to do a drink along The Comedy of Terrors, Dean and I.
**Lee:** So we got a tray of vodka shots and we said every time Vincent Price has a drink, we take one.
**Lee:** and we got about 20 minutes in and we'd drunk half a bottle of vodka.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We we literally.
**Chris:** As long as it wasn't poison, you you're right.
**Adam:** No, there was there was almost a point where I had to intervene to make sense that it was like.
**Adam:** You know, you you're about 12 shots down and we haven't got past the first scene.
**Adam:** Because you don't quite realize just how often Vincent Price is drinking.
**Adam:** Which is it's if he's not throttling someone, he's got a drink in his head.
**Adam:** That's basically the role.
**Adam:** So that that game had to be abandoned fairly swiftly because yeah, just for for logic and expense, you know.
**Lee:** It was I think I think we stopped drinking vodka.
**Lee:** And we went on to I went down the shop and bought some vodka ice, which is obviously only about 5% and we drunk a shot of that every time to continue, but I think by that point the damage was done.
**Lee:** So I don't remember.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Lee:** But yeah, yeah, it is it's the interactions in this.
**Lee:** The way that as you say, they're all very different and you do wonder how they all ended up in this world together with them all being so completely different.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** It it just works so nicely that just his viciousness towards his wife is hilarious.
**Adam:** Well, cuz he's obviously only come he's married her because.
**Adam:** her dad is Basil Rathbone, who is one of the heart what did own the business.
**Adam:** So there's just this possibility that he's just this decrepit who's sort of, you know, he.
**Chris:** He was hoping to get rich from.
**Lee:** Boris Karloff, not Basil Rathbone.
**Lee:** Sorry, just.
**Adam:** Oh sorry.
**Adam:** Boris.
**Lee:** I just thought I'd better correct you, cuz otherwise listeners are going to be confused.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** No, no.
**Adam:** No, bang on.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** No, he's
**Adam:** But he plays that sort of absolutely it's that lovely thing when you get characters who are barely there.
**Adam:** Like Father Jack or so, you know, where they're.
**Adam:** They're all totally almost completely peripheral, but absolutely perfect.
**Chris:** But they have an amazing arc.
**Adam:** Their contribution is always astounding, you know.
**Adam:** Cuz but funny enough because that was originally originally when they were doing when they were casting this.
**Adam:** They were going to get Boris Karloff was going to play the Basil Rathbone role.
**Adam:** So he was going to play Mr. Black.
**Adam:** But they realized that by that point, Boris Karloff's like arthritis.
**Adam:** Was just too, you know, it was just going to take too physically heavier toll on him to be.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** Chasing two fuckers around with a bloody sword and screaming, you know, screaming the last the last part of fucking Macbeth.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** So they decided so he got the, so he was then given the.
**Adam:** old boy role, like the father role.
**Adam:** And they got Basil Rathbone in for Black.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Oh, that's a much better movie.
**Adam:** Because Basil Rathbone's just got he has got that sort of bulldozer intensity in this where it's like.
**Adam:** You know, it would be laughable, someone running around in their pajamas shouting Shakespeare on you.
**Adam:** But he's just like he's such a fucking force.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That you're like.
**Adam:** No, that would be abjectly terrifying.
**Adam:** You've broken into his house, but, you know, you think you've got him on the back foot and it's like, oh, no, he is fucking mad and this is, you know, this is.
**Lee:** And he's one of those, I think because I always see him as a more as a serious actor, so his role in this, yeah, when he when you do realize just how nuts he actually is, yeah, it just, yeah, it just makes me laugh so much every single time.
**Lee:** And it's because he plays it so straight as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I know the sort of the narcolepsy thing he obviously does in a comedic way.
**Lee:** But yeah, as you say, his when he's running around with a sword and stuff.
**Lee:** Like he is doing it so perfectly straight that it just, oh, yeah, it just makes me absolutely die.
**Adam:** Oh, no, and and like we've said, Price and Lorre.
**Adam:** I mean, the weird thing is, is I realized that this is the third film we've watched with Peter Lorre.
**Adam:** But it's always been part of this what I'm going to loosely call a trilogy of, you know, the Price Lorre double act.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you've got Tales of Terror, you've got The Raven and then this.
**Adam:** So I think at some point, much like we've said, we haven't done Curse of the Night of the Demon.
**Adam:** I think at some point we need to look at other Lorre films and just to see what a sinister bastard he can be.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** So what what.
**Adam:** Cuz you're only seeing.
**Adam:** And it's lovely to see him in this role, but it's in that same way that you're watching.
**Adam:** Cuz actually I think of all of them, he is probably the most sort of usually playing the scarier characters.
**Adam:** You know, Vincent Price it sort of can go either way and Karloff has his own menace.
**Adam:** But it's a very gentle sort of menace, I think that's why he wouldn't necessarily have been great as Black.
**Adam:** Like as Mr. Black in this.
**Adam:** Because he does do looming menace, but you know, is it the right.
**Adam:** Kind of looming menace that you'll need for that.
**Adam:** But yeah, Peter Lorre can be fucking like despicable, you know, as.
**Chris:** So what what what films is he like that in?
**Adam:** The key one I would say is there's M, literally the letter M.
**Adam:** Which is.
**Chris:** I do not remember.
**Chris:** That ever being mentioned.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No, M, M is.
**Chris:** You've been keeping that one.
**Adam:** Well, we're we're definitely we're definitely stick M on the list just because Peter Lorre and that is that's.
**Adam:** I mean that's a fucking masterpiece, but
**Adam:** What's the oh, we were talking about it the other week.
**Adam:** Mad love.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** That's I mean that's another Peter Lorre film that's fantastic.
**Adam:** He's also he's in a lot of film noir and stuff and he was with what's his name.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** He like Humphrey Bogart, he's in The Maltese Falcon.
**Adam:** And he's I mean The Maltese Falcon, it's not a horror film, but it's a fucking great film.
**Adam:** And that's definitely worth checking out and he's
**Adam:** Really good in it.
**Adam:** He's in Casablanca.
**Adam:** He's in.
**Adam:** He plays a lot of basically, if he'd have been alive, he'd have played Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
**Adam:** But Ronald Lacey plays him instead.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** He that would have been, but he's literally he's like channeling Peter Lorre in that, I think, you know, he really is.
**Lee:** 100%, absolutely.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But
**Chris:** Yeah, we should definitely do that then.
**Adam:** There's one actor we haven't mentioned.
**Lee:** Rhubarb.
**Adam:** Orangey.
**Lee:** Orangey.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Orangey is his real name.
**Adam:** And yes, what a fine character or actor.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Orangey is.
**Adam:** Cuz he cuz he's called Rhubarb here because that was the first film he did.
**Adam:** He was one of 14 cats who played who played the title character in the 1951 film Rhubarb.
**Lee:** About.
**Adam:** Cat owns a baseball team or something.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** It's like the cat had an eccentric owner who leaves it all his estate and so the cat owns a baseball team.
**Adam:** I think that's like the premise of that.
**Adam:** he was owned and trained by animal animal handler Frank Inn.
**Adam:** And he's the only cat to have won two Paty Awards, that's the picture animal top star of the year, the animal Oscars.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Nice.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So often he was credited as Rhubarb because that was the the the film that made his name.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** In other films, he's he was in 35, he's got 35 credits on IMDb.
**Adam:** And he was he was Cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
**Adam:** So quite a big role there.
**Adam:** Butch in The Incredible Shrinking Man.
**Adam:** Neutron in the Island of in this Island Earth.
**Adam:** giant cat in Village of the Giants.
**Adam:** Ginger in Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
**Adam:** And to prove that he could do, you know, he was as happy with drama with comedy.
**Adam:** He was Moushey in The Diary of Anne Frank.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** he was the Beverly Hillbilly's Cat Rusty for in 18 episodes.
**Adam:** He was the main character's cat in four episodes of something.
**Adam:** Called Our Miss Brooks, which was basically throughout his career.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But he was also in The Twilight Zone, The Night of the Meek.
**Adam:** Outer Limits, Mission Impossible, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, I Dream of Jeannie, My Favorite Martian, The Fugitive, Mr. Ed Dick Van Dyke Show and he's in three episodes of the Adam West Batman.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Two of which cat and also one of one of which he is.
**Chris:** That's.
**Chris:** Pretty serious.
**Adam:** I can't think of her name, who plays Morticia in The Addams Family.
**Chris:** Carolyn Jones.
**Adam:** Caroline.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** In the original one.
**Adam:** In the original one.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, no, I can't name.
**Lee:** You've done that.
**Adam:** I can't.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's.
**Adam:** But he's he's her cat in an episode of that as well.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** And I just I think there we go.
**Adam:** That's so.
**Adam:** Orangey.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** Was I would have liked to have seen Orangey come back.
**Adam:** They don't say what part Orangey would have played in the film that they didn't make, but you know.
**Adam:** That might have been a.
**Adam:** Apparently, so apparently the first time.
**Chris:** Carolyn Jones.
**Adam:** Originally, this was called Gravestone Story instead of Westside Story.
**Adam:** I think they were just like, oh, let's try and think.
**Adam:** But Comedy of Errors works so much better.
**Adam:** Because you've got Basil Rathbone doing bloody huge swaths of Macbeth.
**Adam:** So you've got the Shakespeare connection, so it makes more sense.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, I've
**Adam:** Oh, I just yeah.
**Adam:** I just absolutely fucking adore this film.
**Adam:** And I haven't it's weird because I haven't watched it possibly since that night that you and Dean were drinking.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz actually I panicked when we said about we were going to do it, I was like, oh shit, I've got to sold to this.
**Adam:** And then it was like, oh no.
**Adam:** I bought it in an Arrow sale like four years ago.
**Adam:** And just hadn't got around to the hadn't got around to watching it yet.
**Adam:** So it was so it was there, which was a bloody godsend as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, this is just this is one of my favorite rainy night movies, you know, and it's, you know.
**Lee:** It's wet and rainy outside and you just want to curl up on the sofa and watch something cozy.
**Lee:** This is one of my go-tos.
**Lee:** I I just it's just something about the feel of it, it's the color palette of it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's not I mean, although it's it's obviously quite ghastly a subject matter, but because it's got that humor running through it.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just it's.
**Adam:** Oh, it's it's a dark comedy, there's no doubt about it.
**Adam:** I mean, just.
**Adam:** I mean, this could be that was the other thing that was like when.
**Adam:** Me and Claire were watching it, we were talking about it, Claire was like, I feel I could watch the series of this.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know, where they're just, you know, it'd be just, I don't know, you have a special guest corpse of the week or something like that.
**Adam:** But just that that would just be I mean, the lovely running joke.
**Adam:** That they've got one coffin.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, well did did did he actually manage to kill anyone?
**Chris:** Cuz at the end, I was like.
**Chris:** Did everyone live?
**Lee:** He did suffocate the guy at the beginning, the very first house.
**Adam:** Yeah, Mr. Riggs, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So just the one.
**Lee:** Just him.
**Lee:** Yeah, but it is it is implied he'd done it before.
**Adam:** That's Yeah, it's implied that's a fairly regular thing, yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** I mean, I love that where it's just cuz the actress who plays the widow is
**Adam:** She's.
**Adam:** Her name Beverly Powers, but she's credited here as Beverly Hills.
**Adam:** She was a I I'll just write it down.
**Adam:** I'll write it down.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** She was a burlesque and striptease artist under the name Miss Beverly Hills, appeared in three Elvis movies.
**Adam:** And then in 1986, she became an ordained minister and a year later moved to Hawaii, where she founded the Living Ministry in Maui.
**Adam:** A non-denominational non-profit ministry that's still going.
**Adam:** She also served as Chaplin at the Maui Memorial Hospital and Maui's Prison Ministry.
**Adam:** she's now retired after 25 years of service and released a memoir of her time in Hollywood passing the Baton of Light in 2014.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Adam:** So, but it's just it's just really weird.
**Adam:** Because I mean all of her credits are like topless swimmer in Jaws, nightclub stripper in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
**Adam:** And and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** So yeah, and and like I say, she her her stage name.
**Adam:** If you like was Beverly Hills.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It's but.
**Adam:** Again, I just love that where it's just she with all the thing.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Cuz like I say, there's not a there's not a straight person in this.
**Adam:** There's not technically.
**Adam:** The nearest you get to a well, no, actually Joyce Jameson's character as.
**Adam:** You know, she's decent, she just thinks she can sing.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** That's her only real failing, she she thinks she can sing and puts up with Vincent Price.
**Adam:** That's really, you know, so.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, so yeah, this is this is one I do just come back to again and again, it always comes out when I go through that Corman post cycle, despite the fact it isn't in it.
**Lee:** Because it's just so so tightly.
**Chris:** It fits.
**Adam:** It feels part of it.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Adam:** And like I say.
**Adam:** It's weird because you kind of to get to this, the weird thing is, is the bit you remove is.
**Adam:** Well, the bit you remove is Corman and Poe.
**Adam:** But particularly I think Poe, cuz what was the quote I saw, Richard Matheson was like.
**Adam:** I got bored of writing about people being buried alive, so I thought I'd make a joke out of it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which.
**Adam:** Was his take on it.
**Adam:** And like, and but I mean, where it didn't do very well.
**Adam:** I think I've got the quote from Jacques Tourneur where he said.
**Adam:** It was you know, it didn't it didn't do very well, but where is it?
**Adam:** He felt the film's poor reception.
**Adam:** Was because it was too sophisticated and satirical and cynical to appeal to the teens who expected the same kind of horror from the AIP Poe adaptations.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So in a weird way, cuz it cuz when you watch the.
**Adam:** When you watch the Poe cycle as it is, The Raven is brilliant, but it's the outlier.
**Adam:** The rest of them are pretty they're straight.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and to varying degrees of success, but they are, you know, straight horror films basically.
**Adam:** And it's only that sort of the Cask of Amontillado bit in Tales of Terror, which is the Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Joyce Jameson bit.
**Adam:** That becomes comedic and becomes, you know, brings out that sort of flair to it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** but yeah, a fantastic movie.
**Lee:** I I always love digging this one off the shelf.
**Lee:** So I I I apologize to everyone that we took so long to get to it.
**Adam:** All that.
**Adam:** All that's for nothing.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** So on our next episode, we're going to be doing a roundup of what we've been watching.
**Lee:** I know myself and Adam have been working through some stuff that we wanted to discuss.
**Lee:** I'm sure Chris has as well.
**Adam:** Oh the ecology thing we've been working through some things we want to discuss.
**Lee:** It does sound a bit like an intervention, I should probably have phrased that slightly differently.
**Lee:** Yes, so we'll be back for that.
**Lee:** just another quick thing I wanted to mention.
**Lee:** I was chatting the other day with a guy called John Hamilton.
**Lee:** Who is just re-released his book Beasts in the Cellar.
**Lee:** Which looks at the Tigon studios and all the things that were involved with those movies.
**Lee:** it's just come out about a week ago, I believe at the time of us recording this and I will be very keen to get my hands on a copy quickly.
**Lee:** So I just thought.
**Adam:** Oh, that's what I love me a bit of Tigon.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's and it's it's it's one of those studios unlike Hammer and Amicus that people talk about a lot, it doesn't have the documentaries and all that kind of stuff about.
**Lee:** So I know so much less about Tigon.
**Lee:** so yeah, I will definitely be going and digging that out and filling up that that space in my in my knowledge.
**Lee:** Yes, so.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** go and check out The Comedy of Terrors, just go and watch the Poe Corman films as well cuz they're just amazing.
**Lee:** and we will see you all in a fortnight's time to go through what we've been watching.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Sounds

---

## Ep 226 The Mummy

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-226-the-mummy/
Air date: 22 June 2025
Duration: 00:34:55
Film: The Mummy · Year: 1932 · Director: Karl Freund

### Description

Grab your bandages and have a good sarcophagus - we’re watching Universal’s original 1932 version of “The Mummy”. A film in which Zita Johann attempts to break the record for the number of 6’s you can put on your forehead; Edward Van Sloan returns as Van Helsing… er… plays the entirely new character of Dr Muller; and Jack Pierce bakes Boris Karloff for 8 hours at Gas Mark 5. Having hit gold with their adaptations of Dracula and Frankenstein, Universal decided to add another monster to their roster, and turned to Egypt for inspiration. Returning star Karloff cements his reputation with his baleful portrayal of Imhotep/Ardath Bey, searching for his lost love from beyond the grave. He is ably matched by Zita Johann’s portrayal of Helen and, later, the long dead Anck-es-en-Amon. Makeup maestro Jack P Pierce once again makes a memorable monster, in both his forms. Although this in many ways retreads the story beats of Dracula, it still has its own iconic moments, and it may also surprise new viewers that the shambling figure in bandages they may expect is almost entirely absent. Whilst there are aspects and attitudes of the film that may not sit well with modern sensibilities; it is product of nearly a century ago, and should be taken as such. And as a key film of Universal’s original horror run, it really deserves to be seen. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid 93 year old spoilers and join us.

### Adam's Research

- Original script concept and Egyptology influence: This yes, this was this was based on. This wasn't original story. I can't remember, I wish I'd I wish I'd jotted it down because I meant to, it was something I was going to look into anyway, there was apparently originally the script was about a guy, a a genuine figure who was basically a a cultist slash con man. Um and I think they were going with the the myth rather than the truth of this guy. And uh so originally the two people who who wrote the story, that's how that's what they were originally going for. And then because of the interest in Egyptology sort of resonating from from the expedition to uh for Tutankhamun, like Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun was. Or Tutankhamun, I don't know. Judge me either way. But um yeah, so Egyptology was like a big thing and they kind of married that into a similar sort of thing. But effectively, yeah, it is it's like they've rewritten Dracula, but gone, right, we can we'll move the camera around a bit more and Boris Karloff's playing Dracula now not Bela Lugosi.
- Universal's horror film history and Karloff's rise: And you know, because by then also by then sort of because this is this is literally the third of the Universal sort of. Well, the Universal um no, sorry, is the third sort of talkie of Universals horrors. Of like them because obviously they've got the sort of Pantheon for one of a better word of Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman. The Mummy, Invisible Man, Phantom of the Opera and so on. And so yes, they've done Dracula, huge success, done Frankenstein, but Bela Lugosi famously doesn't want to do to play the monster in Frankenstein, so Boris Karloff plays it, massive success and at this point Karloff becomes their go-to guy for their monsters, essentially. And so it's. Yeah, it's essentially Boris Karloff playing the Dracula role rather than Bela Lugosi. And everything else is kind of similar in you know, you know, in a way.
- Boris Karloff's mummy makeup process: Um and I think that that is that's that's definitely the that's the most horrific part of the film in the in that sort of sense. Cuz you've got Karloff obviously in the full makeup, which was like that was eight hours apparently. They they literally sort of baked him into like clay and bandages to make him like that. And they like so he's that was his first day was in the full mummy like gear. Um but most of the shots are actually a dummy that they'd done the same process on. So. So it's only really so it's only Karloff particularly when it's the eyes for the actual coming alive. So the other parts of it, that's a dummy of Karloff made up into the into the mummy gear. Which does seem it's like. And then you spent eight hours in makeup to open your eyes.
- Zita Johann's unusual contract and film career: But um, I mean, I don't mean I think the weird thing is cuz she didn't she didn't do a lot of films, she was mostly like a theater actress. And um, she I think she did like about seven or so films cuz basically she was a theater actor, got um, got no like sort of recognized in the theater and then MGM. I think it was MGM bought her like contracted her, but she had a clause and this is how this was unusual for the time, she had a clause that she had script refusal, so if she didn't like the script, she could say, no, I'm not doing that film and basically they kept offering her scripts and in the end they let her out of the contract because she just wasn't doing any of the films. And apparently it was along the lines of like they were saying, why won't you do any the films? She's like, well, why why don't you make any good ones? So. A very good argument, I think, you know. … And so she sort of um, yes, so she was um released from that contract and then she did seven films including The Mummy between 1931 and 34. And then just did a one-off appearance in 1986 in a film called Raiders of the Living Dead that I've never seen, but she came out of retirement did that. And I I'm assuming on the basis of on the basis of being attached to The Mummy because I don't think any of the other films were particularly sort of I think they were big at the time, but I don't think they're sort of ones that have survived. Well, been studied since, you know.
- Zita Johann's beliefs, director conflict, and cut scenes: But yeah, she was um and apparently she was quite she described herself as a mystic and was sort of into occultism and spirituality and reincarnation and that was one of the things she liked about the film. Was because there was um the reincarnation aspect of it. Um and apparently there was meant to be more there was meant to be more um sequences of like her past lives. Um but her and Karl Freund, the director, apparently didn't get on. She said, she basically said that they were filming they did film all this stuff, but end up getting cut out of the film of her character's past lives. And there was a bit where they're like, I think it was like meant to be in Rome and she was acting with lions. The rest of the crew were behind screens and walls and shit like that and the director just sent her out and said, right, you've got to go and play with the lions. Essentially. And then also apparently at one point he said, well, there's a scene we're going to do it and you'll you'll have to be nude for the scene. And she basically called she was like, well, I knew I knew that censorship at the time, there was no way I was going to appear nude, so I just called his bluff and said, yeah, fine, I'll I'll do that and then suddenly mysteriously this scene never appeared and was never filmed and so on and so forth.
- Universal's Mummy sequels list: I think cuz they then I mean they did do um how many more Mummy films did they do? I think they did. Um, so you've got so I'm just I'm just looking at my my universal list here that I printed out for myself. … So you've got The Mummy's Hand in 1940, then The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Curse and Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy.
- Screenwriter John L. Balderston's background and other works: Um, but the actual screenplay was written by a guy called John L. Balderston, um, who was actually present at one of the openings, it was the opening of Tutankhamun's sarcophagus in 1925. He was there on he was a journal he was act not acting as, he was working as a journalist for the paper called the New York New York World, which is I'm assuming kind of where the Daily Planet got his name from, but. … Um, but yeah, so he was actually present during one of those things, so he sort of like was and he brought he also was the script screen writer of Dracula, Dracula's daughter, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Mark of the Vampire and Mad Love with with Peter Lorre. Peter Lorre, fucking great film, I love that. Um which which incidentally was also Carl Freund, who directed this was also um also directed Mad Love, who was mostly a cinematographer, who was like on Metropolis and Dracula and things like that.
- Director Karl Freund's career and multi-camera sitcom pioneering: But weirdly enough, he also is the guy who pioneered the multi-camera studio filming before an audience for sitcoms. Yeah, because before they were but yeah, so he was the guy who sort of came up with the idea of like, right, we can cover this with cameras, still film it in front of the studio audience, so you get the reactions, you get the laughs as if it's live, but it was he basically worked out how to shoot a play. Essentially, like doing the multi-camera technique because he actually did 152 episodes of I Love Lucy. Which is where he developed it from, you know.
- Historical figure Imhotep: But speaking of names that passed out, did you know Imhotep's real? He was an Egyptian architect from around the 27th century BC. Who was the high priest of Ra and Chancellor of Pharaoh Zoser, who also possibly the architect of his pyramid and he was one of the few non-royal ancient Egyptians to be deified and ended up being worshiped as a god of healing and medicine around 2,000 years after his death. So is Imhotep a real figure that they've just sort of nabbed.
- Mummy character in sequels (Karis) vs. original (Imhotep): So they've moved away from so technically this is a stand-alone story and the other mummy films are a different story. It's not like Dracula or Frankenstein where the original is then the continuing stories the rest of them. So the subsequent Universal Mummy films are a different mummy, but it's the same one all through them. Um so it's not Imhotep. Um and Ankhesenamun was named after Tutankhamun's wife.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here again for a film that we keep apologizing for the fact that we haven't covered it yet, somehow in 230 episodes or thereabouts, we haven't covered one of the staple trilogy of the original Hammer series. So here we are this evening for 1932's The Mummy.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Lee:** So before Adam and I discuss our past with this film and how we feel about it.
**Lee:** There will be spoilers and swearing. I mean, it's nearly 100 years old. I mean how much are we going to spoil it. But yes, so let's throw it over to Chris. I assume this is your first viewing, Chris.
**Adam:** Bricks.
**Chris:** It is, but wait, just take me back again a second. Have I watched the wrong one?
**Chris:** Did you just said this is Hammer?
**Lee:** Oh, no, it's Universal.
**Lee:** Universal, sorry, that was my fault.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** The Hammer one Christopher Lee, which I did, I did nearly watch that and I was like, no, I'm sure they said it was older and it had Boris Karloff and that doesn't add up, so.
**Chris:** I was confused, but.
**Lee:** That's me, my Hammer poster and talking and confusing.
**Chris:** I'm just fucking Hammer. Okay.
**Chris:** So good stuff. Yeah.
**Chris:** so, this this was this was very good on a on a hot Father's Day, the end of the weekend. This was a nice, fairly fairly sedate kind of a horror to watch.
**Adam:** Not.
**Chris:** Not over the top action, but some excellent atmospheric and, you know, like for being 1932, was it? you know, excellent production, realistic in many respects.
**Chris:** And I loved the the the opening sequence definitely sits the scene with seeing the mummy.
**Chris:** Appearing.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, for a minute I thought you meant that model right at the beginning because I love that, you know, when you get the title and it's the revolving thing where it's got the Sphinx and the pyramid and it's all turned it's got the mummy carved on the front.
**Lee:** It's just looks fantastic. I thought you were on about that for a minute.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** When and and they show the what was it, the the script, the words that he speaks, which I did say somewhere, but.
**Chris:** yes, that's it. Yeah.
**Chris:** and and so I learned also where the name Imhotep came from.
**Chris:** Which I didn't realize.
**Chris:** I'd heard that over the years in different places, never realized he was.
**Adam:** He just look around you, obviously.
**Adam:** He obviously, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No, he's the Imhotep.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** okay.
**Adam:** Because because I take it, Chris, have you did you have you seen the Brendan Fraser The Mummy?
**Chris:** Like I've seen definitely seen the trailers for that, but I don't think I ever watched the film.
**Chris:** I don't remember seeing the entire film.
**Adam:** Cuz I've I've never seen.
**Chris:** So does does that follow?
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** No, no, what it is is basically weirdly I'll take it you've seen it Lee, have you seen the.
**Lee:** I I have seen all of the 90s Mummy, yeah, it was the 90s, wasn't it?
**Adam:** It was. It was the 90s.
**Adam:** And yeah, so they basically do credit this film on there.
**Adam:** No, I don't think it's from what I gather, I don't think it's particularly.
**Unknown:** Nothing like it.
**Adam:** Yeah. Oh, thank you. The other viewer of the Mummy Claire has just gone, nothing like it.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** I think they just they they sort of wanted not wanted the cachet, but they they were like taking right, we'll take the name Imhotep and we'll, you know, that'll go in there and everything and.
**Lee:** Other than other than that it's a crossover between the Universal The Mummy and Indiana Jones effectively.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's what I thought it was in much more adventurous base.
**Adam:** Which actually I think probably suits Mummy better.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is it is in a weird way, you know.
**Lee:** It was yeah, it was a it was I mean, I I've watched it a few times. It isn't something I would bring to the table to cover in this show because it is a bit a little bit low brow, but I mean, it's a fun film, like if you're, you know, Saturday afternoon, you want something a bit fun and a bit of action. Yeah, it's it's fine.
**Lee:** It's not as dry as this, thankfully.
**Lee:** but yes, sorry, anyway, Chris, yes.
**Chris:** and then the other thing that I didn't realize was that this was a a a romance, a love story.
**Chris:** I did not realize that and it also has a bit of a supernatural power hypnotic sort of vibe points.
**Chris:** Which, you know, may not be so good nowadays, but.
**Lee:** I mean, this is effectively Dracula with a mummy instead of the Dracula.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's effectively the same story, he has the same powers, just different makeup.
**Adam:** It's romancing, it's romancing the reincarnated figure of his love.
**Adam:** It's and yeah, cuz I saw a lot of people saying that online, you know, like sort of reviews of it and a lot of people say, oh yeah, it's basically.
**Adam:** The Mummy sorry, it's basically Dracula and you've even got the same the same guy who plays Van Helsing's Dr. Müller in this.
**Lee:** That's right, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Playing effectively the same role in the story of the of, you know, the the knowledgeable man who who knows what what is actually going on. but yeah, it's.
**Chris:** And so, so is this story was it written by Universal or.
**Adam:** This yes, this was this was based on.
**Adam:** This wasn't original story.
**Adam:** I can't remember, I wish I'd I wish I'd jotted it down because I meant to, it was something I was going to look into anyway, there was apparently originally the script was about a guy, a a genuine figure who was basically a a cultist slash con man.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** and I think they were going with the the myth rather than the truth of this guy.
**Adam:** And so originally the two people who who wrote the story, that's how that's what they were originally going for.
**Adam:** And then because of the interest in Egyptology sort of resonating from from the expedition to for Tutankhamun, like Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun was.
**Adam:** Or Tutankhamun, I don't know.
**Adam:** Judge me either way.
**Adam:** But yeah, so Egyptology was like a big thing and they kind of married that into a similar sort of thing.
**Adam:** But effectively, yeah, it is it's like they've rewritten Dracula, but gone, right, we can we'll move the camera around a bit more and Boris Karloff's playing Dracula now not Bela Lugosi.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you know, because by then also by then sort of because this is this is literally the third of the Universal sort of.
**Adam:** Well, the Universal no, sorry, is the third sort of talkie of Universals horrors.
**Adam:** Of like them because obviously they've got the sort of Pantheon for one of a better word of Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The Mummy, Invisible Man, Phantom of the Opera and so on. And so yes, they've done Dracula, huge success, done Frankenstein, but Bela Lugosi famously doesn't want to do to play the monster in Frankenstein, so Boris Karloff plays it, massive success and at this point Karloff becomes their go-to guy for their monsters, essentially.
**Adam:** And so it's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's essentially Boris Karloff playing the Dracula role rather than Bela Lugosi.
**Adam:** And everything else is kind of similar in you know, you know, in a way.
**Lee:** I think one of the things that has to be brought up and I know we always mention it when we mention Universal, but it is a travesty to me again having watched it, especially, so I watched it on its lovely Blu-ray release, which looks stunning.
**Lee:** and you can see Jack Pierce's makeup is absolutely incredible. He's such an underrated part of the whole of horror really, I mean, our.
**Adam:** I think he's a name.
**Adam:** He is definitely a name that is getting forgotten.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is a real shame because he is I mean, without him you do not he literally creates the definitive version of Frankenstein's monster.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's the one that kids still weirdly, the kids still know the design, they probably just don't know it comes from Jack Pierce, but it's that thing of flathead bolts in the neck.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, scars, that's that's him entirely.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** He knocks it out the park again with this as well. It's both both when it's Boris Karloff just being aged up and the actual when he is a mummy, they just look incredible.
**Adam:** Because the mummy stuff, I mean, I was that's the one thing I always find with this is I'm always I'm always disappointed that cuz I go to a mummy film to see a mummy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In the sense of a bandaged corpse chasing people around. Essentially, essentially a slasher movie sort of vibe, you know, with with curse and sort of.
**Chris:** Mummy styling and.
**Adam:** Yeah, and basically ancient Egypt as a backdrop and a slasher film around the curse is what I sort of go to with mummy films.
**Adam:** So I'm always a bit disappointed that he's not bandaged apart from that opening bit, and I think that opening bit is really effective because I love.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When when the guy just breaks and is just laughing.
**Adam:** As it moves as he sees and you don't you see you he sees the hand, we don't see any more of the mummy, but it's just him in hysterics.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because of it's just broken him.
**Adam:** And that's you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and I think that that is that's that's definitely the that's the most horrific part of the film in the in that sort of sense. Cuz you've got Karloff obviously in the full makeup, which was like that was eight hours apparently.
**Adam:** They they literally sort of baked him into like clay and bandages to make him like that.
**Adam:** And they like so he's that was his first day was in the full mummy like gear.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but most of the shots are actually a dummy that they'd done the same process on.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So it's only really so it's only Karloff particularly when it's the eyes for the actual coming alive. So the other parts of it, that's a dummy of Karloff made up into the into the mummy gear.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which does seem it's like.
**Adam:** And then you spent eight hours in makeup to open your eyes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ, mate.
**Lee:** I get it, but.
**Chris:** But it's.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's so I I'm always slightly because.
**Adam:** There's one there's one other bit in this though, there's in one of the flashbacks there is a spear through someone that is actually pretty gruesome. Yeah, cuz every time I sort of by that point I'm getting a bit drowsy with it as it were because you sort of get as you say, you get lulled.
**Lee:** Yes, I saw that it was torn through.
**Adam:** It sort of gets it's it can be quite slow, it can be quite dry.
**Adam:** And yeah, suddenly in the middle of it you're like, hang on, that blows got a spear through him.
**Adam:** Jesus fucking Christ, that's not.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think
**Adam:** Yeah, so it's again, it's a weird one because the the subsequent mummy films in Universal series and most subsequent mummy movies it it is the figure in bandages, the essentially a zombie.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** I guess they realized that's perhaps what what people want.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean.
**Adam:** Possibly that's the reason I didn't watch The Mummy, the 90s sort of action adventure version is cuz again, I was like, well, you mean the Mummy's not covered in bandages? That's not proper mummy.
**Adam:** And he is he is a mummy, obviously, he is the mummy.
**Adam:** And there's the the sort of but
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean and again, I mean, certainly from a point of view of if you sort of I mean coming to it, coming to it with with a purely modern sensibility.
**Adam:** You've obviously got Boris Karloff from playing an Egyptian.
**Adam:** Zita Johann playing a half Egyptian.
**Adam:** And as Claire said, the only Egyptian thing about us are bedsheets.
**Lee:** Yes, and she just looks like Drew Barrymore.
**Lee:** I realize watching, she really looks like Drew Barrymore.
**Adam:** She does actually.
**Adam:** Yes, she does.
**Adam:** But I mean she she's just strikingly 1930s.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, yeah, you know, she really.
**Adam:** But I mean, I don't mean I think the weird thing is cuz she didn't she didn't do a lot of films, she was mostly like a theater actress.
**Adam:** And she I think she did like about seven or so films cuz basically she was a theater actor, got got no like sort of recognized in the theater and then MGM.
**Adam:** I think it was MGM bought her like contracted her, but she had a clause and this is how this was unusual for the time, she had a clause that she had script refusal, so if she didn't like the script, she could say, no, I'm not doing that film and basically they kept offering her scripts and in the end they let her out of the contract because she just wasn't doing any of the films.
**Adam:** And apparently it was along the lines of like they were saying, why won't you do any the films? She's like, well, why why don't you make any good ones?
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** I mean that's a good argument.
**Lee:** I I would.
**Adam:** A very good argument, I think, you know.
**Adam:** And so she sort of yes, so she was released from that contract and then she did seven films including The Mummy between 1931 and 34.
**Adam:** And then just did a one-off appearance in 1986 in a film called Raiders of the Living Dead that I've never seen, but she came out of retirement did that.
**Adam:** And I I'm assuming on the basis of on the basis of being attached to The Mummy because I don't think any of the other films were particularly sort of I think they were big at the time, but I don't think they're sort of ones that have survived.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Well, been studied since, you know.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But yeah, she was and apparently she was quite she described herself as a mystic and was sort of into occultism and spirituality and reincarnation and that was one of the things she liked about the film.
**Adam:** Was because there was the reincarnation aspect of it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and apparently there was meant to be more there was meant to be more sequences of like her past lives.
**Adam:** but her and Karl Freund, the director, apparently didn't get on.
**Adam:** She said, she basically said that they were filming they did film all this stuff, but end up getting cut out of the film of her character's past lives.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And there was a bit where they're like, I think it was like meant to be in Rome and she was acting with lions. The rest of the crew were behind screens and walls and shit like that and the director just sent her out and said, right, you've got to go and play with the lions.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Essentially.
**Adam:** And then also apparently at one point he said, well, there's a scene we're going to do it and you'll you'll have to be nude for the scene.
**Adam:** And she basically called she was like, well, I knew I knew that censorship at the time, there was no way I was going to appear nude, so I just called his bluff and said, yeah, fine, I'll I'll do that and then suddenly mysteriously this scene never appeared and was never filmed and so on and so forth.
**Lee:** I think she's surprisingly close to nude in this.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, I mean, you know, he's not when she's in the Egyptian garb.
**Adam:** But also I think that's the bit when she's sort of channeling acts and Amon.
**Adam:** Amon?
**Adam:** Amon.
**Chris:** Ankhesenamun.
**Adam:** Ankhesenamun, thank you.
**Adam:** yeah, when when she's channeling her.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** Ankhesenamun.
**Adam:** Ankhesenamun, thank you.
**Chris:** that's it, that's it.
**Adam:** And but I think you get the that's when she cuz she gets to play at Boris's level at that point.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, cuz everyone else is sort of being everyday and ordinary.
**Adam:** I mean, admittedly, it seems very stilted to us, but it's 1932 as 1932, so it was present day.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And everyone sort of conversation and everything and then obviously Boris Karloff gets to come in and be absolutely fucking strange. And I think she she really is great when she gets that opportunity to sort of match his performance.
**Adam:** As opposed to everyone.
**Adam:** She's really good in it anyway, but I think that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, when she's when she's gets to that point and it's like yeah, her and Carl for at that point, they're they're completely different to everyone else in the film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but.
**Lee:** It is good to see her see her character change.
**Lee:** You know, the fact that originally she's obviously very skeptical and he keeps saying don't you remember and isn't this sparking anything and then her yeah, her sort of sudden realization after he gives her those visions.
**Lee:** yeah, I I thought it worked it worked really well. Yeah, and she did do a really good job.
**Lee:** She's
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** And again to be opposite Karloff, who obviously was one of the biggest names in Hollywood at the time having just come out of Frankenstein the year before. yeah, yeah, I thought they did she did a really good job.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well again, they were selling him on just one name cuz at this point it was Karloff in The Mummy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, so that's.
**Chris:** So so you say so he done Frankenstein before this, what else had he done anything else or was that big enough?
**Adam:** I mean, there was there was a lot of stuff, I'm just having a look at my my roll call, so.
**Adam:** From Universal's point of view, they they did Dracula in 31, Frankenstein in 31.
**Adam:** And then The Mummy.
**Adam:** Then the next next in 33 they do The Invisible Man and then 35 is when Karloff comes back to play the monster for Bride of Frankenstein.
**Adam:** but I mean Karloff was just in tons and tons and tons of stuff.
**Adam:** I mean, I'm sure we've you know, obviously we've we've sort of talked about him on other episodes and stuff.
**Adam:** And yeah, if you other we've covered him, obviously episode 22, Bride of Frankenstein.
**Adam:** Episode 102, The Curse of the Crimson Altar and episode 126, The Raven.
**Adam:** Not as many as I thought.
**Adam:** I thought he.
**Lee:** No, I thought we'd have done more than that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So that's something that we need to.
**Lee:** Hang on a minute, hang on, if that's the case, does that mean we've not covered comedy of terrors yet?
**Adam:** No, we've never done Comedy of Terrors.
**Adam:** Should we do Comedy of Terrors?
**Lee:** Yes. I keep I keep thinking we've done it and it keeps coming to me and I keep going, we need to no, we've definitely done that. But we didn't done Tales of Terror.
**Lee:** Yes, we did, yes.
**Adam:** Which plays a min, unfortunately.
**Adam:** It's what's his name, Basil Rathbone.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, but yes, no, we we haven't done a comedy of terrors, as yet.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** That's it, that's locked in then, that's
**Chris:** That's that's the one.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** I love that film. That that is a film that comes out every six months or so from me, it's just a a solid piece of comedy horror.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** So so this film again again, what I like about it is the fact that Universal obviously played it safe with Dracula.
**Lee:** Taking an adaptation of a book that had been really big, it done really well on the stage and then they brought it to the cinema.
**Lee:** so then Frankenstein obviously again a big literary piece, they knew it'd have a large following.
**Lee:** So I do like the fact that they took a bit of a gamble with The Mummy and basically said, we're going to do our own we're going to write our own story and try and keep.
**Lee:** I mean, as we said, you know, of the big three or four, I mean, I would say Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and Wolfman are the four big ones.
**Lee:** I know that Phantom of the Opera is in there and The Invisible Man, but I I think.
**Adam:** And the creature as in the Creature from the Black Lagoon, they're all part of that Pantheon, but yeah.
**Adam:** No, I think it's it always was the ranking in my head as a child. He's like, it's like, yeah, it was Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, Mummy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's they're the ones in all the cartoons.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly, yeah.
**Lee:** They're the ones they bring back for the Monster Squad and
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is actually I think the only time we The Mummy that was the only time that we've actually had a pre previously had a Mummy on the show.
**Lee:** Yes, yeah.
**Lee:** You're right.
**Adam:** I mean, apart from when player's been again.
**Chris:** So they did a good enough job to to make it iconic.
**Chris:** Even if part of this film doesn't necessarily stand up quite as much as it may have done at the time when it was released.
**Adam:** Well, I think.
**Adam:** I think it was because.
**Chris:** I only cuz you don't see so much of the mummy.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I mean.
**Adam:** I think cuz they then I mean they did do how many more Mummy films did they do?
**Adam:** I think they did.
**Adam:** so you've got so I'm just I'm just looking at my my universal list here that I printed out for myself.
**Adam:** So you've got The Mummy's Hand in 1940, then The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, The Mummy's Curse and Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy.
**Lee:** Great film.
**Adam:** So I've, you know, I've never seen it.
**Lee:** Oh, I've.
**Lee:** I've never seen me the Mummy.
**Lee:** I've got it because I've got that and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I think on a on a dual disc with both of them on.
**Adam:** Oh, I might I might have it as well then.
**Lee:** Oh, there you go.
**Adam:** I've just I've just never actually watched it.
**Adam:** I'll have to.
**Adam:** I'll have to check it out.
**Lee:** but yeah, and it again, I like this is a slower film, but it is a nice short film. It doesn't it doesn't drag the story out anymore than it has to.
**Lee:** And as you say, I think the reason it landed so well is because it was Egyptology it was such a massive thing at the time.
**Lee:** This is where they were doing the Mummy unwrapping in London, in Leicester Square and stuff in the theaters where you'd basically go and watch them get an actual Egyptian mummy that they've brought all the way from Egypt and just unwrap it on stage and you would just pay to see it unboxed basically, which is weird, I don't know why, but I mean that was a thing.
**Adam:** Well, like I say, I mean the two the two people who wrote the story, Nina Wilcox Putnam was a novelist and comic writer as well as a screen writer.
**Adam:** And Richard who had worked on the Frankenstein script.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You know, but they they were the ones who came up with the concept with the story and quite frankly, to a certain extent, they were the ones who obviously watched Dracula and went, you could probably do that again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** To a certain extent, you know.
**Adam:** but the actual screenplay was written by a guy called John L. Balderston, who was actually present at one of the openings, it was the opening of Tutankhamun's sarcophagus in 1925.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** He was there on he was a journal he was act not acting as, he was working as a journalist for the paper called the New York New York World, which is I'm assuming kind of where the Daily Planet got his name from, but.
**Adam:** but yeah, so he was actually present during one of those things, so he sort of like was and he brought he also was the script screen writer of Dracula, Dracula's daughter, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Mark of the Vampire and Mad Love with with Peter Lorre.
**Lee:** Oh, Peter Lorre.
**Adam:** Peter Lorre, fucking great film, I love that.
**Adam:** which which incidentally was also Carl Freund, who directed this was also also directed Mad Love, who was mostly a cinematographer, who was like on Metropolis and Dracula and things like that.
**Lee:** Yes, I saw that.
**Adam:** But weirdly enough, he also is the guy who pioneered the multi-camera studio filming before an audience for sitcoms.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah, because before they were but yeah, so he was the guy who sort of came up with the idea of like, right, we can cover this with cameras, still film it in front of the studio audience, so you get the reactions, you get the laughs as if it's live, but it was he basically worked out how to shoot a play.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Essentially, like doing the multi-camera technique because he actually did 152 episodes of I Love Lucy.
**Lee:** Oh God, that's a lot.
**Adam:** Which is where he developed it from, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and
**Adam:** What weirdly enough speaking of sitcoms, I was going through the list of Jack Pierce's credits.
**Adam:** they include 104 episodes of Mr. Ed and I'm now thinking was that the fucking best makeup?
**Adam:** Did he make the guy up to look like a fucking horse to get that gag because I mean at that point the man's surpassed himself.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Lee:** I mean, Jack Pierce is just.
**Lee:** I mean, it's one of those we could almost do an episode just talking about the things that that man has has done.
**Lee:** And yeah, as you say, and nobody really talks about him, you know, everyone talks about the actors and stuff and the directors, but nobody talks about Jack Pierce and as you say, he's just given so much and he's his work is still in the zeitgeist now, 100 years later.
**Lee:** and he's absolutely fashioned the way that we see all of these creatures, yeah, so for nobody to know who he is really, you know, within reason, it's yeah, it's a travesty really.
**Adam:** Cuz I heard about Jack Pierce through other makeup artists talking about.
**Lee:** Yeah, me too.
**Adam:** You know, it's the it's that sort of thing of, you know, people like Tom Savini and stuff because they were they knew they knew who to look for and what they'd but yeah, as you say, it's like a sort of it's a name that's kind of passed out.
**Adam:** But speaking of names that passed out, did you know Imhotep's real?
**Adam:** He was an Egyptian architect from around the 27th century BC.
**Adam:** Who was the high priest of Ra and Chancellor of Pharaoh Zoser, who also possibly the architect of his pyramid and he was one of the few non-royal ancient Egyptians to be deified and ended up being worshiped as a god of healing and medicine around 2,000 years after his death.
**Adam:** So is Imhotep a real figure that they've just sort of nabbed.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** They've sort of turned him into the opposite of who he really was.
**Lee:** But yeah, so they they had him in this day and said he was he was from the Temple at Karnak, which I am very glad to say I've been to.
**Lee:** So yeah, it's it's it's it's exciting when I was there.
**Lee:** So if I remember correctly, there's a temple at Luxor and the temple at Karnak, they are miles apart.
**Lee:** It was like 20 minutes on the bus to get from one to the other. and they had just discovered that there is a direct line from Karnak to Luxor and it's it's lined with Sphinxes the whole way and the whole thing is buried under sand and they just discovered it and we're trying to unearth it, so it's a whole straight road lined with Sphinxes for like 20 miles or something and they've just they'd only just discovered it about 16 years ago, I think.
**Lee:** yeah, so yeah, it's incredible.
**Adam:** But yeah, but so yeah and the follow-up films are all the the Mummy is Karis.
**Adam:** So they've moved away from so technically this is a stand-alone story and the other mummy films are a different story. It's not like Dracula or Frankenstein where the original is then the continuing stories the rest of them.
**Adam:** So the subsequent Universal Mummy films are a different mummy, but it's the same one all through them.
**Adam:** so it's not Imhotep.
**Adam:** and Ankhesenamun was named after Tutankhamun's wife.
**Adam:** oh yeah, that was the other thing, you know, I said that they had stuff cut out where they were doing her reincarnated lives.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** yeah, there was stuff cut out there, but they were there was two people are still in the credits from them.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** So there's lots of uncredited people that you see on the screen, but there's two people you don't see who get credit, which is quite.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's ridiculous.
**Adam:** But I mean, I mean, I would say certainly anyone coming to it, it's like yeah, you're going to see you're going to see some dodginess there.
**Adam:** I mean, I love the bit where it's like the guy going, I mean, what a dirty rotten trick that we've got to keep the the stuff we've dug up out of the Egyptian museum.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes, you fucking thieving bitch. about science, my ass. You cheeky bastard, yes, you do keep it there. So.
**Adam:** Because there's there's you know, and there's a lot sort of that there's a lot there's a lot of problems in that sort of sense, but they are literally the problems of 1932.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, this is this is something so old that it's like, well, of course the heroes are the.
**Adam:** Because you know, you know there's that thing about they said the only way they should do a sequel for Indiana Jones now is that it's his son going back or his grandson rather going back and giving back all the treasures that he's nicked from various places.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It'd be the right way to do the hero story at that point.
**Adam:** But because let's face it, Imhotep, despite his sort of undying love and I mean, let's let's face it, quite creepy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Very.
**Adam:** You know, it's very creepy, it's like, let it go, mate, you know, it's been a while.
**Lee:** Old dude after this woman who's probably in her early 20s doesn't doesn't bode well.
**Adam:** Who who reminds him of her, you remind me of her, boy.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, it's so.
**Adam:** There's there's about essential dodginess as well.
**Adam:** But I think that he does have a very good point about well what the fuck are you doing picking shit out of.
**Adam:** Out of our tombs.
**Adam:** And that's what I like with Müller when he comes in and he's like, you're not going to open that, that's sealed, you know, that's that's sealed under curse.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What are you fucking mental?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** See that's the thing, I think all the stuff should be given back.
**Lee:** But what's even worse is the stuff before the British started going and taking it, where just random people would break into the tombs and then just flog it to somebody with some money.
**Lee:** And all that stuff has obviously never resurfaced.
**Lee:** So it's all stuff.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Some of it was sold stuff and brought it over here and we definitely need to give it back.
**Lee:** But if they hadn't.
**Lee:** We'd never see any of this stuff because it'd just be flogged on the black market as a coffee table or fuck knows what.
**Lee:** And it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It would.
**Lee:** Be long gone.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Adam:** Grave robbing is grave robbing, no matter which way you look at it.
**Adam:** So it's
**Adam:** No, there's a lot there's a lot to be seen, I mean, I I get the thing, it's.
**Adam:** You know, but again, it's like, yeah, we're we're we're here from a scientific point of view.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, your backers aren't though, aren't they?
**Lee:** No, exactly, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and it's but anyway.
**Adam:** I mean this is.
**Adam:** Let's face it, there was no way that a film from 1932 starring a white man as an Egyptian was not going to have a certain level of problematic, shall we say.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, as I said, it doesn't it it yeah, it is a bit its age.
**Lee:** But I think it's a great film and it's definitely one to to check out as part of that that very early again, it's the first first time we see a character who has lasted and is still in the in the pantheon of creatures 100 years later.
**Lee:** So, for our next episode, as we've just discussed it, we are going to cover Comedy of Terrors.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** So back with Basil Rathbone, Peter Lorre, it's incredible.
**Chris:** Yeah, I've just looked up the cast. That is a a full cast.
**Adam:** It's it's a it's a bloody good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We we're obviously we're obviously feeling our age and embracing our the the the the the.
**Chris:** And it's a comedy.
**Adam:** The elder statesman of horror, shall we say.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, such a such a fantastic film.
**Lee:** But I shall save all that for the next episode.
**Lee:** Right, thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** go and check out all of our previous episodes.
**Lee:** go and listen to not for everyone podcast and Eric and all that other fun stuff that we we devour ourselves.
**Lee:** And we'll be back in a Fortnight's time for Comedy of Terrors.
**Lee:** Thanks very much. Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 225 The Tomb of Ligeia

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-225-the-tomb-of-ligeia/
Air date: 8 June 2025
Duration: 00:37:45
Film: The Tomb of Ligeia · Year: 1964 · Director: Roger Corman

### Description

It’s Poe Time! Join us as we venture out into the daylight and visit “The Tomb of Ligeia”. A film in which Captain Peacock serves the tea, whilst Slartibartfast and Doctor Who’s Nero have dinner; meanwhile Vincent Price auditions as frontman of The Byrds, and attempts to convince us that he could hurt a cat. The last of the Roger Corman / Edgar Allan Poe films finally sees the series move out of the studio for some beautiful location shooting in the English Countryside. A wonderfully distressed and melancholy Price is matched by two excellent performances from Elizabeth Shepherd as both feisty and romantic Rowena, and the foreboding, electrifying will of Ligeia. With support by an excellent cast of familiar British character actors, the film still ties in with the others in the series, with woozy dream (and dream-like) sequences, and the inevitable conflagration of the main setting. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** and we're here this evening with spoilers and swearing to cover 1964's The Tomb of Ligeia.
**Lee:** a film which I have just seen on the IMDB is apparently X-rated. I have no idea why.
**Chris:** Well, there is the hottest feline action we may have ever seen in a film that that we've covered.
**Adam:** Oh, I don't know, you have to go a long way to beat The Uncanny.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, that is true, but especially where this one ended in a huge flames engulfing everything.
**Chris:** I think literally it was hot as well as figuratively.
**Chris:** But I'm sure I'm sure no animals, cats or foxes were harmed for this.
**Chris:** Although it did look like Vincent Price might have might have taken a bit of a swipe.
**Chris:** I'm I'm guessing it was a stunt double.
**Chris:** But it was like it looked like it was still him and he.
**Lee:** Yeah, straight in his face.
**Chris:** Yeah, straight in his face.
**Chris:** And I was like, was that him?
**Chris:** It did look like it was still him.
**Chris:** But I didn't rewind and check or, you know.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Vincent Price was an animal lover, so I'd imagine he didn't have too much worry with that.
**Lee:** Which.
**Lee:** Which is what makes me laugh, the the scene in which he's supposed to be strangling the cat and he's got his hand around its throat and the noise is going And that cat couldn't be more chill.
**Lee:** He was obviously being so kind to that cat.
**Lee:** I was like.
**Lee:** Yeah, the sound isn't made.
**Lee:** But anyway, sorry, we've jumped ahead.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** this, so I've seen this a couple of times, I believe, enough for the to want to go and see the Abbey, which is why we decided to cover it.
**Lee:** I went to the Abbey where it was shot, a couple of weeks ago and checked that out and it was amazing.
**Lee:** Adam, what's your history with this movie?
**Adam:** This would have been a, I'm assuming I don't know the history of it, but I'm assuming like, don't have the proper schedule, it feels like I would have seen it as a Friday night double bill, possibly with a universal because this kind of would have been the more color.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This would have.
**Adam:** This would have fulfilled the Hammer role that those things used to have.
**Adam:** So, I.
**Adam:** Basically, I was I know I know I saw it, but.
**Adam:** it hadn't been for a long time.
**Adam:** I've got it on Blu-ray, but this is actually the first time watching it on Blu-ray because this was one of those moments a few years back when money was more plentiful.
**Adam:** That Arrow would do a sale.
**Adam:** And it's like, I can get.
**Adam:** Apart from Mask of the Red Death, I can get all the Corman Poe Vincent Price films.
**Adam:** So I bought them up at that point.
**Adam:** And, yeah, so this is probably definitely the cleanest I've seen it in a in a long, long time.
**Lee:** Yeah, I watched my Midnight Movies Double Bill DVD.
**Lee:** So it's this on one side and then the other side is an evening with Edgar Allan Poe, which is just Vincent Price reading Poe.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** but yeah, I've got that one.
**Adam:** That's good.
**Adam:** Is that the one where he keeps saying Bozom?
**Lee:** Possibly, I I've only watched it once.
**Lee:** but yeah, I I've got to admit, I think, just before we hand over to Chris, I think this is possibly my least favorite of the Corman Poe films.
**Lee:** It the end 10 minutes is brilliant, everything running up to that just doesn't grab me.
**Lee:** I must have had to say no out loud to myself.
**Lee:** and put my phone down at least five times before I got to the end of this.
**Lee:** so yeah, that just tells you everything.
**Lee:** But Chris, as it's your first viewing, why don't you give us your opinions?
**Chris:** It is, and I want to start by saying that, it seems like it's been a long time since we've watched Vincent Price.
**Chris:** Not for you two.
**Adam:** we covered him a fortnight ago, didn't we?
**Chris:** Yeah, that's true.
**Chris:** Did we?
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** You did.
**Chris:** But I was like, have I, have I seen him recently?
**Chris:** Like.
**Adam:** So last time would have been episode, so I've just because I've actually written it down.
**Lee:** Oh, well done.
**Adam:** Episode 148, The Pit and the Pendulum was the last time we did.
**Chris:** Now, 148 sounds like quite high, but what are we on now?
**Lee:** 200.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well done.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** So I do remember Pit and Pendulum, yep, okay.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Before that it would have been Raven.
**Chris:** Yes, yep.
**Adam:** And then, which obviously two other from the Poe cycle.
**Chris:** Poe, yeah.
**Adam:** so that seems to have been the sort of line we've been taking with Vincent.
**Chris:** So yeah, like I really like him reading some of what are clearly Poe pieces, you know, it's very obvious.
**Adam:** Yeah, you can see what's directly the text and not just.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and I really like that.
**Chris:** I suppose it's.
**Chris:** For me, I I feel like I'm at the point where I could probably watch Vincent Price in anything.
**Chris:** Now, I realize you two also still there.
**Chris:** But it's like I've reached that point where it's like he's he's just.
**Chris:** It's really enjoyable knowing what you're going to get.
**Chris:** Whereas the first few films, you know, you're getting used to it a little bit, even though you're clearly, you can see how impressive he is.
**Chris:** It's like fully appreciate it.
**Chris:** I did happen to hear Thriller recently and heard his voice and I was like, yes, this great, you know, really like that now.
**Adam:** Which I think I think probably for me and me and Lee was probably.
**Adam:** One of the first encounters with Vincent Price.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Chris:** Well, it turns out when that voice was on.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You hear it.
**Chris:** You're like, that's great.
**Chris:** Now realizing just, you know, who he is.
**Lee:** Who he is.
**Chris:** He's yeah, all of his legacy.
**Chris:** Like it's like, yeah, okay.
**Chris:** That's that's really exciting now when that comes on.
**Chris:** In fact, that's almost like, you know, that's almost the best bit of the song.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But but yeah.
**Chris:** So I think it's going to be hard to separate that from any film that I watch with him.
**Chris:** So it's that probably ramps up almost any film.
**Chris:** So I I really liked this.
**Chris:** Obviously, I mean.
**Chris:** I'm assuming Adam does really like this even if it's not your favorite, Lee.
**Lee:** I still enjoy it.
**Lee:** It's just my least favorite of the.
**Chris:** No, that might still be a pretty high bar.
**Chris:** You know.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Adam:** Can I just ask at this point, are you including The Premature Burial in that, Lee?
**Adam:** Because that's the one that he's that Vincent Price isn't in.
**Adam:** And I can't for the life of me remember a thing about that film.
**Lee:** Nor can I.
**Lee:** It's on the shelf, I I really need to to go back and re-watch it.
**Adam:** Again, let's face it, you want to go for the Corman Poe cycle.
**Adam:** No, that that is the Poe Corman Price cycle.
**Adam:** That's what it is in your head, even though there's one that doesn't have Vincent Price in it.
**Adam:** No, that's the criteria I'm heading for that.
**Chris:** So what what are the other Corman films we've seen?
**Adam:** so yeah, so we did The Pit and the Pendulum.
**Chris:** That that yeah.
**Adam:** And we did.
**Chris:** The Raven was his as well then or no.
**Adam:** Yeah, the Raven the Raven is there.
**Adam:** Because that's based on the poem.
**Adam:** And we did Tales of Terror really early on.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** That was that was episode 19.
**Chris:** Remind me.
**Adam:** And that is the one that's basically three Poe stories in like an anthology.
**Adam:** And you've got the.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** What is it the case of M. Valdemar.
**Adam:** The Black Cat.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** Yeah, I was going to say the cat.
**Chris:** There was a cat in it.
**Adam:** And Lado.
**Adam:** So that's where they get the the one where someone they so it's got the three.
**Chris:** Yep.
**Adam:** Which actually probably makes sense because like this is I read Ligeia this afternoon.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** I was going to you either you either read.
**Adam:** Like high speed.
**Adam:** It's it's 10 pages.
**Lee:** Oh, is it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's really, really short.
**Adam:** And that's the thing is because literally I because I just in my head.
**Adam:** I was like, right, now I've read it and I know I've seen the film and I know the film's different.
**Adam:** But I wanted to sort of clear in my head, like just experience the story.
**Adam:** The story is literally him telling you that.
**Adam:** It's like a a reminisce, it's like a sort of a conversational remembrance of someone talking to you about.
**Adam:** he met this woman Ligeia who was extraordinary, both in appearance and mind and was a fierce, like sort of cultist intellectual.
**Adam:** who dies.
**Adam:** He's obviously he then basically does a load of opium.
**Adam:** buys a ruined Abbey.
**Adam:** And then somehow, because it's really sort of quickly in the text, you suddenly realize he's remarried.
**Lee:** Huh.
**Adam:** So, you know, just just like, but.
**Chris:** Just that yeah, that's that's clearly quite incidental to him.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And basically.
**Chris:** Which it turns out.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then and then she dies.
**Adam:** And then basically, yeah, she dies and then the body comes back to life.
**Adam:** But then she takes like the wrapping.
**Adam:** The shroud from around her face and it's Ligeia rather than the
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Trevelyan.
**Chris:** Rowena.
**Adam:** I can't think what the name.
**Adam:** Tremain.
**Adam:** Oh my brain is completely doing.
**Lee:** Lady Rowena.
**Chris:** Trevelion.
**Adam:** Travanian.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's it.
**Adam:** Yeah, Rowena, yeah.
**Adam:** Which I thought was just why they kept going in IT Crowd that time.
**Adam:** But Oh, Black book.
**Adam:** Sorry, yes.
**Lee:** Black books.
**Adam:** But yeah, so it's.
**Adam:** I
**Adam:** So yeah, that so literally everything else is built around that.
**Adam:** There's no.
**Chris:** Expanded reasonably well then.
**Adam:** They've expanded it but when you hear the script writer.
**Adam:** talking about it, he basically is like, oh yes, a man who's been hypnotized into being a necrophiliac.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When you put it like that, it's quite fucking blunt.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He did seem, you know, reasonably obsessed by by what looked like dead women.
**Lee:** I got that bit dropped me, I had forgotten that bit.
**Lee:** Yeah, with a, you know, when they go into the chamber and she's just laying in the bed and I was like, oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I didn't remember that being a thing.
**Adam:** You're certainly thinking Trakinko, that's what that.
**Lee:** That.
**Adam:** But and but I I think Elizabeth Shepherd who plays Rowena and Ligeia,
**Chris:** And yeah.
**Adam:** She's really good, but it's the bit where she's hypnotized and she's she's speaking as Ligeia.
**Adam:** And you haven't heard Ligeia speak, but you know, oh, no, that's her voice, it's just it's just lower and even and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Fucking terrifying, you know.
**Adam:** And that little switch there is really really great, I think.
**Adam:** I think this.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's it's a it's a good cast.
**Adam:** You know, Vincent Price.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's you know, there's.
**Chris:** Yeah, I think I do think they work well together.
**Chris:** All all three of them in this this weird love triangle of death and cats.
**Lee:** I mean, it's lovely as well.
**Lee:** That's the other thing, you know, although I say it's possibly my least favorite.
**Lee:** There's some really weird shots in there.
**Lee:** The shot where she where they're chasing the fox and it's proper weird shaky cam.
**Lee:** I liked that.
**Lee:** And the bit when they do the they do a zoom up to Vincent Price's face when he out.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it sort of they they speed up that zoom.
**Lee:** And it gives it a really weird sort of jiggle was it, and it just really odd.
**Lee:** Like and I remember that shot.
**Lee:** I said I think I've watched it once, possibly twice, not for at least 15 years, but that is the shot I remember.
**Lee:** Is just that funny hicle pickle zoom into his face.
**Lee:** Where it just.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** They they really are trying to accentuate the psychological aspect, I guess.
**Chris:** It's another one of those films that what is real and what is all in his mind, what is in in theory, Ligeia's mind, if she is alive or not.
**Chris:** And what is in Rowena's mind.
**Adam:** And that's very much the the thing of Poe.
**Adam:** That's why I think I think they're good adaptions in that sense because Poe is very.
**Adam:** Hallucinatory or sort of, you know, it's one, it's basically like being accosted by someone at the end of their tether.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, or I've just been accosted by a sort of mad man in the street who has to tell you his story.
**Adam:** But it's sort of, you know, and so again that is.
**Adam:** The best way to do Poe because I know that because that's the thing.
**Adam:** He's he's.
**Adam:** Like Tales of Terror is probably the best idea because they made an anthology of it rather than because.
**Adam:** Extrapolating from Ligeia the story to Tomb of Ligeia the film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's a lot more and it's also there's also a lovely sort of element of.
**Adam:** Right, well we've got to do Poe bingo.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And sort of right, premature burial tick, you know, black cat tick, you know.
**Adam:** It sort of Vincent Price tick.
**Adam:** It's.
**Chris:** No, so I thought the Mesmer and hypnotism aspect was very interesting.
**Chris:** That that made that quite prominent in this.
**Chris:** Again.
**Chris:** What.
**Chris:** You know, how much of it is true, and you could imagine based on the time that this was sitting.
**Chris:** I'm assuming that was perhaps the time where it was peak.
**Chris:** People not understanding the power of mesmerization and.
**Lee:** Yeah, mesmerism.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Hypnosis.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, I still think there is a there's a fairly high level of that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it is.
**Adam:** It is because it is one of the it's really is one of the tropes.
**Adam:** Of, you know, the someone hypnotic, particularly in horror.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And I still think that there are probably people out there where it's like.
**Adam:** Oh, no, that, you know, oh, no, it wasn't.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** You know, she genuinely was eating an onion as if it were an apple.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and I saw her.
**Chris:** But then the way that's like, you know, also sort of leading into almost the dark power over someone, witchcraft and, you know.
**Chris:** Because you tend to think of hypnosis not as
**Chris:** Evil.
**Lee:** Probably.
**Chris:** Cult like that, yeah, cult, yeah, like, but.
**Chris:** Yeah, I wonder how people sort of were thinking of it, in comparison to those.
**Chris:** And, yeah, and like Ligeia been able to control people from.
**Chris:** Beyond the grave, beyond.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Chris:** Yeah, then.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's pretty good.
**Adam:** But because that's the thing is it's all about the the force of will.
**Adam:** Whereas it's in.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But there is the sort of.
**Adam:** There is the sort of hint that, oh, no, Ligeia Ligeia is in the cat.
**Adam:** But her her soul is actually.
**Lee:** That's how I remembered it it being her soul in the cat and then yeah, so when I watched it and it wasn't that at all.
**Lee:** I was like, oh, it's not what I remember.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** but yeah, it it's good it is a good bit of misdirection.
**Lee:** Because you think you've got a handle on it from the beginning, so when it when it turns at the end in the last 10 minutes and you realize that isn't the case and you find out where he's really been going and what's been going on.
**Lee:** It's yeah, it's actually a good twist.
**Adam:** It's well, I mean, the thing is with it.
**Adam:** And I I kind of get where they were coming from, but apparently Roger Corman and Robert Town who the screenwriter, they didn't want to cast Vincent Price.
**Adam:** Because they were because they said basically because he was too old.
**Adam:** Because they the way they saw it was that the character was, who was it they I know they did say a name.
**Adam:** Oh, Richard Chamberlin, yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** You know, they they basically, they wanted some sort of like dashing sort of 20 to 25 to 30 year old sort of Heathcliff, Mr. Darcy sort of figure.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, sort of dashing but troubled, like a Brody sort of, you know, sort of bachelor.
**Adam:** And then and at this point Vincent Price is 53 in this.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** But the but basically it was AIP who said, no, you've got to have Vincent Price in it.
**Adam:** Because that's what sells these films, you know, it's that.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** But I it's it's weird because I kind of get, like you say, there's the element of the twist.
**Adam:** But because it's Vincent Price, you know that it probably will end, you know.
**Adam:** It.
**Lee:** In it's going to end in a dungeon with fire and.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's not it there's no element of being misunderstood.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** He's like, well, what's he doing, I'll tell you what he's doing, he's creeping out at night and he's digging out bodies.
**Adam:** That's what he's doing.
**Adam:** You know, it's.
**Chris:** He did seem to play a more subtle role in this.
**Adam:** He's the burbs.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's the burbs.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, he did again, this reminds me more of like The Pit and the Pendulum, which again is a very similar sort of story-wise, but yeah, he does play a much more subdued character in this.
**Lee:** Which I think works well, I mean, it's.
**Chris:** It does do it well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think he plays fucking anguish and sort of, you know, losing your bloody mind really rather well and rather poignantly.
**Adam:** I think, you know, that's that's the key is it's actually is, I think he's a lot better than they probably gave him credit for.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, he is really, you know, it's a very pained existence thing, you know.
**Adam:** There's no, it's not like a sort of.
**Adam:** You know, it's there's there's no winner or no sort of like, you know.
**Adam:** It's just, oh, here's suffering and here's some more suffering.
**Lee:** And it's all.
**Chris:** Psychological power of grief.
**Lee:** It's a very unusual relationship as well, isn't it, because obviously she turns up, he immediately grabs her and starts shaking her, never turn up here unannounced, and then two minutes later, he's trying to kiss her in the pantry.
**Adam:** I didn't I didn't see him touch your pantry.
**Lee:** But yeah, so it is a slightly.
**Lee:** And again, it's her statement when she first leaves with the other guy, with Christopher, and he says, well, what did you think of him, and she said, well, I don't like him much, but it doesn't mean I don't love him, and I was like, literally, you just met him two minutes ago and he scared you so badly, you fainted immediately.
**Adam:** I think I think she said fascinated or something like that.
**Adam:** It's like, yeah, sort of who who want is drawn to.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah.
**Adam:** But that, I mean, chatting cabbages and everything else like that, you know, it ain't gonna work.
**Adam:** It's sort of you know, it's.
**Lee:** one of my favorite things about this film, it's got to be said, the opening title sequence, those three drawings that keep coming up again and again.
**Lee:** It look like a Slayer album.
**Lee:** It's fantastic, I love those.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and and the the poster for it is fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Just that giant angular cat head.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's just again, and he's got the, he's got the small faces glasses on as well.
**Adam:** So it feels quite.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Feels quite swinging.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I got to we got to the end and I was like, I fucking know this.
**Adam:** It's just a particular bit shot of the flames with the masked fig the shrouded figure coming out towards Vincent Price and a bit of Vincent Price.
**Adam:** and I was like, I bloody know that.
**Adam:** And I had a look and it's it's in Mean Streets.
**Adam:** Scorcese film they all go to the cinema at one point and that's what they're watching.
**Adam:** And but the weird thing is it was like, right, I've clearly not seen fucking Mean Streets.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Recently enough either, because, you know, there would have been a time I would have just been like, oh, Mean Streets.
**Lee:** Straight off.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and the other thing was is.
**Adam:** that it is also what's it called Elvira's Haunted Hills, there is a another Elvira movie.
**Lee:** There is, yes.
**Adam:** And which is basically the Tomb of Ligeia with Richard O'Brien playing the Vincent Price role.
**Adam:** He's even got the glasses.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** And that's good.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I like it, I I think it's a a good fun movie.
**Lee:** But yeah, I just like a comedy.
**Lee:** It it's very much it is, but you can feel it's very much lower budget than the first one.
**Lee:** But it was made a long time after, so I think
**Lee:** Yeah, I don't think she was quite the commodity that she had been, obviously, when she was, you know, still running her horror nights and stuff.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** I think I.
**Adam:** I think in in fairness, I also think it's like they've done a genuine attempt to make an Elvira horror comedy.
**Adam:** Because Elvira Mistress of the Dark is a horror comedy, but it's it it's not done like a horror film, if you see what I mean.
**Adam:** Whereas that feels much more like they've right right, it's like how Young Frankenstein is universal, they've kind of gone, right, we're doing the Corman Poe films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And if and if you pick up on it, you get it, but it's like it's not.
**Lee:** Yeah, you don't miss out.
**Adam:** Yes, exactly, yeah.
**Adam:** It's just an added like layer into it.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's a it's a shame when I went to to visit the Abbey, it's a shame I hadn't seen this for such a long time.
**Lee:** Because I remembered the look of it very clearly, which is why I went when we were sort of looking up places to go, as soon as I saw the Abbey, I was like, that's the one from the Tomb of Ligeia, it's got to be, so I went and Googled it and double checked and it was.
**Adam:** Halter Lake a Priory.
**Lee:** It is, yes, yes.
**Lee:** oh yeah, it's a great day out.
**Lee:** yeah, we really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** But I wish I'd seen the film and maybe taken a few sort of screenshots from it and tried to replicate them more when I was there, but yeah.
**Adam:** It's by the way, it was also the ruins of Dungarth in Nightmare, you know the kids TV show where you they put a helmet on a kid and he comes to his screen and they send him around a warehouse.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Great them blue screen as he would have been then a load of puppets on the walls.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's for so it was using that.
**Chris:** Did anyone ever complete that?
**Lee:** I didn't.
**Chris:** I can't remember.
**Adam:** Did you?
**Adam:** Only only when they did a like they did a marathon on Challenge one weekend and I was like.
**Adam:** I fuck it, I I've got a weekend, I'm watching that.
**Chris:** I'm here, I'm in for this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, no.
**Adam:** A few people won, but fuck me, most most did not, I don't think.
**Chris:** It was funny, how futuristic that was at the time.
**Lee:** It was, yeah.
**Lee:** It was so chunky now.
**Lee:** I need to go back and re-watch it, I'm sure they're all on, you know, YouTube or whatever.
**Adam:** Oh, they they must be and they they're always.
**Adam:** It's it's there's I don't the good thing is is having grown up with it, you don't feel like you're shouting at children, you're shouting at people your own age and.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Say turn left, you fucking idiot.
**Chris:** It was it was frustrating.
**Adam:** And obviously they go to Stonehenge.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** It was well.
**Adam:** And that's like, oh, yeah, when you could.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, they just they just rocked that one up one evening with with the cameras and just and wondering.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Wander around starting.
**Adam:** I do want I I do have to oh, yes, I do have to read this quote.
**Adam:** So, like I was saying about like they didn't want Vincent Price to be to be in it.
**Adam:** And this is what the the script writer said, I think it would have been better if it had been with a man who didn't look like a necrophiliac to begin with.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I love Vincent, he's very sweet, but going in, you suspect that Vincent can bank cats, chickens, girls, dogs, everything.
**Adam:** You just feel necrophilia might be one of his basic things.
**Adam:** I'd felt for the role called for an almost unnaturally handsome guy who the second wife could easily fall in love with.
**Adam:** So, yeah, that was but yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, a lovely way to talk about.
**Adam:** Talk about yeah, talk about your star, isn't it, you know.
**Adam:** There's I was I was really pleased to say though, because this was filmed over here.
**Adam:** there's lots of there's lots of British people in there.
**Adam:** And you've got the Captain Peacock turns up as one of the servants at the Travanian house.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** there's the doctor who is Slasty Bartfast from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the radio.
**Adam:** And and he was in Village of the Damned.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** and actually Captain Peacock was in Carry on Screaming.
**Adam:** So, you know, they're all these weird people that are actually returning.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's in Carry On Films, wasn't he?
**Adam:** Yeah, yes he is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Adam:** And but yeah, and we're watching it.
**Adam:** Because Lord Travanian is fucking fantastic, he's just such a sort of like.
**Adam:** He is me and Claire were trying to work out what we'd seen him in.
**Adam:** And we were like, is it Black Adder?
**Adam:** It was like the he was that right level of sort of, you know, sort of comedically upper class prat.
**Adam:** You know, that it would be, you know, he would have been.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** And actually, I've got a hand in I've got to hand in my notice as at a Doctor Who fan because it was Claire who realized we'd watched him in Doctor Who, a story called The Romans.
**Adam:** In which he plays Nero and he's an absolute fucking awful bastard.
**Adam:** He's just he is exactly the same thing, he plays it like a fucking toddler.
**Adam:** He's brilliant in it.
**Adam:** And
**Lee:** I.
**Adam:** But yeah, and he's in like loads of hammers and carry-ons and stuff like that.
**Lee:** That's why as soon as I saw him, I was like, I'm sure I know him from a carry on, but I can't remember.
**Lee:** It might be carry on camping, is he the father with the shotgun, possibly.
**Adam:** He is.
**Adam:** Yes, he's the farmer.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's in Carry On Henry and Carry On Matron as well.
**Adam:** Oh, and Carry On Doctor.
**Adam:** And he's in Jabberwocky, which I've got to fucking watch again soon.
**Adam:** I just feel a re-watch of Jabberwocky coming on.
**Lee:** Oh, I've only seen that the once with you and that was a very long time, that was well before we moved here, so it was over 16 years ago now.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'm just yeah, just just feeling the Gilliam itch, I think.
**Adam:** Which does sound like a terrible medical problem.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I the thing is.
**Lee:** I say this is my as I said, I think this is possibly my least favorite, but.
**Lee:** The whole time I was watching it, I was thinking, I need to dig the rest of this collection out.
**Lee:** Because I've got them all scattered around on shelves.
**Lee:** And I I do need to go back and rewatch it.
**Lee:** Because they are so rewatchable.
**Lee:** They're nice and short and.
**Lee:** Yeah, just, you know, generally pretty well paced and, you know, get to the considering they're very, very loosely based on stories that sometimes, you know, are four or five pages long and they manage to get an hour and 20 minute film out of it.
**Lee:** But yeah, I I just I always find them enjoyable, they're great for watching in bed at night because they're interesting, but they're subdued enough that it's not going to suddenly, you know, wake you up and upset your sleep.
**Adam:** Yeah, they're also that's the good thing they're also that's sort of they're lovely and and sort of woozy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But don't tend to break that.
**Adam:** They just sort of, oh, that was another thing.
**Adam:** Apparently, you know, there is the the dream sequence in this.
**Adam:** apparently that's not in slow motion, they just told them to move slowly.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Chris:** And then I suppose the effect they apply gives it they give it shimmering soft dream, yeah, soft sort of edges effect, don't they.
**Adam:** soft focus and then yeah, and they just get everyone to move slowly.
**Adam:** But that did sort of feel like an inverse of Garmarera and Giga.
**Adam:** They can't afford slow mo, so you'll just have to move slowly, guys, come on.
**Adam:** Don't add the crank this camera, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's I just I love the all the interior stuff as well.
**Lee:** I don't obviously, I'm assuming that was all sound stage.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think so.
**Adam:** It's only it's only but that's the thing is I think this is the only one that's got any location shooting at all.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think it is.
**Adam:** The rest of them are all entirely studio bound, aren't they.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then I think they're all like matte paintings for the external stuff.
**Lee:** So yeah, I think this is the only one that's shot outside.
**Lee:** So it does look very different.
**Lee:** But I I thought it did a really good job of it and yeah, I mean, such a great location to use.
**Lee:** So the so the Abbey itself is obviously ancient ruins.
**Lee:** But then the Tudor bit that's on it, when he carries her through that massive arch into the new, that's actually there.
**Lee:** They did just kind of.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Build a Tudor building on the side of the Abbey that's still it's not used now.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's that's I mean, that's hundreds of years old now as well.
**Lee:** But yeah, it it's really strange that they've got this, you know, 800 year old Abbey or whatever.
**Lee:** And then after it crumbled down, I'm assuming, they just suddenly tacked this Tudor building on 400 years later.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's it is very cool to walk around, so if you ever get the chance, do go and see it.
**Adam:** I think I have to because it looks it looks bloody amazing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It weirdly enough, I think it's one of those things where I'm like, why haven't I seen more shot here?
**Adam:** That's why because that's why I looked it up.
**Adam:** Because I was like, well, if Jim Lair's done it, you know, there's probably a few more and I said Nightmare was the only thing I could find particularly.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's a shame because yeah, it's a fantastic location.
**Lee:** It's again, it's one of those, it's like a Grimdyke Manor or Oakley.
**Lee:** Where you just assume it's in almost anything that you watch, you know, horror related, but yeah, it doesn't doesn't show up as much as it deserves.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I've got a few, few nearly final thoughts as to why I like this, dual identity, Gothic realism, will over death, pure willpower can possibly transcend mortality.
**Chris:** Psychological possession, cat as mesmeric familiar, romantic horror and death as seduction.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** I mean, they are all selling points.
**Adam:** Are they are they are you just trying out like names for perfumes?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Or taglines for Columbo episodes.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Death of seduction is that that would frankly be any any I think.
**Chris:** Could add the the love triangle part, but we won't go too far back down that route.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** With with possibly litigated ourselves.
**Adam:** That's is that Vincent Price state.
**Adam:** Is is that the tagline of the film then, is it?
**Chris:** it's love triangle of death.
**Adam:** It's a love triangle, but one of the corners is dead.
**Adam:** It's it's there we go.
**Adam:** It's a dry run weekend at Bernie's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** so for our next episode.
**Lee:** We don't have anything penciled in, I just realized.
**Adam:** Oh, shit.
**Chris:** Right, there you go.
**Chris:** There's there's the challenge for this.
**Chris:** This one, which one of you is going to be the first to come up with the thing we watch next.
**Chris:** Right, you got you got like one minute left, go.
**Adam:** Oh, shit.
**Lee:** We have four minutes until the timer ends.
**Chris:** I'm sure you mentioned something earlier and I thought, oh, that sounds like something we could watch.
**Chris:** And now I have no idea what it was.
**Chris:** I think it was no, it was something that you both said, I think.
**Chris:** Neither of you've seen or you possibly don't like.
**Chris:** And it's like, well, maybe we should watch something that.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, the premature burial, the only Corman
**Chris:** So neither of us like.
**Adam:** What was it?
**Adam:** The Premature Burial, the only Corman Poe said.
**Chris:** Oh, yes, yes.
**Chris:** There you go.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Should we?
**Lee:** Yeah, Lee doesn't look too excited about that.
**Lee:** He's like, I just watched one that I'm not that keen on, now you're making me watch another one that I'm not that keen on.
**Lee:** What's what's the point of this?
**Adam:** See, I'm I'm wondering, do we need to step away or, you know.
**Adam:** Break break the Post.
**Chris:** Go go for.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We need to sort of like anti-Poe.
**Lee:** Anti-Poe.
**Chris:** That's another fragrance name, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm trying to find some.
**Chris:** I'm sure you.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Well, we haven't done the mummy.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** We haven't.
**Lee:** And we've been saying we need to do that for ages.
**Adam:** We haven't done the mummy, we've had the mummy.
**Chris:** Oh, oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Adam's excited.
**Lee:** Lee's excited.
**Lee:** It's it's all happening.
**Adam:** Oh, it's just we haven't done a mummy.
**Lee:** It's kicking off in these last few minutes.
**Lee:** We were going to do it.
**Lee:** Wait, wait.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Something came up.
**Chris:** Does it.
**Chris:** Does it include my my most loved actor of all time.
**Lee:** Oh, no, we're going back to the original Boris Karloff.
**Chris:** This this is right back.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, we're not going with the terrible Tom Cruise.
**Chris:** The modern remakes.
**Adam:** I'd forgotten that happened.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know.
**Chris:** Do you only do the one?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Does it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I think it was supposed to be the beginning of the new dark.
**Lee:** What do they call it?
**Chris:** All right.
**Chris:** It was so bad.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** They just they tried twice, two different movies and just couldn't get it.
**Chris:** I had forgotten that happened.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There we go, folks.
**Adam:** We'll be back with you in a Fortnight's time for The Mummy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** From 1930, whatever, Mummy with Boris Karloff, all right.
**Lee:** Universal.
**Chris:** You can do the rest.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Perfect.
**Lee:** Right, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, have a have fun, go and check out all of the Corman Poe Price films.
**Lee:** Go and check out, The Mummy and we will see you in a Fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.

---

## Ep 224 Broken Veil

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-224-broken-veil/
Air date: 25 May 2025
Duration: 00:38:26

### Description

This episode we’re discussing the bang-up-to-date podcast “Broken Veil” from Joel Morris and Will Maclean. Two intrepid podcasters gathering weird stories from friends, find the tales begin to coalesce in the liminal spaces of Essex…. To tell you more would be to ruin this utterly original and intricately written show. With an excellently selected cast and a definite hint of Nigel Kneale to proceedings, it should suffice to say that if you’ve ever spent too long disappearing down esoteric internet rabbit holes, or whiled away sunny days with your nose stuck in The Fortean Times, this show is for you. SERIOUSLY - THIS SHOW IS A DEFINITE RECOMMENDATION FROM ALL OF US, SO PLEASE LISTEN (OR RE-LISTEN) TO THE 6 EPISODES IN FULL BEFORE YOU JOIN US FOR OUR SPOILER HEAVY CHAT.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here this evening for something a bit different. They'll be a lot of questions this evening, I've got a feeling.
**Chris:** Are we?
**Lee:** Oh, well.
**Lee:** So we are here this evening to cover the podcast, the six-episode arc of the story Broken Veil.
**Lee:** We will be spoiling this because there's no way not, I think we'll keep it, if we kind of rattle through it in the order in which it plays out and then obviously we can pick it to pieces.
**Lee:** But if you haven't listened to it, I think it's going to be safe to say we all heartily recommend that you stop now, go and listen to it and come back, because I, I mean it's an absolute masterpiece, I feel, which is why we're here.
**Adam:** I I I will go so far as to say, stop this, go and listen to it, that's it.
**Adam:** You know, come back to us eventually, but just save what is a very good, you know, just story.
**Chris:** I'll add a little bit more.
**Chris:** Listen to it twice.
**Lee:** Yes, I I've actually listened to the whole thing in its entirety three times.
**Lee:** I did it twice for myself and once for the episode.
**Chris:** I think you're both going to tell me off for not having listened to it at least twice.
**Chris:** I have listened to it all once.
**Adam:** No, I've I've I've done twice, just really, and I mean this is obviously this this is from this year.
**Adam:** it's it's, I mean, it's done well, there's probably a lot of people listening who came to it anyway because apparently it was quite high up on the podcast charts.
**Adam:** and that's pretty much how I heard of it, yeah.
**Chris:** Can I just do a a little or maybe even a massive rant, right?
**Chris:** So I don't, I try not to look up anything about what we watch generally, right, I just want to get the full experience as I see it, as it happens, right, anyway, but on the podcast page, of course, you're straight there and there's the reviews and so, at one point, I thought, well, let's just have a look at what a few people have said, because it's, you know, it's just right this, right there in front of me, I can't, you know, I can't help it, anyway.
**Adam:** of course, yeah.
**Chris:** So I scroll down and I'm like, yeah, I agree with that, I agree, yeah, these are good reviews, fine, totally.
**Chris:** And then one person puts, this wasn't real, not for me, so I'm giving it, I think two stars.
**Chris:** It's like, that's sort of like saying, going into a restaurant and you order, you know, the best meal that is it's been cooked to perfection.
**Chris:** But you just don't like it, well, don't order it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like, it doesn't.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** It doesn't make any sense, does it? Like it's if you're looking for something that is one hundred percent real, whatever.
**Chris:** I mean, I'm assuming they think ghosts are real or whatever, so that's what they're after.
**Adam:** I I I wonder, though, because.
**Lee:** If they if they're listening to this and they hear it, tell me if you find real ghosts.
**Adam:** I I wonder because obviously the.
**Adam:** I'd just seen about it and so it was Joel Morris, who I know.
**Adam:** Didn't know Will McLean particularly.
**Adam:** But obviously sort of read more about him.
**Adam:** And I had hoped to have finished his book, The Apparition Phase, by, by the time we did the episode, but I I've nearly finished it, but I just didn't manage to time management didn't go as well.
**Lee:** Is it amazing?
**Adam:** And I mean, so far, so equally as as great.
**Adam:** But so I knew Joel Morris, and it was like, and then, and it was like they just said, oh, it's a spooky thing or it's like a supernatural thing.
**Adam:** They didn't didn't specify beyond that, essentially.
**Adam:** That it was like, oh, if you like something with a bit of, and so literally the first episode.
**Adam:** To me could have been something along the lines of like, Uncanny, or the Battersea Poltergeist or something like that.
**Adam:** In as much as it presented enough that it was like, right, so.
**Adam:** These are two guys, and like Joel Morris does like other podcasts and has I've listened to lots of his other.
**Adam:** shows he does a thing called Comfort Blanket now.
**Adam:** And he used to do a thing called, the Rule of Three, which was him and his, sometime writing partner, Jason Haysley.
**Adam:** And that was they would get people on, and it was like just.
**Adam:** It was comedians going on, talking about their favorite comedy thing, like not not them, obviously, but just like, you know.
**Adam:** Like I think Gareth Marenghi Matt Holness was on there and I'm pretty sure his was.
**Chris:** Wait.
**Chris:** Wait, I'm just going to just going to reference that, because I kept thinking of Dark Place when listening to this.
**Chris:** And I don't know if it's just because it had a similar atmospheric sort of the and the narrative.
**Chris:** But it's like this is a serious Dark Place.
**Lee:** Yes, essentially.
**Chris:** You know.
**Adam:** But, but yeah, so I, but that first thing I listened to it, I was like, oh, so they've just, I took it at face value.
**Adam:** That it was them saying, oh, we were looking to do something and we found, you know, this weird thing, you know, we heard this weird story from a friend.
**Adam:** And the fact they even went down the sort of like, there's an actor friend of ours, Tony, you know, it was like no name to protect the innocent or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It was obviously absolutely definitely Tony Way when I heard him start talking.
**Adam:** And I was, you know, all, I'm there going, it's Danson's dad and everything.
**Adam:** And it's, but, you know, so I knew who he was, but equally, that initial story is enough that it could just be a story someone told you.
**Adam:** So at first, I was very much thinking, oh, is this going to be, you know, them just looking into weird shit that they've heard from friends.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is what they're, which is what it's purporting to be, but it is obviously a fiction, and it's, you know.
**Adam:** And it was after the second episode where it was someone having where it was Sarah Baron having a much more similar experience.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or too familiar to that it wasn't like, right, okay, no, this is, this is now, I'm seeing that it's a fiction and everything, and went from there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But so I can I can kind of get it that I wonder if there were people who were in a way disappointed that it didn't turn out to be real.
**Adam:** Or worse, people who.
**Chris:** But but but I don't I get it's difficult for me to be sure that I'm not going to say any spoilers, but.
**Lee:** We've given people all the.
**Chris:** Is still the ongoing when, yeah, and especially in the final episode.
**Chris:** It does have a bit of a, well, do we think we know what's definitely happened here?
**Chris:** So it's not like you're totally it's all a documentary or it's all real or it's not.
**Chris:** It's the whole, to me, the whole point is it's for us to think about in a bit of a deeper way.
**Chris:** And I I loved the sci-fi aspect essentially that they introduced.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I've got to say, I I loved, there was something about this that just made me feel unnerved.
**Lee:** The entire way through.
**Chris:** Oh, the way through.
**Lee:** And I'm sure I said it on our previous episode when we said we were covering this.
**Lee:** I don't mind a radio play or or something like.
**Lee:** But I I do find them a little bit difficult to engage with sometimes.
**Lee:** Whereas because this was laid out as a podcast, it just sucked me in so much.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** I said, we listened to the, so I say this is the third time I've listened to it, and every time I've listened to it.
**Lee:** I've done it pretty much in a, so the first time we did it in two sittings, because we were driving.
**Lee:** We listened half on the way to Norfolk and half on the way back.
**Lee:** Then I listened to the whole thing in one sitting, and then this week, yeah, I did the same again and in one day, just did the whole thing in one go.
**Lee:** And I just love it, and I will listen to it again, undoubtedly.
**Lee:** Because even once you know where the story's going, it's just the atmosphere it builds and the.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It as you say, and that's the thing, it feels so real with the, oh, we're going to jump in the car.
**Chris:** It does.
**Lee:** We're just going to check this thing out, and you know, and people seeming a little bit unsure about the stories they're telling.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It just felt perfect.
**Adam:** And the.
**Chris:** It does seem like they put a lot of effort into the dialogue to really add to that.
**Chris:** It really did sound like they're just chatting to people.
**Adam:** And that's the thing, I wonder how much of.
**Adam:** I do wonder how much of certainly the conversations between, Joel Morris and Will McLean, I do wonder if they were improvised, semi-improvised.
**Adam:** They're both comedy writers, and they've both got experience in that.
**Adam:** So, Well, I especially thought that about the second one as well.
**Chris:** I'm American.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was very that.
**Adam:** British.
**Adam:** And I think also the one of the smartest things is that it only.
**Adam:** They only sort of build on the outlandishness sort of heavily towards the end, because the rest of it is them under their own steam just looking into these things.
**Adam:** And then, and then event start taking over and suddenly it's, you know, you're getting into conspiracy.
**Adam:** They even mention like Robert Anton Wilson and the Illuminatus trilogy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you get more into that sort of paranoid conspiracy element of it that actually involves them rather than it's just them reporting on it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I think they, the pace of it is very well done.
**Adam:** And I like the fact that you had, like, you have the story with Paul Putner's story, which is sort of contained within itself.
**Adam:** It's him who's talking about the stained glass window.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it sort of it kind of links to the main thing because it's the same church, but then it's almost like, and here's a little mystery, oh, we solved that.
**Adam:** And it sort of.
**Lee:** Yeah, that then triggers the later bit where, oh, during editing, we found and it's, yeah.
**Lee:** And I.
**Lee:** And I love that stuff.
**Lee:** I I thought that when they first when he first was in the church in the first episode, and they did the is anybody out there, does anyone want to contact us?
**Lee:** I was like, that's coming back.
**Lee:** But because they waited so long.
**Lee:** I had completely forgot because, you know, three hours later or whatever that suddenly comes back.
**Lee:** In a, oh, look what we've just.
**Lee:** And I was like.
**Lee:** Oh, I'd forgotten and it it's.
**Lee:** I do love the fact that the the as you say, the the stories from everybody are individual, self-contained stories, but they've all got tendrils that link into one another that then.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So yeah, so let's just go ahead and, you know, we go spoilers now.
**Lee:** I I I was concerned how this was going to get wrapped up.
**Lee:** Because.
**Lee:** I didn't want it to do that thing where it goes, and this is what happened, so ghosts are definitely real or this, there's definitely something supernatural.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it kind of did but it also didn't, so it it came close enough to it.
**Lee:** But without saying, oh, look, this podcast has just proved that, you know, there's interdimensional time or whatever.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It it doesn't, it just hints it or it could be a witch.
**Chris:** The way it's the way the way it plays with it is perfect.
**Chris:** It is just sort of backwards and forwards, and it's like, well, you know, you've got the evidence, you've got this information that makes you feel this, but yeah, you decide.
**Adam:** It's it's a, he's a he's a figure who haunts.
**Adam:** Certainly my end of this podcast.
**Adam:** but and I think I'm pretty sure that sort of knowing what I do about the the writers, this will probably come as a compliment.
**Adam:** It has that real Nigel Kneale thing.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Where it's like, oh, somehow, somehow it's science, but also supernatural.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the two feed into each other, but neither is actually the one with the upper hand, almost.
**Adam:** You know, and it's sort of, yeah, you know.
**Chris:** I mean, that that is essentially science until we understand it, of course.
**Chris:** It's like, it absolutely is supernatural until we can make it natural.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** But.
**Chris:** But and at the moment we don't know.
**Lee:** But what you've said, Adam, it actually, yeah, hit the nail on the head.
**Lee:** Because even when you get to the end, even if you take what he says as true that this is a science experiment being done in another dimension, why is it still really, really, really fucking creepy?
**Lee:** Because it is.
**Lee:** Even if it is just science, it should take all of the creepiness out of it.
**Lee:** But it doesn't, it somehow makes it more uncomfortable, and I don't know how.
**Adam:** Especially because you get the impression that there's these interdimensional, the possible thing of interdimensional scientists.
**Adam:** but it's come from, they're using code words of like scratching mass.
**Adam:** Which, you know, as a term from ancient witchcraft folklore, and things like, you know.
**Adam:** You know, and there's a lot of just that, you know.
**Adam:** It can cross it over that one infects the other, almost.
**Chris:** Is is it also sort of a.
**Chris:** a blending of how it's kind of mundane, even though if it was this, then it should be, you know, a massive action sort of movie almost.
**Chris:** But yet, because it feels so real throughout, that is adds to the, oh, well, it shouldn't be like this if it is, you know.
**Adam:** I I think also the the thing is as well, is that it's it's lovely sort of like that just because I was as I was listening back to it.
**Adam:** I was just like, going through sort of like what gets mentioned, what gets referenced and sort of stuff like that as they're going.
**Adam:** And it's pretty much like a fucking case case file of things I'm interested in.
**Adam:** Or things things I have fallen down rabbit holes into and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And you know, and it's sort of like, you know, because you've got stuff in there, you've got like Mothman prophecies, who put dollar in the Witch room, the back rooms, you know, the online thing.
**Adam:** And the Book House of Leaves, which I remember Dean reading.
**Adam:** And obsessing over.
**Adam:** And, you know, the the I Ching comes into it, and, you know, Kelvedon Hatch, and nuclear paranoia.
**Adam:** Philadelphia experiment, the Fortean Times, the Mandela effect, and,
**Adam:** like, like you say, E V P, and then you get into, you know, you know, conspiracy, and, you know, government secret government projects, and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And it's all just like, yeah, this is a real just mixing bowl of that.
**Adam:** And, and the good thing is, is that because of the presentation of it as a podcast, they get to they don't have to be, well, they kind of use it the way that a podcast would use it.
**Adam:** You know, a a real podcast would use it.
**Adam:** Where it's like, oh, well, you know, it's a bit like that and here's two minutes on.
**Lee:** What that was.
**Adam:** What that was, you know, Cobra missed or whatever the subject was.
**Adam:** So it's like, you get a little potted history, you get all these sorts of things.
**Adam:** And, you know.
**Adam:** All of them are fucking rabbit holes you can disappear down, and, you know, I mean, the one thing I would say is, is I think,
**Adam:** our our our dear departed friend Westie would have fucking loved this.
**Adam:** Because again.
**Lee:** So is he, isn't it?
**Adam:** Him, you know, he would have really, really enjoyed it.
**Adam:** and also just because of the fact that it's, they're all, you know, like I I knew Tony Way.
**Adam:** Sarah Baron, I've seen on Live Live at the Apollo, because she's a stand-up comedian, and I've seen her on Frankie Boyle's New World Order.
**Adam:** And then you've got Al Campbell in there, AKA Barry Shipley's, which is, which is a tragedy for a man who's directed that much good telly.
**Adam:** That he will always be Barry Shipley's, thanks to Charlie Brooker.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's exactly the same, with Tony Power and stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know, he's done so much, he's done big Hollywood films and all the rest of it.
**Lee:** Every time I see him, I still just go, Danson's dad.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** 1998, because it was such a brilliant character.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Lee:** So I mean, it is a good, you know, I mean, it is a compliment in all why.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Adam:** And like Paul Putner, who's like, if if you're someone who knows who Kevin Eldon is, then Paul Putner's your Kevin Eldon.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's like Kevin Eldon to a lot of people is, oh, it's that guy who's in loads of comedy stuff.
**Adam:** But if you know that that's Kevin Eldon, then Paul Putner's, it's that guy who's in loads of stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I mean, both both of whom turned up when we did the Cornetto trilogy as well.
**Adam:** So on the six feet deeper, there's more about those, you know.
**Adam:** I sort of went into more detail about those guys and stuff.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** the interesting thing I found those when they started doing the railway stuff.
**Adam:** Is they said, oh, we've had someone on the forum, and they called him Dr. Beeching.
**Adam:** And that was because Dr. Beeching ran British railways.
**Adam:** Briefly and did like a time and motion study and closed loads of the track down.
**Adam:** He like sort of, I think they closed down like almost like a third of the entire network.
**Adam:** Because it was like, oh, well, they're little rural, far away places, this is not doing any good.
**Adam:** And there is the sitcom, Oh, Doctor Beeching, which was used as a cover for one of our We Have Been Watching's.
**Adam:** So we do have that connection there.
**Adam:** But, but yeah, but then the mysterious man who turns up at the end for the last episode.
**Adam:** He's credited as Dr. Beeching.
**Adam:** So, and I don't know if that's like meant to be that he was the one on the forum who was yanking the chain or whether they've done that entirely out of that, or who knows.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** It was just a weird little sort of touch in there that sort of, for something that's this.
**Chris:** Leaves you guessing.
**Adam:** Well, it's for something that's this well mapped out and thought out, you know, it has sort of.
**Lee:** Now you're saying about rabbit holes.
**Lee:** So I actually ended up down a bit of a rabbit hole myself today with this and I'll tell you why.
**Lee:** I was basically just I I was.
**Lee:** Every time I when I listened to it for this podcast, I went walking.
**Lee:** So I was out walking the whole time.
**Lee:** So I didn't take any notes.
**Lee:** So I wanted to write down the names of things like Noctuex.
**Lee:** And I wanted the name of the witch who they covered.
**Lee:** so I basically went and Googled.
**Lee:** And I ended up on a website.
**Lee:** Now, Adam, I don't know if you've discovered this.
**Lee:** Same website too.
**Lee:** I'm not going to name it.
**Lee:** but I it's basically it's a guy who's got a like a horror.
**Lee:** And UFO type website.
**Lee:** and he reviews stuff.
**Lee:** And he reviewed this, and he seemed to be doing it as it aired.
**Adam:** Yes, I think, I think I have been on the same website, yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, so he started out believing as you said, that he thought it was a real paranormal web, and then you can feel the shift in it as it changes.
**Lee:** as it goes.
**Lee:** But yeah, he was talking about trying to find the places that they would.
**Lee:** And I was like, I I I'd assumed they were completely fabricated and they weren't real places.
**Lee:** But he was saying, oh, yeah, I've been trying to work out, I've had me map out and I've been looking at decommissioned air bases and all this kind of stuff.
**Lee:** But the one thing that did jump out to me is there was a page, it was the first one I found, which was the page's titled.
**Lee:** Who are Noctuex?
**Lee:** Now, the very last thing on the page is, the final thing you need to know about Noctuex, the organization owns a podcast production company named Loud Burst, whose slogan is just what you want to hear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is heard at the start of Broken Veil episodes.
**Lee:** Loud Burst.
**Lee:** is a Noctuex company which sponsors Broken Veil, and I was like, it clearly isn't.
**Lee:** But I did go back and listen and Loud Burst is on the beginning and end of every, and when you Google them, they don't exist.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So what the fuck is that?
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And I because because of that page, I went back and listened.
**Adam:** It's only the very end, the very last episode, because rather cleverly, this is this is just a a podcast.
**Adam:** It's a cheese and pickle podcast, which is Joel Morris's podcast company.
**Adam:** and so they do have a couple of adverts beforehand, you know, they have sponsors.
**Adam:** And so, yeah, I was exactly the same, I just thought, oh Loud Burst is another advert.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it's brilliant because it's so plain and basic as a lot of those kind of corporate adverts are on, you know, when it's like.
**Adam:** Well, if you're looking to do a website, you need Squarespace.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know, it's those sort of really sort of, you know, passionless little sort of things where it's like, you know, and yeah, and so I was like, so I knew Loud Burst because I was like, oh, yeah, they they're just one of the adverts in it.
**Adam:** So even down to that is so clever.
**Adam:** And like I say, it's only that very it's the very end after the thing, it does say that Loud Burst is a Notuex company.
**Lee:** See, now I didn't.
**Lee:** I only listened to it on the beginning and end of the first episode.
**Lee:** And they don't mention that in.
**Lee:** They just say.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I so I didn't realize, yeah, because I was like, where'd you got this Noctuex from?
**Adam:** I'm skipping them as adverts.
**Lee:** But yeah, if it's.
**Lee:** Oh, that's, I like that.
**Lee:** It's just those little Easter eggs that, you know.
**Adam:** It's a it's a lot of there's a lot of lovely little sort of messing with the format and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And I can only feel that it comes from people who, like I say, John Morris, I mean, he used to run.
**Adam:** There was a company called, Great Big Owl, and which was a podcast production company that he did.
**Adam:** And they did,
**Adam:** They did like, that's where Rule of Three was was on that with that production company.
**Adam:** But they also did, Brian and Roger with Dan Skinner and Harry Peacock, which if you've not heard is fucking hilarious.
**Adam:** It's just a brilliant idea for a.
**Adam:** It's basically a very trusting man and a very unscrupulous man.
**Adam:** Who have somehow become friends over their love of the film Avatar, and it's just them leaving messages for each other, and shit goes mad.
**Lee:** That sounds excellent.
**Lee:** You'll have to.
**Adam:** Seriously, give it a listen, so Brian and Roger is a definite recommend.
**Adam:** they also used to host Smersh Pod and a Weezing Growing Sound, which is John Rains, Bond and Doctor Who podcasts.
**Adam:** And all rather mysterious, which is John Rain, Helena, Moman, David Reed.
**Adam:** they also do a thing called Box of Delights, which is hosted by Andrea Ryecart, who is Joel Morris's wife.
**Adam:** And she's a T V journalist, but yeah.
**Adam:** And then apparently, because I was like, oh, a lot of these podcasts that I listened to, they don't seem to be great big owl anymore.
**Adam:** And apparently, they went, they basically, I think the company had to close during lockdown.
**Adam:** Because they couldn't get out of their rental agreement with their landlord.
**Lee:** Oh, they lost all their money.
**Adam:** So basically, they had, well, they had an office and a and a recording studio, which they couldn't use for two years that they were renting out.
**Adam:** And the landlord would give them no fucking respite or anything else like that.
**Adam:** So I think they had to fold it, and then, and then suddenly there's Cheese and Pickle.
**Adam:** And Cheese and Pickle still do Brian and Roger and Box of Delights, they also do the Colindale Gazette and, Comfort Blanket.
**Adam:** Which again is Joel Morris talking to people about just their literally what is their their comfort.
**Adam:** Thing that they like listen to or watch or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So it comes, I think that comes from, all because it's that, is just a, you know, that's all.
**Adam:** the like so many podcasts that I listen to and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's really having that knowledge of how podcasts operate, sound.
**Adam:** Even down to how the advertising works or the bumpers at the start and things like that.
**Adam:** And then just being able to sneak these little bits in, so every bit of it, it it's not quite Ghostlight.
**Adam:** Ghostlight.
**Adam:** Ghost Watch.
**Adam:** But it's in that same sort of area of like, you know, it's a a, it's a faux documentary, essentially.
**Adam:** It's, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, yeah, just fantastically done.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** And again.
**Lee:** I think it's because, as you say, they've got that real world experience of having done it genuinely that they know how to to make it sound perfect and just just tweak it and sneak those things past you.
**Adam:** Yeah, I I did feel I did feel slightly got out when it was the the one of the opening lines was.
**Adam:** And like most men of a certain age, we decided to make a podcast.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I hear that.
**Adam:** That's the that's the other thing as well, there's so many great, I mean like the fact that cuz.
**Adam:** Like I say, I was listening, so I listened to this, I think I became aware of it when the third episode was up.
**Adam:** So I listened to the first three, then had to wait a week for four.
**Adam:** And five and for six.
**Adam:** Yeah, so as you can imagine, I was quite excited.
**Adam:** It was, you know, for the for the first time in a very long time.
**Adam:** Of something where I'm like, it's coming out weekly, and I am literally chomping at the fucking bit, going, it's Tuesday, it's going to be up, you know, it's going to be.
**Adam:** And, yeah, they,
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But there's so many, what was the, what was the other, like in Tony, in Tony's story, where it was, he says there's two the two women are looking at him.
**Adam:** And it was like, you know, how you'd look at a fire.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or, you know, they weren't really looking at me, they were sort of regarding me like you'd look at a fire, or a or a quiet T V in a pub.
**Adam:** And I was like, that is I it was perfect, but also it was like, I know exactly the look, and exactly how unnerving it would be to be looked at in that way.
**Chris:** They had it was the perfect, they described everything just so well that you could visualize exactly what they were.
**Chris:** You know.
**Lee:** Absolutely, and I had exactly the same thing with Al's story when he said, I saw someone and they looked familiar.
**Lee:** But it wasn't until I saw them again on T V that I managed to put two and two together.
**Lee:** And that's the kind of thing I'd do, I'd see someone and go, I think I know them.
**Lee:** And you think, oh, I probably know them from the pub, or back in the clubbing days, or whatever.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And then all of a sudden.
**Lee:** They pop up on something, and you go, oh, shit, now it's that person off the T V, I didn't.
**Adam:** And that's why it seems like they've put so much effort into it and yet it feels effortless.
**Adam:** Is that.
**Adam:** It's the beautiful thing of it is that they get the.
**Adam:** Right level of odd every time.
**Adam:** Even down to that, just a weird thing because, you know, obsessive Black Adder fan since I was a child.
**Adam:** So I know Gabriel Glaister, and I would know her name.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, but it's such a sort of weird thing to pluck out of nowhere.
**Adam:** That it's like, I mean, and it's obvious that they know her, or, you know, a friend of a friend or whatever, so they've got.
**Adam:** But it's just the right sort of level of weird that it was like, oh, and then I realized it was Bob from Black Adder.
**Chris:** Bob, yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, you sort of and yeah, it's just.
**Chris:** But but that just only brings up the image, doesn't it, of everything you know about.
**Chris:** They just keep transporting.
**Chris:** You to these different experiences and memories.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And as you say, it's that none of the until you get right to the end, nothing that happens seems so outlandish or it does sound like the kind of thing a friend to tell you, I did a really weird thing that happened.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's just.
**Lee:** It doesn't feel spectacular, it's not like, oh, I've read about that in the newspaper.
**Lee:** Or that'd be a famous story picked up by loads of, it's just a weird evening where something didn't feel right.
**Lee:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, they just get that balance right enough, and I love the fact that she wouldn't say the words as well.
**Lee:** When they were speaking to Sarah.
**Lee:** She said, can I.
**Lee:** Write them down?
**Adam:** And and again.
**Adam:** Just the brilliance of that because like I say, I was.
**Adam:** That that's obviously the second episode, so I've gotten I've got in I've got in a work early.
**Adam:** First thing I've done is I've Googled Scaffeld Hill, then I've Googled scratching mask.
**Adam:** Now, obviously, if you Google scratching mask now, you just get lots of people talking about broken veil, so magnificent.
**Adam:** But then it's just even down to that, that they'd found something that a sounds abso fucking lootly perfect as an old.
**Adam:** Sort of sixteenth century term, or civil war era term.
**Adam:** But also isn't actually a term.
**Adam:** And so you can't Google it.
**Adam:** So it's just again.
**Adam:** Just the the sort of the level of detail, the level of work that's gone into it and stuff.
**Adam:** It's just just brilliant.
**Adam:** And the fact that now scratching mass is all over the Google.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's because of this show, literally.
**Adam:** It's like, well, well done, you've just you you've Slenderman'd it, you you know, you now have created this thing.
**Adam:** And eventually, probably ten, twenty years down the line, or probably even sooner, someone's going to look it up.
**Adam:** Or find the term scratching mass and to it and think that it's a real thing.
**Chris:** This is where it originated from.
**Lee:** It's a real thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Story.
**Adam:** I mean, even down to that.
**Adam:** Agnes Clamp, such a fucking perfect like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It feels Pendle, doesn't it?
**Adam:** It's got like, it's like Alice Nutter.
**Adam:** It's like those sort of, just it's just the right name.
**Lee:** Yeah, and even her her pseudonym as well.
**Lee:** When they said, oh, they found her in another town two years later, and her name was Ursula Godwood.
**Lee:** And it again.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** It's it is.
**Lee:** It just if you drop that into all the people from Chelmsford.
**Lee:** Who were in which that would not stand out at all.
**Lee:** You would.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** They've just, you know.
**Adam:** It's that their knowledge and love of the subject.
**Adam:** But also managing to create this entirely original mythology.
**Adam:** You know, I I it's genuinely brilliant.
**Adam:** And they, you know.
**Adam:** There's a part of me that there's I'm.
**Adam:** I'm really half and half because there's a part of me that wants fucking more of this, but there's also a part of me that's like, is it perfect?
**Adam:** And do I want it do I want to know more.
**Adam:** Because I don't think I do if it's not going to be.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I think that's it, I think it is literally perfect, there's nothing about it that I didn't like.
**Lee:** It is, I, yeah.
**Lee:** I can't think of a single thing that could have been done better.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** I wouldn't put it past them to be able to do something similar.
**Chris:** but differently enough that it's as good.
**Adam:** I mean, if they did something a different thing.
**Adam:** I think that might even be the the way to go with it.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I mean, even like you're saying, Lee, the thing is with it, is you're worried, you think is this going to stick a landing or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Because it's quite, you know, it's a difficult thing to sort of try and draw together.
**Adam:** And they managed to end it, but leave it very open-ended, but not in a way that you feel cheated.
**Adam:** And so they kind of give it a conclusion, but the conclusion is, what the fuck?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or maybe.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It is the perfect ending, I say, I I was the same, I literally got halfway through the last episode.
**Lee:** And I was like, all of these stories on their own are brilliant.
**Lee:** I cannot work out how they're going to tie all together, it either can't be done or it's going to be so rubbish.
**Chris:** I did not expect them to do it the way they did it.
**Lee:** And then it was perfect.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** After the five, yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's I I couldn't be more happy with it.
**Lee:** So yeah, it it's great.
**Lee:** yeah, and I'm really looking forward to you finishing the Apparition Phase.
**Lee:** Because that's the I found that very much the same.
**Lee:** Loved it all the way through, but I was like, how is he going to end this?
**Lee:** This.
**Lee:** And he does.
**Lee:** But the other thing I had that like you were saying as well, it was as if someone had written down all your favorite things.
**Lee:** That was what the beginning of the Apparition Phase, when he was talking about Ghost Watch and the Fortean Times and everything he was talking about.
**Lee:** I was like, I had that.
**Lee:** Yep, I read that.
**Lee:** Yep, I've got that.
**Chris:** Something tells me he knows his audience.
**Adam:** Oh, he is.
**Chris:** He's audience as well.
**Adam:** He knows his.
**Adam:** Onions, he knows his all of his onions.
**Adam:** Because actually, I I'll tell you what as well, do you know the bit that impressed me the most, though, and this is fucking sad.
**Adam:** There's a bit in it where they there's a specific date in the book.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** And I thought I was trying to give myself a sense of time.
**Adam:** Not to say that the book doesn't evoke it perfectly, because it evokes the time period and everything.
**Adam:** But I looked it up as I was like, right, well, that's a Saturday, I'll look up what Doctor Who episode was on, and it was like part four, I think of Planet of the Spiders, Jon Pertwee's last story.
**Adam:** And then literally later about a chapter, half a chapter later, or whatever like that.
**Adam:** he gets home and Planet of the Spiders is on.
**Adam:** And I was like.
**Adam:** Yeah, well done.
**Adam:** No, absolutely perfect.
**Lee:** I say, it was just it was one of those books that it it was, you know, it was a friend a friend of a friend had written it.
**Lee:** And it was a horror book, so Jennifer picked me up a copy and said, oh, you know, a friend of Giles wrote this.
**Lee:** It's a horror book.
**Lee:** She said, it's pretty good.
**Lee:** She give it a go.
**Lee:** yeah, so I went in with low expectations.
**Lee:** And was absolutely I just couldn't put it down.
**Lee:** I think I spent about four days just on the sofa just absolutely stuck to it because it was so good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And and again like this every chapter.
**Lee:** Just just kept you going onto the next one, and it kept.
**Lee:** You couldn't work out how it was all going to tie up, you know, from the the opening story at the beginning.
**Lee:** Again, I don't want to spoil it for anyone.
**Lee:** Because you need to find a copy and read it.
**Lee:** But yeah, how the beginning story from his childhood starts, and then how it changes, you know.
**Lee:** How is all this going to tie back up, but again, just absolutely nailed it.
**Lee:** Stuck the landing and, yeah.
**Lee:** Loved it.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously, if people have listened this far, we've we've we've even spoiled stuff or fucking confused you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I'm sure you've mentioned it several times, but they've got the Bandcamp original soundtrack.
**Adam:** I've got the soundtrack.
**Adam:** I I I ordered myself a copy.
**Chris:** Did you did you manage to get a C D?
**Chris:** Oh, sold out now.
**Adam:** Apparently.
**Adam:** No, I've managed to get the C D.
**Chris:** Well done.
**Adam:** basically, I if they released this as a three D C D set, I'd buy this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This would be, if this was a film, I'd have pre-ordered the Blu-ray.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But because it's a podcast, it's just there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** It's there, and it's free.
**Adam:** And it's like, that's the other thing, I feel almost like, I feel I've robbed you.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** That's it.
**Chris:** That's it, that's what, I'm going to buy their album.
**Chris:** It's only six pounds just to, you know.
**Chris:** They deserve that.
**Adam:** And seriously, that's what I've been listening to while I've been reading the Apparition Phase, so it's really.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** Yes, so everybody.
**Lee:** If you haven't listened to it already, we've we've left it vague enough that it we haven't spoiled it.
**Lee:** Trust us, it's still worth listening to.
**Lee:** Go and check out the Apparition Phase by Will McLean, it's a fantastic book.
**Lee:** I'm sure we'll discuss it again when Adam's finished.
**Lee:** and we will be back in a fortnight's time to cover the Tomb of Ligia.
**Lee:** On our fourth out in, I think we agreed of Roger Corman, Vincent Price movies.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** So, thanks ever so much for listening.
**Lee:** Everybody, stay creepy.
**Lee:** And good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 223 The Plague of the Zombies

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-223-the-plague-of-the-zombies/
Air date: 11 May 2025
Duration: 00:36:38
Film: The Plague of the Zombies · Year: 1966 · Director: John Gilling

### Description

We’re sticking with under-appreciated Hammer films this episode, and another from 1966 - “The Plague of the Zombies”. A film in which André Morell is such a badass, he stabs a man who is already on fire; the local constabulary are so obliging that they don’t just turn a blind eye to grave robbing: they also help fill in the hole; and Servalan is feeling really rather tired. This was originally released as a double bill with “Dracula: Prince of Darkness”, and while the Count brought the box office clout, “The Plague of the Zombies” is definitely the more exciting and interesting film. Hammer’s only foray into zombie territory wisely transplants the myth’s Haitian origins to Cornwall, thus bringing in an element of British colonialism, which is then married to a comment on capitalist exploitation of the workers, making for a remarkably modern subtext. But the gothic visceral chills are there too, both supernatural and all too horribly human, with a standout dream sequence that really gives these zombies some evocative menace, that may have played into George A Romero’s take on the monsters a mere two years later. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here as promised for 1966's The Plague of the Zombies, brought to you by Hammer, there will be spoilers, there may be swearing, I mean, there's definitely going to be zombies.
**Lee:** So let's get stuck in.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Lee:** I'm assuming this is not something you would have seen before.
**Chris:** It's not.
**Chris:** I'm going to call you out on that little preamble just a little bit and highlight the worst thing about this film.
**Chris:** I wasn't totally sure for a long time that there was a plague appearing.
**Chris:** However, I completely forgave it as we got towards the end I was like, I don't care, you could have called this anything, this is a very good film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and I kind of think either I'm getting used to some of these older style films or you have really hidden a few gems and are showing me some of the best Hammer.
**Adam:** It's all.
**Chris:** Surprisingly good and seems extremely modern.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Ahead of its time, so yeah.
**Lee:** I've got to say, that's the thing, although Hammer is, you know, as we always say, is known for its franchises and its multiple Draculas and its multiple Frankenstein movies.
**Lee:** It's the side ones that I really enjoy, you know, this, The Reptile, I love.
**Lee:** What's the circus one?
**Adam:** Circus of, no, Vampire Circus.
**Lee:** Vampire Circus, yeah.
**Chris:** So it sounds like we've got a few more still to go.
**Lee:** Yeah, there's loads of these sideliners that are just fantastic.
**Lee:** Especially these super early ones when I, I feel it's before they kind of got their tread game, which is why it's lots of people.
**Chris:** Once, once they started to get, I suppose, those iconic films, then they, it was hard not to stick with them.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** They knew they were money spinners.
**Adam:** I mean, the weird thing was, this, when this originally came out, this was a double bill with Dracula Prince of Darkness.
**Adam:** And Dracula is definitely better than Dracula Prince of Darkness.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Even though it's, like, because it is the second Christopher Lee Dracula film.
**Adam:** But this is much more interesting, much more, I, to be honest, I think weirdly, the, it's when Hammer go off-piste that they come up with some really interesting stuff.
**Adam:** Because a lot of it is obviously, even though they make like the first Dracula or Horror of Dracula is just, is their retelling of the Bram Stoker story.
**Adam:** They still kind of dip into those elements.
**Adam:** So they're always kind of constrained from an adaption or they've, you know, they've got, whereas these things seem to freewheel a lot better.
**Adam:** You know, because I mean, let's face it, Andre Morel's character is basically a Van Helsing.
**Adam:** Or a Sherlock Holmes.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** So, yeah, I totally, especially when you mentioned Columbo earlier, I was like, yeah, I actually thought of that.
**Chris:** I was like, a bit of Columbo in him starting to come out, a bit of Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** He's.
**Lee:** Yeah, he was in the Hammer Sherlock Holmes as well, he was in The Hound of the Baskervilles with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, he played Watson.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's Watson to Cushing's Holmes.
**Adam:** And he's also, he's also the third Quatermass.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** He did Quatermass and the Pit, which is the TV version of Quatermass and the Pit, which is.
**Adam:** I think the pinnacle of, which incidentally also has Michael Ripper in it.
**Adam:** Michael Ripper, who's in this, nice big role for him.
**Adam:** He was the police sergeant, Chris.
**Adam:** But Michael Ripper is the, he's the, the actor who's appeared in the most Hammer films.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** It's something like 35 or 36, I was kind of trying to work it out.
**Adam:** But there's one, there was one I was a bit, is that a Hammer film or is that not?
**Adam:** It was like a Peter Sellers comedy.
**Adam:** And I was trying to work out whether it was Hammer by another name or something like that, but anyway.
**Adam:** But regardless of that, yeah, like Michael Ripper, who plays the police sergeant.
**Adam:** He's just once, once you're aware of him, you will see him in a number of Hammer films.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's always an innkeeper or a bartender, he's always got a very small role.
**Lee:** But whenever you go into a, yeah, whenever you go into a village, he is there somewhere running stuff.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I thought it's funny, I was going to say, this is another film where almost the horror element it's like the icing on the cake.
**Chris:** You've got a really good film and you almost don't even fully need the horror aspect.
**Chris:** You know, they've, whereas, you can imagine some films where it's like take the horror out and it's a pretty rubbish film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But really, they have got an absolute, you know, the character's fascinating, the dialogue's great, it's, it all works really well together.
**Lee:** It's a lovely looking film, it feels polished and.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, just beautiful and the zombie make up is terrifying.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's, it's weird, isn't it, because it's the first, I think it's the first time because the, the zombie was usually just someone who was.
**Adam:** Like, previously when Universal doing stuff like I Walk with a Zombie, they would just be essentially, they'd just be sleepwalking almost.
**Adam:** This is the one of the original, oh it's here's a rotting corpse.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, okay.
**Chris:** And, and this has got to be fairly early in the zombie industry.
**Adam:** It's two years prior to Night of the Living Dead.
**Chris:** Is it?
**Adam:** So this is the sort of, this is the last of the original, not original run, sorry, but this is the last of zombie films before Romero is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Basically becomes the over of the genre.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And interestingly enough.
**Adam:** It is oddly, because they're going, they've obviously with this, they're still going with the zombie tradition as like associated to Voodoo.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And stuff like that, but what I think is great because again, you know, like we said with The Witches where it has that opening sequence in Africa.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This also you could be, you know, if they'd have just done a Hatian Voodoo film, yeah, I don't think that would be, that would come over particularly well nowadays.
**Adam:** Whereas actually.
**Chris:** Gets away with.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** Weirdly enough, not only does it get away with it, it's a lovely explanation of, or sort of exploration rather, of.
**Adam:** It's like a colonial thing because it's basically this posh English arsehole has gone over to, has gone over to Haiti.
**Adam:** Nicked their tech or nicked their magic and brought it back home.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, in order to also have a completely compliant workforce that you don't have to give a shit about.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well that's, I think that.
**Chris:** I think that adds to the modern feel of it, it's, it is like a, a almost satirical take on, yeah, exploiting the working class.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But zombies.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's basically, what's the ideal way to run this tin mine now that people actually expect a living wage?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I'll employ the living dead.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So yeah, it is a big, big social commentary film again, which I didn't realise Hammer did this as much as they clearly do.
**Adam:** I'm not sure, because that's the thing is, I think it's individuals within it.
**Adam:** I think it's script writers, I think it's directors and stuff like that.
**Adam:** It wasn't necessarily Hammer had the vision.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** It was just, yeah, just how it sort of went.
**Adam:** I'm.
**Chris:** Sorry, Lee, I, I.
**Lee:** That's all right.
**Lee:** I'm sorry.
**Lee:** That's all right, I was just going to say, yeah, because it did leave me with a bit of a question mark, I've seen this film a few times, but again, it's when you're looking at it critically like to do this.
**Lee:** Because I had made a note, I was like, there's definitely more so his turning them to have them working in the tin mine.
**Lee:** That makes perfect sense, there's still lots of men around that town.
**Lee:** Why is he starting turning women, and then I was like, oh, there aren't any women working in the mine, but they don't ever actually touch on why he is converting these two women.
**Lee:** I think it's probably just best, they decided it's probably just best not said really.
**Lee:** But I can't imagine them swinging a pickaxe.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, it's also that sequence where like his, they're referred to as the young bloods in the credits.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's right.
**Adam:** Which, which immediately nowadays I'm just thinking, well, where are the Crips, but obviously it's the, it's the older use of that ridiculous term of basically, you know.
**Adam:** Oh, they're bully boy arseholes have come off the fox hunt to be pricks to people.
**Adam:** But you know, they're just young bloods, aren't they, you know.
**Adam:** It's, it's.
**Adam:** I mean, still a lovely example of what you can get away with when you're posh, insomuch as the police find you grave robbing.
**Adam:** You know, they don't know you, but basically you flash your sort of, your your business card, tell him you're an eminent doctor, then next thing they're going is, no, don't, don't you worry about filling in that hole, sir.
**Lee:** We'll do that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you're like, fucking hell, that's that.
**Adam:** That, that's posh in action, do you know what I mean, Andre is such a smooth bastard.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Actually, and also stabbing a man who is already on fire.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, you know, that's, yeah, that's pretty sort of like, fucking hell, he ain't shitting about, you know, quite.
**Chris:** That's it, there's even decent action in it.
**Adam:** And actually, actually, I think that's the other thing as well, is I think that when with the adaptations and stuff, maybe they just got too sort of rolled up in is that what that character would do?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, like, well, if the man's on fire, would Sherlock Holmes stab him?
**Adam:** It doesn't matter, this is, this is Sir James and it's so it's.
**Adam:** You know, it's a lot sort of, it's a lot simpler, that's what he does.
**Lee:** I think you're right, they do have a lot more, a lot more freedom when they do their own stuff and it comes across.
**Lee:** And it's, it is a shame that they got so wrapped up in, you know, in doing the franchise stuff.
**Lee:** Because as much as, as much as I love all of the vampire movie, all the Dracula movies and stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, like it's these side ones that I really enjoy, and I think if they'd put more time and effort into those that they had more control over, as you say, where they didn't have to worry about.
**Lee:** Sticking to guidelines and upsetting the fans of the books and all that kind of stuff, and you've got a character who you, you've got him 15 movies so you can't really change who he is or what he does.
**Lee:** Yeah, I, I honestly think they could have done so much better stuff if they'd, you know, done more of their own content really, but.
**Lee:** Can't complain, there's enough of it out there.
**Adam:** And but it's really weird.
**Adam:** Because obviously, 66 is quite, it's obviously quite a good vein for this.
**Adam:** Because obviously, The Witches, I hadn't, when we planned this, I hadn't realised that The Witches and Plague of the Zombies were both 66, which also means, because you mentioned it earlier, like The Reptile.
**Adam:** And The Reptile is another one of these films where.
**Adam:** You know, it's their own thing, so they can, it's really great.
**Adam:** But they filmed it back to back with this, so if you watch it, if you watch them together, it's the same sets.
**Adam:** Michael Ripper's in that one as well.
**Adam:** So Jacqueline Pearce, who plays Alice in this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** who.
**Adam:** I don't, I assume neither of you have ever seen Blake's 7.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** But she is the main baddy of Blake's 7.
**Adam:** She is the Emperor of Blake's 7, she's the Palpatine.
**Adam:** And she is fucking amazing in it.
**Adam:** And yeah, so this is, this is, this is a far different role to that is.
**Adam:** but yeah.
**Adam:** As like this sort of like space dominatrix villain that she sort of plays in Blake's 7, but.
**Adam:** so, but yeah, they're both in The Reptile.
**Adam:** And you'll see that they're all the same sets.
**Adam:** And then.
**Lee:** So this was release they used Oakley Court in both as well, they use Oakley Court in both.
**Lee:** So obviously they've kind of pruned it and dressed the outside because obviously the inside was a derelict mess at this point.
**Lee:** Yeah, so they've obviously done the outside work, so they're like, let's get as many exterior shots of it in different films as we can before we have to get the gardeners back in and it goes to shit again.
**Adam:** And I think they.
**Adam:** But yeah, so The Reptile is another recommend.
**Adam:** In this similar vein because again, it's just a weird outlier that and yeah.
**Adam:** I really think that there's a, there's a lot of wealth in the sidelines of Hammer.
**Adam:** And not because it's weird, because the stuff, not so much the stuff they do, they only did one werewolf movie, Curse of the Werewolf, which again is a really great film.
**Adam:** And really sort of like more in the sort of Gothic tradition, but yeah, they do a lot of interesting things there.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think that, so like I say, this was back to back with The Reptile.
**Adam:** And then The Reptile was released with Rasputin, the Christopher Lee Rasputin film as a double bill.
**Lee:** Right, yeah.
**Adam:** So what.
**Adam:** But Rasputin was also was filmed back to back with Dracula Prince of Darkness, again, same sets, most of the same cast.
**Chris:** I like, I like efficiency.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so, yeah, but so that's why they mixed them up when they released them.
**Adam:** So that you wouldn't be sitting there going.
**Chris:** It's not that, it's like the same set, yeah.
**Adam:** Hang on, this is the same building or whatever like that.
**Adam:** You know, they would make sure that they, but I.
**Adam:** But definitely, I think, I mean, Rasputin and, The Reptile's hell of a double bill as well.
**Adam:** But yeah, so John Gilling, who, directed this, also did, for Hammer, he did The Mummy's Shroud.
**Adam:** Shadow of the Cat, The Pirates of Blood River, the Brigand of Kandahar and The Scarlet Blade.
**Adam:** but he also did, The Flesh and the Fiends, the Burke and Hare movie with Peter Cushing.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Which again is.
**Adam:** That's a great little film.
**Adam:** And, some others that there's also a film called The Night Caller that I've got to watch at some point.
**Adam:** Because I keep hearing it come up.
**Adam:** But yeah, John Gilling was basically like who directed it was, I think he rewrote the script pretty much as well.
**Adam:** And similarly with The Reptile.
**Adam:** So both of them are kind of his end of Hammer as it were.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I get this is one of those that I don't, I don't get out and watch very often.
**Lee:** but it just means that when I do, I always go, yeah, it's always, it's always better than I remember it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's so glorious looking, that's the thing that gets me, is that lovely soft look about it, it's the perfect like Sunday evening relaxing horror movie, which I know sounds daft, but it is, that's how it works.
**Lee:** It's a, it's just beautiful.
**Chris:** Yeah, great atmosphere.
**Adam:** I think the graveyard set is amazing, frankly.
**Adam:** And I really love the, I think the mine works are just the right level of stark, especially because they're doing.
**Adam:** The the day for night shooting isn't that great, but it almost gives it a nice, it makes it monochrome, it almost makes it like a black and white movie for those bits.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I noticed that as well.
**Lee:** They were, I was like, I I appreciate that they can't shoot at night, but according to this, the young bloods were still out fox hunting at 11 o'clock at night and I was like, I mean, even in the height of summer, it's still dark by 9:30 surely, I mean.
**Adam:** And that's, and that's the thing is, I think, I mean, genuinely, the scene where they run his daughter down and like drag her back to the house and everything is.
**Chris:** Yeah, that got pretty intense.
**Chris:** I was like, I wonder how far they're going to take this.
**Adam:** It's fucking horrible.
**Adam:** It really is.
**Adam:** And it's odd because again, it's that thing where you don't think Hammer's going to come up with anything that's going to be too.
**Adam:** And then, yeah, that that sort of just plays to almost to the right point.
**Adam:** Of like, this is getting really fucking uncomfortable.
**Adam:** And then it's like, thank fuck for that, we're going back to fantasy.
**Adam:** And, you know, and.
**Lee:** You've got the bad guy who has turned up.
**Lee:** Like, yeah.
**Lee:** Like, fuck.
**Lee:** I mean, I thought he was brilliant in it as well, such a great, he gave a such a good performance.
**Adam:** Oh, he's a brilliant shithouse.
**Adam:** He's brilliant, isn't he?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** John Carson.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so smarmy and nice, but still constantly untrustworthy, yeah, and then you always see the other side of him when he is just an absolute prick.
**Lee:** He's just brilliant, absolutely great.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I think that's again, it's a great cast, it's not necessarily like a, it's not, it's not an audience draw Hammer cast necessarily.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** Oh, top, top, like, all just works so well, especially what was the, the scene where Forbes confronts.
**Chris:** What's his name?
**Adam:** Hamilton.
**Chris:** Clive.
**Chris:** Hamilton, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That, you know, that's great seeing them stand off against each other and Forbes is clearly like showing that he is tough even if he's, you know, he's got a bit older, but.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He does mess around.
**Chris:** I suppose, I suppose as well, how likable he is, even with his relationship with his daughter from the start.
**Chris:** What does he say?
**Chris:** He's like, I don't know why I put up with you at all.
**Chris:** I should.
**Chris:** I'm like, that's it.
**Chris:** I'm, I'm using that tomorrow.
**Adam:** That's my.
**Adam:** This thing, is that's, that's one of those ones where you can imagine sort of like that people just not getting it.
**Adam:** And you're like, that's a loving, that's a loving family, I know that, you know, that was.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I just, yeah, no, I think they have a.
**Chris:** It's, the look she gives him, it's just yeah, it's completely like.
**Adam:** They have a great relationship.
**Adam:** Diane Clare was also in The Haunting.
**Adam:** Obviously we did however many episodes ago, she's like, she's Eleanor's sister in it.
**Adam:** So she's not in it a lot.
**Lee:** 200 episodes ago now, isn't it? Yeah, something like that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Something like that.
**Adam:** But, no, I, I, I think they've got a great relationship, the, the other doctor is a bit of a wet blanket, but then he is a bit of a wet blanket.
**Adam:** That's the character.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean.
**Adam:** It's like he's, you know, he's not.
**Chris:** He, he's good, you know, apparently he was one of the top students, so he's clearly good at his job, but yeah, he's struggling with what's going on.
**Adam:** He's out of his depth, he's intimidated and basically given up on it.
**Adam:** And,
**Lee:** I love that line.
**Lee:** I laughed out loud when they were doing the washing up after dinner.
**Lee:** And, and yeah, he immediately says, you know what we're going to have to do, we're going to have to go and dig one up.
**Lee:** And he goes, what?
**Adam:** What.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** What I also love about that is again, confidence.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because because you two have just proven to me quite conclusively that you can't wash up without breaking a plate.
**Adam:** But you're both quite, but you know, certainly Andre Morel is certainly, fuck it, it's just a bit of grave robbing, yeah, we'll do that.
**Adam:** We'll have it sorted by morning.
**Adam:** You've just broken two plates, guys, come on.
**Adam:** And also according to, according to Claire, lighting a cigarello on a candle is very cool.
**Adam:** She wanted that noted down.
**Lee:** I think that is worth noting, that definitely is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think, and and there's, I think there's also.
**Adam:** Again, it feels, you know, like where Sylvia immediately is like, no, the fox went the other way.
**Adam:** And it was like, yeah, good for you.
**Adam:** Because, you know, she was, although, although it did seem a bit like, father, do something.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** What from here.
**Adam:** In a movie, what am I meant to do?
**Lee:** Chase those men who are rushing across the field on a horse.
**Adam:** I'll write a letter to the times.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Lee:** But again, it is, it's that thing of, they'll never know, they'll just think they haven't found it.
**Lee:** And then when he doesn't find it, he immediately says, it went that way, didn't it, you better hope I don't see you again, I was like, all right, so because you can't find a fox, you immediately go, that woman was lying.
**Lee:** It couldn't possibly be that it did go that way and you just didn't find it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think that's the again, a beautiful feeling that because at the start of it.
**Adam:** Obviously, Hamilton is wearing the mask.
**Adam:** And then the next time you see him, they just show you very close up the ring with the same mark.
**Adam:** So it's not a mystery for any of us.
**Adam:** It's not a mystery for the audience at all.
**Adam:** It's you, again, back to Columbo, you, it's watching someone work it out rather than, you know, what you're going, oh, that's what they're clocking or that's where they're going.
**Adam:** And,
**Lee:** It's, those masks, again, like with the zombies, what a horrific design they are, that is nightmare fuel, isn't it?
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, when they chase the vicar, though.
**Adam:** I can, I can honestly say.
**Adam:** That you're sitting there digging up a body, if I was that vicar, I'd have been like, when they say, oh, we're going, you're all right.
**Lee:** Are you sure?
**Adam:** I was only saying, I was staying out of a misguided sense of politeness, but frankly, I'm fucking freezing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think that's the again, a beautiful feeling that because at the start of it, obviously, Hamilton is wearing the mask.
**Adam:** And then the next time you see him, they just show you very close up the ring with the same mark.
**Adam:** So it's not a mystery for any of us.
**Adam:** It's not a mystery for the audience at all.
**Adam:** It's you, again, back to Columbo, you it's watching someone work it out rather than, you know, what you're going, oh, that's what they're clocking or that's where they're going.
**Adam:** And,
**Lee:** Yeah, I think I'll I do need at some point to go through and make a note of all of these that I haven't seen.
**Lee:** Because again, like this and The Reptile and stuff, because they don't get mentioned so much, if it wasn't for the Hammer Horror box set having them in, I wouldn't have seen them.
**Lee:** So there is so much other stuff out there that I clearly need to need to track down.
**Lee:** I mean, there could be gems out there that I still haven't seen like this.
**Lee:** thingy was.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Even even on telly, I think when they used to show Hammer, when they showed Hammer films on the telly, it would be, again, it was drawers.
**Adam:** You know, it would be, we've got Dracula in the title, you got Frankenstein, you got, I do remember seeing The Reptile actually on TV, which was a.
**Adam:** Fucking revelation.
**Adam:** But yeah, again, there is that sort of, there is that sort of tendency that you don't get the, the sort of.
**Adam:** I mean, I don't, I would say Plague of the Zombies had a bit of a resurgence because zombies had a resurgence, so people were just watching all of the history of zombie movies.
**Adam:** So it sort of, you know, it, so it's sort of and started getting a bit of a better appreciation then.
**Adam:** So I don't think it's as, I don't think it's as sort of unseen as The Witches is.
**Adam:** But I still think there are plenty of people out there that, you know, this, this, there is a, like you say, there's the, the sort of accepted classic Hammer list versus.
**Adam:** You know, no, actually, these are great ones that you've got to see that you may not know the name, you may not know, you know, it hasn't got Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee in it, but.
**Adam:** You know, they are genuinely great films.
**Lee:** I'm currently trying to look up, there was one that came out fairly recently that I'd never seen.
**Lee:** Can't remember the name of it.
**Lee:** It's not exactly, a horror is the thing.
**Lee:** It's to Peter Cushing, oh Captain Clegg, that's the one.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Whatever happens, watch Captain Clegg.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's fucking great.
**Lee:** I only saw it about four years ago for the first time.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** And I was, because I saw a still from it and I was like, look at that, it was a Hammer film.
**Lee:** And obviously it was the, the skeletal horses.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** The horses.
**Lee:** Oh, and it's got Peter Cushing in it.
**Lee:** And I've never seen it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and although it isn't a horror, it's fantastic and it looks like this and it's just gorgeous.
**Adam:** And, and also.
**Adam:** Really good role from Michael Ripper in that because he's basically Peter Cushing's second in command, isn't he, he's like his ship's mate.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they've also got the guy who sounds like that in it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, that, that is a,
**Adam:** A really, like you say, it's not horror, because, and actually that is a, that is a, adaptation.
**Adam:** But it's really well done, Ollie Reed's great in it as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like young Ollie Reed in there.
**Adam:** But no, I think that they are, yeah, Captain Clegg is, is definitely one.
**Chris:** I just felt, did you say Clegg?
**Adam:** Clegg, yeah.
**Adam:** it's also, I think in America it's called Night Creatures or night something, yeah.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** Oh, it's Night Creatures, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But again, and actually, weirdly, that was when, when the Horror channel used to exist, that's how they used to show a lot of Hammer films.
**Adam:** They'd show them under the American titles because they had the American prints.
**Adam:** So actually you could sort of catch up with some, as long as you knew what they were.
**Adam:** Otherwise you just go, night creatures, never heard of it, right.
**Adam:** What's on?
**Adam:** What's on the other side?
**Chris:** I've also got Come Up Here, The Gorgon.
**Lee:** Oh, that should, yeah.
**Adam:** The Gorgon, again, and some great names, it's both Cushing and Lee.
**Chris:** It is, yeah, again.
**Adam:** Yeah, and Patrick Troughton's in there.
**Adam:** Barbara Shelley, it's, yeah, no, it's.
**Adam:** And and actually, the, I can't remember her name, the old witch from The Witches.
**Lee:** Oh, who's also in Devil Rides Out.
**Adam:** Yes, I think she is, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** I can't remember her name, but she's amazing.
**Adam:** But there's, yeah, there's a lot of.
**Adam:** I'll tell you what actually, just it's so Michael Ripper, I wrote I his 35, 36 Hammer films.
**Adam:** So like we said, we got The Reptile, you got Captain Clegg, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Dracula Has Risen From His Grave, Scars of Dracula, The Brides of Dracula.
**Adam:** Vengeance of Frankenstein, Curse of the Werewolf, The Mummy, where was it, The Ugly Duckling, have you ever seen The Ugly Duckling, Lee?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Hammer Horror comedy with Jon Pertwee and Bernard Bresslaw.
**Lee:** What?
**Adam:** And it's basically a Jekyll and Hyde film, but he, it's Bernard Bresslaw is a nerd who then becomes a head like a teddy boy.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Adam:** And Jon Pertwee is his dad.
**Lee:** How the fucking hell have I never seen it?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again, it's those sort of, it's those weirdly, because I mean, Hammer obviously it wasn't just Hammer Horror that they did, they did the On The Buses movies, they did like the adaptations of Rising Damp, yeah, Rising Damp was a Hammer film, I think.
**Adam:** The adaptation of that.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah, they were always doing, they weren't never exclusively horror, but that was just the thing that they absolutely had the most success with.
**Adam:** And they were going for quite a long time before they, sort of, it was Quatermass experiment that was the thing that was like, oh, horror, so we'll look into that and we'll do more sort of horror.
**Adam:** Well, first they sort of kind of went, oh, sci-fi and then they were like, no, it was definitely the horror bit that was that was what sold it to people.
**Adam:** But yeah, they, I mean, they were like releasing films from like the, basically from the 30s, I think.
**Adam:** And there's lots of, there's a, I can't remember what they're called, but there's a podcast I've been listening to who do Hammer, doing Hammer films.
**Lee:** Oh, god.
**Adam:** And, they are literally doing every Hammer film in chronological order.
**Lee:** Oh, god.
**Lee:** See, I don't know if I'd want to do that.
**Lee:** I'd want to do all the the the horror stuff.
**Lee:** I wouldn't want to do all of the, yeah, as you say, the the On The Buses and all of those type of.
**Adam:** Well, they're not even, they're not even at that point yet at the moment, where certainly where I've been listening to, it's a lot of like noir knockoffs and police comedies and things like that.
**Adam:** It was all sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** I'd like to listen to them talk about it, but I don't know.
**Lee:** But again, it might be one of those where I'll find gems where that, you know.
**Adam:** That's the reason I'm listening to him, to be honest, is because I've become so intrigued and it sounds like, and it's, it is, it's a very well-produced show.
**Adam:** and, it's, I think, I think it's House of Hammer.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** No, I'll have to, I'll have to check.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** But yeah, they, they, no, that's a, it's a very, very good show, but yeah, that is a, that is a task that I.
**Adam:** I kind of envy them.
**Adam:** But I'm glad they're doing it and I'm not.
**Lee:** I imagine some of those are going to be a nightmare to track down as well.
**Lee:** Because even some.
**Adam:** Well, they've already had, they've already in the, in the sort of line of stuff, I know they've already had to lose, there's two that they've said, right, we can't do this film because it doesn't exist anymore.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** That must be so frustrating.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean, but that's the thing, you do forget about all the other great stuff they put.
**Lee:** You know, they put out the the old Dark House, William Castle remakes and stuff, like.
**Adam:** I always forget that's them, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, there's so much stuff in there that's just brilliant and as soon as you start watching it, you're like, oh, of course this is Hammer.
**Lee:** It's got it written all over it, but yeah.
**Lee:** But again, until you sort of put two and two together and watch it through that filter.
**Lee:** You wouldn't necessarily, you just think, oh, it's William Castle.
**Chris:** I suppose now all films are digital, probably, pretty much all films are recorded digitally, then nothing will be lost from now on.
**Adam:** Well, depends, give it give it long enough, one good EMP.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That could, yeah, we might not care too much if, if it manages to wipe out.
**Adam:** I, I don't know, I'll still be, I'll still be annoyed.
**Adam:** You know, this, I mean, there's a number of films I don't care.
**Adam:** In fact, they, there's a lovely thing that, because obviously there's missing episodes of Doctor Who and there's a lovely game that Doctor Who fans play, which is, right, you can swap out episodes so they're like, right, do you want Evil of the Daleks episode, episode six, but you have to get rid of another episode.
**Adam:** And then everyone's like, yeah, Fear Her, obviously, fuck it.
**Adam:** It's crap.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And it's a, and it's a really interesting game to play as well, where it's like, okay, so here's all the missing films that you definitely cannot see.
**Adam:** But here's all the films we've still fucking got, what one are you punting out, so we can have London After Midnight back.
**Lee:** Do you know what, the amount of stuff I would give away to see London After Midnight just once.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** No, I think there's, you're.
**Adam:** I'm sure there's an entire franchise I could sacrifice for that, you know.
**Lee:** It's called Saw.
**Lee:** Actually, no, I shouldn't be mean, I love the first Saw movie, so I can't.
**Chris:** They, they should have just stuck there.
**Lee:** Yeah, but the thing was it was, it was that, it was one of those franchises where it was non-horror fans.
**Lee:** Yeah, who were, yeah.
**Chris:** It got.
**Chris:** So big that it was.
**Lee:** They were making a killing from it because it had a great twist, so it took off.
**Lee:** But then the rest of them didn't have a great twist, but they just still kept pumping them out and people kept turning up to him, so.
**Adam:** They they basically had the same great twist, didn't they.
**Lee:** I I think possibly, yeah.
**Adam:** Every time.
**Adam:** It was like.
**Adam:** Oh, that was, was it we thought?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think I checked out after the third one maybe.
**Lee:** but yeah, somehow they're still going.
**Lee:** Yes, so,
**Lee:** As promised, we are going to be back again in a fortnight's time, we are going to be covering not a movie at all, we are going to be discussing the amazing podcast, Broken Veil.
**Lee:** Which, yeah, I I can't wait to get stuck into really.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** There's so much to unpack in that.
**Lee:** and it covers so much and it kind of.
**Lee:** Side references so many things.
**Lee:** I think it's going to be a nightmare trying to keep it down to less than two hours, but we'll see how we get on.
**Adam:** We'll see what we can do.
**Adam:** But, yeah, no, I'm looking forward, I'm, even though it was only a few weeks ago.
**Adam:** I'm really looking forward to re-listening to that.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, that's good.
**Lee:** And me, the same, yeah, probably three weeks ago I listened to it and I'm, I can't wait to sit down and do the whole three hours.
**Lee:** I told my brother about it, Dr. Dean, who's been on this show before.
**Lee:** And that's precisely what he did, he sat down and listened to the entire thing from beginning to end.
**Lee:** But I'll bring you his feedback for the episode.
**Adam:** Yeah, good man.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Anyway, thank you ever so much for listening, everybody, go and check out Plague of the Zombies, go and check out all the the side stuff from from Hammer.
**Lee:** That is just sitting out there relatively untapped.
**Lee:** There's some real gems out there.
**Adam:** We'll do more on the show as well.
**Adam:** Because.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** 100%, I've I've written down another three that we definitely have to cover at some point.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Lee:** Yes, so, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check all those out.
**Lee:** Go and check out Broken Veil before we cover it.
**Lee:** Go and check out our friends over at Welcome, no, we are Welcome to Horror, our friends over at Not For Everyone podcast.
**Lee:** And we will see you back here at a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Bonus - Cooking Price-Wise

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-cooking-price-wise/
Air date: 5 May 2025
Duration: 00:39:35

### Description

Well sod me sideways; it’s a cheeky bonus episode from Welcome To Horror! Adam and Lee spend time in the kitchen with the magisterial Mr Vincent Price, and take a look at his 1971 Thames TV series “Cooking Price-Wise”. A truly delightful show in which VP demonstrates his culinary prowess, knowledge and love of good food, with a series of delicious treats you can make at home. There’s no spoilers for a cookery show, so you can dive right in, but it’s a definite recommendation for fans of the great man. Stick your apron on, clasp a wooden spoon and join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Adam:** Hello, I'm Vincent Price.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Yes, Vincent is replacing Chris this evening, because apparently somebody let him have a fucking night off.
**Lee:** I don't know what that's all about.
**Adam:** He said it was in the charter or something.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, so Chris had double booked effectively, so this is a bonus episode, so we recorded our normal episode in a few days time, but as Adam and I had put this evening aside to record.
**Lee:** And we wanted to catch up with each other anyway.
**Adam:** And we're dedicated.
**Lee:** And we're dedicated.
**Adam:** Not like, not like flake and like Chris and his 100 and 200 odd episodes and then just fuck it, you know.
**Lee:** Now he's made a name for himself.
**Lee:** He's really changed.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He has.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** So we said we might as well jump on and have a chat and have a good nice time anyway, so.
**Lee:** Adam, very thoughtfully, came up with an excellent idea.
**Lee:** For Christmas, he purchased me Vincent Price's Cooking Price-Wise BFI release on Blu-ray, which is absolutely glorious.
**Lee:** So he said, why don't we jump on and talk about that absolute bat shit show, there will be swearing.
**Lee:** There won't be spoilers, it's cooking, I mean, I don't know what you, you know.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, the nearest you'll get to a spoiler is that his soufflé comes out right.
**Adam:** And there you go, that's the one spoiler, so if I've ruined it for you, tough shit, that's, you know.
**Lee:** If anyone can make a soufflé, it's going to be Vincent Price, isn't it?
**Adam:** Well, I has to be said the relief, just that you can hear the joy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because yeah, I mean, yes, so, so yeah, this was his cooking show from 1971 on Thames.
**Adam:** So it was UK production and everything.
**Lee:** Oh, it was, I wondered about that.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, so it went out, I think it went out on, it went out on Tuesday nights in 1971 on Thames in the UK.
**Lee:** And then I think.
**Adam:** That's the one, the only one, let's face it.
**Adam:** You've turned over to ITV.
**Adam:** Granada, maybe, but yeah, unless it's got that, you know.
**Adam:** But the yeah, and so it's a cooking show, literally that, he is just doing a cookery show because.
**Adam:** Having watched this and sort of read a bit more about it.
**Adam:** You know, he was you know, Vincent Price was a proper Renaissance man.
**Adam:** We've talked about it before on the podcast and.
**Adam:** You know, like he was really into art and donated loads of stuff to the LA Gallery of Modern Art and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And he, you know, he really liked the finer things in life and he really loved cooking and eating, and so.
**Adam:** He'd already done a cookery book with his wife Mary called A Treasury of Great Recipes.
**Lee:** Have you looked up how much that goes for?
**Adam:** Oh, I can imagine. I can imagine.
**Lee:** I'd love a copy, I think the cheapest copy I have ever seen was 180 pounds.
**Adam:** Yeah, I can believe it.
**Adam:** Well, apparently this was like, this really was a big deal, it was a bestseller, it sort of, you know, it was considered a classic of cookery and recipe books and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And as Vincent Price put it, he was.
**Adam:** You know, because of the book success, someone had to promote it, and he was already known as an actor, and his wife was like, I don't want to go on TV and talk shows and stuff like that, so he ended up doing it on his own.
**Adam:** And when he would do talk shows for this, when he was talking about this, they'd actually get him to cook.
**Adam:** And so that's where the idea came from, like someone in the UK was like, well, let's get Vincent Price over to do a cookery show and he obviously lept at the chance.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** So I I've got a, so cards on the table, I've only watched three episodes so far.
**Lee:** And I will tell you why.
**Lee:** I watched one episode as soon as we got it, because obviously.
**Lee:** But, because I'm a lazy, sneaky prick, what I thought is, next time we've got a party coming up and I can't be bothered to like do all the prep and the running around, I can claim to be doing research for the party by watching episodes of this and then writing down the recipes.
**Lee:** Despite the fact, I've got the Vincent Price Cooking Price-Wise cookbook.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Lee:** What a lazy bastard.
**Lee:** but yes, so, so.
**Adam:** What have you, what have you seen?
**Lee:** So I have seen lamb, Yep, cheese.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** And potatoes.
**Adam:** Oh, nice. Or as he puts it, potatoes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Although, actually, that's one thing that I really, I mean, I I just love the show anyway, I love Vincent Price, but the thing I really love.
**Adam:** First American I have seen who is pronouncing English place names correctly.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Because there's an episode about bacon where he's talking about the Wiltshire cure.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, he it's not Wiltshire or anything like that.
**Adam:** You know, the it's all and other sort of English place names come up when they're talking about cheese and stuff like that and it's.
**Lee:** He talking about Cheshire and stuff, like he just, like he just, and that's why he's got a very American accent.
**Lee:** But it's very easy to forget that he's American, because these, you know, those so many words he's got a very European pronunciation of them.
**Lee:** And it softens the edges of his accent in a sexy way.
**Adam:** Well, I think also I think he was just because this all sort of like came from his love of travel.
**Adam:** And I think that that was probably part of it that he was he was going to these places, he was talking to people, it wasn't just, oh, I've seen I've seen this written down.
**Adam:** You know, or I've I've bought this off the shelf with the place name on it, he's fucking been there.
**Lee:** This is what I loved about, this is what what sold me so much on the show.
**Lee:** Yeah, was the fact that he'll tell you where he, oh, I'm going to do this Italian dish because I had it in this tiny little taverna and like.
**Lee:** And it's all and he tells these very personal stories about how he discovered all of these dishes.
**Lee:** And it's just it it's it's amazing, it's a fantastic way of spending time with him.
**Lee:** Even if you're not, even if you're not interested in cooking, like I've never watched a cooking show apart from the occasional when I'm so hungover I I think picking the remote will make me throw up on a Sunday morning and the, you know.
**Lee:** But other than that, I would never watch a cooking show to save my life.
**Lee:** But this is just fascinating and I yeah, I I have to control myself and not just smash through all six episodes in an evening.
**Adam:** Well, I think I think I think now me and Claire, because because I, because I got it for Christmas from Claire's dad, because she she'd said to him, oh, that's what Adam's got his mate Lee.
**Adam:** And he was like, oh, well, well, has he got it and yeah, so I got it at Christmas as well and and we basically that was Christmas.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's to the point where I was like suggesting that it became Christmas tradition.
**Adam:** Now that turns out he's not going to happen.
**Lee:** Oh, that's a travesty, Claire.
**Adam:** Well, only because we've watched it three times since.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** We watched it at Christmas, and then about, I don't know, about a month ago or something like that, it was just genuinely one of those nights of, I don't know what to put on, I'm not putting on a fucking film because I can't get there, I'm not putting on a series because I don't want to watch anything, you know, anything that I will have to keep up with.
**Adam:** And at that point it was like, well, you've got sketch shows or we could just rewatch Cooking Price-Wise and just sit there and because it's it's lovely wallpaper TV in that sense because it's slightly old fashioned.
**Adam:** But it also gives you that real insight of because basically they obviously go start, he then presents and cooks solidly for 25 minutes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whilst getting signals from behind from directors sort of like saying hurry up or play for time or you've forgotten to mention that.
**Adam:** And he's literally had to learn a 25-minute program and cook whilst he's presenting it on that, on the lovely little kitchen that they've built him in a studio somewhere.
**Lee:** God, I hate that kitchen so much.
**Lee:** But I love I love to hate it, it's one of like.
**Lee:** It's everything I hate about the 70s, but as soon as you put Vincent Price in it, I'm like, oh, it's very homely though, isn't it?
**Adam:** But the but the weird thing is is what I love is obviously is it's, you know, this is Thames TV production, you know, they've done, there's other sort of cooking shows and things like that.
**Adam:** And it was like, oh, you set up a kitchen in a studio, they've gone, right, set up a kitchen, what they haven't said is Vincent Price is six foot fucking four.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you've built an average sized kitchen.
**Lee:** The counter is halfway between his knee and his thigh.
**Adam:** Yeah, basically if he wants to serve his own meat and two veg, he can he can slam them on that bloody countertop, no problem, no effort.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it sort of looks a bit gory.
**Lee:** What kept making me laugh was obviously as you say, they've built it purpose built.
**Lee:** So they've got like proper work surfaces, like you would in a kitchen.
**Lee:** But because I'm watching it as a cooking at home thing, when he keeps taking stuff out the oven and just putting it on the side, I'm like, trivet, trivet, trivet, trivet.
**Lee:** And I thought, no, that's fine, it's fine, it's probably marble or whatever.
**Adam:** It's I I think, well, I think it's also it's 1971, they didn't care.
**Adam:** That was probably contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer, him laying them on the fucking Formica just sitting there bubbling.
**Lee:** That goes to show the age of it.
**Lee:** The other thing that goes to show the age of it is the amount that he drinks while he's recording.
**Lee:** And everything, like.
**Lee:** And and everything, this is the other thing, this was Jennifer and I's joke the whole way through was every time he says, and then you add, we were like, cream or cheese or wine, because everything.
**Lee:** Is, it gets some meat or some vegetables then put cream, cheese and wine from it.
**Lee:** We were like, yeah, of course it'll taste fucking amazing.
**Adam:** But that's the thing is you know it's beautiful stuff.
**Adam:** And he is quite clearly, because there's, I don't know if you've seen it, there's an interview with his daughter on the disc, it's one of the extras.
**Adam:** Because also because it's BFI, so you've got lovely little things in there, there's we watched a few of the extras as well that are not related to it.
**Adam:** But they're sort of in the same wheelhouse, so it's stuff like an old 50s public information film on how to make a cup of tea.
**Adam:** It's very sort of Mr. Chumley Warner, you know.
**Adam:** It's sort of, women should learn how to make a proper cup of tea if you want to keep that husband of yours, here's how you do.
**Adam:** And it's so you've got loads of those little bits on there.
**Adam:** But there's also like this interview with his daughter and she's sort of like saying, you know, it's it's really lovely because you can see the sort of how much she can see her dad in this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's not just she's like, oh no, this is this is him, it's not a part or whatever, you know, watching him playing a character in a film or something like that.
**Adam:** Incidentally, when he was doing this, he was in pre-production for The Abominable Dr. Phibes as well.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** So he was pretty much UK based for like a couple of years because obviously that's filmed over here and stuff.
**Adam:** So, but she said, yeah, he was as she put it, he was a big man, and he loved to eat and he had plenty of places to go because he was that tall.
**Adam:** And, and that's the thing is all of his stuff, none of it's like, or if you're trying to watch your weight or anything like that.
**Lee:** Nope.
**Adam:** You can you can tell, you can tell that American thing in there though, where it's like not a fucking scrap is wasted, it's like, oh, you can save that and have that later or you can use that for broth or keep those because you're going to make this and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** So it's very it's all the the economy of it in so much as nothing goes to waste.
**Adam:** But everything is beautifully indulgent, it's all sort of like, no, this is just going to taste fucking great.
**Lee:** But I love the I love the fact that just looking at it, you know it tastes great.
**Lee:** But none of, that's the problem, although I don't watch cooking shows now, occasionally you click through so you sit and you see the Great British Bake Off and all that shit.
**Lee:** And everything always looks like a an ultra stylized photo.
**Adam:** Yeah, they know how to filter it, they know how to photograph it to look at its best, yeah.
**Lee:** He doesn't do this.
**Lee:** And I've noticed this as well with Floyd, I I was watching I was flicking channels and it was Floyd cooking something, I think he was cooking like a side of beef or something.
**Lee:** And it looked like a side of beef you've just cooked. He didn't look like it had been photoshopped with within an inch of his life and painted with varnish to look good.
**Lee:** It was like, this is what food looks like, this is what it's like when you make it.
**Lee:** And that's exactly what you get with this, like it all looks real.
**Lee:** Like none of it's super beautifully presented, it's amazing food that you know tastes absolutely epic, but just looks like food you can make.
**Lee:** It's really.
**Adam:** Well and that's the thing is because there's no editing on it or anything else like that, it's the food that he's making there and then is the food that you're seeing.
**Adam:** It's not cut to the one that looks the best of the 15 that we made that you might see on another cooking show or something like that.
**Adam:** And I mean, to the point with this, where he's obviously like, right, we've put the soufflé in, if it don't work, we're fucked.
**Adam:** We're just going to have to go with it because soufflés are a fucking nightmare.
**Adam:** And he's like, no, we'll just have to go with it.
**Adam:** I've got the soufflé and the and the joy and the relief.
**Adam:** That you can hear that it's like, my fucking soufflé worked.
**Adam:** So, because, you know, he's.
**Adam:** And, but yeah, you can just see, you can see his love for food.
**Adam:** There's a lovely lack of snobbery with it.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, 100%.
**Lee:** He keeps saying that, he keeps saying, these products are these things aren't expensive, you don't need to get the greatest cuts of meat, if you can do stuff with it and stuff.
**Lee:** Like, yeah, he's got a really down to earth, lovely way about it, which, you know, we all know that he did as a real human being anyway.
**Lee:** But yeah, to bring that into, yeah, and try and take the snobbery out of food and just be like, everyone should have good food, it's really, you know.
**Adam:** Try this, it's amazing.
**Adam:** I really want to and it's it comes from just like a genuine thing of obviously himself becoming because.
**Adam:** Yeah, on the interview, his daughter says that so Vincent Price's grandfather invented baking powder.
**Lee:** What?
**Adam:** Yeah, he actually invented baking powder.
**Adam:** He was a a doctor who wasn't a as she put it, what was it, he was he was a chemist who wasn't much copper as a chef, but he managed to invent baking powder.
**Adam:** And obviously that then became like a huge thing and so.
**Adam:** And then Vincent Price's father was the CEO of a sweet company, or like head of a sweet company.
**Adam:** And had managed to move his company to where the World's Fair was, the year before the World's Fair turned up and so they just made a bomb there and so.
**Adam:** There was a lot of food in the family and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So and I think it just came from there the same sort of thing, it was like it was a food was obviously like a big deal in the house and sort of, you know, all always something that was conscious of.
**Adam:** And so when he was traveling and stuff like that, he went to as many restaurants as he could and tried as many different dishes as he did, but then he came back and wanted to be able to reproduce them.
**Adam:** And as you say, it's that thing where he's going, no, look, these are ingredients.
**Adam:** Like there's one bit where I really love it where he says, again like that sort of thing that you would get, you won't get with a lot of cookery shows, where he's like, oh, use water chestnut if you're feeling adventurous.
**Adam:** You can get it tinned.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, he's not like, oh this, you know, I'm not asking you to go and be ridiculous and go and fucking find someone who's got it fresh in Britain in 1971, but he's like, you can get it tinned, it's tinned, it's fine, it doesn't matter.
**Adam:** It's part of the dish, it doesn't really matter that it's not.
**Adam:** You know, it's not all 100% fresh or something like that, or it's, you know, it's no, you can get these things and make these lovely, lovely dishes, you know.
**Lee:** And it was the same with the cheese one, one of the things he was making, he was like, oh, I'm using this cheese, it's because I like this cheese, like you can just use cheddar, it's absolutely fine, you don't have to like it, it doesn't have to be wanky, you can just have whatever you like.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's just it just feels so accessible and so, brilliant.
**Lee:** And then it's funny, so Jennifer and I had a bit of a chant last night, Jennifer kept shouting it over and over and it just kept making me laugh uncontrollably every time.
**Lee:** So in the potato episode, he makes a thing called Manhattan Vichyssoise.
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Lee:** Which I've only ever heard that term used in a Mitchell and Webb sketch.
**Lee:** in which they're talking about, you know when you go to a restaurant and there's a waiter and they're just a waiter, but they're incredibly posh and look down on you.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's that and at one point he brings them out soup and he says, here's your soup.
**Lee:** And any public schoolboy will tell you it needs to be eaten with a Vichyssoise fork, it's all in the wrist.
**Lee:** So every time he said Vichyssoise, we kept going, where's the fork, where's the fork?
**Adam:** See, I always that was the thing is I was I was always fortunate.
**Adam:** Vichyssoise I always just think of Batman Returns where he gives him and he says it's cold, it's supposed to be cold, it's Vichyssoise, oh okay, and then just eats it.
**Adam:** and so that has much like Red Dwarf, I think that could have saved me a lot of embarrassment.
**Adam:** You know, in certain in certain circles if I'd have been traveling in them, you know, I I'd have known Vichyssoise were meant to be cold.
**Adam:** I do love the bits at the end where he sits down to tuck into them.
**Adam:** And you're like, he is fucking eating that.
**Adam:** This isn't posed, this isn't going to be like, you know, spit it into a hanky and it's like.
**Adam:** No, he's he's sat there like fucking desperate Dan with a cow pie, he's going to go through that old fucking lamb, isn't he?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, he is. He's not. Fucking. It's because that's the thing is as well, it's like it's huge fucking portions.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I believe that he's eating that huge.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, he's like yeah, no, he's sitting down at that full roast, you know.
**Lee:** I don't I'll get that impression but also at the same time, I'm like, you know what he's like with his generosity and stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, so he makes himself that plate, he's definitely eating that plate.
**Lee:** But when he cooks, he always cooks more than he dishes up.
**Lee:** And I'm like, you know perfectly well the second that camera's off, he's like, right, everyone get fucking stuck in here.
**Lee:** Because this is really.
**Adam:** I you know the crew's going through it.
**Adam:** To to be honest, I'd imagine that's always the joy of any cookery show is if you're the crew is, you know, they must be like you doing another cookery show, you know, I need to lose weight this year, so I've had to fat them off, mate.
**Adam:** I was on my third tripod.
**Lee:** Oh, I see you're wearing your Dr. Phibes T-shirt in honor of.
**Adam:** Yes, yes.
**Lee:** Well done.
**Adam:** I'm feeling very I was feeling very on on brand.
**Adam:** But I just yeah, it was just one of those sort of weird little, it's a weird little footnote in essentially like a horror career. But it's opened up this whole sort of new window of understanding of him.
**Adam:** And, you know, and I think he's a he's a good host, he's a like.
**Adam:** Because he's he he's what's the, what's the word I'm looking, you know, he's knowledgeable.
**Lee:** He's very charismatic, he's very relaxed in front of the camera.
**Lee:** Like, like you say, he's he's just for someone who is a good cook but has no experience and suddenly just go, there you go, there's six episodes of a TV show.
**Lee:** Just go and cook stuff.
**Lee:** Like, he just takes it all in his stride, last night watching the potato one.
**Lee:** He set fire to his, I don't know if you spotted it, he sets fire to one of his oven gloves while he's taking something out from the.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Out of from the grill, and he just very relaxedly just keeps squeezing it, while talking to the camera and it's like, you know that's burning inside.
**Lee:** And he just keeps casually pressing it and pressing it and then eventually he just takes it off and leaves it on the side.
**Adam:** But that's fucking professionalism.
**Adam:** That's the thing you've got this thing where it's like, right, you're cooking three meals in 25 minutes and telling us about the history of the fucking potato, go.
**Adam:** And you sort of you you realize that there's, you know, it's like, I've set fire to my gloves, fuck it.
**Adam:** We're 30 minutes in, I'm not doing a retake.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, it's like that fuck everyone off, the whole thing is like completely thrown out then, they're just, you know.
**Adam:** It's like, it's like this podcast, there's no editing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He just.
**Lee:** It's it's wonderful, I love spending time with Vincent Price.
**Lee:** And this is a really nice way of doing it, as you say, with Vincent Price, not with Vincent Price as a character or Vincent Price promoting something, just Vincent Price doing shit that Vincent Price likes doing.
**Lee:** Absolutely incredible.
**Adam:** And it's I yeah, I've I'm I'm so pleased, I'm so pleased to have watched it.
**Adam:** And as I say, I think it's it's one of those things, me and Claire have put it on like we sort of because we were saying about, oh, should we do a bonus episode, we'll do Vincent Price, we'll do Cooking Price-Wise rather.
**Adam:** and so I was just going to stick the bacon one on yesterday just to have a watch of just to get get back in the sort of frame, yeah, we just sat there, we watched the lot.
**Adam:** But it was yeah, but by this point we're sort of we're on our phones, we're walking in and out and everything.
**Adam:** It was like just literally the telly's on.
**Adam:** But it was from an era where you had that sort of thing.
**Adam:** I also I also love the fact that you're from an era where there are times when he is clearly wiping his nose.
**Adam:** There's an awful lot of and you think over food.
**Lee:** But again, the potato one, he for times, I think I can.
**Lee:** He literally just goes.
**Lee:** Yeah, because he's using his hands, he can't cover his mouth because it's all on camera.
**Lee:** He's like, he just has to cough it out and then it's gone.
**Adam:** Oh, I tell you what, I'll have to I'll have to send you a clip, because weirdly enough, Claire watches Claire watches like older cooking shows often as a sort of relaxation thing.
**Adam:** Again, it's like sort of just, oh, just bang on two fat ladies on YouTube or something like that.
**Lee:** And then it's like, when you said older, I thought you meant like Fanny Cradock and like.
**Lee:** I was like, oh no.
**Adam:** Oh no, I love that.
**Lee:** I've never watched the whole one.
**Lee:** But whenever I see clips of that stuff, I'm like, that looks like so much fun.
**Adam:** Well, we we started watching a thing called Farmhouse Kitchen.
**Adam:** And he's, I mean, it's beyond sort of.
**Adam:** You know, Vincent Price is this show is quite action packed.
**Adam:** You know, Farmhouse Kitchen is like, has less incident to be honest.
**Adam:** And it's presented it's presented by this woman, oh my God, she the episode I I was watching, it was like the Boxing Day edition or something like that, prepare meals for Boxing Day.
**Adam:** And me, the woman's the poor woman's obviously just got a tickle in her throat, but it's like the whole of it is just.
**Adam:** And again, it's that whole thing of start is 25 minutes, stop.
**Adam:** They don't have they don't have editing, they don't have breaks, they don't have.
**Adam:** You know, they have multiple cameras moving around and doing close-ups of bits of it that being slightly out of sync and everything else like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, so Farmhouse Kitchen is sort of follows much the same thing, but yeah, the woman on there was like you're just like, oh my God, she's got a fucking TB, what the.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But again, it's and again, it's a lovely thing you watch these sort of programs where it's like, oh my God, yeah, that's it's utterly alien to how TV would be done now because it's of, you know.
**Adam:** Even mildly like a cooking show now isn't it's not a special effects extravaganza, you know, or it's it doesn't require.
**Adam:** You know, did it did it have the best actors in it, yeah, it was all the people sat around Nigella's table pretending to be her friends going, you know.
**Adam:** Whereas with this, I love the fact there's there's not an audience, but there is Vincent and a trestle table and he's like, well, we'll be filming again in 40 minutes, so just let me polish off this lamb to myself and we'll be.
**Lee:** A couple of brand.
**Adam:** He says, I think he that's that's a week I haven't I haven't had to buy a lunch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, before the light finally fades here.
**Adam:** I was going to say, I think I assume that Jennifer would get a lot of fun from the cheese episode where they give you the like cheese chess set and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Oh my God, I've got notes about that.
**Lee:** The cheese chess set, the cheese monster.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Lee:** And that's the thing, like it is it is endearing and I love it, but like you wouldn't see that now.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Nobody would go, oh, we're going to do here's a thing, why don't you present cheese on a cheese on a chest set, or.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Fucking yes.
**Lee:** They'd better be.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Lee:** That looks better than his one.
**Lee:** They'd better be photographs of that on.
**Adam:** There will be photographs on Instagram for the benefits of the tape, I am demonstrating my own cheese monster, he's got he's got radish feet.
**Adam:** Which is more than Vince came up with.
**Adam:** He's got a raspberry nose and special note from Ted is that he's given him almond toenails on his little radish feet, because as Ted put it, monsters don't have great foot care.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, there we go.
**Adam:** but yeah.
**Lee:** How old is Ted at the moment?
**Adam:** He's six.
**Lee:** So, for the listeners, who's already considering the fuck.
**Lee:** Do you know what, I've got a fear that Ted's going to end up with a bigger shoe collection than I've got by the sounds of it.
**Adam:** That could be that could be the case actually.
**Adam:** I mean, certainly if if his auntie says got anything to do with it.
**Adam:** Because that that's that's a new pair of week.
**Adam:** But yeah, so I felt inspired, so I made the I made the monster.
**Lee:** That's incredible.
**Lee:** Because that's the thing, he's one that he brings out looks really good, but he's one that he has to do on the fly on the thing, everything fucking goes wrong for him.
**Lee:** Like you really feel for him because you're like, I'm sure if you took the time, this would look excellent.
**Lee:** But yeah, like he goes, here's one that doesn't look quite so shit and pulls it.
**Adam:** Well, there was a there was a big debate about it at work a little while back where someone was saying because they they were shocked that half the half the people there had never experienced a hedgehog with like pineapple and cheese on it.
**Adam:** You know, Tim foil foam hedgehog with yeah.
**Adam:** To the point where they were talking about having a whip around for him at work.
**Adam:** And it's not a fucking national tragedy, they've just never seen they've just never seen a fondu party, you know.
**Lee:** As soon as it came up cheese and it was the cheese one, yeah, as soon as it came up that that was the one we were going to watch.
**Lee:** Jennifer immediately went, you better have cheese and pineapple.
**Lee:** And I was like, he's not going to let you down, it's been some price, you'll be fine.
**Lee:** We weren't expecting him to do it as a ferocious animal, but.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, this is the thing, it's just because I saw that and I thought I'm going to do that.
**Adam:** Obviously, no, I didn't.
**Adam:** And then, oh my God, and it was Claire, she said, look, you go down the shops, why don't you get the bits before you do the before you do the podcast, you two can create your own monster.
**Adam:** And as I'm looking at it now, I'm just getting the bongo music in my head.
**Adam:** Because that fucking bongo music.
**Lee:** Oh, I love that bongo music.
**Adam:** Yeah, utterly at odds with the whole thing, because that bongo music feels like it's.
**Adam:** That feels like a made up program in Monty Python where they've, you know, like some anthropology show or something like that.
**Adam:** And but also the the stars with it written on, like when it comes up Cooking Price-Wise.
**Adam:** That look exactly like the cardboard sort of multi-colored stars that you get in a news agents, you know, crisps 50p.
**Adam:** You know, that sort of thing, but yeah, this is Cooking Price-Wise and it's just wonderfully sort of low budget.
**Adam:** But at the heart of it, you've got Vincent Price and it's a real charming thing.
**Adam:** It's just so lovely spending time with Vincent Price.
**Lee:** It's incredible.
**Lee:** So I had no idea it was a TV show until you and I and Lady Jennifer and Dr. Dean had a actually, no, sorry, I heard about it and I managed to buy a copy of it and it coincidentally arrived a few days before the four of us had a Vincent Price movie day.
**Adam:** yes.
**Lee:** Where we started at 10:00 in the morning and went on until gone midnight watching nothing but Vincent Price movies.
**Lee:** I'd bought Jennifer.
**Adam:** You and Dean nearly killed each other trying to play the fucking drinking game with Comedy of Terrors.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When you realized 10 minutes in that Vincent Price does not say a line without taking a drink.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** That that fucked us up pretty heavily.
**Lee:** But luckily, we weren't too bad because we already had bellies full of food because we'd Jennifer had cooked two meals from this.
**Lee:** I think one of them was like a Moroccan lamb, if I remember correctly.
**Lee:** And the other one was a it was like pasties, so it was mince meat pasties, but it had like, like fruit in there as well, which again sounds very Moroccan, so I could be confusing it, I mean it was over 20 years ago now.
**Lee:** but yeah, it was it was that's the only thing I'd seen of it.
**Lee:** And I, as far as I was aware, this TV show had disappeared to the sands of time, so when you sent me the Blu-ray and I was like, oh my God, they've actually found them.
**Lee:** Because was this lost for a time or I think it was just I think it was just no one thought to release it.
**Adam:** Weirdly enough, I think it was one of those things where until the BFI were like, oh, these tapes exist, we'll look after them because they're part of history.
**Adam:** But other than that, there was no sort of like commercial thing for it, so there wasn't like anyone I don't even think it got broadcast anywhere, like I don't think it got sold abroad or anything.
**Adam:** I think it was just literally they did they did clearly on the cheap, they did the sort of six episodes and then they just didn't do anymore.
**Adam:** Which is a shame because I think he he would have definitely done it, I think he'd have made the time to come back and continue.
**Adam:** Because I think he was he really does seem to be having a great fucking time with it.
**Lee:** He does, he seems to be loving every minute on set.
**Lee:** And like, yeah, and you know, and just him again talking about his experiences of, oh, the first time I had this and where I was and I was on set with this film or something, it's just so engaging.
**Lee:** Like you can't help but be drawn in by his his charisma and his.
**Lee:** Oh, he's a sexy bastard, isn't he, let's be honest.
**Adam:** He is a he is a fine figure of a man.
**Adam:** It must be said and with some fine dressing.
**Adam:** Also, also, can I just give a special mention to streaky the demonstration pig?
**Adam:** It's just in the there's the bacon episode.
**Lee:** Oh, I haven't seen that yet.
**Adam:** He's got one of those, he's got one of those, you know, the sort of plastic pig with all the cuts on it, they've got one of them, they've stuck them on top of the shelves because they know that he's tall enough to point to it.
**Adam:** Anyone of average height, they'd have had to put it down on the counter.
**Adam:** But he's just using it, again, he can indicate with his wooden spoon and he he Christens it streaky, I think that's a good name for a pig.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I have to say the one thing that gets me every time is watching the is the bacon episode, there is just if it's like, oh, there's only one country that does bacon well and that's that's Britain and I'm like, hey, for his price, price, we do good.
**Adam:** And I thought why did that just really that just makes me want to dance around the garden for a bit.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's it's it is such a delight.
**Lee:** And yeah, I'm glad I've kind of eaked them out.
**Lee:** But I kind of tempted to go and watch the bacon one now.
**Lee:** Because I just, I'm not, because.
**Adam:** Bacon.
**Lee:** I am I am on a super strict diet at the moment, so watching a bacon strong episode, it's just going to go fuck up really, I don't need.
**Adam:** I I that's that's the one thing I would say is is just sat there and it is like, yeah, you are just piling stuff down your gob.
**Adam:** I mean, this this monster might not survive the night.
**Lee:** It is it's all just so unhealthy, but amazing.
**Lee:** And that's the thing, like it's.
**Lee:** It's it's all treat food, everything that he does, not quite everything actually, that Manhattan Vichyssoise thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just a load of vegeta, I mean, he does put half a point of cream in it.
**Lee:** But other than that, it's just vegetables and then he just blends it and he goes, yeah, you stick it in the fridge, you can have it cold later, it's lovely.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh, that sounds so good.
**Lee:** Holy healthy.
**Adam:** It does.
**Lee:** Apart from the half point of cream.
**Adam:** They didn't do any harm, you can you two could be six foot four of pure Vincent.
**Lee:** He lived for a long time as well, that's the thing, considering he ate all this food, he did a, you know.
**Lee:** He he definitely didn't tap out at 60.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Well, not only that.
**Adam:** But also I think it's just.
**Adam:** Yeah, he was he just.
**Adam:** It's just love of fucking life.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, he was like, I could teach you how to.
**Adam:** I could teach you how to do boring things.
**Adam:** But who wants to know how to do the boring things, I've learned these amazing I've learned these amazing recipes, they taste like they taste magical.
**Adam:** And I can cook them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, that seems to be his thing, in a weird way, it's like, look, I can do it, I'm not untrained chef or anything like that, but I've taught myself and yeah.
**Lee:** And that yeah, that is what makes it so nice is that he just keeps reiterating, this isn't difficult.
**Lee:** You can do this, you can buy all this stuff, it isn't hard, it's just measurements and timings, you can't fuck this up.
**Lee:** And it really does make you go, oh, but it looks amazing, I like it's yeah, amazing.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** On that note, if you haven't seen it, go and find cooking Price-Wise.
**Lee:** The BFI release I've been slowly working my way through, but I I'm very excited because I know once I've watched all of the episodes, I've got so much bonus content as well.
**Adam:** Oh, there is there is a lot in there, yeah.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** And I would imagine if people want to check it, I'd imagine there's clips on YouTube or probably whole episodes, I mean, having the Blu-ray is just magical to have it sort of preserved and looking as good as it can.
**Adam:** And also at one point, the camera pans just a bit too far to the right and he's got two utterly psychedelic posters up.
**Adam:** I don't know what.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I saw those.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where you sort of like just ordinary kitchen, ordinary kitchen, ordinary kitchen, what.
**Adam:** Oh hang on, no, don't stop go go back.
**Adam:** Or when you or when you just see tables gradually appear next to people.
**Adam:** You know, like a shadow a bit of table appears and then they run off.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's all part of the charm.
**Adam:** It's just, yeah.
**Lee:** It's amazing.
**Lee:** If you're into cooking shows, watch it, if you're into Vincent Price, watch it.
**Lee:** If you're not into either of those, just watch it, it's so much fun, it's yeah.
**Adam:** It's something charming from a bygone age as well, it'll sort of make you realize, oh actually, yeah, this was telly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's because it's very plain, but really engaging.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** So thank you very much Adam for A, buying this for me for Christmas and B, suggesting it for this evening.
**Adam:** You're very welcome, sir, it's been a bloody treat discussing this mad, mad, wonderful little bit of history.
**Lee:** I didn't think we'd have enough to talk about from the TV show and we would just end up waffling on about Vincent Price.
**Adam:** I thought at least at least I've done something.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening everybody and we will see you either before this or after this for our regular episode of The Plague of Zombies.
**Lee:** much and good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Adam:** Till we eat again.

---

## Ep 222 The Witches

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-222-the-witches/
Air date: 27 April 2025
Duration: 00:47:12
Film: The Witches · Year: 1966 · Director: Cyril Frankel

### Description

It’s Hammer Time, and we’re looking at some of the more under-appreciated output from The Studio That Dripped Blood”; first up it’s 1966’s “The Witches” (aka “The Devil’s Own”). A film in which a headmaster cosplaying as a priest is seen as a harmless quirk; the local butcher puts paid to the adage “laugh and the whole world laughs with you.”; and your choice of drinks is gin, gin or more gin. A box office failure; “The Witches” was not considered a worthy part of Hammer’s horror output, languishing for decades as a mere footnote to both the story of Hammer Films, and the career of star Joan Fontaine. Thankfully, that reputation has shifted with time, as later generations have rediscovered it. The story is a blueprint for folk horror, whilst predating those movies that would come to define the genre and Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale’s subtlety witty script means this feels a lot more fresh and modern than some of the more melodramatic gothic horrors the studio produced, with a set of strong female characters driving the narrative. Whilst some may find the heavily choreographed climatic ceremony comical, if the movie has drawn you in, these sequences can actually be eerily mesmerising. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Hora. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam, so you don't have to.
**Lee:** Oh!
**Lee:** And we are here as promised for a oh an absolute gem of a movie in my personal opinion.
**Lee:** We are here for 1966's Hammer presentation of The Witches.
**Lee:** There will be spoilers and swearing, just to warn you.
**Lee:** But yes, other than that, business as usual.
**Lee:** Chris, as this is I'm assuming your first viewing, what did you make of it?
**Chris:** It would be a tad shocking if it wasn't, I think. But yeah, yeah, no it was. well, let's get it right out the way, not what I was expecting from Hammer. I'm sure I'm not the only person to have said that.
**Chris:** And another very charming, very English, really enjoyable, especially on a relaxing Easter Sunday.
**Chris:** Yeah, like where is it? So, it kind of feels I would have thought ahead of its time.
**Chris:** you know, you've got very good female lead, kind of two, two female leads really, ultimately.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely, yeah.
**Chris:** So, witchcraft in an English countryside, gaslighting and mental health, gender and power, and outside versus community, and a 7,000 year-old sacrificial knife from ancient Mexico.
**Chris:** You know, what more do you need in a film?
**Adam:** Oh, mate, yeah.
**Adam:** I think you hit the nail on the head there though, Chris.
**Adam:** That the this is not I think it's getting a bit of a foothold now.
**Chris:** Oh okay.
**Adam:** Because people are watching Hammer and actually can now see these, you know, I've had the chance to see everything.
**Chris:** I suppose it's the the other films you think of from Hammer, there's a it's much more overt.
**Chris:** This this has some very good, subtle undercurrent of, you know, something dark sinister going on. But yeah, it's not until quite a bit later in the film that you fully appreciate exactly what it is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not it's not an out and out horror, it's certainly not one of the gothic classics, it's not a monster film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and yeah, so it's.
**Chris:** There are monsters in it though. Once again, humans.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Is it mankind or man cruel? Who knows?
**Adam:** But yeah, there's I think that the it sort of doesn't have it didn't have much of a reputation.
**Adam:** It was sort of like seen as like at the time I don't think it sort of did particularly well because I think the Hammer name by then was.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, you come here and you get for it's day quite extreme, you know,
**Lee:** gore and
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Possibly a glimpse of a lady's bazoom.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, that sort of thing. And yeah.
**Adam:** The Witches is is a very different sort of horror film.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely more in the psychological.
**Lee:** Yeah, slow build.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** I can imagine, is this is this an earlier sort of folk horror? Is it?
**Adam:** It really is. It's one of the sort of earlier it's kind of one of the earlier examples of.
**Adam:** Like absolute traditional sort of folk horror.
**Adam:** And sets up a lot of the usual folk horror, you know, it follows the usual folk horror trope of.
**Adam:** Outsider comes to a village and slowly uncovers the sort of conspiratorial nature or the evil that lurks there.
**Chris:** I too, what it reminded me of Hot Fuzz.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It might be because we've seen it recently, but yeah.
**Adam:** I saw one person online refer to it as Hot Fuzz with interpretive dance.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's now it is it is a quite sort of.
**Adam:** Because because the script basically, you like you said, it's unusual that it's a female led film.
**Adam:** But Joan Fontaine, who is the main character in this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I don't think I've seen her in anything else.
**Adam:** But I assume.
**Chris:** She has done some other films.
**Adam:** She was a massive, massive like name in in her time.
**Adam:** I mean she was like she was headlining films throughout the '40s and '50s and '60s.
**Adam:** And basically what had happened was.
**Adam:** I mean, she is the only she's the only actor to ever win an Oscar for being in an Alfred Hitchcock film.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** She won it for Suspicion.
**Adam:** And the I think the year before she'd been nominated.
**Chris:** Is that one we should watch?
**Adam:** She'd been nominated for Rebecca, which is another Hitchcock film.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So and so she worked with, you know, she's worked with loads of great directors and.
**Adam:** you know, she was in you know, she she'd been in loads and loads of films.
**Chris:** Well, were they were those two horror films?
**Chris:** I know Hitchcock did a range.
**Adam:** No, they're more thrillers.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then I would argue that this is kind of more of a thriller.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Technically, I don't think anything necessarily supernatural happens.
**Chris:** The voodoo elements seemed like you might get more of it, but they were they didn't turn into anything, but you know, when you see that at the start, you're thinking, okay, well, this this could lead on to something.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's sort of it's because it's it's a bit of a false start because you naturally assume that they're going to do, you know, it's Hammer, so you that's probably another thing.
**Adam:** People are like, oh Hammer are doing a voodoo film, you know, or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And and thankfully for like modern sensibilities, that isn't actually the case.
**Adam:** It is like it's a proper.
**Chris:** It's a very subtle.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's a proper it's a proper sort of English folk horror is that sort of thing of here's the picturesque village and here's what's rotten underneath it.
**Chris:** Sure.
**Adam:** And yeah, and but I mean like.
**Adam:** So Joan Fontaine basically she was not getting any roles in Hollywood and literally it was because she was older.
**Adam:** And when I say older, she was 48 when you.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, no, she's not obviously when you said that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's ridiculous is that horrific thing that is still ongoing but certainly was a feature of its time.
**Adam:** That she was not getting any roles because now she was an older woman, that was it.
**Adam:** So she actually bought the rights to a book called The Devil's Und.
**Adam:** Which this is based on.
**Adam:** And so she came to Hammer and said I've got the rights to this film, do you want to make it, but I'm starring in it.
**Chris:** That's cool.
**Adam:** And he's one of the executive producers.
**Adam:** So and and it's weird because Hammer have this sort of Hammer, because what's the one like.
**Adam:** Bette Davis is in a Hammer film, isn't she? She's in is it The Nanny or?
**Lee:** Yes, yes.
**Adam:** And and there's the other one something like the what is it the reunion, the family reunion or something like that.
**Adam:** I can't remember.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Adam:** But yeah, she's so Hammer had do have this sort of thing of they would get in American stars who were like on the down down turn of their career sort of thing.
**Adam:** So it wasn't unusual, in fact, like their first films like The Quatermass.
**Adam:** The first horror films they did like The Quatermass films, that was from a time when they were getting.
**Adam:** Again, they would get Hollywood stars in for a bit of name to sell it to America.
**Adam:** So like Quatermass has got a guy called Brian Don Levy is Professor Quatermass in those films and he's not great, you see.
**Adam:** He plays it like a sort of American PI.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's a bit weird.
**Adam:** But again, yeah, so Hammer have Hammer had quite an association with taking like American stars in because they added a bit of name, but it weren't necessarily it wasn't necessarily because those people were at their peak in their career at that point.
**Lee:** I mean, this is just a marriage made in heaven.
**Lee:** Because it's I I love folk horror as everyone knows, yeah, and I think this story is absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** I've got to be honest, I think after The Devil Rides Out, I think this is my second favourite Hammer movie out of all of them.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Lee:** But I I've made a point with it because The Devil Rides Out I have seen to absolute death.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I still watch it regularly, but I I could just shut my eyes and watch it from beginning to end with no effort.
**Lee:** Whereas this one, because I discovered it later, so when I got the ultimate Hammer box set and it was in there, it was one of the ones I hadn't actually seen.
**Lee:** So when I watched it, I absolutely loved it.
**Lee:** I said right, I am not going to watch this to death.
**Lee:** I'm going to say it's one of those I I've probably watched three or four times, but every time I do, it's absolutely amazing.
**Lee:** So I've made a point of not ruining it for myself.
**Lee:** I just find it such an enjoyable watch.
**Adam:** I think you you've what what you've got there is you've got the classic case of, let's face it, Devil Rides Out.
**Adam:** You're quite happy in pints.
**Adam:** But this this is some this is a slightly a slightly rarer drink that requires savouring.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's great, I've got to be an honourable mention as well, it's I'm assuming that it's been taken from this.
**Lee:** it is also the name of one of my favourite black metal tracks of all time, off of Akercocke's album, The Goat of Mendes.
**Lee:** skin for dancing in.
**Lee:** So yeah, so I think so.
**Lee:** I I knew that album long before, and I'm sure I watched this for the first time and I went, oh.
**Adam:** Sorry, what album is it, mate?
**Lee:** The Goat of Mendes by Akercocke.
**Adam:** Oh, right, no, what's the what's the track?
**Lee:** Oh, a skin for dancing in.
**Adam:** yes, yeah.
**Adam:** Which is that's that I mean, that's perfect, that little rhyme.
**Adam:** And actually, that's one thing that I think is there's a the thing that's great about this is that you get what is a fairly.
**Adam:** Like I say, it's almost like a thriller, so it feels a bit sort of genteel.
**Adam:** And then there's little snatches of it where because it's Hammer, they're like I mean, I think this might have been one of those ones where Hammer actually asked the board to give them an X.
**Adam:** After they'd like said, oh, it's an A.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like in terms because they were like, we sell on the basis we get ex.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, so they sort of but the the bit where.
**Adam:** Doucet's brought out of the like found drowned.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they just walk him through the village.
**Adam:** It's actually really quite fucking shocking.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is.
**Adam:** And like, you know, he is it's a horrible cops, you know, it's really quite vivid.
**Adam:** And a lot stronger than you would have in say a film like the same film but not done by Hammer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It would be it would be there, it would still be a shock moment and you but you wouldn't have it quite as gruesome as they do it there.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it's sort of there.
**Adam:** There are a couple of moments and the cat.
**Adam:** The cat in the doll.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It's so freakishly weird that you don't know what's going on.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The first time I watched it.
**Chris:** I was like, is it a human in there?
**Chris:** What, like what?
**Lee:** You've got no sense of scale.
**Chris:** How is it making that weird noise?
**Lee:** And it just.
**Lee:** That's why you're like there's something wrong there.
**Adam:** It's really it's really sort of face level sort of like makes you feel a bit queasy sort of like, what actually is that?
**Adam:** And yeah, I mean it's and and a great, you know, a fantastic cat, Vesper.
**Chris:** Especially because they do that as you're hitting the point where it's like they're going to be skinning a girl.
**Chris:** I'm I'm pretty sure you know about that at that point.
**Chris:** Yeah, and it's like, okay, this is getting dark.
**Lee:** You're saying about that about, you know, what what you'd know and what you don't know so far.
**Lee:** That's the only downfall of this, I would say, and it isn't the film, it's my C is my DVD of it.
**Lee:** So on the Hammer ultimate Hammer collection, obviously the big twist, I know we said we there were going to be there were going to be spoilers.
**Lee:** So Stephanie Backs, who is the woman who appears to be helping out the whole way through, turns out to be the head witch.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** But in the ultimate collection, the title card for the special features, play movie, but is her in the like at the in the headdress with the hand of glory and everything on it.
**Lee:** And just gives the game away, really.
**Chris:** It does a little bit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's that's like putting a certain person on the front of Dune.
**Chris:** They should have that in like secret secret.
**Chris:** Area.
**Lee:** Again, it's one of those.
**Lee:** I don't know if I would have noticed.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** At the time, but when I watch it now, yeah, you see it immediately go, oh yes, if I'd forgotten that twist, you've just 100% reminded me of what's about to happen.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, so K Walsh, who's Stephanie.
**Adam:** is, yeah, both of them have like her and Joan Fontaine, I think.
**Adam:** Fucking amazing because they.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Incredible.
**Adam:** Oh, not only that, but also it's that lovely thing of polite evil.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, where she's sort of she's still quite.
**Adam:** It's it's not it's not a sort of trapping person.
**Adam:** Well, it is, it's trapping her by making her complicit in it.
**Adam:** But it's really from a desire of, no, come on, it's fun.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Come on, you'll love it.
**Adam:** I and and also there's a lovely sort of class sort of attitude of classism with it.
**Adam:** Where it's like, come on, you join in because I have to put up with these fucking yokels.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and you're like me.
**Chris:** You know.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, we we know.
**Lee:** It's it's that it's like it's not like the Slip, where it's the like you say though, the evil person who's pretending to be nice.
**Lee:** She really is nice in some ways, she just doesn't give a shit about everybody, which is completely wrong.
**Lee:** But yeah, as you say, when she comes out, it's not like she's suddenly turns into this evil sinister, she's exactly the same person, but she's just going, yeah, all right, you called me, this is what I'm up to.
**Lee:** And it's brilliant and absolutely outstanding.
**Adam:** And I also I have to say the Batistes' house, carry on screaming.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's all I could think was it just looked like lots of wood paneling and very vivid purples, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I always forget as well, Leonard Rossiter.
**Chris:** Oh, so I was going to mention him.
**Lee:** He just appears on screen and every time I go.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think he does very well.
**Adam:** At one point, he does put his hand like he does put his hands on his back.
**Adam:** I know he does at one point, but I think that is just I think that's just him.
**Adam:** I think that's just how he's done.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I read a really good book lately, it might not be for everyone, well, or or say maybe not for everyone.
**Adam:** but there's a book called Code Damp by Sophie Slay Johnson.
**Adam:** And it's basically like a a study of Leonard Rossiter as Rigsby and Reggie Perrin in the Rise the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.
**Adam:** about it has a sort of occult working with Leonard Rossiter as an almost trickster shaman figure.
**Adam:** And it's fucking great, it's bloody madness.
**Lee:** It sounds amazing. I love the sound of this.
**Adam:** And but for
**Adam:** But yeah, I think that he's obviously, yeah, so you got Rise Rise and Damp, which me and Claire and Reggie Perrin.
**Adam:** Me and Claire because I've been reading Code Damp.
**Adam:** Me and Claire have been re-watching them.
**Adam:** And that's.
**Adam:** And actually, thank you Lee because I found the card because you and Jennifer bought me the complete Rise and Damp one year, and I've still got the card in there like the Christmas card.
**Adam:** It was a little cat card.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So thank you again.
**Lee:** Thank you very welcome.
**Lee:** Again.
**Lee:** That was a while ago, I don't even remember that.
**Adam:** But then but again, it's that weird thing.
**Adam:** Like Leonard Rossiter worked with Kubrick.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there's people in here who sort of like not it's not just you know, it's a right pedigree of actors.
**Lee:** I was going to say Michelle Deries as well.
**Lee:** Is just an.
**Lee:** I mean, a much younger in this, obviously, so it was fairly early in her career, but she carries so much of this film with her performance, it's absolutely brilliant.
**Adam:** Yeah, she does it brilliantly and so obviously she was.
**Adam:** Betty in some Mothers do Have Them.
**Adam:** We're not doing the impression.
**Adam:** And but also she's in another great folk horror, she's in Blood on Satan's Claw.
**Adam:** And she's fucking brilliant in that as well.
**Lee:** Yes, yes.
**Adam:** Where she's one of the wayward like school children and they're all fucking horrible that lot.
**Adam:** You know, they're really She's really good at that and and again, it come it comes out in this.
**Adam:** You know, it's sort of, yeah, I mean and she also she was she was married to Edward Woodward.
**Adam:** And it is official Thomas law that you have to do that.
**Adam:** There are certain things you mention whenever someone comes on the screen.
**Adam:** And one of them is Michelle Dece, and you have to go, you know, she's.
**Adam:** Do you know she was married to Edward Woodward.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Just a.
**Adam:** Just a thing, and if I don't do it.
**Adam:** I will have to go I will be beaten the next time I got.
**Adam:** But obviously she was in I mean, she was in Inside Number Nine, and I forgot she's in that really good Rivals of Sherlock Holmes with Donald Pleasance.
**Adam:** The Horse of the Invisible.
**Lee:** I don't think I've seen that.
**Adam:** Oh man, you've got to see that.
**Adam:** That's a it's a Carnacki story.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Donald Pleasance plays Carnacki and he goes to check into the.
**Adam:** a ghost a ghost horse.
**Lee:** You're going to have to send me that after we finished recording.
**Lee:** Because I don't forget.
**Lee:** I need that in my life.
**Adam:** And Michelle Dece is in it as well.
**Adam:** And she's great.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, it's really fucking good.
**Adam:** That's the Rivals of Sherlock Holmes is a show I recommend anyway.
**Adam:** but yeah, I'll yeah, I'll remind me at the end, but I'll I'll send that over to you.
**Adam:** but the so like so Joan Fontaine had obviously the book that she is so sorry, yeah.
**Adam:** So the book is called.
**Adam:** The Devil's Own and it was by Nora Loft, who is a crime writer.
**Adam:** But she wrote she the is published under the name Peter Curtis.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** but then the script is adapted by Nigel Neal, who created Quatermass.
**Adam:** And that definitely comes up in there because I think that the interactions with the village.
**Adam:** Like the people.
**Adam:** The one thing that Nigel Neil manages to do is everyone sounds like a human being.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You never no one ever sounds off.
**Adam:** He just has a real ear for how a character sounds and across sort of, you know, across sort of like continents and things like that.
**Adam:** He just gets everyone right.
**Adam:** Or sort of like like their social position or whatever like that, he just manages to do that really well.
**Adam:** And I think it it there's bits of this that come out.
**Adam:** But when she but when Stephanie's saying about witchcraft is a science.
**Adam:** That's so like that's a pure Nigel Neil thought that is.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Once you know once you know his style, you could pick it out even without having spotted his name at the beginning, it's got that.
**Adam:** Definitely, definitely.
**Adam:** And he apparently kept trying to persuade the filmmakers that they should make it a black comedy because he couldn't get he said he couldn't get the the tone right of the book.
**Chris:** Interesting.
**Adam:** So and he was like so he was he was trying to say make it a black comedy.
**Adam:** Which I think is kind of in there.
**Adam:** But it's not it's not a funny film anymore than it's you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's not as it's not a scary film in that sort of sense.
**Adam:** It has its little moments.
**Adam:** But but it's definitely not a funny film, but it it it does have it feels very Royston Vasey.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's almost on the edge of like being either way, you know, you're sort of held up to this point.
**Chris:** I think there was a bit the the butcher when he was cutting up the rabbit.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He just.
**Adam:** He just keeps laughing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and I mean that's just like that's Father Ted, that's the laughing priest, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's just like, yeah, because that's Duncan Lamont who is in.
**Adam:** Quatermass and the Pit, the Hammer Quatermass, he's the drill guy Sladen.
**Adam:** So it it all jumbles up and comes back itself.
**Chris:** And then when he picks picks her up later in the car as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, that bit that bit is that bit I I can definitely see in League of Gentlemen.
**Adam:** There's
**Chris:** Like don't don't get in any cars with any strange men.
**Chris:** I appear to be in one.
**Adam:** But but also and I and I love the I love the fact that it's basically there.
**Adam:** He doesn't, I don't know, the the brother, I can't think of his fucking name now, Allen.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It's like so he turns up dressed as a priest.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Then it turns out he's not a priest, but he just wears it to feel better.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, or to feel, you know, as as like a sort of form of mental armor, so that he'll feel comforted by the fact that, you know.
**Adam:** And I try to be a priest, but they they wouldn't have me.
**Adam:** You know, and it's sort of it's like it's almost like he's, you know, if he'd want to be a policeman, he'd be a security guard.
**Adam:** But there's no sort of thing of that.
**Adam:** For for being a priest.
**Lee:** You throw all one of your heart.
**Lee:** But it works perfectly for the misdirection.
**Lee:** Because when you don't know who is running this coven.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** You you are convinced absolutely that it's him.
**Adam:** And he's utterly shifty, but as it turns out because.
**Adam:** He's covering for Stephanie because he is in no way shape or form equipped.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, to do to do.
**Lee:** The way, you know.
**Adam:** He is just yeah.
**Adam:** And but yeah, just that sort of.
**Adam:** But and.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Normally in a film like this, he would definite that would definitely have put him in the villainy stakes.
**Adam:** He's one of the few people left in the village at the end of this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** All the coven move out.
**Adam:** And he's going.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it's like, oh yeah, no, I'll just oh, I think, you know, do you know what? I think he's husband material.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** And and not wanting to skip to the end quite, you know, too quickly.
**Lee:** But yeah, that that coven bit at the end that I love.
**Lee:** I always forget how long that goes on for.
**Lee:** Like that whole ceremony lasts for ages.
**Lee:** And again, it's you if you once you've seen it the once, you pick up on it the next time when they drop in how she's going to basically overthrow them all.
**Lee:** But yeah, so you're just waiting for it to happen the whole way through.
**Lee:** And it's just that anticipation of when is she going to is she going to do it in because she really does wait until the last minute.
**Lee:** She could have just snuck a bit of glass or something in and done that at any point before it all went bat shit.
**Adam:** Down and throw up down the Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There you go.
**Lee:** I I would have thrown up whatever that sludge was she kept feed fighting over. I don't know what that was supposed to be, but it looked grim.
**Adam:** I I think that whole sequence.
**Adam:** Because that's again, I think that's one where that's where it's sort of like divides people.
**Adam:** But I think if you've I think if you've gone along with it, you go along with that end sequence.
**Adam:** Because and.
**Adam:** It is odd choreography, do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's sort of it it's very it proper is like movement as opposed to necessarily dance.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's sort of, yeah, and the fact that it's actually clearly I mean, there are there are clearly actual dancers in there.
**Adam:** But you know, the fact that.
**Chris:** I think that's what makes it almost seem more real again.
**Chris:** Like.
**Adam:** The fact that the cast are in there and everything and have been, you know, I mean usually with this sort of thing, you think, oh, they wouldn't have bothered.
**Adam:** But they've they've they've.
**Adam:** Sat there and thought about this and done it really fucking well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it does the only thing I find with that bit, though, or or any of the sort of coven sequences.
**Adam:** is why do you go and put on rags?
**Lee:** Yes, I said exactly.
**Adam:** And yourself up.
**Lee:** I was like, why are you wearing all these like you were wearing perfectly respectable clothes earlier and now you're wearing ones that look like you've put them through a threshing machine.
**Lee:** I don't understand.
**Lee:** But again, I don't know it.
**Lee:** You know, it might be one of those, you know, like when they used to, was it Crowley and stuff used to bury their clothes in a graveyard, so it had the smell on it and all that kind of stuff.
**Adam:** It it could well be I mean, it could be any number of reasons.
**Adam:** It could just be that Stephanie's a terrible snob and it's like, right, you lot.
**Adam:** You've got to dress like as a of, you know, a BBC Sunday cereal beggar.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where I'm here in like, you know, some of the some of the most beautiful finery you'll ever see.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Martin Stevens as well.
**Lee:** I really liked in this, who obviously everyone knows from Village of the Damned and The Innocent.
**Adam:** Yes, yes.
**Lee:** a fantastic child actor.
**Adam:** I think this is the last film he did.
**Lee:** Oh, was it really?
**Adam:** Yeah, I think or it might have been like nearly the last film he did.
**Adam:** Because obviously he got a bit older.
**Adam:** He went on to be a yeah, he was yeah, I think it was.
**Adam:** apparently he just lost interest in acting and became an architect and meditation instructor.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** So that's he just he'd obviously just had the bug as a kid.
**Adam:** And then he was like, yeah, that's enough.
**Adam:** Yeah, got bored of it now.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Which is a can I just say is a lot happier than the majority of child stars.
**Chris:** Yes, does seem to be, yeah.
**Chris:** That was probably the right decision.
**Lee:** Yeah, you to stay in Britain and not go to Hollywood where it all turned into a big horrible mess.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean it's yeah.
**Adam:** It's and and did you spot Aunt Barru?
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** You know Mrs. Creek the shop owner, Michelle's mom is, yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, you're right, it is.
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Lee:** I did not put two and two together with that.
**Adam:** Or as I've put it down here, oh Barru, it's fucking Star Wars.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I was just like, whoa.
**Adam:** And actually one of the right near the start of it you got Rudolph Walker, who's like now just done years in EastEnders.
**Adam:** but he was in Love Thy Neighbor and
**Adam:** he was in he was in The War Games and he was in The Thin Blue Line and the all new Alexi Sa show.
**Adam:** And but yeah, it's just that that's one of those ones where it's just like, he's just been in stuff for years.
**Adam:** And barely looks different, it's quite impressive.
**Adam:** But yeah, so it's weird when you look at it.
**Adam:** There's quite a few people who are sort of like comedy performers or sort of made their name in comedy productions like Michelle Dece and Leonard Rossiter and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And yeah, but it just goes to prove that fact that it is, you know, it's still acting.
**Adam:** In fact, it's harder because you you mustn't laugh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When people are being brilliantly funny, so it's yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I I love seeing Gwen Davis as well because she she also is in The Devil Rides Out as well.
**Adam:** Yes, of course, yeah.
**Lee:** But she's one of those actors I haven't seen her in anywhere near enough.
**Lee:** I think these two and she's in an episode of Sherlock Holmes, the Jeremy Brett ones, I believe.
**Adam:** Yes, she is.
**Adam:** Yeah, because she's she's in the Master Blackmailer.
**Adam:** The Charles Augustus Milverton one.
**Adam:** Yeah, she's in that.
**Adam:** but yeah, there's it's quite nice that they've got.
**Adam:** Because the guy the the father Doucet he's in a really good show called The Guardians, which I watched, which is like a 70s show about.
**Adam:** I mean, you might want to watch it as an instruction manual, but it's basically Britain under a fascistic government.
**Adam:** So you you know, you might might want to just, you know, tip your head that way.
**Adam:** But his but his wife is
**Adam:** She was Alphagon's neighbor, the woman who used to live upstairs in Alphagon.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, there's loads of fucking comedy names in here, but then my mom always used to say, yeah, but Britain had three actors back then.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think this is one of those cornerstones, I don't think this film gets anywhere near as much love as it deserves because when people think Hammer, they do think you know, the Dracula franchise and the Mummy franchise, and they think about those huge franchises that went on to do stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I just feel like a bit like The Devil Rides Out, this is one that because it's only one film, just kind of gets forgotten about.
**Lee:** But the same with The Nanny.
**Lee:** The Nanny is a fantastic movie.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** So is that another one that's not not for horror?
**Lee:** Oh no, that yeah, no, that.
**Adam:** thriller, isn't it? It's that grey area where you get thrillers into horror and vice versa.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's highly unpleasant and uncomfortable, but it's not like a supernaturally.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's that's a great movie.
**Lee:** Really good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I remember when that box came out, they they said, oh, no, it hasn't got any of the decent Hammer films in there, and I remember you buying it and just going through them and being like, no, The Witches is fucking amazing. Nanny, The Nanny's great.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** And it was like all these because I think they'd been packaged in as, oh, well, these are the films we're not going to be able to shift on their own, so we'll stick them in like a 10 disc box set or something like that.
**Lee:** But that was why it was perfect, because it's all the ones I didn't it was all the stuff like Vampire Zombies and The Reptile and Yeah, all the stuff that I hadn't taken the time to I mean, to the Devil was in there as well.
**Lee:** But you know.
**Lee:** You know too much.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, and that's why a lot of these films aren't recognized the way I think they should be.
**Lee:** So they're the ones that I just hadn't seen until I got the box set, which is why it was absolute gold to me, because I was like, this stuff I prefer to the big franchise ones.
**Lee:** And and most of them don't get aired or hadn't had any kind of proper like publicized releases, so I hadn't been to track them all down, so when they all just arrived, thankfully as a Christmas present, all nicely wrapped up, I was like, oh my God, there's so much content to go through.
**Lee:** It's incredible.
**Chris:** So I didn't realize the Wicker Man was Hammer.
**Chris:** And we still haven't done.
**Adam:** No, The Wicker Man's not Hammer.
**Adam:** The Wicker Man.
**Chris:** It's not Hammer.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** No, The Wicker Man is actually, I is it Charlamagne, it's like Christopher Lee's own company or Jake.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, no, I've seen it's under the non-Hammer section that was the top, that's why.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but I mean it is it's weird because of all the things for Hammer to have sort of kind of innovated in.
**Adam:** Is a lot of The Witches then goes on to be the staples of folk horror to come, but that's much more the 70s.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** There's also a really good, if you want there's a I think there's a BBC TV film called Robin Redbreast.
**Adam:** I think it's BBC.
**Adam:** But it's it's old and but it's it's after The Witches.
**Adam:** I'm sure it is.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** But but it's it's very it's very similar ground.
**Adam:** And it's actually kind of because it's all in black and white, I'm not sure, I don't know whether it was because the colour version's been lost or whether it was always in black and white.
**Adam:** I can't remember.
**Adam:** But the only version you can see is the black and white one.
**Adam:** And it is oddly creepy, you know, but it is very.
**Adam:** It's it's very sinister in ways that the but it's sort of follows the same sort of path as as The Witches.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's it's a nice companion to The Witches.
**Adam:** It's not trying to be.
**Adam:** It it's.
**Chris:** I mean it's an interesting to see you.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's definitely definitely worth seeking out.
**Adam:** Because I remember I remember when I saw it, it was sort of like this is kind of like The Witches.
**Adam:** But it's its own thing and to be fair, The Witches it like we said, it's an archetype.
**Adam:** Especially folk horror is that the outsider turns up.
**Adam:** I mean this could be, you know, there's there's bits of the.
**Adam:** I mean, there's definitely bits of this in like The League of Gentlemen and Mr. King.
**Adam:** Because they're all taking from those same sort of sources, but yeah, Robin Redbreast is well worth tracking down.
**Adam:** Because it's very sort of light, it's it's a nice companion to The Witches.
**Adam:** It's not trying to be it's kind of the same story, but told differently, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like here's two variants of the essential plot, you know.
**Lee:** That's that's the I think the perfect companion place to this as well, would be Night of the Eagle.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah, very much so.
**Lee:** Again, that it's that it's it's almost the same story but it's different enough that it's that yeah, you could watch them side by side and not feel like you're watching a remake.
**Lee:** It's got enough going on to be different, but yeah, follows very much the same creepy vibes and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Another epic.
**Lee:** Did we cover that?
**Lee:** I think we.
**Chris:** I think we did.
**Chris:** Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was just getting some flashbacks of Eagle.
**Adam:** Yeah, we did.
**Adam:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Probably it could have been like four four years ago now.
**Adam:** I think it was so long I think it might have actually been when I still put backgrounds up.
**Adam:** Because I seem to remember my stupid fat grinning face in front of the black board with belief question mark on it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** yeah, so I think it was whenever we so that would have been probably when we first started recording like separately.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, probably so probably COVID, so it's probably about five years ago now.
**Chris:** Could be.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, again, and Knight of the Eagle exactly the same, you know, absolutely amazing film.
**Lee:** Brilliantly creepy and subdued and kind of under the radar.
**Lee:** but yeah, one that you don't I I certainly didn't anyway, discover until many years later, because it isn't so well known.
**Lee:** So when you go to your, you know, you go to your HMV or whatever, it's never in there.
**Lee:** It's one of those things you have to really go to efforts to track down, but oh, but when you do, oh, incredible.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's a weird one, and it's definitely those little sort of bits that you have to tease out of the big chunk that is hammer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Especially because like you say.
**Adam:** A lot of the franchise stuff there's good and bad, but but overall it's quite diminishing returns on those sort of things because you kind of know what you're getting.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas actually when a when a film can turn around and give you as and this isn't based on like a classic.
**Adam:** This was based on a book, but it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't the th and like adaction of it.
**Adam:** You know, or whatever like that, you know.
**Adam:** It's sort of.
**Adam:** So I think it it can it's one of.
**Adam:** It's wonderful that it can surprise you.
**Adam:** So it's a shame that if you've listened to this point.
**Adam:** Because obviously we spoil it, you should watch it before we spoil it.
**Adam:** I cannot be held responsible for this.
**Adam:** It's 1966.
**Adam:** Come on.
**Lee:** I think I'm going to have to track a copy of that book down and read it for myself because I'd be very keen to see how it reads.
**Lee:** As Nigel Neal was saying, oh I had trouble trying to bring it to the screen and make it creepy or as creepy as the book.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I'd be keen to give it a read and see how it how it compares, really.
**Adam:** I cuz I think also it's it might be one of those things where because there are certain there's certain things you can do in a book that become laughable if you try and translate them onto the screen.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, I I no, I'd be interested.
**Adam:** Let me know if you're if you'll have success there.
**Lee:** Yes, I shall be looking that up. oh, also,
**Lee:** Just before we wrap up for the evening, because I didn't want to wait until next time we do the what we've been watching.
**Lee:** because you brought it up on the last one, I did just want to say, yes, you mentioned obviously Broken Vale.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** On our what we've been watching.
**Lee:** and I.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** We we went away and listened to the whole thing in two sittings, one drive away for the weekend and the rest and on your long drive. Oh, how creepy was that?
**Adam:** It's brilliant, isn't it?
**Adam:** It genuinely is.
**Adam:** I think to be honest, I don't know, I mean Chris, it's it's available.
**Adam:** I don't know if you're a podcast listener.
**Chris:** This this was a podcast.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I would almost be tempted to do an episode on it.
**Lee:** Yes, I I'd be happy to talk about it for an hour.
**Lee:** Very happy to.
**Chris:** And this is the one that's not like other podcasts, it's more like a radio show.
**Adam:** It's it's essentially it's a six-part series, which is
**Adam:** basically it's two writers and they're looking for a way to make a podcast and they the two writers play themselves and it's them looking for a podcast.
**Adam:** And then they sort of hit upon the idea of doing stuff about the supernatural, but they don't want to do anything obvious.
**Adam:** Like, you know.
**Adam:** Tread the same warm paths as everyone else.
**Adam:** So they just asked their friends if they've got any weird stories and one of them comes up.
**Adam:** Trumps with something.
**Adam:** And gradually it sort of seems to connect to other stories that they've heard from other friends.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** It just builds into a very nice little little story.
**Adam:** It's great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And very good in being able to go it's very original.
**Chris:** I was going to say it.
**Chris:** Certainly sounds original.
**Adam:** No, it's not not like anything I've ever heard before.
**Lee:** And and I love that format as well.
**Lee:** Because I find radio play, as much as I like a radio play, especially I love old time radio play.
**Lee:** The old ones from, you know, 30s and 40s.
**Lee:** but I I do find them a bit hard to listen to now.
**Lee:** I don't listen to very many radio.
**Lee:** But because it's made as a podcast rather than as a radio play.
**Lee:** For some reason, I I just I found it so immersive and so because they are just playing themselves.
**Lee:** They're not playing characters.
**Lee:** They're playing themselves in a fictitious scenario.
**Lee:** And it just it's absolutely mind blowing.
**Adam:** Well, as I say, that first episode.
**Adam:** Not knowing what it was other than
**Adam:** Writers who I really liked had done another podcast.
**Adam:** Or podcast that I really liked done another podcast.
**Adam:** And that first episode, as as episode two got into it, I was like, right, I I've got it now.
**Adam:** That first episode.
**Adam:** I took it straight on face value.
**Adam:** I thought, oh, really.
**Adam:** This could be real.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because it was just the way they did it, you know.
**Adam:** And then it was like, oh no, right, okay, that's clearly now.
**Adam:** I'm now getting that it's a fiction.
**Adam:** But that first episode where it's just them and Tony Way.
**Adam:** And that weird little story.
**Adam:** Felt like enough of a weird little story.
**Adam:** And then I was like, well, maybe they'll go on next week and look at something else.
**Adam:** Or, you know, then it was like, oh, it's all starting to link up.
**Adam:** Right, okay, it's a narrative.
**Lee:** I've got to admit, I was starting to get the sweats at the end by the end of episode five because I was thinking, they've only got half an hour.
**Lee:** And there is so much, and I was like, there's no way they're going to be able to wrap this up in a way that I am going to be in any way happy with.
**Lee:** And then they totally killed it with that ending.
**Lee:** It was so perfect.
**Adam:** It was wonderfully because it's not an ending in a way, what they've done is they've done the smartest thing of they've sort of followed the idea of how you listen to say uncanny.
**Adam:** But you get to the point where it's like and then do you do you get a resolution at the end of any like sort of study of the supernatural?
**Adam:** You never get a revolution at resolution at the end of it anyway.
**Adam:** Because it's always that classic thing, you know, it's like, will we find bigfoot?
**Adam:** No, because I'd have fucking heard when you did, I wouldn't have waited three years for your fucking documentary.
**Adam:** Someone would have mentioned it by now.
**Adam:** And similarly, you know, so in in that respect, they're sort of like, oh no, we're actually.
**Adam:** We're in the open-ended ending anyway, you know.
**Adam:** Because that's what you'd expect from the genuine sort of paranormal podcast.
**Adam:** I suppose.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, absolutely fantastic.
**Lee:** So it was already on my radar, and then when you were excited about it as well.
**Lee:** I was like, yeah, I need to I need to wipe wipe the whole of my playlist for the drive to Norfolk and back.
**Lee:** And just solely focus on listening to this.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, and it was a.
**Lee:** It was the best choice I could possibly have made, so.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think we definitely need to come back and talk about that for a full episode at some point.
**Adam:** sounds like a plan.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, what have we got lined up next, Mr. Lee?
**Lee:** Oh, that's an excellent question.
**Lee:** Definitely wouldn't have done is come on here without having brought it up first.
**Lee:** So I know what I'm doing.
**Adam:** I think I remember, but let's see what's on.
**Adam:** Was it Plague of Zombies?
**Lee:** It is Plague of the Zombies.
**Adam:** Because because these were two Hammer films that Chris was like, I hadn't heard of.
**Adam:** And we were like, yeah, you've got to see these fuckers.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, so Plague of the Zombies is the next episode.
**Lee:** Again, one I absolutely love, I think I've only seen it a couple of times.
**Lee:** So I'm definitely well ready to to give it another view.
**Lee:** I mean it sounds like.
**Chris:** It's going to have a lot of zombies in it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I you you may be surprised.
**Adam:** You won't be.
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** You must be.
**Adam:** And can I just I'm just going to I'm going to leave you with a little hint, Chris, for a while.
**Adam:** I had a line of dialogue from the Plague of the Zombies as my text alert on my phone.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And that line of dialogue was Cornwall, but it's miles away.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's all you know.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, actually just very quickly before we sign off, as well, because I know I haven't mentioned this to Adam, but I thought I would while we're here.
**Lee:** On the way back from Norfolk, stopped off a place called Castle Aker Priory.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Yes, it's a big old Priory in Norfolk that is now just ruins.
**Lee:** it's where the opening shots of the Tomb of Ligeia were shot.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** I managed to line up a photograph of me standing exactly where Vincent Price would have been when the young lady rides in on her horse.
**Lee:** So I'll I shall have to share that with you.
**Lee:** I'm very pleased with myself.
**Adam:** Right, well, I'm I'm going to make I'm going to sort of put in a a motion here to the to the to the polit bureau, as it were.
**Adam:** so we're doing Plague of Zombies next.
**Adam:** I reckon after that.
**Adam:** We do Broken Vale, give Chris, give Chris a few weeks to check it out.
**Adam:** If he's happy with that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then we could do the Tomb of Ligeia, cuz I want to see how you line up.
**Lee:** I I think I've only seen the Tomb of Ligeia once, maybe twice.
**Lee:** I went on like a Vincent Price, Roger Coleman, I had to own them all.
**Lee:** Yeah, I watched it when I bought it, and I don't think I've gone back again, but.
**Adam:** Well, it'd be it not only that, but also it'd be real fun for Claire because my God, that girl loves Vincent Price.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** She really, really does, it's become it's so heartening to see someone just, you know, embrace the embrace the full love of that man.
**Adam:** Because he is extraordinary.
**Lee:** Oh, he really is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely fantastic.
**Lee:** Right, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out The Witches, go and check out Plague of the Zombies ready for next time, and we will see you all in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 221 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-221-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 13 April 2025
Duration: 01:13:19

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The We Have Been Watching Invasion of Earth”. It’s time for our semi-regular round up of all the entertainments we’ve been sticking into our brains for the past few weeks (and no laughing at the word “semi” please, we’re all grown ups). This time round there’s quite an international flavour as we discuss Soviet masterpiece “Viy” (1967); 2 movies from South Korea in modern classic “Train to Busan” (2016) and the “Tucker & Dale…” reimagining “Handsome Guys” (2024); fantastic Norwegian comedy “Troll Hunter” (2010); and the breathtaking 1922 Danish/Swedish silent documentary “Häxan” (and it’s William Burroughs narrated 1968 version, “Witchcraft Through the Ages”). We also cover hit podcast “Broken Veil” (2025), 1982’s “The Slumber Party Massacre”; “Hellboy: The Crooked Man” and “The Book of the Witch” (both 2024). Plus there are honourable mentions for “Battle Beyond the Stars”; and the anthology shows “Tales of Unease” and “Armchair Thriller”. There should be no need to prep for this ep, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam for how long?
**Lee:** and we are here again for a round-up of what we've been watching.
**Lee:** these are normally spoiler-free, but they'll probably still be swearing, just to make everybody aware.
**Lee:** and let's begin with Adam. What have you been watching?
**Adam:** Okay, right, I've got, well actually, this is what I've been listening to.
**Adam:** there's a podcast called Broken Veil.
**Adam:** six parts like cereal.
**Adam:** fucking brilliant. It really is.
**Adam:** It's basically it's because it's it's Joe Morris, who I know from other podcasts.
**Adam:** And he presents two really good comedy podcasts.
**Adam:** Because he writes for like Charlie Brooker.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like what's it called? Like screen wipe and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And he's one of the he's one of the creators of Philomena Cunk.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Very good.
**Adam:** It's yeah, just a really so I know him.
**Adam:** He's got two podcasts. There was one called The Rule of Three, which was just comedians came on to talk about comedy they liked.
**Adam:** If they like, you know, someone comes on and talks about Bill Hicks or a Monty Python album or something like that.
**Adam:** And then they did, then he did a podcast called, or he's doing a podcast called Comfort Blanket.
**Adam:** Which is again, sort of people coming on and talking about sort of just the things they watch for comfort as it were.
**Adam:** And but yeah, so he, so I was familiar with him.
**Adam:** And it's him and a guy called Will Maclean.
**Lee:** Will Maclean, I wrote a book called The Apparition Phase, which is absolutely brilliant.
**Adam:** I was going to ask you about this.
**Lee:** I have, yes, and it's great.
**Adam:** I've got to get that then. No, that's it.
**Adam:** I'm going to get I'm getting that because I I bought the fucking soundtrack to the podcast.
**Lee:** Oh, did you?
**Adam:** Yeah, limited edition CD. I thought, I'm fucking having that, because I really enjoyed it.
**Adam:** And it was one of those things where it's like, I can't wait for the DVD to come out almost.
**Adam:** That's one of the things with podcasts, especially when it's something that's to a certain extent is contained.
**Adam:** It's a series.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's a sort of played as real, so it's they are Joe Morris and Will Maclean.
**Adam:** And they decided to do a paranormal podcast that led them down this weird path.
**Adam:** there's loads of it was really wonderful being a comedy spotter.
**Adam:** And it was like, we spoke to our, we spoke to an actor friend of ours called Tony and then he started talking, it was Tony Way.
**Adam:** It was Hanson's dad.
**Adam:** So I was immediately Tony Way, I know I know which Tony it is.
**Adam:** Although because they're sort of doing it in that sort of, we'll call them Kevin.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** and then it was another friend, a director called Al.
**Adam:** Which was Barry Shipley, Al Campbell.
**Lee:** Hey.
**Adam:** And and Paul Putnam as well.
**Adam:** Which is always always wonderful.
**Adam:** And yeah, so they've got this really great little group of people and they sort of weave a sort of.
**Adam:** Series of happenings together into some sort of uneasy whole that doesn't have a resolution.
**Adam:** It's more about the speculation of what is going on.
**Adam:** But they build this sort of.
**Adam:** It starts like the first one, they just have it's Tony Way talking about he went for a he accidentally went to the wrong address when he was meant to have a medical for a film.
**Adam:** and they don't know where he went, he just went somewhere.
**Adam:** And they sort of did a a medical exam on him and he left, but it wasn't the people that were meant to have done it.
**Adam:** And it's sort of strange and weird and sort of like, you know, sort of just a weird little anecdote that someone tells you.
**Adam:** And then other stuff comes into it that's kind of similar, kind of.
**Adam:** Where you feel there's a connection and seriously, they have just done it so.
**Adam:** Brilliantly.
**Adam:** And as I say, the first episode, I wasn't sure.
**Adam:** It was only when the second episode came in and they were sort of like a similar experience that happened to someone.
**Adam:** I was like, oh, right.
**Adam:** So this is a thing.
**Adam:** But at first, I was just like, is this just a story that Tony Way told them?
**Adam:** And they're presenting like a real life podcast.
**Adam:** You know, it really is really effective.
**Adam:** And funny and yeah, it's just, it's seriously if you've.
**Adam:** I'm I'm definitely going to buy the book.
**Adam:** So definitely listen to the show.
**Adam:** And like I say, the six episodes are up now, so you can do the lot.
**Adam:** Because I started listening around.
**Adam:** I think episode three had come out and someone was sort of like had posted about it on Instagram or something like that.
**Adam:** And I was, oh, okay, what's this?
**Adam:** Listen to the three episodes.
**Adam:** And then had to wait for the next bit.
**Adam:** And you know, and it was like, no, no, I need to hear more.
**Adam:** And yeah, I'm hoping they'll do like a follow-up series or something similar.
**Lee:** They are.
**Adam:** brilliant.
**Lee:** They are.
**Lee:** see, I I haven't heard it yet.
**Lee:** I'm saving it because we're going away this weekend and it's a long drive.
**Lee:** So my plan is to queue all six episodes up and smash through it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Perfect.
**Lee:** I heard about it because he guested this week on one of my favorite podcasts, Loremen.
**Adam:** Oh yes, I listen to that. Yeah.
**Lee:** He talked about it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and that was that was what wet my appetite and I was like, yeah, I'm definitely definitely interested in this.
**Lee:** It sounds, I say, just everything they said about it sounded so perfect for me.
**Lee:** So I'm so glad that you've heard it as well and thought the same.
**Adam:** Oh, man, it's so it's so fucking good and it's just, it's been a, because.
**Adam:** I don't know where it is, in sort of in terms of podcasts, there's a sort of, there's people who plod on like our good selves, you know what I mean, and we just release.
**Adam:** So it's it's weird when you get something that's like a little burst.
**Lee:** Yeah, contained.
**Adam:** And and it's like a complete artifact.
**Adam:** As it were.
**Adam:** And yeah, so I mean, I think I don't listen to enough fictional podcasts.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** I definitely don't.
**Lee:** Because I normally have them on while I'm doing stuff.
**Lee:** So if you if you miss, you know, if it's people chatting and you miss 30 seconds of it because you're concentrating, it's not the end of the world.
**Lee:** But if it's a story and you miss something relevant, it can throw the whole thing out of whack.
**Lee:** Which is why I was like, I'm definitely going to save this until I'm 100% focused and can give it my full attention.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Very excited.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** So yeah, that's a absolute fucking complete recommend.
**Adam:** Because yeah, I've just.
**Adam:** It it I am genuinely annoyed that I'm not getting another episode.
**Adam:** Like this week.
**Adam:** You know, because I feel and it I don't think it it.
**Adam:** Like I say, it leaves things pretty open-ended.
**Adam:** So they could go from there, but I don't know whether they'd want to or they'd take something like a different direction or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But this just as they did it was brilliant.
**Adam:** You know, really really well done.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it.
**Lee:** As I say, I read The Apparition Phase, about a year, year and a half ago.
**Lee:** Because actually it's a a friend of mine went to university with Will and said, oh, my my mate wrote this book, you should read it.
**Lee:** It's pretty good.
**Lee:** so we got hold of it and it just totally blew me away.
**Lee:** I was like, oh my God, it's perfect.
**Lee:** Yeah, so when I heard he'd teamed up with Joe, I was like, well, this this can't go wrong.
**Lee:** This has got to be absolutely amazing.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Awesome.
**Adam:** Also.
**Adam:** Also, I don't know if you I don't know if you know him.
**Adam:** But Will Will Maclean really sounds like I created a different picture in my head.
**Adam:** he really sounds like the actor Trevor Cooper.
**Adam:** But he looks nothing like Trevor Cooper.
**Adam:** Who is a very lugubrious sort of presence.
**Adam:** but yeah.
**Adam:** no, and funnily enough.
**Adam:** And that's the other thing with it, it's it's sort of Essex centric.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** because they both grew up around Essex, so again, it that was something that obviously drew me to it.
**Adam:** Especially when it's like, I sort of know the bits of Essex they're talking about.
**Adam:** Or I've been through something.
**Chris:** That's a nice little bonus.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Fantastic. Right, definitely be checking that out.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** Yeah, so I've had a fun one.
**Chris:** I seem to have managed to create a bit of a theme out of the films.
**Chris:** Not intentionally.
**Chris:** although it may turn out that really a lot of films we watch.
**Lee:** It's all fucking cars.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I should do that one day, marathon Tom Cruise.
**Chris:** A marathon Tom Cruise experience.
**Chris:** But yeah, so, so I decided just to go for a bit of a random search, tried to go fairly deep.
**Chris:** Just to find films that either didn't I didn't know a lot about or I didn't know that we'd necessarily spoken about.
**Chris:** just to see if I could find any gems.
**Chris:** So the first one I went for was Troll Hunter.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, man.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** So I don't know that we've talked about it.
**Chris:** It seems like we may have done or talked around.
**Lee:** I think it would have come up when we covered Rare Exports.
**Chris:** It could have done. I mean, that's that's that's a good few years ago.
**Adam:** It has, to be honest, and to be honest, it's probably been on the list since then.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think something that's that's definitely one for the show as well.
**Adam:** Like.
**Adam:** Do a main episode on.
**Adam:** Because.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, man.
**Adam:** It's so is it your first time seeing it?
**Chris:** It is, yeah.
**Chris:** And and but but so with a with a title like Troll Hunter.
**Chris:** I was like, it could be rubbish.
**Chris:** And I I looked at, you know.
**Chris:** I looked a little bit of information about it, I saw Norwegian, okay, well that's good.
**Chris:** and sort of documentary, mockumentary style.
**Chris:** And subtitles, and I thought.
**Chris:** I don't know, all right, I'll I'll give it a go.
**Chris:** But my expectations are not massively high at this point because I didn't think I'd heard of it.
**Chris:** But yeah, and it it turns out it is actually really good and there's a lot of elements in it that yeah, sort of cover all the areas that I like.
**Chris:** You know, the fact that it's folklore meets bureaucracy.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Like who you think.
**Chris:** It's not going to work.
**Chris:** And yet, somehow, it's it's that.
**Chris:** I suppose is it, you know, it's like so it's 2010, we were getting things where it's like presenting kind of the mundane.
**Chris:** And somehow pulling it off in a way that's very entertaining.
**Adam:** I think I think now you say it, I think it just about pre-empts.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Sort of what we do in the shadows.
**Adam:** Like the future.
**Chris:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** And particularly obviously Wellington Paranormal that spins off that.
**Adam:** Like Troll Hunter and Wellington Paranormal have a lot in common.
**Adam:** if you've seen that as well, because it's just, yeah.
**Adam:** No, it's it's so good and so funny.
**Chris:** It is, it is very funny.
**Chris:** And then again, that's like, that could be harder to achieve with subtitles, you know, it's not necessarily always going to work perfectly.
**Chris:** But it really did.
**Adam:** Yeah, they really managed to translate, you know, it translates that.
**Chris:** That.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It it's yeah, no, there's some magnificent bits in that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it progresses well.
**Chris:** I mean it's it's it's good to see the trolls, you know, if you like trolls.
**Chris:** Which.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Doesn't really.
**Adam:** But all the troll law is sort of correct to.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** Like sort of troll folklore and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You know, the the mythology is correct.
**Adam:** But it's being dealt with by, you know, just a bloke in a Jeep.
**Chris:** Right, yeah.
**Chris:** And and then you realize eventually.
**Chris:** they start to bring in the whole you know, political aspect, social aspect, and so it's like, you know, we're ruining the environment, it's got all that sort of angle, and yeah, conspiracy or possible conspiracy.
**Chris:** Because you could imagine like, there is what governments tried to do, they're trying to cover things up or deal with things, you know, so it's like it's it's treads the line, I thought very well.
**Chris:** And so yeah, throughout I was I was very entertained and yeah, they they covered covered a lot in that.
**Chris:** So I was kind of surprised. I thought, I'm sure we should have talked about this, but there you go.
**Lee:** It.
**Lee:** It it was it was just that point.
**Lee:** It there was a few years before we started, and I've got to admit, I saw it.
**Lee:** So so I'd heard about it and discussed it with Adam who had also heard about it.
**Lee:** And as soon as it got released, I managed to track down a DVD and Adam came over and one Friday night and we watched it and we're blown away.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** And I don't think I've watched it again since, despite the fact I remember loving it.
**Lee:** It was one of those that for some reason just never pops into my head to re-watch.
**Chris:** I mean, yeah, you might not necessarily feel like there's a it it may not rise to the top of a, you know, a short list if you like what we're going to watch.
**Chris:** And yet, I think if I watched it again, I would really enjoy it again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Adam:** I think I think in the after that first time I watched it with you, Lee, I think I saw it.
**Adam:** I watched it a a good maybe sort of four more times, I think, you know, because I because I.
**Adam:** I I thought it was fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** And that so immediately, I bought it so then I had to check that the Blu-ray was working.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** I watched it.
**Adam:** I watched it.
**Adam:** And then and then I took it around Dean's and showed Dean or vice versa, I can't remember.
**Adam:** Anyway.
**Adam:** And yeah, so I've showing it to people and stuff like that because I'm like, it's fucking film.
**Adam:** You've got to see it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I think yeah, I think I've watched it.
**Adam:** I watched it and I will absolutely revisit it because I yeah, I think it is, you know.
**Adam:** Just I'm I'm glad that you've watched it now that suggests to me, oh, it still holds up.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And everything, you know.
**Adam:** Because sometimes when you go back to stuff and you're like, am I making allowances for myself at the time?
**Adam:** Or.
**Chris:** Well, I was a bit concerned, you know, how far they're going to take the effects, but I mean I still thought yeah, that all works really well.
**Chris:** And those with a found footage sort of view, it doesn't need to be sort of the absolute best production and it still is effective.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, I think I think a lot of filmmakers have woken up to that though.
**Adam:** That it's if you do it.
**Adam:** Particularly stylized or, you know, like with some found footage or something like that or a particular grain or whatever.
**Adam:** It it does mean that your effects are going to like any sort of CG effects, they're going to look pretty much of the piece.
**Adam:** They're not losing that sort of thing.
**Adam:** Same when you're trying to do with like crystal clear fucking 4K clarity and it's like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Exactly.
**Chris:** So yeah, so that was a good one.
**Lee:** Excellent. Good choice.
**Adam:** Right, we'll have to do it at some point.
**Adam:** Maybe we'll do we'll do it for Christmas, we'll have a Trolley Christmas.
**Lee:** That sounds good to me.
**Lee:** so my.
**Lee:** Next movie, I, following on from our last episode, Adam, you brought to my attention that there is an Asian remake of.
**Lee:** Tucker and Dale, so I managed to track down Handsome Guys.
**Lee:** As it is called.
**Lee:** And yeah, totally loved it.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Absolutely loved it.
**Lee:** It was the the thing that made me laugh more than anything was I remember Chris saying on the episode.
**Chris:** It was as it was sold.
**Lee:** It well, it was, but on the episode, you said it'd be perfect with Evil Dead and Cabin in the Woods.
**Lee:** And the remake isn't like a shot for shot remake, it has a lot of the same elements in kills, but it's got a supernatural element, which mimics Evil Dead and Cabin in the Woods.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** So I'm sold then.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, it's absolutely, I can tell you because it's in the first five minutes of the film.
**Lee:** They buy the cabin and get there and basically, it was owned by a missionary who was out there, who managed to restrain Baphomet and has it trapped in the basement, and Baphomet can return to Earth after five people are killed.
**Lee:** With the same sort of marks on the ground that filled with blood as they have it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it it just it it takes a really good film and puts all those extra elements in.
**Lee:** And make something equally as good, totally different, but with that same, their relationship is very similar.
**Lee:** And I say the kills and stuff are pretty much the same.
**Lee:** But yeah, they're it's all because it's being manipulated by a supernatural force rather than it just being a series of unfortunate events.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's it's absolute, absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** I loved every minute of it.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Lee:** What have you been watching?
**Adam:** I I nearly forgot to mention this.
**Adam:** And then I remembered, oh.
**Adam:** This was kind of the thing I specifically watched just in case for we've been watching.
**Adam:** To make sure I had something properly like horror or whatever, you know.
**Adam:** so.
**Adam:** And I've been meaning to give it a go anyway.
**Adam:** So I watched Hellboy the Crooked Man.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** The one that came out about three years ago?
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** That was the that was the sort of reboot that oh, the guy who direct Neil Marshall, the guy who directed the Descent.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Dog Soldiers.
**Adam:** Yeah, he did one.
**Adam:** I'm still not seeing that.
**Adam:** but this came out 2024.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Okay, cool.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I've seen a lot of sort of people slating it, I've seen a lot of people defending it.
**Adam:** Everyone's very much sort of like, both sides are sort of talking about the fact that, oh, well, you got to make allowances for a low budget.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, it clearly is lower budget, certainly than the Gilmerro del Toro ones.
**Adam:** But if anything, it's made me wish there was a Hellboy TV series.
**Adam:** Because this just feels and which is oddly true to Hellboy.
**Adam:** Because the comic does have a story arc and it has sort of.
**Adam:** You learn about Hellboy learns about himself.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** Can I stop you briefly? I'd like to learn a bit about Hellboy.
**Chris:** Because all I know is he looks a bit like a demon.
**Adam:** Yes, oh, so you've not seen the Hellboy film.
**Chris:** I haven't seen any, no.
**Adam:** Okay, well, I think Hellboy with I mean the so the two Guillermo del Toro films I'd definitely watch and I'd definitely do on the show at some point.
**Chris:** I seem to remember one, I didn't know there was two, but it was quite big.
**Chris:** When it was released.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was.
**Adam:** But but yeah, so basically Hellboy started as a comic by Mike Mignola.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And it's a got a real sort of noir sort of aesthetic to it, like when you see the like the.
**Chris:** Okay, yeah.
**Adam:** Illustrations there, it's got his very sort of distinct look.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** And so is Hellboy good, bad or chaotic neutral?
**Adam:** So I suppose
**Adam:** No, he's good.
**Chris:** Is he?
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** So what is.
**Chris:** What is his.
**Chris:** What's his purpose?
**Chris:** He he comes from hell.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** Or.
**Adam:** Well, that's that sort of does bear into what happened.
**Adam:** But basically he is found as a baby demon and is looked after by a professor who is played by John Hurt in the Guillermo del Toro films.
**Adam:** So I feel I could do it in his voice to continue.
**Adam:** And I raised Hellboy from that tiny imp.
**Adam:** And basically he runs a place called the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Development.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I think that's it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, that they basically investigate, that is the X-Files, so they investigate that sort of but although it's a group like an agency, one of their agents happens to be this Hellspawn.
**Adam:** Who.
**Adam:** Obviously has an affinity for the supernatural because he is supernatural.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but but the so the comics would sort of like have.
**Adam:** Like it had origin and sort of explained itself, but then the comic did what comics do of it.
**Adam:** It just would you had an issue or a couple of issues of just a storyline.
**Adam:** And basically, the reason there should be a Hellboy TV series is because it's the classic.
**Adam:** Like Hellboy turns up in a town, meets someone who's got a supernatural problem and it gets solved.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So it's like, you know, he's it's like the sort of X-Files agent.
**Chris:** Is it, yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It doesn't need, it doesn't need like a big fucking over-arching plot and this this is what this feels like.
**Adam:** Like this is because it is based on one of the comics, I think it's like three issues or something called The Crooked Man.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It's yeah, so a lot a lot of it is pretty much close to that.
**Adam:** But that is one of those sort of Hellboy where it's just, oh, this is the current story, not some sort of like, you know, it's not a sort of.
**Adam:** Progression or a character arc or anything like that, you know.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, and I think this was just rather fucking well done.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It was so I didn't I didn't know anyone.
**Adam:** In it, oh, apart from Joseph Marcel turns up.
**Adam:** Who was Jeffrey, the butler in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
**Adam:** And he's in Remembrance of the Daleks.
**Adam:** Which matters to me.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** but the guy playing Hellboy is a guy called Jack Casey who's apparently apparently was in The Strain, the del Toro Vampire series.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** He's in Deadpool 2.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** which I'm still not seeing.
**Adam:** But he's Black Tom in.
**Adam:** Deadpool 2.
**Lee:** What, you haven't seen Deadpool 2 yet?
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** You're missing out.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** I'm behind.
**Chris:** That's that's another one of the franchises.
**Chris:** That's there was one, another one we mentioned the other day.
**Adam:** Oh, I'm just not up to date on anything, mate.
**Chris:** No, you're on Hellboy.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Except for Hellboy, which everyone else seems to be sort of, but yeah, and it was just
**Adam:** Yeah, it was kind of like, it just felt like it was.
**Adam:** Maybe like it was the Christmas special from a couple of years back because it was longer.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** Like you know like when you'd get like the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and then they'd do, they'd do and the Basks or sign of the four at Christmas.
**Adam:** So they'd have a longer.
**Adam:** Like movie version of it.
**Adam:** And that's what this felt like.
**Adam:** And it.
**Adam:** Yeah, everyone's fucking great in it. I think it really it really feels like reading the comic Hellboy.
**Adam:** More so than anything else because it does have that sort of, it's not a it's not blankness.
**Adam:** But it's like, no, this is just an adventure that's happening.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** Not everything has to lead to profundity or anything like that.
**Adam:** You know, it's just it's story of the week, monster of the week.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** With a monster.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but and no.
**Adam:** I just thought and but the.
**Adam:** And it was directed by Brian Taylor, who did The Crank films, which I should not like.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Those films.
**Adam:** I fucking think they're brilliant.
**Adam:** They're just both of them are fucking mental.
**Adam:** Which.
**Chris:** I've only seen the first one, but I didn't like it way more than I thought I should as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, and and pretty much you get exactly the same with the second one.
**Adam:** Like I I can't believe that Jason Statham has hoodwinked me.
**Adam:** Into enjoying one of his films.
**Adam:** The cheeky bastard.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's sort of.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's yeah, anyway, but it so and the other film he did was Mom and Dad.
**Adam:** The Nicholas Cage film.
**Lee:** Oh, that.
**Lee:** Great.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** But but that's the thing.
**Adam:** Is this doesn't feel like that at all.
**Adam:** It's very it's quite.
**Adam:** The other thing that it sort of sits with the the like the comics are quite stark and they're quite sort of almost expressionistic in places and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And this is this is very moody.
**Adam:** And it has action sequences.
**Adam:** And I've seen a lot of people, I'll get it over with now, a lot of people have said that the spider at the start is shit.
**Adam:** Yeah, the spider at the start is shit.
**Adam:** But the spider in anything that CG is shit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They're all it's always shit, so, you know, they could why blow their fucking money?
**Adam:** And it it fulfills its function.
**Adam:** But and it's over with at the start, basically.
**Adam:** That's just.
**Adam:** And then the rest of it is kind of a lot more eerie and a lot more sort of, but and you get the lovely thing of because that's the best bit about Hellboy.
**Adam:** It's probably I've missed the whole point when I'm explaining to you the draw of the character, is Hellboy really doesn't give a fuck.
**Adam:** He finds it all annoying and sort of just, oh, for fuck's sake, this happened.
**Chris:** I think I think that's that's me like every day really, with a lot of things that I I think I'd quite like the sound of this.
**Adam:** He treats the supernatural like plumbing.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** Yes, it is a pain in the arse.
**Adam:** Yes, it is a disaster.
**Adam:** And yes, we are going to have to do something about it.
**Adam:** But for fuck's sake.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So, yeah, I think it's sort of like I think the yeah, like I say, this Jack Casey is I think he does really well as Hellboy.
**Adam:** And like I say, I'm just like pissed off that this isn't, oh, I caught that and I can now go back and watch the first series.
**Adam:** And then slowly become disappointed by series four or you know, whatever.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** I'll have to check it out.
**Lee:** I didn't realize there was another one.
**Lee:** I say, the one that came out a couple of years ago, I tried.
**Lee:** I loved the first two films, so I was really excited when they were going to reboot it.
**Lee:** And then I don't I think I got about half an hour in and was like, this is awful.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was fantastic cost, but it just didn't gel at all.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas I think.
**Adam:** That and that's the thing that because I haven't.
**Adam:** I haven't seen that.
**Adam:** but this so Crooked Man is nothing to do with that either.
**Adam:** It's do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** This is this is essentially reboot 2.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and I would as I say.
**Adam:** I think, yeah, just yeah, make some more.
**Adam:** This is.
**Adam:** Just make episodes.
**Adam:** I like films as episodes in this, you know.
**Lee:** Excellent. I'll definitely have to be checking that out.
**Lee:** Chris, what did you watch next?
**Chris:** Yeah, so for this one.
**Chris:** As I was looking through the titles of slightly unusual esoteric horror films.
**Chris:** I saw Slumber Party Massacre.
**Chris:** And I thought that sounds terrible, I don't want to watch that at all.
**Chris:** And but of course it it triggered a little, yeah, but there was Dude Bro Party Massacre 3.
**Chris:** And I thought, well, let me just read.
**Chris:** Just read a little bit about it, so I saw it.
**Chris:** I saw because.
**Chris:** I normally don't like to read too much or know too much.
**Chris:** Although I do like to know if they're comedies.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** And it turns out, in fact, for this one, that was both useful and bad, but anyway, all right.
**Chris:** So have either of you heard of this?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** I've heard of it, I haven't seen it.
**Chris:** Aha, all right, well, so 1982.
**Chris:** Year of the spectrum for any nerds listening, that's just that's how that is in my head.
**Chris:** Directed by Amy Holden Jones, don't know.
**Chris:** Written by, and this was the bit I thought, what, feminist author Rita Mae Brown.
**Chris:** And I thought, there's a film called Slumber Party Massacre.
**Chris:** It's a slasher film and it's written by a feminist author.
**Chris:** That's very confusing.
**Chris:** So I thought, I'm going to have to give this one a go.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Turned out it was written as a parody, however, the studio filmed it as a straight film.
**Adam:** Yeah, didn't get it.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** But what's interesting is that doesn't seem to have ruined it and you still are able to see everything that the author was getting across.
**Chris:** And I would say, and I did read a little bit about it.
**Chris:** I think it did achieve it in my mind, so it turned out another one.
**Chris:** Another social commentary film, which horror seems to do so well and we seem to cover a lot of.
**Chris:** Similar to Troll Hunter in that sort of sense.
**Chris:** Or ruining the world.
**Chris:** But yeah, so you know.
**Chris:** The fact that how do you turn a slasher and a very like in the sense it's not trying to be too clever.
**Chris:** It's not trying to do anything too weird horror style.
**Chris:** It is a very straight forward slasher.
**Chris:** How do you present everything that you get in a typical slasher, such as Friday 13th?
**Chris:** All of the elements and still make it so that you're like.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's not actually misogynistic in its presentation.
**Chris:** So yeah, I think I think she pretty much managed it.
**Chris:** And it was it was definitely better than I expected.
**Chris:** It does have funny bits, maybe not because the way it's shot, not as obvious as it could have been.
**Chris:** But yeah, you still get lots of women getting naked at points as you'd expect.
**Chris:** That's not the reason I watched it.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** you get a male killer with a very phallic looking weapon.
**Chris:** But yeah, there there's a few nice bits in it.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** It it did progress well and even to the end, I thought, okay, yeah, this this is all right.
**Chris:** This is keeping my attention and
**Chris:** That was fun.
**Adam:** I was surprised you.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because like so we we haven't watched a massive amount of slasher.
**Chris:** You know, I know we've all said it's not the one, it's not the category that we would tend to go for.
**Chris:** But it is interesting that there have been people, I mean like the Tucker and Dale.
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** Like there's been quite a few where they have managed to do a twist that makes a slasher type film far more interesting.
**Chris:** So I was kind of fascinated to see one that doesn't try to twist it too much.
**Chris:** Still achieve something like this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Still at the sort of same.
**Adam:** You're still at the period where it is enough to do a slasher film straight.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Well.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** You know, that's all you need is someone goes around and kills a lot of people.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it hasn't got, it hasn't because 82 you sort of hasn't got to the sort of more inventive phases.
**Chris:** I mean, I think that that is still pretty early.
**Chris:** Is it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think that's why we don't cover so many slashers.
**Lee:** Not because we don't because we particularly dislike them.
**Lee:** But because they don't leave a lot to talk about, it is just about seeing the kills.
**Lee:** The majority of the time.
**Chris:** Yeah, right.
**Chris:** Right.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** It feels like that's fun for the first few times of that sort of film.
**Chris:** And then you're like, yeah, you know, I've seen it.
**Lee:** Any.
**Lee:** And again, they're they're good to see because of the inventive kills.
**Lee:** But they're not as exciting to talk about, which is why we don't generally bring them up quite so often, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You don't really get a deep satisfaction afterwards.
**Chris:** Even if it was kind of fun, you know.
**Chris:** And and some of them could be in the background, you know, maybe that's fine.
**Chris:** But yeah.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** It would have been interesting to see if it had been shot as a parody and kept to the original idea.
**Lee:** I believe the sequels do more.
**Chris:** Oh, that's interesting.
**Chris:** So I did notice there were sequels, so yeah, okay, well I'd be quite happy to check them out then.
**Adam:** Continue the voyage, sir.
**Adam:** Let us know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Explore.
**Adam:** I'm.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Well done.
**Lee:** my next movie, I'm not sure if it's one Adam has seen or not.
**Lee:** I'd never heard of it.
**Lee:** Somebody posted some images on Instagram.
**Adam:** It was a filthy lie, whatever those images were.
**Lee:** And I saw them and immediately went, why have I never seen this film?
**Lee:** It's very strange, it's a film called V Viy.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** It's made in the Soviet Union in 1967.
**Lee:** And I thought it's one of those, I looked at the images and I was like, it's one of those too good to be true, it looks too cool.
**Lee:** The film isn't going to be anything like that.
**Lee:** And I couldn't have been more wrong, it was absolutely dynamite.
**Lee:** The score is a little strange on it in places.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Oh, it was outstanding, so the story, very quickly.
**Lee:** a group of young men who are to become monks, basically get a summer holiday and go on a rampage.
**Lee:** And end up sleeping in the barn of an old woman who one of them discovers is a witch.
**Lee:** And he inadvertently injures her and she dies.
**Lee:** but it turns out that she isn't the old crone that he's seen, but in fact it's a young lady and he is called by the village to be the, basically the overseer.
**Lee:** So he has to stay with her for three nights from sundown from sundown till sunset.
**Lee:** In order to.
**Lee:** basically make sure that she makes it to heaven, but what actually happens is every night things get worse and worse and the supernatural occurrences get more and more out of hand.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** It's fairly, it's not a comedy, but it's got a lot of comedy elements to it.
**Adam:** It's yes, exactly like House of, yes.
**Lee:** And it's just as bats it as House of as well.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's it's absolute gem.
**Lee:** I don't know why I've never stumbled across this before.
**Lee:** It's really good, so it so it is obviously in Russian, I believe, is the language.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** It is subtitled, but it it's it's just.
**Lee:** It's a really good, really creepy, it goes a bit bat shit in the last three minutes.
**Lee:** But the film prepares you for the fact that it's going to go nuts and you have to be ready to ride it, a bit like House of again.
**Lee:** yeah, it's it's really good fun.
**Lee:** It's a really well put together film.
**Lee:** It's a really well-paced film.
**Lee:** As it's only an hour and 15 or what, but it it feels it feels like it's as long as it needs to be.
**Lee:** You know, it doesn't doesn't feel like you don't get enough character development, but at the same time, it doesn't feel like they've tried to stretch it out and it should be a 40-minute, you know, 45-minute movie or whatever.
**Lee:** yeah, it's it's just absolutely brilliant, so I can't wait to see what they do next.
**Lee:** Because.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Really, really good.
**Lee:** So I heartily recommend everyone.
**Lee:** Go and check out, it's it's available for free online and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** Really, really good.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Lee:** You are up next, I believe.
**Chris:** Yep.
**Chris:** So this one I have mentioned before, I don't remember what either of you said about it.
**Chris:** this is probably my favorite overall.
**Chris:** Didn't necessarily expect to like it as much as I did.
**Chris:** Didn't know a lot about it except what the reason I had mentioned it previously.
**Chris:** Was it was on like the top 100 horror scenes from horror films, I think.
**Chris:** Something like that.
**Chris:** And it is called Train to Busan.
**Lee:** I still haven't seen it.
**Chris:** You still haven't seen it.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** You're right.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Well.
**Chris:** So I assume you, Lee, haven't rushed to watch it because it's zombie.
**Lee:** I think it I think it came out at the tail end at the point where I'd got so sick of zombies.
**Lee:** Despite the fact it came out and everyone went, this is the best zombie film that's come out since 2008 later.
**Lee:** I was already picked out with them even more than usual.
**Lee:** So I just couldn't.
**Chris:** Well, so that is it.
**Chris:** So they use so the zombies in it are the 28 Day Later.
**Chris:** Speedy type zombie, rather than the Romero, yeah, shambling ones.
**Chris:** but yeah, so I didn't realize it was as recent as it was.
**Chris:** I didn't pick that up when I'd heard of it previously.
**Chris:** 2016, which as you just mentioned.
**Chris:** Yeah, and again, it's got quite a social commentary, political, corporate.
**Chris:** But what I do like, it's essentially it's core themes.
**Chris:** Humanity versus selfishness.
**Chris:** It's got a whole part of, you know, how do you act in these situations?
**Chris:** Which.
**Chris:** I think we did say the zombie films have been used for, you know, the whole human dynamic when you're all in this situation together.
**Chris:** So I but I think it does that very well.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's got some great archetypes in there.
**Chris:** The it is subtitled again, so, you know, I still always wonder how how much can you enjoy a horror action film when you're having to read subtitles?
**Chris:** Totally not a problem at all, worked really well.
**Chris:** Also it is set on trains, and I thought, can that work very well with zombies?
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** You're thinking how are they going to explain this and again, the the ways that they did, I was like, okay, yeah, that's pretty good.
**Chris:** That that works for me.
**Chris:** It is a bit claustrophobic, but not too claustrophobic, it's definitely paced well.
**Chris:** And the scenes change enough.
**Chris:** So I was like, yeah, no.
**Chris:** You really are managing to do this in a way that I would not have expected would be that easy.
**Chris:** I liked the actors, I did recognise the main actor from Squid Game.
**Adam:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I can't remember who he was in.
**Chris:** He was in.
**Adam:** I'm still not seeing.
**Chris:** season 2 of Squid Game, if I remember if he was in it or not.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Well.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You know, I mean, he he is very effective, I would say.
**Chris:** Getting across the emotion and his his selfishness.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah, and then what I was looking forward to mostly, until I realized actually this is a really good film, was the scene where it's like so many zombies on screen at once.
**Chris:** All running like crazy, and and again, it works.
**Chris:** It's it's a great scene.
**Chris:** It is quite a unique, yeah, you know, because it's that is it could just going to get too ridiculous.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** But you know, great when someone manages to to deal with that.
**Chris:** And.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So for me, it is now.
**Chris:** It's definitely a zombie film, I'd watch again.
**Chris:** It's definitely film, I'd watch again.
**Chris:** and it's got some unique aspects that definitely make it stand out.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I'd absolutely.
**Chris:** I'd definitely recommend this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So maybe I do.
**Adam:** Maybe I do need to check it out.
**Adam:** Because I mean, this is I'm the same as you, Lee, I think I'd just got so tired of zombies.
**Adam:** But when it came out, even though I heard so many people going, this is fucking great.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I was like, I just can't.
**Lee:** Everybody was on side for it.
**Lee:** Everybody was talking about this when it came out.
**Lee:** But yeah, as you say, I was just like, no, no, nothing could bring me back to zombies.
**Lee:** They they are one of my least favorite and I have been burnt out with them even more than usual.
**Lee:** So I just couldn't.
**Chris:** It definitely doesn't, you know, like it is a zombie film, but really does have enough of the elements.
**Chris:** Where it's like.
**Chris:** No, I'm enjoying this as a film whether there's zombies in it or not.
**Chris:** Really.
**Adam:** That's the best thing where zombies are incidental almost, you know.
**Chris:** Really.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I would.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Chris:** I'd definitely recommend this.
**Chris:** It's.
**Lee:** Good.
**Lee:** I'm glad you have because I think Adam and I have just added it to our watch lists.
**Lee:** so for my next movie, or final movie, should I say?
**Lee:** I watched a film from last year, an independent movie called The Book of the Witch.
**Lee:** so there's nobody in it, you'll know.
**Lee:** It's a story of a young lady who is.
**Lee:** She's a security guard by night, and she's so terrified of the idea of death.
**Lee:** That she's basically heard of a legend of a witch who survived since the Salem witch trials by reading a spell from her book and drawing the life out of young men.
**Lee:** And basically lives off of that, and she decides that she's going to find this witch and steal her book so that she never dies.
**Lee:** And it's one of those, somebody I follow on Instagram, who does a lot of indie stuff, put it up and said, I've just watched this, I've really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** So I was like, eh, I'll have a look.
**Lee:** Managed to find it for free online legally.
**Lee:** Watched it.
**Lee:** It's amazing.
**Lee:** It was really, really good.
**Lee:** It's one of those fantastic jobs where they've taken they've taken a great story, they've allowed it to play out in its own time.
**Lee:** It's only an hour and 13 minutes long.
**Lee:** But it's exactly as long as it needs to be.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But the.
**Lee:** despite the budgetary constraints.
**Lee:** the budget tree constraint.
**Chris:** As as we are experiencing now.
**Lee:** Yeah, yes.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** They managed to, they don't overstretch themselves with the effects and things and with the.
**Lee:** The locations and stuff.
**Lee:** So despite the fact it's very low budget, they make it look amazing and nothing looks shonky because they don't try anything that they can't they can't they can't do.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's good.
**Lee:** But it doesn't feel like.
**Lee:** It doesn't feel like the story's been reined in in order to allow for the budget.
**Lee:** It just it's yeah, it was an excellent film.
**Lee:** It was one of those.
**Lee:** It was on a whim.
**Lee:** I had a night with nothing on.
**Lee:** And I thought it's online for free, it's an independent movie, I'll give it a go.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's just absolutely amazed by.
**Lee:** So it's Joshua Sudan is the name.
**Lee:** I'm saying that correctly, Sudan or Sodan.
**Lee:** But yeah, I I don't know what else they have done, but I will definitely be looking out.
**Lee:** In fact, I mean, I could just click on the IMDB.
**Lee:** I mean, it's a look.
**Lee:** Yeah, so they have done a few other films.
**Lee:** mainly as a director, oh, a director and writer.
**Lee:** But yeah, I will be working through that back catalog to see if there's any more horror in there.
**Lee:** Because.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was really surprised with this.
**Lee:** It's yeah, it's really good fun.
**Lee:** It's a really well put together film.
**Lee:** It's a really well-paced film.
**Lee:** As it's only an hour and 15 or what, but it it feels it feels like it's as long as it needs to be.
**Lee:** You know, it doesn't doesn't feel like you don't get enough character development, but at the same time, it doesn't feel like they've tried to stretch it out and it should be a 14-minute, you know, 45-minute movie or whatever.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's just absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** So I can't wait to see what they do next.
**Lee:** Because.
**Lee:** Yeah, really, really good.
**Lee:** So I heartily recommend everyone go and check it out.
**Lee:** It's it's available for free online and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** Absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** Really, really good.
**Lee:** so we should probably wrap it up there.
**Lee:** So, honorable mentions, has anyone got any honorable mentions they'd like to drop in quickly?
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** I've I've got one, but I'll also drop in Joe Watson's been in touch.
**Adam:** Hi, Joe.
**Lee:** Hey.
**Adam:** Hey, Joe.
**Adam:** Thank you for your continued support, especially if you've made it this far into the show.
**Adam:** yes.
**Adam:** And he's been he's been recommending a few, I was hoping that I might actually fit one in to sort of before the show, before we recorded.
**Adam:** But just didn't get the chance.
**Adam:** But he's
**Adam:** He's recommended, Ready or Not.
**Lee:** Yes, I've seen it.
**Lee:** It's great.
**Adam:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** I double checked, I could be wrong.
**Adam:** Shit.
**Adam:** he also recommended the Varium, which I know Bobby from not for everyone has.
**Adam:** Also, I'm sure has told me to watch that, so that's definitely going higher up the list.
**Adam:** Joe said it left him feeling disjointed.
**Adam:** Which.
**Adam:** I that that is you know, that's that's me sold.
**Adam:** You know, he also recommend, Oddity.
**Adam:** I think I think a lot I think I think a lot of these are on Shudder actually, so that's.
**Adam:** That's why.
**Adam:** but yes, he recommended Oddity.
**Adam:** And just just the other day he recommended the Rule of Jenny Pen, which is a film I've sort of had my eye on anyway.
**Adam:** That's with John Lithgow and Jeffrey Rush.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** That's quite.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And basically.
**Adam:** Jeffrey Rush is a judge who has a stroke and ends up in an old folks home and John Lithgow is one of the other patients who after dark just runs a fucking brutal regime of humiliation and weirdness and yeah.
**Lee:** Interesting.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** which.
**Adam:** Joe also said.
**Adam:** but if you have got any parents in an old folks home at the moment, you might want to give her.
**Lee:** Yes, I've just checked.
**Lee:** Ready or Not, yes, I have watched it, it was fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** Absolutely loved that.
**Adam:** Oh, fantastic.
**Adam:** my and my honorable mention is a weird one.
**Adam:** It's more just to say it's been it's been just over a year since we lost our good friend Westley.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I watched because if if we'd have continued doing Mos Eisley Happy Hour.
**Adam:** What I what my thought was is, we'll go off and just do films that start were rip rip offs of Star Wars.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Films that Star Wars was influenced by.
**Adam:** So you do like you do like Hidden Fortress one week.
**Adam:** And then do Flash Golden the next week.
**Lee:** Oh, Hidden Fortress.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** One of the films that I always thought would be.
**Adam:** Would be Battle Beyond the Stars.
**Adam:** And I don't know if anyone remembers it, it's 1980, but this is one of a a huge long list of things that I thought were all one thing as a kid.
**Adam:** So it's like.
**Adam:** This, Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica, just loads of stuff all rammed in my but Buck Rogers, it's all in there somehow.
**Adam:** You know, it was as I got older, I was like, oh, I can distinguish what the difference is.
**Adam:** But Battle Beyond the Stars.
**Adam:** Yeah, just watching it the other day and it was like, do you know what?
**Adam:** This ain't off bad.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's the James Cameron's doing the effects, so they're not too bad.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Not too bad.
**Adam:** James Cameron's doing the effects.
**Adam:** So they are, okay, they're not up to industrial light and magic, but they're pretty damn fucking good.
**Adam:** It's so clearly a rip off of Star Wars.
**Adam:** But it's also so clearly a rip off of the Magnificent Seven.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which which was a rip off of Seven Samurai, so it's sort of it's lovely that it's it's come kind of feels like it's come from the same space as Star Wars.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And you know, it's sort of like, oh, it's Samurai films via Westerns.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's sort of and but yeah.
**Adam:** And you got Robert Vaughn and George Peppard, Sybil Danning and John Saxon.
**Adam:** John Saxon as the villain, the sort of.
**Adam:** But yeah, and it's just one of those things that I watched and there are a few quite disturbing sequences in it.
**Adam:** Or disturbing enough when I was like watching it when I was like seven or whatever.
**Adam:** Like.
**Adam:** Actually, you know, that's that's just not on.
**Adam:** Won't show that to my son, that's the image that's going to stay in the child's mind for a whole week.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's just sort of like, there's a there's a weird little grimness to it.
**Adam:** That I quite like.
**Adam:** And yeah, just.
**Adam:** So if you've got fuckle better.
**Adam:** And James Horner does the music, and so it's very much sort of, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** Like, you know, it's a dry run for when he does Star Trek and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's like.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** So watch Battle Beyond the Stars.
**Adam:** Good evening.
**Lee:** Sounds good.
**Adam:** Good evening.
**Lee:** So we should probably wrap it up there.
**Lee:** So, honorable mentions, has anyone got any honorable mentions they'd like to drop in quickly?
**Adam:** Well, I've got one, but I'll also drop in.
**Adam:** Joe Watson's been in touch.
**Adam:** Hi, Joe.
**Lee:** Hey.
**Adam:** Hey, Joe.
**Adam:** Thank you for your continued support, especially if you've made it this far into the show.
**Adam:** yes.
**Adam:** And he's been he's been recommending a few, I was hoping that I might actually fit one in to sort of before the show, before we recorded.
**Adam:** But just didn't get the chance.
**Adam:** But he's
**Adam:** He's recommended, Ready or Not.
**Lee:** Yes, I've seen it.
**Lee:** It's great.
**Adam:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** I double checked, I could be wrong.
**Adam:** Shit.
**Adam:** he also recommended the Varium, which I know Bobby from not for everyone has.
**Adam:** Also, I'm sure has told me to watch that, so that's definitely going higher up the list.
**Adam:** Joe said it left him feeling disjointed.
**Adam:** Which.
**Adam:** I that that is you know, that's that's me sold.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** he also recommend Oddity.
**Adam:** I think I think a lot I think I think a lot of these are on Shudder actually, so that's.
**Adam:** That's why.
**Adam:** but yes, he recommended Oddity.
**Adam:** And just just the other day he recommended the Rule of Jenny Penn.
**Adam:** Which is a film I've sort of had my eye on anyway, that's with John Lithgow and Jeffrey Rush.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** Quite.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And basically.
**Adam:** Jeffrey Rush is a judge who has a stroke and ends up in an old folks home and John Lithgow is one of the other patients who after dark just runs a fucking brutal regime of humiliation and weirdness.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Lee:** Interesting.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'm sure Joe also said, but if you have got any parents in an old folks home at the moment.
**Adam:** You might want to care.
**Lee:** Yes, I've just checked.
**Lee:** Ready or Not, yes, I have watched it, it was fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** Absolutely loved that.
**Adam:** Oh, fantastic.
**Adam:** my.
**Adam:** And my honorable mention is a weird one.
**Adam:** It's more just to say it's been it's been just over a year since we lost our good friend Westley.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I watched because if if we'd have continued doing Mos Eisley Happy Hour.
**Adam:** What I what my thought was is, we'll go off and just do films that start were rip rip offs of Star Wars.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Films that Star Wars was influenced by.
**Adam:** So you do like you do like Hidden Fortress one week.
**Adam:** And then do Flash Golden the next week.
**Lee:** Oh, Hidden Fortress.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** One of the films that I always thought would be.
**Adam:** Would be Battle Beyond the Stars.
**Adam:** And I don't know if anyone remembers it, it's 1980, but this is one of a a huge long list of things that I thought were all one thing as a kid.
**Adam:** So it's like.
**Adam:** This, Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica, just loads of stuff all rammed in my but Buck Rogers, it's all in there somehow.
**Adam:** You know, it was as I got older, I was like, oh, I can distinguish what the difference is.
**Adam:** But Battle Beyond the Stars.
**Adam:** Yeah, just watching it the other day and it was like, do you know what?
**Adam:** This ain't off bad.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's the James Cameron's doing the effects, so they're not too bad.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Not too bad.
**Adam:** James Cameron's doing the effects, so they are, okay, they're not up to Industrial Light and Magic, but they're pretty damn fucking good.
**Adam:** It's so clearly a rip off of Star Wars.
**Adam:** But it's also so clearly a rip off of the Magnificent Seven.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which which was a rip off of Seven Samurai, so it's sort of it's lovely that it's it's come kind of feels like it's come from the same space as Star Wars.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And you know, it's sort of like, oh, it's Samurai films via Westerns.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's sort of and
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** And you got Robert Von and George Peppard, Sybil Danning and John Saxon.
**Adam:** John Saxon as the villain, the sort of.
**Adam:** But yeah, and it's just one of those things that I watched and there are a few quite disturbing sequences in it.
**Adam:** Or disturbing enough when I was like watching it when I was like seven or whatever.
**Adam:** Like.
**Adam:** Actually, you know, that's that's just not on.
**Adam:** Won't show that to my son, that's the image that's going to stay in the child's mind for a whole week.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's just sort of like, there's a there's a weird little grimness to it.
**Adam:** That I quite like.
**Adam:** And yeah, just.
**Adam:** So if you've got fuckle better.
**Adam:** And James Horner does the music, and so it's very much sort of, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** Like, you know, it's a dry run for when he does Star Trek and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's like.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** So, watch Better Be on the Stars.
**Adam:** Good evening.
**Lee:** Sounds good. I listened to a podcast recently with Joe Cornish of Attack the Block who we've covered previously.

---

## Ep 220 Tucker and Dale vs Evil

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-220-tucker-and-dale-vs-evil/
Air date: 28 March 2025
Duration: 00:36:45

### Description

We’re back in the deep dark woods for 2010 horror comedy “Tucker & Dale Vs Evil”. A film in which we learn the pitfalls of a “fixer-upper” for the first-time buyer; observe the dangers of mixing chainsaws with bees; and you can actively hate the clueless teens (even more so than usual). Based on a simple but hilarious premise; “Tucker & Dale…” manages to sustain it for pretty much the whole of its runtime, with a necessary swing into more familiar horror territory for the last act. The heart of the film lays with its (wonderfully portrayed) titular characters; a refreshingly sweet, honest and hilarious double act, who you cannot help but love and root for as they blunder through an increasingly ludicrous series of coincidences and misunderstandings. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here again for yet another episode, despite the fact nobody's asked us, but we've got nothing else to do and it's Sunday night, so we are here with spoilers and swearing for 2010s Tucker & Dale vs Evil.
**Lee:** Just before we get into that though, we did want to discuss very briefly. It seems like ages ago now, but it's the first time we've recorded since. The three of us went to Horrific, the Romford Horror Film Festival a few weeks back. Yeah, and we had a nice time, didn't we?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, fantastic.
**Adam:** I'm so pleased it happened again because obviously we went last year and there was the whole thing with Lumi, with Premiere, the cinema closing or changing hands or whatever. And it was good to see that it was, you know, the strength of the festival and everything actually reopened it for that weekend before sort of like before they're launching it as Lumiere.
**Adam:** And, yeah, it was just great to go back and just, it was a nice exactly as it was, as it was the last time.
**Chris:** If if not better.
**Adam:** And they're so well, so well organised and so well run and it's and it's in a cinema, you know, which is it's that is the one sort of beautiful thing, you're actually in a proper cinema complex and it's there's enough of it that they can run a program. It's not like you have to nip off around the corner or, you know, go and go and sit in a pub somewhere or whatever like that for certain bits of it. It's like they can run it all as a proper cinema.
**Adam:** whole weekend's program. I mean we saw, we saw Evil Dead 2.
**Lee:** Yep. On the big screen.
**Chris:** First time for me.
**Adam:** First time for you?
**Lee:** Yes, first time.
**Adam:** So that was really.
**Chris:** I wish I could have been there.
**Adam:** Oh, mate, that was a fucking joy.
**Chris:** It really was.
**Lee:** Yeah, I also got an opportunity to chat with the gentleman who's taking it over as well.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Which is good to get a face to put to the name.
**Lee:** But yeah, so he was telling me all about the things they've got planned and how they're planning on laying it all out and use of all the screens and everything.
**Chris:** Yeah, they are really going at it properly, aren't they?
**Lee:** Oh yeah, 100%. He's got so much in the pipeline and he was just so nice.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's just such a nice guy. You know when you just meet someone and you just like you just intrinsically trust this person immediately.
**Lee:** Yeah, he was just a really nice bloke.
**Adam:** A dangerous power sometimes.
**Lee:** Yes, yes.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I drunkenly rambled at him about 10 o'clock on the Friday night, but he was he was very friendly and still said hello to me on the Saturday, so I couldn't have said anything too dot.
**Adam:** I did ask him for a job, but you know.
**Lee:** I was there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, so the film festival went great on the Friday when we were there, so we were there for Video Shop Tales of Terror 2 and Evil Dead 2.
**Adam:** We because obviously we're in myself and Lee are in Video Shop Tales of Terror 2 Last and Revenge. Not just in it. In it in a very fun way. But we're we're we're in it and so there was no way on earth we weren't going to another film festival that a film that we were in was showing, so and we wanted to get the opportunity because who knows when it will be out on general release, who knows when, I mean, I'm hoping that there will be an equally wonderful little Blu-ray set. Yeah, me too. as there was for the first one.
**Lee:** Yeah, me too.
**Adam:** And, yeah, it was.
**Adam:** We also, what was it we saw? I can't remember what we watched in the afternoon. We went into that one that was it looked like it was a couple of shows put together as one thing as like a promo or a pilot, didn't it?
**Lee:** Yes, yes. So it was the ghost hunting. That was it, yes. Yeah, sort of Most Haunted type thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was it was it was quite good. I quite enjoyed it.
**Adam:** It was it was watchable, it was, but equally, you know, amusing in its own terms and amusing to watch in places, but it was sort of, yeah, just exactly what that sort of show would be, you know, just a daft afternoon of we went to Rectory.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and asked various people their theories and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** So yeah, funnily enough, I've been watching Strange But True repeated.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** with Michael and it's sort of very much in a similar vein of, you know, people being interviewed about appearances and stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, so so we had a great day on the Friday, so much so that on the Saturday, there was a film on that I really wanted to see.
**Lee:** It was a short, but the atmosphere there was so good, Lady Jennifer and myself went back again just to see the short. Yeah, and hang out at the bar and chat to people and stuff.
**Lee:** So we went back for The Domestication of Vampires in Essex.
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** which is a new film, it's a first film by director Angie Darling Baby who Adam and I met on set with at, oh, when we were doing video shop. Video shop, yeah.
**Lee:** And she was telling us all about it and it sounded fantastic, so when we saw it was showing at the film festival, I was like, I'm going to go back the next night and watch it.
**Lee:** Oh, and I'm so glad I did, it was fucking marvellous.
**Chris:** Cool.
**Lee:** It was really, really good.
**Chris:** There is a bit of a funny title.
**Lee:** Yes, but once you see it, it makes sense.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** But it's one of those again, I don't I don't want to give any of it away because the way it unfolds is really good.
**Lee:** It was full on laugh out loud funny.
**Lee:** Everybody in there.
**Adam:** How how long are we talking in terms?
**Lee:** I think it's about 20 minutes.
**Chris:** Nice.
**Adam:** That's good.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it's a it's a nice contained story. I say really funny. The gore was excellent.
**Lee:** The crew working on it, it was the same, it was Jason Jaylow who did all the special effects on it.
**Lee:** So that's.
**Adam:** Oh, right, yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, so that gives you an idea of the gore you're going to be getting.
**Lee:** But yeah, and it was just it was just a really good fun time. It was really well received on the day as well, so yeah, I think.
**Adam:** Oh, cool. Cause because like you say, we we we met her at the filming the other one and it was literally she was just discussing what this was going to be. And yeah, I don't want to give the game away. I have not, I have not seen it, but I don't want to give the game away because the way it was told, it was like that sounds brilliant, but again, I'm respecting people's opportunity to walk in without, you know, knowing what they're getting what they're coming in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, but I mean and for a first for a first short it was fantastic.
**Lee:** How they managed to get the location there, because it's it's it's pretty much a single location shot. Yeah, and it just looked excellent and she had a really good cast as well. Everyone was you'll see a few faces who you will recognise pop up unsurprisingly enough.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, and it was just it was well worth the trip all the way into Romford again for another day just to catch that 20 minutes. It was fantastic.
**Lee:** And even so they made cocktails for the specific cocktails for the weekend, and The Domestication of Vampires had its own cocktail that they did, so.
**Chris:** That's a nice touch.
**Lee:** So I had to have one of those.
**Adam:** Did they have the chili sauce on sale by then?
**Lee:** I never saw the chili sauce.
**Chris:** I never saw the chili sauce.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I think I missed out on that unfortunately, but.
**Lee:** But yeah, so keep an eye out for The Domestication of Vampires in Essex. When it gets a release, we will give you a shout and let you know. Yeah, and I would recommend everybody get out and watch it because it's an absolute blast.
**Lee:** So on to this evening's main feature.
**Lee:** So Chris, you saw this before, didn't you?
**Chris:** I did. Yeah, in fact, it was very nearly a year ago. It was for we've been watching, I think it was around October last year. It might have been for the, in fact, it might have been for the Halloween one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cause cause obviously this this was the first time one for me. I assumed you might have seen it when it came out. Chris, did you see it at the time it came out Lee, when was that?
**Lee:** 2010.
**Adam:** 2010.
**Lee:** 2010, yeah, I I've seen this probably five or six times now, I think.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Chris:** So I was a bit worried because I thought it wasn't that long ago that that I watched it. Is it going to is it going to be as good second time? It might be one of those that it gets better for at least the next 10 or 20 times, I reckon.
**Chris:** Cuz yeah, like because you think a comedy like that is like you sort of remember some of the jokes and like, yeah, they're funny, but is that, you know, is it just going to be the same jokes seen them again, but actually, there's a lot more going on in this that really gives it depth that you might not always remember clearly.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's true.
**Adam:** As as it struck me, unlike a lot of cause it was funny, but I can't but it wasn't it wasn't lines.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Chris:** A couple, couple of times, but that wasn't its main.
**Adam:** Yeah, I don't feel it's got lines that have stuck in my head or particularly, but it is just that characterisation.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like Tucker and and it encompasses everything because it's conversational, it's it's physical and everything else like that.
**Adam:** So it is funny, but it wasn't it was when I was going, I didn't think there was like a line that I particularly caught, it was just, I mean, to the point of the lovely situation that the police cruisers comes around just at the point.
**Adam:** that they're dragging a half chicken boy.
**Chris:** And and it's the way they're trying to explain and it's like Yes. that could so not work because it's like, well that is so obvious what they're saying.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** But because you know them by then, you're like, yeah, they would they're just honest and they're just say it and they don't know how to not be that.
**Lee:** I think you're right. I think the I think the comedy is in the delivery rather than in the lines.
**Lee:** It's the way that Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine give that give those characters life that makes it so funny.
**Chris:** Really does.
**Adam:** It was much more that. That was the thing is I got it. It was just their sort of back and forth. It was really really great.
**Chris:** And and even the situations as well, like where they've got the the post inside and it's like, oh watch out for that. And of course, then later on, they play it again and you're like, oh yeah, watch out. But then when it actually hits, it's like that's awful, but also funny because it's been set up to be that's going to go wrong at some point.
**Adam:** Can I say, thank you for saying that, Chris, because I just have remembered a line from it that got me.
**Adam:** Which was distinctly, "No, no, no, he's walking it off."
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** that sort of.
**Chris:** But it's almost lost in the entire entire situation.
**Adam:** No, no, no, the situation isn't getting this bad. You know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's looking all right. Yeah, you know, just that sort of vain hope of like, he'll be fine. He'll be fine. Oh, no, no.
**Adam:** I got.
**Lee:** The watching it back this time, the line I kept getting actually was a line that Claire used for something else, when she said it was slapstick, but it wasn't stupid.
**Lee:** That's what I got from, like it is very slapstick, the timing of everything.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But it just it plays brilliantly. It doesn't feel like stupid humour.
**Lee:** It's just, yeah, it's just everything always happens at the worst possible.
**Chris:** Just goes wrong.
**Adam:** Everyone's right to a heightened extent.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's not basically, if you presented this as a drama, people would not believe you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's like what you you know, if it was just sort of like what a series of accidents and it still just keeps.
**Chris:** Well and that's it. Yeah, if you if you if you sort of hear that as the idea, I think when I first started watching it, I sort of just thought are they going to be able to do this for the whole film?
**Chris:** But then you realise as it goes on that they do that it sort of twists around and the story develops and it's like they can keep doing that because there's a lot more to learn even or even right up to the end.
**Adam:** I think I think it's up until the point that Tucker gets captured. I think up until that point, they maintain that.
**Adam:** And that's the point they have to switch it a bit to yeah to actually have because because by that point you could not just then knock off eight people genuinely without knowing that it was happening or or that there was something really weird going on.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They've already got to the point where this is weird, you know, when when a man's impaled and someone's in a wood chipper, at that point you would start asking questions.
**Adam:** And you would start hopefully trying to take precautions, which they they do, you know, they're not they're well meaning in sort of every sense.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the one and I'm I don't know, because I didn't because I was going into it, like first time. I didn't do my usual sort of like go through on sort of the making of and things like that.
**Adam:** So I don't know if any of this is true, but the one thing I also felt was is that there's an interesting way that they switch it's like a warmth in the screen.
**Adam:** And whenever it's the bits which involve the college kids, which is what I'm going to call them. So it's sort of like I'm pretty sure, and who knows? I might have watched this in a in a less than sober state. And I might have imagined this. You know, it's storytelling and stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** college kids.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I am convinced that they had like almost like a blue filter.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then a warmer like sort of filter whenever it was Tucker and Dale without the interactions going on, when it was just them, it was actually quite sunny and sweet.
**Chris:** Well and and and the way they are with each other is also that they're just so so.
**Adam:** Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure that's I'm sure that it's cinematically they are doing that.
**Chris:** Yeah, it would make sense.
**Adam:** It does make sense.
**Chris:** It's well polished. It's it's a good great production.
**Chris:** I mean, I don't know what the budget was, but but it it has that idea. It feels a bit independent in, you know, it's not like a it's no near a Triple A, like but yeah, it still seems excellently produced. Like the effects fantastic.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, not only that but also just to be able to do that sort of level of gore because the gore's accurate, you know, and the gore hurts. It doesn't look.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** You know, it's not sort of flippant in that sense.
**Adam:** And the gore, I mean the guy getting impaled on the tree.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And and just the beauty of that, that because normally in a horror film, it's not the monster that finds it when Dale stumbles across it. And it's just that proper, you know, it's just a absolutely real reaction, how you would be because. No, he isn't the stalker, he isn't the slasher or whatever like that. So when he stumbles across it, he's even more so than the friends stumbling across it. Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like just around them. What the fuck.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just this is just one of those films that, you know, one of those ones that you can put on no matter what you're in the mood for and it always works.
**Chris:** It's just got.
**Lee:** It's a great late night.
**Lee:** But I think that's why, as you were saying, Chris, I always remember the first half of this film, so the last half of the twist, I always forget, I think because I normally put it on around midnight and fall asleep after about an hour.
**Chris:** Right.
**Lee:** and miss the end. So every time I go, oh yeah, that's it back.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cause that was that was the thing as well is because I kind of it was weird that they sort of like the Chad character is up until the sort of point that that isn't what the case is. It just felt more that I thought while I was watching something was like, actually, yeah, no, he's just a dick.
**Adam:** Rather rather than sort of then putting in the actual sort of cliché from a slasher film of, well, my parents were killed, my mother was captured by hillbillies, etc, etc.
**Adam:** And but I actually just thought, yeah, just a privileged preppy American prick probably would just be like that.
**Adam:** And from the bit where he's talking to Alison right near the start about just sort of like, yeah, but, you know, we're better people. You know, we are better people. It's like, oh, you're a fucking shit house mate. And the lovely turnaround of him becoming the villain or essentially becoming the villain and on the reflective side, he's actually the hero of the film he's in.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely. He really cannot see it any other way.
**Adam:** And it's and it's actually a lovely thing to see that there's a because it's it's almost like, right, here's the guy who wins in a traditional slasher film. He's a prick. He doesn't care about hurting people, blah, blah, blah.
**Adam:** And then on the other side of it, you've got Tucker and Dale, who are so fucking nice and normal, but not even normal because they are just I know that it's a phrase that gets thrown around like toxic masculinity. And they are not it.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** You know, they are just two mates who look out for each other and support each other and okay, one of them, you know, one of them's smarter than the other, but only in certain ways.
**Chris:** Yeah, that is interesting as well.
**Chris:** Yeah, how they both see him as the smart one and yet it's like, yeah, not quite, not quite.
**Adam:** You know, he's he's more capable for but that's literally the only thing.
**Adam:** You know, it's he's just slightly more capable, but they are just very lovely emotionally in touch people.
**Adam:** And actually, I was quite and normally I wouldn't be a sucker for a romance or things like that, but I was very worried. I was like, well, don't kill off Ally because he's been done this sort of way. Although I do think Ally was a bit of a nothing role because I don't think she got to be as funny as Tucker and Dale.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and it's sort of it's would have it would have suited it. But I think, yeah, it's just it was just really nice that it was this sort of thing of no, the two bumbling lovely people are, you know, there your heroes.
**Adam:** You know, well, heroes amidst a series of terrible coincidences, but just, you know.
**Adam:** Because because let's face it, you watch this from the outside. Apparently, I think there's a version of it because I I got it on I got it on a German Blu-ray.
**Adam:** So I couldn't find it available physically, I don't think there's a I don't think there's a Blu-ray certainly.
**Adam:** But apparently, I think the I think there's like on one of the I don't think it's on this one, and I can't, I don't know, because it's in German, so I don't know the menu screen. But it didn't seem to have any particular extras or anything, but apparently one of the releases you can watch it edited as the college kids slasher film.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Chris:** That's funny.
**Adam:** So you can sort of which which I'm assuming works up to a point until, you know, they must come the point where Chad just out and out becomes the villain, yeah, to the circular saw.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's got to be quite a short.
**Adam:** Which is oddly wonderful to see something so like that cliché, of of all the others that they sort of pick into and sort of like, you know, the college kids are very much the usual bunch of pricks that they send in into the woods and you don't mind that evil people are killing them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then, so it's so immediately you're on Tucker and Dale side because they're not even killing them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They're just sweet and sort of, you know, and, yeah, it sort of just, I don't know.
**Chris:** And who is it who plays who is it who plays Chad, because he he does a great job.
**Chris:** He really does play the whole range needed for this.
**Adam:** He does so well done.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Chris:** All the way through. Like you hate him when he's meant to be the nice one, obviously, like, you know, then you hate him when he's evil as well and it's like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Jesse Moss, the actor. He's I tell you he reminded me of.
**Chris:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** It reminded me of, you remember the Friday the 13th remake, the guy who owns the the cabin in that one, who's who's playing a very straight role of effectively the same character. Everyone's his friend because he's rich and stuff, but everyone really knows he's an asshole and no one really likes him.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But he is he is the coolest, richest person, so everyone kind of puts up with his.
**Adam:** They have to they suck up to him because he is power.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly. He is the influence of the thing.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's sort of oh and that was where I was kind of like, I was just going, yep, yep, no, he would be a prick.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I didn't need his, I didn't need his parents killed like that. I think actually just him just nebulously wandering in from a tennis cult, you know, to to be an asshole.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** And I mean and everybody's good in this, considering the only person who I knew in this going in obviously was Alan Tudyk.
**Chris:** Yeah, I knew from Firefly. I totally did not realise he was in Firefly. That must have been the first ever saw him. No, no, I know. But yeah, I've never seen I've never seen Firefly. I'm going to have to watch it again. I highly recommend it. It is one of the best sci-fi. But I but weirdly enough, he was the only name I recognised because he's the voice of the Stroppy Robot in Rogue One.
**Lee:** They told me Firefly.
**Lee:** I'm going to have to watch it again.
**Lee:** He's also if you haven't seen it, he's in a show called Resident Alien, which is absolutely incredible.
**Chris:** I don't think I heard of that.
**Lee:** So a quick setup, basically an alien lands, he has to take over someone's identity. So he finds this empty cabin, so he goes into it and assumes the appearance and life of the person who lives in it, who is a pathologist, but it's like he's, you know, like his summer home type thing, so he doesn't have to go to work or anything.
**Lee:** But then someone kills the town's pathologist, so the police come to get him to come and do the job until they can find one, but he's an alien, so he only knows what he's seen on TV and things he's found around the cabin.
**Lee:** And it is absolutely brilliant.
**Chris:** This this pretty new, isn't it? It only came out.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's only a few.
**Lee:** Year.
**Chris:** Yeah, because I saw the trailer for it. I thought it did look good.
**Lee:** Oh, it is, it's really, really amazing.
**Adam:** We'll pause here as we check the internet.
**Lee:** 2021 it came out, so yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** It is new, but yeah, and he's he's he's excellent in it.
**Lee:** playing someone completely out of his depth and just trying to wing it all the time, because he's got no idea what's going on.
**Chris:** It's a bit like bit like this role. His character.
**Chris:** He's he's definitely got more confidence, which helps him a lot, but not always.
**Adam:** Also, the other regret that I have about not having looked, you know, done done the usual sort of like looking into it is because I lit like I said, I didn't know anyone on the cast list.
**Adam:** But I want to know if the dogs done other films.
**Lee:** That dog was kind of cute.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's slobbery.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And this was just one that sort of I sort of a very late sort of thing that is one thing I did do was oh I'll I'll just check what the director's done, like other films he's done. Didn't recognise any of them, but he has got a film coming out that I kept seeing adverts for.
**Adam:** So it was weird to I was like, oh well I can check out Tucker and Dale and see and I'm much more enthusiastic about the film because it had the it's got a really unpromising title, which is Clown in a Cornfield. But now I've seen Tucker and Dale, I'm like, no, I want to see. He could he could manage to make a good film with that title. Yeah. But based on a book apparently, I'm not so I don't know, yeah.
**Chris:** He could he could manage to make a good film with that title.
**Adam:** I don't know much more than that.
**Lee:** Oh, cool. That sounds good. Yeah. I say I'd be very keen to see anything else he's done really.
**Lee:** Because yeah, this just as you say, it was one that it came out. I must have heard it reviewed somewhere sort of pre-release and was waiting for it. So as soon as it came out, I was I was, you know, as soon as the DVD was out, I was on it. But yeah, it's not it's not very well known. I wouldn't have considering how good it is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Funnily enough, I was talking to my brother on Friday and unprompted, he said, oh, I rewatched Tucker & Dale vs Evil the other week. That's such a good film. And I was like, oh, we just we're covering that tomorrow.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** And the one the one other thing that I did see before I was like, cuz I can't leave it. It was like a scab. I'm going to pick the scab on, but I still had to sort of just gently poke at the membrane of the internet of like, what else has Tucker and Dale got going on? there is a Japanese remake.
**Adam:** called Handsome Boys or Handsome Men or something.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, I'm I'm intrigued.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Especially because it it's it's such a turnaround because it's usually Americans taking like Asian horror and remaking them. So I'd like to see, you know, whether whether they sort of whether they keep how much they keep to this or whether it's just a thread or what.
**Adam:** But yeah, could be worth could be worth it's quite recent as well, I think it's like a couple of years ago.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm definitely going to track that down. That sounds great.
**Lee:** How soon mixed with this, I mean. Yeah, that was the one that was the one thing we missed at Romford as if they hadn't had Howl at 10 o'clock in the morning, I'd have been in for that even though we'd done it the week before.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was the one that was the one thing we missed at Romford as if they hadn't had Howl at 10 o'clock in the morning, I'd have been in for that even though we'd done it the week before.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** I was trying to think what other films it it's closest to.
**Chris:** Because the humour, you know, you might think of like Scary Movie type films where it's full on satirical but slapstick, but they are more silly.
**Chris:** Whereas this treads the balance, you know, fantastically between film.

---

## Ep 219 Longlegs

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-219-longlegs/
Air date: 14 March 2025
Duration: 00:58:27
Film: Longlegs · Year: 2024 · Director: Oz Perkins

### Description

It’s time to dig out your 70s glam hits and make weird proclamations in your best falsetto as we try on Osgood Perkin’s “Longlegs”. A film in which T.Rex are finally released from the tyranny of “Billy Elliot”; the devil is in the details (usually the corner) and nothing says happy Birthday like a shrieking man putting his balls into your head. Riffing on the 90s idea of the serial killer film - a police procedural dressed up as a horror film - Longlegs takes a horror film and dresses it up a a police procedural, to incredible effect. With a tantalising mythology of its own, which seems to be akin to that in Perkin’s earlier “The Blackcoat’s Daughter”, plus a cast all bringing their A game, this moody and chilling thriller rightly did excellent work at the box office. This success also came through an extremely well-designed promo campaign, and word of mouth that reached far beyond the horror community, meaning this deliberately weird and uncomfortable film is practically mainstream, without any apparent concession to get there. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And as promised, we are here this evening to discuss 2024's Longlegs.
**Lee:** there will be swearing, there will be spoilers, there will be confusion.
**Adam:** There will be possible controversy, but we shall see.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** Chris, as this is your first viewing of the film today, what do you make of Longlegs?
**Chris:** Yeah, well, you mentioned confusion there, preamble.
**Chris:** There's a slight, I mean,
**Chris:** sometimes when we watch these films, I think, am I getting thicker?
**Chris:** It's quite possible I am, so that would be an explanation.
**Chris:** and I'd take that one.
**Chris:** However, like,
**Chris:** you know, you follow it all the way through.
**Chris:** and we got to try not to spoil.
**Chris:** But
**Lee:** Now, it's fine.
**Lee:** I think at this point we can say
**Adam:** We'll spoil away on this one, it's not going to
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Anyone who hasn't seen it, stop now, go and watch it.
**Lee:** I am 100% convinced it's going to be a recommend from all of us.
**Lee:** so definitely go and watch it and then return.
**Lee:** to spoil away, Chris, you're good to go.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Oh, we're it's a big enough film, we're not going to get Nicholas Cage is gonna send us the link and then moan.
**Chris:** You just pre-spoiled my spoiler that I didn't even know Nicholas Cage was in this and I was like
**Adam:** That's that's kind of fun. Wow, that's a
**Lee:** shot in the fucking dark if you don't see that one coming.
**Chris:** It might have even taken me a little while to realize it was him.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because
**Adam:** like Samuel L. Jackson.
**Chris:** well, yeah.
**Adam:** I I prefer to think of him as a sort of albino version of Tiny Tim.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Tim, through the tulips.
**Chris:** But
**Chris:** but wait, is he actually albino or
**Adam:** He's wearing porcelain style makeup. Yeah.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Let's face it, Chris, who the fuck knows?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Nobody involved in this film, I'm sure.
**Lee:** But it doesn't suffer for it, if you're honest.
**Chris:** So, other things I've learned, spoilers, check people's IDs when they come into psychiatric hospitals.
**Chris:** sounds like a good idea that.
**Adam:** I'm glad.
**Adam:** I'm glad you've mentioned that because there's so
**Adam:** although there's quite a big, there's a there's quite a big cast list, but actually of intergal speaking roles, there's not actually that many key figures in the film.
**Adam:** But that guy who's like the head of the psychiatric hospital, Oh, he's fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, that that guy's in there for one scene and he's perfect.
**Adam:** I fucking love that bit.
**Adam:** When he's just so sort of vague and a bit so
**Adam:** and sort of camp and
**Chris:** Oh, I wasn't here that day, but let's have a look in the logs.
**Chris:** Oh, look, it was you that came here.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Yeah, so like, so there must be quite a bit more going on with this.
**Chris:** No, I,
**Chris:** so the other thing I had no idea about was that it looks like it's based on possibly a real world or it seems like it's taken from real world serial killers in parts.
**Adam:** It takes a bit, mostly it takes a bit from Zodiac, and the Zodiac killer is still unsolved, they've still not
**Adam:** but the main thing that came from the Zodiac killer was that he would
**Adam:** send cryptic puzzles to the to the police and to newspapers.
**Adam:** And interestingly enough, they even have the thing in this that he's got like poor grammar and spelling.
**Adam:** Because that was what happened with Zodiac is actually the reason that some of the I think only one of like one of them only got solved about three years ago or something like that.
**Adam:** even though the case was sort of 70s.
**Adam:** But because this guy was being really clever and writing all these cryptic messages
**Adam:** and you'd have to find the cipher and you can decipher it.
**Adam:** it's like, yeah, it's a lot easier to decipher if you can spell correctly.
**Adam:** if you're a passer.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And it's similarly, so they even include that in there.
**Adam:** So I think Zodiac's definitely in there.
**Adam:** There's an element of like BTK where it's like wiping out a whole family.
**Adam:** and they mention like cult behavior because of like Manson and stuff like that.
**Adam:** because obviously the the mystery is, well how is he doing this without actually being there?
**Chris:** Doing it himself. Yeah.
**Chris:** Which that is still a mystery to me in a sense.
**Chris:** Because there's the obvious answer, but that doesn't quite seem enough.
**Chris:** Because why would it have continued?
**Adam:** Well, I I think the thing is is that certainly, and the thing that I I really enjoyed about this film was having loved, I mean, obviously Silence of the Lambs is a real big
**Chris:** Right. thing on it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, and Seven. I thought it was going to get
**Chris:** as dark as that, but with
**Chris:** more children. I was like, this is going to be awful.
**Chris:** Like, this is going to be so hard to watch and it didn't go there.
**Chris:** It was a lot more mainly focused on her journey.
**Adam:** Well, because fortunately, it then it takes the it takes the turn because you because those films as like when we discussed seven as we said, it's like
**Adam:** it's a police procedural dressed up as a horror film.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** But yeah, it's pretty full on.
**Adam:** It's a horror film dressed as a police procedural.
**Adam:** So it tricks you into that feeling that you're in a sort of Silence of the Lambs Seven sort of.
**Adam:** And then the rug pull is and and you've got like Agent Carter spends the whole time saying, oh, it's not voodoo, it's not all this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Even though, even though he does seem to be quite pleased that she's kind of psychic.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like, you can't you can't have it both ways, Agent Carter, I don't think you can be like that sort of dismissive of, you know,
**Adam:** if you're going to be, well, maybe she's a psychic, that's how she can find people.
**Adam:** But equally, you can't then just go, no, that's absolutely crap. There's there's got to be a reality to it.
**Adam:** Whereas actually the turnaround on it is that it's this is, you know, this is genuinely a cult.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We've asked that they're trying to fucking investigate like a straightforward murder.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** Which in in many ways kind of is
**Adam:** there's elements of that with Zodiac. I'm not for one moment suggesting that the Zodiac crimes were in any way supernatural or
**Chris:** But it does make you feel
**Adam:** But they they developed that sort of notoriety and
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** aura around them.
**Adam:** And especially because he's not been he was never captured.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** He was never found.
**Adam:** So, and there's sort of like, like there were reports
**Adam:** where he would tell like one of the letters that he wrote was saying that he was like
**Adam:** identifying stuff that was taking place at the crime scene when they were investigating.
**Adam:** So they were like, well, he was obviously there when that took place.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So why didn't we find him?
**Adam:** Why didn't we spot him?
**Adam:** And so you get these sort of weird, you know, it then mythologizes.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's hard. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and goes like that.
**Adam:** And I think it's kind of like that almost plays into that side of it.
**Adam:** But this is without a shadow of a doubt.
**Adam:** supernatural.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Voodoo bullshit to quote the thing.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** So that's why, so he's yeah, so he's convinced her mum to be involved and she is fully involved now.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like pretty much on board with it as in it needs to play out no matter what.
**Adam:** Yeah and it's it's sort of feels a bit like what's it like Stockholm Syndrome thing almost?
**Chris:** Yes, right. Yeah.
**Adam:** And and but also as you watch it, you realize that Harker, like Lee might be in because obviously
**Chris:** Well, that's so yeah, I thought it would be her doing it.
**Adam:** Yeah, oh, I see. Yeah.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** So I thought she was going to be way more involved than she realized she was, but yeah, go on.
**Adam:** But I think because because she sort of certainly initially with the first sort of like time you watch it,
**Adam:** she comes across that you think, oh, is she like
**Adam:** maybe like on the spectrum in that she's sort of like, you know,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** she doesn't have sort of social skills, interpersonal skills and things like that.
**Adam:** But she's obviously brilliant at what she does and, you know,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then you sort of relate that back to the fact that Longlegs has apparently been living in the basement since she was a kid.
**Adam:** And it's like, oh, is this trauma response?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Or is this mind control?
**Lee:** See that's what I got. I thought the whole way through I was like, she's clearly got some form of PTSD.
**Lee:** So something has happened somewhere.
**Lee:** But yeah, I didn't realize that it was going to turn out that she was as integral in the investigation she's been brought into look at as she ended up being.
**Adam:** And because the curious thing is as well, because I it was only watching it this time around that I suddenly sort of thought of it is because obviously the whole what the the mechanics of it that I can see are
**Adam:** Longlegs builds a doll that is the image of a child who's born on the 14th, yeah, the Ruth takes it round or before Ruth, presumably just Longlegs takes it round and here's a present.
**Adam:** They take it in, it's filled with.
**Chris:** Wasn't she the first one?
**Adam:** No, I don't think she is because they actually back it dates back to the 60s, I think they say in the
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because this is because it's set in 95.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** and otherwise that'd be really weird to have Bill Clinton on your wall, wouldn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He just be like, yeah, no, I just think I just thought he was a good saxophonist, okay?
**Adam:** You know, what's your problem?
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** yeah, and so I think the so like Longlegs basically builds the the builds the the doll.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The sphere contains his demonic energy or possibly some form of capturing the soul of the Because the golden orb is like, that's a old ancient
**Adam:** artifacts like for sort of like trapping of souls and things like that in certain mythologies and stuff.
**Adam:** And so presumably the doll turns up, the doll essentially replaces the child in the father's eyes.
**Adam:** And that's why the fathers are all like, that's not my daughter, like when you hear the 911 call from one of them and it's like, that's not my daughter.
**Adam:** So they don't recognize the actual real child anymore.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The mother attempts to defend, the mother gets killed and then the child gets killed.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** I wondered, is the reason that Longlegs sort of interesting enough, Cuckoos his way into the Harker house,
**Adam:** is because there wasn't a father.
**Chris:** Right.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** There wasn't anyone to to perpetrate the the plan, you know, to effect in that sense.
**Adam:** So, I don't know if that's like, you know, that's why Longlegs could would infiltrated their home.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And sort of became part of that, he essentially becomes the father.
**Adam:** And yeah, very it's yeah, some very
**Chris:** Yeah, well, interspersed with the the the singing and some somewhat different styles.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And you're trying to work out what does any of that mean anything particularly or is it just a sign of his being essentially somewhat insane, I suppose?
**Lee:** So is it part of an actual ritual or is it just a serial killer's
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** personality coming out.
**Chris:** Yeah. the words are actually him saying actual words sometimes about either what's happened or
**Chris:** cause that's what he says to yeah.
**Lee:** So that's what he says Lee's mum.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm going to come back as many times I want.
**Lee:** But we never see the deciphered letters, which is interesting.
**Lee:** So you never find out what the coded letters actually say apart from the one the one that she decodes which is her birthday card.
**Chris:** Yeah. yeah.
**Lee:** And the first line of the other card, but again, we don't see her open it and decipher the rest of what's in it.
**Adam:** Well, there's some really helpfully, there is, well, for a start, there's a website.
**Adam:** which is, I want to get the right,
**Adam:** the right thing for it. Yeah, there's a website called
**Adam:** the birthday murders.net.
**Adam:** And it's an in universe website that they built for the film and it was actually put up before the film came out.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And it is it's fucking beautiful because it's set in 1995.
**Adam:** It looks like a fucking Geo City's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like, you know, it's that it just looks absolutely perfect for when the Internet was text based and so you've got the you've got murder pictures on there.
**Adam:** And the best thing about it is it includes murders that they don't include in the film.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Because it's like people have got some murders wrong.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** They've mixed it in because they're just other unsolved murders.
**Adam:** So they've put those in there, but interestingly enough, the camera family aren't on the website because the camera family doesn't follow the pattern because the girl survived.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So the people who are doing the birthday murders haven't put two and two to like made this website, haven't been able to put two and two together that that's actually what happened.
**Lee:** Genius.
**Adam:** And it's so cool but on there, they've got the they've got sort of like they've they give you like some of the translations of some of the cryptic messages and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** And so there's stuff from the Book of Revelation, like on the sands of the sea and things like that, which is in the birthday card and stuff.
**Adam:** There's also quotes from a poem called Satan Says, which is a poem by Sharon Olds and it's about a girl who's locked in a cedarwood box by the devil.
**Adam:** and made to say like blasphemies about her parents in order to be released.
**Chris:** But he doesn't
**Adam:** But he doesn't release her.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** And that's He's a bit of a devil, that one.
**Lee:** Yeah, he is.
**Adam:** He's a cheeky he's a cheeky fella.
**Lee:** He's a cheeky.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so but there I've been watching
**Adam:** and to to the point of there's a I will I will say that there is a video on YouTube
**Adam:** by someone called Mr. Hunteru, that's MR HUNTERU.
**Adam:** And it's called Longlegs, The Birthday Murders ARG, the terrifying marketing explained.
**Adam:** Because and this.
**Adam:** And this is a couple who've put this video up, it's about an hour and 40.
**Adam:** They did the video before the film came out.
**Adam:** They did it from the teaser stuff from the birthday murders website.
**Adam:** The amount of shit they hit right for the film.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Because obviously, you know,
**Adam:** is it's it's impressive.
**Adam:** And like I say, I've never seen
**Adam:** any of this, I've never seen any of these people's other videos, so I don't know, you know, quite
**Adam:** I don't know who they are, but this video looks is pretty fucking amazing.
**Adam:** And genuinely worth having a watch.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and to to be honest, it was just the fact that they was because it was only like what as I was watching it,
**Adam:** it was like, I realized that they would this was a pre this was pre the film coming out.
**Adam:** because it basically ends with their theories of what they think the film will feature.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But actually it's like, holy shit, you're hitting upon stuff.
**Adam:** And it's like from trailers where they're going, oh yeah, you see a golden orb in her hand for a second.
**Adam:** but the golden orb could be there and and you know, making sort of connections about doll makers and evil Jepetto and satanic worship.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They keep mentioning the serpents and obviously that's a thing that keeps appearing as a very like a flash frame thing whenever, you know, there's like nest of vipers essentially, you know.
**Adam:** And no, they've done a incredible job of that.
**Adam:** But the birthday murders like the actual website is just a thing of beauty.
**Adam:** And I didn't realize this, but there was like a whole like the first bit of marketing they did for Longlegs,
**Adam:** is they just put up a billboard and it was just like a a real sort of angular close-up of a bit of Nicholas Cage's face.
**Adam:** and a phone number.
**Adam:** And you found it and it was just a a 30 second recording of like him.
**Adam:** Yeah, nuttering.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** mumbling like a nutter in a room for 30 seconds.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I wonder what he's made of
**Chris:** of this film.
**Chris:** Because he does make some crazy films, but this
**Chris:** I suppose he hasn't has he played a role quite like this?
**Adam:** Well, apparently, he said that this is it.
**Adam:** He's this is the only serial killer he will play.
**Adam:** because I think he's been asked to do it.
**Chris:** Because he's played crazy people go around doing bad stuff, but yeah, this is definitely a little bit.
**Lee:** This is perfect casting, isn't it? We've said it before with Nicholas Cage, when you get him in the wrong role, it's awful.
**Lee:** but if you put him in the right role, nobody else could have done anywhere near as good a job and this is one of those absolute instances.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** He's just.
**Lee:** It makes you feel unwell watching him. He's so uncomfortable.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and sinister and just raw.
**Adam:** Incredible.
**Adam:** The weirdest thing is as well is that usually when you get some because I I feel that to to be honest, I feel this is quite an iconic film.
**Adam:** An iconic horror film.
**Adam:** I think this is, you know, Oz Perkins is knocking it out the fucking park.
**Adam:** And actually, have you seen the Blackcoat's Daughter or February?
**Adam:** I can't remember.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** very, they link so much to this because
**Adam:** there's all the way through this.
**Adam:** And it's very difficult to spot.
**Adam:** It was only like rewatching it.
**Adam:** And obviously, Chris, you got it for me on Blu-ray, you beautiful, beautiful man.
**Adam:** And so I was able to watch it in.
**Chris:** All the details.
**Adam:** Well,
**Adam:** because a good sort of 10 or 12 times in the film, the devil's in the background. There is a giant beast with fucking horns.
**Lee:** I saw it once.
**Adam:** Looming in the background.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But he's in there quite a few times.
**Adam:** And the the weirdest thing is, the way to watch for it is in the sort of usually it's in wider shots and it's usually when it's Harker on her own.
**Adam:** though he does appear in like Longlegs basement as well and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But usually, if you're watching a scene, if you notice a bit of the if you notice a bit of the background suddenly get lighter, that's because he's disappeared.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** So rather than it appear.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They show you the scene and then slowly a bit of the shadow falls away and you go, hang on, there was something there.
**Adam:** And when you look back at it, and a lot of the time, the only thing you can see is like the sort of McDonald's M of his horns because they're white and the rest of him is just in darkness.
**Adam:** And but it's very but the trouble is is that I'm I'm watching it yesterday like fucking Ghost Watch then.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like he was pipes, I'm just like, was that was that him?
**Adam:** No, no, that was, oh, no, I think that was me.
**Adam:** Like reflected back in the TV or something.
**Lee:** That's the thing with this film, that gives me another reason to go back and rewatch it because although I literally finished watching it about an hour ago,
**Lee:** I feel I could definitely sit down and watch this again tomorrow and enjoy every minute of it just as much.
**Chris:** Yeah, they've clearly put a lot of details in it.
**Lee:** It's so much stuff.
**Chris:** Try to work out, yeah, what references are in there.
**Chris:** I mean, I was wondering a bit about why particularly it was a a religious like, as if you've won something from the church.
**Chris:** I mean, I figured maybe that is just a that's an easy way to convince people particularly in America.
**Lee:** Wouldn't question a nun.
**Adam:** Well, she is the trope, isn't it? A nun, a nurse, ironically, a policeman, you know,
**Adam:** there's sort of like the the type of people that because funnily enough, that's what Zodiac used to do.
**Adam:** is he used to approach cars claiming to be a policeman.
**Chris:** Yeah, right.
**Adam:** And stuff like that and then he just shoot and shoot people in cars and things like that.
**Adam:** So he was just he was statutory policeman that we need to
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, exactly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Progress is made somewhat.
**Adam:** not quite sure.
**Lee:** I we've got to say the casting on this is excellent as well.
**Lee:** I mean, so obviously as we said Nicholas Cage is perfect in his role.
**Lee:** Agent Carter is fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's great.
**Lee:** Lee Harker who I remembered from It Follows was as we say played that kind of PTSD hidden very academic, very focused, just not perfect.
**Lee:** I didn't know Alicia Witt played her mother until just now when I opened up the IMDb for this.
**Adam:** Really?
**Adam:** Because that was the thing is I knew I knew because
**Adam:** I love Alicia Witt, she's fucking amazing.
**Lee:** Yeah, I do.
**Adam:** And she was in like I follow her on Instagram and she was like,
**Adam:** oh I've had my hair cut from Longlegs and it was the first I heard that she was in Longlegs.
**Adam:** And I was like, oh,
**Adam:** probably not that much of a, you know, maybe she's just in it or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Yeah, that turned out to be, it was like, oh, no, this is actually, yeah, a fucking proper role.
**Adam:** I mean, basically
**Adam:** we I was discussing with Claire, is it a good couples' Halloween costume?
**Adam:** You know, you can go Longlegs and and Ruth, you know.
**Lee:** So that's a good call.
**Lee:** but also Kiernan Shipka as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like such a fantastic actor.
**Lee:** Like obviously, really liked her in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
**Lee:** I thought she was really good in that.
**Lee:** but yeah, then to sit and and again, the the film she did before this, which was called I've brought it up and then subsequently minimized it again.
**Lee:** I'll totally killer.
**Lee:** Which was a slasher film, a time travel slasher film where she went back to the '80s.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** And it was a comedy one.
**Lee:** It was excellent and she was so good.
**Lee:** Because obviously she's a little bit funny in Sabrina, but that was full on comedy.
**Lee:** And then to go from that to that's only a very small role in this, but like super dark and serious.
**Adam:** And and she was in The Blackcoat's Daughter as well, who's fucking amazing in that.
**Adam:** So, you know, there's fun with it.
**Adam:** But I mean, Alicia Witt, I don't know if you recognized, do you know Alicia Witt, Chris? Because
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** She is her first film role is she is the little girl in June.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** You know, David Lynch's June, little little
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** A a Leia or Aaliyah. I can't remember.
**Adam:** But, yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** Oh, that's cool.
**Adam:** But she's also.
**Chris:** I'm the only one who likes that that film.
**Adam:** No, you're not the only one who likes that.
**Adam:** It's
**Adam:** But the film I've been trying to track down.
**Adam:** She was in a film called Fun.
**Adam:** Which was like it was like 19 it's like '94 or '95.
**Lee:** He's '94, I can see you.
**Adam:** '94, thank you.
**Adam:** And it's her and another girl and basically they're sort of like they both bunk off school,
**Adam:** like sort of meet up and just sort of like spend the day sort of gradually daring each other to do more and more extreme things like shoplifting and everything.
**Adam:** And by the end of it, they've killed an old woman.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** And it veers between the foot there's footage of her of the two girls being interrogated by the police.
**Adam:** All done in black and white and very documentary style.
**Adam:** And then them reflecting back on the day is all done in color.
**Adam:** and he's really sort of vibrant and vivid and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And it's just an amazing film.
**Chris:** That sounds like it would work really well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And she's.
**Adam:** And she's and she's in my favorite John Waters film, she's in Cecil B Demented.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and and she's done her sister in Twin Peaks and actually came back for the return series in 2017.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think that's why I didn't recognize her because I remember her from like
**Lee:** Four Rooms and Urban Legend, like and and Cecil B Demented.
**Lee:** So that '90s early 2000s stuff, and I haven't really seen it a lot of her since.
**Lee:** So yeah, I haven't seen her in 20 odd years, so it's hardly surprising I didn't recognize her.
**Adam:** Well, I only I only watched it follows this week.
**Adam:** First time.
**Chris:** Because
**Adam:** we were doing this.
**Adam:** So I've got a real appreciation of Maika Monroe now as well.
**Adam:** didn't I don't know if you're aware that she was she's also a professional kite boarder.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Apparently that's what she was doing before like she went into acting.
**Adam:** She had her own she had her own clothing line as well in it, apparently as well.
**Lee:** Oh wow, that's old.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** and Agent Carter, it's that actor Blair Underwood is fucking great.
**Adam:** I mean, he's brilliant in that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** in this, I think he is just because he's the one he's the one bit you he's the one funny bit in it that isn't you're laughing uncomfortably.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, he's actually genuinely funny.
**Adam:** And apart from that the turn at the end, when it's like when they go to the party.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he's been affected by the doll.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's that is that whole sequence plays out so horrifilly.
**Adam:** where the family have just become so twisted and altered by the the influence of the doll.
**Adam:** But the most shocking thing was is because I was like, Blair Underwood, he was in LA Law.
**Adam:** That's how I fucking knew him.
**Adam:** because LA Law used to my folks watched LA Law for years.
**Adam:** And so it was in.
**Adam:** I just said,
**Adam:** that man is 60.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Bloody hell.
**Adam:** Because I was like, hang on, he was in LA Law, that was like fucking '80s and he wasn't kidding it.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It was like, it wasn't like, oh, Alicia Witt's in Twin Peaks, but yeah, when when she was in Twin Peaks, she was like eight or whatever.
**Adam:** You know, this was like, hang on, so he must.
**Adam:** And yeah, no, he's 60.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Fuck you.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Fuck hell.
**Adam:** But respect is due.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But obviously, this, so is this the second Ozgood Perkins film we've done?
**Adam:** Because we did Gretel and Hansel, didn't we?
**Lee:** Yes, we did.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** So I think maybe at some point, if if only just so Chris can see it, we need to do Blackcoat's Daughter.
**Adam:** Because I genuinely.
**Adam:** If people haven't seen that who've seen Longlegs, I think the two marry quite well in that.
**Adam:** I think he has his very specific internal mythology for satanic sort of like this this area of satanic or like satanism as it is.
**Adam:** Because that's something I've really enjoyed with it is that it's not I mean, I I love
**Adam:** say for example, like hereditary, I loved like looking up all about Paimon and stuff like that and seeing how much they're actually bringing in.
**Adam:** Or or indeed like a dark song where it was the Abram ritual and you know, and the factual sort of basis of all this stuff.
**Adam:** What I really like with Longlegs is we're sitting here trying to pick apart fucking mythology that probably only really exists in Oz Perkins' head.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that is brilliant.
**Lee:** And that's what I love about it.
**Lee:** It gives you it so the fact that at the end you see it actually happening.
**Lee:** I yeah, I don't need to know anymore than that.
**Lee:** I I think this film, although it still leaves so many questions, it gives me enough to thoroughly enjoy it and be and not go,
**Lee:** I didn't understand any of that, that was pointless. It gives you just enough. It still feels mysterious.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, you can fully appreciate.
**Lee:** It still feels like you don't know everything and you want to, but it just isn't there and I love that. It's such a
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's almost a bit sort of it's a bit like a sort of it feels like a classic like a bit like an MR James or something like that.
**Adam:** where it's like,
**Adam:** we're not going to reveal everything here.
**Adam:** We're going to give you, we're going to give you enough.
**Chris:** Which they would do in a proper police crime
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Adam:** Well, because
**Adam:** there would be because essentially you've got to
**Adam:** hound the Baskervilles it.
**Adam:** You've got to explain, right, this seems like a supernatural crime.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Really?
**Adam:** How did that come about?
**Adam:** You know?
**Adam:** How did you make it look supernatural?
**Adam:** When it wasn't?
**Adam:** And it's like, oh, no, the reason you can't solve it is because it's fucking supernatural.
**Adam:** It's weird.
**Adam:** It's madness.
**Adam:** And I just, yeah, I just really appreciate that sort of.
**Adam:** And I'm really looking forward to
**Adam:** Oh, fuck, what's his new one, The Monkey?
**Lee:** Oh, yes. Yeah, that trailer for that looked excellent.
**Adam:** Well, and and let me tell you, I can I can imagine why because I thought to myself,
**Adam:** that's come out really fucking quick.
**Adam:** You know, following Longlegs that it's like it's a year later.
**Adam:** Usually, nowadays,
**Adam:** sort of, you know, film turnarounds unless it's something, you know, like a a big franchise or something like that.
**Adam:** That sort of turnaround doesn't usually happen.
**Adam:** However, I did find out that this film made 10 million on the opening day.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And that was greater than the budget.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So this made its fucking money back on day one.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Jesus.
**Adam:** Surely there was no other way.
**Adam:** The other thing that obviously pleases me no end with this is just the fact that Longlegs is a T-Rex fan.
**Adam:** And you've got a quote from T-Rex at the start of it.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** because T-Rex just are an amazing fucking band.
**Adam:** They're probably the apotheosis of pop.
**Adam:** But also, they've got all the weird shit in there.
**Adam:** They've talked, you know, it was all stuff about like Beltaine and Tolkien and sort of references and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So a lot of that, you can see why he would be a fan.
**Adam:** Yeah, he also he's also got a poster up of Transformer Lou Reed's album that David Bowie produced.
**Adam:** Which is just again, it's also got that.
**Adam:** But the main thing I'm really pleased about is it's like, yeah, that's right.
**Adam:** Take it away from fucking Billy Elliot.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't want that to be the cinematic legacy of fucking T-Rex.
**Adam:** Have this, this is fucking good.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** The other thing I would say,
**Adam:** and I this is you know, people need to realize that screaming behind the wheel of your car is not weird. Why do they always put it in films to show that people are having a breakdown?
**Chris:** Oh, that's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah.
**Adam:** It's fucking weekly.
**Adam:** As far as I'm concerned, you know,
**Adam:** I don't know if that sets me out as an outlier,
**Adam:** but no, I've plenty of was driving along.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** I say I think the main takeaway from this film for me,
**Lee:** is the word that kept coming back when everybody said what did you think of it?
**Lee:** I was like, it's sinister.
**Lee:** There's something so sinister about it.
**Lee:** and and oddly enough, yeah, the other film that it does remind me of is Sinister, which is the only other film that's creeped me out to this degree.
**Lee:** But I sort of missed all the all the buildup of this.
**Lee:** and it came out and literally it was just like within a week, I had so many people, even non-horror fans going, oh my God, have you seen your Longlegs yet?
**Lee:** And I was like, no, don't tell me anything.
**Lee:** I'd need to get my hands on it, so don't you know, what or not?
**Lee:** yes, so went in knowing literally nothing.
**Lee:** Like yourself, Chris, I didn't even know Nicholas Cage was in it until it started. and yeah, just utterly blown away by it.
**Lee:** Because you know,
**Lee:** it's like.
**Lee:** As soon as the general populace starts raving about a horror movie, you're like, chances are this is going to be wank.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** If if it's easily accessible, it probably means it's doll down and it's a little bit stupid and
**Adam:** Oh,
**Lee:** it's just.
**Adam:** If I'm honest.
**Adam:** That was that was the level that I got with it was just basically a lot of I saw I heard that there was a film called Longlegs, that I heard there was Nicholas Cage.
**Adam:** That was about it.
**Adam:** and then
**Adam:** and then as you say, I was immediately of the, oh, well, this is going to be a bit shit, I reckon.
**Adam:** then because lo
**Adam:** lo of people had bigged it up.
**Adam:** And then it was just a couple of people who were like basically saying the same thing going, no, no, although loads of people like it is actually good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, which
**Adam:** sounds mental but it is,
**Adam:** you know, we we all know the feeling.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** it's like the same when it's like, you know, it's.
**Adam:** Let's face it, it's it's somehow you I almost find it's the same with Oscar films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's like a film won an Oscar and I'm like, oh, well, I won't worry then.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** then they're like, no, no, no, genuinely, you know, it wasn't just, you know,
**Adam:** it it wasn't just a sort of a political moment or the fact that sort of like
**Adam:** so many people put money into this, it had to it had to win the fucking Oscar.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yes, so so one of the things that really took me, was actually with
**Lee:** the performance by Maika Monroe.
**Lee:** I loved the fact that despite the fact she's a trained FBI agent, every time she takes her gun out,
**Lee:** she suddenly gets really breathless and like anxious and she just portrayed that so well. I was like, it is, it doesn't matter how much training you've had, when you're in that life or death situation,
**Lee:** as much as you would try and breathe as quietly as possible, you just can't.
**Lee:** And I'd be like,
**Lee:** we'd all be the same in that situation and I just thought it's one of those.
**Lee:** You never see it in cop shows.
**Lee:** Whatever, they always pull the gun out and they always seem really, you know, confident.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** And she seemed like it just felt so genuine, it was especially because she kind of.
**Adam:** That initial one, when Fisk just gets his head blown off.
**Adam:** because even though
**Adam:** she has clearly worked out psychically as it turns out the right address.
**Adam:** That still comes as such a jump.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That she's like sort of, you know, it's like right now the training's kicking back in but it's like right now calm, right, get that and yeah.
**Adam:** And especially because she was the one who said should we phone for backup?
**Adam:** But
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah and if you'd phone for backup, you still have the bad your head, mate.
**Lee:** Before she went in the door, I was like phone it in.
**Lee:** phone it in or you pull your gun.
**Lee:** Pull your gun, phone it in, go into the house.
**Lee:** And the same with the letter when she found the card, I was like, right, pick up your gun, back into a corner, call for backup.
**Lee:** Stay there until somebody turns up.
**Lee:** You know, the serial killer has just been in your house.
**Lee:** Don't be like, I'll keep this.
**Chris:** I assumed that was what you'd said that it's a bit of her.
**Chris:** This clearly something's gone a little bit of right with her.
**Chris:** life experience.
**Lee:** See, one one thing I thought that was really good as well, because apparently
**Lee:** the decision was made that they weren't going to market it off of Nicholas Cage as long legs.
**Lee:** So he wasn't really appearing in trailers and stuff like that.
**Lee:** You know, he would just be they'd be real brief flashes and stuff like that.
**Lee:** But obviously there's the bit where
**Lee:** she when she meets him as a child and it's framed so oddly.
**Lee:** Because it's just his body and just
**Lee:** and there was a part of me that was like, but surely even
**Lee:** because I know it was like, oh, well, she's at that height, so she's looking at him like that.
**Lee:** And there was a part of me that was like,
**Lee:** well, surely you'd just look up.
**Lee:** But actually the character never looks anyone in the eye. She doesn't have that skill or ability or anything else like that.
**Lee:** So she doesn't so it's actually so thematically right.
**Lee:** She's just staring at his midriff.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Because she wouldn't notice she wouldn't do that.
**Lee:** Or or what she him in that sort of sense.
**Lee:** And and again, that's just some sort of like sublimely fucking done. Yeah.
**Lee:** Perfection.
**Lee:** And again, it creates that that like I remember when when we watched it the first time
**Lee:** myself and Lady Jennifer.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you get that.
**Lee:** Shot and then literally just him bending down.
**Lee:** Despite the fact it is just a man's face, we both go, it's not what you expect at all.
**Lee:** You think, oh, we're not going to see the face.
**Lee:** Because
**Lee:** it's going to be a mystery about who it is, but when it drops in and you see it for the first time, you go, fucking hell.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** But yeah, so
**Lee:** excellent film.
**Lee:** I can't recommend this enough.
**Lee:** Like Adam said, I think this is definitely a solid I I was watching this thinking, oh, this would be this would go perfect as a double bill with Silence of the Lambs.
**Lee:** But I've got to be honest, I think if I was ever in the mood for this type of film, I don't know if I'd ever pick up Silence of the Lambs again.
**Lee:** I think this would be my go-to.
**Adam:** Well, that's fair enough.
**Adam:** Because because I think that's the thing is the disappointment at the end of Silence of the Lambs is that it is just a man.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** that is that is literally.
**Adam:** It's a crime film, it's an it's an improbable crime film.
**Adam:** Shall we say?
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** it doesn't it doesn't quite reach the heights of Hannibal, which is still for me the perfect Lecter vehicle was the show Hannibal.
**Adam:** But fuck me.
**Adam:** Did you have to make a lot of allowances for what a man can get can do in 24 hours?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and still look fairly alert and well scrubbed the next morning.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** come on, it's there's time management and then there's that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But this, I think, you know, it's.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's a very realistic look to yeah.
**Chris:** His life style.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, so this is a definite recommend.
**Lee:** so to wrap up on Longlegs, we which we are doing now.
**Lee:** but Adam has something else for us, don't you Adam?
**Adam:** I have in my hands a piece of paper.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And I have for you gentlemen, the great Nicholas Cage Quiz.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Hang on, let me close IMDb, so that there is no
**Adam:** Yeah, no cheating.
**Lee:** No cheating.
**Lee:** Not that I would do, but just to so that I don't glance over.
**Lee:** I actually, I didn't look at Nicholas Cage, I thought, I know him well enough.
**Lee:** It was everybody else's filmography I had to look up before.
**Adam:** Well,
**Adam:** well,
**Adam:** so I've got there's two halves of this quiz.
**Adam:** So we've got a true or false section.
**Adam:** And we have got the multiple choice section.
**Adam:** The multiple choice will be first.
**Adam:** So I will ask you out of respect for your for your fellow contestants.
**Adam:** If you know the answer, don't shout out until all the options have been given and then make your choice.
**Adam:** They will be A, B and C, and yeah, we'll just see what happens, shall we?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Sounds good.
**Adam:** Right, so,
**Adam:** Question one.
**Adam:** Where does the name Nicholas Cage come from?
**Adam:** A, it's his real name.
**Adam:** B, it's in homage to Marvel superhero Luke Cage.
**Adam:** Or C, it's from that time he was found with no knickers on in a cage.
**Chris:** Well,
**Chris:** I would say not A or C.
**Chris:** out of those, I think I would have to.
**Lee:** So you're going B, are you, Chris?
**Chris:** I
**Lee:** Yeah, I I don't know the answer but I would go B as well, I think.
**Adam:** Yep, you're both correct there, it is in homage to the Marvel superhero Luke Cage.
**Adam:** Right, so, question two.
**Adam:** Who is his famous uncle?
**Adam:** Is it A, Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now director Francis Ford Coppola?
**Adam:** B, British porn director, producer and actor Ben Dover?
**Adam:** Or C, renowned horror and exploitation producer, writer, director Roger Corman?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Now this will be funny to find out.
**Chris:** it could be any of those.
**Chris:** Possibly, I mean B obviously sounds sounds kind of funny.
**Chris:** But
**Chris:** somehow.
**Chris:** I wouldn't be too shocked.
**Chris:** I'll go for.
**Chris:** I'll choose A.
**Chris:** It sounds nice.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I was.
**Lee:** I was edging towards A.
**Adam:** Well, Chris, you've edged ahead, it's A.
**Adam:** Nicely done.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** So his real name is Nicholas Coppola.
**Lee:** Oh, good on him.
**Adam:** And he chose Cage so he wasn't sort of being he wasn't nepotism.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** if he.
**Adam:** Question three.
**Adam:** How did the dear departed David Lynch refer to Cage?
**Adam:** Did he call him A,
**Adam:** Nixter.
**Adam:** B, Bongo Fury.
**Adam:** Or C, a small Mexican Chihuahua.
**Chris:** Can you say those again?
**Adam:** So we've got A, Nixter.
**Adam:** B, Bongo Fury, or C, a small Mexican Chihuahua.
**Chris:** I mean it's hard to imagine any of them.
**Chris:** Not I don't actually think I've seen David Lynch much.
**Chris:** I mean I'll go for A.
**Chris:** It sounds nice.
**Chris:** Next, that sounds a bit silly.
**Chris:** They all sound a bit silly.
**Chris:** They all sound a bit silly.
**Lee:** I'm going to go.
**Lee:** I'm going to go with B.
**Adam:** Well, Chris, you've edged ahead.
**Adam:** It's Nixter.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so.
**Adam:** Right, question four.
**Adam:** Which unmade Tim Burton project was he attached to throughout the '90s?
**Adam:** Is it A, the nightmare after Christmas?
**Adam:** B, Superman Lives?
**Adam:** Or C, some crappy half-arsed goth shit with a load of stripey things in it?
**Chris:** All right.
**Chris:** It's me again. I'll go for.
**Chris:** B.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was going to go B as well.
**Adam:** Well done, gentlemen.
**Adam:** You're both both bang on there with B.
**Adam:** So it's yeah.
**Adam:** Superman Lives.
**Chris:** Oh, I like the sound of C though.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** If you like the sound of C, then just work your way through.
**Adam:** anything post big fish, I think, really.
**Adam:** Oh, so.
**Adam:** I just take a.
**Adam:** Quick water break there and we're back in the schedule.
**Adam:** question five, what classic villain has he not portrayed on screen?
**Adam:** Is it A, Dracula?
**Adam:** B, Fu Manchu?
**Adam:** Or C, Mr. Hyde?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** I can't, I mean, I cannot think of him as Dracula.
**Chris:** And I'm sure I would have known that, but obviously this will turn it out to be the one that I absolutely do know or should have known.
**Chris:** But I'll go for that.
**Chris:** I'll go for that.
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---

## EP 218 The Descent

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-218-the-descent/
Air date: 26 February 2025
Duration: 01:04:01
Film: The Descent · Year: 2005 · Director: Neil Marshall

### Description

It’s time to get deep, as we are joined by previous guest Dani, for Neil Marshall’s “The Descent”. A film in which we learn how to give a lemon an orgasm; that spelunking is not an orthodox method of grief counselling; and that there’s always one fucker who won’t stay with the group, even if you tell them to! Marshall’s superb follow up to his debut “Dog Soldiers”, whilst often mentioned by fans and in lists of lesser-known films to see, really deserves to take its place as an acknowledged classic of the genre. The building claustrophobic dread, vicious injuries and the gradual disintegration of the team’s relationship make for a stunning first half, with the emergence of the monsters almost a relief from these all too real horrors. The cast are simply outstanding; and this still, remarkably, remains an outlier as an almost exclusively female-led horror film, 20 years later. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee. I'm Chris. I'm Adam.
**Unknown:** And we are here, as promised, with 2005's The Descent. But we kept this secret from you because we didn't know how things were going to work out schedule-wise and we didn't want to promise something we couldn't deliver. But we've got a guest with us. We've been joined by a friend of the show, a friend of ours and previous guest from before, Donnie. Evening, Donnie.
**Unknown:** Hello. How are we all doing?
**Unknown:** Hi, Donnie.
**Unknown:** Good, mate.
**Unknown:** Yeah, not too bad, thanks.
**Unknown:** Is this third time?
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** So it was Red Shoes was the last one. And actually, that's funny because that was one that Lee wasn't so keen on. Not a big fan of the dancing.
**Unknown:** It was Lady Jennifer's pick, wasn't it?
**Unknown:** It was, yeah.
**Unknown:** And Come In The Woods.
**Unknown:** Yes, which was a firm favourite from probably everybody who's ever seen it.
**Unknown:** Absolutely. And spoiler alert, I might have a similar issue with this that I had to reduce.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Unknown:** Because.
**Unknown:** Too much fucking dancing.
**Unknown:** Dancing with pickaxes this time.
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Spoilers and swearing abound.
**Unknown:** I think everyone apart from me in the world has seen this film.
**Unknown:** 20 years ago. It's funny. That's a long time now.
**Unknown:** I know.
**Unknown:** 2005.
**Unknown:** But yeah, so as I mentioned, the reason I've never seen this film is because I am a medium, a sensible level of claustrophobic.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yes. So again, a bit like Red Shoes. This is my first time watching this. I finished it 25 minutes ago. I thought it was a brilliant film. I thought it was really well done.
**Unknown:** I felt entirely uncomfortable for the entire. I kept finding myself holding my breath and then gasping for air, just watching them crawling through them fucking things.
**Unknown:** Well, I'll get you spelunking anytime soon then.
**Unknown:** You know, I'd say like the first half of the film is probably, and I found this at the time when I watched it.
**Unknown:** Dagnum View. That's where I saw this.
**Unknown:** Many moons ago.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** For the weekend it came out, I was like a really avid follower of like Total Film and Empire at the time.
**Unknown:** I'd seen Dog Soldiers. Everyone was picking up Neil Marshall's next film.
**Unknown:** Opening weekend.
**Unknown:** And I shat myself.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It happened to be in like the bigger screen. There was no one there because no one else knew what it was.
**Unknown:** And yeah, particularly aggressive Dolby sound mix.
**Unknown:** And I was just absolutely floored by it.
**Unknown:** But I think the opening half of the film is probably more effective than the second half.
**Unknown:** If I'm being entirely honest.
**Unknown:** Absolutely.
**Unknown:** This falls into that category with a lot of Stephen King films, Stephen King adaptions fall in for me, which is, oh, thank fuck the monsters have shown up.
**Unknown:** Because it's fucking grim.
**Unknown:** And then it'll be state of them.
**Unknown:** Yeah. And then it's like, oh, thank God, monsters.
**Unknown:** You know, you get it with Stephen King because it's always like, oh, I go to school with some psychotic greases and every adult's a nonce.
**Unknown:** You know, so it's like, oh, thank Christ the killer clown's turned up because, you know, it's taken some levity to it.
**Unknown:** And similarly with this, you know, it's a fucking, this would be a gruelling film if it wasn't a horror film.
**Unknown:** It would still be watched by horror fans if it didn't have that flavour in it, you know.
**Unknown:** Even right from the start, like it really just, it sets the tone perfectly.
**Unknown:** Even in the rapids where you're like, are they having fun or are they terrified?
**Unknown:** Like, you just, what's going to happen already?
**Unknown:** Who's the bad guy?
**Unknown:** What's going on?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And then, of course, introducing the young girl.
**Unknown:** It's like, okay, something bad's going to be happening.
**Unknown:** But, you know, it reminded me of Hereditary where it subverts your expectation.
**Unknown:** And I noticed they do that throughout this where you're like, you don't quite know where they're heading for.
**Unknown:** So, and when it hits, it's awful.
**Unknown:** You so Hereditary.
**Unknown:** I was thinking Casualty.
**Unknown:** The first five minutes, just like, yeah, someone's going to die.
**Unknown:** Probably, yeah.
**Unknown:** Is it going to be, oh, God, they went there.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That was super quick as well.
**Unknown:** I've never seen this bus driver before, but he's got a really bad cough and he keeps clutching his chest.
**Unknown:** I wonder how this is going to pan out.
**Unknown:** I've got to admit, if it weren't for the fact we were covering it for this, if I'd just finally bitten the bullet, because Danny's been telling me to watch it for the last 15 years.
**Unknown:** But at that point at which they go from the large cavern into that tiny hole, yeah, I'd have turned it off.
**Unknown:** Like, I just couldn't.
**Unknown:** I just couldn't.
**Unknown:** It was so, so uncomfortable.
**Unknown:** I mean, it's brilliantly made because.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It does.
**Unknown:** Like, it does.
**Unknown:** It creates that sense of claustrophobia really, really well.
**Unknown:** And again, I think with Neil Marshall, it's, I liked it in Dog Soldiers.
**Unknown:** I liked it a little bit less in this.
**Unknown:** I hated it in Doomsday.
**Unknown:** Is that fast cut editing of the action stuff?
**Unknown:** Because that does the same.
**Unknown:** Like, it creates a fantastic.
**Unknown:** That'd be what it, that is what it's like when you're in a massive fight and there's loads of people and it's all going off around you.
**Unknown:** And, like, you don't take it all in because it's happening so quickly.
**Unknown:** But in a film, I quite like the choreography and sort of seeing it.
**Unknown:** Whereas with this, it's just got that, oh, my God, it's just batshit.
**Unknown:** And then at the end, you just have to see who's still alive, basically.
**Unknown:** Which was the style at the time.
**Unknown:** It's very sort of 28 Days Later as well has that sort of thing, yeah.
**Unknown:** I always think stuff like that's mainly to, like, or at least partially to cover up the deficiencies in the budget.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** As well.
**Unknown:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Unknown:** It's like, you know, I can't remember what the budget this was made on was.
**Unknown:** I know it was substantially more than Dog Soldiers, but it still wasn't a lot.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But, yeah.
**Unknown:** And I think, actually, the effects, the practical effects are really, really solid for the most part in this film.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** The monsters looked incredible because I've not seen it, so I didn't know.
**Unknown:** Like, I knew roughly what they were, but I hadn't seen them.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I thought they held up fantastically.
**Unknown:** It's a bit like if the, you know, the bit in The Hobbit where Gollum and the Riddle just goes horribly wrong.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And there is also OG Nosferatu in there.
**Unknown:** So, or original Goth in this sense, I suppose.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's definitely reminiscent.
**Unknown:** I've got to answer it as well.
**Unknown:** Apparently, Neil Marshall has said that the crawlers are human.
**Unknown:** They just branched off.
**Unknown:** They didn't come out of the caves in the Paleolithic era or wherever.
**Unknown:** I had myself asking that question while we were watching it.
**Unknown:** I was like, they look human enough.
**Unknown:** So, I assumed it was that kind of a...
**Unknown:** It's interesting that they're gone for that.
**Unknown:** So, essentially, that's adding to the realism of it.
**Unknown:** So, it definitely is one of those gritty, they are trying to make this feel like it's very real, nothing too over-the-top supernatural.
**Unknown:** It could happen.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Well, I think it bears the fact that these are...
**Unknown:** They're all obviously active.
**Unknown:** All the women, they're all active, sporty people.
**Unknown:** But no one's really superhuman in this.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Occasionally, with the fights, you might think that it's...
**Unknown:** But again, it's that fast cutting.
**Unknown:** It's how it's changed at that point.
**Unknown:** But certainly, that first half, no one...
**Unknown:** Do you know what I mean?
**Unknown:** Shit hurts.
**Unknown:** No one, sort of, Bruce Willis is out of, like, walking on broken glass or anything else like that.
**Unknown:** Anyone's injured.
**Unknown:** They're permanently injured.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And it fucking hurts.
**Unknown:** I mean, when the ropes go through the hands...
**Unknown:** And the fucking compound fracture is one of the worst ones.
**Unknown:** Like, horrible, you know, realisations of that that I've seen in a film.
**Unknown:** And it's fucking...
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It is...
**Unknown:** It just ramps as it goes.
**Unknown:** It's just quite...
**Unknown:** I full-on, audibly, both of those scenes went, oh!
**Unknown:** Oh!
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah.
**Unknown:** It's just...
**Unknown:** And when she falls and you see her bang her head, although it isn't a bad...
**Unknown:** Like, it is...
**Unknown:** It's just that...
**Unknown:** And it's in the sound mix as well.
**Unknown:** It's really heavy, so it gives you that real echoey, sudden...
**Unknown:** Like, you've banged her...
**Unknown:** Like, yeah, I mean, the sound in this was fantastic as well.
**Unknown:** It is, yeah.
**Unknown:** The surround was really well mixed, so it really drew you in.
**Unknown:** Like, all the drips coming from around you the whole time.
**Unknown:** So, like you're saying, it's not a huge budget, but really what they do with it does give an overall impression of it just being well-polished.
**Unknown:** Oh, absolutely.
**Unknown:** I mean, all the location stuff's in Scotland.
**Unknown:** So, obviously, like the...
**Unknown:** So, although they're meant to be in America, yeah, they're just in Scotland.
**Unknown:** And also...
**Unknown:** It's funny, because I mentioned that they were at Scotland the year before.
**Unknown:** Yeah, so the rap is meant to be Scotland, and then they go, yeah, to Chattuga Park or whatever it is.
**Unknown:** Which they managed to get around by not having any other characters in the film.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** Apart from the protagonists in the crawlers, that's it.
**Unknown:** No, you're right.
**Unknown:** I didn't notice that.
**Unknown:** Yeah, no, there are no secondary characters.
**Unknown:** The Descent Part 2, however...
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
**Unknown:** How is there a Descent Part 2?
**Unknown:** So, what happened was...
**Unknown:** Have you seen it?
**Unknown:** You've seen it?
**Unknown:** I have...
**Unknown:** Well, so, as I decided yesterday, after re-watching The Descent, I'm going to stick on Part 2.
**Unknown:** I lasted 12 minutes.
**Unknown:** Fair enough.
**Unknown:** From what I read about it, because I've never seen it.
**Unknown:** But, yeah, I thought, oh, I'll check out what...
**Unknown:** Because I'd never heard anyone have a good word to say about it, including Neil Marshall.
**Unknown:** Like, although he's the executive producer, he was like, I think, what's the quote?
**Unknown:** It was something like, oh, it's a...
**Unknown:** The Descent is a self-contained story.
**Unknown:** It doesn't need a sequel.
**Unknown:** There is a sequel.
**Unknown:** Make of that what you will.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So, it all comes down to the fact that when they tested it for American audiences, they
**Unknown:** felt that the ending was too bleak.
**Unknown:** So, the American version actually cuts about three minutes before the UK version.
**Unknown:** So, it ends with Sarah escaping and driving off.
**Unknown:** And that's why she's able to come back in The Descent Part 2.
**Unknown:** That's kind of funny.
**Unknown:** I mean, it's still pretty bleak.
**Unknown:** Even if she gets out.
**Unknown:** It's still pretty bleak, but it's not as bleak as I'm just waiting to die.
**Unknown:** I mean, that is amazing, that bit where it's just zooming out and she's seeing the birthday cake.
**Unknown:** Oh, that shot's incredible.
**Unknown:** Yeah, like the use of hallucination throughout is so good.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You can totally imagine her state of mind.
**Unknown:** Apparently, they did cut out a preamble of a crawler in the hospital.
**Unknown:** Because, you know, where she's running down the corridor and it's going black.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** There was going to be like a crawler chasing her or a crawler scene.
**Unknown:** You see the temptation for that.
**Unknown:** But I think it works as it is.
**Unknown:** Well, he said he wanted to cut it because otherwise then immediately you can read the whole thing's a hallucination, which he didn't want to do.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I would wonder if this film would be even more successful if they actually lost the first five minutes.
**Unknown:** If it just opened with Beth and Sarah in the car on the way to meet the rest of the girls.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** And if it didn't hold your hand quite that much through what had happened.
**Unknown:** And maybe then the actual sort of like the Juno betrayal plot line would pay off better as well.
**Unknown:** Because when you went watching it back, as I've done many, many times, I think even the first time I watched it, I was kind of like, you know, oh, yeah, something's up with that.
**Unknown:** Something's up with that interaction.
**Unknown:** That's not right.
**Unknown:** Oh, Beth's noticed it.
**Unknown:** And it just, yeah, it made it just a little bit.
**Unknown:** That's funny.
**Unknown:** So on my second watching it, I actually kind of liked that because I was like, oh, no, now I totally get it.
**Unknown:** But as interesting as you say, I wonder if I watch it more, if that will then just become too obvious.
**Unknown:** Yeah, because you can see in that opening.
**Unknown:** And it's interesting because actually, I don't think the husband talks.
**Unknown:** He says he's fine right before he gets a large piece of metal through his head.
**Unknown:** But incidentally, that little moment of just as the camera, as the, as the camera zooms out, you just see his hands twitching.
**Unknown:** It's perfect.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And I think also, and fuck me, have I never driven behind a lorry full of fucking pipes since.
**Unknown:** Right.
**Unknown:** No, I actually thought, right, this time watching it, I was like, is this a, you know, public, what's it called?
**Unknown:** Public safety.
**Unknown:** Yeah, public safety.
**Unknown:** It's like, yeah, lock down your metal.
**Unknown:** Final Destination 2 had come out by now.
**Unknown:** I'm pretty sure they would have been, that's, that's in universe, surely.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** If we're going to, if we're going to do a Sean Hogan and just basically knit the entire of horror altogether, then yeah, he was on the plane.
**Unknown:** Then he got away with it, got married.
**Unknown:** And then finally, well, there you go.
**Unknown:** So.
**Unknown:** I think that was the thing I found most unrealistic about the entire thing.
**Unknown:** It wasn't the creatures or any of that stuff.
**Unknown:** It was the fact that Juno was wearing that necklace the whole time with her husband's favourite quote on it.
**Unknown:** And she, she was always touching it and she'd never seen it and gone, the fuck's up with that?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Especially because you feel, in a weird way, I would, and I, you know, I hasten to sort of put this on the table.
**Unknown:** But with a group of blokes, I'd believe it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because we're so unobservant.
**Unknown:** We're so not sort of like, you know, but, you know, this was, this was six intelligent women, surely.
**Unknown:** They'd have popped that in an instant.
**Unknown:** So I think you could be right there.
**Unknown:** I hadn't actually thought that, but yeah, it is sort of, because that was the weird thing watching it with Claire is I'd completely forgotten that they do actually do a bit of explanation and say, oh, they're blind and they can only hunt by sound and stuff like that.
**Unknown:** But some of those bits, and it's really weird because you'd think it would get repetitive, but they just managed to do that of people hiding from the crawlers by just being quiet.
**Unknown:** They do it three times and it's still fucking tense each time.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You know, it really does work.
**Unknown:** I mean, especially when it's leaning on her head.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And at that point as well, I was like, right, so they can't see, they can only hear.
**Unknown:** I was like, and I know it's hot in caves, it's got to feel that fire.
**Unknown:** So I kept waiting for it to suddenly realise the fire was right next to it and something was occurring.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So it did a really good job of adding tension.
**Unknown:** You know, even if you try to think outside the box, it somehow made it more tense.
**Unknown:** I really like the fact that the crawlers have like a little family dynamic as well.
**Unknown:** Like you can, oh, there's the baby one.
**Unknown:** There's the mummy one.
**Unknown:** And there's the baby one.
**Unknown:** Oh, poor baby one.
**Unknown:** Because I think that was something else that Claire was expecting.
**Unknown:** She was expecting them to meet like a baby one.
**Unknown:** And it'd be like, oh, well, I've lost my daughter.
**Unknown:** And, you know, that sort of Captain Kirk style understanding moment.
**Unknown:** And then I think that was like about two seconds later, she's kicked that child to death.
**Unknown:** You know, and it's like the baby crawler essentially just squishes its head like a bug.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because that was the thing that I've watched it with Claire is her first time viewing it.
**Unknown:** And she was just so pleased with everyone because it was like, not, she, what's her name?
**Unknown:** Oh, I can't think of her.
**Unknown:** The Irish.
**Unknown:** Oh, Holly.
**Unknown:** Holly.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** She couldn't stand Holly because it was like, Holly's going to get you all fucking killed.
**Unknown:** And yes, Holly will get you all fucking killed.
**Unknown:** She's a fucking knob.
**Unknown:** Juno's a knob, but it's on a different level and at least would capably get you out of there.
**Unknown:** Whereas I think Holly's just one of those people who gets you beaten up because you've gone to the pub with them.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's probably the same way that we look at Gen Z is the way that the boomers were looking at the millennials with Holly there.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** At that point where she said, stop running off, stop running off.
**Unknown:** And then she fell down a hole and she went, please come and help me.
**Unknown:** And I was like, fuck you.
**Unknown:** I was so beyond my mind.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You brought this on yourself by being a bellend.
**Unknown:** This is totally your problem.
**Unknown:** Just to warn you all, if we ever go spelunking and you act like a dick, I will leave you behind.
**Unknown:** I was going to say, that's the thing.
**Unknown:** This is also one of those films that I can enjoy 100% because it's like, go spelunking.
**Unknown:** Right.
**Unknown:** Not doing that anyway.
**Unknown:** So fine.
**Unknown:** Any of the other consequences of this film aren't happening.
**Unknown:** So that's fine.
**Unknown:** So I know we've obviously covered the ending ending, which is very good.
**Unknown:** I wanted to just bring up how much I loved the bit five minutes before that, where it's
**Unknown:** just Sarah and Juno in that room.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And I was like, right.
**Unknown:** Sarah's covered in blood.
**Unknown:** She's going to have it out.
**Unknown:** It's going to be an argument.
**Unknown:** No, she's just going to hit her in the leg of an axe and fuck off and leave her to die.
**Unknown:** And I was like, I didn't see that coming at all.
**Unknown:** That's what I mean.
**Unknown:** It does subvert your expectation quite a few times where you think, yeah, I know what's
**Unknown:** going to happen roughly.
**Unknown:** And it's like, oh no, it is different enough that that was really good.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's also quite nice that it's sort of like the thing that finishes Juno off is actually
**Unknown:** someone wronged.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Rather than just sort of like, oh, she just couldn't cut it and the crawler's got her
**Unknown:** or whatever like that.
**Unknown:** It's like, no, she would be utterly capable.
**Unknown:** She would have got out.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But no, because you've rubbed another woman's rhubarb.
**Unknown:** To paraphrase the joke.
**Unknown:** This is where a female perspective might be quite interesting on it, actually, because
**Unknown:** one of the people that I talked to about the fact that I was rewatching it for the podcast
**Unknown:** was Rosie Fletcher, who's the editor of Den of Geek.
**Unknown:** Oh, right.
**Unknown:** And I happened to meet her a couple of times at press screenings.
**Unknown:** We've just, yeah, just become mates, really.
**Unknown:** And she was basically saying, love the dissent, but the whole you shag my husband plot point
**Unknown:** is kind of degrading.
**Unknown:** It's the whole bitchy women thing, stabbing Juno at the end, like you're all about to die,
**Unknown:** we have no time for politics.
**Unknown:** And it just feels a bit like a male writing female friendship wrong.
**Unknown:** Beth Stein action, for example, being to take revenge on Juno and tell Sarah about the affair,
**Unknown:** the idea that any of it would matter under the circumstances,
**Unknown:** and comparatively look at a film like Blink twice, and that's how you write women in danger.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I totally agree with that.
**Unknown:** I mean, that is a very, that is a very fair point.
**Unknown:** Because as a perspective, I had not thought about, obviously, from, you know, my cis male privilege.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Which is, as we enter into the threshold of totalitarianism, every time I get really worried,
**Unknown:** I go, oh yeah, I'm white, I'm fine.
**Unknown:** That's a fair point.
**Unknown:** But I wonder, so, do you think that is partially like a 2005 perspective as well then?
**Unknown:** So, I mean, it'd be interesting to see Blink twice to see how that deals with, you know, a situation.
**Unknown:** It's a very good film.
**Unknown:** I really, really enjoyed it.
**Unknown:** I don't know if it's maybe a 2005 thing.
**Unknown:** I was thinking about that when I was watching it.
**Unknown:** And in a lot of ways, it doesn't fall into the trappings of feeling like it's from a particular era.
**Unknown:** It doesn't.
**Unknown:** Weirdly enough, even Dog Soldiers does to a certain extent, you know, and not just because it's a British genre filled with Sean Pertwee in it.
**Unknown:** But it's sort of...
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And while it's very rare to have a film that 100% passes the Bechdel test written by and directed by a man,
**Unknown:** maybe that's where that different perspective might have made that a little bit more realistic or it might have taken the story in a different way.
**Unknown:** Well, I think that's the thing is, in a way, what you said was it does, in that way, kind of invalidate that whole thing of it up until that point.
**Unknown:** I think it's...
**Unknown:** That, in fact, they would have.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And it feels really unfair to punish Sarah like that when she's still hugely grieving.
**Unknown:** The way that I viewed that was that, essentially, some trauma ruins you.
**Unknown:** And this was meant to show that she really didn't ever get over the loss of her husband and daughter.
**Unknown:** And that, essentially, is what made everything fall apart.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because Juno's decision to take them to somewhere she shouldn't have taken them to.
**Unknown:** I mean, actually, if she'd have stabbed her in the leg and then just gone, that's not for me husband.
**Unknown:** It's for dragging us down here in the first place.
**Unknown:** Well, yeah.
**Unknown:** But even that, like, most of her grief isn't towards her husband.
**Unknown:** It's towards her daughter.
**Unknown:** Everything throughout the film to that point is about her losing her child.
**Unknown:** No, very true.
**Unknown:** So that's where...
**Unknown:** And, yeah, I think it was only through that conversation...
**Unknown:** It was almost Juno's grief of losing the husband that made her almost want to try and do something extreme to get them through it.
**Unknown:** But in her own messed up way, because she clearly is messed up to have done what she did in the first place.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, it reminded me of the film we watched, Hausu, which is like trauma that then continues causing problems.
**Unknown:** And it's like identifying how do you become healthy again?
**Unknown:** And people try to do things, but often in this situation it gets worse.
**Unknown:** You think this might be a good idea to get us through something, but it's not.
**Unknown:** And it's women.
**Unknown:** Women again.
**Unknown:** I suppose it has a lot to say about, like, friendships that have maybe run their course and you try and recapture the magic of it by doing things that you used to do together as a group that you used to enjoy.
**Unknown:** But everyone's sort of moved on.
**Unknown:** Taking it to another level.
**Unknown:** And it just, yeah, has lost whatever it had.
**Unknown:** Yeah, you're never going to recapture it.
**Unknown:** I have to say, the person I feel most sorry for is my Anna Bering's character, just because she's the newbie.
**Unknown:** It's like they've just invited her along.
**Unknown:** Yeah, no, you'll have a great time.
**Unknown:** We're a great bunch.
**Unknown:** And we go on these amazing adventures.
**Unknown:** It's like, yeah, this is really fucking, this has really gone awry now.
**Unknown:** I mean, the casting in this was excellent.
**Unknown:** Like, I thought everybody in this was absolutely brilliant.
**Unknown:** And, yeah, and all, you know, it did almost have that very cliched bit of, you know, they all had a bit like a slasher film where you had those very key characters.
**Unknown:** But they just played them so well and so naturally.
**Unknown:** It wasn't until afterwards you're like, oh, yeah, of course, you know, you've got your bitchy one and you've got your funny one.
**Unknown:** And you've got like, and it had that.
**Unknown:** It was subtle enough.
**Unknown:** It felt really, yeah.
**Unknown:** It wasn't.
**Unknown:** I think everyone's rounded enough.
**Unknown:** Definitely.
**Unknown:** It's not.
**Unknown:** It's not caricature.
**Unknown:** It's unlike Halzu, obviously, where it is literally.
**Unknown:** All of these characters have one defining characteristic and that's their name.
**Unknown:** So a couple of these characters I knew, a couple of these actors, sorry, I knew from other stuff, but I haven't seen them in a lot of things.
**Unknown:** Yeah, so Myanna Burring I haven't seen in a lot, but she's always great when I see her in stuff.
**Unknown:** Saskia Mulder as well, I know from, I only know from Jonathan Creek.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yeah, of course.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So I just know she's got very fingery toes.
**Unknown:** Well, Alex Reid, I remember from Misfits and Life on Mars.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** See, I knew she looked familiar and I couldn't work it out and I resisted the urge to get my IMDB out halfway through because it had spoiled the tension and I might remember to breathe.
**Unknown:** Well, there you go.
**Unknown:** Well, that's the thing is I think what we need to do is we maybe need to make a movement of, you know, in 2005, you couldn't have done that.
**Unknown:** So we need to, you know, it's like that whole thing of try and watch films in the context in which they originated.
**Unknown:** And it's like, well, if this was made before the explosion of the iPhone, I think we need to be able to, you know, we're going to have to go old school and just go, he's in something.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** He was in that thing with the other one, you know.
**Unknown:** And it's like, yeah, right.
**Unknown:** Yeah, that'll do.
**Unknown:** Well, I've just realised actually, yeah, that the actor playing Sarah isn't who I thought she was at all.
**Unknown:** I thought it was the actor from June who played the mother.
**Unknown:** She looks like.
**Unknown:** Oh, what?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Rebecca Ferguson.
**Unknown:** Fucking David Lynch.
**Unknown:** Rebecca Ferguson, you mean?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** To be honest, I can't think of many other things that I've seen.
**Unknown:** Oh, no.
**Unknown:** It's had like, did you, did you guys see Filth?
**Unknown:** The Irvine Welsh shout out.
**Unknown:** Oh, yes.
**Unknown:** With James McAvoy.
**Unknown:** She was in that.
**Unknown:** No, but it's on my list.
**Unknown:** It's one of those ones.
**Unknown:** I keep saying I'm going to watch it.
**Unknown:** But I've seen the, I remember it coming out and I got it when it was first released.
**Unknown:** But the trailer makes it look like one of those films you have to be very specifically in that mood for.
**Unknown:** And I don't quite know what mood that's going to be.
**Unknown:** So I haven't.
**Unknown:** So it's still been sitting on the shelf for 10 years or whatever.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** She's also Professor Skork and Cluck in the new version of Danger Mouse.
**Unknown:** Very good.
**Unknown:** She was in The Last Jedi.
**Unknown:** Yeah, she is temporary command center resistance pilot that we all remember from Last Jedi.
**Unknown:** Yeah, she's certainly done quite a lot.
**Unknown:** I've got a lot of time for Last Jedi.
**Unknown:** I know a lot of people don't, but I like it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I liked it.
**Unknown:** It at least tried to do something.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Well, I'll tell you what.
**Unknown:** Well, last time we remade A New Hope, we'll just remake Empire Strikes Back.
**Unknown:** No, why not do something completely different?
**Unknown:** And then we found out why.
**Unknown:** Because a bunch of whining man chinbeards will just moan that, you know.
**Unknown:** But speaking of disappointing sequels, The Descent Part 2.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So I kind of never wanted to see it.
**Unknown:** Because I held the first one in such high esteem.
**Unknown:** And I'm not even sure it got a cinema release in the end.
**Unknown:** It might have been a straight to VOD or straight to DVD type affair.
**Unknown:** But yeah, I thought to myself, okay, I've found it.
**Unknown:** Let's stick it on.
**Unknown:** And within about two minutes, there was a, and I'm going to do the air quotes here,
**Unknown:** American news reporter commenting on the events of the first film,
**Unknown:** which I'm not entirely sure how she knew about them because she wasn't fucking there.
**Unknown:** And by American, I mean America by way of Yorkshire.
**Unknown:** So already I was kind of like, oh no, oh no.
**Unknown:** And then Sarah was on a bed in a hospital and they immediately get her out of it
**Unknown:** to bring her back down to the cave to find someone who's down.
**Unknown:** And I was like, oh God, no.
**Unknown:** So yeah, I just really lost patience with it and decided that maybe I should not allow myself
**Unknown:** to be angered by this trash.
**Unknown:** Maybe life's too short sometimes.
**Unknown:** You do have to make that decision.
**Unknown:** It's like, I could be picking my nose here.
**Unknown:** I think the quote from Neil Marshall sounds like it's very accurate.
**Unknown:** Yeah, I don't think, literally, I think it was just like there was money, you know,
**Unknown:** there was money on the table for someone.
**Unknown:** It's the editor of this who is the director of that.
**Unknown:** I think it's the only film that he's done.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** And yeah, from what I gather, basically, so yeah, like you say, Sarah is found.
**Unknown:** She's in hospital.
**Unknown:** Apparently they know that she's covered in Juno's blood somehow.
**Unknown:** I don't know whether Juno was a regular at the blood donor clinic.
**Unknown:** But yeah, apparently they know for a while.
**Unknown:** So they think that she's done it.
**Unknown:** So they take her back down there.
**Unknown:** Juno survived.
**Unknown:** And so she's still in it.
**Unknown:** And apparently all the rest of the characters are in it.
**Unknown:** I'm assuming in flashback because I don't think they've resurrected anyone else who.
**Unknown:** Oh, that's right.
**Unknown:** I don't think they've resurrected anyone who clearly died on screen.
**Unknown:** I did get the plot point that Juno's dad was a senator.
**Unknown:** And that's why they care so much about finding her.
**Unknown:** Ah, right.
**Unknown:** At least threw that in there.
**Unknown:** So there you go.
**Unknown:** All other life is worthless unless you're a politician's child.
**Unknown:** Well, exactly.
**Unknown:** Silence of the Lambs.
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah.
**Unknown:** Good point.
**Unknown:** Isn't that in Gregory Dyer of a Nutcase, the comic strip version of Silence of the Lambs,
**Unknown:** where it's like, didn't he kill a lot of people?
**Unknown:** Yeah, but this one's a senator's daughter.
**Unknown:** You know, we've actually got to go and find him.
**Unknown:** All those other people.
**Unknown:** No one cared.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Speaking of Juno, that moment with Beth.
**Unknown:** Oh, God.
**Unknown:** Oh, fuck, yeah.
**Unknown:** It comes so out of nowhere.
**Unknown:** Especially because at that point you're keyed up because it's like,
**Unknown:** that's fucking right out of the bastards.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You'll take them all down.
**Unknown:** And then it's like, oh, shit.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, again, I don't know if you're going spelunking, Lee.
**Unknown:** Don't take Claire.
**Unknown:** Because she said, no, absolutely, I'd lie.
**Unknown:** I wouldn't say that I'd killed her.
**Unknown:** No, no, of course you wouldn't.
**Unknown:** Why would you?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Especially, or as Claire put it, there's a time and a place.
**Unknown:** In Juno's very limited defense, Beth could have said anything.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Hi there.
**Unknown:** I'm a wooden Jew.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And anything.
**Unknown:** She does rather leap up on someone who's just, yeah,
**Unknown:** badass their way through at least three monsters.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But the bet is that, I mean,
**Unknown:** you could say that probably is a bit realistic again.
**Unknown:** You know, you do see people making very odd decisions in life.
**Unknown:** Let's face it.
**Unknown:** We know that Juno has made a series of bad decisions in life.
**Unknown:** Why would this not be a number?
**Unknown:** You know, she's decided to have an affair with her best friend,
**Unknown:** well, her friend's husband.
**Unknown:** She's also decided to take them down a fucking cave with no mat.
**Unknown:** And not tell them.
**Unknown:** And lie to them.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's a huge testament to Natalie Mendoza's performance that she manages to be,
**Unknown:** you root for her,
**Unknown:** even though her character is written as so dislikable.
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah.
**Unknown:** Absolutely.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah.
**Unknown:** Couldn't agree more.
**Unknown:** Her performance in this is brilliant.
**Unknown:** Really, really.
**Unknown:** But I thought everyone was.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I didn't think there was a single person in there who,
**Unknown:** as you say, caricatured it or,
**Unknown:** was in any way unbelievable.
**Unknown:** It just, yeah,
**Unknown:** it came together so well.
**Unknown:** And it's interesting because obviously you then get,
**Unknown:** because you then get Doomsday.
**Unknown:** And the lead in Doomsday kind of feels like you've combined Juno and Sarah.
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** it's that sort of badassery,
**Unknown:** but also the sort of the other side of it.
**Unknown:** And,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** but it's sort of,
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** I don't know if you've,
**Unknown:** there's another Neil Marshall film called The Lair,
**Unknown:** which I thought one night,
**Unknown:** I'll stick it on.
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** it's like,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** I like,
**Unknown:** I like,
**Unknown:** I like the first three films that he did.
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** I've not,
**Unknown:** still not seen The Hellboy that he did.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** And he did Centurion as well.
**Unknown:** I think,
**Unknown:** I think.
**Unknown:** Oh yes.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That was half of that.
**Unknown:** That was another one.
**Unknown:** I think I fell asleep.
**Unknown:** And then I was like,
**Unknown:** well,
**Unknown:** if that happened,
**Unknown:** I clearly wasn't invested and never returned to it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But it's such a shame,
**Unknown:** isn't it?
**Unknown:** Like Neil Marshall's career at that point.
**Unknown:** And then he was,
**Unknown:** he was already talking up Doomsday.
**Unknown:** He was already talking up as his next film.
**Unknown:** And then I remember reading set reports in total film and Empire.
**Unknown:** It was like,
**Unknown:** it was very clear that him and Rona Mitra did not get on.
**Unknown:** At all.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And then had a very terrible time filming it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And he'd had to make a lot of concessions as to what his vision was
**Unknown:** compared to what he did with working with a larger studio and the
**Unknown:** budget.
**Unknown:** And then I thought it almost like he,
**Unknown:** he directed some of the best episodes of Game of Thrones.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** And then I felt like his career was on the bounce back with Hellboy and
**Unknown:** then gone.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Well,
**Unknown:** cause he did,
**Unknown:** he did black sales as well.
**Unknown:** He did,
**Unknown:** he did an episode of Hannibal,
**Unknown:** which is one of the great ones as well.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** And you know,
**Unknown:** cause that was the thing is you'd watch,
**Unknown:** it was really weird.
**Unknown:** You watch these series.
**Unknown:** And then at the end of it come up,
**Unknown:** directed Neil Marshall.
**Unknown:** You're like,
**Unknown:** fuck me.
**Unknown:** That's why it was so good.
**Unknown:** It was almost like,
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** there's the piece of the puzzle I was missing.
**Unknown:** I've been really enjoying it.
**Unknown:** He's conquering America.
**Unknown:** One HBO suit at a time.
**Unknown:** But yes,
**Unknown:** so I tried to watch this one called the lair and it's basically sort of like
**Unknown:** monsters in,
**Unknown:** I think it's like set in the middle East and it's British soldiers out and
**Unknown:** they find ancient monsters,
**Unknown:** but Oh God,
**Unknown:** I've got about 20 minutes in and literally the main,
**Unknown:** the main character walked into like was rescued and walked into the army base
**Unknown:** and she met her commanding officer.
**Unknown:** And it's a guy with an eye patch.
**Unknown:** Who's doing every single like American general hard ass.
**Unknown:** So I was like,
**Unknown:** he's not,
**Unknown:** and we'll never be snake Plissken.
**Unknown:** I'm turning this off.
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** that's a shame.
**Unknown:** Cause that sounds like such a great concept.
**Unknown:** Like I,
**Unknown:** I was sold on it to that point.
**Unknown:** I brought in the 1980s,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** New York police captain or whatever.
**Unknown:** It was a bit,
**Unknown:** it was,
**Unknown:** it was very much in that sort of thing of,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** when it's like you watch the,
**Unknown:** in a way,
**Unknown:** a bit like split second with Rutger Hauer,
**Unknown:** which is an amazing film,
**Unknown:** but I am not ever going to agree that it's a good film.
**Unknown:** But it's just fantastic because it is like,
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** Garth Meringhi did get to make a film.
**Unknown:** That's how it feels.
**Unknown:** And it wasn't the Hornets one.
**Unknown:** No,
**Unknown:** it wasn't the Hornets one.
**Unknown:** I'd watch that.
**Unknown:** But again,
**Unknown:** it's just that thing of like,
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** he's,
**Unknown:** he obsesses a bit too much over like,
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** this,
**Unknown:** this is the guy,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** how do we prove that this guy's a bad-ass?
**Unknown:** His boss fucking hates him.
**Unknown:** And just bring it or her in this case with the lair,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** she's brought in.
**Unknown:** It's like,
**Unknown:** you're always trouble.
**Unknown:** You'd never do things right.
**Unknown:** And it is like,
**Unknown:** it's that sort of police chief.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** I want your badge fucker.
**Unknown:** It's that sort of relationship just to prove that this guy,
**Unknown:** this guy gets results because his boss finds him a fucking nightmare.
**Unknown:** So the only person who pulls that off these days is Warren Ellis.
**Unknown:** He's the only one who will kind of do that.
**Unknown:** Well,
**Unknown:** I think that's one of the central flaws of doomsday as well.
**Unknown:** And it's like,
**Unknown:** what if Mad Max,
**Unknown:** but also what if 28 days later,
**Unknown:** but also if Apocalypse Now,
**Unknown:** but Malcolm McDowell,
**Unknown:** also Camelot.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Plus,
**Unknown:** plus,
**Unknown:** and then it's like,
**Unknown:** do you want a bit more?
**Unknown:** Bob Hoskins and Bradley McScottish from the fourth series of Luther.
**Unknown:** Oh my God.
**Unknown:** I forgot about.
**Unknown:** This is almost sounding like I want to watch this now.
**Unknown:** I never thought I'd want to rewatch doomsday.
**Unknown:** I kind of do now.
**Unknown:** Doomsday is an absolute,
**Unknown:** again,
**Unknown:** I loved doomsday,
**Unknown:** but it is just absolute water wall.
**Unknown:** It's like I wrote a film when I was 12.
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** I wouldn't have made super bad.
**Unknown:** I'd have made doomsday.
**Unknown:** That's the film I would have made when I was 12.
**Unknown:** It absolutely is.
**Unknown:** And again,
**Unknown:** it's that editing thing where it's like,
**Unknown:** we've got a fight.
**Unknown:** It does feel like that.
**Unknown:** We've got a fight scene.
**Unknown:** We've made it.
**Unknown:** They live length,
**Unknown:** but we need it to be two minutes.
**Unknown:** So we'll just show you all the key hits and just crushing down into a fast cut
**Unknown:** montage.
**Unknown:** And it just gave me seasickness.
**Unknown:** I was just like,
**Unknown:** no,
**Unknown:** I don't know.
**Unknown:** It's like watching a fight in a strobe light.
**Unknown:** I was like,
**Unknown:** I don't know.
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** I think he's,
**Unknown:** cards are on the table with doomsday.
**Unknown:** And I remember sitting and getting that thrill as I was watching it in the
**Unknown:** cinema,
**Unknown:** when the credits came up white on black in the John Carpenter font.
**Unknown:** And I was like,
**Unknown:** right,
**Unknown:** I know exactly what we're doing here then.
**Unknown:** And that's what it is.
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** I think there was an awful lot of studio tinkering took place in the idea of
**Unknown:** that as well.
**Unknown:** So I would be interested to see,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** this was pre kind of like hashtag release the Snyder cut.
**Unknown:** So there wasn't really a thirst for Neil Marshall's untampered vision.
**Unknown:** No,
**Unknown:** I'd,
**Unknown:** I'd,
**Unknown:** I'd certainly be interested.
**Unknown:** Definitely.
**Unknown:** I think there's something that needs to revisit.
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** it's Chris,
**Unknown:** if you've never seen it,
**Unknown:** it's fucking entertaining hour and a half,
**Unknown:** whatever it is.
**Unknown:** It's,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** the good thing is,
**Unknown:** brevity with Neil Marshall and stuff like this.
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** this is an,
**Unknown:** this film,
**Unknown:** it really annoys me in a way,
**Unknown:** because like you said,
**Unknown:** everyone's seen the descent,
**Unknown:** but this should get far more fucking kudos much in the same way as dog
**Unknown:** soldiers should,
**Unknown:** but this should get far more fucking kudos for,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** as a,
**Unknown:** no,
**Unknown:** this was a fucking great film.
**Unknown:** It was released,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** did.
**Unknown:** I always felt that even non horror people were kind of,
**Unknown:** raving about this at the time.
**Unknown:** Like Danny said,
**Unknown:** I don't think anyone picked up on it in the cinema.
**Unknown:** I think it was snowballed.
**Unknown:** So I think it came out in the cinema,
**Unknown:** but once it came out for VOD or on rental or whatever it was at the time.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That was when it was like,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** even in the office,
**Unknown:** people who their normal film choices,
**Unknown:** I would pay no attention to everyone was like,
**Unknown:** have you seen this film?
**Unknown:** It's really,
**Unknown:** really,
**Unknown:** really racked up the DVD sales.
**Unknown:** It really did.
**Unknown:** And,
**Unknown:** and again,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** this was like pre sort of like,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** being able to download anything without it taking a day and a half.
**Unknown:** So,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** it was,
**Unknown:** it was one of those films that I,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** it was a bit like when I bought the mist on DVD as well.
**Unknown:** It was one of those films that I'd take around to people's houses just to watch their reactions.
**Unknown:** And I never got bored of that either.
**Unknown:** That's,
**Unknown:** that is a film we need to cover on here at some point.
**Unknown:** I'd love to do the mist.
**Unknown:** Oh my God.
**Unknown:** That film black and white version,
**Unknown:** of course.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** I've not,
**Unknown:** I've never watched it in black and white.
**Unknown:** I've only ever seen it like the,
**Unknown:** the color,
**Unknown:** the original.
**Unknown:** It helps with some of the shonkiness of the CG.
**Unknown:** Ah,
**Unknown:** yeah.
**Unknown:** I would imagine it would,
**Unknown:** to be honest.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Definitely my preferred way of watching it,
**Unknown:** but I'm going to,
**Unknown:** I'm going to add Doomsday to the,
**Unknown:** um,
**Unknown:** watching on the night shift list,
**Unknown:** which I'm currently compiling.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Can I just say,
**Unknown:** absolutely perfect.
**Unknown:** That will,
**Unknown:** that will be the time when you're like,
**Unknown:** this is fucking great.
**Unknown:** I haven't slept for three days.
**Unknown:** I'll be a little bit delirious anyway.
**Unknown:** I'll be in the headspace.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I drove,
**Unknown:** I drove home and I spotted a tiger.
**Unknown:** Turned out it was just a cone,
**Unknown:** but that's fine.
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** I'm sure,
**Unknown:** I'm sure I'll be fine.
**Unknown:** And I'm still saying it to myself now,
**Unknown:** to be honest.
**Unknown:** I'm sure I'll be fine.
**Unknown:** But you saying about the titles coming up though,
**Unknown:** I I've got to admit,
**Unknown:** I did kind of go,
**Unknown:** Oh shit.
**Unknown:** When we put,
**Unknown:** when I put this on today for the first time and that the descent title came up
**Unknown:** and it's that really horrible early CGI.
**Unknown:** And it came up and I was like,
**Unknown:** that looks awful.
**Unknown:** I was really concerned,
**Unknown:** but it looks too sidebar.
**Unknown:** It's a Wi-Fi channel.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But because it's all,
**Unknown:** I'll tell you what it is and no disrespect to him.
**Unknown:** God rest his soul.
**Unknown:** I love him to bits.
**Unknown:** I was like,
**Unknown:** I'm sure Wes was doing stuff better than that in 2005.
**Unknown:** It looks.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** absolutely.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Some of them,
**Unknown:** it's like,
**Unknown:** it's,
**Unknown:** you,
**Unknown:** you can see it's very much the afterthought of,
**Unknown:** well,
**Unknown:** of everything in this,
**Unknown:** because it's,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** the rest of it.
**Unknown:** So,
**Unknown:** because the,
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** probably,
**Unknown:** I would imagine that you probably guessed that all of the caves are sets.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** All of the caves are sets just because it's,
**Unknown:** well,
**Unknown:** fucks are easier to film,
**Unknown:** especially on a budget.
**Unknown:** You say guess?
**Unknown:** You wouldn't get any fucking insurance to take.
**Unknown:** I don't know about guessing.
**Unknown:** I kept telling myself that.
**Unknown:** So that I didn't quite have a ventilator.
**Unknown:** It's not real.
**Unknown:** Because that's what I mean.
**Unknown:** I think they just really,
**Unknown:** they really hold up.
**Unknown:** And again,
**Unknown:** it's like,
**Unknown:** you think in 2005,
**Unknown:** but just the,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** that's a practical set built at Pinewood Studios.
**Unknown:** It was like 21 standing sets that they built,
**Unknown:** but it pays off.
**Unknown:** And I think,
**Unknown:** because like they said,
**Unknown:** it was like,
**Unknown:** well,
**Unknown:** we can't do this on,
**Unknown:** we literally can't do this on location because the location would be too dangerous.
**Unknown:** The insurance would be astronomical.
**Unknown:** You wouldn't get the fucking kit down there.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I don't think you get off the cast down there because if someone said,
**Unknown:** if someone tells me I'm going to go and film climbing at fucking Pinewood,
**Unknown:** I'll do it.
**Unknown:** I'm not crawling down some sphincter sized hole in the middle of fucking nowhere.
**Unknown:** Well,
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** it doesn't collapse until they mean it to collapse.
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** they don't,
**Unknown:** they're already saved a few pennies by making the USA Scotland.
**Unknown:** So why not go the extra mile,
**Unknown:** you know?
**Unknown:** Exactly.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** just,
**Unknown:** I just wanted to mention as well.
**Unknown:** David Julian,
**Unknown:** the composer.
**Unknown:** I love this score and I love so much of his work.
**Unknown:** And he kind of like for a brief time,
**Unknown:** it was almost like his career was going to be amazing.
**Unknown:** One of his first gigs was Memento.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Then he works with Chris Nolan again on insomnia.
**Unknown:** And how's this for a bit of serendipity?
**Unknown:** He also did cabin in the woods.
**Unknown:** I was going to say,
**Unknown:** did me do cabin in the woods?
**Unknown:** Actually.
**Unknown:** He did indeed.
**Unknown:** He also,
**Unknown:** and he's done,
**Unknown:** um,
**Unknown:** Eden Lake.
**Unknown:** He's done.
**Unknown:** So he's done some really,
**Unknown:** he's had some really good showings with some great horror.
**Unknown:** And then it just kind of never happened for him.
**Unknown:** After that,
**Unknown:** it just kind of fell off a cliff.
**Unknown:** It's weird,
**Unknown:** isn't it?
**Unknown:** He's done the odd bit here and there,
**Unknown:** but nothing that I have heard of for about 15 years.
**Unknown:** But yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** to be fair,
**Unknown:** after a lot of those,
**Unknown:** I would,
**Unknown:** I would sit back and just appreciate what I've done for a little while.
**Unknown:** I don't know.
**Unknown:** Surely.
**Unknown:** I kind of assumed it maybe,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** like take the kind of like the,
**Unknown:** the,
**Unknown:** uh,
**Unknown:** Hans Zimmer or the John Williams.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah,
**Unknown:** definitely.
**Unknown:** I think that's basically what happened to Nolan though.
**Unknown:** Wasn't it?
**Unknown:** He just ended up using Hans Zimmer on everything.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Well,
**Unknown:** yeah.
**Unknown:** By way of James Newton Howard on the,
**Unknown:** everyone forgets that most of the Batman themes that were carried through in a
**Unknown:** dark night trilogy were by James Newton Howard in the first film.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** And then Hans Zimmer came on board for dark night.
**Unknown:** And he was really in,
**Unknown:** he was really,
**Unknown:** really,
**Unknown:** um,
**Unknown:** influential in terms of like the Joker theme.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Cause he did all the wines and.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Building stuff and things like that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Hans,
**Unknown:** Hans Zimmer gets a lot of secondhand praise for things that he didn't quite do.
**Unknown:** Like with Pirates of the Caribbean as well.
**Unknown:** Uh,
**Unknown:** so everyone thinks of Hans Zimmer's as the Pirates of the Caribbean,
**Unknown:** um,
**Unknown:** score and composer.
**Unknown:** He's not.
**Unknown:** The captain's sparrow things by Klaus Bedelt.
**Unknown:** And the whole first film is by him.
**Unknown:** So again,
**Unknown:** a lot of the century kind of like took it over.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Thanks for that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I love that.
**Unknown:** Also,
**Unknown:** I'm going to subcontract this to 15 other writers and then just put my name on it.
**Unknown:** But thank you.
**Unknown:** He did play.
**Unknown:** He did play keyboards on a misguided single called doctor in distress that was released
**Unknown:** in 1986 to protest about doctor who being canceled.
**Unknown:** And,
**Unknown:** uh,
**Unknown:** yeah,
**Unknown:** he's a hero.
**Unknown:** I was going to say just for that,
**Unknown:** he deserves to get a bit of secondhand cred because that is,
**Unknown:** that is something else that is,
**Unknown:** but I'm not dissing a man.
**Unknown:** I'm just a very,
**Unknown:** very angry failed composer.
**Unknown:** You,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** it's just,
**Unknown:** if that's what it is,
**Unknown:** you'll get,
**Unknown:** you'll get the first film and then,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** Zimmer's fucking,
**Unknown:** yeah,
**Unknown:** it's going to,
**Unknown:** yeah.
**Unknown:** And fucking taking all your things and getting it.
**Unknown:** And then getting us right behind you with his trousers down.
**Unknown:** He's ready to go.
**Unknown:** To be fair,
**Unknown:** I'm glad Don is bringing back the unsung heroes because I think we haven't done that
**Unknown:** for a little while.
**Unknown:** So there we've got a few then.
**Unknown:** In about 200 episodes.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** There was one,
**Unknown:** there was one bit of the score and it's actually that turning point where you wonder if
**Unknown:** Sarah is going to have it out with Juno.
**Unknown:** And then she goes,
**Unknown:** like,
**Unknown:** she just goes,
**Unknown:** Oh yeah,
**Unknown:** just come,
**Unknown:** come with me or follow me or whatever.
**Unknown:** And it's like when she says,
**Unknown:** Oh yeah,
**Unknown:** no.
**Unknown:** So you saw Beth die.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So yeah.
**Unknown:** Follow me.
**Unknown:** And it's the first time that you get for a long time.
**Unknown:** Cause a lot of it is very sort of more abstract.
**Unknown:** And then you just get that electronic pulse.
**Unknown:** That is so.
**Unknown:** Anyo Morricone's music for the thing.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And it's like almost at that point,
**Unknown:** it's like,
**Unknown:** yeah,
**Unknown:** cause you can't trust her.
**Unknown:** So they almost like sort of put in the,
**Unknown:** the sort of that dynamic from the thing of,
**Unknown:** you can't,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** he's everyone who they say they are and so on and so forth.
**Unknown:** And it's like,
**Unknown:** yes,
**Unknown:** you can't trust her at this point,
**Unknown:** you know?
**Unknown:** And that's why she scored like the thing.
**Unknown:** So.
**Unknown:** There was the scene as well,
**Unknown:** where Sarah is sitting back with the video camera.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** and it puts that really heavy,
**Unknown:** like full orchestral sound over it.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** you got that really dissonant brass stabs.
**Unknown:** And yeah.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** and it's just beautiful.
**Unknown:** Like I,
**Unknown:** I am an absolute nightmare.
**Unknown:** Well,
**Unknown:** I don't know if I am for not noticing a score.
**Unknown:** I think it goes in subconsciously,
**Unknown:** but I don't like,
**Unknown:** I can easily watch a film and then someone say,
**Unknown:** what was the score like?
**Unknown:** And I'll go,
**Unknown:** I didn't notice it.
**Unknown:** I didn't hear it.
**Unknown:** To be,
**Unknown:** to be fair though,
**Unknown:** Lee,
**Unknown:** if the score is actually doing its job properly,
**Unknown:** you might.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's,
**Unknown:** it's,
**Unknown:** it's,
**Unknown:** it's,
**Unknown:** it's,
**Unknown:** it's,
**Unknown:** it's going to be,
**Unknown:** but certainly,
**Unknown:** yeah,
**Unknown:** this sort of thing,
**Unknown:** you,
**Unknown:** if it's obtrusive,
**Unknown:** then you're out.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And you can't be for this sort of thing.
**Unknown:** But when it's exceptionally good,
**Unknown:** it notices as well.
**Unknown:** So that's the thing.
**Unknown:** So,
**Unknown:** so a lot of the time,
**Unknown:** if it's good or great,
**Unknown:** if it's bad,
**Unknown:** I definitely notice.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** If it's good,
**Unknown:** I don't notice.
**Unknown:** If it's exceptional,
**Unknown:** I do notice.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And there was points in this where I was aware of it.
**Unknown:** So that,
**Unknown:** and I think that is because it's exceptional and not because it was,
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** I watched,
**Unknown:** I watched an old,
**Unknown:** I'll mention it when we do our next,
**Unknown:** what we've been watching,
**Unknown:** but I watched an old Russian ghost movie fairly recently.
**Unknown:** And the score on it was so bad.
**Unknown:** It was so like wrong.
**Unknown:** You couldn't,
**Unknown:** you couldn't not see it.
**Unknown:** So it was a,
**Unknown:** a load of priests had been let out for like a week.
**Unknown:** So they were,
**Unknown:** they were monks and they were given like a week's holiday.
**Unknown:** Like when you're at school.
**Unknown:** And then carry on abroad.
**Unknown:** Bernard Breslau's the second in command.
**Unknown:** I know.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** And they let them all out and they were like,
**Unknown:** right,
**Unknown:** just go and behave yourselves.
**Unknown:** And as soon as the gates open,
**Unknown:** I was saying,
**Unknown:** it's this sort of quite brooding ghost story.
**Unknown:** And it sounded like fucking Benny Hill.
**Unknown:** Like,
**Unknown:** and I was just like,
**Unknown:** what the fuck is going on?
**Unknown:** And it was,
**Unknown:** it was like,
**Unknown:** it's all these monks and they just run out and started grabbing food off of
**Unknown:** market stalls and just throwing random wenches over their shoulders and
**Unknown:** running off the dark corners.
**Unknown:** And I was like,
**Unknown:** this is horrible.
**Unknown:** What the fuck is going on?
**Unknown:** You've just reminded me of that part in it.
**Unknown:** Chapter two,
**Unknown:** where it inexplicably just burst into just send me an angel in the morning.
**Unknown:** Someone's vomiting over someone.
**Unknown:** And then it disappears.
**Unknown:** But it's like three second blast.
**Unknown:** I'm like,
**Unknown:** what the fuck just happened?
**Unknown:** Did I imagine that?
**Unknown:** And you know,
**Unknown:** yeah,
**Unknown:** I've,
**Unknown:** I've actually,
**Unknown:** I've,
**Unknown:** I've been thinking and if,
**Unknown:** if Hans Zimmer took over my work,
**Unknown:** I'd be a bit peeved,
**Unknown:** but it wouldn't be as bad as if it was fucking Danny Elfman.
**Unknown:** Oh yeah.
**Unknown:** Yep.
**Unknown:** His last,
**Unknown:** his last great works was the Simpsons.
**Unknown:** Mostly that little clockwork orange theme they sometimes put in.
**Unknown:** Oh yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** I'd,
**Unknown:** I'd like Danny Elfman in the right spot.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Tim Burton,
**Unknown:** 1980s.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Fair.
**Unknown:** But yeah,
**Unknown:** it's that thing of just having someone just going,
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** they're a name.
**Unknown:** I'll get them to do it.
**Unknown:** And it's like,
**Unknown:** yeah,
**Unknown:** no,
**Unknown:** this isn't their forte.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** It's like miscasting a prime actor,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** it's like,
**Unknown:** like Bram Stoker's Dracula with,
**Unknown:** um,
**Unknown:** Keanu Reeves.
**Unknown:** Keanu Reeves.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Great film about it.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** it's a Holocaust drama,
**Unknown:** Danny.
**Unknown:** Diddly,
**Unknown:** diddly,
**Unknown:** diddly.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That's why he got chopped off the shimless,
**Unknown:** this job.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Williams is a safe pair of hands to be.
**Unknown:** I did want to mention the,
**Unknown:** the cover.
**Unknown:** Cause I keep looking at that.
**Unknown:** The,
**Unknown:** it looks like a skull.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** that's the,
**Unknown:** I love that.
**Unknown:** Dali painting.
**Unknown:** It's based on,
**Unknown:** isn't it?
**Unknown:** Is it a Dali painting where it's like the woman skull?
**Unknown:** Uh,
**Unknown:** I don't know.
**Unknown:** It's pretty cool.
**Unknown:** You could be right.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I'm not sure where that artwork came from because the original poster,
**Unknown:** which was the DVD cover as well,
**Unknown:** was just sort of like Sarah's face and shard of light and maybe blood splatter.
**Unknown:** But it's the American poster.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I,
**Unknown:** I,
**Unknown:** I first remember seeing that on the,
**Unknown:** uh,
**Unknown:** blu-ray steel book cover.
**Unknown:** Ah,
**Unknown:** okay.
**Unknown:** Which is why I found it very,
**Unknown:** very easy to track this film down.
**Unknown:** I was going to be super lazy and just like go to streaming because I couldn't be bothered
**Unknown:** to get up off the settee.
**Unknown:** And I tried,
**Unknown:** I tried about five different things that I currently subscribe to.
**Unknown:** And the descent wasn't on a single one of them.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** That's the one.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That's the cover.
**Unknown:** With the face.
**Unknown:** Well,
**Unknown:** can you explain this to me though?
**Unknown:** This is my limited edition DVD that I bought in the Virgin Megastore in Romford.
**Unknown:** And for some reason it's limited edition cardboard packaging.
**Unknown:** It's just got a little door.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** To put it,
**Unknown:** put it right in front of your face.
**Unknown:** There's pictures of them in there and stuff.
**Unknown:** And it's just like a little,
**Unknown:** little flappy door that it's got.
**Unknown:** I remember,
**Unknown:** I remember having not,
**Unknown:** not for the descent,
**Unknown:** but I remember having something like that.
**Unknown:** It was like,
**Unknown:** do you remember when,
**Unknown:** um,
**Unknown:** when Warner Brothers insisted on having the cardboard casing for their DVDs until they realized
**Unknown:** they were wankers.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Suck it up.
**Unknown:** The weird,
**Unknown:** the weirdest fucking thing though,
**Unknown:** is my copy of,
**Unknown:** um,
**Unknown:** I got airplane and airplane too.
**Unknown:** And it's in this fucking weird cardboard sleeve,
**Unknown:** but you have to pull tabs either end of it.
**Unknown:** And the discs sort of slide out of either end.
**Unknown:** On two little CD size trays.
**Unknown:** It's mental.
**Unknown:** I do not know why I've only ever seen that one other time.
**Unknown:** And that was the album by the Amorphous Androgynous.
**Unknown:** Like their first album came in like a special edition,
**Unknown:** but yeah,
**Unknown:** it sounds like it might break after a few goes.
**Unknown:** I'm terrified of it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It took,
**Unknown:** it literally took me 20 minutes to work out how I got into the fucking airplane one,
**Unknown:** especially because obviously it'd been in the shop.
**Unknown:** So it sort of got compressed.
**Unknown:** And so it was all sort of like,
**Unknown:** all the cardboard was kind of stuck together anyway.
**Unknown:** And I'm like,
**Unknown:** what the fuck am I meant to do?
**Unknown:** Like,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** suddenly it's sprung out like a fucking James Bond gadget.
**Unknown:** And I'm just,
**Unknown:** I'm such a sucker for that shit though.
**Unknown:** Like,
**Unknown:** so I've got,
**Unknown:** I'm not sure if it's the arrow release,
**Unknown:** but I have got a Blu-ray release of clue,
**Unknown:** which Chris got me for Christmas a few years ago.
**Unknown:** And it's an old VHS style slide out sleeve.
**Unknown:** And then it's the box inside is made to look like the VHS of clue.
**Unknown:** And then you open it up and it's got the,
**Unknown:** the Blu-ray disc and the regular version and the extras disc and all that.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** that's cool.
**Unknown:** And I love that.
**Unknown:** It's such a retro.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And this is the thing.
**Unknown:** This is why physical media,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** we,
**Unknown:** we enjoy these little weird touches and strange little gifts that you could get.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I've,
**Unknown:** I've only allowed to buy,
**Unknown:** I've only allowed myself to now buy a physical Blu-rays if they are still books.
**Unknown:** And the good thing about that is that there's fewer and fewer steel books being made.
**Unknown:** And most of the good old films have already come out and I can't be bothered to just rebuy them on 4K for the sake of it.
**Unknown:** Oh yeah.
**Unknown:** And the only new ones that get made are terrible,
**Unknown:** terrible Marvel films.
**Unknown:** So I've,
**Unknown:** although,
**Unknown:** although they've,
**Unknown:** they've just read up,
**Unknown:** they've just done a panic room and social network for the first time.
**Unknown:** So they got added to the cart and then gladiator too,
**Unknown:** because sharks in the Coliseum,
**Unknown:** why not?
**Unknown:** And,
**Unknown:** and then,
**Unknown:** and then,
**Unknown:** what was the other one as well?
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** Nosferatu.
**Unknown:** Oh yes.
**Unknown:** And they're all coming out on the same week.
**Unknown:** And I'm going to be so broke.
**Unknown:** It's going to be so worth it.
**Unknown:** Oh mate.
**Unknown:** And Eleanor is going to be so angry with me.
**Unknown:** Oh yeah.
**Unknown:** No,
**Unknown:** this is the point where you have to learn the art of hiding these things.
**Unknown:** Claire's dad deliberately damages boxes.
**Unknown:** He's very into Superman.
**Unknown:** And like,
**Unknown:** so he's bought like lots of Superman figures and stuff like that over the years.
**Unknown:** And Claire said he'd sit on the train and like worry a corner and then go home and go,
**Unknown:** look at that,
**Unknown:** Jane.
**Unknown:** It was shot worn.
**Unknown:** So it was 10% off.
**Unknown:** You didn't have to tell her that he just bought a 50 quid Superman statue or whatever.
**Unknown:** Actually,
**Unknown:** it's funny you say in panic room,
**Unknown:** because I'm pretty sure I saw that at the view in Dagnum as well.
**Unknown:** So did I.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It was between that and showcase with my locals as a,
**Unknown:** as a wee nipper.
**Unknown:** I think I only went there twice.
**Unknown:** I went there once for that.
**Unknown:** Oh no,
**Unknown:** three times.
**Unknown:** I went there once for that.
**Unknown:** I went there once for sliding doors.
**Unknown:** It was a date.
**Unknown:** It wasn't my choice.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** and guest house Paradiso.
**Unknown:** For some reason,
**Unknown:** it was the nearest place that was showing it on the day of release.
**Unknown:** And I was like,
**Unknown:** I need to be there on the opening night.
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** it's fucking great.
**Unknown:** I saw guest house Paradiso at the Odeon that is seen to be the Lumiere.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** yes.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** yeah.
**Unknown:** And that,
**Unknown:** and that was bizarre because that was loads of people,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** it wasn't packed,
**Unknown:** but a fair number of people,
**Unknown:** most of whom didn't laugh.
**Unknown:** What?
**Unknown:** And you're like,
**Unknown:** what?
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** you're going to see the bottom film.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Presumably you like bottom.
**Unknown:** And therefore this would actually make you laugh.
**Unknown:** But no,
**Unknown:** apparently not.
**Unknown:** Did they perhaps not like bottom and they were confused by the name?
**Unknown:** I don't know why they'd got,
**Unknown:** cause it was like,
**Unknown:** why would you turn up for it?
**Unknown:** Like,
**Unknown:** yeah,
**Unknown:** I don't,
**Unknown:** I don't know.
**Unknown:** It's like you had to make effort.
**Unknown:** If you just sat at home and it was pumped to you,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** similar thing happened when I went to see league of gentlemen's apocalypse.
**Unknown:** And I was just,
**Unknown:** and it was like considering,
**Unknown:** but they've always been quite,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** culty.
**Unknown:** It was a fairly full cinema.
**Unknown:** Obviously I was there as an opening night fan because that's just me,
**Unknown:** but yeah,
**Unknown:** I was the only person laughing me and my friend Paul.
**Unknown:** And,
**Unknown:** and yeah,
**Unknown:** you do have that realization.
**Unknown:** Like,
**Unknown:** why are you here?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Like,
**Unknown:** it's just,
**Unknown:** let's go to the cinema and watch whatever.
**Unknown:** I think it is from that time period.
**Unknown:** Did you think it was a sequel to the Sean Connery one or something?
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** I think,
**Unknown:** but I think it does come from that time period where it's like,
**Unknown:** literally that was a thing.
**Unknown:** People were like,
**Unknown:** we go to the cinema on Thursday.
**Unknown:** So we see a new film.
**Unknown:** And occasionally you might see a film that you like.
**Unknown:** Should we check what's on?
**Unknown:** Nah,
**Unknown:** we are going at eight o'clock and whatever's on,
**Unknown:** we shall see.
**Unknown:** We should probably do a quick plug for that as well.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Adam mentioned.
**Unknown:** So in Romford,
**Unknown:** we've mentioned before,
**Unknown:** how much we're fans of the,
**Unknown:** what was the premier cinema there.
**Unknown:** And that closed down.
**Unknown:** Unfortunately,
**Unknown:** it's now been bought up and it's going to be the Lumiere cinema.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** and that looks like it's going to be fucking fantastic.
**Unknown:** It's what I'd hoped premier was going to be.
**Unknown:** So they're going to do a couple of screens of like,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** the new releases.
**Unknown:** You can go and see them.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** but yeah,
**Unknown:** they're going to have like,
**Unknown:** uh,
**Unknown:** almost like a cold screen as well.
**Unknown:** So they're going to be showing,
**Unknown:** so they've released,
**Unknown:** Oh yeah,
**Unknown:** we're going to do,
**Unknown:** I think it was touchstone or someone's going to do like touchstone Tuesdays or
**Unknown:** something.
**Unknown:** We're going to show all the old eighties and nineties touchstone films.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** and they're going to have a screen for private rent and they get like,
**Unknown:** and they're redoing the bar.
**Unknown:** They're putting in a lift,
**Unknown:** um,
**Unknown:** for disabled acts.
**Unknown:** Like they are doing so much.
**Unknown:** I think it's,
**Unknown:** it's going to be incredible when it's done.
**Unknown:** It definitely does sound like a project of passion,
**Unknown:** doesn't it?
**Unknown:** Like they're not messing around.
**Unknown:** The way they're talking about it is they kind of want it to be like a Prince
**Unknown:** Charles style place,
**Unknown:** but in Romford where it's,
**Unknown:** well,
**Unknown:** I think it's more accessible,
**Unknown:** but also we can all go to it and still get home.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You know,
**Unknown:** we could pull an all nighter and actually sort of,
**Unknown:** you know.
**Unknown:** I have such,
**Unknown:** such high hopes for it,
**Unknown:** but I will always offer the cautionary tale of that time in Romford where
**Unknown:** they,
**Unknown:** something closed down and they opened a falafel place.
**Unknown:** And then a month later,
**Unknown:** it was a chicken shop.
**Unknown:** And,
**Unknown:** and,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** if falafel is about the level of gentrification of Romford isn't ready for,
**Unknown:** then,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** that's,
**Unknown:** that's very true.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Please,
**Unknown:** dear God,
**Unknown:** let's have hope there's some art house film fans out.
**Unknown:** What you're saying is it will be a vape shop within three weeks.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Or one of those,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** American chocolate shops,
**Unknown:** which is a front for,
**Unknown:** you know,
**Unknown:** whatever.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I'm just hoping with the Elizabeth line,
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** literally Romford from Tottenham Court road now is going to be what?
**Unknown:** 30 minutes.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So it's,
**Unknown:** it's easily accessible from central and the cinema is only a five minute walk from
**Unknown:** the station.
**Unknown:** So I'm hoping it will generate the kind of traffic it deserves to do.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I say,
**Unknown:** and they're doing with it because when premier was announced,
**Unknown:** that's what I hoped in my mind,
**Unknown:** I went,
**Unknown:** it's going to be the new Prince Charles.
**Unknown:** It's going to be hangover club on a Sunday.
**Unknown:** We're going to show classic eighties movies and you turn up in your pajamas and
**Unknown:** you get a cup of tea and a bacon roll or whatever.
**Unknown:** And it's like,
**Unknown:** and I,
**Unknown:** and,
**Unknown:** and showing big trouble and all those.
**Unknown:** Hmm.
**Unknown:** Classic movies.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** and they didn't really capitalize on that.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** but I think Lumiere know their audience and know what they're going to turn up
**Unknown:** for.
**Unknown:** And they're bringing back ushers and ushers and phone blockers.
**Unknown:** They're going to have a blocker.
**Unknown:** So it blocks four and five G so nobody can get on the phone while they're in the
**Unknown:** cinema.
**Unknown:** That's good idea.
**Unknown:** Fucking awesome.
**Unknown:** I'm all over that.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** yeah,
**Unknown:** so apparently there's talk of them possibly doing a podcast room.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** cool.
**Unknown:** So when they do the horror festival and stuff,
**Unknown:** they'll have a room set up so people can go in and just record there with the people
**Unknown:** who were there and sort of arrange a schedule with it.
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** yeah,
**Unknown:** they seem to have thought of everything.
**Unknown:** It's really,
**Unknown:** really exciting.
**Unknown:** So I really,
**Unknown:** really hope it takes off the way that it deserves to really do.
**Unknown:** And although they did the crowd funder,
**Unknown:** that was only for a small percentage of the money that needs to go in.
**Unknown:** The money has come from,
**Unknown:** from elsewhere.
**Unknown:** They've,
**Unknown:** I mean,
**Unknown:** they've put a lot,
**Unknown:** lot of money into it,
**Unknown:** uh,
**Unknown:** from elsewhere.
**Unknown:** So yeah,
**Unknown:** I,
**Unknown:** I'm confident.
**Unknown:** And they've just had all those seats redone as well,
**Unknown:** just before it turned from premier best cinema seats I've sat in in my life.
**Unknown:** So yeah,
**Unknown:** I think it's,
**Unknown:** it's got all the potential there to be absolutely incredible.
**Unknown:** So get behind it,
**Unknown:** people.
**Unknown:** It's going to be fantastic.
**Unknown:** And you'll probably see us there.
**Unknown:** It's,
**Unknown:** might do.
**Unknown:** We'll be there from time to time.
**Unknown:** I dare say it's a semi local and yeah,
**Unknown:** very comfortable.
**Unknown:** Right.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** I'm laughing at semi.
**Unknown:** Right.
**Unknown:** Thanks ever so much for listening,
**Unknown:** everybody.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** return in a fortnight's time when we are talking about what the fuck are we talking about?
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** do you want to do a,
**Unknown:** we've been watching or do you want to do what we had?
**Unknown:** Cause I'm checking the calendar.
**Unknown:** I have done the calendar.
**Unknown:** So we are long legs.
**Unknown:** We will be covering.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** I'll get to rewatch that.
**Unknown:** Fucking crazy shit.
**Unknown:** I cannot wait.
**Unknown:** Right.
**Unknown:** Thank you very much for joining us,
**Unknown:** Danny.
**Unknown:** It's been wonderful to speak to you as always.
**Unknown:** Oh,
**Unknown:** thanks for having me again,
**Unknown:** lads.
**Unknown:** It's always a pleasure.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And this will not be the last you hear of Danny.
**Unknown:** I'm sure he'll be back as soon as his busy life schedule allows.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And if not,
**Unknown:** Danny Elfman will do it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** He won't over the same gravitas.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** We'll do the dissent too and get hands in.
**Unknown:** Poor David Julian.
**Unknown:** Justice for jewels.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Right.
**Unknown:** Thanks very much for listening,
**Unknown:** everybody.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Thanks everyone.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Night night.
**Unknown:** See you later.
**Unknown:** Good night.

---

## Ep 217 Hausu

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-217-hausu/
Air date: 9 February 2025
Duration: 00:37:20
Film: House · Year: 1977 · Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi

### Description

It’s time to unleash some absolute mania, as we experience the multiple derangements of Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s “Hausu” (aka “House”). A film in which we learn the best way to store a watermelon; the worst way to store futons; and that your legs can live to fight another day, even if the rest of you has been devoured. Like a food-colouring fuelled half remembrance of 60s pop group films fused to the most avant-guard of haunted house movies, with disturbing imagery drawn from the director’s young daughter, and nothing but torment and despair for our likeable young protagonists, “Hausu” should not work. However, Ôbayashi’s vision, style and flair make this a joyous dive headlong into a reality that the word surreal barely does justice to. It’s relentless energy and charm make for a real gem, that balances humour with the macabre - the switch halfway through from teen summer break to crazed nightmare barely dents its propulsive fun, meaning that the viewer comes away with a giddy contact high of absurdist joy. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here with spoilers and swearing to cover quite possibly the most batshit movie we have covered to date in 200 plus episodes. 1977's Hausu.
**Chris:** It's certainly in the running.
**Lee:** I this is a film that Adam and Dean have talked about for years and I'd never got around to. So I bought it about three months ago in prep for this and watched it and just went,
**Unknown:** Yeah, 20 years of hearing about just how mental it is did not prepare me for how mental this film is. Yeah. Yeah.
**Chris:** I can certainly see why it left a mark.
**Adam:** This this is not one that you can condense down into a snappy 10 films that you've won't believe that because it's like, you wouldn't even scratch the fucking surface of how insane this film is. It's wonderful.
**Chris:** I tell you what though, after about it was like 10, maybe 15 minutes. I was thinking, am I definitely watching the right film? Because that is pretty much all I'd heard and I was like, it's quite nice. I mean, little bit odd, you know, it's not a typical sort of film I would watch at that point.
**Chris:** But it's charming, you know?
**Adam:** Because at that at that point, it's just kind of shot weird.
**Chris:** Because it's kind of.
**Adam:** Yeah. Because there's a lot of techniques and sort of wipes and a lot of cinematic techniques that sort of because the first bit always reminds me of a Beatles film.
**Lee:** Yes. And the closing music sounds like the Beatles as well. I was thinking of listening to it today.
**Adam:** Oh, by the way, the people who did the songs, not the not the piano score bit, but the songs is the band Godeago and they are also the band who did all the music for Monkee.
**Chris:** Oh, now that's that's quite quite because I just started watching Monkee again.
**Lee:** All right. Yeah. Just yesterday. I love Monkee so much.
**Chris:** I thought it's time to show Toby and he he was like what are you showing me at first. I was like you got to stick with it. It just keeps getting better and better.
**Chris:** But yeah, that's kind of funny.
**Adam:** Yeah. But then I think that has a similar sort of.
**Chris:** It does, yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** But yeah, so the first half feels like a Beatles film like they're a band or something like it's like this just this seven girl pop band from Japan that we don't know, but they've got, you know, we're watching their help or you know, whatever.
**Adam:** And so it's yeah, it's sort of shot weirdly and has a lot of just artifice to it.
**Adam:** And then you get to the house and it's like basically same story, but applied to the supernatural and sort of yeah.
**Chris:** It it really does.
**Adam:** film but a film where they genuinely get murdered.
**Chris:** It does grow at the right frequency, so the effects get crazier, the concepts get crazier, the action kicks off.
**Lee:** The music goes absolutely well. It goes crazy jazz score that's just nuts.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well I just I I love the fact that Kung Fu has her own theme.
**Chris:** Right, so I was going to say, she could absolutely be spun off into her own film.
**Adam:** Well, they all can.
**Chris:** potentially, yeah.
**Adam:** Because that was the other thing as well because I was thinking pop band, I was also thinking Spice Girls.
**Adam:** So you've got like Kung Fu Spice, Gorgeous Spice, Prof Spice.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Mac Spice.
**Chris:** Melody, yeah.
**Adam:** Melody, yeah.
**Adam:** in that same sort of way, but yeah, but yeah, it is just like, I would.
**Adam:** We'll just give him seven personalities.
**Adam:** Also.
**Adam:** Also they are particularly cruel to Mack because when she disappears, they just keep going on about maybe she's going to eat some more potatoes.
**Chris:** She's just gone to the bins.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They're really quite so I mean, they clearly love her and it's affectionate, but there is no.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** They're just like if she isn't here, she's eating somewhere. She's fine. Don't even sweat it.
**Lee:** As soon as the next one goes missing, all hell breaks loose.
**Lee:** They try and find Angel when she's gone.
**Lee:** But Mac, they just go, it's fine.
**Lee:** Despite the fact one of them saw her decapitated head floating around in the courtyard.
**Adam:** Yeah, but.
**Adam:** Yeah, but hopefully that's fantasy. So she could easily see that in a daydream. So they're like, oh well, she's...
**Chris:** Fantasy.
**Adam:** So she could easily see that in a daydream.
**Adam:** Which I think is one of the because I really like the aunt, the aunt is...
**Adam:** He's talk like constantly looking out.
**Adam:** He's talking like constantly looking out at the audience and sort of talking sort of acting to the audience.
**Adam:** There's a bit where she just looks down the camera and grins because and which is kind of lovely because it's that sort of trickster demon like,
**Adam:** What am I going to fucking do now?
**Adam:** It's almost like Freddy or something like that.
**Adam:** You know where they sort of you know or funny man actually.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, you know, on a slightly classier level, should we say.
**Adam:** But
**Lee:** Hopefully.
**Adam:** But yeah, I.
**Adam:** So I love the fact that the demon because it's a demon like that or the monster, the ghost, whatever you want to call it. it keeps doing it to fantasy because it knows they won't believe her.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, it does treat her differently.
**Adam:** So it sort of like it picks on her as like, I'll show her the eye trick.
**Adam:** I'll do this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'll disappear into the fridge whilst dancing, you know, and sort of.
**Adam:** It's.
**Lee:** It's just so.
**Lee:** And like some of the choices of things as well.
**Lee:** So the right from the off, like Chris was saying.
**Lee:** The bit when they're on the train and she's telling the story of her arm.
**Lee:** But she's telling them the story and they're all saying things like, oh look at that. she beautiful?
**Lee:** And I'm like, she's telling the story and you can see her story.
**Lee:** It's a really strange mechanism.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, well they're sort of going, oh I like all they look great in uniform.
**Adam:** When they did back then, you know, they're sort.
**Lee:** What, what?
**Chris:** I'm not sure the teacher wasn't quite as manly and handsome as they'd present him to be.
**Chris:** He seemed a bit a bit of a.
**Adam:** I think, can I just like, I think the teacher is spot on.
**Adam:** For a teacher with a dune buggy who's taking some of the students on summer holiday.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's that is why he's a boling sleeves.
**Adam:** You know, he's.
**Adam:** It's like it's like a sort of dodgy Robin Askwith figure.
**Chris:** I actually that was that was one of the stand out bits of cinematography.
**Chris:** When he fell down the stairs and they changed it to stop motion and it's like, that's actually looks still like he is just falling down the stairs.
**Chris:** It's pretty good.
**Lee:** Yeah. And his head get stuck in the bucket and starts moving around and they drove that in the moving car.
**Chris:** Yeah, in front of the car.
**Chris:** But it's like.
**Chris:** That's that's great. It's just so.
**Adam:** And the little the little girl who's drumming on the bucket when it starts to move.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** That's the director's daughter.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah and she's where he got all the ideas from.
**Adam:** So she she's about 10.
**Chris:** And she's like it'd be great if you did this.
**Adam:** Well, he he basically went here and said what scares you?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And she was like, like the grandfather clock at grandma's house. And getting my fingers cut off by a piano and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Oh yeah. Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** On the piano, yeah.
**Adam:** And like, so.
**Chris:** That's where it really picked up was piano scene from there onwards.
**Chris:** Like that was like.
**Chris:** What.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, so where is it and and even like the watermelon in the well turning into a head and stuff like that.
**Adam:** That's all stuff that the daughter came up with.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so the director is let's hope I'm doing this right. Nobuhiko Obayashi.
**Chris:** Obayashi, yeah.
**Adam:** And the the daughter is Chigumi. And but yeah, so.
**Adam:** The when he did it, it was like what was it?
**Adam:** I got I had to write down because it was a good quote.
**Adam:** He asked her for the ideas because it was because grownups can only think about things they understand.
**Adam:** So everything stays on a boring level, like human level.
**Adam:** Whereas children can come up with things that can't be explained.
**Adam:** And it's like, I I I know, you know, if you ask an adult, it's like, well what scares you?
**Adam:** But it's got to be something that could you've got to find a logic to it or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Whereas a kid it was just like, being buried under futons.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and it's like.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And so you end up with this because it's because it's weirdly, it's the it's the Beatles do Suspiria in a weird way.
**Adam:** So it's.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It's so sort of like but in a utterly different vibe to Suspiria because this is because this is fun.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** It's fun all the way through despite the gruesomeness of the fates.
**Adam:** But even then they're so cartoonishly fucking weird.
**Lee:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Lee:** So and that's what I got from this that the second time watching it today because I literally just finished it a half hour ago.
**Lee:** I was like, I've got a feeling that Evil Dead has a lot of horror to pay to this.
**Lee:** Like there's so much of that like the over the top blood and all the strange visuals and the weird camera angles.
**Lee:** Like so much of it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like.
**Adam:** The mirror coming alive and attacking you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Lee:** It's it's such a good film.
**Lee:** It is one that I.
**Lee:** I struggle sometimes with weird films and I find them frustrating, but because this is so fun, you're right, that is the word.
**Lee:** You just go with it and it's just it's it's such a good time. It really, really is.
**Adam:** And yeah, and and weird because because the girls are all I think it's only Angel or Gorgeous.
**Adam:** who is the who had done some films before, but the rest of them were all
**Adam:** like models that he knew the director knew because he did loads of adverts.
**Lee:** All right.
**Adam:** He did something like 2,000 adverts, but this was like his
**Chris:** I'd I'd like to see some of them.
**Adam:** This is his first feature film.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And it's it basically this is meant to be a response to jaws.
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Chris:** Yeah, I didn't see that coming.
**Adam:** So Toho Studios, who is who produced this, are still going strong and they were famous particularly for Godzilla.
**Adam:** And but they distributed they did like Studio Ghibli, they did a lot of
**Adam:** You know, just a lot of cool bits and pieces. where are we?
**Adam:** yeah, they did like, they released Akira Kurosawa's films and things like that.
**Adam:** So they were big sort of mighty powerhouse.
**Adam:** And yeah, they were like, well, there's this thing called Jaws and we need something like that.
**Adam:** And somehow they got to this.
**Chris:** They.
**Chris:** make this and like, yep, we've we've done it.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's just The only thing I can think of, it's a cat.
**Chris:** Oh The only thing I can think of.
**Chris:** There's a pretty great cat, shout out to the cat.
**Lee:** Oh, the cat's great.
**Adam:** The cat's great.
**Adam:** Although the cat, the surprise on its face when it gets thrown on to the auntie's lap by camera.
**Adam:** You know, and it's just like they're like, I was over there a minute ago. As she's wheeled past, you know, I just think yeah.
**Adam:** It's a marvelous cat performance.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But yeah, I think and that's the thing is I think everyone in it like like the the bloke who does the watermelon, who sells the watermelons, he's the composer.
**Adam:** He's the one he's the one who wrote the piano bit.
**Adam:** And so and everything.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's mostly sort of.
**Adam:** The aunt is the only person who had a career before this.
**Adam:** She'd been like quite a successful actress.
**Adam:** But apparently because I've not seen I've not seen any of I've not seen any of his other films.
**Adam:** But Obayashi in Japan is really renowned and respected and a very mainstream director.
**Adam:** So I can only think I can only equate this almost to like bad taste.
**Adam:** You know where you've got like Peter Jackson now it's just, oh it's Lord of the Rings.
**Chris:** No, no.
**Adam:** So it's.
**Adam:** But if you go back and look at bad taste and brain dead.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's like that's this.
**Adam:** So I can only assume that this sort of rings a bit weird.
**Adam:** Although he has done because apparently he does lots of like team comedies and sort of coming of age films.
**Adam:** I saw someone, I mean, obviously I can't say whether that's true or not.
**Adam:** But someone described him as always being like Spielberg in Japan, you know, that kind of level of success.
**Adam:** And sort of mainstream success and everything else like that.
**Adam:** So I mean, this fuck knows where this sort of sprang from.
**Chris:** Well, Spielberg attempted it.
**Chris:** Poltergeist and.
**Adam:** I suppose he did.
**Chris:** Got some of the way there thanks to Toby Hooper.
**Adam:** Toby Hooper, yeah, he needed to get nasty Uncle Toby involved, didn't he?
**Adam:** Didn't he?
**Adam:** Dad was fine and then dad had like a couple of days off and then nasty Uncle Toby came around and it got shit scary, didn't it?
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Next thing you know, real skeletons in mud.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean this film still for 1977, it looks gorgeous.
**Chris:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I know some of the effects are a little bit chunky.
**Chris:** But I think they doesn't they're not they don't break it because the whole look is.
**Lee:** It's so surreal.
**Chris:** It fits like, yeah.
**Lee:** Like the bit where they pull up at the bus and there's that background.
**Lee:** And the bus pulls away and it's just a billboard in the middle of nowhere, nothing like the surroundings.
**Lee:** And I'm like, what's it what was it there for?
**Lee:** I don't understand it, but I love it.
**Lee:** It's great.
**Adam:** But apparently this was a lot of because this was his first feature film, a lot of this stuff is like stuff that he'd done in adverts and he so he was.
**Chris:** So he's like let's just use.
**Adam:** He kind of like right, I want to do all of this stuff, you know, it's like I I it's classic, you know, I might not get to make a movie again, so I'm just going to put everything I want to do, everything that fascinates me, every trick, every and and that's the thing is I think the effects.
**Adam:** If the rest of the narrative was straight or the rest of the film was straight, they the effects would look worse, but you've already had so much artificialness, you've had stop motion, slapstick and like there's the bit where the sort of the frame moves out like a window and you're into another scene and things like that.
**Adam:** And it's sort of there's a lot of.
**Chris:** It's also like a weird slow down when they call you on the phone.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, that's weird.
**Lee:** I don't think they slow motion.
**Chris:** TV's gone wrong.
**Adam:** Which which every time gets me because I will tend to watch this film in a sort of state worse for wear and every time it it lasts long enough for me to think, is this.
**Chris:** Is this.
**Chris:** Have I.
**Chris:** Is my.
**Adam:** Is this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Lee:** It is it's just everything thrown at one film.
**Lee:** But because the story is so utterly chaotic and mental, it just works on every level.
**Lee:** It's just it is.
**Lee:** It's a great film. I can see why I've heard so much from so many people about it for so long.
**Lee:** And it's just mental.
**Adam:** And I also.
**Adam:** I was going to say and I also know the number of times that me and Dean have obsessed over a film and it doesn't translate to you yourself.
**Adam:** Because like you say, sometimes they can be frustrating or fucking, you know, just poorly executed or, you know, the tone is different.
**Adam:** But certainly in this, I think the tone is like it's just.
**Adam:** It's weird to call a film like a horror film ecstatic, but it is kind of like, it's like a very, it's like you're allergic to coloring.
**Adam:** And you've had a and you've had a tube of smarties.
**Adam:** You know, it's got that sort of like jittery sort of that's just you can't help but get swept along with.
**Lee:** Oh man.
**Lee:** It just and as you say, like the sound design and everything, it just comes together so like this film flies past.
**Lee:** This is one of the fastest hour and a half I've ever spent in front of the TV.
**Chris:** I'm sure I heard a He-Man sound effect at one point.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** There's.
**Chris:** Something like that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I the bloke who did the voice of He-Man died yesterday, so that could if people want to time when the podcast was done.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, no, it's it's everything's huge in it. Everything's.
**Adam:** Because everything's artificial, everything's.
**Adam:** I mean, but also just I love the fact that there's not actually like.
**Adam:** the the stepmom or would be stepmom is not presented in any way as evil or wrong or anything else like that.
**Adam:** It's like Angel or gorgeous is the like sort of.
**Adam:** She's the one who's taken umbridge at that point.
**Adam:** And and but I just love the fact that again it's like an advert is that whenever you see her, she's in soft focus with a fan on and it's like everyone kind of drifts in from their own.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** narratives almost.
**Adam:** So it's kind of like why people have got their own music.
**Adam:** Like, you know.
**Adam:** They're all kind of it's it's all kind of they're in their own films that sort of have all coalesced at this point.
**Adam:** Like the the stepmom should be in some sort of slightly Ferrero Rocher romance film.
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Adam:** But she but she ends up getting burnt to death by a demon wearing her stepdaughter's face.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** And that's the other thing as well.
**Lee:** It doesn't have a happy ending, but.
**Lee:** But yeah, but you still come away with a big smile on your face.
**Chris:** Feeling good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's just weird.
**Adam:** Well, I just love the fact that you've got Robin Askwith in his little buggy like on his way to them the whole way through.
**Adam:** And fantasy's just like, oh, you know, don't worry, sirs going to come and save us.
**Adam:** And all of the rest of them are under no illusion there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They're all like fucking ridiculous, we've got to sort this out ourselves.
**Adam:** He's useless, you know.
**Adam:** And then he turns up, has a row with the watermelon man, who is clearly something to do with the house as well because he greets him with all the girls have been eaten or whatever it is.
**Adam:** Then they have it turns into a skeleton that shouts watermelon and he's going, no, I prefer bananas.
**Lee:** Bananas.
**Adam:** Bananas.
**Adam:** And then it cuts, other shit goes on, and then when the aunt comes through, they leave you to your own conclusion that there is a man-shaped pile of bananas in the front.
**Adam:** in in the driving seat of the buggy.
**Adam:** So obviously he's been turned into a bunch of bananas, but they didn't even bother telling you that.
**Adam:** They've just gone, you'll pick that up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean? Cuz it's like.
**Lee:** I mean it's a straightforward narrative how can you not follow that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I was trying.
**Chris:** I was trying to follow. So I do think they were getting across something.
**Chris:** I mean, it seems like certainly the aunt was traumatized by her husband or husband to be dying in the war.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** From the war, yeah.
**Chris:** Does seem a bit like it's a you know, men are kind of causing problems and then these are getting placed on to women who then go to war.
**Chris:** And then now their lives, you know, their potential is ruined.
**Chris:** And then that's getting passed on to the new generation of girls.
**Chris:** Who also all of their potential is ruined.
**Adam:** Yeah, she's praying on them.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** She's she was ruined and now she's ruining them, she can't help it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because there's because I can't quite remember what the quote is at the end, but it's like, you know, that.
**Chris:** Love, yeah, something about.
**Adam:** It's basically love you will feel the if you love someone, you will always feel what they're feeling, something along those lines.
**Adam:** And it's kind of like, but in the context of this film, it yeah, well that's it.
**Chris:** I was like, I'm trying to follow.
**Adam:** It's like you've twisted a greetings card.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, cuz it's like according this film it's like, yeah, he probably felt that as you know, the the parents felt that as she was eaten by the piano.
**Adam:** You know,.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but I mean but you say also grew up in Hiroshima like he was like six.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So obviously he knew.
**Chris:** He probably did.
**Adam:** Very much firsthand what war, you know, what war can do and what leave behind and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Well, the wider implications, yeah.
**Adam:** But weirdly but still like you say, no happy ending.
**Adam:** A a fucking mental narrative, but it's just so joyous in that and such a fucking visual treat, you know.
**Chris:** It's so watchable.
**Adam:** Because again, I'm I you know, I I like a lot of I like a lot of stuff that has a very artificial look or has also uses weird techniques and things like that.
**Adam:** A it doesn't always work, but also I don't think that this weirdly enough does feel like anyone could watch it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, as long as you don't have a problem with subtitles.
**Adam:** If you do.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** But you know what I mean.
**Adam:** I think really it's sort of you know, oddly, I think it's just something that would.
**Adam:** You know, if someone's willing to sit down with it, it will always cut through the sheer sort of like manic well, the mania of it.
**Adam:** Just the sort of sheer what the fuck.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was one of those, you know, like I saw it for the first time two months ago, sat down to watch it today.
**Lee:** And I remembered maybe five minutes of it in clips because it is so all over the place, it is hard to remember that all the scenes are actually linked.
**Lee:** And it has actually got a fairly straight narrative, despite all the craziness.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's not complex. yeah.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** But then but then that's probably what it needs.
**Adam:** If you started, imagine if you started putting into this an investigation into how the aunt became a demon.
**Adam:** You know, that derail it.
**Adam:** That you know.
**Adam:** It happened.
**Adam:** She was pissed off, she became a demon.
**Adam:** All right.
**Adam:** Fuck sake.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** How does attacking a painting of a cat kill the cat kill the demon?
**Lee:** You don't need to know that.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Why does the blood fill an entire room like a river so they end up drowning in it?
**Lee:** Because it does.
**Lee:** Great.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** I'm I'm going with it.
**Lee:** I am not questioning anything.
**Adam:** Why why are you attacked and stripped naked by futons and end up squashed in a clock?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No one knows that.
**Adam:** How determined are you to kick a painting that your disembodied legs will do it after you've been eaten by a light fitting?
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Adam:** All these all these things are in this film.
**Adam:** And that's what that's what brings me a lot of joy with this.
**Adam:** Is there's like.
**Chris:** I think all of our listeners have just just turned off and gone to start watching it.
**Adam:** I I hope so.
**Adam:** I hope so because weirdly enough, I don't know if I don't know if it's a film you can spoil.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In a way, you know, there's no there's no twists or anything.
**Adam:** And our descriptions are not going to do justice to watching it.
**Adam:** Because the it's just fucking madness.
**Lee:** And it's everything I love about Japanese cinema in.
**Chris:** It's it's how to break every rule of cinema and make it work perfectly.
**Lee:** And I love it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On on paper, it shouldn't, you know, on on paper, this should be something that no one would back.
**Adam:** No one would put money in.
**Adam:** And actually, the only reason he got to direct it was because the he he wasn't, although he was hired by Toho, he wasn't one of their directors like staff directors, you know, like.
**Adam:** or in-house directors.
**Adam:** But none of them would do it once they'd read the script because they were like, no this is a fucking career ender.
**Chris:** How are you possibly going to do this?
**Adam:** And probably and that's the thing is really if someone else had taken it, it probably would be quite crap.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or, you know what I mean.
**Adam:** Because I think it was obviously so much it's so much of Obayashi's vision and his techniques and what, you know, he's going to write what he.
**Adam:** But no one's going to necessarily take that from the page unless he wrote it out frame by frame as a storyboard or whatever like that.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But yeah, so that's and and but even then they weren't keen for him to direct it, so he did like he made a manga of it.
**Adam:** But yeah, so that's and and but even then they weren't keen for him to direct it, so he did like he made a manga of it.
**Adam:** I don't know if that's I don't know if it's available in translated form because I'd like to see that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** he did a radio version of it.
**Adam:** That was really successful.
**Lee:** How would that work?
**Adam:** Again, I have no idea but obviously it's in Japanese.
**Adam:** So I can't.
**Chris:** I'll learn Japanese just to watch.
**Adam:** I feel I feel the need.
**Adam:** But, you know, that's yeah, so he did like a radio drama of it that was really well received so everyone's like, oh it looks like you know what you're doing.
**Adam:** I think the the the songs were written by Godeago before the film was made.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So he could play the music on set and stuff like that.
**Adam:** and actually Godeago are in it because they're the ones who are they're the ones who like it's like seconds but they're talking to the girls at a bus stop or outside the train station, that's it.
**Adam:** And there's like guys talking to him and that's the band.
**Adam:** So again, there's barely anyone.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, that's random as they go in to get on the train and there's just loads of people waving them off.
**Lee:** Like that's what happens when you get on a train, loads of strangers just come and wave and cheer you goodbye.
**Lee:** When you're just some school kids just going about your school holidays.
**Adam:** It.
**Lee:** the other thing that I kept thinking the whole way through this is I'm getting my Yokai box set back out again because.
**Lee:** This film goes so well with the the Yokai movies.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We need we need to do one of those or any of those.
**Lee:** on I I think the first one possibly but yeah I mean I I so I bought the box set.
**Lee:** on I I think the first one possibly, but yeah, I mean, I I so I bought the box set two years ago when Arrow released it.
**Lee:** I picked it up at horror on TV, actually.
**Adam:** Yes, yes, I remember.
**Lee:** And yeah, and in a week I watched all four of the movies and three of the movies and the documentary.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Lee:** They're brilliant, but they're just like this, it's just it throws you in at the deep end.
**Lee:** Doesn't explain anything.
**Lee:** Nothing ever gets, but it just looks beautiful and you just go with it.
**Lee:** And you have a fun time.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean they're they're not quite on this manic level.
**Adam:** But certainly.
**Adam:** But also just that thing of like you going.
**Adam:** These effects are fucking amazing.
**Adam:** You know, it's you're not even giving it a for for its time sort of thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because some of some of the stuff in like in the the Yokai series, there's like like those living umbrellas and stuff like that.
**Adam:** They just look really fucking good, they're just weird, they're not like, they don't look even though they're an umbrella monster, so immediately that's already a bit crap or a bit weird or you know, it's not necessarily if someone said to you, oh, there's an umbrella monster.
**Adam:** You think that's that scary.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But they make them so.
**Adam:** They do genuinely feel real, you know, they they brilliant effects for them and so they actually do become really uncanny and quite sort of like that's just odd.
**Lee:** It is there's something unnerving about it because yeah, it's it looks so real.
**Lee:** Because it's not CGI, it's all old, but yeah, it's just.
**Adam:** But they're just.
**Adam:** But but then weirdly enough, I was watching.
**Adam:** In the week I found someone has put up subtitled episodes of Ultra Q on YouTube.
**Adam:** And Ultra Q is like a 60s I've been trying to get me hands on it to watch it was basically a Japanese TV series in the 60s.
**Adam:** They wanted to make like a sort of monster version of the Twilight Zone, but it basically is more the X files because it's like a group who investigate.
**Adam:** And it's basically Kaiju of the week.
**Lee:** Oh, can you set me a link to that?
**Lee:** Because.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'll I'll I'll send you a.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's like yeah, I watched I watched the first episode the other day.
**Adam:** It's really good.
**Adam:** But the thing that struck me was obviously.
**Adam:** the Kaiju monsters because this is they've literally raided Toho Studio's cupboard.
**Adam:** So the monster in it has got like Godzilla's head with added bits and the body of King Kong and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's all yeah, it's just all sort of mishmash.
**Adam:** But the actual when I was watching it, I was just absolutely stunned.
**Adam:** by the model like the model sets that they were destroying.
**Adam:** Because they were fucking perfect.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** You know, they just they were they looked so good and it sold it so well because there was just a weird moment where I was going.
**Adam:** That's because you've seen people walk past these things, it wasn't like, you know, it's not just a set that.
**Adam:** It's not like the city, they they're basically in this episode is they dig up an egg at a mine.
**Adam:** So they're all around the mine and you've got like the little mine carts next to him and everything and they're all standing there and talking and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And then this location has then been turned into this model and it's so fucking good that it took me a moment to go.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, that is a bloke in a suit on a model, is it?
**Adam:** It was almost like, oh, this fan a really big guy like fucking to and just put him in a suit.
**Adam:** Is that.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It was but yeah, it was just such such good stuff, but yeah, I'm going to definitely watch more of that.
**Adam:** So it's it's it's obviously the season.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** And and it kind of, I don't know why, I had the same, I'm sure I mentioned it on the show before, every now and again, probably once a year, once every two years.
**Lee:** I will think, I will get a Shaw Brothers film off the shelf and then I will go on a massive Kung Fu movie bender.
**Lee:** And it happened last week, and just kind of out of nowhere.
**Lee:** And I smashed through about four or five of those films.
**Lee:** So but they're the same that so obviously Chinese cinema is very different from Japanese, but again, it's just got that very strange blend of things that are you know.
**Lee:** The fact that if you can do Kung Fu, you can fly, that is just a given.
**Lee:** You just accept it, it's just.
**Adam:** That's that's always that's always in Kung Fu movies that it's always you are quite you know.
**Adam:** It it's it's always a plus, there's very, there's very there's amazing fights, but there's also acrobatics that are out of, you know, very you know, stuff stuff that's more superhero movie than, you know.
**Adam:** A a realistic depiction of a.
**Lee:** of someone's abilities.
**Lee:** But yes, Asian cinema is just it's so spectacular and it's so bright and garish.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** Yeah, and and this is the same.
**Lee:** It's just a delight to watch yeah, and even the story with this film is great.
**Lee:** But even if it didn't make any sense.
**Lee:** I'd still watch this just for the visuals, it's such a stunning looking film.
**Adam:** And that's the thing is I think it's yeah, it just bypasses everything.
**Adam:** In just look and sort of attitude and heart of the film.
**Adam:** It's just like, yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** So so if anyone was in any if anyone was worried about how they feel.
**Adam:** I would like to say that I for one think this is quite a good film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm gutted it's taken me this long to watch it.
**Adam:** It's I I understand it because it's one of those things where like I say, when people describe it to you like, yeah, I've heard you say this before.
**Adam:** And this was you know, and you've you've made me sit through some right shot.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Even even the back of the arrow release that I've got describes it as like a psychedelic story.
**Lee:** A a psychedelic teen drama.
**Lee:** And I was like, I'm pretty sure it's a horror.
**Lee:** But it does start off as a psychedelic teen drama, it's very yeah, it kind of forget and then all of a sudden you go, oh no, there's ghosts and demons and incredibly gore.
**Lee:** just explodes out of nowhere and you.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Very much so.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It has a very it has a very distinct turn.
**Adam:** And yet somehow manages to maintain that sort of craziness and optimism that is sort of in it at the start.
**Adam:** Like the sort of.
**Adam:** The craziness and the sort of energy that you've got in that early section.
**Adam:** And it's like it doesn't lose that when it brings in the because usually it'd be like, oh something's.
**Adam:** We see a lot of films where it's like, oh there's a real tonal shift.
**Adam:** And it'll be like, oh really dark and then it goes fucking dark as all fuck or whatever like that.
**Adam:** This doesn't.
**Adam:** Even though it does go dark as all fuck.
**Adam:** Because.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We're still having fun.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But still.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Seven.
**Adam:** Seven children are murdered by demons one by a demon spirit of one of their aunts.
**Adam:** Because of war.
**Chris:** We're still having fun.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but still.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We're no happy ending.
**Lee:** It is again, it's one of those.
**Lee:** It's a party movie.
**Lee:** This is got your mates over, you're having a laugh and a beer, you want something on in the TV, just in the background.
**Lee:** Just a bit of a talking point.
**Lee:** This is the one to put on because it's just.
**Lee:** Batshit.
**Adam:** I'm not sure if it is to be honest because I think this is one of those ones where suddenly the room is in silence.
**Adam:** And everyone has drifted in from the kitchen and everything and there's just all of you standing there watching it.
**Chris:** What is going to go?
**Adam:** On next.
**Adam:** Yeah, just like and basically you've.
**Adam:** And basically you've killed a party stone dead because people are genuinely actually watching the film at that point.
**Chris:** I mean, I should keep getting flashbacks to everything, but for some reason, it is the poster of the cat with the smiling face at that point.
**Chris:** Just keep like.
**Adam:** Oh man.
**Lee:** Oh man.
**Lee:** That's great.
**Lee:** Incredible, just incredible.
**Lee:** yes, so as we say, anybody who hasn't seen this film.
**Lee:** Although we have told you everything that happens in it, you still need to see yourself.
**Chris:** You know nothing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Because I cannot describe it in all its glory.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Our words are.
**Adam:** pitiful in front of this.
**Adam:** In front of this film.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** Fantastic film. right.
**Lee:** So we are going to be back in a fortnight's time for a film I've not seen and definitely should have done. we are going to be covering The Descent.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I've never seen it because I I've never been in a particularly claustrophobic environment.
**Lee:** But the thought of them gives me a panic attack.
**Lee:** So that's why I've never seen this film, but it's so highly rated by so many people.
**Lee:** I feel it I definitely have to persevere and get through my discomfort hopefully.
**Chris:** You're doing your duty.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Admirable.
**Lee:** He put me in a box with me coat on.
**Adam:** Don't say do your duty because that's always.
**Adam:** I always think that's what someone says to their dog.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Go and do your duty.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Go and do your duty.
**Lee:** Isn't that American?
**Lee:** Go and do your duty.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Of course, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh your duty.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, go and check out Hausu.
**Lee:** It's an amazing time, it's the fastest hour and a half of your life potentially.
**Lee:** and we'll be back in a fortnight's time with The Descent.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening, good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 216 Horror on Sea 2025

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-216-horror-on-sea-2025/
Air date: 19 January 2025
Duration: 00:39:35

### Description

With the magnificent Horror-on-Sea film festival just gone, we look back on the day we attended (Saturday 18th) and the delights we saw there. As well as the usual amazing atmosphere, we experienced 2 features on our flying visit - “Hell Hole” from directors Toby Poser and John Adams, and the world premiere of anthology sequel “Video Shop Tales of Terror 2: Lust and Revenge”! Full disclosure, Lee and Adam both appear in VSTOT2 (in very blink and you’ll miss ‘em supporting roles), so their view of the film maybe somewhat skewed. We managed to get them out of their star dressing rooms and away from their adoring fans just long enough to also get some insights into the time they spent on set. We also discuss the short films “The Camping Dead” and “Open Your Eyes”. We will aim to remain spoiler free as these are fresh new films, but also suggest you check out all of these works as/when you get the opportunity. No prep needed for this ep - just join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** Hi, Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here this evening to discuss, as we do almost every year, apart from last year, the fantastic Horror on Sea Film Festival.
**Chris:** which we went to yesterday. Still, still recovering from staying up late, watching films all day, but yeah, pretty amazing.
**Adam:** Yeah, we're making us increasingly aware of our decrepitude.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think starting next year I'm just going to have to stay up there, because it's,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Could be a good plan.
**Lee:** point where it's.
**Lee:** Yeah, and we always have to miss the last film as well,
**Chris:** because obviously it's.
**Lee:** such a, I mean, as we were just discussing off mic, we didn't get home till gone midnight as it was, and we're old, so,
**Chris:** Yeah. That's true.
**Lee:** And an early start as well, when you had a film.
**Lee:** But yes, so, we saw two films yesterday and two shorts.
**Lee:** we're going to try and keep them fairly spoiler-free as we run through them.
**Lee:** yeah, so, Adam, would you like to kick us off with where we began the day?
**Adam:** I'd like, well, I'd first like to say, fuck, there might be swearing.
**Adam:** so yeah, as you say, we're trying to remain spoiler-free, but the, the language will continue.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** yeah, so, first off, we saw, The Campin' Dead.
**Adam:** which was the short film, like supporting the, the feature Hell Hole.
**Adam:** French film, which I understand is from 2019.
**Adam:** directed by Sebastian Blondel and Julie Pincus, and Sebastian is also was also one of the actors in it.
**Adam:** nice funny short, sort of
**Adam:** basically like a sketch set on the roof of the mall from Dawn of the Dead.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Just like
**Adam:** Just a little, yeah, just a nice funny little daft. The
**Chris:** the opening sequence when you see the zombies lumbering along, like it doesn't give away what you're going to be getting.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** And like it was, it was just, I thought very funny.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was hilarious, like everybody was it had a really, it got a really good reception, it was really enjoyed, really funny.
**Chris:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, just 20 minutes, nice and short and in and out,
**Adam:** Whoa.
**Adam:** Whoa.
**Lee:** Whoa.
**Lee:** Yeah, I get what you mean, Chris. I was the same. When it first opened, it looked like it was going to be potentially a quote unquote serious.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Or even standard. But but I was thinking of Shaun of the Dead and I thought they had some jokes in there that were,
**Chris:** they felt original, maybe presented in an original way, but yeah, it certainly kept my my attention.
**Adam:** I think it also, despite being subtitled, because that doesn't always, you know,
**Adam:** I don't,
**Chris:** The jokes may not land.
**Adam:** it's always translate what I mean subtitled may not convey, but I think it was clearly, you know, it was clear how
**Chris:** A lot of it was the looks on their faces or just their demeanor,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** a lot of physical comedy.
**Chris:** the way they played off each other.
**Chris:** Yeah, you could almost feel like
**Lee:** Comedy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it was just guys who were going a bit mad but in their own ways.
**Adam:** Well, the misfortune of, three guys stuck on a roof during a zombie apocalypse. That's it, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I did enjoy it. It was only, it was only about 20 minutes as well, so I think it was,
**Chris:** Yeah, felt good, good amount of time.
**Adam:** Perfect. It was like the perfect amount to show what they had.
**Adam:** And yeah, I think it was, yeah, people should definitely check that one out.
**Chris:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, without a doubt, a great fun.
**Lee:** so as we said, that was the prelude to the feature that was Hell Hole.
**Lee:** from, filmed in Serbia, a Serbian US production, again,
**Lee:** only an hour and three minutes.
**Lee:** which actually
**Adam:** I didn't realize it was that short, to be honest.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I didn't think it was either, but looking at it on the timing here, that's what it's, it's telling me it was.
**Adam:** Oh, right, okay.
**Lee:** But that would explain why it felt so like it moved really nicely.
**Lee:** It didn't, it was all pretty much
**Lee:** not quite single location, but it was all within one building and the outlines around it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** right up until the end.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** But I was just I was just going to say, so basically it's, you the opening, like pre-credit sequence is a group of soldiers
**Adam:** during the Napoleonic wars, going through Serbia.
**Adam:** And it's very atmospheric and you're not quite sure what's happening and there's a lot of mistrust.
**Adam:** And then a horse explodes, and it goes from there.
**Chris:** And it does give away, essentially, it tells you what you're going to be getting.
**Adam:** It tells you, I would argue it tells you what you're going to be getting to a certain extent.
**Adam:** Because I wasn't then expecting people in eggs.
**Adam:** And so on and so forth. Again, I'm trying to avoid spoiling it too much.
**Chris:** Well, that's it, yeah.
**Adam:** Then it cuts to the present day and there's a American company who are,
**Adam:** like an American managed, drilling site where they're basically trying to
**Chris:** A fracking company.
**Adam:** fracking. Yeah, they're going to be fracking.
**Adam:** And they've got a couple of environmental scientists there who've got to give them the approval to frac that there's not,
**Adam:** you know, endangered species there or something like that.
**Adam:** And it's already quite a tense situation and a, you know, fairly surly, couldn't give a shit workforce.
**Chris:** Yeah, there's clearly three groups, yeah, the management, environmentalists and the workers. Yeah.
**Chris:** And they do they present that really well. It feels realistic. I think they they did get that right, definitely.
**Adam:** And then you introduce into that an aggressive extraterrestrial organism.
**Chris:** And how how each of them deal with it. Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think this again, I think it's got I think it's got a humor to it.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's definitely sort of you have it's that sort of situational humor of just like how characters interact and stuff like that, rather than gags.
**Adam:** But, you know, it's that sort of, you know, it which just added to the
**Adam:** for my money, just added to the, in a way, added to the realism, because it's not deathly serious, because probably no one has much of a conception how deathly serious it gets.
**Chris:** That could be it, yeah.
**Adam:** Until events sort of stumble on, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And what what I liked was I felt like the quite a few of the cast had decent roles and they played them well.
**Chris:** when they had longer speaking parts, it's like, yeah, you you know, you're fitting in well with this.
**Chris:** You're believable.
**Adam:** Well, the, the two directors of this, John Adams and Toby Poser, both play characters in this.
**Adam:** In fact, Toby Poser is Emily, so pretty much
**Chris:** Oh, yeah. Okay.
**Adam:** the main character, and John Adams played, oddly enough, John.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** so, you know, they're fairly, substantial roles that they've both got in it.
**Adam:** but,
**Adam:** I know that sounds weird, that never came across, do you know what I mean? It it doesn't feel at any point that like that was, you know, we've just given ourselves the best roles or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It was just, yeah, you know, you've given yourself the right roles.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it definitely seen like it. Definitely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I also have to have a shout out because there's the character in it, Teddy, who sort of is the kind of go-between between all three parties.
**Adam:** who's like the who's the, the manager of the, the site manager's, nephew.
**Adam:** and, but the actor who plays him is called Maximum Portman.
**Adam:** Which is just a fucking incredible name.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** You want Portman?
**Adam:** He brings Maximum Portman. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I really enjoyed it. I mean, I know we, we, we all watch the trailer,
**Lee:** and had discussed it and basically said, oh yeah, it looks like the thing on a building site, which it effectively is.
**Lee:** but yeah, it plays out.
**Chris:** It plays out,
**Lee:** yeah, a lot more than that. It's because again, it's it's as you were saying, it's about the interaction between the three groups effectively, is the most entertaining part.
**Lee:** I think the monster's great and it, you know, it is really good and it looked pretty good.
**Lee:** Like the effects and stuff look really good, but it was about the interplay between the three groups and them all
**Lee:** having each other's back within their unit and how they they were all bashing against each other and had totally different ideas of what should happen at every, you know, effective branch.
**Adam:** And also and also just the fact that not everyone's letting on to everyone, you know, how much they know or what they've discovered.
**Chris:** That's it, yeah.
**Adam:** And even trying to sort of put it into hint and things like that and it's like, yeah, but just tell them, for God's sake, because
**Chris:** This is
**Chris:** Well, I quite like to a couple of points, it's like some of them saw certain things, but not all of them did. So, you could imagine that's that's realistic if something happens quickly, not everyone would necessarily see exactly the same thing.
**Chris:** And and it's also that, you know, like cognitive bias or, you know, do you want to see the thing that
**Lee:** Your others just saw.
**Chris:** Like, yeah. So that that helped to make it feel real.
**Adam:** And I mean, you now you're saying about the runtime though as well is because I thought towards the end, I thought they started getting very, I don't know whether it was to accelerate the pace or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But there was sort of certain things where there was there's a I know I said about it after we'd seen it, but there's a part in it where a specific character
**Adam:** is referenced as being a problem, suddenly they're not around.
**Adam:** And then a scene or so later, you just cover they've locked them up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Now, it's not that's not a fault of the thing. If anything, that's better, because it's just like, no, you're going to get your explanation, you'll see where he is, you know, that's that's tied that up for you.
**Adam:** You know,
**Lee:** Don't need to see the whole process.
**Adam:** you're watching this film, yeah.
**Adam:** So it just creates like a little, you know, it's it's a little jump, but it did mean that things weren't getting, you know, they were sort of escalating and getting to that sort of the,
**Adam:** you know, as the tension rises, as the situation hots up, they were sort of, not being as ponderous as they could have been.
**Lee:** I've got to say,
**Lee:** I I think I said, as we came out yesterday, I liked that. It was a very specific change in pace, but I really liked that.
**Lee:** Because it was very slow and building with the atmosphere when you only had part of the.
**Lee:** And then once you had all of the facts, and then it suddenly became a race to try and resolve it.
**Lee:** And I thought that worked really well because it meant it was nice and slow when it needed to be and it took time to build tension, but then in the end when it was bedlam and chaos, it felt like that.
**Lee:** Because everything was happening so fast and yeah, it was perfect. didn't didn't feel like it was dragging out at all.
**Chris:** It was.
**Adam:** It wrapped, it wrapped it up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So is that is that I'm assuming this is a recommend from all three of us?
**Lee:** Yeah,
**Chris:** I'll yeah.
**Lee:** I'll get it.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely, I say, that's a good watch, yeah.
**Adam:** And I've got also, because the directors also did, a film called Hellbender,
**Adam:** did you say you've seen it, Lee?
**Lee:** I did see Hellbender, I really enjoyed it.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Right, okay. I might have to check that out.
**Lee:** Yes, yes.
**Adam:** Very good. More of what they've done, yeah.
**Lee:** It's a bit sort of not it is almost folk horror. I think it was Eastern Europe, if I remember correctly. I saw it a little while ago.
**Lee:** Oh no, it wasn't Eastern Europe. I think it was out in the middle of no, like a sort of very rural US type of thing, if I remember correctly.
**Adam:** Oh, right, okay.
**Lee:** but yeah, no, it was really nice. I seem to remember the soundtrack being outstanding, so I think you'd particularly like that one, Adam.
**Lee:** So definitely,
**Adam:** Yeah, I did like the soundtrack, which which again was John Adams.
**Adam:** so it's directed, acted and also provided the score. I really did like the score. It had those really sort of chuggy, sort of sludgy doom riffs.
**Adam:** And then it just started getting into very chittery electronics and at that point, I'm like, well, I'm happy as a pig in shit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** that's great.
**Lee:** yeah, so, we didn't cover as many films this year as we normally do, because, we haven't seen each other, really, for ages.
**Lee:** So we went to these films early in the day, and then ourselves, Lady Jennifer and a friend of the show, Dave.
**Lee:** Hi, Dave, thank you very much for a lovely day.
**Chris:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, so we basically spent the rest of the day catching up and eating and drinking and being merry and just spending time together.
**Chris:** Nice little excursion into Southend.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'd do.
**Chris:** Out a few bars. Yeah.
**Lee:** And now a great fish and chip shop.
**Adam:** And Dave knows all the history.
**Adam:** So he knows you know, it's fascinating.
**Chris:** He does.
**Lee:** He's like a tour guide everywhere you go down there. He tells you every building you go past, he goes, that used to be a hotel.
**Lee:** And then yeah, so it is it is like having your own tour guide, he's excellent.
**Lee:** yeah, so we spent the day hanging out.
**Lee:** And then we returned back for the evening, for
**Lee:** Video Shop Tales of Terror II and the short which preceded it.
**Chris:** Which was very short.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Chris:** Because it turned out it was a, what was it? The like film jam?
**Adam:** That was it, yes. I think that's film jam, it was called, because the director, Simon Dartman,
**Adam:** introduced it.
**Chris:** Yeah. Yeah, that was always nice.
**Adam:** And, because because obviously, like The Campin' Dead, that was a French production. Hell Hole was an American/Eastern European.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But
**Chris:** Fair enough that they they may not have made it over here.
**Adam:** They probably wouldn't have made it to sort of introduce or anything like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, so, and it was, Open Your Eyes.
**Adam:** And apparently, this is like a, a film school where basically, or like a film course where you go and split off into groups, just write your thing there and then and then go and film it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Was it like, you've got 24 hours or something to to do it?
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Chris:** You've got 24 hours to to produce to finish.
**Adam:** Yeah, it was basically to turn it around and produce a whole short.
**Chris:** Which is not not a lot of time to
**Lee:** That sounds like so much fun though.
**Chris:** Yeah, I imagine it would be, yeah.
**Chris:** I kind of liked the idea of the constraint and and yeah.
**Chris:** I thought he did a good job, like it's
**Adam:** It's nice to see that that was a nice goofy little sketch.
**Adam:** I would, that is something should be, I'm I'm assuming if it
**Adam:** it feels like if this film jam thing, it might be that they've got it like on YouTube or they've got it on their site or something like that.
**Adam:** Because I think it's just a very, very good sort of icky three minutes or whatever it was, you know, it wasn't it wasn't particularly long at all.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'd definitely be keen to see other output that they.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah, that was just, it's such a great concept.
**Chris:** It is.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'd love to see what else they've made. So I will definitely be looking those up when I get a chance.
**Chris:** Yeah. What can you get across on a micro-film that just captures something, you know,
**Chris:** meaningful. And yeah, it was, if you think about what was involved in it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It tugged at the heartstrings.
**Lee:** Yes, and then, we had the main event of the evening, it was the world premiere of Video Shop Tales of Terror II, Southend Revenge.
**Chris:** And a very special event it was.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** So we've been teasing this for nearly a year now, saying that Adam and I had been had something in the pipeline, but we couldn't talk about it and blah, blah, blah.
**Adam:** Not without a medic involved. It's.
**Lee:** So, we Adam and I got an opportunity thanks to friend of the show, Shawn.
**Lee:** Thank you, Shawn, who who came to us with this.
**Lee:** And yeah, basically said, oh, I could probably get you, because I was discussing with him about his working behind the scenes on some of the stuff we'd covered from the Romford Horror Film Festival off February.
**Lee:** and I he said, oh, that film you covered,
**Lee:** which was, the Pocket Film of Superstitions by Bobby Lee Rutter, which we loved.
**Lee:** and he basically said, oh yeah, I did some work on that, and I said, oh, it must be amazing work getting to work behind the scenes and see it all come together.
**Lee:** and he said, I might be able to get you and Adam in as extras if you like.
**Lee:** which obviously we jumped.
**Adam:** And we and we did.
**Lee:** Yeah, we did like, yeah, very much so.
**Lee:** yes, so we got to go and spend a day at the studio, for our little few seconds that we're in the film.
**Chris:** Very, very good few seconds.
**Lee:** But oh, it was the experience was fantastic. So I think we'll talk about that after.
**Lee:** but yes, so the film itself.
**Lee:** it's a the same as Video Shop Tales of Terror, the original.
**Lee:** So it's an anthology, these felt a lot this felt more it was almost like a trailer movie, but with some being slightly longer.
**Lee:** It wasn't like, like 3, 15, 20 minutes.
**Lee:** They were all much shorter parts, but it it rocketed along because of that. It was
**Chris:** Yeah, it really did.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But I found them I did think the length of each of them was good. You definitely was able to get a pretty decent story from them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, I really enjoyed the the variety and the comedy certainly in some of them.
**Adam:** Well, I think especially because it's obviously they've, certainly this time around they've they've really gone, because, Video Shop Tales of Terror, which we will have to cover,
**Adam:** at some point.
**Adam:** it's this is the same sort of setup where it's basically it's not only is it it's different directors doing their own sort of parts.
**Chris:** Yes. Yeah.
**Adam:** And with a
**Adam:** wrap around story, which is set in the video dungeon, which is the, a video shop in hell where souls are passed through, so you become sort of like a sort of,
**Adam:** a VHS River Styx where you go through and your souls are transferred to hell.
**Adam:** And so,
**Adam:** you've got that as your sort of setup, and then all the shorts are the movies that the shop has to offer or their trailers that are seen on those shops.
**Adam:** Or in this case, there was a training video for new members of staff, which featured two very handsome and good-looking gentlemen.
**Adam:** and,
**Adam:** but there's, you know, and so there was a lot of,
**Adam:** I think yeah, the the first one I think is very is much more sort of blocked in that sort of sense of you've got like, I think it's,
**Adam:** is it four or five, I can't remember, but it's there clearly, right here's the one.
**Adam:** Whereas this had a much more looser sort of mad cap thing to it that I liked, which was like, oh, is this a trailer?
**Adam:** Or are we getting the short and effectively everything was the right length that it had to be, in as much as, that's quite a good joke for two minutes, so that's a good trailer.
**Adam:** Or then, you know, other stuff where it's like, no, we can expand on this.
**Adam:** We can get, you know, more and more, there's there's more that can be taken out of this idea or there's more to show you or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** yeah, and there were, I mean, a lot of nods back to the original.
**Adam:** The the wrap around on this one is basically a continuation of the wrap around story from the first one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So of the, sort of goings on in the actual video shop.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was great.
**Lee:** And again, I like the because it's all different directors.
**Lee:** So, Alex Churchyard, I believe, was the the director who did the wrap around story.
**Adam:** He he the wrap around.
**Adam:** And he was the director when we he was directing when we, the day we were there.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Like it's
**Adam:** So it's part of the Yes, when we when we when we bounced our way in.
**Adam:** Screaming, make me a star.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** so there was bits so we were involved with video dungeon two, like the wrap around, and also what turned into the trailer called the governor.
**Adam:** Which was one of, which again, just not not just because both me and Lee can be seen getting smashed in the face in it.
**Adam:** but it's actually just a ludicrous sort of homage to 70s Giallo movies and yeah, it's just like
**Lee:** And Paul was fantastic in it. He had the absolute best bit.
**Chris:** He was, yeah.
**Lee:** So Paul who runs, the Horror on Sea Film Festival, he was the star of that trailer.
**Lee:** yeah, and absolutely smashed it.
**Lee:** He was great.
**Chris:** He was perfect for it.
**Adam:** and he also did the Invasion of Studio '69, which was the,
**Adam:** part Twilight Zone, I don't know how far I want to go on spoilers of that.
**Adam:** But basically, it's a porn shoot that goes wrong, but Lawrence R Harvey turns up as Rod Serling, and it's in black and white and it's sort of, you know, in a sort of,
**Adam:** well, it couldn't happen here, could it, but it could. Yeah.
**Adam:** In Studio '69, and, yeah.
**Adam:** And,
**Lee:** He also.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Adam:** No, you go.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just I just thought it like, I like, I didn't know he was going to be in this one.
**Lee:** And I always like him when he pops up in these things, because he always it is it's one of those, as soon as he turns up, you're like, yeah, this is going to get really funny, really fast. Yeah, and he just delivered absolutely again on this.
**Lee:** It's there was I think there was even a roar when he came on.
**Lee:** As soon as he.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** I mean, I mean, once again, like, very much like Video Shop Tales of Terror, because there's a lot of the same people are appearing,
**Adam:** who appear in the first one or appearing in this, so it's all people who are associated with the directors and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So there were quite a few cheers of recognition where it was like,
**Adam:** oh, they're, I mean, obviously, like Danny Thompson's in it because it's a film it's a horror film made in Essex, so, you know, legally, Danny Thompson has to be in it anyway.
**Adam:** But,
**Chris:** But she she's great.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, absolutely, always.
**Adam:** But it's sort of it's just
**Adam:** So, but you could hear when sort of like, like when Siy Ha appeared, like the producer appeared as the curator and stuff like that.
**Adam:** It's all just like, yeah, all the, familiar faces, as it were.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** but there was, what was there?
**Chris:** Is it oh, Lawrence R Harvey, he he had a good bit as well.
**Adam:** Oh, that's what we were saying about where he was being Rod Serling from the Twilight Zone.
**Adam:** So every time it was him, it was him in the suit and the black and white.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** but, and that I believe that was actually that was directed by Tony Martin.
**Adam:** Who did, which is in the Sants.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** and, so that that was him who did Invasion of Studio '69, actually, and,
**Chris:** I'm trying to remember them all because there was, there was a lot.
**Adam:** Well, unfortunately, there was a bit of a,
**Chris:** Oh,
**Adam:** We didn't get to see, we didn't get to see Andrew Elias's trailer at the start.
**Adam:** The the Beast of No Man's Land, which is a pity, but,
**Adam:** I, you know, I, let's face it, we know we're going to watch this again.
**Adam:** Certainly me and Lee are if only like tragic failed starlets in our Hollywood homes, asking the butler to change the reels.
**Chris:** I mean, I'm just yeah, if only like tragic failed starlets in our Hollywood homes asking our butler to change the reels while we plan to murder our doctor husband.
**Adam:** While we plan to murder our doctor husband.
**Adam:** You know, just so that we can have one last shot at fame.
**Chris:** But I think there's there's enough in this, like the amount of different references and the amount of different jokes.
**Chris:** And there's even, you know, they even managed to get some serious bits in
**Chris:** in amongst the comedy and it doesn't feel out of place for me.
**Chris:** Like I think and and yeah, and I think you could probably enjoy this
**Chris:** watching it on your own or in a group, like because of those different aspects.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** All in all, it's 12 directors who did this.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** So, I mean, the the first one is the,
**Adam:** there was the Glory Hole with Richard Roundtree, which is.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah. So that that's a concept I'd never considered.
**Chris:** I mean, having given a lot of thought to glory holes.
**Chris:** But the idea of that happening.
**Chris:** Like it's like, you know, I was expecting I had a few potential outcomes.
**Chris:** And I was like, it's going to be bad, right? But somehow that was a level further than I had imagined.
**Chris:** I was like, because you start to think, how's he going to get? No, he cannot, he can't get out of it. That's it.
**Chris:** He's stuck like that.
**Adam:** That is.
**Adam:** But it's
**Adam:** Spoiler there.
**Chris:** Hope you know.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, I'm trying to,
**Chris:** Yeah, no, I'm trying to
**Chris:** but seriously, like I I absolutely.
**Chris:** Even if you just watched that, that had it all.
**Adam:** I will.
**Adam:** It was at that point that I was like,
**Adam:** right, so Ted wants to see me in the film that I'm in.
**Adam:** I'm not.
**Adam:** I'm definitely not showing him the whole thing.
**Chris:** There is there is more you've got to skip than not I'll say.
**Adam:** There's a lot that we've got, you know, we've got to make sure that he doesn't see.
**Adam:** So,
**Chris:** Yeah, that that would be. I mean, that's almost traumatizing for me now, but there you go.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And there was also,
**Adam:** I I know it was a bit of I think it was a bit divisive with everyone.
**Adam:** But I thought that, I really liked there was a there's a stop motion bit in it as well.
**Adam:** The Professor Solomon.
**Chris:** So that that was a longer piece.
**Adam:** Which I enjoyed.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But yeah, it was really well done.
**Adam:** That was I think that was possibly the longest one.
**Adam:** I'm not sure.
**Chris:** Yeah. Yeah, could be.
**Chris:** But yeah, that was fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah, I really I really, really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** I know Jennifer not so much, but
**Lee:** I mean,
**Lee:** for me, again, the one that I think I laughed the hardest at, was had to be the the Amityville Pancake.
**Lee:** Which I just
**Chris:** Yeah, that was the was that the first one?
**Adam:** That's the very first the first trailer, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** See, that's the great thing as well is is that you've got the trailers for the sketches and then something that's got a bit more legs or got a bit more to it gets gets its sort of like short moment and stuff like that.
**Adam:** it gets it, sorry, it gets its longer moment, in there.
**Adam:** So,
**Chris:** And what what was it you liked about that, Lee?
**Lee:** It was just the the ludicrousness of it.
**Chris:** Crazy. Yeah.
**Lee:** But done in an almost straight-faced way. It just absolutely hammered.
**Lee:** And it's got to be said as well, that was the perfect audience to watch it with, because I think just before, it sorry, it sold out, so I think it's 300 seats or something, and they had a second room showing.
**Chris:** That's it, yeah, I'd never heard of that before, but I did hear him saying.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's filled up so much.
**Lee:** They had to put it on two rooms.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and just before the film started.
**Lee:** They said, anyone who's involved, raise your hand, and probably a hundred people in there had their hand up.
**Lee:** So, like, yeah, it but it was just everyone was really laughing.
**Lee:** As you're saying, cheering every time Sai Hety turned up and so like it was just,
**Lee:** because because everybody in there, most of people in there were all mates and all knew each other.
**Lee:** So it was like a bit like watching it in someone's living room.
**Lee:** But there's hundreds of you.
**Lee:** It was crazy.
**Chris:** But that's why you could imagine it may not have been that good, but actually, it really did turn out fantastically, I thought.
**Chris:** Just so varied. Yeah, and then like you say with the the pancake one first.
**Chris:** Like it's just the different sorts of humor throughout as well, it just kept it so interesting.
**Adam:** Well, it's the great thing of you get, you know, because I'm half and half on it. Sometimes I think when people do anthology movies, but it's different directors.
**Adam:** I'm I'm not always sure they work, whereas I like an anthology movie with one guy doing it and, you know.
**Adam:** But I think in this circumstance, everyone is so connected and it's basically a team are doing it in a way.
**Adam:** You know, it's like, right, you you act in that one.
**Adam:** You direct this one, you know, and sort of it all sort of intermingles and interplays.
**Adam:** So I think it's
**Chris:** I suppose the concept of the wrap around does lend itself to your expectations are, okay, if that is different,
**Chris:** you know, in a weird way, it seems okay because you're expecting such a wide variety because it's a video shop and anything could happen.
**Chris:** So, you know, that does seem like a fantastic concept to just play with and see what you can do.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Lee:** And they really do as well, they really do push that boundary of you know, such weird concept.
**Lee:** Again, that's the thing, you can put a totally mental concept in if you know you've only got to make a trailer, it's only got to be two minutes. You can do something.
**Lee:** But equally, if you've got an idea that's going to take 15 minutes to tell that story,
**Lee:** you've got the opportunity to do it. So, yeah, I think that I think this format works brilliantly for them.
**Lee:** and I know we said no spoilers, but we believe there may be a third one coming. So we will absolutely be here for that.
**Lee:** Without a doubt.
**Chris:** And what was the name of the proprietor, Sharon? That's the because that's one of the moons, isn't it? Of like, is it Pluto?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He's also it's Greek mythology, it's the the ferryman across the river Styx.
**Chris:** Yeah, the the souls, yeah.
**Chris:** So it's even got a bit of education in there.
**Adam:** That's got a lot of education in there. It's got a very, it's got an extensive treatise on pornography.
**Chris:** Absolutely. Yeah, that is that was impressive.
**Adam:** That's an argument.
**Adam:** Yeah, who who was that who who did that that monologue?
**Lee:** so it was Charlie Bond who delivered it. okay.
**Lee:** yeah, who we've seen in loads of other stuff.
**Lee:** Obviously first movie.
**Chris:** yes. Okay.
**Lee:** so yeah, we we've seen and, I believe she was in the power tool cheerleaders.
**Lee:** You what, she was in power tool cheerleaders as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, she's good. And again, another actor who plays very different roles almost every time you see them, but always always does a really good job.
**Chris:** Yeah, I'd definitely watch more of hers.
**Lee:** Yeah. James Hammer Molten as well was in this again who who's quite often in the same films as Charlie Bond. So I think they're in that, you know, that sort of that unit that work together on on projects.
**Lee:** Yeah, he always makes me laugh as well. So that was great to see him.
**Lee:** yeah, and as we said,
**Lee:** Danny Thompson, obviously, we had Sai Henty was in this.
**Chris:** Roger Phillips.
**Lee:** Roger Phillips.
**Adam:** Yeah, Roger Phillips.
**Adam:** Tom Rutter turns up in quite a few roles and it's that's always just fantastic to see, I love that man.
**Lee:** Yeah, I do as well.
**Adam:** He's great.
**Adam:** And we actually, I mean, we met him, although he wasn't part of the, he well, he was there while they were filming when we that's where we actually met him.
**Adam:** After we'd done our episode talking about, Pocketbook of superstition, Pocket film of superstition.
**Adam:** And, yeah, we spent quite a while chatting with him. He's, you know, he's great, great, great fun.
**Lee:** He was lovely.
**Lee:** He's one of those guys. You can see how he gets projects off the ground really easily, because he's so excited and so enthusiastic. You know, when someone's so enthusiastic, you immediately get drawn into it and find yourself getting excited just purely out of their excitement.
**Lee:** And he's got that energy. Like, he's such a great guy and he's so much fun.
**Adam:** And at least he uses it for good rather than like bank robbery or something like that.
**Adam:** You know, you feel like you're standing you're standing there next to the getaway car thinking, fat me.
**Adam:** You know, I think he's talked right into this.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, and as we say, Sing was there on the day of filming, and really looked after us.
**Lee:** And made us feel really, everybody was so welcoming and so friendly on that set.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And we probably spent an hour of that shooting in the morning and an hour in the evening and the rest of it in between was just hanging out chatting to people. But everyone was great. The the special effects team were fantastic, who were also all in Taless of Terror two as well.
**Chris:** Yes, yes, yes.
**Adam:** So, yeah, so, yeah, the makeup team, it was Alexandra Jenn, Natasha Kilby, and, Jay Low, Jason, Low. And, yeah, they're all in they're all in various bits.
**Adam:** Alex was the guy who got,
**Adam:** was the sound man who was killed.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Again, let's leave spoilers out of this. It's it's not a big part. I'm sorry.
**Adam:** But yeah, he was the sound man in, well, in in an episode.
**Adam:** There you go.
**Adam:** You don't yeah.
**Adam:** She was the boss bitch of Las Vegas as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, she was she was great.
**Adam:** She was.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And and obviously we
**Adam:** we spent a lot of time with Tony Weismann, who's Elliot the zombie.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** and, yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah,
**Adam:** there was lots of people in and out and as we were there.
**Adam:** And just everyone was great.
**Adam:** It was,
**Chris:** So almost as much fun to film it as it is to watch it.
**Lee:** Do you know what? I would it is one of those things. I I mean, I I'd love to do it again and do the, you know, just a little couple of seconds as a little extra somewhere.
**Lee:** but yeah, as much for hanging out on set as for being in the because everybody was just having.
**Lee:** I mean, obviously, it there was a lot, you know, when they were filming, everything was silent even outside of the studio and stuff you had to keep the whole area quiet.
**Lee:** But yeah, when they were just setting up and changing sets and all the rest of it and everyone was just hanging out and drinking coffee and chatting. It was just a really nice atmosphere and everyone was super friendly and super.
**Lee:** Everyone was talking about all the projects they were working on and stuff they'd worked on before.
**Adam:** And everyone was chipping in and doing little bits and stuff, you know, like helping out in certain one and it was just yeah, a lovely thing to see and be a be a part of.
**Adam:** So thank you, Sean, and thank you to everyone there that was, yeah, it was just a it was a bloody lovely day that was.
**Lee:** It was.
**Lee:** And fantastic.
**Chris:** And as
**Chris:** as unbiased of you as I can be, I thought both your parts were very good. I won't say what they were, but they're very entertaining.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** but it is that's the other thing I found fascinating was obviously, so two of the trailers were mashed together. So we shot a like a standalone trailer that ended up being used as part of the governor trailer.
**Lee:** yes, it makes you realize how much extra stuff they film and shoot.
**Lee:** You know, and there's so much in this film to to know that they left so much out of it as well.
**Lee:** You're like, they must have had just tons of stuff that they shot.
**Lee:** yeah, so you can see why they'd get to the end and go,
**Lee:** yeah, we've got another film's worth of stuff sitting here quietly.
**Lee:** yeah, so you all that material's out there. So you can see why they'd get to the end and go,
**Lee:** Yeah, we've got another film's worth of stuff sitting here quietly.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, actually, because you you actually appeared in it as well.
**Adam:** Like right at the start.
**Adam:** Because you went back and filmed, but they only used it as like a just a
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** They didn't use the dialogue or anything else like that. It was just you appeared on a screen.
**Lee:** Yes, very, very good. With myself and Lady Jennifer, both appear as part of the montage part.
**Lee:** but yeah, adding to the atmosphere.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, no, it's excellent.
**Lee:** So definitely go and check out,
**Lee:** Video Shop Tales of Terror two as soon as it becomes available. it will probably be showing at Romford, I would guess.
**Lee:** Not got any internal information, but I'd be very surprised if it isn't showing next month at Romford.
**Lee:** so, yeah.
**Lee:** Keep an eye out for that.
**Lee:** Go Oh, Lumiere.
**Lee:** are taking over the Premier cinema in Romford and are making it members only with ushers. They're having special events and festivals and kind of stuff.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Sounds amazing.
**Lee:** Like go and check out their crowd funder. It's going till the end of February. Go and pledge for it. It's going to be an absolute blast.
**Lee:** I cannot wait to see what they're going to do with that.
**Lee:** And, yes.
**Lee:** Right, and we're running out of time.
**Lee:** So we'll be back in a Fortnite's time where we'll be covering House of. Yeah, so we will see you for that.
**Lee:** Absolute fucking chaos in a Fortnite's time.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening. Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.

---

## Ep 215 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-215-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 12 January 2025
Duration: 00:39:06

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Casebook of We Have Been Watching”. To kick off the new year, it’s time for another round up of the team’s recent eye-musings. This episode we pay close attention to Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” (which, at time of recording, Adam and Chris had seen) and the BBC’s latest Ghost Story for Christmas: “Woman of Stone (which, at time of recording, Adam and Lee had seen). We also touch upon Disney’s “The Black Cauldron” (1985); Shudder’s “To Fire You Come At Last” and “Black Cab” (both 2024); “Dr Terrible’s House of Horrible” (2001); the first episode of “Squid Game” series 2; “The Faculty” (1998); “Boys From County Hell” (2020) and animated anthology series “Red Iron Road”. No need to prep for this ep, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I am Adam.
**Adam:** And we are here as promised for our first episode of 2025.
**Adam:** we're going to be doing a bit of what we've been watching. We've all been watching a lot of stuff, I gather, so plenty to be cracking on with.
**Adam:** to open up, don't want to go too far into it, partly cuz Chris hasn't seen it, but also because it only aired a week ago.
**Adam:** I thought a good place to kick off would be this year's ghost story for Christmas, which has become a bit of a tradition for us to cover.
**Lee:** Always, yeah.
**Chris:** And next next Christmas I think we should go back and do some of the old ones cuz we never, we haven't done them all.
**Adam:** And there's still great ones. Yeah, we still haven't done some of my faves, so yeah, I'm definitely up for that.
**Adam:** so Adam, as you don't know the original story, what did you think of the ghost story for Christmas this year?
**Adam:** Well, so obviously, once again, it's Mark Gatiss, so, you know, that's that's always a pleasure.
**Chris:** Cuz I was Does it have a specific name or is it?
**Adam:** It's called Woman of Stun, but the actual story that it's based on is called Man-Sizing in Marble.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** which Lee's familiar with. I wasn't, and it's written by E Nesbit, who did Five Children and It.
**Adam:** And I'll be honest, this is how little I know, it wasn't until I watched this that I found out that E Nesbit was a woman.
**Lee:** yes.
**Adam:** So, you know, and having read about her, I can see what all the references to were about her like her husband, cuz he sounds like a.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** An absolute arsehole. So anyway, but.
**Chris:** To put it lightly.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** And but no, I I kind of think I might have heard it or on something, you know, like an adaptation or a reading or something like that, like fear on four or something, price of fear or something like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's not necessarily one I was familiar with and yeah, I thought it was absolutely fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** I mean, it's a very classic sort of story in the sense of that's kind of why I felt I might have seen it before, whether it's people have ripped it off or it comes from legend or other people have done some other things, you know, which is likely.
**Adam:** But yeah, the the idea of statues or sarcophagi coming to life and wreaking their revenge.
**Adam:** I think it was done really well.
**Adam:** I liked the sort of I liked the sort of female perspective take that it took.
**Adam:** because I mean I don't I don't having not been familiar with the original, I don't know how much of that is in there, but it definitely felt that there was a a point to be made there when you've got again, a husband who's a total arse.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So all of that, I think that's why they renamed it because Man-Sizing in Marble is only 16 pages, I re-read it today.
**Adam:** okay.
**Lee:** because again, it's that strange synchronicity, about a week before they announced that they were doing this, I was buying Christmas presents and bought Jennifer a compendium of E Nesbit ghost stories.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Lee:** I just ordered it and then it turned up, so so I re-read that today.
**Lee:** yeah, and as I say, I've heard a couple of different radio adaptations of it, one of the Essex Witch Museum books uses it as like a launching off point to somebody.
**Lee:** It's they they all go to a church at the beginning, it's like a a writer's club, so to get them all in the mood, they all go and sit in the local church and read the book and then the next morning they wake up and someone is dead with something in their hand. So it's it takes that same thing.
**Lee:** but yeah, so the story itself doesn't have any of that thing about the husband. It's all from the husband's perspective.
**Adam:** Right.
**Lee:** so he gets the story from from their house lady.
**Adam:** Housekeeper.
**Lee:** yeah, he forgets all about it and it's set it's all Halloween Eve that it takes place in the short story, and it happens at 11:00 and he forgets all about it and he's outside smoking his pipe and he's halfway to the church when he hears the bell ring and that's the jumping off.
**Lee:** So there's none of that domestic abuse element of it, which I I assume is why they renamed it, because it it it has made it a much bigger thing.
**Lee:** But as I say, at 15 pages long, if you just shot it without any of that, this would have been, you know, five minutes long.
**Adam:** It's a sketch at that point, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, like a lot of the best ghost stories. A lot of them they do have to expand out.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, even the the old ghost stories for Christmas did it.
**Adam:** And I think that Mark always does a blood good job and it looks looks the part, you know.
**Adam:** It really, you know, it held in that sense. I think it's just another good, another good entry in the tradition.
**Adam:** Cuz I mean, I think maybe the past couple of ones have maybe missed or whatever like that or they've just been. I think the Mezzotint was the last really good one that they did.
**Adam:** and this I thought was very sort of back on form with that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I thought it was very good.
**Lee:** Yeah, very sinister, yeah, good act, great cast.
**Chris:** Who who was in it?
**Adam:** Monica Dolan was the is in it as the housekeeper and she is amazing. I mean she's great anyway, but she's really good.
**Lee:** Yeah, always excellent, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And also Celia Imrie plays E Nesbit right at the start of it.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** and yeah, and like I say that was that was that was my moment of like, oh, I didn't know that.
**Adam:** You know, and you think I've got got 46 without knowing that E Nesbit was a woman.
**Lee:** That's it.
**Adam:** That's it feels a bit wrong. It just does, you know.
**Lee:** yeah, but I I liked that bringing her life into it at the beginning, and at the end, yeah, it was that kind of wrap around as well.
**Lee:** But I'd completely forgotten cuz I rewatched it today as well, I'd forgotten that that you get the the short shots of the nights before the wrap around even starts.
**Lee:** So it's kind of in like five acts with the main narrative all just right in the center of it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, I thought it was really good and I I like the way it expanded it. I liked that he added I would say I liked that he added that in.
**Lee:** But I mean, it fitted with the story and it did give it more of a Yeah.
**Adam:** It gave it more, it gave it more of a cultural retail type edge.
**Adam:** Well, it gave it more of a twist and also it was it was good that as part of it, as you know, cuz the actual thing an innocent party suffers.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but in a weird way, at least a non-innocent party also suffers.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, that that, you know, it didn't feel in a weird way not quite as bleak in that sense.
**Adam:** That it would just be, you know, the the sort of plainness of just someone dying because they happened to live in a certain house.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, so we will leave that there cuz I say we've Chris hasn't seen it, I'm sure we'll be discussing it again shortly.
**Lee:** as well as our listeners.
**Lee:** Adam, you said that you and Chris had also seen something you wanted to discuss.
**Adam:** We, yes, well, I I don't I don't know when you saw it, Chris, but literally this afternoon, myself and my good lady wife.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Went to see the new Nosferatu, the Robert Eggers's Nosferatu.
**Chris:** I went on the second, so two days ago now.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** The the cinema was quite full.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean, what do you what do you think, Chris?
**Adam:** I mean we're cuz obviously this is part it's Robert Eggers who did The Witch and The Lighthouse and The Northman.
**Adam:** So it's something that it's someone that we have enjoyed all their stuff so far.
**Chris:** For me, it's becoming hard probably to be fully unbiased, I would say.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Chris:** which may come out during our our conversation here.
**Chris:** So having seen the original once, which we covered, couple of Christmases back, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and certainly it still holds up as a very impressive film.
**Chris:** I thought, as I was watching this, that it was very much based on that original, in that a lot of the shots were reminiscent of, you know, very harsh shadows and light and using using the shadow of his hand.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** A few times and while bringing it up to a modern look.
**Chris:** But yeah, just still so gritty and real as is similar to say The Witch in in that it it it's.
**Chris:** For me, it works so well as bringing me into it as if I'm perhaps there as well, which not always try to do that necessarily.
**Chris:** yeah, so so I still I do love his ability to bring both a supernatural stylistic feel while keeping it very realistic.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely. I mean, I was watching one of the things I got for Christmas was was there's a documentary just come a documentary's come out of about Werner Herzog called Radical Dreamer.
**Adam:** And in that that and he obviously was made remade Nosferatu in the seventies.
**Adam:** which if I would I would propose now that if we cover Robert Eggers's Robert Eggers's Nosferatu, we pair it with Werner Herzog's Nosferatu.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They're different enough.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** you know, and I think that they are two very distinct takes on the original, both of and both of them also drawing a bit more from Dracula than Nosferatu necessarily does in different ways.
**Adam:** I mean, certainly obviously, but in that documentary, someone said, oh, like Werner Herzog's early films, they were saying, oh, it's like, it's like you're watching a documentary of these extraordinary events or something like that.
**Adam:** It's like you've, you know, they were sort of saying, we don't know how he did it with the budget, but it looked like you've just traveled in time to, you know, South America when the conquistadors are rampaging through and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And I think Robert Eggers has a very similar aesthetic.
**Adam:** He's like you're watching and with this, the one thing I thought was really interesting is because it's in color, but feels still feel like black and white.
**Chris:** Yeah, especially some parts of it really do. Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's very sort of it's there's a lot like you say, they've they've sort of emphasized the shadow. I mean, the take on Orlock physically and character-wise is different.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, the thing that it reminded me of a lot of bits and pieces was Bram Stoker's Dracula, like the Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Oldman one from 92, whatever it was, and there were certain bits where I was like, oh, that's almost how they do it in that rather than how they do it in Nosferatu and stuff.
**Chris:** I should probably rewatch that.
**Adam:** It's again, we'll we'll do we'll we'll need to do it at some point.
**Lee:** Well, I mean, I know that it that's part of the the vampire style that you're less keen on.
**Adam:** It's it's not it's not so much that. I just thought the casting was all wrong.
**Adam:** The effects didn't look great.
**Chris:** I mean, wasn't it Carrie Reeves and Winona Rider, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah. Which it does seem a bit odd.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, Gary Oldman's excellent in it, but everyone else is hugely cast and some people seem to think they're in a different film.
**Adam:** That said, I've come to the conclusion that a Dracula film, and not just because I've come I've also looked in the mirror and realized, I'm not playing Dracula, am I? You know, I'm not tall enough, I'm not sexy enough, I'm not thin enough.
**Adam:** But I reckon Renfield I get my teeth into.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Right? And similarly, I always think now I'm almost like Dracula movies live and die on their Renfield.
**Adam:** And obviously, in that you had Tom Waits in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and I think he was fucking spot on. He was great.
**Lee:** I'll take that.
**Adam:** And and similarly in this, I can't remember the actor's name.
**Chris:** I didn't recognize him, okay.
**Adam:** He's he's in a few things. He was in Utopia, he was a guy who was like part of the chemist he was like the chemist in Utopia.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough, he's also the serial killer in Gregory Dyer of a Nutcase, the comic strip presents.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** but it's oh, hang on, my scientific advisor might be coming in here with a late.
**Adam:** With a late entry. Thank you, my dear.
**Adam:** What are we doing here?
**Adam:** oh, bollocks, not on that list.
**Adam:** There we go. Come on.
**Adam:** Talk about yourselves, you know, that's the best way to do these things, isn't it?
**Chris:** So I know we're not going in and find out who that is while you're.
**Adam:** Simon McBurney.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** That's it. Simon McBurney.
**Adam:** and it's also great. I mean Willem Dafoe's in it as the Van Helsing figure. He was brilliant.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Ralph Ineson's in it as well.
**Adam:** Which is just again, of course he is it's a you know, it's a Robert Eggers film.
**Adam:** Much in the same way as Willem Dafoe turning up really.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So Lily Rose.
**Chris:** And Lily, yeah.
**Adam:** She was good.
**Chris:** I thought she was amazing. Some of her were quite impressive.
**Adam:** I mean let's face it.
**Adam:** Let's face it, it would be very disappointing that a very good actress daughter turn out to be a very shit actress.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But but she may not have done a film necessarily like this effectively. She might have been good at something totally different.
**Chris:** And yeah, it does seem like she's picked up perhaps with Edward Scissorhands a bit of his, you know.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, I think it's just that gothic aesthetic, isn't it?
**Adam:** You know, it's just sort of kind of, but there were lots of, when I saw it, there were lots of like young adults in in the room.
**Adam:** And I was kind of pleased because I was almost it was almost like yes, come and see this. This is proper Gothic, not that Tim Burton sort of flowery bullshit, you know, this is this is proper Gothic, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and yeah, but the, I mean sort of but the character of the count is just far more horrific in a different way.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's more his malignness as a creature.
**Adam:** But also his viciousness as a creature.
**Chris:** So good good balance between him being a sort of rotten corpse plague and being very powerful seeming at points.
**Chris:** So there's like a strength there that you can't mess with and yet, yeah, he's also kind of disgusting.
**Adam:** I don't want to give too much away on that though as well.
**Adam:** Because obviously he's it's quite weird when you watch it, he doesn't really appear properly at all, almost.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** But it takes a very long time before you see him like his face essentially or so you can make out his face.
**Adam:** It's a lot of shadow.
**Chris:** Which was that's what made me think of the original Nosferatu again, it seemed like, yeah, very stylistic in that sense and just giving you an impression of something and letting you fill in the gaps.
**Chris:** I mean, I don't know how much detail I want to go into, but I I liked again what I think Robert Eggers tends to do is leaves it open for potentially being explained as not supernatural at all if you so wish.
**Adam:** Well, I thought I thought it was fairly explicit.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, that's fine.
**Chris:** But there were several points where I thought, that's I think that's great that he's included that in that way because it allows you to explore it further.
**Chris:** So, I we can save all of that for when we cover it properly.
**Adam:** Yes, yeah, cuz I don't want to you don't want to spoil it for people.
**Adam:** I would say I would say go and see it definitely.
**Adam:** You know, if you're a fan of if you're a fan of Robert Eggers, definitely, if you're a fan of vampire movies, definitely, and if you and you are not going to feel it's you know what I mean.
**Adam:** I mean it's it's not the very original, like the original black and white one, but that is so alien to filmmaking now that it couldn't possibly be anyway.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** so yeah, no, I think definitely a recommend.
**Adam:** I mean, I always say, probably could have shaved a bit off the running time, but then I'm like that with most films, you know, to be honest, I think it's just my age. It's like two hours. I could be dead by the end of that.
**Chris:** I actually yeah, I didn't feel that for this one, but perhaps I was just in the right mood for it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was but I'd just been out there.
**Adam:** I was, but I just downed one of their big cups of, blind folks. I probably also needed a piss quite bad during the denouement.
**Lee:** Yeah, I say now I'm over the lergy, I'm hopefully going to try and get out and see it as soon as it's humanly possible.
**Lee:** But we'll see how it goes.
**Adam:** And we'll let it percolate down and then at some point we'll cover that, we'll cover Herzog's one and we'll cover.
**Adam:** I I think give Bram Stoker's Dracula a go.
**Adam:** You know, whether we cover it on the show or not, but if you've not seen it.
**Chris:** But add it to the yeah. It would add a bit more to the discussion.
**Adam:** If if anything, everyone's seen it, so it's a good one that people come in and listen to and people don't mind if you rip the shit out of it.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Lee:** Sounds good.
**Lee:** Right, so if if we run through what we've been done what we've been doing.
**Adam:** What we've been doing.
**Lee:** See you can tell I'm still not fully over this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I can't even think straight.
**Lee:** yes, so if we run through quickly what we've been doing, just kind of a little bit quick, fiery.
**Lee:** so let's start with Chris. Is there anything you've watched over this?
**Chris:** Yes, well.
**Chris:** Fortunately, I've been watching this rather amazing Dr. Terrrible's House of Horrible.
**Adam:** Hey.
**Chris:** A very nice gift from Adam, Claire and Ted.
**Adam:** Oh, Merry Christmas.
**Chris:** Now, you thank you Merry Christmas. So you may have mentioned it before.
**Chris:** I don't know.
**Lee:** Possibly.
**Chris:** But I didn't remember it.
**Adam:** Possibly a thousand times.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's many things that mentioned it's hard, you know, they don't necessarily become salient until you can actually match them to something you've seen.
**Chris:** So yeah, so I've watched two of the episodes and I can safely say I'm feeling pure and zesty after just having watched Friends with Tongues.
**Chris:** Limehouse 1911, Gentleman Adventurer, Nathan Blaze, Locks Horns with Hangman Chen, the sinister bony-fingered menace from the east.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and and like and it is it's just it's such a good blend of funny and moments of horror like sprinkled throughout and just the dialogue is fantastic.
**Adam:** It's just a show where it's like, right, if you if you love Hammer, Amicus.
**Adam:** That sort of era of horror film making, probably moving into Witchfinder General sort of territory, so sort of 50s, 60s, 70s British horror.
**Adam:** it's definitely worth a watch cuz they I think they do one of every sort of take there. They've got they've got an anthology one in there, which is possibly my favorite.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** but yeah, and then you've got a a lesbian vampire one, a sort of a Fu Manchu one.
**Adam:** a weird rare a rare reptile one and.
**Lee:** I think my again, it's difficult to say, but I think possibly my favorite is actually the very last episode, which is the witchfinder one, with Angela Pleasant. He just turns up it.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, yes, of course, yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, I was very pleased cuz I was with Chris when he unwrapped it and he opened it. I was like, oh, yes. That's great.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think we managed to wait about half an hour before we put it on, did we?
**Adam:** Oh, well, I am glad.
**Lee:** The whole family there. Just one episode, it'll be fine.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And did that end up becoming five episodes, six episodes?
**Lee:** No, no, unfortunately not, we didn't start it too late.
**Lee:** So it was a bit.
**Chris:** Yeah, if there weren't kids involved, almost certainly.
**Adam:** Adam.
**Lee:** Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** Well, just to, just in case you weren't aware, I think Shudder are putting themselves in for a similar strand to Ghost Story for Christmas.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** they've started something called The Haunted Season, and only one has gone up and that went up over Christmas, so I'm kind of assuming that it's sitting there waiting till next year to add another one to it.
**Adam:** Because The Haunted Season, I'm assuming is Christmas.
**Adam:** you know.
**Adam:** And but they've they've done one called it's To Fire You Come at Last.
**Adam:** And it's written and directed by Sean Hogan, who did the Devil's Business, not did the Devil's Business, that sounds like he took the Devil's poo.
**Adam:** but also wrote the two books that I absolutely adore called England Screaming and Twilight's Last Screaming that are sort of like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for horror, where it's like they they're books where they take characters from horror films and twine it all together into one big narrative where like sort of Richard Burton from the Medusa Touch confronts Damian from The Omen and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** It's yeah.
**Adam:** And but yeah, so this to to Fire You Come at Last is basically it's like sort of
**Adam:** 1700s set and it's basically a group of people have to take a body down a corpse road.
**Adam:** And what corpse roads were, were they were roads designed for smaller outlying villages, so that you could get to the main parish, because you wouldn't necessarily have a church in your village, so if you were burying someone on consecrated ground, you had to take them there.
**Adam:** So they had these things called corpse roads, which were just sort of means of getting there. They were sort of the corpse road was one word from they were also briar paths and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But it was a means of being able to get to the local church or place of worship or whatever, and it's yeah.
**Adam:** So it's four guys taking a body down there and there's rumors of things bad happened to you on the path.
**Adam:** But basically they all start getting at each other.
**Adam:** And sort of it breaks down from there and it really has that old ghost stories for Christmas vibe to it.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** They could they they could have put this on, you know, not instead of the Woman of Stone, but, you know, if this was the one that they put on next year, you'd go, oh, that's very much in the vein. It's very much in the tradition. It's right.
**Adam:** But it but as I say, it's an original piece.
**Adam:** So it's like it's not not like based on a story, a previous story.
**Chris:** And they plan to do this every year.
**Adam:** that's what I'm kind of assuming. I'm not quite sure cuz there sort of it seems to be a bit vague what I've seen about it.
**Chris:** And that's a good start.
**Adam:** it's one of the people in it is James Swanton, who was the mummy in last year's Christmas, Ghost Story for Christmas.
**Adam:** And Mark Carlos was really good as the Squire in it and I mean everyone's really good in it.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, and it's about 40 minutes, so it's the right sort of length, definitely worth a watch cuz it's just those it's it's one of those little atmospheric pieces that you sort of think, oh, is that going to it just works.
**Adam:** It's just a 45 minute shiver down the spine, you know.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to look that up then.
**Lee:** That sounds great.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it's good. Shutter does seem to, you know, they keep on working their own stuff again. It's been it's been consistently pretty good, so.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** I rewatched, I can't remember if I mentioned this when I first saw it, I don't think I've ever review, seen it, but a friend of mine said, messaged me about two weeks ago and said, I've just watched a film. If you haven't seen it, you need to. Boys from County Hell.
**Adam:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** So it's the story of a small village in Ireland, there's got a major road going through it, and basically they claim that the story of Dracula by Bram Stoker wasn't based on Vlad the Impaler, but was actually based on their local vampire, who is buried in a field with a massive pile of stones on top of him. so for the new road, they have to go and knock this pile of stones over to make way for the new road, releasing the vampire under the ground and it all goes mental. it's hilarious, it's really gory, it's really atmospheric, it's it's good, it's just a really it's sort of Shauna the dead type comedy but with the that same darkness and stuff.
**Lee:** yeah, it's it's a really, really good film. I say I was it was one of those ones where you mention it and I was like, I have seen it, but I'm so glad you message because I only saw it once about five years ago. and then I rewatched it and yeah, I was like, oh, I'd forgotten how good this is. It's such.
**Adam:** It's nice when that happens.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We do it we do it sometimes on here where it'll be like, you go back and I forgot this was fucking cracking.
**Lee:** And it is, it's one of those I think I watched it bookended by a lot of stuff, so it just kind of so I kind of forgot about it to some degree.
**Lee:** yeah, so it was good to go back, but yeah, it really is a great film. So if you get a chance, boys from County Hell is really good, fun horror movie for the evening.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Chris, back to you.
**Chris:** Right, so I decided to go for Squid Game season two. So I've seen episode one.
**Lee:** Oh, God.
**Chris:** Now, you know, may not be exactly horror, but I think there's enough scenes.
**Adam:** I think it borders quite quite harshly in the horror, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it does get very intense and so I started watching it.
**Chris:** I thought, oh, last time we talked about this, or last time I talked to anyone about it. I think was Adam saying, I really hope they don't do a series two because it was great. Leave it at that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I and at the time I agreed. I thought, yeah, no, I think that's good to do that sometimes.
**Chris:** Re-watch or watching it now, I started to think, why do why can why can't people leave things alone more and more, it seems.
**Chris:** And is it that like say, say they had left it, there's so much content that comes out nowadays.
**Chris:** That would it just pretty much get forgotten. Like if you then mentioned good games to be, they'd be like, oh yeah, that was that good series. Yeah, you know. No one would ever watch it again because there's so much more things coming out to watch.
**Chris:** So nothing becomes a classic anymore.
**Adam:** I'm not sure if it's that.
**Adam:** I think it's much more because you're trying to get seen in that world, you better you're better off going with something that's got a name.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, a lot of horror, horror sequels where they're like, someone wrote a horror script. I mean, particularly Hellraiser, where it's like someone wrote a slightly weird horror script and then someone to go, if we punk in that, we'll make it and call it Hellraiser four or Hellraiser 16 or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And I think it might be the similar sort of thing, the reason they don't leave things alone is because it's like Squid game got a name.
**Chris:** If yeah, well, but if it got that many numbers, like let's try it again and until it starts to drop, they'll just keep on doing it.
**Chris:** Now, after after having watched the first episode, I would say they're getting things right still, because I was at first, it's like, oh, this is fun and and it reminded me at first, like, yeah, it's like they had a good combination of fun, and tense and with a sort of layer of darkness there that you know is going on.
**Chris:** And then when there's two scenes in this episode, when they hit, it was like, yes, now I remember exactly why you worked so well before, because they just to me, they just got it so perfect as the intensity builds and the sort of the profound idea of what is your decision going to be now?
**Chris:** Is it, you know, is it for yourself or others or how are you going to play this out?
**Chris:** And and yeah, I just think they they get it just right in this.
**Chris:** So they've hooked me back in.
**Chris:** And I'm quite happy to now watch the rest of this.
**Adam:** They're like Michael Corleone, they've dragged you, dragged your left, they dragged you right back here.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** I I I I love the first season, so I'm definitely going to be watching the second season.
**Lee:** I haven't started it yet.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's definitely on the watch list.
**Adam:** I might I might wait I might wait a few episodes, see what the general feeling is because you you'd hope they'd come back fairly strong and they made the first season.
**Adam:** They're not going to be it's not going to be unwatchable, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like it's got to be yeah.
**Adam:** It's got to be something there.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Adam:** my next one is another original that I've just obviously been getting my money's worth on there.
**Adam:** just quick, this is just a quick one, go and watch it Black Cab.
**Adam:** directed by Bruce Goodison.
**Adam:** Have you seen it, Lee?
**Lee:** No, I haven't.
**Lee:** But I saw I I I again, it kind of got missed and it was only because Nick Frost posted about it on Instagram.
**Lee:** And I was like, what he's done a horror film and I watched the trailer.
**Lee:** I was like, yeah, that looks worthwhile.
**Adam:** It is definitely worth seeing.
**Adam:** Nick Frost is brilliant in it. I mean, you wouldn't expect anything else, but Nick Frost is really good.
**Adam:** It starts off and he's quite, you know, he's Cuddly Nick Frost, he's your friend, and then you go to the point of, actually, he is a really big bastard, and when he turns nasty, it's fucking scary.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And basically, a couple who are less than favorably getting on with each other, take a cab home after a disastrous night out and Nick Frost is the cabby and he effectively kidnaps them and takes them to a haunted road.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** To give more to give more away, I think would be sort of churlish to be honest, because it was I went into it just knowing Nick Frost has done a horror film.
**Adam:** And I thought, well, I'll give it a whirl and yeah, it's really, really good, really sort of creepy it's it's weird because he is menacing, but the the the ghost threat is something different and menacing in its own way and it's yeah, there's a there's a lot to it.
**Adam:** And the music's the that was the other reason I wanted to watch it because the music is Gazelle Twin and her scores are fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** I mean musically she's fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** But yeah, when she does I always check out any film she does the music for cuz I'm like, cuz she's got excellent movie taste as well.
**Adam:** So and yeah, and but yeah, well worth check out Black Cab.
**Adam:** Do you know and then who knows if if we if we go for it.
**Adam:** We could do it on the show at some point.
**Adam:** Or something like that because yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** Definitely worth seeing.
**Lee:** Awesome.
**Lee:** I've gone back and watched a classic because I'd never seen it and I don't know how I'd never seen it.
**Lee:** I'd never seen The Faculty from 1998.
**Adam:** I've never seen it actually.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Dude, watch it.
**Lee:** It's really fun.
**Lee:** it's basically it's a load of kids at high school, realize that something's up with their teachers, yeah, and basically it doesn't give too much away. You find out in the first 10 minutes one by one they're being replaced by aliens. And nobody believes them, obviously. So they have to fight them.
**Lee:** yeah, I mean it's it's an incredible cast.
**Adam:** I was going to say, I remember it having like a really good good lot of people in it.
**Adam:** Who's it who's it directed by or written by?
**Adam:** Cuz it was like someone who.
**Lee:** That's Robert Rodriguez.
**Adam:** Oh, it is Robert Rodriguez.
**Adam:** Oh, fair enough.
**Adam:** I knew it was someone who's like at the time where it was like, oh, it's slightly different to what else I'd seen, but it was still sort of like, yeah, you know, a good night.
**Chris:** Does it give too much away to say what the alien's plan is?
**Lee:** it's just domination.
**Lee:** As it always is.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** And they're trying to start with.
**Adam:** But I remember at the time a lot of people seemed to refer to it as Buffy the Body Snatcher.
**Lee:** It was like that sort of thing of, you know, like.
**Lee:** Precisely what it is.
**Lee:** but yeah, I say I've never seen it. It's Josh Hartnett, Helma, Salma Hayek's in it.
**Lee:** yeah, it's just it was it was one of I've never seen it.
**Lee:** Maybe there's a reason, maybe it's crap. And I thought, you know what, I'll bung it on and I'll give it a watch.
**Lee:** yeah, and just thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a really, really good time with it.
**Lee:** Usher's in it.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Because why not?
**Lee:** but yeah, no, really good. Again, really good fun, not a comedy horror, but doesn't take itself too seriously.
**Lee:** Cuz it knows it's a bit of a daft concept really.
**Adam:** It kind of knows it's a B movie, so it's sort of like, you know, it's not going to yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, yeah, great film and again, I I'll definitely go back. I's definitely one I'll rewatch again at some point when I'm in the right mood.
**Lee:** Right, we got four minutes.
**Lee:** So let's rush through quick, what you've watched title and would you recommend it or not? Chris.
**Chris:** I've blessed everything.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Adam.
**Adam:** Right, one last thing. Red Iron Road, watched it the other day on prime.
**Adam:** It's six episodes. It's animated anthology horror series of European folktales.
**Adam:** And they're all done in different styles. There's one that's like Mike Mignola did a heavy did the film Heavy Metal.
**Adam:** There's sort of Akira style dystopia, very traditional stuff. Some of it's laugh out loud funny, it's and yeah.
**Adam:** He's absolutely well and they're like sort of 10, 15, 20 minutes each.
**Adam:** So you you blast through it in about two hours.
**Lee:** that sounds excellent.
**Lee:** I should be checking that out.
**Lee:** I watched yesterday for the first time, I'd never seen it, but it was discussed on The Lawmen podcast.
**Lee:** The Black Cauldron, the Disney movie from 1985.
**Adam:** Have you never seen it?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Right, we'll do it on the show.
**Lee:** It's full on horror.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's brilliant.
**Adam:** Oh man, it's so fucking good.
**Lee:** Yeah, I don't know how I'd never seen it.
**Lee:** I think yeah, no, 1985, so I would have been the right age as well.
**Lee:** I don't know, I think it was that point where if you didn't see them at the cinema.
**Lee:** Nothing was getting released on VHS.
**Lee:** So if you didn't see it there and then, you missed out.
**Adam:** I think it was also that thing that Disney would only release only really promote stuff if it had been a success.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** So that kind of fell by the wayside. No one was asking for it to come out on rental. It wasn't like Snow White or Robin Hood or Jungle Book or something like that.
**Lee:** It was one of their flops.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Well again, I'm not surprised the flop. It cost like 40 million, they were saying on Lawmen.
**Lee:** I saying ridiculous.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** And it's dark as and it's dark as all fuck.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is.
**Lee:** You couldn't I mean, you could show it to kids.
**Adam:** But I'm thinking of showing it with ted, but I don't know, you know.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, it was fantastic.
**Lee:** I loved it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But no, when I saw that as a kid, I was like, because the trouble was I saw it as a kid and then it was one of those ones that never fucking showed up.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** So I was like, but I still remember this one.
**Adam:** And it had like the guy with the hood, with the horns and the little scruffy cat bear dog thing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Loved it.
**Lee:** That was great.
**Lee:** right, so let's wrap it up there, gentlemen.
**Lee:** happy New Year to everybody.
**Lee:** We'll be back in a fortnight's time, horror on C's happening in a fortnight.
**Lee:** So we will be going to that and discussing it.
**Lee:** but it's actually on the it's actually we're going on the night that we would normally be recording, so we might be a couple of days later than usual with the release, because we'll probably go on the Saturday and then discuss it on the Sunday or whatever.
**Lee:** but we'll get it out to you as soon as we can.
**Lee:** Bear with us. I'm certain it's going to be worth the wait.
**Lee:** Yes, can't wait for that.
**Lee:** Always highlight of the year.
**Adam:** And it might be the feature debut of some exciting young new actors and artists. So we'll stay tuned for that.
**Lee:** Oh, I can't wait to talk about that.
**Lee:** Right, anyway.
**Lee:** That's enough of that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 214 Ghostbusters II

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-214-ghostbusters-ii/
Air date: 29 December 2024
Duration: 00:38:51
Film: Ghostbusters II · Year: 1989 · Director: Ivan Reitman

### Description

Christmas has been and gone, it’s roast dinner farts lingering like slush on the street as we pitch towards New Year’s Eve, and our extended festive holiday in New York draws to an end with “Ghostbusters II”. A film in which Nancy Spungen predicts the end of days; Bill Murray seeks psychiatric help from his own brother; and, once more, New York is portrayed as a festering hotbed of aggression, with a toxic sludge running beneath its streets. Much like the subject of our previous episode - “Ghostbusters II” came too late to ride the seismic wave of popularity the original generated. Unlike “Gremlins 2”, however, it doesn’t particularly offer anything new, with many noting the similar story beats to the first film. Oddly for a tale about negative emotions feeding supernatural events, it’s also softer and less cynical in its outlook, presumably part of efforts to aim it more for the kids who had unexpectedly embraced the original. For those of us young enough, it still holds an affectionate place in our hearts as we finally got more “proper” Ghostbusters, but, as far as the studio was concerned, this failed to catch the lightning a second time, and any further talk of sequels were shelved for nearly thirty years. Whist not a patch on the original, but with interesting moments, good gags, exemplary effects and great additions to an already perfect cast, “Ghostbusters II” doesn’t deserve the poor reputation it’s had over the years. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here with spoilers and swearing for our New Year's Eve episode, well, our New Year's episode, should I say.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** we are covering 1989's Ghostbusters 2.
**Adam:** isn't it weird that it doesn't have an extra bit to that?
**Lee:** Yeah, it it doesn't.
**Adam:** You feel?
**Chris:** That should be.
**Adam:** Gremlins 2, the new batch.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Terminator 2, judgment day.
**Adam:** Ghostbusters 2.
**Chris:** He-Man.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** They should have they should have actually put that on there.
**Adam:** I, I dispute the fact that kids in 1989.
**Chris:** I was wondering that. Yeah.
**Adam:** Or expecting him to turn up as well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is fucking weirder, frankly.
**Lee:** I'm wondering if it is the thing of kids stuff, you know, sort of goes through phases so quickly.
**Lee:** I'm wondering if, you know, when this was first been drafted or whatever.
**Chris:** It could have, yeah.
**Lee:** It could have been relevant at the time and then the three years or whatever it takes for the film to be completed and come out, everyone's like, who?
**Chris:** But that that almost makes it better, like it's just the references and the jokes they put in here are just so, you know.
**Adam:** If it had been, if it had been true to 1989, though, they genuinely, those kids should have been, "Oh, I thought it was going to be Batman."
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's the same year that Tim Burton's Batman comes out and sort of does all the same things that Ghostbusters did, where you've got like, like Prince doing the fucking soundtrack, and the bat symbol was everywhere, it was on T-shirts, it was on mugs, everything, fucking thing had those on them.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and it's like, almost like it did the same thing that Ghostbusters did in 1984, but also had toys wisely, so they and knew they were doing a franchise, so they were kind of already kind of geared up to doing another one soon.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** whereas, yeah.
**Lee:** You mentioned in Prince, controversial take, I'm going to come right out and say it.
**Lee:** I prefer the Bobby Brown song on Ghostbusters 2 to the Ray Parker Jr. song on Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Adam:** I am, no, I that is that is a fair comment.
**Adam:** You know Bobby Brown's in it, didn't you?
**Lee:** Yes, yes, very.
**Lee:** He's in it for 14 seconds and still manages to look straight down the barrel of the camera. What an absolute professional.
**Adam:** He was,
**Adam:** because he's the when Chris, he's, he is, it's when they go to the mayor's office. Bobby Brown is the guy who lets them in on the door, who says, "Can you get a can my kid brother buy a proton pack?" or whatever.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and that and that's the whole reason he did the song is if he could be in the film.
**Chris:** That's true enough.
**Adam:** but, but also rather clever, clever negotiation, that was also they did the soundtrack album on his label.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yes. Very smart.
**Lee:** This film is riddled with cameos, it's got to be said.
**Lee:** So him, obviously, Cheech Marin is working at the dock for possibly the most sinister shot of the film.
**Adam:** Oh, the Titanic coming back is amazing.
**Lee:** Oh, it's so creepy.
**Lee:** It's it's the bit that always sticks in my mind because it was the that and Janosh as the nanny.
**Lee:** Those two images are so creepy that that always sticks in my mind as the kind of focus of the movie.
**Chris:** So that's funny, right? They are, but I realized the ones that stick in my mind, and in fact, the only scenes that I could remember was the head of Vigo coming out of the painting, which when I saw that, I was like, what? It's crazy. And, and, Winston and the train going through him, and it just somehow made me feel like, oh yeah, train going through here. I was like, that's a new idea, you know.
**Adam:** That that's that's a beautiful little joke as well, with just the sorry I missed it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** just Ernie Hudson just does that fantastically.
**Adam:** But that, because I think the creepiest bit for me, and the one that why it sticks in my head, is where they've caused a blackout and Janos turns up at Dana's apartment.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's just when he walks off and his eyes glow.
**Lee:** Oh, God, yeah. That was.
**Adam:** But they're like talk things.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and I I was looking at it on the Blu-ray and I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's drawn on essentially. I don't think that's like a a I don't think that's a physical effect. I might be wrong, but it looks kind of like it is or it may be enhanced like.
**Adam:** But it's just so good, and I've always thought that was that was something that should be in a genuinely frightening film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, rather, but, you know, it's,
**Adam:** But I think also that there was when, we did because we talked about, I'm sure we've talked about it when we did like the Exorcist and stuff, but like Max von Sido being the voice of Vigo was just like, oh, fuck, yeah, of course it is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I'd never known that it was him all the time, you know, obviously, I saw this when it came out and watch it not as often as I've watched Ghostbusters, but usually in tandem if I've watched Ghostbusters, I'll stick on Ghostbusters 2.
**Chris:** So, I totally did not remember this being like anywhere near as good as I thought it was watching it again now.
**Chris:** And I understood way more in it than the last time I saw it, which possibly was in 1989 at the cinema. I don't think, I don't remember watching it again since.
**Chris:** I really didn't remember so much of it.
**Chris:** And there are so many entertaining scenes and yeah, and like, and they do, they work so well together again.
**Adam:** It's it's a bit like, I think, in my head, it's almost like it was the equivalent of watching the DVD extras on something.
**Adam:** You know, like the like the outtakes or you know when you you know when you go through like the the cut scenes on a disk.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you're just like, oh, they should have kept that in, that's fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** Or whatever like that.
**Adam:** That kind of is how I think of it in my head. I watch it in that same sort of why where it's like, it's more Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** Literally that's it. It's just.
**Chris:** But I was sort of expecting like the jokes to be a bit like, oh yeah, well, they've sort of done that, but somewhere for me, it's just really, I mean, I might be interested in a particularly good mood today, but yeah, it just works so well.
**Chris:** Like, you know, even Egon at the start, the test he's doing, and Peter and his relationship with Dana, and just how he's still the same, he's still sleazy, but he's sort of nice and he's improving again, and it's like, yeah, I definitely found it very fun.
**Lee:** I I I think for me, Peter McNichol as Janosh.
**Lee:** Just absolute. I don't know how much of that obviously is like improvised, but just like his very first line when he walks through, he walks past that girl and just goes, "Everything you're doing is bad."
**Chris:** I want you to know that. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's he's an absolute, he's a fantastic addition to the cast.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you've already because like we said, everyone's great and everyone comes back, which is good as well. You haven't got anyone who's not.
**Adam:** Winston somehow looks younger.
**Lee:** Yes. I noticed that as well.
**Adam:** So, yeah, Ernie Hudson, the fucking Benjamin Button of supernatural comedy. Who's aging backwards.
**Chris:** But I totally did not remember Lewis, Rick Morannis having such a big role and towards the end, I've decided he's like a sexy badass Michael Gove.
**Adam:** Oh, blimey, Chris, you are a mess psychologically, my friend. To even put those words together.
**Chris:** I know.
**Adam:** Although he's
**Adam:** I mean, I was surprised this time. I've got to say, I know you said, Adam, that you always watched it two in tandem.
**Lee:** I probably watch Ghostbusters every two or three years.
**Lee:** Ghostbusters 2, I never watch because in my head, it's always a bit shit.
**Lee:** So I just don't. And then when I watched it again today, I was like, it's probably the second time I've seen it in the last decade.
**Lee:** And I'm like, yeah, no, it isn't actually. I it's a it's a good solid movie. I don't know why in my head.
**Chris:** You know, yeah.
**Adam:** I I think when it came, I think the trouble is, I think it's one of those things, when it came out, it just got a really bad rep.
**Chris:** And it's hard to then, you know.
**Adam:** Not.
**Adam:** Objectively, it's not as good as the original.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it is, and considering some sequels that we've seen, not Ghostbusters, because I've not seen the others, but, you know, other franchises and things were just come back and it's like, this is definitely not the worst second film that I've seen, you know, it's
**Lee:** It isn't Troll 2.
**Lee:** So I mean it's, you know, it's got that going for it.
**Lee:** But yeah, I I was I was surprised how much I enjoyed it and I do think it is going to become more regular.
**Lee:** yeah, because it it has, it's got, like you say, it's got all the characters you love in it, doing exactly the same as they did in the first film.
**Lee:** It's got the same great comedy. It's got those creepy.
**Lee:** That bit when the painting of Vigo changes.
**Lee:** And it's just his head.
**Lee:** above the the archway.
**Lee:** It looks so sinister.
**Lee:** Considering it's a river of pink slime, which is a ludicrous camppy idea.
**Lee:** They somehow managed to make it look sinister, which is incredible.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's weird as well because, a lot of it, like the slime stuff, I'm pretty sure.
**Adam:** because in between the films, you had the real Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** like the cartoon series.
**Adam:** And you had figures with that.
**Adam:** And obviously it was like, there's Ghostbusters figures, right?
**Adam:** We've got to get those.
**Adam:** But the slime that came with it was always like, fucking cranberry, like,
**Chris:** Oh, no, right.
**Adam:** like tin cranberry sort of jelly, you know, it just it was that color.
**Adam:** Which was weird because the first film, it's slimer is the slimer.
**Adam:** And so green and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's just
**Adam:** it seems to be that they were like, we've got a fucking shitload of this pink slime now.
**Adam:** Should we put it in the film?
**Lee:** And it just looks really good with the purple running.
**Lee:** I'm wondering if that's why I've got an as mild obsession with pink and purple going to give her, hence why I'd rather pink and purple car.
**Lee:** I'm wondering if that's what it is.
**Lee:** It it like it's literally, because it looks great when it's in that river.
**Lee:** and the effects in this hold up as well.
**Lee:** the bit when Janosh gets shot by the eyes of Vigo from the painting.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I love that bit.
**Lee:** his acting's fantastic.
**Lee:** But those effects still look really good for 1988.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Did I was also for not for the first time, but I think the first time it's actually occurred to me that, Janos really it's a very Peter Laurie performance.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's that same sort of just it just riot, you know, just he's he would I'm assuming he would has he been Renfield?
**Lee:** Oh, God.
**Lee:** He should be.
**Chris:** I'm sure.
**Adam:** I'm I'm actually now questioning that because I think I might have actually seen that he did, but he.
**Lee:** Yeah, he would play that perfect.
**Lee:** That is what that is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's, oh no, I don't think he has.
**Adam:** No, no, just me making that up.
**Adam:** But yeah, he would be right for Renfield. Oh, and the matrice D of the restaurant.
**Adam:** You don't necessarily you wouldn't have necessarily noticed, but it's Johnny Ecard from Dracula AD 1972.
**Lee:** Wow. No, I didn't spot.
**Lee:** I'll tell you what I did spot this time again seeing it on Blu-ray.
**Lee:** Now, it isn't on IMDB or in the I don't think it was in the credits, I didn't watch the credits, not been like.
**Lee:** but I flicked it back twice, and I am pretty sure that again, it could just be someone who looks an awful lot like him or I need to change my glasses.
**Lee:** The scene where they take them to the asylum and they walk in.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's the, it's Kurt Fuller and he's got two cops with him. I'm fairly sure one of those is Walter Peck.
**Adam:** No, no, it's not it's not Peck. No, he's not in it, I'm afraid.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** He looks exactly like when you see and he again, he looks like he's trying not to be seen too much by the camera. And I was like, I'm sure that's it.
**Lee:** And I even skipped it back and watched it and I was like, I'm 85% sure that is him.
**Adam:** No, I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's not because it didn't come up.
**Adam:** one that I thought you might have been was because for some reason, the two people because Venkman having that paranormal sort of show.
**Adam:** talk show.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely fucking perfect. For what they've gone into since the failure of Ghostbusters.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Ray runs a book shop.
**Adam:** Yes, obviously.
**Adam:** Egon has gone back to science. Yes, because he's an actual genuine fucking science kid.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, and Venkman is a bullshit artist on television, you know. He would have his own podcast. He's just.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I think that's perfect.
**Adam:** But the two the two people who are on there, the lady who predicts that it's,
**Adam:** the world ends on Valentine's Day 2016.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** that's Nancy from Sid and Nancy, it's Chloe Webb.
**Lee:** I, you know what, I knew I recognized her from something, but I couldn't work out what it was.
**Lee:** It's because she looked so, so different, but yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, she's not dressed as Nancy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh. And the psychiatrist they're talking to is Bill Murray's brother, who's in like Scrooged and Saturday night live and loads of,
**Adam:** well, loads of stuff with Bill Murray, strangely enough.
**Adam:** But that's the first time I'd ever known that, and as soon as he appeared, it was like, yeah, that's clearly Bill Murray's brother.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's just him on a on a different form, like different shape, but it's still Bill Murray.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I again that I mean, I think at the time people were sort of like, oh well, Batman won the kids and lots of people said, oh, it goes over the same sort of story beats and things like that.
**Adam:** And but yeah, I think that's what's led to its poor rep that no one ever because at the time everyone was quite it was it sort of was pretty negative immediately about it.
**Adam:** And I think that's probably why it sort of it happened.
**Adam:** But they,
**Adam:** but obviously it was like, so what we 89, so it was well, it says at the start five years later.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but like I was saying earlier, this wasn't Ghostbusters was such a surprise hit, like we said on that episode. And out of nowhere just went stratospheric.
**Adam:** And so they were like, right, we need to do a sequel.
**Adam:** And then,
**Chris:** They just took a bit.
**Adam:** Well, it took five years because immediately because like I said, if you plan like nowadays when they plan sequels, you contract people to it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This was a standalone movie.
**Adam:** Everyone in it was big, they were going off and doing other things.
**Adam:** So not only was it having to get them all to agree to come back.
**Adam:** And then work to a point where all of them were scheduled at the same time to be available.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Plus writing a script from scratch because there was no there was nothing in development because it was like.
**Chris:** I wasn't sure if if I had the impression that they weren't all in it quite as much overall.
**Adam:** Well, apparently the early cut, the early sort of, cut of it, they found that like Ivan Reitman, the director, obviously returned from the first film. He was he found it kind of, that he'd sort of focused a bit too much on Dana and Venkman rather than the Ghostbusters as a unit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but also that's why they put in bits like them going down into the subway with the faces and,
**Adam:** like when the I think they filmed a lot after they'd finished filming, they were doing reshoots and they did that whole bit where the, photographs set light.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So that it would again have like, oh, you know, it in a weird way, they were like, shit, we haven't actually put any danger moments or exciting moments in it.
**Adam:** that people were kind of expecting from the first one. after the how the first one works.
**Adam:** and it was like, cuz it's weird, it kind of has to re-establish itself again and it's like, no, we know ghosts work and ghosts exist.
**Adam:** The first thing that Claire said when we were watching it was, oh, because by now Ghostbusters would be a franchise.
**Adam:** Because clearly ghosts exist and you can make money off this, so they would have been the franchise that they were originally going to sort of see.
**Adam:** That that said, but or other people would be doing it because they obviously got sued to oblivion.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I and I do again, it it is that.
**Lee:** It does almost ring true with that thing of when you watch it and they're, you know, the kid says to him, my dad says you're all fake and it's all a bunch of nonsense.
**Lee:** And you can almost imagine that because people are so, people admittedly like myself are so on the fence that no matter how much proof you show them, you go, yeah, someone's fucking me. This isn't this isn't really what it appears to be.
**Lee:** So, I found that a bit jarring at first.
**Lee:** But actually, I was like, yeah, that's the, you know.
**Lee:** If you live in New York, but happened to be indoors for the, you know, three hours that it that whole of New York fell to pieces.
**Lee:** You would be like, I didn't see it myself, so I'm not necessarily.
**Chris:** I'm not. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I did wonder about that the, whether it was a good choice to have the emotions sort of causing giving the ghosts power. I didn't know if that was starting to hit towards Midichlorian kind of a,
**Chris:** but actually, I decided for the film that it is, totally fine and I actually quite liked it.
**Adam:** I think you, the good thing is, is Dan Aykroyd is genuinely obsessed with all this stuff. So you know you're in a fairly good space in terms of,
**Adam:** for want of a better word, realism in your supernatural, you know, a grounding in your supernatural, as it were.
**Adam:** And, yeah, I think so there are because apparently the first version of it was going to be they wanted to go international.
**Adam:** So they were like and again, this is like Dan Aykroyd just like huge budget in his head.
**Adam:** just imagination untethered.
**Adam:** And he was like, right, we'll do, we'll make it international and it was like Dana gets kidnapped and enters a fairy circle in Scotland that leads to a subterranean world.
**Adam:** And they use the old pneumatic tube system under New York, which gets mentioned in this, to walk all the way to Scotland.
**Adam:** over the course of like three days or whatever like that. And yeah, just a lot of stuff they weren't going to put in.
**Adam:** and then they were like, stick to New York. That worked well. And giant monster at the end.
**Lee:** So we just want something that's a giant.
**Lee:** What's a giant in New York?
**Lee:** There you go.
**Lee:** Statue of Liberty done.
**Lee:** Sorted.
**Adam:** Cuz that cuz they said it was weirdly enough, they wanted to do it. They wanted to do it underground because then it would be the opposite of so you end your first movie on a skyscraper and you end the next one in the bowels of the earth, as it were.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** but but again, yeah, I I just don't think.
**Adam:** everyone was like, right, realistically, what are you talking about? Man.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So, you can't fault his,
**Adam:** you can't fault his ambition.
**Adam:** Also, the kid who says that, he's another cameo, the kid who says that, the Ghostbusters, my dad says, you guys are full of shit.
**Adam:** he's Jason Reitman, who is director of Ghostbusters afterlife.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Pretty good.
**Adam:** And who is the director of Ghostbusters afterlife.
**Adam:** he's also,
**Adam:** he's also in twins, the, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny De Vito.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Really?
**Adam:** As is Chloe Webb, who is then, who is the a woman who's, predicting the future.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** It's just occurred to me, that did, I was quite quite pleased with myself.
**Adam:** And apparently the original version was kind of like Dana and Venkman were together and Oscar was their kid.
**Adam:** And I think like again, that was like they rejected that cuz it was like.
**Chris:** Yeah. I thought this kind of worked.
**Chris:** the way you would expect because he probably wasn't ready to be.
**Adam:** It feels far more realistic that she was, you know, that she'd have gone off and gave him a chance.
**Adam:** They would not, yeah, they gave him a chance and certainly not, you know, having a kid with him chance.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** you know, it was.
**Adam:** Apparently.
**Adam:** Oscar's father is meant to be the cello guy from the first film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but I I mean that's neither here nor there.
**Adam:** You know, we weren't clamoring for that explanation all these years, were we?
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** No, it wasn't the one thing that I needed to know about Ghostbusters.
**Lee:** Like, for example, how they positively charged the slime that was never really explained.
**Lee:** They just went, oh, we positively charged some.
**Lee:** You go, okay, great.
**Lee:** Then why don't you positively charge them at all?
**Lee:** Well,
**Lee:** you know,
**Adam:** Well, they gave you an indication that they might be using it sexually.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So we which you would have thought would have helped because obviously, you know, you have to have something a bit a bit wrong in a Ghostbusters film.
**Adam:** you know, that's that's appropriate that's but skip over it.
**Adam:** Just.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But there's a lot with,
**Adam:** and the weird thing was is so Ted loves Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** I watched Ghostbusters like and because we thought, oh, he'll like Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** because it's, you know, there wasn't despite what I've just said, there wasn't anything in it.
**Adam:** And this was how old was Ted when he first saw it for?
**Adam:** Four or five.
**Adam:** Four or five.
**Adam:** I think.
**Chris:** Well, apparently all this went over my head when I was older than that. So.
**Adam:** But so we watched the first one and he liked it.
**Adam:** But this is the one he really liked.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** This is the one that he really took to.
**Adam:** So, maybe they were doing something right.
**Adam:** cuz obviously it's this is where they'd cut out like.
**Adam:** At one point, definitely Dan Aykroyd is smoking. Cuz he's got a fucking cigar out of his mouth.
**Adam:** Like Hannibal from the eighties.
**Chris:** I was gonna say, yeah.
**Adam:** No one smokes in it again.
**Adam:** because it was like, oh no, we're doing it for kids now, so we can't have this.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's funny. Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's sort of, you know, it's it's actually a bit less, weirdly, it's a bit less cynical in its world view.
**Adam:** or a bit less grown up in its world view, you know, but especially for a film about basically everyone in this town hates each other so much.
**Adam:** It's manifested a way for a undead fucking tyrant to return through a painting.
**Adam:** That's how bad things have got.
**Lee:** And it does make you wonder, I mean, obviously, I've been at New York a couple of times, but only in the last, you know, 10 or 12 years.
**Lee:** But yeah, this and again, the as we said with Jason Takes Manhattan, the fact that someone like that can just walk through murdering their way through New York.
**Lee:** and they're just like, we're too busy with other shit.
**Lee:** Like this is not a top priority.
**Lee:** You just wonder.
**Lee:** I know it was awful in the eighties, but yeah.
**Lee:** I guess this does kind of just show you how I mean, I know it's it's a film and it's it's gamed up.
**Lee:** But yeah, it does make you wonder just how bad New York was in the eighties, really.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it was all right, all you needed to do was force a national monument up the road, smash through the, very fine stained glass roof of a of a uptown art gallery.
**Adam:** And they were cheering their asses off.
**Lee:** It is a good sing along, just puts everything right, supposedly.
**Lee:** I mean, so I wouldn't agree with that, but you know.
**Chris:** It gets most people's moods raised.
**Adam:** I I then like going back to what you were saying Lee, that's the weird thing as well.
**Adam:** I should absolutely despise the song on our own, like the Bobby Brown song.
**Adam:** I but no, it still has an odd thrilling effect.
**Adam:** in the sort of yeah, I associate it with Ghostbusters, that's exciting.
**Adam:** I was the right age that that still worked.
**Adam:** That's why I think another thing that we sort of don't sort of hate on the movie as much as some do.
**Adam:** You know, so.
**Lee:** Well, I mean, I'm not. I unsurprisingly, I am not the biggest fan of 90s R&B.
**Lee:** But that song,
**Lee:** that song works for me, and I think even without the film.
**Lee:** because that's the thing, the Ray Parker Jr. one is a very cheesy song and if it wasn't for the film,
**Lee:** nobody will give it the time of day.
**Lee:** But this song,
**Lee:** just works.
**Lee:** I I just I can see this.
**Lee:** obviously, the lyrics are all about the Ghostbusters. But if you change the lyrics and had this song,
**Lee:** it would just work at that time period and it would still be a number one.
**Adam:** I mean, fucking hell Bobby Brown at the time was fucking shitting number ones.
**Adam:** That's that's inappropriate, is it?
**Adam:** Shit in number one.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz you shit number two, but yeah, he's he's.
**Adam:** Yes, so he's pissing out number one at the time.
**Lee:** I did do a little experiment last night though. so we had some family over for a a day, an all day Christmas thing.
**Lee:** and when they left, Jennifer had a glass of wine or two and decided it was time for her to dance around and wanted me to DJ.
**Lee:** So I was putting music on for her to dance to, and I put that song on, yeah, and she literally just went, nah, fuck off.
**Lee:** So it clearly doesn't work for everyone.
**Lee:** She hates R&B.
**Lee:** Decided so,
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** She was not having that at all.
**Chris:** Maybe.
**Chris:** she needs to watch this a few more times.
**Lee:** Yeah,
**Lee:** well, maybe.
**Adam:** My favorite thing about it is though is it did remind me that at the time me and Sarah used to refer to him as Bobby, you know it Brown.
**Adam:** Because he is in every fucking song he did.
**Adam:** There's also an magical video you can see of him on it's him performing live like on a TV show and he clearly drops his drugs halfway through his pocket.
**Adam:** And Barry, I'm gonna say, very professionally doesn't miss beat, picks him up, but as part of his moves.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's quite quite impressive, you know, so.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** I'm glad to hear that it's all all right because for some reason, I had it in my mind, he might have been one of those people who's now been,
**Lee:** you know, would we would now say he's been canceled. But I wasn't sure if he'd done something historically.
**Lee:** So I was like, I was a little bit worried about saying, I think that's a really great song and I think he's really good for someone to then come along and say, you can't say that, I think he's done something terrible.
**Lee:** Cuz everybody's done something terrible.
**Lee:** So in my mind I was like, has he?
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Chris:** Probably has.
**Lee:** I mean, doing stuff,
**Lee:** maybe.
**Lee:** But again, I don't know.
**Adam:** He was with Whitney, he was married to Whitney Houston. They did go on tele talking about. I can't remember which way around was it?
**Adam:** Was it him picking her bum or him picking her bum?
**Adam:** Basically one the struggles of drug addiction that they were sort of like a bit constipated and had to loose each other up or something with anyway.
**Adam:** but they are both deceased now.
**Lee:** Really?
**Adam:** I think so.
**Adam:** I mean Whitney Houston certainly is.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, I'm aware of Whitney Houston, so.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But there we go. I I I feel I've lacked in my Bobby Brown knowledge there.
**Lee:** Oh, that's a shame.
**Adam:** I will I will offer the, I will offer the other thing though to say that.
**Adam:** Although the Ray Parker Jr. song, Run DMC, fuck that right up where they try and redo it.
**Adam:** It's just fucking, I love Run DMC, but please lads, no.
**Adam:** This is shit. It's just not not good.
**Lee:** you have prematurely killed him off.
**Lee:** According to IMDb, he is still going at 55.
**Adam:** Oh, he's still going.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Oh, fair enough.
**Lee:** So, Bobby.
**Adam:** But there we go.
**Adam:** So that's that's Bobby, you know it Brown.
**Adam:** The the star of the show.
**Lee:** You think he could live this long with, all the fun he's been having.
**Adam:** There was, I was the other thing as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, apparently, yeah, because a lot of saying because the script changed so much, apparently Bill Murray basically said you we made a film under false pretenses because the script was changed so much by the time they finished doing it.
**Lee:** You've got I can imagine.
**Lee:** Dan Aykroyd being like that.
**Lee:** Like I can imagine him being the person who's there the morning before shooting up at 4:00 in the morning just rewriting stuff with no.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Adam:** I think but then I think I think they all were like it, but it worked on the first one.
**Adam:** And this one they were I think they were just Yeah, I think it was weirdly utterly unprepared.
**Adam:** Which is kind of sweet in a way that it's like a sequel, hey?
**Lee:** You what?
**Adam:** And then obviously, you know, absolutely adorable because it's like it is the proof that the first film was,
**Adam:** we're making a film and it's got a full stop.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** And you can see why now it is like that sort of thing.
**Adam:** where it's probably one of the reasons why now it is that thing of right, you contracted with 10 films. If you don't turn up for him, we get your liver.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know that sort of contract, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean.
**Adam:** Do you like having knees?
**Adam:** Do you like having knees in your legs?
**Adam:** You will appear in those six films in the next five years, mate.
**Lee:** As you say, they were all in their heyday at this point. So, yeah, I can see why scheduling would have been an absolute nightmare.
**Lee:** Cuz yeah, you I mean, you look through that cast list, yeah, it it's just they were all at their prime doing all their best stuff.
**Lee:** So it must have been awful trying to pull it out of the bag short notice and try and get everyone together.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then sort of it's just, also, the weird thing is, do you remember the dark suits on the poster that they don't wear in the film?
**Adam:** They're in like little bits of it, but apparently there was they said, right, we've redesigned the costume.
**Adam:** And then I would just went, nah, they're bit shit.
**Adam:** We'll stick to the ones we know, thanks.
**Lee:** Oh, no, I didn't remember that.
**Adam:** But yeah, if you look at all the posters, they're all in like dark overalls and you see them in them a couple of times.
**Adam:** Ted's actually got Playmobil figures of I think Egon and, Winston in the dark suits.
**Chris:** Yeah, cuz you kind of see it. You think they're improving. Makes them look a bit more elite.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're right. On the cover, they're wearing, yeah, like black versions of the overalls.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But they, yeah.
**Adam:** They I think they just went like, no. But they're they're going to photoshoot and publicity stuff and things.
**Lee:** It can't have been that bad. I'd never noticed before.
**Lee:** So it can't be that bad. It must be all right.
**Lee:** But yeah, he's one of those things, when you point it out, he suddenly go, oh, yeah, look at that.
**Adam:** And you get the influence of the real Ghostbusters because obviously Janine gets her makeover to look more like Janine in the real Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** So, and apparently after this, then Lewis was added to the real Ghostbusters.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** but yeah, so that's that's Bobby, you know it Brown.
**Adam:** The the star of the show.
**Chris:** So this looks like this has been mostly Dan Aykroyd's.
**Chris:** like the stuff that he's worked on, really, isn't it?
**Chris:** It's Ghostbusters since.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, there's a well, I mean, because he's, I mean, he, he actually, I mean, he's even in, is it Casper? He's in Casper the friendly ghost as right. At one point.
**Lee:** Never seen it.
**Adam:** No, no.
**Lee:** Surprisingly enough.
**Adam:** I've read about it. I'm surprised that you've never seen it.
**Adam:** But there we go.
**Chris:** Yeah, I sort of imagined he'd been in a lot of films around that time.
**Chris:** But and he he had done more, but yeah, certainly since then it does seem like he's focused on Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** I mean, I mean, in fairness.
**Adam:** it's either that or the Blues Brothers and one of them's dead. So, I mean, he's, you know.
**Adam:** Harold Ray only died relatively recently for them to still be doing Ghostbusters films.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** See, now this is something I want to come back to. If I remember this correctly that you haven't seen the Blues Brothers, Chris.
**Chris:** I haven't, no.
**Chris:** Well, that's why I think even weirder because because like I'm, yeah.
**Chris:** I feel like I saw loads of films of Dan Aykroyd in, but maybe I just watched Ghostbusters over and over.
**Chris:** That could have been the explanation, really.
**Chris:** I haven't seen Coneheads.
**Chris:** I haven't seen Blues Brothers.
**Lee:** I haven't seen Coneheads, to be fair.
**Adam:** I haven't seen Coneheads.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Adam:** What professional this has been.
**Lee:** But I love Great Outdoors and,
**Lee:** he was in Spy Like Us with Chevy Chase, I believe.
**Adam:** Trading Places.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, Trading Places. Oh, again,
**Lee:** him and Eddie Murphy when they were at their peak, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and that was obviously because Eddie Murphy was originally offered the Winston Roll. So that, you know, so they did work together eventually.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean, obviously nothing but trouble. That's got to actually got to be mentioned, isn't it?
**Lee:** And I not mentioned as it deserves.
**Adam:** Yeah. Twilight's another movie. Is it he's in loads of stuff.
**Adam:** but he is probably at this point, he's the least active.
**Adam:** And then right. And then obviously you get like Groundhog day, which is Harold Ramis directing and writing.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Fantastic movie, absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** Groundhog day, obviously.
**Lee:** Right, yes.
**Lee:** So, thanks very much for listening everybody. Happy New Year from everybody here.
**Chris:** Happy New Year.
**Lee:** and we will be back in a Fortnight's time.
**Lee:** we will be doing a what we've been watching because we're expecting, well, because we haven't done one in ages, we're going to have loads of stuff to talk about. But obviously, I'm guessing we're want to going to going to want to go quite in depth into this year's ghost story for Christmas.
**Lee:** particularly me, as it is one of my favorite stories. I have read it, I have read the Essex Witch Museum book that uses it as its kind of, setting, which was excellent. and I've listened to at least half a dozen radio adaptations of it. I love Man's size in Marble. So I'm very keen to see what Mark Gatiss is going to do with it.
**Adam:** And I am keen to see it because I have done none of those. I have I did not I was not familiar with the story at all. So I am really looking forward to it on that basis, because I thought, because when when I mentioned it and you were like, it's amazing. I was like, right, I'm in.
**Adam:** You have you you have very good ghost story taste, sir. Thank you. It's a very simple story, but it's because it's quite simple, it gives it so much scope, which is why all the radio adaptations and stuff, so all the old radio plays in the 30s and 40s did it because it had so much scope for that very different.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's just a brilliant story. So, yeah,
**Lee:** I cannot wait for that tomorrow, actually, as we're recording now. So, 24 hours to go. Woohoo.
**Lee:** Right. Thanks very much for listening everybody, and happy New Year.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night and happy New Year.

---

## Ep 213 Gremlins 2

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-213-gremlins-2/
Air date: 15 December 2024
Duration: 00:39:36
Film: Gremlins 2: The New Batch · Year: 1990 · Director: Joe Dante

### Description

It’s part 3 of our ‘New York’ marathon and we’re in up in the skyscrapers for “Gremlins 2: The New Batch”. A film in which John Glover portrays a thinly veiled Donald Trump in a far more sympathetic light than would be possible these days; Hulk Hogan is revealed to be younger than any of our hosts; and Christopher Lee has already got rabies. The belated sequel to Joe Dante’s original failed to ignite the box office, and seems to have a annoyed many fans of that first film, possibly for the crime of trying to be a bit different, but we find it impossible to not get swept up in the glorious glee with which the titular monsters, and their director, wreak havoc with this movie. Unfettered from the control of his producers, Dante ramps up everything to the point of absurdity, channeling his love of Looney Tunes (including a specially produced Bugs and Daffy intro from the mighty Chuck Jones) with satirical swipes at Corporate culture, the diminishing returns of sequels, and postmodern references to the first film. Packed with cameos and references, this is a non-stop assault, which manages to be both utterly daft and really smart all at once. Watch (re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here for our what's becoming our regular Up Yours to Christmas, which is we've stopped doing Christmas films at Christmas time.
**Adam:** We've done most of the ones that Gremlins including the original of this, I still maintain you can claim Gremlins 2 as a Christmas film on the basis that the Gremlins are Christmas monsters as defined by their first appearance being a Christmas film.
**Chris:** I can go for that.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm fine with that.
**Lee:** yes, so we are here for 1990's Gremlins 2.
**Adam:** The New Batch.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I assume everybody's seen this before, obviously.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I I've got to say, this is one of those films that I always think, I don't know, it just it never comes off my shelf and then every time I do watch it, I'm like, oh yeah, it's actually better than the first one, it surprises me every time.
**Adam:** I think because this is this seems to be a thing online, I think the the common consensus is that it's not great and I think mostly it's I think it's because it doesn't take the first film seriously.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And sort of almost and it's a it's actually a thing within its own fictitious world apparently that the film Gremlins actually exists.
**Lee:** And yeah.
**Lee:** It is it.
**Adam:** I think a lot of people just sort of didn't like that sort of meta-ness or sort of.
**Chris:** Was it was it ahead of its time?
**Lee:** Yes, 100%.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think so.
**Adam:** Yeah, because it's just a it's it's I don't the nearest equivalent is kind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where the first film and not to say that Gremlins is like it's not a heavy duty horror, but it's that's the same sort of transition between the two or like Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2.
**Chris:** The is the same distance between.
**Adam:** You know, it's that same sort of thing of it's like no, no, we just we I mean this is this is just a Looney Tunes film.
**Lee:** Yeah, which they which they know and reference which I do like, they're like they do they are well aware.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I just find it's such a great I saw this when it first came out at the cinema.
**Lee:** And it was great on the big screen, but yeah, it's just it's one of those films that doesn't come off the shelf anywhere near as frequently as it should.
**Chris:** It should.
**Lee:** I it's straight into the action, that's the thing, the first film does all the setup, so it has the beauty of just dropping straight in and you get Gremlins straight away, no sodding about, within 10 minutes, it's all kicking off and you know what the rules are.
**Lee:** You know John Aston as soon as he turns up and starts digging around with the water fountain, you know it's all going to turn to shit.
**Chris:** I even like how they joke about well what if you go through different time zones and what if you feed them but they have a bit of food because that's the kind of thing that I bet, you know, loads of people saying what surely.
**Chris:** How do you know when it's past 12 exactly?
**Adam:** That's what Joe Dante said was that that bit was it was all the questions that kids had asked him after seeing the first one.
**Chris:** Yeah, cause asked me all those and I was like yeah.
**Chris:** You know, and then and then the way they do it is very funny that that it's kicking off there.
**Adam:** Well I love I love the fact that there is there is also an element of sort of like not necessarily the kids who asked it, but certainly the grownups who asked it, it was just like look just shut up and enjoy the movie or we'll sit Gremlin on you.
**Chris:** It's perfect.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** I think there's oh one thing then, so I saw it on Pirate but it had the bit where the film breaks down.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because obviously it had the cinema version of it, which I'm assuming we all saw the one where Hulk Hogan turns up.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I found out that the or the video version of it, they changed that, so it was a different thing, it's not got Hulk Hogan in it.
**Adam:** And basically the video looks like the video choose up and you've got static he's on he's on the Blu-ray as an extra I think on the DVD as well.
**Chris:** All right, as if it's.
**Adam:** But
**Chris:** It's more like your TV's gone wrong.
**Adam:** Yeah, so it's like so it's like the video has just chewed up.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And then it goes into a John Wayne Western, but they've sort of put the Gremlins in there too like John Wayne telling them to get off his land and they're behind a cow laughing at him in cowboy hats.
**Adam:** But apparently this was one of the things where like the producers were all sort of like saying to Joe Dante no you can't do that cinema bit because people will think it's gone wrong in the cinema.
**Adam:** And basically Joe Dante proved to them he did like he showed us he did a screening and he was like, look no one thought for a second that's what had happened as soon as the Gremlins popped up.
**Chris:** Was really.
**Chris:** Oh, I'd love it if they did, but yeah.
**Adam:** It's sort of but but apparently the weirdest part is is so they never got any complaints about it in the cinema, but they the videotape did kept getting returned because people thought it had despite the fact that you're then watching Gremlin the Western.
**Chris:** What at that point.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, you surely know the but apparently.
**Adam:** I think no one got past when it sort of just chewed up and the static went.
**Adam:** And then saw a bit of a cowboy film and it's like oh well there's been a mastering fault, we'll send the tape back.
**Adam:** So they didn't have loads of returns on that.
**Adam:** But and I know this is a weird thing and I feel like I'm hijacking a great fucking film here.
**Adam:** But I have been sitting on this bit of information for ages.
**Chris:** And Ooh.
**Adam:** Basically, I was in you know a a thinking state one night and I I was suddenly went Hulk Hogan's always looked the same and Hulk Hogan's still around, but Hulk Hogan's always looked about 60.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so so I then looked up how old Hulk Hogan was and then obviously this was coming up, so I wanted to wait to give you this revelation.
**Adam:** Hulk Hogan prepare to feel better about yourselves, lads, Hulk Hogan is 36.He's 36.
**Chris:** In the.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** This.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like, you know.
**Adam:** I mean incredibly, you know, a genuine athlete and someone who is, you know, capable of things that I could not do.
**Chris:** Oh, I wouldn't mock him if he was, you know, just a few feet away.
**Adam:** But 36 he do not look.
**Chris:** God in life.
**Adam:** And yeah, sorry, I just I know it sounds mental and like I say, shut up and just it sits, but yeah, I've been waiting to tell you guys that he's 36 because of how fucking absurd it feels.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** But the reason they got to do it all is Joe Dante said basically Gremlins was a big success as we know it was the fourth most successful film when we were looking at Gremlins came out same year as Ghostbusters.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so it was a big success, they immediately wanted a sequel, Joe Dante was really not interested and was like is a story I've done it, it's it's done I don't want to rehash it or anything like that.
**Chris:** It's done, yeah.
**Adam:** So he just for making money basically.
**Adam:** And so Warner Brothers shopped it around a lot and tried to get other directors in and everything.
**Adam:** And that process was going on for ages, obviously, and eventually they went back to Joe Dante and he just said, yeah, I'll do it if I have complete creative control.
**Chris:** That's the way to do it.
**Adam:** So everything he wanted goes in this film.
**Chris:** Which.
**Chris:** Yeah, everything goes.
**Adam:** Yeah, literally, it's just sort of like he just was given cart blank and three times the budget of the original with basically.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, just go and make what you want.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Chris:** I really had forgotten just how satirical and self-referential it was.
**Chris:** It has been a long time since I've seen it, in my head it was a similar sort of comedy to the first one and.
**Lee:** I mean I so in the run up to it before we actually watched the film, we went on YouTube, Lady Jennifer and I and watched the original theatrical trailer followed by the Key and Peel sketch just to get us in the mood.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Right from.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but it is like it really like I laughed out loud more at this than I have at anything in ages, like it is very silly and over the top and it is there is so much crammed into it.
**Lee:** But it all works.
**Chris:** It does, yeah.
**Lee:** Like.
**Chris:** The characters are perfect together.
**Lee:** Yeah, the Brainy Gremlin and the Female Gremlin and oh the Phantom of the Opera Gremlin, like it just made me roar, it's such a funny film.
**Chris:** What's the what's the goofy one and the like is he basically a crime boss, he's clever but just a bit dull.
**Adam:** Those two are called oh what is it, Lenny and George as in of Mice and Men.
**Chris:** All right.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** So yeah, so you have got one who's like a sort of little sort of criminal and who knows what's going on.
**Chris:** Who knows what's going on?
**Adam:** Yeah, the sort of smart one and his muscle basically, his you know.
**Adam:** and and I think the one with the rolling eyes is called Daffy.
**Adam:** Or something like that, but or that might be too near Daffy Duck, I don't know.
**Chris:** He's.
**Adam:** but yeah and Mohawk.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's it's nice that you get those little ones.
**Adam:** And what we were actually when this was coming up, me and Clare were talking about whether we felt we could show Ted Gremlins this Christmas.
**Adam:** And actually, I think Ted would be fine with Gremlins apart from the fact that he has absolutely no attention span.
**Adam:** You know, he is it's fucked unless he's getting, you know, right, immediately this is delivering.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So we are thinking plot-wise, it's not like, you know, he needs to know the ins and outs of every relationship or you know, the dramatic twists and turns of the first film or anything else like that, you know, but why is that character doing that, despite the fact they seem like this?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, or any of that is going to affect him.
**Adam:** So we just thought we're going to show him this one.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I think it will just appeal to him more.
**Adam:** It will the immediate fact that you've got Daffy Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck at the start.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, that would hook him in anyway because he's been enjoying Looney Tunes.
**Adam:** And it actually would set it up right because it's like right what you're going to get is.
**Chris:** Is pretty much.
**Adam:** Wise cracks and slapstick, violent slapstick and it's you know.
**Lee:** And Christopher Lee, I can't believe I still can't believe they got Christopher Lee to be in this.
**Chris:** I'd forgotten he like so when I first saw him again, I was like, oh yeah, it is in this and then at first it's like, oh, he only has a small role.
**Chris:** And he does, but actually he's kind of perfect for it.
**Chris:** I mean, it's not obviously his biggest acting role ever, right?
**Chris:** But he's such a, you know, devilish sort of mastermind weird science like just got that dark.
**Adam:** It's playing creepy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He just absolutely.
**Chris:** The way he's offering them what's what's offering them diseases.
**Adam:** Yeah, I can get you diseases you'd like that, wouldn't you?
**Lee:** I've got to say there's a new documentary about Christopher Lee just come out on Sky Arts, I think it is, the Life and Deaths.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** Do yourself a favor, watch it it's really good.
**Lee:** At the point at which he gets nighted, turn it off.
**Chris:** Of course.
**Lee:** It's an hour and a half and it's really nice and it's lots of people telling personal story.
**Lee:** Joe Dante and Peter Jackson and everybody do talking heads.
**Lee:** It's really nice.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** And we all know that he can be a bit he could be a bit of a dick from time to time.
**Lee:** But literally, the closing scene is that it's him doing a news thing after he's been knighted and then just totally tearing into the poor young girl who's just interviewed him, yeah, so like it's really nice all the way through and then at the end it's just like and just to close it all off is him being a bit of a prick and it's like oh, that's such a shame.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Chris:** I mean to be to be fair, I really want to see that bit now.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** Yeah, that that sounds good.
**Adam:** I mean that's the thing it's like it's like those flashes you see from interviews when it's like.
**Adam:** And I said to them, go back to the text and there was nothing of scope in the script and I said very well, I just won't say anything then, that's why I was silent and film.
**Adam:** And you like fucking hell, Chris.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, that's that's nothing compared to what he does to this poor little this poor young girl who's interviewing him for the news, but but yeah, go and watch that for yourself.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten how many actors this shares with the Burbs.
**Lee:** I'm assuming that both share the same time.
**Lee:** There's three actors from the Burbs in this.
**Lee:** Two of them in.
**Adam:** It was about 86, 87, it's pretty this, definitely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's between that's between Gremlins and this.
**Lee:** Oh, really, oh, god.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'm sure it is.
**Adam:** Yeah, because the Burbs is definitely 80s.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but no, you have got loads in there.
**Adam:** And in tiny fucking roles as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It is just again, probably where it's like Joe Dante's like, oh, I've got complete control, so it's like, right, I'm going to get Gomez Adams in for you know, for a minute tops.
**Lee:** First.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously John Aston's fucking amazing.
**Adam:** So I don't know.
**Adam:** He's the one I always forgets in here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I always remember I always remember Christopher Lee is because of how well he does it.
**Adam:** And it does make me wonder because there was that story about him and Peter Cushion getting chucked out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon for laughing too much.
**Adam:** So I'm assuming that Christopher Lee gets Looney Tunes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And gets, you know, so he's pitching this exactly right.
**Adam:** He's, you know, it's I mean it seems obvious to say, but it's like, you know, he's playing it dead straight because it's that's what Christopher Lee does.
**Adam:** But, you know, he knows that he's not.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he's perfect as it.
**Lee:** And John Glover as well, like I only know John Glover from two roles, which is this and Scrooge where effectively he plays the same character in both.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He just nails it, he's just got that like very arrogant, completely oblivious to the scope of everything that's going on around him, just down to a tee, I think he's just excellent.
**Adam:** It's interesting because it's because it's fucking clear who he is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But in that way that was that more how he was seen then is like this in a more benevolent light.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As it were of this sort of like oh he's like this, but then I think John Glover said that he made the decision to because it was written evil.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's sort of yeah, it's sort of it certainly comes over better than that character should particularly these days.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, I mean it's sort of yeah.
**Adam:** Because when he's I mean basically he's Trump and Ted Turner because he liked colorized movies.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and Grandpa Fred saying about yeah, he only likes movies in color and I've seen this film a lot thinking about it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean.
**Lee:** again, just to go back because it is something that I I don't remember noticing in my previous viewings, but I definitely got this time.
**Lee:** We talked about it when we talked about the first Gremlins film and we said about how it's completely slapstick and comedy, but then it has that really sad moment when Phoebe Kates talks about her dad getting, you know, dying in the chimney.
**Lee:** And when they did it in this one where someone mentioned Lincoln, she immediately, yeah, and you can see like Zack Galligan in the background just like rolling his eyes and oh shit, here she goes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** She's going to bring the whole thing down again like and it's it's that meta self-referential stuff that we now love that's become such a massive thing after scream, but they were doing it like you know, five years before and it's it just works so well.
**Adam:** I think that's the thing is, I think that's why I didn't work.
**Adam:** I think that like in terms of success.
**Adam:** Because you know, oh yeah, you know we were saying about it was like the fourth biggest film of 84.
**Adam:** I think this was like the 30 I did write it down, I think it's like the 31st.
**Lee:** What?
**Adam:** Or something is, yeah, 31.
**Adam:** Like most successful film of 1990.
**Adam:** Now.
**Adam:** It's sort of it's sort of around the same time as Batman, which I think just took all the cultural air and like but Joe Dante basically was like, yeah, it was too long, you know, because obviously by this point he'd he'd already said no I don't want to do a sequel.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They came back and said do you want to do a sequel for triple the budget, can I do it can I do everything I like without you interfering, yes, okay.
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**Adam:** It was named twice.
**Lee:** Yeah, they do New York, New York, yeah.
**Lee:** And they do New York, New York at the end in the lobby and stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, it I'd forgotten just how New York-centric it is.
**Lee:** And I love it for that.
**Lee:** I mean it's fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Again, it's just I think also it was it's just like oh no, it's the right sort of thing to do.
**Adam:** Because you had like small town for Gremlins.
**Adam:** So no, we now want to you don't want them to do it in the same setting, you want to see what chaos they can cause in a city.
**Chris:** Let's go big.
**Adam:** You know, with sort of huge buildings and stuff that they can get into.
**Adam:** And I love that as well, I love the the like the I love the fact that the clamp building is obviously shit.
**Chris:** I was thinking that.
**Adam:** He's almost like the Gremlins are drawn to its inefficiency, it's like really we could really make a fucking disaster out of this.
**Adam:** We really could.
**Chris:** It was nearly WWF.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I love the announcement as well that the the announcement over the channel at the very beginning that just goes on in the background, it just says owner of this car registration, please remove it because it's dirty and old.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it is they just want everything to be clean and pristine and they don't want anything with any character anywhere near the building.
**Adam:** I think that's the thing is it's the gags are on every level, it's the characters, it's the situations and it's those little touches like that, those sort of little sort of just so so many.
**Chris:** So so many.
**Adam:** It's like airplane, almost.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, no, it is, yeah, that's definitely.
**Adam:** It's that particular like the walk through the lobby, I suppose they're a disaster film, a Gremlins film is technically a disaster film, it's like this is the towering inferno, but it was because little ass was got in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I I cannot, I cannot overstate my ludicrous affection for the Gremlins, just just them as a chaotic mass are oh, they're just so splendidly heartwarming, this of just just everything.
**Adam:** And you've got like you say, you've got new ones in this like you've got figures.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Characters almost like there's more than it's more than just a hold and spark.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You and no, Stripe, sorry.
**Adam:** in this and then you've got yeah.
**Adam:** But you've got a few more of those but also just the general sort of futsal chaos of the Gremlins really tickles me in this film.
**Adam:** It's just yeah.
**Adam:** Much like my favorite bit that's all my favorite bits in the original is like the bit where they're in the barn and stuff like that, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and this film is just that for an hour and a half effectively, they're all just and they do, they all have their own little personal.
**Lee:** I mean, obviously, the Brainy Gremlin is the is the one that you remember.
**Chris:** He's great.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and the female Gremlin as I mentioned before, I love the gargoyle one as well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like it just oh, it's just it's so so well written and so well done.
**Lee:** And it does that's why the Key and Peel sketch works because if you describe it to someone, it's an awful mess and it's ludicrous, but when you watch it, it's utterly hilarious.
**Chris:** Perfectly, yeah.
**Adam:** I've never I've never from that sketch, I've never understood where they stood on Gremlins 2, whether it's a whether it's a genuine attack or just, you know, because.
**Chris:** I I thought it I thought it wasn't, I thought it was again, you know, like yeah, stating clearly, it is ridiculous.
**Adam:** That's what I mean, I think I think it because to know it that well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but I think that's the thing with it's sort of it's intelligent and silly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because the dialogue is funny, like the brain Gremlin gets some amazing bits, you know, where it's like what is it where we're advising all our clients to put their money in the can foods and shotguns.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I think I actually posted that on here the night like the night lockdown started because it was just Yeah, but just this sort of yeah, just this lovely wave of scaliness that sort of.
**Adam:** Silly not stupid.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** No, that's exactly it that's exactly why it works.
**Adam:** I am not taking any credit for that, that was just been flashed to me by by my scientific advisor and my good lady wife, who are one of the same.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, she's just flashed that up.
**Adam:** Silly not stupid.
**Lee:** No, that's exactly right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it is.
**Chris:** Very good.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Well, well done, mate.
**Adam:** We'll this is just going to this we'll just let her do it, I think.
**Adam:** We we're unnecessary at this point.
**Lee:** The music in this as well, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Chris:** It's just it's just been going around my head since watching it.
**Lee:** The.
**Lee:** As soon.
**Lee:** As the theme tune came on, Jennifer went, why is this not my ringtone never said this is my ringtone and it's perfect.
**Adam:** It sums them up so well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Especially because you get that sort of like wontsy Broadway bit in the middle of it.
**Adam:** Is sort of.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So you've got the the main of the main bit of it and then that sort of yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Lee:** And the other.
**Adam:** Jerry Goldsmith's in this.
**Adam:** Jerry.
**Adam:** Goldsmith's one of the guy, he's the old guy with white hair who's at the yogurt stand.
**Lee:** That.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Literally I mean I think that's the thing is like you were saying like you've got in the Burbs, you've got did you spot Dr. Klopec?
**Lee:** Yes, yes, I did.
**Adam:** He's the guy having a fag who gets sacked on CCTV, he never actually appears on a proper camera in the.
**Chris:** Is it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and the security guard is oh, what's his name, you know the Yeah, so he's you know, he's the neighbor from the Burbs and it's like they're all neighbors fucking.
**Lee:** That why I don't know.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Sorry, and the other music is what so I love the fact it's got faith no more surprise you're dead on here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and South of Heaven, I believe it is definitely a slayer track.
**Lee:** I think it.
**Adam:** Oh, no, it's Angel of Death.
**Lee:** Oh, it's Angel of Death.
**Adam:** It's that middle bit of Angel of Death.
**Adam:** You know, the the one that public enemy sampled for she watched channel zero.
**Adam:** It's that and Barry Adamson did as well.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** I just I've been I've been having a fight with myself because I've been doing the I've been putting music on the posts on Instagram.
**Adam:** I was pondering this the other day is because obviously we've done Gremlins.
**Adam:** We did it years ago and
**Adam:** In fact it was episode 63.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, God.
**Adam:** Oh, excuse me.
**Lee:** When we were much younger.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The Burbs was episode 59.
**Adam:** So that's the last time we've done any Joe Dante so, you know, sorry, Joe, I love his films so much, I can't believe we haven't done but I think that was the thing, I think because we love them, we splashed out really early on a lot of his stuff.
**Lee:** Oh, sorry.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's true.
**Adam:** Yeah, we did much much like much much like we did with John Carpenter, but not to the fucking ludicrous extent that we'd basically we were basically a John Carpenter podcast.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So it's like every film, oh it's John Carter this week, what a fucking surprise.
**Adam:** But there we go.
**Adam:** But no no offense to Mr. Carter because he is a fucking god.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** I mean, it's it's it's it's it's been well placed that love that we've poured upon him.
**Adam:** I think also Joe Joe Dante's not just a horror director though.
**Chris:** Yeah, I just saw he did inner space.
**Adam:** I didn't realize.
**Adam:** Yeah, the only other thing I think we could do Piranha or The Howling.
**Lee:** Yeah, we need to do the howling.
**Lee:** Howl is fucking good.
**Lee:** We do need to do the Howling, that is a fantastic and again, half the fucking car in it.
**Adam:** He.
**Chris:** Chris, have you seen the Howling?
**Chris:** I haven't, no.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Bless.
**Adam:** Well for a start, Robert Picardo's in this, you know the the head of services, Foster, the guy from from Star Trek.
**Adam:** The doctor from no, Voyejer.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, no, he's in the howling and that's weird but but yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, wait, I he was the the second in command, wasn't he in this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Have you just.
**Chris:** I totally did not realize that.
**Lee:** Have you.
**Adam:** Oh, sorry.
**Chris:** Is it Yeah, once you said it, I was like, yeah, the doctor, yeah, that's him.
**Adam:** Yeah, Robert Picardo.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But you I mean there's loads.
**Adam:** Because obviously you get like you get most of well, you get four from the first film back.
**Lee:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah, because that's why Dick Miller is the other one.
**Adam:** Dick Miller.
**Lee:** Yeah, Dick Miller is the other one, yeah.
**Adam:** Again, weirdly enough, we've I think we've only covered Dick Miller in Joe Dante films.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, I think we need to we do need to sort of investigate where we're going wrong there because he was in loads of stuff.
**Lee:** Every time I see him, I think, I need to add Bucket of Blood to my watch list again, because I've only seen it once and every time I forget and I really do need to go back and rewatch that.
**Adam:** Also, he's in the original Little Shop of Horrors.
**Lee:** Yes, he is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Now, that's a good film as well.
**Lee:** That's another one.
**Adam:** That is a bloody good film.
**Adam:** But the also apparently in the I was going to say in the novel, Dr. Carter has a, which is Christopher Lee's character, does have a first name.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** He's Cushing.
**Adam:** Cushing Cartaker, so yeah, I mean.
**Adam:** Oh, dear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
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---

## Ep 212 Ghostbusters

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-212-ghostbusters/
Air date: 1 December 2024
Duration: 01:09:10
Film: Ghostbusters · Year: 1984 · Director: Ivan Reitman

### Description

It’s part 2 of our ‘New York’ series - the city so nice they podcasted about it twice - and we finally get to “Ghostbusters”. A film in which… well, it’s “Ghostbusters”. Surely you’ve seen it? The original and still best; whatever your take on the films that followed; this is a stone cold 100% classic. With visual effects and character comedy that (pretty much) stand up to this day, it surely counts as one of the finest celebrations of the Big Apple as ever put on the silver screen. A true family film (if you ignore to supernatural blowie) with jokes for the adults, and rip-roaring adventure for the kids, it’s those kids that it first entranced who are now spearheading the renewed interest and revival of the franchise . With that design classic of a logo and Ray Parker Jr.’s ear worm title song simply everywhere, 1984 belonged to the Ghostbusters (despite the release of a number of other incredible films that year) and it was, to quote Dr Peter Venkman, “a legitimate phenomenon”. Watch (or, more likely, re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here to discuss this evening Ghostbusters from 1984.
**Lee:** as we were just discussing before we started recording, Adam and I, yeah, we were wondering how we've never covered this, but we've decided we realized the reason we've never covered it is because everybody everywhere has seen it.
**Lee:** But...
**Lee:** it's got, it's got so many spin-offs and interesting backstories and stuff that, yeah, when Adam said it's one to discuss, I, I ended up in a bit of a rabbit hole on the backstory of how the whole thing came about in the summer. So as soon as he said, yes, yes, yes.
**Adam:** Oh, that's interesting.
**Lee:** couldn't wait to get into all of that, which we will do.
**Adam:** Now.
**Lee:** Hey, there will be spoilers, there will be swear, I mean it's 1984, you must have seen it literally everyone's seen it.
**Adam:** I was going to say, why are we distinguishing that at 1984? We've we've covered fucking movies over 100 years old.
**Lee:** That is true.
**Adam:** No spoiler.
**Chris:** Will will we will we be unearthing any insights that have never before been thought of?
**Adam:** How?
**Lee:** No, definitely not.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** But I mean, and that's what I love about this because I mean, another I think another part of the reason we never really covered it so much is although it is a film about ghosts, I saw this film at seven years old and was in no way at all even the vaguest bit scared. I just thought it was absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** So although it deals with horror topics, it is in no way a horror film, I think it's fair to say.
**Adam:** No, it's supernatural, but it's it has I think it has a few that could be considered horror moments, mostly sort of jump scares if nothing else.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough, I watching it, I remembered that the one thing that freaked me out when I was a kid, because again, yeah, I would have been like six or seven when I saw this.
**Adam:** I just like when it came out.
**Adam:** In fact, when it came out because I distinctly remember my dad bringing home pirate tapes of Ghostbusters and Gremlins on the same day.
**Lee:** Oh, what a day that was.
**Adam:** And well, yeah, but the trouble is Gremlins then stood next to Ghostbusters and just was
**Lee:** Shadowed.
**Adam:** It's a good film. Yeah, it just got I but
**Adam:** apparently that's I think they were released on the same day in America, like in the cinema.
**Chris:** Oh my god.
**Adam:** Ghostbusters and Gremlins. So it was sort of similar sort of thing.
**Adam:** But also you got to remember is Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Christmas film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, watching that but yeah, Ghostbusters fucking yeah, that just.
**Adam:** But the one bit that got me was where Winston and Rye are just driving along in the dark talking about religion, revelations and like prophecy from the Bible.
**Chris:** Religion.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And for some reason that was the bit that that was the bit that actually gave me a sort of
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** None of the jump scares or anything like that sort of, you know, I was because yeah, I think you were you were a deep philosophical six-year-old.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** I I just think it was like, I was six and religion seemed like it might be real.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or something like that and it was like, fuck man, it's in the Bible.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's what they call the Bible.
**Adam:** Of all other things. Do you know what I mean? They say this is your Bible.
**Adam:** So it was like, oh right, so the Bible, that's the real that's got all the.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Adam:** Much in the same way that the Omen a little while, unfortunately not as six years old did freak me out.
**Adam:** But I think the Omen was fortunately a little bit later.
**Lee:** So I think I think that moment in the car is one of the only moments of levity in the whole like it is literally just a fantastic comedy.
**Lee:** all the way through, but that moment does feel almost in isolation.
**Lee:** in that they are discussing it seriously.
**Chris:** Seriously, yeah.
**Lee:** And there are no jokes in that two minutes or whatever.
**Adam:** So Apart from the best joke, which is just the silence and then, let's put on the radio.
**Lee:** yes, so as I say Adam and I were both the same, we both saw this on pirate VHS literally as soon as it came out.
**Lee:** What was your history with it, Chris? Because obviously you are slightly younger than us, so this would have come out when you were a lot younger.
**Chris:** Well,
**Chris:** So, so I I was trying to think, when did I last see it? And it was a very long time ago and it could have been younger than 10.
**Chris:** But then I was thinking, well, I saw Ghostbusters 2 in the cinema, because I remember that.
**Chris:** And I remember the picture when he comes out of the
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** the painting.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it's like, yeah, I saw that in cinema, but I cannot quite remember exactly how old I was.
**Chris:** When I did first see this, but I was freaked out by some parts of it.
**Chris:** So I don't think I saw it in 1984 when I was four.
**Chris:** But
**Lee:** A lot younger.
**Chris:** might not have been that much older.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** May be not but yeah, but what was funny was and I realized how long it must have been to see this.
**Chris:** I totally saw the adult references in this that I never got at all when I was young. I was like, I must have been young enough to not get like, you know.
**Chris:** There was some particularly one scene.
**Chris:** I was like, I don't even remember that happening at all.
**Adam:** That's the point though, isn't it?
**Chris:** Mr. Mr. Akroyd enjoying himself.
**Adam:** Yeah, which was a bit that was cut out, there was a whole big scene that.
**Chris:** Was it?
**Adam:** Yeah, and that and the the woman that the woman who's the the ghost in that sequence.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** is also in all she's the woman in all ZZ Tops videos.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** It's like a playboy model yeah, so.
**Adam:** But yeah, but this is the thing me and Lee were saying is that
**Adam:** it's not a kids' film.
**Adam:** It's just it happened to be at a point that ratings wise it there wasn't anything in it extreme enough that it wasn't above a PG.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's not it's weird because nowadays it's almost like it's got to be that.
**Adam:** If you're aiming a film at like an adult audience, it's got to be above a certain rating.
**Adam:** Whereas actually this this was never a family film at a push.
**Adam:** But this was kind of designed because one thing they said about was by the time they did Ghostbusters 2.
**Adam:** when they sort of realized that it was appealing to kids and there was a fan base.
**Adam:** No one smokes.
**Chris:** Right.
**Lee:** Well, does that count?
**Adam:** Well, yeah, I mean the amount everyone's got face on in this because but no one no one was thinking that was a, you know, people were smoking on the telly, no one considered that as a
**Chris:** it's funny so they really didn't think they were aiming it at kids.
**Adam:** Not particularly, even though they just were doing a comedy sort of,
**Adam:** because it was like Dan Aykroyd wrote it and it was and how Bill Murray was well, Dan Aykroyd wrote the original script and he was writing it for so long that originally it was going to be him and John Belushi was going to be Venkman.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Obviously like John Belushi died and while he was still writing Ghostbusters and and to his face, it's a pretty good fucking hit rate from Dan Aykroyd though.
**Adam:** He's like, you've created all what the two things you've created are probably like certainly from a fancy dress point of view, iconic and like the Ghostbusters and the Blues Brothers.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** I will admit here I've still never seen Blues Brothers.
**Adam:** You can't have done.
**Lee:** What?
**Lee:** Hang on, wait, wait, wait, take that back a fucking step.
**Lee:** You've never seen the Blues Brothers.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** Well, fair enough.
**Lee:** It's oh, it's it is one of the only musicals that is absolutely.
**Chris:** Not only will you sit through, you actually think is arguably one of the best films.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely, 100%.
**Adam:** It is a genuinely great film.
**Adam:** And it and if you enjoyed this and but but then that has sort of like it certainly has more references in it than Ghostbusters does that makes it out as particularly an adult film.
**Chris:** Yeah, I agree.
**Adam:** And and that's, you know, it's not sort of like but it's not like hardcore, I mean, there's just there's a lot of swearing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that's about it really.
**Adam:** There's a lot of there's a lot of swearing and references to sex, but no actual sex or nudity or anything in the Blues Brothers.
**Adam:** But it's just yeah, and similarly, I think Ghostbusters is like sort of it was just a comedy film.
**Adam:** But so Dan Aykroyd wrote a script.
**Adam:** that was huge and the original concept was that the Ghostbusters were a were
**Adam:** one of a franchise like basically like insect like pest control, like insect exterminators.
**Adam:** So in his version of it, it was set in the future, ghosts were commonplace and people who dealt with ghosts as a sort of pest control service.
**Adam:** were also commonplace and they just happened to be one franchise in the whole conglomerate of Ghostbusters and everything else like that.
**Lee:** Yeah, and that was reading said they also they they busted ghosts through time and space.
**Lee:** So it was going to be so ridiculously massive like this, like like it was.
**Lee:** and that was the problem with it, like it was such a a huge concept.
**Adam:** it was unchious it was unwieldy, it was a.
**Lee:** It was a monster.
**Lee:** I just I'm the article I read was saying that when they took it to Ivan Reitman.
**Lee:** he said if we shoot this as it is, it's going to cost in excess of 200 million.
**Lee:** and that was in 1982 money.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I mean cause it was yeah, it was ridiculous.
**Adam:** But then similarly from what I gather when Dan Aykroyd wrote the Blues Brothers, the original version of the Blues Brothers was the script.
**Adam:** The script was the size of the phone book.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they had to like there was whole sequences in there that they just took out like Dan Aykroyd had this whole explanation sequence of why the car is super powered because he parks it under power lines or something like that.
**Adam:** And it was just you so basically like the Blues Brothers, they just went no, that's ridiculous and slimmed it down and similarly with this.
**Adam:** So they got Harold Ramis in because he'd done
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** He'd done stripes at this point, hadn't he?
**Adam:** yeah, he'd done but he'd also done they sort of he did Second City TV which was kind of like Saturday Night Live which is obviously where Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray came from.
**Adam:** And so Ivan Reitman, yeah, he'd done stripes with Harold Ramis and Bill Murray.
**Adam:** that I remember watching that, I don't remember it that well, to be honest.
**Lee:** I only saw it for the first time three or four years ago and it was okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I seem to because because I think my dad really liked all the Saturday Night Live guys, he liked John he really liked John Belushi, he really liked Dan Aykroyd, so we'd seen we saw all of their stuff.
**Adam:** So it wasn't just Blues Brothers, we saw like Animal House and that.
**Lee:** Definitely far too fucking young to have watched Animal House.
**Adam:** But we'd see that.
**Adam:** And but yeah, so we'd rent out stripes and neighbors, you ever seen neighbors with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd?
**Lee:** It's on my shelf and I really I I I've put it on twice now and I've got the first 10 minutes in and not got any further and then not had the ambition to go back and finish it, but I I need to see it.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, I don't remember it being great.
**Adam:** But this was like the whole batch of films that we sort of did in rotation, Great Outdoors as well, because it had Dan Aykroyd in it.
**Adam:** But
**Lee:** Yeah, so Eddie Murphy was the other one who was supposed to originally be in Ghostbusters, but apparently it took so long for the rewrites and everything that he got offered Beverly Hills Cop and was like, see you.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, in fairness, what the starring role versus being part of an ensemble team.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and it did I mean did really well as well.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I yeah, I was going to say I'm sure I heard this made 300 million or something on its first first came out.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** Well, the highest grossing films of 1984, this was number one.
**Adam:** But this is the list.
**Adam:** So Ghostbusters number one, then Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Gremlins.
**Adam:** The Karate Kid, Police Academy, Footloose, Beverly Hills Cop.
**Adam:** Star Trek 3, the Search for Spock, Terms of Endearment and Romancing in the Stone.
**Lee:** Why aren't we having these years anymore?
**Adam:** Well, there were
**Lee:** What's going on?
**Adam:** I had a quick jot down of some other films from 1984, Never Ending Story.
**Adam:** Dune.
**Adam:** Spinal Tap, Terminator and of course, a nightmare on Elm Street.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fucking hell, we all the cost.
**Chris:** That's that's quite a year.
**Lee:** What is going on?
**Adam:** I thought it was quite a was and yeah.
**Adam:** And the best the best part is is those last few didn't weren't even in the top 10.
**Adam:** But they were sort of, you know, they are still films.
**Chris:** They've held their ground.
**Adam:** Yes, definitely.
**Adam:** But yeah, so they got in Harold Ramis to write it with him and that's when they sort of said I will change it to be
**Adam:** So it's the origin story of how the Ghostbusters come to be.
**Lee:** Oh, I didn't realize that was what the rewrite was.
**Adam:** Yes, so what they did was is they were kind of like, so I then Reitman basically said, well show me how this starts.
**Adam:** And so it moves to be the idea.
**Adam:** And they were like, well, that's why they're all doctors.
**Adam:** is because you would have this is basically like a startup.
**Adam:** But it's like you've got, so you have to have three guys who really know their shit to be able to actually build and create the concept of trapping ghosts.
**Chris:** Or at least 66% who know their shit.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** And then and then Winston sort of remains the character who comes into it, you know, he's not part of the business that he's not part of the team that develops all the stuff.
**Adam:** I mean, to a greater or lesser extent, clearly, Vanquishment isn't either.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but he's the gift of the gab, he's the.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, he's the salesman in it.
**Adam:** He's the front person, yeah, he's the he is the businessman end of it weirdly.
**Chris:** Don't let him deal with the the EPA though.
**Chris:** And you'll be fine.
**Adam:** Which I'm really interested that Ted now really likes two movies where the EPA are evil.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** this and the Simpsons movie.
**Adam:** Where they're putting the dome like And
**Adam:** because you know oh John Dies at the End, the guy who wrote John Dies at the End, Jason Pargin is really worth following on Instagram.
**Adam:** Or on TikTok because I think he just posts his TikToks on Instagram.

---

## Ep 211 - Friday the 13th pt VIII Jason Takes Manhattan

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-211-friday-the-13th-pt-viii-jason-takes-manhattan/
Air date: 17 November 2024
Duration: 00:38:53
Film: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan · Year: 1989 · Director: Rob Hedden

### Description

It’s part 1 of our ‘New York’ series, and we take a slow boat to the Big Apple with “Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan”. A film in which a group of students get ripped off when they hire a “cruise ship”; New York City is a seething cesspool of crime and toxic waste; and Kane Hodder gets to pre-emptively leather the bloke who eventually nicked his job. “Jason Takes Manhattan” has our hockey-masked antihero bludgeneoning his way through yet another group of annoying teens; whilst also ticking off other touchstones of the “Friday…” franchise, such as an over-lit flashback and even a crazy harbinger. Despite this, the film somehow lacks something, maybe it’s the fact that we take far too long to get to NYC, or that, by this point, we’ve seen it all once too often. However, like most good slasher films, as a party movie with friends and/or your recreational substance of choice, it’s still a lot of daft fun. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here as promised for our New York centric month, which might extend slightly, but we'll get into that.
**Lee:** with 1989's Friday the 13th part 8, Jason takes Manhattan, aka Jason on the Isle of White Ferry, because there's not a lot of Manhattan in this.
**Chris:** Right, I was, you've just taken, you've taken my opening gambit there.
**Adam:** You've got it.
**Chris:** That's it, I'm, I'm all done. There you go.
**Lee:** Signing off.
**Lee:** there will be spoilers, more than that.
**Lee:** there will be swearing more than me just saying wank once.
**Lee:** and
**Chris:** Probably say it twice.
**Lee:** I might do, you never know.
**Chris:** Is that a statement or a command?
**Adam:** The state of mind.
**Chris:** Like a New York state of mind, it's more of a wank state of mind.
**Lee:** state of my pants I'm worried about.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** Oh dear.
**Lee:** Without further ado and all of that filth put aside.
**Lee:** obviously this is one of those films that I always think I know really well and then every time I watch it, I think I've only seen this a couple of times because it's god awful.
**Lee:** so before we get Chris's take on it, Adam, is this a film you've seen a lot or not so much?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I I think possibly, I'd certainly say, apart from probably Jason X and that was just by sheer dint of I bought Jason X on DVD and I was like, right, I've got to take this round everyone's house because you've got to see this.
**Adam:** But it's probably the Friday the 13th I've seen the most.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Other than Jason X, because I know I've seen the first one and I'm sure I've seen bits of other ones. I'm not sure if I think I've seen like mostly the later stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But this one always seem to be this one always seem to be the one that'd actually stick on the telly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's.
**Chris:** Now why would that be?
**Adam:** Well, I weirdly enough, I found out it's actually the last one that's called Friday the 13th.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because they apparently they sold the character but not the rights to the title.
**Chris:** Not to the name, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which is why it's, that's why it's what, what's number nine, it's Jason, Jason goes to hell.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then Jason X, and then Freddy versus Jason. So Jason as a character and concept had been sold, but they retained the rights to the fucking title.
**Lee:** Oh, but don't worry, Chris, at least we didn't make you sit through Jason goes to hell because that is an absolute steaming pile of todd, so it could have been worse.
**Adam:** It's not good.
**Lee:** But but on that note, Chris, what did you make on your first viewing, I'm assuming of Jason takes Manhattan?
**Chris:** Well, you know, it's nice. It's it's good to get another experience. with some added toxic waste in this one.
**Chris:** I don't suppose that's happened in any of the others, has it? Or is that a common end for him?
**Lee:** I can't think of any others.
**Adam:** I yeah, because it's I don't yeah, because usually it's electricity or telekinesis or.
**Chris:** Well. So there was at least one electricity in this one.
**Adam:** Yes. Yeah, you had the sort of the anchor anchor cable mishap. That.
**Chris:** And the chain at the end, he gets.
**Adam:** He gets of course, yeah.
**Chris:** Towards the end, and then.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's like, so I'm thinking from what I've learned so far that one of the main aims of the entire series or franchise is to have the most unusual unique ways to kill people.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Chris:** That that is like because.
**Adam:** That's that's the slasher format, is that's how slashers make themselves.
**Chris:** Now, that really hit home to me when it was the sauna stone. And I was like, yeah, I don't suppose that's ever happened in another film.
**Chris:** And there's probably quite a few of those, but really it was at that point. I was like, yeah, no, this is really showing some I'd call it originality.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's that's that's what certainly like like Nightmare on Elm Street was a slightly different thing with that because obviously you've got such a layer of unreality because you've got dreams. So they really go to fucking town and get.
**Chris:** Yeah. And that sort of Freddy becoming other things as well. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah. Whereas, whereas with this it was it's always been very much the sort of like, right, what interesting ways can Jason wipe out this group of that we don't care about?
**Chris:** I imagine mostly combined with his hand going through people's parts of their body or knocking their head off, which again that happens. I think that did happen in another one as well, actually.
**Adam:** I see. Well, because it's watching it this this time, actually watching.
**Chris:** Wait, and then how many? Oh, yeah. So what, how many times have you seen it? What was this?
**Adam:** Oh, I don't know. This is probably, I don't know, third or fourth time. It's been on telly and I've watched it those couple of times or whatever like that. So I think it's, you know, it's third or fourth.
**Chris:** If if if this came on TV, it would be like, yeah, this is entertaining, you know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Great.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely. That's what it was. And I would argue it's exactly it's like a sort of greatest hits that you don't get from other Jason films. Or other Friday the 13th films, because obviously you don't, you don't get Jason in the first one. You don't get the hockey mask till the third one.
**Adam:** So all of these things are in place and this literally is like opens up. Someone tells the campfire story of Jason Voorhees. He comes back. He's killed two people within 10 minutes.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, this is exactly what you want. You don't want by this point, you don't want a slow build.
**Adam:** You don't want tension. It's like, no, I want to see Jason because I know I know what the part A.
**Adam:** I know what the format is. Don't hide him at this point.
**Chris:** We've been there a few times. Yeah.
**Lee:** I I did like that they slightly changed the format by by killing my favorite character in it within the first 10 minutes, which is Suzy the rocker chick. Who A has one of the best haircuts in the entire franchise. Yeah. And he's just a really cool interesting character and it's like, oh yeah, no, let's kill her off and then we've just got all of the boring to work our way through for the rest of the journey.
**Adam:** It's, well, I mean, that that said, at that moment, it was that when that's when I made the note that you can tell it's 1989 because and apart from Suzy, you can tell it's Suzy the rocker or is that JJ?
**Lee:** Oh, no, sorry, you're right, yeah, JJ, sorry, yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah, apart from JJ, who is dressed like she's she's dressed like John Jet.
**Chris:** And that takes some passion to take a portable amp and back in track and guitar onto the ship.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Someone took a dog on the school holiday. I mean what?
**Adam:** That's true. But that but basically yeah, it was at that point that I wrote down the music in the 80s, but the fashion are very much early 90s. So it goes to prove that like that it's just that it's just that transition period, yeah.
**Chris:** Transition period, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah. Also and also you get Harbinger, which is a Friday the 13th thing. Yes. And you get a flashback.
**Adam:** You get like the flashback sequence where it turns out that well, her her foster father is a prick. I mean, we knew that anyway, but it's nice to have it reinforced, you know, just to just to let you know.
**Lee:** And again, it's the Harbinger. You always just think, right, so they've turned up. He immediately says you're all going to die and then they die. And before this film, nobody ever goes, well it's clearly him. He turned up and said we're all going to die and then we all started dying. Why does nobody ever check him out? Why is nobody looking at his hard drive? It's the first time anyone's ever brought it up.
**Adam:** Yeah, it does. It's it's the actual most sensible version of, you know, the of the. We know that he's wrong, but in that situation, surely he is like that's the most coherent idea of what is going on.
**Adam:** That deck hand is a guy called Alex Deacon and he is in loads of X-Files.
**Lee:** Oh, is he?
**Adam:** And he's in he was in Millennium as well, and he played Dr. Ethan Fabricant in Millennium. So that's immediately what I call him and that's very obscure. I'll admit that.
**Adam:** That's not it's not one that you probably get shouted at in the street.
**Adam:** but because because of the way this is filmed, it's mostly filmed in Vancouver. and so there's a lot of like actors who are X-Files because they're basically all the actors in that area that you hire. So obviously the X-Files was all filmed in Vancouver and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** A lot of these actors are crossing over.
**Chris:** And that explains why there's not much Manhattan in it.
**Chris:** That explains why there's not much Manhattan in it.
**Adam:** Well, no. Of course not.
**Chris:** I think not.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** I actually I I did. There was, there was more than I was, I was starting to think, are we going to be how long we going to be on the ship for?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, because even the apparently like the director said that he he now refers to it as Jason goes to is like Jason on his way to Manhattan.
**Chris:** Travels. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, Jason travels to Manhattan, it's not Jason takes Manhattan.
**Adam:** But I I did I did jot it down. It's an hour and three minutes before they get to New York with 36 minutes of the film left. And then it's actually an hour and 25 minutes before you actually see actual proper New York, which is the bit in time square. But everything else is Vancouver.
**Lee:** And then again, I did love that, like I loved that, or I'll say I loved it. That grimy 80s New York back when it was a den of, you know, I think it was high prostitution, drug dealing. They get off the boat. They haven't even made it off the dock and they've been mugged and they've taken her to use her as a sex slave. They had 100 yards of the fucking key side.
**Chris:** That is. I mean, they are not messing around.
**Lee:** That is New York.
**Adam:** But that's the thing. I I do love the fact that it is it's very it's like it's like it's Gotham New York.
**Adam:** It's literally the walls are dripping. They apparently slush, I'm not saying that I'm not saying New York wouldn't do it. Or wouldn't have done it back in the day, but apparently they slosh through like acidic toxic waste through a public sewer every night.
**Adam:** Regular as clockwork.
**Lee:** I did love that line as well when he she runs into the diner and says, there's a maniac trying to kill me and the woman behind the counter just goes, welcome to New York.
**Adam:** Yeah. She is and the in the big budget Hollywood remake of it, that's Natasha Leone's role. You know that.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** She would have got that that is that's apparently that's the director's sister.
**Adam:** And that's her only acting role and the big guy.
**Lee:** He was good.
**Adam:** The big guy who gets who like the guy in the cafe who comes out and then Jason just throws him into a mirror. That guy's the stunt coordinator and he plays Jason in Freddy versus Jason.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because obviously this is this is Kane Hodder's last time. No, no, it can't be. No, it's Jason X is the last time he played him.
**Adam:** It's obviously.
**Lee:** Oh, okay, yeah. Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, Freddy versus Jake. Sorry, I'm I'm thinking that no, but there's two films and then there's Freddy versus Jason and in that one, it's that guy playing him.
**Adam:** What's his name? Cuz he's he did stunt on loads of stuff.
**Lee:** And of course, Kane Hodder is in Jason goes to hell, but only as a security guard, which I like that they got him in and you actually get to see his face for me.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, so that guy basically is got you know, got beaten up by Kane Hodder and then got the job.
**Adam:** But apparently that was that was again that was again Vancouver filming. They were like, oh, well, Kane Hodder is not going to be that bothered about like, so they were going to have this other guy playing. And then Kane Hodder was like, what the fuck? No, I'm playing fucking Jason. Get fucked.
**Lee:** He does, like he just brings so much presence to this to the role.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely, yeah.
**Lee:** For someone who can't speak and you can't see his face. His acting is just, I mean he's a big lump. He's just the right size and shape to be like still able to move and run around, but.
**Chris:** Like bigger and intimidating size.
**Chris:** I mean, you do appreciate that that with the in the boxing, the guy who's trying to box him still, and it's like he's actually to be fair, he gave it a good good effort. Yeah, but why keep punching him bare knuckled in a fucking hockey mask. cuz he was just had to prove himself. I mean, he clearly had one too many fights and had way too much hubris and he was like, yeah, I'm going to take you on as well. But you like you suddenly look very small compared to this guy.
**Lee:** I did love that line though when they're all picking up the weapons and he's laid them all out and they're going, what are you going to take? He says, I'm just going to take these fists and I was like, oh, you idiot. He went and this gun. I was like, yes. There we go.
**Adam:** Cuz at that point you are just thinking, oh no, here we go, fucking boy. And he's like, no, no, well done mate.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz also at that point, he's like he he decides like I'll I'll yeah, what I'll do is is I'll I'll deck him I'll deck the prick one punch. I punched him in the mask. I have nearly drowned, been rowing for days. And, you know, a lot of shit's happened and you think you're probably not you're not at your fighting peak, are you?
**Lee:** No, not really.
**Lee:** And again, it's another thing as a hockey fan, and I know Chris is as well. It still amazes me that until pretty much the 80s, that was a goalie's mask. So you had effectively, I've got one right here in my hand because I use it to weigh my notepad down while I'm reading. This is an official NHL ice hockey puck. I can tell you it's pretty heavy. So frozen solid and they move at 100 miles an hour. Protecting yourself with that flimsy piece of plastic over your face is a fool's errand. You are asking for broken cheekbones at least once a season.
**Adam:** I assume I assume they were pretty tough. That was why it was the full face covering.
**Lee:** Yeah, but again, like it'd be still and I know it's got some padding behind it, but it's still a solid piece of.
**Chris:** Yeah, I suppose it's actually it's on your face. It doesn't give you any crumple zones.
**Lee:** someone clumping you with a sledge hammer and you're wearing a thin piece of plastic with some foaming on the back, it's still going to fuck you up royal. Goes to show how hard I.
**Chris:** You may not die, but you may wish you had.
**Lee:** It's not going to be a good night. Even if you win the game, you're still going to spend it in A&E feeling pretty sorry for yourself.
**Adam:** So so so Lee, you've you've you are our New York correspondent. How do you feel this how do you feel this lives up to New York? Did you actually go to Times Square?
**Lee:** I stayed in Times Square.
**Lee:** My there you go. hotel was probably less than 100 yards from Times Square.
**Chris:** Oh, cool.
**Lee:** For anyone listening who knows it, I stayed at the Paramount, which has just recently been refurbished.
**Lee:** I had a very nice time. can highly recommend.
**Adam:** Oh, I thought you meant you'd been recently refurbished after you'd left.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Thought you'd keep me in that shit and just fucking tore the place up.
**Lee:** I mean, it's it's very Times Square is just for anyone who hasn't been, it's just like Piccadilly Circus. It's just Like you kind of get there and you look at it and you go, wow, look at it. And then you're like, it's just loads of adverts. You're being advertised to and you've all been suckered into it, been told it's the coolest place on earth and it's just the biggest advert scam ever.
**Adam:** I think there's definitely something there, isn't it?
**Lee:** We got there and wondered around for an hour at which point, so I took my mother because she's always wanted to go and she needed someone to go with her, so I agreed to go with her. yeah, we wondered around for an hour and when we got back to the hotel, she said to me, nobody has spoken to me in an American accent since we've been here. I haven't heard one anywhere in Times Square because like anywhere in London, it's just.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Of course.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's all very nice and it all feels very safe except there was a guy between Times Square and our hotel, a homeless gentleman who was wandering around quite a lot and spent some of that time wandering around with an iron bar hanging out the bottom of his trench coat. But other than that.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** it was as safe as houses really.
**Adam:** I mean, I mean, in fairness, that's probably as much for his protection as anything else.
**Adam:** But
**Lee:** I don't know, he was standing on his own and staring out the security guard from the Death Becomes Her Broadway show, so I don't think he was necessarily in any danger, unless he was talking getting into the show. And he had no trousers on.
**Adam:** Speaking of which, did you spot the flasher?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** When there's a bit, I I I took I took a picture, so I'll send it to you, but there's a bit.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, I need.
**Adam:** Well, when they come up the stairs and this is the thing, I'm assuming because basically what happened was is they were like, right, we're going to film this in New York and you know, we'll do all the sites and we'll do Madison. Cuz like that the boxing match was meant to be in Madison Square Garden, rather than on a rooftop.
**Adam:** Although, on a rooftop seems a lot more logical than the ridiculousness of Jason's in fucking How would you get him in there for a start? but yeah. Suppose that's why it was abandoned.
**Adam:** So yeah, but they were yeah, so they're going to do Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and all the sites. And then the producers were like, right, we haven't got the budget for that. and presumably weren't going to pay for permits for filming as well. but basically we're just sort of like, okay, so the rest of it will film in Vancouver and you get like a day that night in Times Square or whatever it is.
**Adam:** But as they're coming out of the subway into Times Square, there's people walking past. One of whom is a guy in a Mac, socks, shoes, no trousers.
**Adam:** Now, I don't know if he's an extra who's in there to represent a flasher or he was just a flasher.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Or just got caught.
**Lee:** I think that he happened to be going past while they were filming.
**Adam:** Cuz I'm assuming they didn't block off and get thousands of extras in. I think they stood in Times Square with a camera and that was about it.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Like Piccadilly Circus, it's one of those places where you could just rock up and put a camera and there's so many people, half the people there would wouldn't even notice you. Like they're all just going around their own going about their own shit and staring up into the sky. They're probably not paying any. So yeah, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure this was just 10 o'clock on a Friday night or whatever and they just turned up and shot and just.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, they are just the type of people that you find there.
**Adam:** Yeah. And one of the and one of those people was clearly a flasher.
**Adam:** I mean, he looks he's he's he looks proper. I might be doing the man a disservice, but if he's out with no trousers on, I might not be doing him a disservice.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, so but here's the best bit is when because the guy who directed this Rob Hedden did some of the Friday the 13th series, which is how he got the gig to do this. And they when they offered it to him, he was like they were like, what do you want to do with it? And he was like, well, the one thing I want to do is take Jason out of Crystal Lake. I want to go to a different location. I want to go somewhere else.
**Adam:** And it was the fucking producers who said, what about New York? So he wrote a script to go around New York. And then they went, oh, we're not going to be able to film that. That's New York.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so the poor fucker had to do most of it on the boat. So.
**Lee:** That sounds about right.
**Lee:** But yeah, I I do love that. I again, it's it's that the bit that always stands out for me is the bit with the four punks. where they're all sitting there and he walks past and kicks over the stereo.
**Lee:** And then doesn't even attack them. Just lifts up the mask and they'll go, all right, all right, and just fuck off.
**Adam:** But that for me, that is literally what this film is. There's two things this film is. One is someone get a person getting a guitar in the face in the bowels of a ship and the bit where he kicks over the fucking ghetto blaster. That's what it is in my head.
**Adam:** But I was watching it. I did think this is kind of like what I assumed when I was little or younger or whatever like that. Or certainly before I was 18, this is what I assumed an 18 certificate film was. in every like the music, the level of gore, the level of sort of murder and everything else like that. I think that's where I was in my head that that was like, yes, that's what an 18 film's like, isn't it?
**Adam:** I've only seen Dracula twice. I certainly didn't swallow it.
**Lee:** Well, I I think for me, I think the first Friday film I saw was what was the next chapter? Was it? The one that a new beginning? New begin. Oh, possibly. Chris's in your ears. It's the one that isn't Jason that takes place at the kids camp.
**Adam:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think that's I think that's a new beginning.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I can't remember to be honest.
**Lee:** It probably is.
**Lee:** But a a friend of mine at school had bought it ex rental from a shop. yeah, and literally watched it to death within about three months. and then gave it to me, yeah, and I watched it several and that was one of that was the first time I'd seen a Friday the 13th. yeah, and it wasn't even Jason, but as you say, it was interesting kills, it was the hockey mask, it was tons of unnecessary boobs and it was very 80s, it was everything I expected it the franchise to be.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So that was nice to see how this I did like the nod to camera in this as well, not going like full on sort of self-referential like Elm Street so much. But yeah, just the shot where it's got the hockey night thing up with the hockey mask and he just turns and looks straight down the barrel of the camera and then walks away.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz that's the thing is I'll give them their due. They shoot Jason in Times Square and it's fucking iconic.
**Adam:** You know, that in a way feels like pay off because it's like, right, there we have got Jason in New York. We know it's mostly because mostly this is Jason at sea.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So really.
**Adam:** Also, also, I love the fact and again, it's the budget and everything. I love the fact that that fucking rusty old tub of a boat that looks like Indiana Jones would get a lift home in it. is a cruise ship according to the script and what they've put on there. Fuck a sauna, shuffle board, play pigeon shooting, roller disco, thank you, and just yeah.
**Lee:** No, no railing around a part of the upper deck where they just push your girl off.
**Lee:** Yeah. All the cruise ships I've been on are like that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's just Yeah, just.
**Adam:** But the the weirdest thing was is watching it with Claire and it's two things that I had never that I've never questioned. And again, I don't like I say, I don't really know, I don't consider I know the Friday franchise that well. I've seen some of them not in order. I've never explored it properly. But I definitely google this because Claire said, so is this on Friday the 13th? And it was like, well, no, this is clearly over a series of nights. And yeah, it is just a title.
**Lee:** I don't think any of them have ever taken place on Friday the 13th.
**Adam:** I I had a look and the ones that definitely take place on the Friday the 13th are the first one and the sixth one where they definitely mention it. And in this one they do say, oh the the students of Crystal Lake are graduating on the 13th. So whether that's a Friday or not is left to question, but yeah.
**Adam:** And it hadn't even occurred to me. It's like, oh yeah, because you know, Halloween happens at Halloween. Yeah. And so on and so forth. But yeah, Friday the 13th. And it was weird because I was looking online and there were people going, oh yeah, I've never thought of that. And then there were other people going, oh, I assumed it was always meant to be Friday like he only came back for a day.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, like some sort of spirit or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And it's just, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, they just saddled with a title from the very first episode and the first, you know, part of the franchise which was supposed to be a one-off and then you're stuck with it. I suppose. like what can you you can't change the title from that point on. Well, I mean, you can when you've made eight films before it, apparently.
**Adam:** Oh, apparently, you can't you can't sell the title. You can sell the character like the the actual focus of the franchise, but you can't sell the title.
**Adam:** But the other thing as well that Claire said is it's it's weird because Jason is so inconsistent where it's like, oh, he's going to sneak around. And then other times, he's smashing through the doors like fucking Mr. T.
**Chris:** I did think when he entered the train, it's like that's that's one of those where when he's killing the police, you're like, no, this has gone this is past. There's no help. Like he just doesn't care. He's on this brightly lit train with tons of people and it just doesn't matter.
**Lee:** And that's the thing. quite right. Other times he's sneaking in and Yeah. Yeah, like secret agent Squirrel when you're like, why are all the other men? Fucking hell.
**Adam:** Cuz clearly, he's fucking invulnerable, so he could just get on the boat and wipe them out in about 20 minutes.
**Adam:** But we get a couple of guys.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know. Also, what a bunch of fucking I mean, they're it's always the way they're a bunch of pricks that you don't give a shit about that's half the point. And, you know, cuz cuz that was the that was the thing that I was enjoying watching Claire. She's like, I'll totally on Jason's side. And it's like, yeah, you are. That's what that's certainly Friday the 13th. That's always the purpose. And Nightmare on Elm Street as it goes later, it's that's the point. You just.
**Lee:** It's part of the setup, isn't it? It's like you know that you're not here to follow the victims, you're here to follow the killer. So you have to feel justified in them dying. So they all have to be assholes. Otherwise, you don't enjoy it. So it has to be justified. So they all have to be the biggest dickheads you can imagine. and Friday goes over and above always.
**Adam:** Yeah, they do they they they know how to sell it.
**Adam:** I mean, let's face it. Let's face it. They had Kevin Bacon at his most obnoxious. So you know, they they knew that he they didn't know that he was going to mature into an avuncular star of stage and screen. They were just like, look at this prick. So get him in now. Actually, they were meant to have who was it? The Elizabeth Berkeley, DD Fifer and Pamela Anderson auditioned for Renny.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And yeah, I mean Elizabeth Berkeley, maybe, I could sort of see in that sort of demure role as it were, but yeah.
**Adam:** Very but yeah, not I'm not sure if Pamela Anderson.
**Lee:** No, I can't see that.
**Lee:** But speaking of casting, it's got to be said, Peter Mark Richman, who played the the the teacher in it. He's just so good.
**Lee:** And again for me growing up in the 80s, I mean, I know him from
**Chris:** Yeah, he's been in, I've definitely seen him in.
**Lee:** Just had a quick Google on IMDB, quick Google, I've been on IMDB. yeah, he was in Murder She Wrote, TJ Hooker, Hardcastle and McCornick, Night Rider, the Love Boat. the Incredible Hulk, Heart to Heart, Charlie's Angels, he's literally in fucking everything that came out in the 80s. Everything.
**Adam:** TJ Hooker, Raw Hide, Beverly Hills 90210. He was in Dynasty, which I think is where I'm remembering from cuz me mum used to watch Dynasty all the time. Actually dad used to watch fucking Dynasty all the time. I think me mum was not bothered.
**Adam:** But yeah, he was and he was in the he was in Battlestar Galactica 1980, the one where they went to Earth. And he's in Naked Gun two and a half.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** he's also I didn't know this, he's also the voice of the Phantom in Defenders of the Earth.
**Adam:** And but yeah, he is just one of those guys who's just in everything and he's perfect in this role.
**Adam:** He does also take quite some time to pull that girl off him before he decided he was wrong.
**Lee:** I had the same reaction. Like as soon as she started taking it, he should have gone, no, no, no. Don't let her pounce on top of you and hits her back for a little bit and then go, I'm sure he was just trying to figure out if it really was her biology assignment and he's just a bit confused. That's all it was. Well, can I just say Chris, you're a generous man, but I don't think you should be on a jury anytime. No, maybe not. I think he was perfectly innocent.
**Adam:** I'm sure he was just trying to figure out if it really was her biology assignment and he's just a bit confused. That's all it was. Well, can I just say Chris, you're a generous man, but I don't think you should be on a jury anytime. No, maybe not. I think he was perfectly innocent.
**Lee:** And also you got Kelly who's in there.
**Lee:** Like one of her first roles and obviously she's like in she was like Death Strike in the X-Men films and Scorpion King and loads of TV stuff and things like that.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** The
**Adam:** I also found it a Bowie fact about Friday the 13th. This was called Ashes to Ashes as a working title.
**Adam:** And it turns out that what they used to do because Friday the 13th like a title that would get like union interest and stuff like that and they could get busted for not having a union crew and they could have reporters crawling all over it. You know, they use working title so you don't know it's like one of the Star Wars was blue milk or whatever. And yeah. Really? Yeah. But this so this was called Ashes to Ashes. but they regularly used Bowie songs as working titles.
**Adam:** So part three was called Crystal Japan. which was an instrumental that was that he made during scary monsters and Super Creeps.
**Adam:** Part five was called repetition, both as a Bowie song and also a piss take on the fact we've done five of these films.
**Adam:** And part six was called Aladdin Sane.
**Adam:** So yeah, they but apparently by the time they made this, that thing was known in the industry. So they got loads of people going, so it Ashes to Ashes is this a new Friday the 13th film and they came going, no, no, it's not Friday the 13th. They don't know what you're talking about.
**Adam:** And then they changed the names to burial at sea, terror in Time Square and the mystery of sour gum lake.
**Lee:** So then the last one's a bit random, but yeah, the others you can kind of.
**Adam:** I can I can I could see. I could see.
**Adam:** What one other thing I had to say is that so the dog and this is why I love the internet. So Ace who played Toby the dog.
**Adam:** Do you know his IMDB trivia says, go on, is a dog.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm glad they've pointed that out because.
**Adam:** I say I might.
**Adam:** So I might.
**Adam:** He was also in some some series called the Odyssey, but that's the only two roles that he's had.
**Lee:** Oh, he was very good. He was a good boy.
**Adam:** Yeah, he was a good boy.
**Adam:** Was also was Jason under their rowing boat like Bob. Like, you know, like Max and Cape fear was he just clinging on and then then had to appear.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's a it's an entertaining film. It is. But yeah. As they all are. But I think weirdly enough, if you need in a weird way, if you needed to go to someone right, here's the here's the example of Friday the 13th. I think that this is a very good contender.
**Chris:** It is. But yeah.
**Adam:** Because there's no pissing about. You just get on with it and you get a Friday the 13th movie from start to finish, you know, everything's in place, the right actor's playing Jason. He's wearing the hockey mask. He is the villain, but he's back from the dead and so on and so forth and it's Yeah.
**Lee:** It does tick all those boxes. But for me, Friday is one of those things that I put on late at night. Is that I'm going to be asleep in half an hour. I'm not going to get all the way through a film. I'll chuck a Friday on maybe.
**Chris:** And you don't really need to.
**Lee:** This one takes, although it does get going pretty quickly, it still feels slow going. So I think this would send me off to sleep much quicker than yeah, maybe four or five or six would do. So yeah, I say that's why this is the one that I've seen possibly one of the least because although the killings are pretty quick, the bits in between are a bit of a slog, whereas with the others, it doesn't have that same feel. I suppose because it's a it's a captive audience. They're on a boat. You can't have loads of people and people coming in and out because they're on a boat.
**Lee:** Yeah. You can only kill so quickly. But also weirdly enough, it's that sort of transition across three locations. So you have the Crystal Lake at the start, then the boat for the majority of it and then it's chasing him through New York. And the question beggers, surely Jason gets to New York and just gets tied up with killing every fucker he sees because that is his that's his thing.
**Lee:** Why would he be specifically chasing them when it's like, I I can now, yeah. Yeah. He can choose. Yeah, he can use through the fucking through the subway. I know. I with that. I was like, he's surrounded by teenagers. Why is he so fixed in the middle of New York on finding this one girl?
**Adam:** I can now, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he can choose through the fucking through the subway.
**Adam:** I know. I with that. I was like, he's surrounded by teenagers. Why is he so fixed in the middle of New York on finding this one girl? If your if your problem is teenagers, drugs and casual sex and you've still got to chase the fucking hometown people across New York, you are not aware of your surroundings, sir.
**Lee:** He's literally the perfect place for him. He could stand in the middle of Time Square and swing a machete and he hit everybody he wants to.
**Lee:** Yeah. He's just fixated on this one girl.
**Lee:** Who I've got to say, comes around from that heroin pretty rapid. I mean, I've not done heroin, but she's appears to be ostensibly taking it and then she's a little bit blurry like she's had a couple of shots of Sambuca and then she's back on her game within two minutes.
**Adam:** I wonder how much they put in her though cuz right at the start of that, he does like the squirt test and it's like, you're a junky, mate. There's no way you'd fucking waste that much. I thought. And why would you waste it on someone who you're just going to use as a sex slave for the evening? I was like, if they're that, you know, strapped for like you wouldn't just be chucking it away on someone willy nilly, but I mean, I I don't know. I'm I'm I'm not one of those.
**Chris:** You're not.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** I'm not.
**Lee:** Clearly not. I've missed my calling. Right.
**Adam:** You're clearly not a cliche New York gang banger from the 80s, Lee.
**Lee:** So thanks very much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Jason takes Manhattan. If you've not seen it, it's definitely worth seeing once.
**Lee:** It it's it is a fun time.
**Lee:** it's got some great shit in it. You you can't go wrong really.
**Adam:** You can take the piss out of it.
**Adam:** Marvelously.
**Adam:** But still be with it. I think that's the case.
**Chris:** Definitely a party background one, no problem.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** Not, it's not as weird as that other Friday.
**Adam:** You know, the one with Ice Cube and Chris Tucker.
**Adam:** Jason got in that one.
**Lee:** I even watched the two sequels. He's not in them either.
**Lee:** I've been robbed.
**Lee:** But yes, so we'll be back in a fortnight's time. We're going to be continuing our New York centric season with Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** Hey. Who are you going to call?
**Chris:** Hey.
**Lee:** What is more New York than Ghostbusters?
**Chris:** Who are you going to call?
**Lee:** We will answer that in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** I haven't seen Ghostbusters for probably 20, 20 years.
**Lee:** I thought you were about to say, I have not seen Ghostbusters.

---

## Ep 210 Halloween we have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-210-halloween-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 28 October 2024
Duration: 01:44:03

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Return of We Have Been Watching”. Just in time for Halloween (or maybe just after, depending on the schedule) here’s a round up of all the spooky shit the WTH team have been shoving up their brains. This episode we discuss “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (2024); “Tucker & Dale Vs Evil” (2010); Abattoir Fermé’s “Hotel Poseidon”(2021); “Apartment 7A” (2024); “The Descent” (2005); “Eat Locals” (2017); “Salem’s Lot” (2024); and the podcast series “The Department of Midnight” and “Baron Sodor’s Theatre of the Doomed” (thanks to Joe Watson for that one). Along the way, Chris basically plans our schedule for the next 6 months, and we have the first (and probably last) Welcome To Horror Quiz! Been listening for a while? Pit your knowledge of the show against two of the hosts (who will be judged accordingly). No need to prep for this ep, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Halloween Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** This episode will be dropping just after Halloween, but with it being the spooky season, I'm pretty sure we've all been watching more than usual.
**Lee:** So we're going to run through everything we've been watching, give you a quick catch-up.
**Lee:** We've got a fantastic quiz to come as well that has been in the background.
**Adam:** Don't sell it.
**Lee:** yes, and Adam, I think you had something you wanted to mention before we kick off.
**Adam:** Yes, well, happy Halloween everyone, even though it's probably belatedly, but just either take it as a belated Happy Halloween or a happy Halloween for next Halloween.
**Adam:** Or just or just live every day as Halloween.
**Adam:** That's what we.
**Lee:** That's how I live.
**Adam:** Because to be honest, that's the one thing I've found with Halloween is if anything, my viewing habits go the other way.
**Chris:** Not a great idea.
**Adam:** Well, I've been watching horror films.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's almost like, I'll take a holiday. I'll just I'll just watch that real-life drama that I've been meaning to catch up on or something like that.
**Adam:** but yes, I wanted to give a shout-out to long-time listener and friend of the podcast, Joe Watson.
**Chris:** Woo woo.
**Adam:** he recently come up, he funnily enough, he sort of messaged to say about a couple of bits that he's been enjoying.
**Chris:** Oh, cool.
**Adam:** And if you remember, he obviously, he was him who got us to watch Hell House LLC.
**Lee:** That it was.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so always always up for what he's and and obviously likes the show.
**Adam:** So we know his taste is fucking impeccable.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** Yeah, so so he's been listening, there's a podcast called Baron Sobador's Theater of the Damned.
**Adam:** Now, I've listened to a couple myself and it's an Australian production, I believe.
**Adam:** And basically it's basically an hour-long horror story.
**Adam:** That you get like an audio that sort of grey area between play and like full-cast drama and sort of, you know, with narration and stuff like that, and obviously.
**Adam:** But yeah, and just generally really good little sort of stories.
**Adam:** Remind reminded me in a way, I think they're going in that same sort of Twilight Zone vibe.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** It has that sort of or certainly the the first couple I listened to, they had that sort of feel to them and everything.
**Adam:** So it sort of borders into sci-fi and things like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, well worth.
**Lee:** Definitely a link to that.
**Lee:** I'll definitely watch it.
**Lee:** That sounds.
**Adam:** Oh, I'll send it.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, it's it's definitely well worth a listen.
**Adam:** And like I say, Joe that was the Joe's been listening to it and he's been really enjoying it.
**Adam:** and the other thing that he's been listening to is there's, I don't know if.
**Adam:** Either of you guys are aware of a guy called Ben Living.
**Adam:** basically, if you go and listen to his stuff on Bandcamp, Ben Living does sort of synth and.
**Adam:** Sort of low-key sort of trip hop dance, but it's packed with horror samples.
**Chris:** Oh, cool.
**Lee:** That sounds right up my alley.
**Adam:** All of all of the songs, the pictures are pictures from films.
**Adam:** Like, it'll be large marge from from Pee-wee Herman and stuff like that.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** And but but it's weird because again, it was just one of those ones that I'd been picking up on and I'd been listening to because he's especially on the way up to Halloween, he's just been releasing like a song every couple of days or whatever like that.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And yeah, just go and listen, just go and have a listen.
**Adam:** It's really good sort of like stuff, it's just like I say, it's just really, you know, definitely if you like horror films, specifically, if you like horror film music, you will like.
**Chris:** Going to like it.
**Adam:** 80s or 90s, you know, you will particularly like it, it's very sort of synth-driven and beat-driven and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So that sounds great. I'll check in both of those out.
**Lee:** That sounds excellent. Thank you, Joe.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Chris:** Nice one.
**Adam:** Thanks, Joe. Happy Halloween, mate.
**Lee:** Yay.
**Lee:** Oh, on a similar note, just my own recommend.
**Lee:** I've been listening to it rather a lot recently.
**Lee:** I've been listening to B.A. Johnston, who my brother got me into.
**Lee:** It's a Canadian guy who does like super low-fi music.
**Lee:** But he is obsessed with the 80s and early 90s, and all of his songs are just about like horror films, smoking weed, drinking beer.
**Lee:** And and the cover of one of his albums, he's re-done the Ghoulies with himself on it.
**Lee:** It's awesome.
**Chris:** Cool.
**Adam:** Can I can I just say, and Dean introduce you to this man? I can't see how that appealed to him at all.
**Lee:** It was one of those, he said to me, have you heard of this bloke? I went, no, he went, good because I've just bought you a ticket to go and see him.
**Lee:** I'm coming with you.
**Lee:** I was like, right, okay, right, let's do that then.
**Adam:** That I'll I'll give him his due.
**Adam:** That's a bold move.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because you you could listen to it and just go, this is dog shit, mate.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** He obviously knows.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh, I mean, just.
**Lee:** We're all going to jail with one of the best songs I've heard in my life.
**Lee:** And I recommend everybody go and listen to B.A. Johnston, we're all going to hell.
**Lee:** No, we're all going to jail.
**Chris:** We we.
**Chris:** It might be his his you know, his next album.
**Adam:** Yeah, it just it just escalates.
**Lee:** yes, so.
**Lee:** To kick off our Halloween viewing.
**Lee:** Let's start with Adam this time.
**Lee:** Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** well, one film that well, actually, I'm going to start with.
**Adam:** there's a a podcast that I've been listening to and I did recommend to Joe when he'd been sort of talking about it.
**Adam:** talked about Baron Subador.
**Adam:** the Department of Midnight, which is fairly it's brand new, it's this year.
**Adam:** And it's Warren Ellis who wrote Transmetropolitan and Planetary and loads of really cool comic stuff.
**Adam:** He also was the guy behind the animated Castlevania.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** So he wrote all that that wrote it.
**Adam:** And everything.
**Adam:** So he's a good guy.
**Adam:** And basically there's sort of like, it's a guy who works for a department of an offshoot of the government that's like for in terms of scientific research.
**Adam:** That is to, you know, an oversight committee, i.e., right, we're keeping tabs on what you're doing and we're going to have to come in and shut this down if you fuck this up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and that but the nickname of it is the Department of Midnight.
**Adam:** And basically it's the sort of over a series of stories, you just get these little sort of like, they're 20 minutes, half an hour, there are essentially two-handers.
**Adam:** It's the main guy sort of narrating via leaving a voicemail message with his.
**Adam:** Appointed therapist and things like that.
**Adam:** And then it's but also you just get these weird little tales of what I can only describe as like scientific ghost stories almost.
**Adam:** it's all kind of based around the idea that dark matter is actually the backup information of the universe.
**Adam:** And that that sort of like so everything that's happened is kind of stored as and that's what dark matter is, and so it's people doing research into that and resurrecting people and it's yes.
**Chris:** Sort of like the Stone Tapes but on a grander scale.
**Adam:** A much grander scale.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Universe level.
**Adam:** The Stone Tape theory of everything is what it's.
**Adam:** Called.
**Adam:** and there's there's some really good guests, Alicia Witt is on, I think the first one.
**Adam:** She's like the the guest.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Guest scientist/villain/person of the week.
**Lee:** That's quite a guess.
**Adam:** And and the and the main guy, the main guy is James Callis who does it.
**Adam:** It, I think he's, he's a gruff man, it borders into gruffy.
**Adam:** Because you're just because it's it's in that sort of ballpark of like, you know, that's kind of it has that sort of feel to it.
**Adam:** Only obviously, the whole point of Gath Marenghi is it's done very nely.
**Adam:** Whereas actually this is well, it's Warren Ellis doing it.
**Adam:** So it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's basically sending it's, you know, he gets sent in as a guy to sort all this shit out.
**Adam:** So he's a.
**Adam:** He's he's your typical sort of he's a rogue, you know, he's a rogue agent who doesn't take no shit sort of thing.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, but seriously, it's such a good show and it's also it's also one of those ones that's like, right, that was in the in the past 18 minutes, you've just introduced me to about three different fucking concepts that are like, I'm now going to have to think about for days.
**Lee:** That.
**Adam:** So, yeah, and like I said, the whole sort of dark mat thing just is fascinating.
**Adam:** Is a fascinating theory and concept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah, so that's the Department of Midnight.
**Adam:** It's on any podcasting, I think the series was like six or eight episodes.
**Adam:** Probably could do it in an afternoon, but I was listening to them as they came out.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's just really good.
**Adam:** Really good stuff.
**Lee:** I'm going to get on that, 100%.
**Chris:** Cool.
**Lee:** Who love a podcast.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Lee:** What about yourself?
**Chris:** So I thought, what am I going to do for this Halloween? There's there's loads of things I could watch, but I thought and I'm sure there's a list of things that you both told me I should watch.
**Lee:** That you can pick from.
**Chris:** However, I decided to throw it out to the internet.
**Chris:** And I was just like, right, I'm going to kind of come with a bit of a theme here, I want three films.
**Chris:** One to be a comedy, comedy horror that I haven't seen yet.
**Chris:** One to be something a bit quirky, you know, a bit out there, let's just see how it plays out.
**Chris:** And one to be something that actually tries to terrify me, right.
**Chris:** And I thought, well, it needs to be playing one of my phobias.
**Chris:** So, essentially claustrophobia is definitely one of my like.
**Chris:** I mean, I'm sure it's lots of people's, who wants to be stuck in a very small space.
**Chris:** Like, really.
**Adam:** Also just just as a note there, any crazy stalkers listening, so that's claustrophobia.
**Adam:** Just.
**Chris:** So, so, I don't know, can you guess what I went for?
**Lee:** Did you watch Buried?
**Chris:** No, maybe I should have done. I did not come across that.
**Adam:** What's the one with Kiefer Sutherland?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** No, but what was that?
**Adam:** The fella gets locked in a box.
**Chris:** I mean, that sounds good.
**Adam:** It was like 90s, I think it's The Vanishing.
**Chris:** I may I may have to put this on my list for when I really need to upset me myself again.
**Chris:** Well, right, so, so.
**Chris:** Came up with *The Descent*.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, right, I kind of thought it's funny.
**Chris:** I would have thought we would have covered that, I'm sure we've mentioned it.
**Lee:** I haven't seen it.
**Chris:** Oh, okay, that's interesting.
**Chris:** All right, well, so it it ticked the box.
**Chris:** Right, but I'll start with, I'll start with the comedy.
**Chris:** Probably should do this one last, but, you know, we're going with this one first, right?
**Chris:** So, came up with *Tucker and Dale versus Evil*.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** So again, I was like, how have we not watched this?
**Chris:** I mean, it's like reminiscent of *Cabin in the Woods*, it's got that meta twist, like, I just, I was like, yeah, this is this is looking great.
**Chris:** now, so it's got Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden, Jesse Moss.
**Chris:** Now, Tyler Labine has been in some things that I I should probably have watched.
**Chris:** right, so something you mentioned, Lee, it's always sunny in Philadelphia.
**Chris:** Not horror.
**Chris:** But you said it's very good.
**Lee:** Love it.
**Chris:** Yeah, and and he was in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, which I did watch and I enjoyed.
**Chris:** but definitely need to watch that again.
**Chris:** Anyway, so, so he's clearly been in a few a few things.
**Chris:** But yeah, like they him and Alan Tudyk just they worked so well.
**Chris:** Like, it's so funny to see the other side of things.
**Chris:** How everything can be so misinterpreted so easily.
**Chris:** Like, the weird hillbillies look weird.
**Chris:** If you're the other side.
**Chris:** But they're just them.
**Chris:** Like, you know.
**Chris:** What why should they be perfectly sociable just like all the other, you know.
**Chris:** university students who have been educated and and so on.
**Chris:** And like and it is so funny even from the start.
**Chris:** You're just like, yeah.
**Chris:** You can totally see how he just wants to try and he just wants to try and impress the girl a little bit.
**Chris:** That's all.
**Lee:** It's just such nice guys.
**Lee:** And everything just goes absolutely spectacularly wrong.
**Chris:** It is so funny.
**Lee:** I love that film.
**Lee:** I've seen it three or four times now.
**Lee:** It is a real treasure.
**Chris:** It is.
**Chris:** It is, just, yeah, executed so well.
**Adam:** I was going to say, here's the point where I have to say, I've never seen it.
**Adam:** I know that Lee always raved it and to be honest.
**Adam:** I've been waiting since we started doing Welcome to Horror.
**Chris:** Oh, that we would we're going to do it.
**Adam:** I'll watch that.
**Chris:** See, that is the trouble with me going out there and just like.
**Adam:** No, no, no.
**Adam:** This is absolutely spot-on, we always said it's Welcome to Horror in the sense of if at least one of us hasn't seen it.
**Adam:** It definitely needs to happen.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** So that's you guys show it finally showing me Tucker and Dale.
**Adam:** It's like, it's a film that's been on my radar, I've just never got around to it.
**Chris:** It it should be bumped up a little bit. I mean, the deaths are great and just yeah, the way it's interpreted and the way they deal with it and just the characters, they're all just wonderful, really.
**Lee:** I mean, Alan Tudyk is amazing in every, I mean, him in *Resident Alien* just absolutely.
**Lee:** And and of course he was Wash in *Firefly*, which you introduced me to.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Years ago, I sort of kind of forgot.
**Adam:** He's not the big, isn't he the big robot in Rogue One?
**Chris:** Yes, right, that's what I was going to say.
**Chris:** Yeah, he's K K2SO like.
**Lee:** Yeah, the.
**Lee:** No, I know that.
**Adam:** The big droid.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, he is arguably the best droid in any Star Wars ever, basically.
**Chris:** I just.
**Adam:** No, actually.
**Chris:** Like he just he builds up.
**Chris:** I mean, you know, in one film you build up the character of a droid.
**Chris:** And you really feel for him when he is getting slaughtered.
**Chris:** You're like, yeah, I did not think I'd feel that emotional for a droid at this point.
**Chris:** You've done a great job.
**Lee:** I rewatched that film three weeks ago and again we're blown away at what an amazing film.
**Chris:** It is it is really good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like they absolutely, they've knocked that one out of the park.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So yeah, good, cool.
**Lee:** Well done, Tucker and Dale, excellent.
**Lee:** And now now Adam can watch it as well.
**Adam:** We've got Well, that's the thing, I'm putting it on the thing of this is like stuff we haven't done.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Because that's that's there's an element to that of the quiz, I would argue, is that you'll be able to hear things that looks like, I thought we'd done more of that.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** Like, so.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean that definitely needs to go on.
**Lee:** I any excuse to rewatch Tucker and Dale, I'll always go with.
**Chris:** Cool.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** right, so all of mine, I'm going to try and keep fairly spoiler-free.
**Lee:** Because they're all new films.
**Lee:** We've had so much new stuff come out in the last six weeks or so.
**Lee:** I I've been struggling to get through it all.
**Lee:** so the first for this evening, *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice*.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Chris:** I watched the trailer, very tempted.
**Lee:** Go on.
**Lee:** Yeah, see the trailer left me.
**Lee:** I mean, it's it sounds like such an obvious thing today, I might be great or it might be awful.
**Lee:** You can say that.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** About anything.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** It did have that feel of this is either going to be spectacular or it is going to shit the bed.
**Chris:** I wondered, have they shown everything that's potentially good in the trailer?
**Chris:** And there's going to be not much left.
**Chris:** But.
**Lee:** No, it was great. So we did it as a double feature.
**Lee:** So we watched the original one at home before going.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, nice.
**Lee:** See the new one.
**Lee:** And we did drink Tiny Rebel's *Beetlejuice*, which is a watermelon sour, which they released for the film.
**Lee:** And it's neon green and it's bloody lovely.
**Adam:** I drank I drank their sugar-free Tango.
**Lee:** Oh, did you?
**Adam:** With a picture of General Tiger on it, they've done they've done quite well from marketing it.
**Adam:** They have, didn't they?
**Lee:** yes, so *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice* was good.
**Lee:** I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I thought it was just tongue-in-cheek enough.
**Lee:** It was great to have everybody back.
**Lee:** and the additional, so you know, the new younger cast, I thought were excellent.
**Lee:** It's oh crap, I should have it open.
**Lee:** the girl who played Wednesday.
**Chris:** From Wednesday, yeah.
**Adam:** General Tiger.
**Lee:** That's yes.
**Chris:** General Tiger.
**Chris:** That's the one.
**Lee:** Yeah, who was fantastic in it and worked so well.
**Lee:** As a basically as a new Winona Ryder.
**Lee:** Because she covers that same.
**Chris:** Can't think of someone more perfect, really.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** For pretty much her role.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I think in the public consciousness, that's pretty much her role.
**Adam:** Oh, it's the new Winona Ryder.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and it just smashed it out the park.
**Lee:** It was really, it was a great story.
**Lee:** It was really well put together.
**Lee:** it was a it was well-paced, it looked beautiful, it looked exactly like the original.
**Lee:** Like they hadn't done too much to try and, you know, like CGI the shit out of it, basically.
**Lee:** so it looked fantastic.
**Lee:** yeah, I found it really funny and yeah.
**Lee:** I it's an absolute recommend for me.
**Lee:** I can't wait for it to come out on Blu-ray or whatever, so I can watch it again because it was so much fun.
**Adam:** Just just a quick question and this might sound blindingly obvious and there's probably people will scream at this one when they hear me ask this.
**Adam:** Is it Tim Burton? Because I don't even recall.
**Adam:** Whether he was like no one seems to be mentioning him.
**Lee:** It is Tim Burton.
**Lee:** Yeah, I don't know, I don't know why nobody's mentioning him.
**Lee:** He's not on a list anyway, he's not like he's suddenly done something and he's been like, you know.
**Adam:** But also, that's another selling point.
**Adam:** When you're telling me that Michael Keaton's back and Winona Ryder's back, tell me that.
**Adam:** Because no one seems to be saying that it's a, that's why I've had to ask.
**Adam:** Because I'm like, actually, they all think about it.
**Chris:** They could have said by the director of *Beetlejuice*.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's it is Tim Burton through and through, it's exactly what you'd expect from him.
**Lee:** it's got all those same stylistic quirks and callbacks and.
**Chris:** Quirky, comedy, weird, dark, perfectly blended.
**Lee:** That's great.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** It's great.
**Lee:** It's a great.
**Lee:** It's a great way of getting all the old, as you say, the old crew back, so obviously Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara are all back.
**Lee:** but yeah, then you've got Jenna Ortega and Willem Dafoe,
**Adam:** Oh, yes, yes.
**Lee:** Danny DeVito who's got a little cameo in it.
**Lee:** It was.
**Adam:** On Statham.
**Lee:** It was fucking wicked, I really, really had a good time with it.
**Lee:** So, yes.
**Lee:** Go and check out *Beetlejuice Beetlejuice*.
**Adam:** Well, I'll have to give it a whirl then.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I've been sort of like, I don't know, you know, like a lot of.
**Adam:** A lot of belated sequels, should we say.
**Chris:** Yeah, like you don't want to be disappointed, really, you know.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'd rather I'd rather not watch it and just think, oh, *Blues Brothers 2000*.
**Adam:** You know, I'd rather.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, *Blues Brothers 2000*, fine.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Don't don't even sit with the.
**Lee:** You know, oh yeah, don't do them as a double feature.
**Lee:** You'll blow your brains out.
**Adam:** No, you just got you just go, well, that's a fucking, that's a drop.
**Chris:** That.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, Adam, what have you got up next?
**Adam:** well, this I'm I'm feeling that you may have mentioned this before.
**Adam:** If you haven't, Lee, I'll and you haven't seen this, go and watch this because I think you will like it.
**Adam:** *Eat Locals*.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You have, right, thank for that because I was just, yeah, because it was again, one of those things where I'm like.
**Adam:** If Lee, I couldn't remember if you'd done it on the like mentioned it on the show or mentioned it at all, but yeah, I just thought that's yeah, this is a bit of Lee, isn't it?
**Adam:** Certainly.
**Lee:** It was it was one of those, I heard about it from nowhere, so I picked it up on DVD almost as soon as it came out.
**Lee:** and then about two years later, a friend of the show, Sharon, messaged me and said, oh, I was chatting to a friend of mine who'd made this horror film.
**Lee:** If you haven't seen it, you should check it out and it was *Eat Locals* and I was like, I've seen it.
**Lee:** It's fucking incredible.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah, and but yeah, no, just so for Chris, I'm assuming you've not seen *Eat Locals*.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** basically it's a it's a horror comedy.
**Adam:** The the eight vampires in England meet up for their annual meeting where they discuss like sort of territory and turf and things like that.
**Adam:** But unbeknownst to them, there's a anti-vampire sort of military strike force waiting in the woods.
**Adam:** And they who but both sides are completely off kilter because the army think they've trapped a vampire.
**Adam:** They don't know the traps.
**Chris:** Eight.
**Adam:** Eight.
**Chris:** Yeah.

---

## Ep 209 Now I am the Master

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-209-now-i-am-the-master/
Air date: 20 October 2024
Duration: 00:38:40

### Description

It’s time to act like professional gravy tasters and take stock. For over 200 episodes, Chris has been exposed to all manner of horrors by Lee and Adam, and it now feels like high time that the Padawan has achieved the rank of master, and is granted a place on the council (because we know how it plays out if we don’t). A little look back over the span of Welcome To Horror up to the present; we hope this is a nice summary of Chris’s journey through horror. No homework needed, although it may be a weird place to start your own journey with the podcast, but everyone’s welcome so join us.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Hey, and we are here this evening as promised for something a bit different.
**Lee:** Full disclosure, I would like to point out that despite the fact we discussed this as a possibility several months ago, I mentioned it at the end of the last episode. I said what we're doing next week. and where we cut the recording, they both went, "You fucking what?"
**Lee:** Because they'd both forgotten that we'd had the discussion and decided that it was possibly a wank idea.
**Lee:** So, if it turns out to be a shit episode, I take full responsibility.
**Lee:** And the other two are completely passengers in the situation.
**Lee:** So,
**Adam:** No,
**Adam:** I would like to
**Adam:** I would like to
**Adam:** I I would like to I I think we should venture it further than it's got to be Chris's fault.
**Adam:** As it's a Chris-centered episode.
**Adam:** So, you know, if he's unable to carry the weight that,
**Adam:** you know, is he going to be is he going to be George Harrison and give us While My Guitar Gently Weeps?
**Adam:** Or is he going to be Ringo and give us a fucking Yellow Submarine?
**Adam:** Thomas the Tank Engine.
**Chris:** That's right.
**Chris:** As on the worst person I've ever heard interviewed ever.
**Chris:** That's two evers.
**Chris:** Then I'll be amazed if we manage to publish this, but let's give it a go.
**Lee:** Yes, so the idea was obviously when the premise for the podcast when we started was to welcome Chris to horror and slowly introduce him into all the all the great things that horror has.
**Lee:** People have a very one-dimensional view on horror, we felt.
**Lee:** And bringing somebody in and introducing them to, you know, to all the different subgenres, all the different decades, all the different flavors of horror, we thought it would be a fun experiment, really.
**Lee:** And yeah, I
**Chris:** It's mostly an excuse just to watch some films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I just thought it'd be interesting to sit down with Chris and find out how he feels now compared to how he did when we first ventured into this seven long years ago and 200 plus movies previously.
**Lee:** So Chris, how has this lived up to what you expected?
**Adam:** This is this is where he offers his letter of resignation.
**Chris:** Let me go away. I'm just going to go think about it for a bit.
**Chris:** Yeah, so
**Chris:** as I mean essentially as you just said, like it's learning that there is a lot more to horror than you tend to see when you're mostly seeing I suppose adverts and trailers and the big hits.
**Chris:** And we've certainly seen that with some of the amazing independent films we've been seeing recently.
**Chris:** But yeah, and the fact that it's surprising how how much can be ultimately part of the horror genre.
**Chris:** And how how it lends itself to certain types of stories that you could tell using a different genre, but there's something that adds say an extra edge to it that perhaps really makes it hit home a lot harder than it otherwise might.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** I know I I think it's yeah, there is there is a lot that horror can be it's like there's there's two versions of horror.
**Adam:** You can have the thing that is obvious horror because it falls into a category like a monster or a demon or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And then on the other side of it it's like, actually this is this is a this is a film about divorce but they've put ghosts in it, you know, or something.
**Chris:** But but it really gets you in the state of mind that lets you fully appreciate, you know, the other side of what's going on.
**Lee:** I think it's it's having that heightened tension when you add other elements in it it can really work.
**Lee:** But I think that was what we wanted to sort of show you when we went into it is everyone has this idea of horror as like The Exorcist and slashers and stuff.
**Lee:** I don't I think people outside don't realize just how diverse and multi-layered horror is.
**Lee:** And it's one of the things Adam and I always love, like, you've got The Exorcist at one end of it, and then at the other end of it, you've got Shaun of the Dead or something, which absolutely is a horror.
**Lee:** But it's got so much it's got so much great comedy and people who don't who don't watch horror because they hate it as a genre, as we've said so many times before, saw something too much, too young and just blanket, you know, cut it out.
**Lee:** They're missing out.
**Chris:** Saw and that was it.
**Lee:** So much.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, precisely.
**Adam:** I am going to say at this point that this is something since since we covered Scream I'm growing I'm increasingly out of love with Scream, the film.
**Lee:** Oh really?
**Adam:** And there's one of those elements is that it was like the sort of everyone was like, that's how a horror movie works and it's like, no, that's how a slasher film works.
**Adam:** There is a very fucking distinct difference.
**Adam:** And and I think like you were saying, there's people you know, have an assumption that horror is one type of thing with one type of story that crosses all those beats.
**Adam:** And yeah, that is the case, that can be the case, obviously.
**Adam:** But yeah, but scary movie because it was like, do you like scary movies? That was just like, oh, so do you like horror?
**Adam:** But it wasn't quite sort of, you know, because it's a slasher film.
**Adam:** And they tell you the trucks in the slasher film.
**Adam:** But, you know, much in the same way that I don't know, possession does not have that is not filled with horror tropes.
**Lee:** No, that is just a head fuck from minute one onwards.
**Adam:** Maybe maybe that's what it is, it's just my resentment of people that don't think it's that ordinary.
**Adam:** It's not just some big bugger with a knife, you know, sometimes it's cosmic things coming out of your fucking well and making Al Pacca evil.
**Adam:** Or, you know, various other things.
**Chris:** That was the Color Out of Space.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Weirdly enough, I'm quoting I've quoted I'm talking about two films that we've never covered.
**Adam:** So there we go.
**Chris:** Yeah, I did I did I did think, hold on. Did I miss one here?
**Adam:** No, no.
**Lee:** No, but I think it's it's funny to see how far you've come on, Chris.
**Lee:** Like, you know, since we started, like, you've you've really embraced it.
**Lee:** Because this was my kind of my concern when we first started recording was that you might get a couple in and go, yeah, this is all just shit.
**Lee:** And it wouldn't work at all.
**Adam:** Not for me.
**Adam:** Not for me.
**Adam:** Not for me this horror, tried it.
**Adam:** Three strikes out.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I love how much you embraced it and went off and and did your own, you know, you enjoyed it to the point where you came back and went, oh yeah, as well as the film we're covering next, I also watched this, this and that.
**Lee:** You know, and going and watching the Eli Roth documentaries and stuff to kind of fill in, you know, the gaps of the bits that we hadn't yet covered.
**Lee:** So yeah, it was it was heartwarming to see that it it definitely did something for you.
**Chris:** Yeah, and hopefully some listeners too.
**Chris:** Who arguably probably had seen more films than me.
**Chris:** But you know, I think we've still probably shown a few that they may not have.
**Adam:** Well, I I hope that there is a thing where people will try stuff out because especially when it's we start an episode going, look, just going fucking watch it, please don't worry, just go and watch it and then come back and listen to what we thought about it.
**Adam:** But there are certain ones where it's really, you know, I I hope that it builds a trust.
**Lee:** Well, I mean, we've had we've had people bring stuff to us that we hadn't seen before, you know, like listeners coming to us saying, oh, you like Wild Zero, would never have seen Wild Zero if a listener hadn't brought it to us and I was like, holy shit, I've never heard of this.
**Lee:** It's awesome.
**Lee:** Like, and it yeah, it it's it is good that despite the fact you feel you have a very a very balanced view of of the genre and you kind of you know what's going on.
**Lee:** It's always amazing when someone says, but have you ever seen this and I've never even heard of it.
**Lee:** And you go and watch it and it's absolutely epic.
**Lee:** You know, there's so much stuff that we don't even know about that's just out there, it's such a yeah, such a diverse and exciting genre.
**Adam:** So we keep and we're keeping the title because I know people always joke about it that it'd be Chris has been well and truly welcome to horror.
**Adam:** But I'm now thinking that yeah, it could be we're welcoming the listeners to horror and indeed ourselves.
**Adam:** Because because I've watched I've definitely watched stuff because of the podcast in the in the sense of I'd have probably never got around to that film or I would have not gone.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** There's probably still a few of those left.
**Adam:** Oh, there's there's loads.
**Adam:** I've still got I've still got a list, we'll have to what we'll do is as as we go, we'll jot down what any that crop up that we're like, oh, we haven't shown you that, we need to show you that, so, you know.
**Adam:** But
**Chris:** So, so I I was going to say I've jotted down a few
**Chris:** I I've flicked back through to see everything we've watched and it's pretty amazing, really.
**Chris:** Yeah, and so I've categorized them under some headings that I thought might be interesting to perhaps have a little chat about.
**Lee:** Yeah, cool.
**Adam:** Yeah, go for it, man.
**Chris:** So, all right, so I've put some of my favorites, I've got The Witch, Split, The Thing, Trick 'r Treat, Cabin in the Woods, The Perfect Host.
**Chris:** And I sort of notice, you know, that
**Adam:** King Hell, mate.
**Lee:** That is one hell of a list, man.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That is that is executive connoisseur.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, but but it is funny, right, because, you know, when you're doing this, you think, I could add that, I could add that, I definitely could add that.
**Chris:** But it's like then I'm just going to end up with loads, but it's like just trying to grab at the ones where they just stand out to me for, you know, for slightly different reasons.
**Chris:** Yeah, and and so yeah, and and certainly most of these, obviously I'd never seen, so it's like it's great.
**Chris:** And they are arguably now some of my favorite films, you know, not just horror.
**Adam:** Oh, that's brilliant.
**Chris:** And then sort of particularly recently, although it turned out we'd watched a few before, I've got some mad independent ones that stood out: Class of Nuke 'Em High,
**Chris:** Dude Bro Party Massacre III, ThanksKilling.
**Chris:** Because, you know, yeah, it's like but again, there's there's a huge list of amazing independent films that I'm sure we're going to carry on watching.
**Chris:** Yeah, I had a few classics that I always planned to watch.
**Chris:** I thought, yeah, one day I'll get to these, so I had Seven, which I did
**Chris:** I did watch, but it turns out I hadn't seen it all, because there's tons that I hadn't seen.
**Chris:** Elvira.
**Lee:** Oh, surprisingly.
**Chris:** Elvira.
**Adam:** Elvira.
**Chris:** Elvira, Elvira.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Jaws, which I had seen, but was surprised at how good it was when we rewatched it.
**Chris:** So I sort of added that I must have clearly forgotten so much of what was in there.
**Adam:** Jaws is such a weird film because until you do that, you can watch Jaws loads and just enjoy it and it sort of fades into the background or gets familiar.
**Chris:** Because you remember it's like it's just it's a big film, okay, it was probably good, but it's not that good, you know, but then rewatching it was like, okay, no, totally forgot so much of those details.
**Lee:** It's exactly the same as Close Encounters of the Third Kind for me, it's one of those that you always think, oh, it's an absolute timeless classic, but you don't sit down and watch it very often, and then when you do, you go, oh fuck, yeah, no, it totally deserves all the love it gets because it's absolutely groundbreaking.
**Chris:** That is interesting.
**Chris:** Because I've never seen that.
**Lee:** What?
**Lee:** You never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** That does surprise me, Chris, because I know you're a sci-fi man and
**Chris:** But it always seemed like one of those sci-fi films that was not worth watching.
**Chris:** Like because it was just too big.
**Chris:** And I was like, you know,
**Lee:** I have owned that film on
**Lee:** in multiple versions on every format.
**Lee:** So I had it on VHS like the original, then I bought the director's cut, and then I bought the special edition, then it came out on DVD and I had to buy all three versions on DVD, then I bought a Blu-ray player and I had to buy all Blu-ray.
**Lee:** I thought I've spent
**Lee:** hundreds of pounds only that movie over my lifetime.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Adam:** You'll have to have to fat movie, 26 years of Dr. Who.
**Adam:** Who.
**Adam:** Those fuckers are rich, man.
**Chris:** But but it is funny because I've actually heard the sound that the aliens make in some music tracks.
**Chris:** Because they use the sound.
**Adam:** All right.
**Chris:** So I know that, but yet I have no idea how that fits into the film.
**Chris:** So yeah, I will get to that one day.
**Adam:** Horror horror adjacent, but I have recorded
**Adam:** No, I was going to say horror adjacent and that I have recorded more on throughout of space.
**Adam:** Off the TV, which you just reminded me of because there's a bit where they take the piss out of the
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Anyway, sorry.
**Chris:** The Exorcist, which Lee you mentioned obviously as being the one lots of people would look at and say, oh yeah, that's what horror is.
**Chris:** And that is true, but
**Chris:** it is still it does capture something that's a bit different to quite a lot of other horror films.
**Chris:** And there is still a lot more in there that happens than the obvious, you know, head turn and scaring and and some of the looks.
**Adam:** I think that is that thing the thing we said at the time where it was like, that's just so embedded in pop culture that people think they've seen it.
**Adam:** It's like people speak of Bram Stoker's Dracula but no, you've just seen three different Dracula films.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Ring as well, again, I'd heard of it so much, you know, it was massive at one point, but I planned to watch it one day.
**Chris:** and Nosferatu because
**Chris:** again, it's an iconic look and I thought, yep, definitely one day I'll watch it, whether it's hard to know, isn't it, would you get around to doing it because there's a lot of things you can watch, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Or 100 years old and silent.
**Chris:** Well, right, yeah.
**Chris:** And you might think, I definitely want to, but
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, would you choose it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, to know that it's definitely worth doing.
**Chris:** Okay, and I've got a few films that I'll probably never would have watched, but I'm glad I did.
**Chris:** Tokyo Gore Police.
**Chris:** Psycho Goreman.
**Chris:** Pumpkinhead.
**Lee:** I've seen it.
**Chris:** Again, because that was that was one where it's like, yeah, I mean it's it's funny, they just almost go in in the other category really, but it's like you see it and it's like, okay, yeah, that that looks kind of interesting, but yeah, you just don't know if you definitely would.
**Chris:** But one that was really big that did surprise me, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
**Chris:** So in my head, I thought I'd never want to watch that, I just like, I have no interest.
**Chris:** The title just says to me, I couldn't care less, right, that is not going to have anything of any interest to me at all.
**Chris:** And yeah, turns out it's very different to what I was expecting and absolutely definitely should have watched it.
**Chris:** So, yeah.
**Chris:** And I mean there are more I could add to these lists, definitely.
**Chris:** I got a few that I would want to watch again, that just stand out as, you know, definitely.
**Chris:** So I got John Dies at the End because for some reason, I really cannot remember what happens in that at all.
**Chris:** And the title is just like
**Adam:** It is a difficult one because that is quite a narratively fucked film.
**Lee:** I've seen it I couldn't tell you what happens in it.
**Chris:** I remember it just being quite quite weird, but I I still want to remember why does he die at the end now, because I I just can't quite remember those details.
**Chris:** But, you know.
**Chris:** The Burbs.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Which was another one that I always wanted to watch.
**Chris:** And again, I can't really remember what happens in it fully.
**Chris:** I remember it being pretty weird as well.
**Chris:** And I remember something about there was crackers with sardines on and that's that's what's stuck in my head is it's a weird film that has stuff like that in.
**Lee:** Sardines.
**Chris:** But yeah, forgotten forgotten the details, really, and I know it's got Tom Hanks and but and I remember them in gardens and yeah, but just cannot remember exactly what happened.
**Chris:** I've got The Wolfman because I think
**Chris:** I might appreciate that more now that we've covered a lot more since because we watch that second, I think and so it was it was quite a a jump from The Woman in Black, which that was a great film.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was that was our second one.
**Chris:** Yeah, and so I don't know that I was quite in the state of mind for watching an older film to fully appreciate it and not get caught up on some of the less interesting aspects.
**Lee:** I think that was my fault because I love Wolfman so much.
**Chris:** Right, so you're like.
**Lee:** I was like, oh let's do that straight away and it was like, yeah, probably too soon to take the way back to the night.
**Chris:** Might have been.
**Adam:** I could see your thinking though, Lee, because it was like the first because I didn't realize when we watched The Woman in Black, it wasn't until we were watching it, I realized it was a Hammer film.
**Adam:** So it was like, right, we've got in quick with a Hammer film, but it's not the older Hammer, it's a much recent movie.
**Chris:** Oh, that's weird, yeah, what?
**Adam:** So it's not going to have that thing of having to adjust, you know, it's like, right, this is a movie that came out in whatever it was the last five years at that point, or something like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, we, and then it was like, but you did Hammer and it's like, well, next thing do Universal.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But obviously Universal, that was sort of, yeah, so we went back.
**Lee:** I think again, that's why I went for for Wolfman, I love Wolfman, it is one of my favorite universal, but I think it was because it was a more modern end.
**Lee:** So I was like, oh yeah, it's newer than Dracula and it's like,
**Lee:** yeah, but not it's still still a very old film.
**Adam:** It's it's I mean, it's more it's certainly more dynamic than the Universal Dracula.
**Lee:** It's so much more.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, because that that is very much a play filmed.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you couldn't really and you don't want to necessarily do because you want to do Bride of Frankenstein at some point.
**Adam:** But you don't want to bring that in second because that's when you've started to appreciate that you can have humor in horror.
**Adam:** Because if anything, Bride of Frankenstein can be described as witty.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'll give you.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, more than anything else.
**Adam:** It's not an outright comedy, but there's enough in it that it's just like this is actually, you know, weird comedy of these macab characters or something.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We did have we did have funnily enough on that subject, we did have a question from from a listener, not one who listens to the podcast but someone who listens to us record the podcast.
**Chris:** A very special listener.
**Adam:** Yeah, so Clare has asked, do you think what what would you have picked what would you pick to be like the first episode now, Chris?
**Chris:** Ooh.
**Chris:** That is a good question.
**Chris:** the first episode.
**Chris:** It's going to be hard to to think other than The Woman in Black because that got set in stone as being the first one.
**Chris:** yeah, like it is very difficult to actually choose a perfect
**Chris:** I mean, like you could have got away, I think, with say doing something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre because that really would have shown me, yeah, there's probably going to be a lot of films that we're going to be watching that are very different than I think they're going to be.
**Chris:** And so that might have worked for peeking my interest and making me go, yeah, no, you know, clearly I need to have an open mind towards pretty much everything that we're going to cover.
**Adam:** But that's that said with Texas Chainsaw, I would say, that's a very extreme one to start with.
**Chris:** Well, it is, so this is where, no, absolutely, but but this where so this for me.
**Adam:** You don't get that, it's a real off put.
**Lee:** Shove your kid off a jetty to teach him to swim.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it is.
**Chris:** But but it's it's not like I hadn't seen any horror film.
**Chris:** So it's like.
**Adam:** No, of course.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So so that's why depends whether it's personal for me, or if it was recommended for someone who hasn't seen anything.
**Chris:** In which case then yeah, you definitely got to start a a little softer.
**Chris:** Not seven, probably.
**Adam:** Poor now, bloody hell.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So yeah, I mean I guess in that sense, you know, if it was for for someone who hadn't seen anything, then you probably would want to start with something that has a bit of comedy in.
**Chris:** But yeah, I mean I'm tempted to say things like The Thing, I think that's that covers quite a lot of it's it's got the action that probably would appeal to lots of people, it's definitely got some comedic parts, it's definitely got some horror parts, like so it does encompass.
**Adam:** You get you definitely get the sci-fi fans on that one as well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So it's sort of a broader appeal while still clearly having proper horror parts, so yeah, I mean I'd I'd probably suggest that then.
**Lee:** Good call.
**Chris:** Or on my list, I was getting down to Society, I wouldn't recommend that.
**Adam:** It was very sorry, yeah.
**Adam:** So sorry, yeah, so so where where have we got to with your list, Chris?
**Adam:** What's that?
**Adam:** So that was one.
**Chris:** Well, so that that was that was the that's the only one under the heading of someone I might never watch again.
**Adam:** Fair enough.
**Adam:** Oh, there we go there we go, we've only given you one one almost definite.
**Chris:** And and arguably.
**Chris:** I probably would watch it again, it's just I was like, yeah, that can go under there.
**Chris:** Because in in my head, I just remember being really awful, but yeah, there's definitely some some morbid curiosity to it.
**Chris:** Oh, I did I also included Big Trouble in Little China as some I would want to watch again.
**Chris:** And again, although that's not full horror, you know, it's it's got some horror elements.
**Chris:** but it was a great film, so I'd quite like to watch that again.
**Lee:** Again, entirely my fault, it was my birthday and I was like, I know it's a very difficult one to squeeze into the horror genre, but any chance to talk about Big Trouble in Little China is always going to be grabbed, I'm afraid.
**Adam:** Because I think it's like episode six.
**Lee:** It's Big Trouble in Little China.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We we'd only done Prince of Darkness for episode three as well.
**Adam:** So it was like a really but I'll be honest, I quite like looking back through it and seeing the fucking
**Adam:** eccentricity of how we sort of because you can see we've got to there's there's almost like bits where you can see in the pattern that we got to where it's like, well, we haven't done that yet and that's a classic, so we we we should be doing that by now.
**Adam:** And but there's also sort of like, I mean,
**Adam:** there's I mean, ThanksKilling.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't think that's going to be.
**Adam:** I don't think that's going to be an immediate one within your first year of like of.
**Adam:** But equally, why should it not be because it is.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, that that was was that the first one to introduce
**Chris:** independent or low budget, like.
**Lee:** I think I think it was the first, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was like we I wanted to show you something really super low budget and I was like, it's so funny and it's so much like it's it's not horror, but.
**Lee:** It is, it's it's a killer animal, so it it falls into that.
**Chris:** Does doesn't he wear someone's face?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He wears someone's face, he pretends to be the chief of police and.
**Chris:** That's that's horror elements.
**Lee:** Absolutely that shit, it's great and it is it's that and that's what I loved about that and the same with Bro Dude Party Massacre.
**Lee:** It's it's got that like there is no way you would get that past the studio, that wouldn't get past the first, you wouldn't even get a pitch out of that, it's so mental.
**Lee:** But the fact that it's been made and it's so much fun, you like this is this is the beauty of independent cinema is that you can make a small you can get a small budget together yourself and nobody has to sign off on your mental ideas.
**Lee:** Band Vampire as well, like obviously that's coming soon, Yeah, it is, it's that beauty of nobody is going to put millions behind this, but crowdfunding and stuff.
**Lee:** You can do it now because people like us will go, yeah, I'll give you 30 quid to make that, of course I will.
**Lee:** Why would you not?
**Adam:** But it's it's kind of also where you get those lovely things, again, a film that we did exceedingly early, Funny Man.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** Which most horror fans haven't seen.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** I I did put that in my I want to watch again that was coming up last.
**Adam:** I rewatched that with Clare fairly recently.
**Chris:** So that was her first viewing.
**Lee:** Then.
**Adam:** That was her first viewing of it, yeah, I don't think she was that impressed.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was like, it had thingy from the selector in it, that was enough.
**Adam:** So, Paulie from the selector in it.
**Lee:** What about that film, it's got such a fuzzy, lovely feeling about it and I don't.
**Lee:** It's a bit.
**Adam:** But again, that's that's just a bunch of like old like sort of dance record producers all decided to chuck their money together and make that over a series of weekends.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** You know, and but weirdly enough, someone did sign off on that in their own way.
**Adam:** Someone did, you know.
**Adam:** Or I bought a Vampire motorcycle.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Someone signed off on that, admittedly.
**Adam:** Because it was like, oh, it's the stars of Boon.
**Adam:** Which, you know, isn't the sort of, I don't think we're going to see the Disney money on that, but, you know.
**Lee:** You know, you're giving that money and you're not going to see it again, that's the thing, you're like, I am going to pay thousands of pounds of my own money to see this film made.
**Lee:** That money is never going to come back to me, but it's going to be worth every penny to see what is made out of it.
**Lee:** If you've got the money, why the fuck not?
**Adam:** It's an excellent money laundering situation.
**Adam:** You know, I've I've got a big swadge of cash and I've got to lose it quick, you know, so.
**Adam:** So I'm I'm I'm assuming that there are some I don't know if it's any of the movies we've ever covered, but I'm always assuming that there's, you know, there's there's some dodgy backer in there and it was like I'll just shifted now.
**Adam:** So and it's like.
**Adam:** I'll don't tell me you fucking made the thing, I thought you were going to piss this down the wall and just spunk it away.
**Adam:** Oh, no, I'm getting a return.
**Lee:** You were lying, you were just going to buy yourself a Delorean.
**Lee:** I never genuinely thought.
**Lee:** Sorry, Chris.
**Lee:** Yes, so.
**Lee:** Have you got another list?
**Chris:** That that is that is everything I've put down, but like I say, I could have easily added double to all of them.
**Chris:** But I wasn't sure exactly how long it we would spend.
**Lee:** It's great to see.
**Chris:** And I didn't know what else I'm going to do.
**Lee:** It is great to see how much you've enjoyed some of those films and how they've stuck with you.
**Lee:** Like it's.
**Lee:** And again, all the ones you've picked as well are so good.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Also just a kind of in memoriam as they do in the Oscars, I thought this was probably a good time to bring up the the things that we have dropped since we started recording seven years ago.
**Lee:** unsung heroes, we've not done in a while.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** Which was which was mainly stump them because you wouldn't be able to recognize the poor bastards.
**Lee:** Exactly, and I think the thing is the point of the unsung heroes is they're in everything, so once you've mentioned a dozen of them, they're in everything we've covered since, so you can't really start singing them again.
**Chris:** You're probably just.
**Adam:** That's that's very true.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** They've been sung.
**Lee:** Ask Welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** But we did have one of those this evening, so that was a a nice surprise as a bit.
**Adam:** We had a hashtag.
**Adam:** It's Welcome to Horror.
**Adam:** It's still a hashtag I use on Instagram where I could be using that extra one to be very witty in the tag in the tags.
**Lee:** That that would make me laugh every time I used to put those up, honestly.
**Adam:** My I think the best one was just included David on the Lost Boys one as a hashtag.
**Adam:** No, sorry, Michael, hashtag Michael.
**Adam:** That's right, Michael.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** also the Alexa synopsis, we stopped dropping in.
**Lee:** Do you remember we used to do that?
**Adam:** I think that was after you had a row with her.
**Adam:** About how you say Charlottesville.
**Lee:** I think it was, so I swiped her for for Google.
**Adam:** She just got the push.
**Lee:** And the closing incantation, we dropped the closing incantation.
**Lee:** Because.
**Adam:** What was the closing incantation?
**Chris:** I don't I don't remember that.
**Lee:** I remember to we did The Devil Rides Out and at the end of it Christopher Lee did the incantation to put everything back to the way it had been before anything happened and you used to make me do it at the end of every episode for about 10 episodes I did that.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Adam:** We should bring that back.
**Lee:** Which is fine, but it was when we were still meeting together in person, I think and I was drinking all the way through the film and then all the way through the podcast, and then you would ask me to do it and I'd done it of course that full night and every time I was like, I don't remember the fucking words.
**Lee:** If I remembered how it started, I was fine.
**Lee:** But every time it came out of the blue when you went, Lee is now going to reset everything spiritually and I go, oh fuck, I don't remember what I'm supposed to say.
**Adam:** I'm not I'm just going to ask you now, do you remember those that incantation as we say as we're talking right now?
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Jennifer suggested earlier.
**Adam:** I I won't I won't ask you at the end then because I was just I thought I'll be polite, you know.
**Lee:** Jennifer said, when I said to her, I've written down all the things that we've stopped over, she said, you should do them all this evening then as and I was like, well, no, we won't get a hashtag Welcome to Horror, because I didn't think we would.
**Lee:** I was like, we can't do unsung heroes because we're not covering an episode, so there's nobody it's relevant to, we can't ask Alexa for a synopsis because we're not covering a film and I can't remember the incantation.
**Lee:** So none of those in anyway possible.
**Adam:** Although I would like to I would like to declare this a we Chris is being a sung hero tonight.
**Adam:** I think, you know.
**Adam:** Because it has been a fucking marvelous, marvelous journey.
**Lee:** It has.
**Adam:** And I'm just really happy that someone's like saying they want to watch like to say to when someone wants to see like is like saying The Witch is one of probably one of their favorite films.
**Adam:** And they also want to rewatch Funny Man and Dude Bro Party Massacre.
**Adam:** I think we've we've we've done a good job, Lee.
**Adam:** I feel a swell of pride there.
**Chris:** We've succeeded at something.
**Lee:** And it's been great.
**Lee:** And we've met some really nice people doing this.
**Lee:** We obviously the the not for everyone guys who we've met along the way, and we obviously we've got to meet we discuss films with directors and writers, we've had people that when we got an email from the writer of The Host, like that blew my fucking mind, honestly.
**Adam:** That's that's the Zoom call horror.
**Adam:** Not the one with the the big thing that comes out the water.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Just just in case people are going back to find, did they?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, no, sorry, not the not the host, the oh, fuck Christ, it was a perfect host.
**Adam:** Oh, the perfect host.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Yes, I thought you meant why am I thinking was that called host?
**Adam:** The one that was on Zoom?
**Lee:** It was called host.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Right, yeah, because yeah, because I know we we did speak to someone who was involved with that.
**Adam:** Yeah, didn't we?
**Lee:** We did.
**Lee:** But yeah, the guy from a perfect host, equally that getting getting involved in the local horror scene as well.
**Lee:** Adam and I as we mentioned previously, got to go and actually do some extras work on a horror film that is yet to be released.
**Adam:** Supporting our team, please, darling.
**Lee:** So yeah, I mean, it's it's just been fantastic the people we've got to talk to and and have reached out to us.
**Lee:** It's been awesome, so yeah, it's been worth.
**Lee:** It's been worth all the long all the long hours of being forced to watch films and drink beer and chat about it for a while.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We said such a torturous, you know.
**Adam:** It's like Sisyphus pushing old fuck him.
**Adam:** Him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Chucking a rock up here.
**Adam:** I can't believe it.
**Adam:** Sitting here in me pajamas like a pensioner.
**Chris:** That was another one I could have mentioned, The Triangle.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** What a great film.
**Lee:** Actually, when Chris and I were at FrightFest this year, the guy who directed Triangle is making a amazing looking TV show.
**Lee:** And he was on stage talking about it with two of the main actors and it's a film set in the 80s about two young boys who are trying to get copies of the entire video nasty, all 80 whatever it is.
**Lee:** So they can get them together and sell them as a collection and make a shit ton of money.
**Lee:** yeah, and they got It's a great idea but it looks like apparently some of the people have to get films from, they end up in supernatural events along the way.
**Lee:** It sounds so fucking good.
**Lee:** And it's also set in Ireland.
**Chris:** That sounds fun.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I'm all over that shit, I can't wait for that.
**Adam:** Yeah, we've got to do that.
**Adam:** In fact, but that also means that you've reminded me that you two have failed to deliver your report.
**Adam:** And we will have to do that on maybe an upcoming we have been watching that you've been doing.
**Chris:** Well, so one of them turned out not to be horror.
**Lee:** On your excuse.
**Chris:** And and the other one was wasn't very good.
**Lee:** Questionable.
**Chris:** Questionable.
**Lee:** That's basically.
**Chris:** That's basically the report.
**Chris:** There you go.
**Lee:** Oh, that's.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** Brilliant, 50% no horror, 50% not worth watching.
**Adam:** Excellent, excellent debrief, gentlemen.
**Adam:** Treat yourselves to an extra gravy in the mess.
**Adam:** Discharged.
**Lee:** But I'm not going to lie, I had a lovely day out with Chris and friend of the show, Dave.
**Chris:** It was a great day, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and yeah, we got to see the trailer and hear about these stuff.
**Lee:** And the film that we saw that wasn't horror was really enjoyable.
**Chris:** Oh, I really liked it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it definitely had it definitely had like eerie parts, it was, you know, it was good, yeah.
**Lee:** I can't remember what it was called now, off the top of my head.
**Lee:** But it's the so it was the same people who did come to Daddy.
**Lee:** And it's the so apparently there's going to be a trilogy and I think it's bad.
**Chris:** Oh, no, I'm thinking A F X Twin.
**Chris:** You mean the one with.
**Lee:** Elijah Wood.
**Chris:** Yes, yes, yeah.
**Lee:** So Elijah Wood is great in in this, but yeah, what was it called?
**Lee:** It was some thing book.
**Lee:** But yes.
**Chris:** Bookworm, that's it.
**Lee:** Bookworm, yeah, well done.
**Lee:** But yeah, so that's going to be excellent when it comes out, I'm really looking forward to that.
**Lee:** like the third part, I mean, sorry, because yeah, both those are fantastic films.
**Lee:** But it's funny, they said it's a trilogy because I was like, well, yeah, apart from apparently, I don't know what the is.
**Lee:** Not obvious.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right, so, thank you ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Thank you very much, Chris, for putting up with this for the last seven years.
**Lee:** And I'm glad that you've actually really enjoyed it and you haven't just had to sit here and listen to us waffle on about something you couldn't give a shit about, because that would have been very difficult.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's been amazing, and I love having, you know, both your passionate views on all the different films.
**Chris:** Not always 100% in agreement, but always fascinating to hear.
**Chris:** And yeah, very often, yeah.
**Adam:** A raw beating passion.
**Lee:** Positive or negative, I'm always passionate one way or the other.
**Lee:** It's very unusual that I'm just.
**Adam:** And that's that's what he says on his dating profile.
**Adam:** Positive or negative, always passion.
**Lee:** Right, so,
**Lee:** thanks everyone for listening for the last seven years.
**Lee:** And thanks very much for listening this evening and we'll see you in a fortnight's time for something else, goodnight.
**Chris:** Goodnight.
**Adam:** Goodnight.
**Lee:** I don't fucking remember.
**Lee:** I don't know, I should have looked at my notes.

---

## Ep 208 - Shadow of the Vampire

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-208-shadow-of-the-vampire/
Air date: 6 October 2024
Duration: 00:38:34
Film: Shadow of the Vampire · Year: 2000 · Director: E. Elias Merhige

### Description

It’s part 2 of our ‘Behind the scenes’ series, and we spend some time in the “Shadow of the Vampire”. A film in which we learn that Count Orlok was a pioneer of ASMR videos; a ferret is no substitute for a fresh young cameraman; and Cary Elwes can do a pitch perfect impression of Jürgen Prochnow. A wonderful blur of fact and fiction in which FW Murnau employs a real vampire to portray the lead in the silent classic “Nosferatu”, this is both a darkly comic slice of pseudo-history and a satire on the filmmaking process; with the driven director becoming an amoral monster, and his monster becoming a precious diva. An absolutely perfect cast bring this vision to life, with beautiful cinematography and loving recreations of the sublime original. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris. Hi, Adam.
**Lee:** and we are here with spoilers and swearing a plenty to cover to the year 2000. I can't believe I've seen this since I've probably since not long after it came out.
**Lee:** Shadow of the Vampire.
**Adam:** They make it feel a bit earlier than that though, don't they?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I I found I found my receipt in the DVD because I would have first seen it on DVD.
**Chris:** And it was 2001.
**Chris:** And it was at that point that I realized quite incidentally that that means I haven't seen it for 23 years.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, nor have I.
**Chris:** Which was a shocker.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I spent the whole time thinking, why haven't I been watching this on a regular basis?
**Lee:** Yeah. Just very quickly before we jump in, sorry, I had a little bit of I had a bit of a celebrity spot today, literally 10 minutes before we started recording. Not a person, but. So the new BBC show Ludwig has just come out with David Mitchell. Episode four starts, traditional lock door mystery, man's found killed in an office, door locked from the inside with the key. So they call the janitor to come and drill out the lock.
**Lee:** Who is the janitor? Suddenly, bloody Pablo Raybould.
**Adam:** Oh, really?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Chris:** Of the Starling.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah. That'd be a good smile.
**Adam:** That's brilliant.
**Adam:** I for I I my money was on Andrew Elias, but.
**Adam:** Yeah, now, yeah, that's oh, no, that's brilliant.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's only a very short, you know, maybe a minute of screen time or whatever, but yeah, it was good to see him nonetheless.
**Chris:** He must have another film that we need to watch soon.
**Adam:** well, he did the last twitch, didn't he? Which we saw.
**Adam:** that was two years ago.
**Lee:** I still haven't seen it.
**Lee:** I actually messaged, they've got an Instagram for The Last Twitch, and I messaged and said, oh, this was about oh, 8, 10 months ago.
**Lee:** I messaged and said, oh, I've I've missed it at the screening, can you let me know when it's going to be released or if I can buy a copy on DVD, and nobody has ever read my message.
**Chris:** Fair enough.
**Adam:** So presumely, yeah.
**Adam:** Either that or it's the classic one that someone's just locked out of their.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Or, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** That happens enough.
**Adam:** It does.
**Lee:** Quite possibly.
**Lee:** So, yes, sorry to drag us off track, but back on track.
**Lee:** So, Chris, I'm assuming this is your I'll just a quick we'll do a quick run down.
**Lee:** as we're trying to bring that reintroduce that.
**Lee:** so for anyone who hasn't seen Shadow of the Vampire, it is based around the making of the film Nosferatu.
**Lee:** but in this world FW Murnau has in fact found a real vampire to play Nosferatu.
**Lee:** So Max Schreck is actually a vampire and he has come on board to make the film under the promise that in the final scene, he will get to actually turn, or not turn he says he can't.
**Adam:** Devour.
**Lee:** Devour, yeah, the lead actress.
**Lee:** so with that further ado.
**Lee:** Chris, what did you make a Shadow of the Vampire?
**Chris:** well, if I've learned anything, it's that if it's not in the frame, it doesn't exist.
**Chris:** And that does epitomize really the obsessive quality of the director, I'd say.
**Chris:** so yeah.
**Chris:** It's I just want to say very briefly, I've just getting out of COVID.
**Chris:** So if I watched the wrong film, I have no idea what I'm talking about, anything could have happened this last week, but I've enjoyed myself so something good happened.
**Chris:** and when you start talking.
**Adam:** When you start.
**Chris:** And if my voice.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When you start saying about, well, you know, when the baboon got turned inside out.
**Adam:** We know that you've watched Cronenberg's fly.
**Chris:** Well, at some points.
**Chris:** I thought I'm watching Nosferatu again so you know, they did a great job here of really making you feel like.
**Chris:** You were watching the making of Nosferatu.
**Adam:** And they do use little clips of it.
**Adam:** There's I mean, there actually real like they used.
**Chris:** But even the bits they're doing it's like it's a good it's uncanny, I would say it's quite a.
**Chris:** yeah, it's impressive, and funnily enough, I.
**Chris:** I did not realize that was Willem Dafoe as Max Schreck.
**Adam:** Clear didn't.
**Lee:** This is a career defining role for me, he is so good.
**Chris:** I could see, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it really shows how he can absolutely act very differently.
**Chris:** I mean like he does quite striking roles in a lot of his films, but yeah, this is it's just such a such a quirky and eerie and like there's a lot going on with him.
**Chris:** and and all of them like he's it's definitely an entertaining cast, and an unusual mix with with Eddie Izzard as well.
**Adam:** I love all the sort of snuffling and stuff that he's doing as well.
**Chris:** Like just a bit.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that clicking of the nails that sounds like cicadas.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, just.
**Adam:** To be honest, at that point I tuned out because it just felt like ASMR.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know, it's just like some some some idiot clicking their nails just to sort of.
**Adam:** Apparently make the hairs on my neck stand up.
**Adam:** Does not work.
**Adam:** Does not work for me, does not do anything for me.
**Chris:** Yeah, so yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot going on here.
**Chris:** And you know, it's I always love a a meta film, and so essentially it's like it's it is almost like you are watching a documentary of the making of Nosferatu at points.
**Chris:** But then, then it's like they're clearly telling, you know, a bigger story about art and obsessiveness and.
**Chris:** You know, what it takes to try and make a film as artistic and memorable and kind of real as you can, and of course, a film about a vampire using an actual vampire. yeah, and then all the way up.
**Chris:** I mean, so really the final scene is where it really hits for me and and yeah, like it's you can kind of see how they've got to that point and just him.
**Chris:** Just the look on Murnau, you know.
**Adam:** Murnau, yeah.
**Chris:** yeah, like and and the things he's saying it's yeah, that's yeah, that's fascinating.
**Adam:** And we have to say that Murnau played by John Malkovich, another just it's just so so good, like you say, the intensity and that sort of drive and everything else like that.
**Chris:** Like it's almost that he's sort of worse than the vampire.
**Adam:** Absolutely, the vampire it's kind of his nature, whereas Murnau's like you should know better.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's everything for the art and you know, at all costs.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's like it's like when you see films with amoral scientists and it's sort of like this, it's like an amoral artist in a way.
**Chris:** He is.
**Adam:** for the purpose of peace, you know, that's so.
**Chris:** But in the way that, the way that the system of the film making drags them all into it as well.
**Chris:** It's like they're all sort of complicit, even though they're all victims, it's like such a we're all part of this machine and we cannot stop it, you know, it's it's almost inevitability.
**Chris:** It's like, yeah, we're going to carry on.
**Adam:** Well, cuz it was early, cuz it's like a very, obviously, very early in film making, a lot of that was.
**Adam:** The case, it's very much like independent film making now where it's like, you know, everyone has to be in and has to be sort of obsessed in one way or another to keep to for it to keep happening and for it to be driven.
**Adam:** So, yeah, there's no there's no one who's turning up for, you know, an easy paycheck and you know, that's the job done for the day, it's like, no, I'm doing this because I want to make this film, I want to create this thing and, you know, whoever whoever you are as part of it, you are.
**Adam:** sort of like, you know, a vital ingredient and you sort of channel that in. And
**Chris:** And I suppose the idea of power as well.
**Chris:** Because in theory, the vampire should be the most powerful, and yet ultimately he is a tool even though literally he could have the power to, you know, kill any of them.
**Chris:** He kind of needs to, he he wants to feed and he sort of wants to see through his role in a way, it's like it's an interesting I mean, I suppose it is sort of a take on, yeah, like actors rather than that it literally being a vampire.
**Chris:** It is someone who wants to excel, all of them want to do their best.
**Adam:** Yeah, because he very much sort of, because it starts off that it's just oh, we've got a vampire.
**Adam:** And then he kind of gets into the role and he's not he's like.
**Chris:** We don't, yeah, yeah, because it's improvising.
**Chris:** I want to do my best for this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** and while also wanting to actually feed on someone.
**Adam:** The weird thing was because there's the there's the remake of Nosferatu that's Werner Herzog with Klaus Kinski playing the count, and there's a documentary called My Best Fiend, which is Werner Herzog's documentary about all the times he worked with Klaus Kinski, and they were fucking notorious.
**Adam:** They were like screaming matches and storming off sets and Werner Herzog's a bloody nut case and will do mad things for a film.
**Adam:** And Klaus Kinski was off his bloody chump as well.
**Adam:** And but they they really liked working together.
**Adam:** But I mean, the first time they worked together, in the end, like at one point Klaus Kinski stormed off set, got into a boat and Werner Herzog pulled a gun on him and threatened to shoot him and then himself.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Unless he got out of the boat and continued.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's like they could both bring out the absolute best in each other or ultimately completely destroy each other.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, so that sort of that was a thing for me where it was like, oh, because you've got they did a version of Nosferatu, and I'd imagine that to a greater or lesser extent, it probably was something along the lines of how this goes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, in the background of it.
**Adam:** It was just like a a very driven director and a I'm going to say loose cannon is possibly the the polite way I can put it in both cases, I suppose.
**Lee:** I think for for me, as I say, I love this film and I I did watch it re-watching it, I was like, I can't believe I've only seen this once maybe twice.
**Lee:** It's such a great film.
**Lee:** It should be more frequently taken off the shelf.
**Lee:** I think one of the main things for me is just the casting of this.
**Lee:** As you say, it's my favorite Willem Dafoe, John Malkovich is so perfect in it.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Eddie Izzard playing Gustav.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** It it it's amazing because I I hadn't realized it until watching this, I was like, oh, Eddie Izzard is doing his faces that he pulls when he's doing his comedy shows.
**Lee:** But it does work perfectly the same way that he acted Nosferatu and I would would never have put the two together.
**Lee:** But as soon as he did it, I was like, he's perfect for the role, but he's doing his own thing and the two just merge so seamlessly.
**Adam:** Well, it's it reminded me of the bit there's the stand up bit that Eddie Izzard did of thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not do eight other things when talking about the Ten Commandments.
**Adam:** And it's very much that sort of characterization that it's very sort of, you know, just very sort of loose the actor who's like sort of just yeah, I'm just there, I'm just doing it, you know.
**Adam:** In a in a way the opposite of the sort of of the driven side of things where it's very much sort of like, right, tell me where to stand, I'll do it, you know.
**Lee:** And that said, I feel that's why.
**Adam:** And but the effects that sort of the effect of working with a real vampire does make all the actors then that they game as well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I thought Catherine McCormack.
**Lee:** Is the sort of divarish female lead?
**Adam:** Yeah, Gretel Schrode, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Just brilliant, really really played it well and believably.
**Lee:** And yeah, just just everyone's.
**Lee:** Performances in this sucked me in so much.
**Adam:** I have I have to say.
**Adam:** Udo Kier.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** as Albin Grau.
**Adam:** And obviously, when we did Nosferatu and and, you know, I know it's a fiction thing, I'm not going to be one of those people who's like, well, actually, they wouldn't have used that car.
**Adam:** Or well, actually, in the I mean, cuz essentially, this feels like you could be that prick on IMDb.
**Adam:** Who fills out the Goofs section with well, actually Albin Grau didn't have his neck.
**Adam:** snapped by a vampire on the set of Nosferatu, he lived for some time afterwards and he went on.
**Adam:** And do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's go with the fiction, you know, and everything else like that.
**Adam:** But like Albin Grau was much more the sort of driving force of Nosferatu like in the in the real world.
**Adam:** as it were.
**Adam:** But he's but no, I just think Udo Kier is just so good as the sort of pragmatic element of it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's like he's the producer, but at that point, the producer was the person who carries all the equipment, who does all, do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It was.
**Lee:** much more physical hands-on role than it is.
**Adam:** You're you're essentially the logistics person for everything and it becomes just down to you.
**Adam:** And I I think his because you've got a lot of wild performances in it, I really like him.
**Adam:** Playing it sort of dead straight just as an older slightly sort of like, oh, for fuck sake, what what's gone wrong now.
**Adam:** Like a troubleshooter.
**Adam:** character as it were.
**Adam:** And but I mean, but I mean, that's the weird thing.
**Adam:** You've got a lot of, you've got a lot of vampire heritage in here.
**Adam:** Because obviously Willem Dafoe is going to play the Van Helsing role in the Robert Eggers version of Nosferatu that's coming out.
**Adam:** and Udo Kier's played played Dracula in what is it, Blood for Dracula, the Andy Warhol one.
**Adam:** I can't remember what it's bloody called.
**Lee:** Still not saying that.
**Adam:** Yeah, but yeah, he was yeah, Blood for Dracula.
**Adam:** Flesh for Blood for Dracula and he's also Frankenstein in Flesh for Frankenstein and Jackal in the Strange Case of Dr. Jackal and Mr. Ozbom, which is good.
**Adam:** Fucked up, but very good.
**Adam:** and you've also got I'm I'm going to say this wrong probably, Cary Elwes, I don't know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Of Elwes.
**Adam:** Who.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** the second cameraman they get in Fritz Wagner.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He is great, what have we seen him in anything else?
**Chris:** Because like I recognize him from The Princess Bride and Robin Hood.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's, yeah.
**Adam:** He's so he's.
**Chris:** I wondered if he'd been never.
**Adam:** Princess Bride, he's in, well, he's also, he's in Bram Stoker's Dracula, he's Lord, he's Arthur Holmwood.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Lord Holmwood in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So there's a lot of people who are sort of, you know, in and out of vampire films here as well.
**Adam:** Also, he was in Stranger Things.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** The mayor in Stranger Things.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Apparently so.
**Chris:** I mean, I don't know if that was a a big part or not.
**Chris:** But I suppose it depends.
**Chris:** He was playing.
**Chris:** No, no, that that must tell us that you haven't watched Stranger Things still.
**Adam:** I haven't watched Stranger Things.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** Because I think the trouble is the time may have passed now.
**Chris:** It's no, no, but I reckon it's got to been long enough that it's now good to go back.
**Lee:** I think now is the time in fact.
**Lee:** I think all the excitement's died down.
**Lee:** I I could definitely go back and re-watch the entire thing from the beginning quite happily.
**Lee:** Very tempted to around Halloween.
**Chris:** How many series did it end up as? Three, wasn't it?
**Lee:** Three, I think.
**Lee:** I think they've signed a fourth I saw a post about.
**Lee:** But again, I don't I didn't read it, so I don't know how legitiment that is.
**Lee:** But yeah, I mean, the way it ended the third season was very much an ending they could walk away from, but it did leave enough open that they could very easily just reboot it straight away.
**Adam:** Fair enough.
**Lee:** But I'd like I would like to see a fourth season.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I thought they did a particularly good job of introducing new characters each season, not too many, but always just enough to make it feel fresh and new.
**Lee:** And like you weren't just treading the same storyline.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, so did a really good job on that. So I reckon if they could do that again for season four, I would definitely watch that.
**Chris:** That'd be great.
**Chris:** So yeah, get on that, Adam.
**Adam:** Well, one thing.
**Adam:** That one thing that this has done for me though, this has solved a I don't know, 15 year, 20 year mystery for me.
**Adam:** is so the original cameraman Wolfgang, the one who is bitten and then has to be hospitalized out.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And the guy who plays him is called Ronan Vibert, and it was like a fucking bolt of lightning watching this, because I have been trying to work out.
**Adam:** I had a I had a video tape, it had the last three episodes of series 2 of Drop the Dead Donkey on it.
**Adam:** Then it had the South Bank show about Bram Stoker's Dracula, like and Dracula in general, but it was a promotion piece for the making of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Adam:** So you had like everyone from that.
**Adam:** That was interviewed on it.
**Adam:** And then at the end of it, I had what could only be described and I'll be I am being as pretentious as I can here.
**Adam:** A visual essay from
**Adam:** on like and I couldn't remember what it was called and I couldn't remember.
**Adam:** Who the presenter was, and it's this guy, it's Ronan Vibert.
**Adam:** who presented it, but I'd been looking up because he looks a bit like
**Adam:** Oh, what's his bloody name?
**Adam:** Alan Rickman, he looks so at one point I thought, was that Alan Rickman.
**Adam:** who did that Dracula thing that I had on a tape somewhere.
**Adam:** And then and then I thought it was Julian Sand.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I can see that.
**Adam:** You see that, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** Like it's that that's that sort of.
**Adam:** And then finally watching this I was like, fuck me, that's him.
**Adam:** So I was on IMDb, searched and then I found out it was a it was a documentary.
**Adam:** strand on Channel 4 called Rear Window, and it was called Dracula.
**Adam:** The undiscovered country.
**Adam:** So I was finally able to see that for the first time in fucking years.
**Chris:** Which has.
**Chris:** Oh, that's good.
**Adam:** Well, it's good.
**Chris:** Nice little bonus.
**Adam:** It was a nice little bonus for me and the I mean, the thing was is that that had a that was weird as well because what I remembered from that was that that also had a clip of a film where Lenin came back as a vampire.
**Adam:** And I was trying to work out what that was.
**Adam:** I guess that was back to the USSR.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Squadron horror.
**Adam:** Like a a film.
**Adam:** and but yeah, that came from that rear window thing.
**Adam:** So I would suggest people go and watch that.
**Adam:** He's very 90s and he's he's being very sort of I don't know, Richly Grogish in it, but basically, it's just someone sitting down and reading through.
**Adam:** A load of in inverted commas, true reports about vampirism and stuff like that from around the world over the centuries.
**Adam:** but it was like.
**Adam:** Mixed up with loads of clips of not the obvious vampire films, you get like a bit of hammer in there, but everything else is there's loads of stuff like vamps in there and near dark.
**Adam:** That was where I first saw bits of near dark and things like that.
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Adam:** So it's it's got there's a lot.
**Adam:** And there's still films in there that I've never seen.
**Lee:** What did you say it was called, sorry?
**Adam:** It's called Dracula, the undiscovered country.
**Adam:** It's on in full on YouTube.
**Adam:** so.
**Adam:** So Clare was Clare was.
**Adam:** Treated to that the other night as well, so you can sympathize with the poor cow.
**Adam:** So it's it's been it's it's been a hard life.
**Lee:** You know.
**Chris:** She vampired out.
**Lee:** There's nothing worse than when you've seen something and you I had the same thing, so I'm a massive fan of MR James now.
**Lee:** But I didn't used to be and one day I had a it was near Halloween.
**Lee:** I had the worst hangover in the world, and I still had it at like 7 o'clock on a Sunday night.
**Lee:** It was a real killer.
**Lee:** and a documentary came on about MR James.
**Lee:** And I thought, oh, I'll just watch it out of interest.
**Lee:** Sparked my love of MR James.
**Lee:** And therefore and rushed out and bought all of his books and watched all and went to talks about it like really got and I could never find the documentary again, it drove me nuts.
**Lee:** And then I finally and the only thing I knew was, you remember the Black Adder episode.
**Lee:** With the executioners.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So Mr. Ploppy was the guy who was doing the narration.
**Adam:** Oh, yes, yes.
**Adam:** I know you mean, Bill Bill something, I can't think what his bloody name is, but I know the guy you mean, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, and I just couldn't find it for the life of me.
**Lee:** And then.
**Adam:** Bill Wallace, that's it.
**Lee:** That's it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then eventually, I was listening to an MR James podcast and I emailed the guys and went.
**Lee:** Have you guys seen this, and they went, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awesome, it's an extra on so and so.
**Lee:** And I was like, I've had it sitting on my shelf the whole bloody time.
**Adam:** Is it on is it on Casting the Runes, is it?
**Lee:** Yes, it is, yeah, it's extra on Casting the Runes, I just sitting on my bloody shelf for years I've been trying to hunt it down, and I owned it.
**Lee:** Bloody.
**Adam:** Yeah, Bill Wallace.
**Adam:** who was Ploppy, Ploppy the jailer, and was also was also Boz the Bear in the Children Show, a bear's behind.
**Adam:** And he also turns up in Black Hatter goes forth, he's the German guy in the hospital.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Sorry, bit of a tangent there.
**Lee:** But go and check that out.
**Adam:** No, not at all.
**Lee:** Awesome documentaries.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** But I think this is because the good thing is, I think this has the right this has the humor right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, they don't push it too far.
**Adam:** Yeah, but it's quite it's quite dark, because I mean, the whole thing is like.
**Adam:** I mean, essentially, it'd be like if you'd made silence of the lambs with a real serial murderer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and you'd said to them, right, you can chew your way through the cast.
**Adam:** And and also just the fact the fact that it like you said, Chris, it's like it's so it's very much more about the artistic process of film making.
**Adam:** Than it is a vampire film.
**Adam:** But it's like it's like lovely touches like the writer, can't can't I just eat the writer.
**Adam:** He don't need the writer.
**Adam:** That feels very, very true.
**Adam:** You know, it's like the right is the poor bastard on the lowest rung where it's like you can get get rid of him, can't you?
**Adam:** You're not going to miss him.
**Lee:** And that lovely scene when they're sitting around drinking at night and then he turns up and joins them.
**Lee:** And then just snatches that bat out of mid-air and just starts eating it.
**Lee:** And they're still convinced at that point that he is just a method actor.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, when he walks off and they're just like, what an act.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** They just think he's really messed and it's wonderful.
**Adam:** It is
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** I mean that actually and I really do like that sort of thing.
**Adam:** Because obviously you see that this version of the vampire is living in a cave, eating ferrets.
**Adam:** And you know, very reduced circumstances and that's the bit that he takes from Dracula.
**Adam:** Is the the thing of oh, he hasn't got any servants, so he used to be a lot more powerful than he was.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Or sort of and.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just but again.
**Adam:** That's a lovely sort of it's a weird, lovely little insight because when you think about it, it's like the whole there is that element with Dracula where you're sort of like, oh, well, it's meant to be this sort of powerful figure or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But actually, yeah, by the time that he's Dracula in the book.
**Adam:** It's it's clearly reduced circumstances.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Mostly on the basis that let's face it, who in the who in their fucking right mind who's local is going to go and work there.
**Adam:** He's going to hang around the place or anything, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They leave it off maps at that point.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Lee:** one of the other things I loved about this, that really stood out to me this and it's such a minor thing, but I loved it. The transitions from them behind the camera to seeing the camera where they kept pulling in so they changed it to sepia and then kind of wrote the edges of the screen in to create that kind of lens effect.
**Adam:** Yeah, when it's the the focus, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I loved that, it was just it was such a nice little touch to go from behind the camera to in front of the camera, but it was just such a nice way of of going from one to the other.
**Lee:** I just thought it was excellent, it really, really stood out.
**Adam:** And I'm not sure, I mean, I don't know if the goggles thing was actually something that was a necessary part of equipment.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** while filming.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So what were they?
**Adam:** just adds a very mad scientist.
**Chris:** It does.
**Lee:** Yeah everybody on set wearing white coats like lab coats all the time as well.
**Adam:** Mind you, that was quite because it was like a technician thing, it used to be the same with recording studios, like producers would be in in white coats and things like that because it was like considered, you know, it's a technical, it's a laboratory essentially.
**Adam:** And especially I suppose at that point where it was like, yeah, the camera's the lights are probably likely to explode and blow your face off, you know, things hadn't been quite as refined at that point, you know.
**Adam:** But the thing I the weirdest thing was is that the director of this.
**Adam:** Because I was like, oh, he must have done other stuff.
**Adam:** And it's E. Elias Merige.
**Adam:** Now he did a serial killer film that I'm only aware of because Clint Mansel did the soundtrack.
**Adam:** which is called Suspect Zero.
**Adam:** And but I was like, which interesting enough is it's a serial killer bumping off other serial killers, but it's pre-Dexter.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** And there is a thing about someone taking bodies around in a fridge.
**Adam:** Like a refrigerated van, you know, so it was all very sort of thinking about.
**Adam:** It was very pre-Dexter, but very similar.
**Adam:** But in 1998, he did the film The Begotten.
**Adam:** Now I don't know if you're aware of The Begotten, but it is.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** basically, and and reading about it, he was an ex because he was like he's a theater director.
**Adam:** And that's what he's mostly gone back to doing.
**Adam:** But The Begotten is basically, Marilyn Manson then got him to direct two videos.
**Adam:** That's the kind of thing that The Begotten is.
**Adam:** The Begotten is like you know the Clive Barker shorts, the Forbidden and the black and white student ones that he did.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's kind of in that vein.
**Adam:** It's like this grainy, silent art film, really gory, but really stylized and weird and like God shits out a man and then slips his throat.
**Adam:** I mean it's fucking mental.
**Adam:** And it is very much it's in that sort of same vein of yes, I would watch it late at night, but around but I'm also watching Tetsuo and a razor head.
**Adam:** So it was you know, but yeah, and and just to have sort of I there was no way on fucking earth I'd have put the two together.
**Adam:** Because this you know, this for want of a better phrase, this is classy, the other the other one's classy, but it's arty classy.
**Adam:** And fucking like I say, it's very it's very art house.
**Adam:** It's very grim.
**Adam:** It's one of those things that you you could sort of it's definitely not something that you can just.
**Adam:** Pass by, it's sort of looks pretty sort of, you know, it's pretty raw, pretty weird and strange and everything.
**Adam:** And I'm pretty sure it came out on like, you know, it was that label, was it Redemption or whatever like that.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, I remember those.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it came.
**Adam:** I'm sure it came out on like that back in but it's like it's unavailable in most places.
**Adam:** It's on YouTube.
**Adam:** But it is like utterly, utterly unlike this in as many ways as you can be, you know, but it's but it was just a weird thing to sort of like find it's like finding you it was like finding sort of like, no, there's no there's no connection here.
**Adam:** But it's like, hang on, the person who's done the downward spirals just released snuffbox.
**Adam:** You know, or like Bat Barry's last album or something like that.
**Adam:** You know, it's just like, what?
**Adam:** How did we get I don't know.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We need to hear.
**Lee:** Speaking of.
**Lee:** Actually, the music stood out in this as well.
**Lee:** For it was such a subtle.
**Lee:** kind of underlying.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was just wonderful.
**Lee:** Really, really.
**Adam:** Yeah, Dan Jones, I think is the composer on this.
**Adam:** It's really good.
**Adam:** Actually, the original title of the film was Burnt to Light, because that's how you.
**Adam:** That's essentially how like filming works.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** is burnt to light.
**Chris:** Also, vampires are.
**Adam:** Burnt by light.
**Adam:** And it's it's the title of the opening, it's like the opening title music on the soundtrack.
**Adam:** is called burnt to light as well.
**Adam:** So he obviously took took that from there.
**Adam:** But yeah, so that was the original.
**Adam:** working title of it.
**Adam:** I think it was because I'm sure I read somewhere that someone was taking the piss and said it was like, yeah, but what's burn head to light.
**Adam:** And they were like, all right.
**Adam:** We're going to have to change that if someone's going to.
**Adam:** be stupid about it.
**Adam:** We'll change it.
**Adam:** One last note and especially again, feels like a lot of oddball people have been involved and everything else like that.
**Adam:** This is the first film that Nicholas Cage produced.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, I saw that.
**Lee:** Come up at the beginning, I was I was like, what the hell.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But having watched it, I'm like, oh yeah, of course he did.
**Lee:** Like it's a perfect sense when someone tells you it.
**Adam:** Well, not only that, but also the sort of like, what the a strange man who's really who really wants to give you a great performance.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What what first drew you to the project, Nicholas Cage?
**Lee:** but yeah, I'm so glad that we did this because it is it's one of those films I watched, loved, and we've mentioned it so many times.
**Lee:** But I just never go back and rewatch it, and then when I did, I was like, oh, you're an idiot, how is this sat on the shelf for so long and not come out for, you know, at least every couple of years.
**Lee:** It's it will be from now on.
**Lee:** Without a doubt.
**Adam:** No, I was much the same, much the same.
**Chris:** It does feel like you need to watch Nosferatu first.
**Chris:** Like at least once.
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** But also it seems like potentially you could do both.
**Adam:** You know what the.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think that weirdly enough, though, we did it as although it's like the the link with this with late night and the devil and this was behind the scenes.
**Adam:** I think it's actually also oh, it's it's kind of like fake history.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or or alternate cool history or something like that.
**Adam:** Where it's like, well, here's what here's the real thing, but what if it was a vampire, that'd be.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Wouldn't it.
**Adam:** And similarly, you know, it's like.
**Adam:** Well, here's here's the Johnny Carson show, but what if he did actually get someone out who's possessed, you know.
**Chris:** And and really.
**Chris:** Watching Nosferatu, you know, you could believe that they did use a real vampire.
**Chris:** It certainly you know, it's strange enough.
**Adam:** I think it was one of those things like there was a lot of myths around it.
**Adam:** Because he's called Max Schreck as well, which is like fear in German.
**Adam:** So loads of people just thought it was a pseudonym.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so again, there were like, well, I I say rumors, I'm going to say playground rumors.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because that's what it feels like.
**Adam:** But he's a real vampire, they got a real vampire, he played a real vampire.
**Adam:** He got played the vampire in that it was my mate telling me that.
**Adam:** And he's and he's dead's got a pouch, but he only takes it out of weekends.
**Adam:** And after dark.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think I'm sure I heard somewhere, and again, it could have just been a similar rumor.
**Lee:** Cuz I I can't for the life of me remember where, but I'm sure I heard something saying that Max Shrek, yeah, did only turn up on set for his, you know, didn't hang out with the crew and do that stuff, and he did just turn up and shoot his scenes and then disappeared.
**Lee:** But again, that might be.
**Lee:** Me misremembering it or somebody passing on false information or somebody confusing this film with what actually.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that could exist.
**Adam:** Well, cuz not that, but also I suppose there's there's the there's the element of it if if someone's having like a load of make up put on, especially like in the early days of that sort of thing, it probably was most of the time it was, right, you go off to the makeup and have your nose redone and have your have your nails redone because they've fallen out.
**Adam:** And, you know, so he's probably spending most of his time in makeup, while everyone else is sitting around in the middle of stuff being changed.
**Adam:** And things like that, so it's very possible that he never saw anyone.
**Adam:** because the poor bugger spent most of his time having his like mask done and everything.
**Lee:** I mean, he is touched up on.
**Adam:** Filthy swine.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I mean, 100% recommend this film.
**Lee:** I just I yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to and I was very much looking forward to seeing it again.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, this is a this is a great way to start our Halloween viewing really this year.
**Lee:** So on that note, we're going to be back in a Fortnight's time.
**Lee:** We're going to do something a bit different.
**Lee:** we have decided that as Chris is no longer being welcomed to horror, being 250 plus movies in by this point, including stuff he watched for.
**Chris:** That's that's quite a few, isn't it?
**Lee:** That's yeah, that's a considerable amount.
**Lee:** So we thought it would be nice, rather than covering a film, to sit down with Chris and just, yeah.
**Lee:** Give him a chance to do us a bit of a retrospective, what of his highlights been of the last 200 episodes, what subgenres he's discovered, what things he's found that he really liked, what he doesn't like.
**Lee:** So we're just going to kind of sit down and just have a general horror discussion, yeah, about everything that Chris has learned.
**Lee:** There will be a test.
**Lee:** It will go on your permanent record.
**Adam:** And and we reserve the right that you may sit on the council but you are not granted the the position of.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** So just just just getting that out there quick.
**Adam:** Because that went well for the last people who said that.
**Adam:** That went really fucking well for them, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah, that sounds great.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** We don't need to worry about consistency or integrity.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** Or any of those.
**Lee:** Don't.
**Adam:** I.
**Lee:** Don't.
**Lee:** Don't.
**Lee:** So when this episode comes out, there's going to be about a week or so before we record again.
**Lee:** so if anyone has any questions that they'd like to send in for Chris, please obviously send them to our email info@welcometohorror.com.
**Lee:** or contact us on our social, DM us on there and ask Chris any questions you would like to ask him or get his opinions on.
**Lee:** yeah, and we will be back in a Fortnight's time for that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Naty night.

---

## 6 Feet Deeper - Late Night With The Devil

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/6-feet-deeper-late-night-with-the-devil/
Air date: 29 September 2024
Duration: 00:23:00

### Description

Adam’s back in the Library with a bonus episode of extra gubbins left over from our recent episode on “Late Night With The Devil” As always, we recommend you listen to our main episode (number 207) first, before diving into this swirling hypno-disc of fact. We hope you enjoy this little transmission from the Welcome To Horror Fact Library.

### Transcript

**Adam:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Adam:** Yep, still just me here.
**Adam:** I'm back in the Welcome to Horror Fact Library for Late Night With the Devil, 6 Feet Deeper.
**Adam:** This is a companion to our main look at the film, episode 207, so be sure to listen to that before diving into this one.
**Adam:** As always, there will be spoilers and possible swearing.
**Adam:** Quim.
**Adam:** Whilst we praised David Dastmalchian's work in the film, we didn't touch on some of the other roles he's played.
**Adam:** Obviously, he was Thomas Schiff in The Dark Knight, which was his feature debut. He was in Animals, which he also wrote. He's Peter DeVries in Dune, Part One.
**Adam:** He's in Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp. He was in Blade Runner 2049.
**Adam:** He was the Polka-Dot Man in The Suicide Squad. He's in The Belko Experiment, Boston Strangler, Last Voyage of the Demeter, Relaxer, Gangs of Brooklyn, The Boogeyman, Bird Box.
**Adam:** Sushi Girl, Prisoners, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and Oppenheimer.
**Adam:** And on television, as well as being in 12 Monkeys, Gotham, The Flash, and MacGyver, he was Pit Boss Warwick in Twin Peaks: The Return, three episodes of that.
**Adam:** As well as being an executive producer on Late Night With the Devil, Dastmalchian is also a lifelong horror devotee.
**Adam:** He has a love of local horror hosts, having grown up watching Crematia Mortem in Kansas.
**Adam:** Then finding Svenghouli when moving to Chicago.
**Adam:** He has his own horror host persona, Doctor Fearless, a mad scientist vampire with a very Bela Lugosi accent.
**Adam:** He also made a horror host the focal point of his ongoing comic book series Count Crowley, about a reluctant horror host who finds she's unwittingly taken on the role of local monster hunter along with presenting duties.
**Adam:** I've read the first collected volume and it's a definite recommendation from me.
**Adam:** Another person who deserves note is the only other American in the cast, albeit one who's been based in Australia for around 20 years.
**Adam:** Phil, the floor manager, was played by Christopher Kirby.
**Adam:** Lee would certainly recognize him as James Washington in Iron Sky.
**Adam:** He was Mouser in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
**Adam:** He appeared in Upgrade, Queen of the Damned, Daybreakers, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
**Adam:** He was also Herbert Magic Williams in Quantum Leap, The Leap Home, Part Two.
**Adam:** And Space Above and Beyond, Wolf Creek, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Neighbours, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and the 90s remake of Flipper.
**Adam:** Director writers Cameron and Colin Cairns set the film in 1977.
**Adam:** As they wanted the episode in the story to go out on a Monday for sweeps week, and 1977 was the only year in that decade where Halloween fell on a Monday.
**Adam:** Sweeps Week occurs four times a year and is when TV networks schedule programming to try and drawing a larger audience than usual.
**Adam:** As the ratings generated over that period determine both local and national advertising rates.
**Adam:** It will also determine scheduling for that network and whether a show is renewed or not.
**Adam:** Interestingly enough, the production designer Artello Stolfo worked on Australian TV for years, building sets for variety shows, and director of photography Matthew Temple started his career as a pedestal camera operator for Studio TV in the 80s.
**Adam:** Now let's take a look at those inspirations and influences on the Cairn brothers' magnificent movie.
**Adam:** Night Owls is The Don Lane Show.
**Adam:** Specifically, episodes featuring Uri Geller and Doris Stokes.
**Adam:** The Don Lane Show was an Australian late-night talk show hosted by American Don Lane.
**Adam:** Lane was a singer and comedian whose initial TV career in Australia began as a replacement for Dave Allen, who had been sacked from his own chat and sketch show Tonight With Dave Allen after telling his producer live on air to go away and masturbate whilst interviewing Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
**Adam:** Lane, who had been headlining a residency at Dune's Nightclub in Hawaii at the time, was asked to audition and was contracted for six weeks.
**Adam:** Tonight with Don Lane eventually ran from 1965 to 1969.
**Adam:** After the show finished, Lane returned briefly to the US before coming back in 1975 to host The Don Lane Show that eventually ran from 1975 to 1983.
**Adam:** Constantly referenced throughout the film is The Johnny Carson Show, which ran in the US from 1962 to 1992.
**Adam:** His absolute zenith in popularity was the 70s.
**Adam:** This show defined what is pretty much still the format of American TV talk shows.
**Adam:** Such as an onscreen announcer, second banana who acts as a comic stooge to the host, acts coming on and performing before joining the host for a chat, the gradual buildup of guests to form a conversational panel, and a resident house band.
**Adam:** In the ratings war, Carson was the one to beat.
**Adam:** Next, Carmichael Hage is James Randy.
**Adam:** Admittedly, with a dash of the talk show era Orson Welles, who would often perform tricks dressed very similarly to Hage.
**Adam:** Randy, real name Randall Zwinge, started out as an escapologist, conjurer, and stage magician, adopting the name The Amazing Randy, appearing on TV, radio, and touring the world.
**Adam:** He even appeared on stage with Alice Cooper, playing the roles of mad dentist and executioner during the Billion Dollar Babies tour, as well as building a number of the props used.
**Adam:** As the executioner, he would behead Cooper with a guillotine at the climax of the show every night.
**Adam:** Randy really garnered attention for his long-standing feud with spoon botherer and cunt Uri Geller.
**Adam:** In 1972, he publicly accused Geller of being a fraud, stating that all his psychic powers were tricks and illusions known to most magicians.
**Adam:** Randy felt that Geller and those similarly claiming paranormal and psychic abilities, such as spiritualists and mediums, were, at best, liars, and in most cases, con artists, exploiting the vulnerable for their own gain.
**Adam:** He found that he had a kindred spirit in Johnny Carson.
**Adam:** Carson, who had also been a magician himself, similarly doubted Geller's claims.
**Adam:** In an unprecedented move, Geller was booked on Carson's show for an interview, with Randy in the background advising the production team to provide their own props and keep them away from Geller and his team.
**Adam:** Carson, live on national television, asked Geller to demonstrate his abilities using the props he provided.
**Adam:** As you may have guessed, Geller was unable to perform any of his usual watch-stopping or spoon-bending, claiming that the whole surprise had reduced his powers.
**Adam:** However, this occurrence only raised Geller's profile, and he was immediately booked onto other more accommodating shows to prove his powers.
**Adam:** At this point, Randy realized that he needed to do more if characters like Geller were to be brought to account.
**Adam:** Along with psychology professor Ray Hyman, Isaac Asimov, and Carl Sagan, he was a founding member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, formerly the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.
**Adam:** An American nonprofit organization whose mission statement is to promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.
**Adam:** Contributing regular articles and columns to their magazine, The Skeptical Inquirer. He also wrote a number of books during his career, including a less than flattering biography of Geller.
**Adam:** In addition, he formed the James Randy Educational Foundation in 1996, offering to pay $1,000 to anyone who could provide proof of the paranormal to the satisfaction of the Foundation's laboratory conditions.
**Adam:** The reward quickly grew to $1 million and is still yet to be claimed, despite many applicants.
**Adam:** Interestingly, a number of high-profile psychics and spiritualists have been asked to apply, none of whom have taken up the offer.
**Adam:** Another high-profile target of Randy was English spiritualist Doris Stokes.
**Adam:** She had appeared on The Don Lane Show, and there is an interesting clip on YouTube of Randy appearing on the show, where Lane really takes him to task about his perceived mistreatment of Stokes, swearing and storming off set.
**Adam:** In 2010, Randy came out as gay and married his partner of over 20 years, Venezuelan artist Jose Alverez, in 2013.
**Adam:** During the filming of a documentary about Randy, An Honest Liar, it was revealed that Alverez was actually named Davy Penna and had used a false identity to come to the USA.
**Adam:** He was arrested for identity theft and nearly deported.
**Adam:** Randy finally left this realm in 2020, aged 92.
**Adam:** Ian Bliss, who plays Hage, may be familiar as Bane, the character possessed to a greater or lesser extent by Agent Smith in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
**Adam:** He also appeared in Man-Thing, Superman Returns, Farscape, and Home and Away.
**Adam:** Hage also name checks Ed and Lorraine Warren in as disparaging terms as they deserve in real life.
**Adam:** The Grove is Bohemian Grove.
**Adam:** Bohemian Grove is a fenced and restricted 2,700-acre area of Californian redwood forest belonging to the Bohemian Club, founded in 1878.
**Adam:** This men-only club, made up of a number of high-profile figures including politicians, government top brass, former and future presidents, senior executives, business leaders, artists, actors, and musicians, basically anyone with power.
**Adam:** There is a 15-year waiting list for potential applicants.
**Adam:** Only four women have been admitted as honorary members of the club, the last of whom, Iona Kulp, died in 1928.
**Adam:** Whilst women can come in as the guests of members, all guests have to be off-site before 9:00 p.m.
**Adam:** This playground for the rich and powerful supposedly offers time for them to relax in an informal setting, where networking and business are off-limits. Yeah, right.
**Adam:** The club motto being 'Weaving spiders come not here'.
**Adam:** They participate in activities such as plays written and produced by members, and the Cremation of Care Ceremony, a ritual in which a proxy for worldly responsibilities is set ablaze on an altar.
**Adam:** As would be expected with such high-profile clientele, security is very tight, with local and state law enforcement, as well as the United States Secret Service being brought in to secure the area during gatherings.
**Adam:** Despite this, a few people have managed to infiltrate the proceedings, including conspiracy theorist, Trump shill, and campaigner against amphibious homosexuality, Alex Jones, who filmed the Cremation of Care.
**Adam:** As such.
**Adam:** The nature of people involved, the secrecy and rituals have led many to believe that Bohemian Grove is a site for the occult conspiracy who truly runs the world.
**Adam:** The Grove is rich in tradition and symbolism, with owls a recurrent motif.
**Adam:** The Cremation of Care takes place in front of a massive stone owl shrine, fitted with speakers for added effects. If you weren't already looking suspicious enough, let's bung in Moloch worship in there for good measure.
**Adam:** For what it's worth, I don't think it's the center of power for a satanic Illuminati, but much more some outsized frat party for all these horrendous men who sadly do run our lives.
**Adam:** It's a fortnight's worth of pathetic debauchery where connections and plans are definitely laid, far from the eyes of the public, in between rounds of the biscuit game and public urination.
**Adam:** It's shitty people trying to recreate their shitty youth.
**Adam:** Sandor Diabo is Anton Zandor LaVey.
**Adam:** And Diabo's cult is the Branch Davidians led by David Koresh.
**Adam:** Sandor Diabo shares Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey's middle name and a diabolical beard.
**Adam:** After founding the Church in 1966, LaVey, a relentless self-publicist, was often seen on TV, performing rituals with naked acolytes in his house for salacious news stories and documentaries.
**Adam:** Such as the Mondo documentary Witchcraft 70.
**Adam:** AKA White Angel, Black Angel, or The Satanists.
**Adam:** Taking full advantage of the renewed interest in the occult in the 60s and 70s.
**Adam:** The footage of Diabo feels very similar to the Church of Satan segment on Witchcraft 70.
**Adam:** On another point of interest, LaVey was also a noted musician and accomplished Theramin player.
**Adam:** I've heard that at one point he was the only registered musicians' union Theramin player, but I've been unable to corroborate this.
**Adam:** His other instruments of choice included the calliope and the pipe organ.
**Adam:** Unlike LaVey, whose church did, does not literally believe in or worship Satan, regarding Satan as a representation of personal liberty and individualism.
**Adam:** Diabo's cult worships Abraxus.
**Adam:** Abraxus was originally a mystic word made up from seven Greek letters that were inscribed on charms and amulets.
**Adam:** In numerology, the word Abraxus translates to 365, the number of days in the year, and the number of heavens in certain Christian theology.
**Adam:** In the second century AD, Gnostic sects personified Abraxus as their God above all gods, or the Great Archon, the original source of all creation.
**Adam:** He has been considered possibly as another form of Mithras from Greek mythology, or a sun god in the Egyptian Pantheon.
**Adam:** In appearance, Abraxus has the head of a rooster or lion, body of a man, and snakes for legs.
**Adam:** Eventually, the Catholic Church would consider Abraxus a pagan god, and therefore branded him a demon.
**Adam:** As mentioned in the film, one of the many theories for where the word Abracadabra comes from is that it may come from Abraxus, but there are a number of other possible etymologies.
**Adam:** For the inspiration of what becomes of Diabo and his cult, we actually have to move to a version of the Christian faith.
**Adam:** In 1993, a religious cult known as the Branch Davidians, led at that point by self-professed second coming of the Messiah David Koresh, became involved in a siege with authorities.
**Adam:** Amid reports of both sexual abuse of minors by Koresh, real name Vernon Howell, and the confirmed stockpiling of firearms by the group, a raid on their compound, the Mount Carmel Center in Waco, Texas, was initiated by the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
**Adam:** But the cult were apparently tipped off and ready to fight back.
**Adam:** In the initial firefight, six members of the cult and four ATF officers were killed.
**Adam:** Unable to enter the building, the ATF were joined by the FBI and Texas State Troopers to lay siege to the building.
**Adam:** The siege lasted for 51 days between February and April, eventually the FBI initiated a tear gas attack to try and force the Branch Davidians out.
**Adam:** At this point, a fire broke out at the compound, the source is still a matter of dispute as to whether this was started by the cult or by the federal forces.
**Adam:** This resulted in the deaths of 76 members of the Branch Davidians, including Koresh.
**Adam:** Interestingly, the SWAT team footage of the Diabo cult in the opening sequence is actually footage of the LAPD storming 1466 East 54th Street on the 17th of May 1974, where six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, kidnappers of Patty Hearst, died having set fire to the building during an armed siege.
**Adam:** One of Diabo's disciples is played by a gentleman called Miles Brown. He's a professional Theramin player, who performed the Theramin music for the film as well.
**Adam:** Digging deeper, I found he's a member of the instrumental bands The Night Terrors and The Narcoleptor, both are great and well worth seeking out. Much synthy horror soundtrack style goodness is to be found there.
**Adam:** Whilst not an overt influence, the opening sequence borrows heavily on the style of another Mondo documentary, The Killing of America, even down to the red, white, and blue lettering and font of the title card.
**Adam:** This documentary, whilst powerful and thought-provoking, must also come with a heavy warning to potential viewers, as it's made up almost entirely of uncut and unedited news footage, which includes graphic imagery of people being injured and killed both in criminal acts and during warfare, as well as unflinching studies of crime scenes and autopsies.
**Adam:** It was originally made by for the Japanese market and was written and co-directed by Leonard Schrader, brother of writer-director Paul Schrader, of Taxi Driver, Cat People, and Mishima fame.
**Adam:** It seeks to trace the origin and epidemic of American violence and is a smart, yet brutal study.
**Adam:** The narration of that brilliantly evocative opening segment is by the one and only Michael Ironside.
**Adam:** A familiar face from Scanners, Total Recall, Turbo Kid, Starship Troopers, Top Gun, Highlander 2: The Quickening, The Machinist, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2, X-Men First Class, McBain, Mindfield, Terminator Salvation, Murder in Space.
**Adam:** As well as on television, SeaQuest DSV, V, Masters of Horror, The Outer Limits, Tales from the Crypt, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and, yes, just the guy that you call when Jack Nicholson is busy.
**Adam:** Finally, Conversations With the Devil is Michelle Remembers.
**Adam:** As the 70s rolled into the 80s and 90s, the renewed interest in the esoteric and occult gave way to an adjacent phenomenon, the Satanic Panic.
**Adam:** This groundless moral crusade was kickstarted mostly by the book Michelle Remembers, published in 1980.
**Adam:** This now thoroughly discredited book was a bestseller.
**Adam:** Co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lauren Pazder and his patient Michelle Smith, this is presented as a factual account of the ritual abuse that Smith suffered at the hands of her own family as part of a Satanic cult.
**Adam:** Using the now debunked practice of recovered memory therapy.
**Adam:** Pazder and Smith did the news and talk show circuit and eventually married, further mudding an already dubious doctor-patient relationship.
**Adam:** Despite the various investigations that would absolutely disprove all of the claims made in the book, beginning almost immediately after its publication, including threats of a lawsuit from the Church of Satan, it still led to a string of similar exposes of satanic cults hitting the shelves.
**Adam:** Laura Gordon, who plays Doctor June Ross Mitchell in the film, may be familiar to horror fans as Ashley from Saw V.
**Adam:** And before we wrap up.
**Adam:** A quick look at the music, the score, which really please someone release.
**Adam:** Is by Rosco James Irwin and Glenn Richards.
**Adam:** Incidentally, the UBC show band seen in the film are, I assume, all real musicians, as they don't actually have any other acting credits on IMDB, but some of them have composer credits on other projects.
**Adam:** Reese Sotiri, who is superb as Gus, along with acting, writing, and performing, is also a musician and in a band called Baby Drivers.
**Adam:** The opening track is 'Forever My Queen' by Pentagram.
**Adam:** This proto-doom metal band, whose only consistent member is singer Bobby Liebling, originally formed in the 1970s, playing and recording demos throughout the decade.
**Adam:** It was only after a series of complete lineup changes that they began releasing records from 1985 onwards.
**Adam:** This song is from an is from unreleased recordings by the 70s version of the band that were eventually formally released on the 2001 compilation First Days Here from Relapse Records.
**Adam:** The music over the end credits, 'Keep It Warm' by Flo and Eddie from their 1976 album Moving Targets.
**Adam:** Flo and Eddie, real names Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, were founding members of The Turtles.
**Adam:** After that band split, they found that they were contractually unable to use their real names for any subsequent musical projects.
**Adam:** So took the names The Fluorescent Leech and Eddie, shortened to Flo and Eddie.
**Adam:** They joined Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, appearing on Chunga's Revenge, 200 Motels, and a number of live recordings.
**Adam:** While The Mothers were on hiatus, they released their first album in 1972 and established themselves as a comedy rock band, going on to release a further four albums.
**Adam:** They also worked as a session vocal group, appearing on records by T-Rex, the classic albums T-Rex, Electric Warrior, and The Slider, also records by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Steely Dan, Blondie, Keith Moon, Bruce Springsteen, The Psychedelic Furs, The Ramones, Duran Duran, and Alice Cooper.
**Adam:** Who they were the opening act for on his Billion Dollar Babies tour, which also featured James Randy.
**Adam:** They were also the house band for the Canadian TV talk show, 90 Minutes Live With Peter Gzowski.
**Adam:** So, what have we learned?
**Adam:** Well, I've learned that you have to turn off a specific setting on Zoom, otherwise it cuts out your Theramin as unwanted noise, and the rest of the team just sees you silently waving your hands around like a dickhead.
**Adam:** My final question on that is, if Zoom is defaulted to cut out unwanted noise, how come I can hear my manager perfectly?
**Adam:** If you enjoyed this episode of 6 Feet Deeper, I've been Adam Thomas for the Welcome to Horror podcast.
**Adam:** If you haven't, I've been Mimsy DuRouth Bartlet for the Crushed Velvet Flojistem podcast.
**Adam:** Thank you and good night.
**Adam:** End transmission, so it is done.

---

## Ep 207 Late Night With The Devil

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-207-late-night-with-the-devil/
Air date: 22 September 2024
Duration: 00:36:47

### Description

We go back in time to remember a Halloween past, and become embroiled in a diabolical ratings war as we watch “Late Night With The Devil”. A film in which we learn that Scoleciphobia and Hypnosis are a very potent mix for light entertainment; that a TV producer can invoke more terror than an actual demon; and that the owls are not what they seem. Drawing from a number of real-life sources for its world-building; along with a pitch perfect recreation of 70s American TV, this film, certainly initially, could easily pass for a real piece of archive television. The writer/director team of brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes have assembled a cast and crew who absolutely bring their fantastic vision to life, with the linchpin being David Dastmalchian’s spot-on performance; his Jack Delroy has both the superficial charm and charisma of his on-screen persona, as well being a very real and genuine flawed human when the cameras are off. This film surely deserves to become a classic, its richness bears repeated viewing, and is already spawning multiple discussions over both its influences, and its own mythology. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** and we're joined this evening by a special return guest yet again, Lady Jennifer is with us.
**Lady Jennifer:** because she also likes this film and wanted to be involved. Can't stop returning, it's all good.
**Chris:** Hello.
**Chris:** I was just going to jump in and say, Adam looks like he's doing something, but we might have to make some adjustments.
**Chris:** Because it looks like he's waving his hand around in the air and it, the thing that he's got is slightly blurred out.
**Chris:** And also I don't think it's transmitting.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No.
**Lady Jennifer:** I think I know what it is.
**Lee:** I can't hear it.
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** But you do, you do look very nice just waving your hand around like that. I think you should do that with the time.
**Adam:** Well, I don't know why, I don't know why you're not picking it up though. There is my theorem.
**Chris:** There, there is an option in Zoom for something like original sound. It might be trying to apply a filter.
**Lady Jennifer:** It thinks it's annoying background noise when it isn't.
**Lee:** Oh, oh, there we go. We got it.
**Lady Jennifer:** Do it again.
**Lee:** No, it's gone again.
**Lady Jennifer:** No.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** It's just like that one note.
**Adam:** fair enough.
**Lady Jennifer:** The spirits are coming through.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** I love spirits.
**Lee:** So there will be spoilers, there will be swearing, unfortunately there won't be theraemin.
**Lee:** but we are here this evening to cover 2023's Late Night With The Devil.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** We haven't done a run down of what the films are about and every time I accidentally listen to one of our episodes, because I never intentionally listen, I always think, we don't do that, so for anyone who hasn't seen the films, they're probably going, I don't, I don't understand.
**Lee:** So just a very quick run down as I would like to start doing this again.
**Lee:** so it's the idea is it's found footage from a television broadcast from 1977 of a late night TV show, Halloween special where they bring on a few spooky themed guests and a possessed girl.
**Lee:** And unsurprisingly.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah, and shit now.
**Adam:** And shit go down.
**Lee:** Yes, exactly.
**Lee:** so Chris, as I believe you're the only one of us who hadn't seen this movie prior to this week.
**Lee:** What did you make of Late Night With The Devil?
**Chris:** I think it was a film that knew what it wanted to do.
**Chris:** It planned it well.
**Chris:** And you weren't shocked at the end, but throughout you were pleasantly you know, taken on a a nice, somewhat mysterious, journey.
**Chris:** Yeah, and you get to the end and you're like, yep, you did that well.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah, that's fair.
**Chris:** all of the characters are great, they all work perfectly.
**Chris:** It's a great blend of entertaining, sometimes funny, and then sometimes sinister, then sometimes very sinister.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think that does encapsulate.
**Lee:** I mean, it's one of the things that particularly stands out for me for this film is just the look and feel of it.
**Lee:** Like it's got that 1970s.
**Chris:** It's great style. Yeah.
**Lee:** Late Night TV show just down to it.
**Chris:** It could absolutely be.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** From then.
**Lady Jennifer:** The way they did the cuts, the adverts and the little snippets of like bits back in again, yeah, it's very clever.
**Adam:** Is that it, it has that same feel as like look around you?
**Lady Jennifer:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yes, just so.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yes.
**Adam:** Perfect.
**Adam:** I mean it's a look around you is a totally different thing, but it's just that sort of absolutely sort of perfect like the, the look, the design, the way it's filmed, the warmth, fuzz of the videotape, you know, just everything is.
**Adam:** It's basically until a certain point, or actually until you go to an advert break and you see the behind the scenes bit, you could probably, you, you could persuade someone it was a bit of archive television.
**Chris:** Yeah, which that was nice.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** You know, you could, you could just put it on and, and, and that would be the point that that spell would be broken, but basically, yeah, you could sort of, certainly the first sort of like five minutes of it, you could just people would just assume that it is for real, just something.
**Adam:** You know, especially over here, because obviously, although we were aware of American talk shows and stuff like that, they would, they weren't sort of imported to us, we had our own ones.
**Adam:** So, it sort of, yeah.
**Chris:** It did it even take a bit of a, like it, it built it up, it, it did play as if it was the the TV show for quite a long time at the start.
**Chris:** So it really did draw you in completely, almost you forget you're watching a horror film.
**Chris:** Which some, some films we've seen have done that.
**Chris:** and then what I really liked was the fact that the first guy who seems like he's going to be the main event isn't exactly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lady Jennifer:** Hey.
**Lee:** Hey, Chris, too.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, his performer and that's the thing, the other thing I love, the performances in this, obviously David Dastmalchian as the as the host was excellent, but yeah, the psychic who comes out at the beginning who is just a slimy, horrible piece of shit, was it was played perfectly and then of course you've got the skeptic who is just obnoxious, the performances just rang so true, it was amazing.
**Chris:** Yes, obnoxious.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's one of those things where I, I watched this, I actually got shout out to former guest Drew, I went to the cinema with Drew and saw this.
**Lady Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** And it was, yeah, just I just afterwards I was just like, fucking fizzing with like, oh, that's like, you know, that he's like James Randi and this one's like, you know, it's.
**Chris:** I mean, I I think I think he was not actually quite like James Randi. I think James Randi was probably.
**Adam:** Worse.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, no I imagine him to be nicer than that.
**Adam:** James Randi, James Randi definitely was would be, was a lot nicer, I would say.
**Adam:** But I tell you I tell you what, because right, this is the bit that's possibly going to blow your minds if you've not looked into the making of this.
**Adam:** this was apart from David Dastmalchian, this is like everyone else in the cast Australian and this was made in Melbourne.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lady Jennifer:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah, didn't know that at all.
**Adam:** No, seriously, like pretty much every, I think pretty much all the other actors are like Australian or Australian based and like there.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, what, you know, just from that point of view it was like, wow, that's just pretty fucking incredible when you said.
**Adam:** Because, because it was because when I was looking at like the cast list, mostly because I was like, right, I want to see everything that this person's done.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and, and, but the majority of them it was sort of stuff that I'd never heard of or they'd been in it much. I, but yeah, they're like sort of, so most of the most of the cast is Australian. it's only David Das Malchen who's the who's the only American actually like with a speaking part basically.
**Adam:** So, yeah, it's sort of just that is incredible to me as well, because it's just so perfectly.
**Lady Jennifer:** I think that works, doesn't it? Because they're not well known actors and again, sometimes I think that works better in this sort of show because you want to believe this is just a TV show.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's got to be and you know, you can't not draw the the the similarities between this and Ghostwatch.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** which obviously a favorite of all of us.
**Adam:** I've seen a lot of people saying it saying that online. I think that and I think that's mostly because a lot of people who are now watching Ghostwatch, it is archive television.
**Adam:** Whereas obviously the essential difference was when Ghostwatch came out, it was, that was the tele that was now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That was the current that looked like current TV, that was why it worked and why it scared shit out of.
**Lady Jennifer:** But you think, but you think now it still.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah, does it still work going back to it and in fact you said you went to see it with Drew, who is slightly younger than us?
**Lady Jennifer:** Like, not that we were really around in the 70s, but you know what I mean, did it still work for him?
**Adam:** Oh, no, it still it still worked for him and I think that's the point is, because I think now it just works it.
**Adam:** But then that also then led me into some weird idea where it was like, well, if I can get hold of a time machine, I could go back and show this and possibly like mentally scar a nation.
**Lady Jennifer:** Wow.
**Lady Jennifer:** And not making money out of it.
**Adam:** Make them believing that this actually happened.
**Adam:** Because I mean, you know, if you were to take it back with modern effects, which I mean, there's a fairly modest, you know, it's only towards the end that it really starts getting you know, any any special effects elements come into it particularly.
**Adam:** but yeah, you could you could just destroy a a fucking nation by just putting that on one night.
**Lady Jennifer:** Any nation, Adam, particularly that you would destroy?
**Adam:** Well, it would it would have to be America, certainly, because I think you just wouldn't translate anywhere else, but yeah.
**Lady Jennifer:** Americans are worse.
**Lee:** yeah, the other thing I I I really liked that I'd forgotten all about, yeah, was like the link to Bohemian Grove.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten all about that element of it, because I'd only seen it the once when it first came out.
**Lee:** And as much as I loved it, because as soon as it came out and me and Adam discussed it and said there's no way we can't do an episode on it.
**Lee:** I purposefully left it alone and didn't come back until this evening.
**Lee:** yeah, so I'd forgotten the whole Bohemian Grove bit and the whole,
**Lee:** Because of course they mention it slightly at the beginning.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Kept my interest and then it comes back in obviously later as a much bigger bigger element.
**Lady Jennifer:** The tree is the hint to that, right? Yes.
**Lady Jennifer:** I thought that was only familiar, but I'm not quite as you know obsessed as you are.
**Adam:** And the, the owl.
**Lady Jennifer:** Maybe being female, you know, because, you know, we wouldn't get invited.
**Lee:** Well.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's true.
**Adam:** Women, women and other guests have to be out before nine.
**Lady Jennifer:** That's it.
**Lady Jennifer:** Men and women.
**Adam:** Just in case you saw Richard Nixon piss up a tree.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It would scar you for life.
**Adam:** Because that, I mean, that was the thing as well is it was just again, that was another one where I was like, oh, there's, there's like Bohemian Grove in there, there's all these sort of elements and it's kind of like, you find all these real things.
**Adam:** And then put them together in a way that actually it's sort of like the history that you want from that exciting movie.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** It's it's like, you know, it's it's basically sort of like it's the stories you want to be true of all these things because they'd be far more exciting and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** Just a load of rich twats going to take drugs and have all G's in the forest where no media are allowed and their wives aren't allowed to go effectively, I think is what it seems to be.
**Adam:** Well, because I went on a bit of a, I went on a bit of a deep dive and bless Claire was sat next to me watching, through the week.
**Adam:** But I went back and I watched, like there's I was watching, there's a a really good James Randi like produced documentary on, on YouTube, which was just it was just an episode of a current affairs show.
**Adam:** But it's him talking about all the people he's exposed and obviously like Yuri Geller and how they set Yuri Geller up on the Johnny Carson show.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And there's clips of that up there and I went back and I watched, the Jon Ronson's Secret Rulers of the World where they where where weirdly enough, he goes to Bohemian Grove with fucking Alex Jones.
**Adam:** You know, freaking frogs are gay.
**Adam:** But this was before, I mean, I mean this is the thing, at one point they go and here he is, he's only 26.
**Adam:** Fuck off.
**Lady Jennifer:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Lady Jennifer:** Old.
**Adam:** 90 red bollocks.
**Adam:** But admittedly, this was the 90s, he probably was about 20 odd, but it's just yeah, he's just permanently got that old angry face.
**Adam:** And but yeah, and and sort of so I was watching that, I watched, because the opening bit, I love the documentary sort of that feel of that opening sequence.
**Adam:** Where it's just that's like every documentary that I've watched very late at night in an altered state.
**Adam:** It's just like, yeah, let's talk about the seventies, there we go, right, Vietnam, there we go, Santa, right, okay, Bundy, right, okay, we're getting all in.
**Adam:** Whereas all these sort of.
**Adam:** And the,
**Adam:** Like, so I watched Killing of America.
**Lee:** I was just about to say it made me feel like watching Killing of America.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, if you notice, the title card is the same like font and lettering as Killing of America, so it's like the red, white and blue when you watch Killing of America, you'll see it come up, it's the basically the same as the title card for this.
**Lady Jennifer:** No.
**Adam:** But yeah, Killing of America is like.
**Adam:** So we watched that, so that was a that was a cheerful, that was cheerful.
**Adam:** but and there's like the a documentary Witchcraft '70, a lot of this stuff's all up on YouTube and it was really sort of, yeah, just wanting to sort of.
**Adam:** And funnily enough, watching because me and Claire watched it previously like when it first came on Shudder.
**Adam:** And at that point, but so when we were watching it back, Claire was like, yeah, I did wonder why we were watching Alex Jones walking around fucking Bohemian Grove.
**Adam:** Because it's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I couldn't because that element because a lot of it's all these elements that are just there, they're little flavors of bits of world building.
**Adam:** That kind of, they're brilliant because you can go down a rabbit hole with them, but they're also brilliant because you don't have to have that knowledge there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lady Jennifer:** To enjoy.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was going to say that to Chris, obviously not knowing Bohemian Grove and that type of stuff.
**Lady Jennifer:** He knows he does.
**Chris:** Doesn't detract.
**Lady Jennifer:** It's in the know. It's in the know.
**Lady Jennifer:** You know, he's been this week, don't you?
**Lee:** He's got an electric car.
**Lady Jennifer:** Exactly, he's in the know.
**Lady Jennifer:** Don't you worry.
**Chris:** The devil is, is after me.
**Lady Jennifer:** Ha ha ha.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Tell him to wait his turn then.
**Lee:** Ha ha ha.
**Lee:** But yeah, I assume that you know, even not being steeped in that kind of I suppose because it's only a small trigger to the film so so even if you don't know that stuff, it it doesn't detract from it, you don't feel like you missed anything or it does now. They told him.
**Adam:** But you get the, but that's the thing you get the gist and then I'll send you my YouTube playlist, Chris, because I've got my.
**Adam:** because that's the thing is like you like Killing of America and Witchcraft '70 are these things called Mondo documentaries, which sort of they're just basically.
**Adam:** I mean, so Witchcraft '70 is basically was like an Italian documentary, which was basically sort of like, how many people can we get to get their tits out in the names of weird ceremonies?
**Adam:** So you've got like Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan in there, which is obviously very much like the Abraxas cult.
**Adam:** And but then you've got the Abraxas cult setting fire to the place, which is very Waco, like the Waco siege and things like that.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, there's just sort of all this stuff in there and but yeah, I don't.
**Chris:** So, so this film's like a good primer to, you know, get into a lot of that.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** It is, it is a fun rabbit hole.
**Lee:** Because although it's 100% real when everyone knows it definitely's not a conspiracy in that, you know, nobody knows it. It definitely really is a thing that exists.
**Lee:** And it's a secret club.
**Chris:** Secret, not not so secret.
**Lee:** But very few people know about.
**Adam:** What.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's, well, it's more the thing that builds up the whole mystique around Bohemian Grove.
**Adam:** So for anyone who's not aware, Bohemian Grove is basically a area in California where it's an exclusive men's club, like the I think they've had four honorary female members and I think like the last one died in like 1928.
**Lady Jennifer:** So.
**Adam:** So, you know, it's been, it's been a, it's been very much closed off.
**Lady Jennifer:** They killed her. Is that what you're saying?
**Adam:** No, no, not not that I would not that I would swear to it, but who knows.
**Adam:** But basically, yeah, so it's this sort of space where and like I say, there's this really good documentary, it was part of a series called Secret Rulers of the World and it's Jon Ronson looking at Bohemian Grove.
**Adam:** And he talks to not just Alex Jones who infiltrate with a camera and sort of takes it, but he speaks to other people and even like oh Harry Shearer from The Simpsons once went just because he knows someone.
**Adam:** Because it's not just politicians, it's also actors and musicians.
**Adam:** And really, it's.
**Chris:** Anyone who wants success, powerful, rich men.
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah.
**Adam:** Well, the amount, I think the weird thing is with it is the amount of, because the thing that brings it up is there's loads of presidents like former and future presidents have been cited there and everything else like that.
**Lady Jennifer:** But they let Trump in, so they have, that totally ruins it all.
**Adam:** Probably, probably.
**Lady Jennifer:** No, no, no.
**Adam:** But the but the weird thing is I also think that says a lot about how if you've not had a class system for a very, very long time, America is a relatively young place, that they don't understand like we have prime ministers who all went to fucking school together.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's much the same thing, it's like, yeah, they're all former presidents there, it's not because there's a massive conspiracy, it's because they're all rich fucks who all hang around together.
**Adam:** And they're probably, you know, they're they're only sort of like three degrees of separation from each other.
**Chris:** Do they all go to the guest list of people who get to be president?
**Chris:** Because anyone, anyone who has great success but didn't go to it, all the people that did go to it might be questioning like, hold on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** What have they got?
**Lee:** I mean, it's one of those there's, so it isn't easy to find out who has and has.
**Lee:** Some people have and have openly said it.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah, their name's on the thing.
**Lee:** But equally, or there have been people who have been there who definitely have been there who have denied it, and the whole thing is shrouded in secrecy.
**Lee:** But the thing that we do know is they have a a big ceremony on like the Saturday night, which culminates in a thing they call the Cremation of Care, which is like a 100 foot high wicker owl that they all wear robes and chant around and set fire to at the end of it.
**Adam:** It's a big owl, it's a no, the Cremation of Care, they burn an effigy, but in front of a big stone owl with speakers in it that can it's a lot of theatrics and a lot of and I'm not denying it, because I do think that yes, it is the place where the fuckers who run the world probably get together and out of the sight of people and make plans that are going to make our lives fucking dreadful.
**Chris:** Of course.
**Lady Jennifer:** Well, they're rich.
**Lady Jennifer:** If there's a lot of rich people, rich people and actors, get them together, what are they going to do, put a show on, surely.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** This this is what it is, this is like this is a these are all the failures who've had to go into other things who are like sort of, you know, well, actually, I really could have been a great director, but I've ended up having to be the head of this bank.
**Lady Jennifer:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** If I'd have been given my opportunity, my Hamlet would have been fucking amazing, so it's just all these but but now he can conscript the Rolling Stones to do the fucking music and get Clint Eastwood to play the ghost.
**Lee:** Do you know what I mean?
**Chris:** Clint Eastwood.
**Adam:** It's like it's all these sort of.
**Lee:** Clint Eastwood has been and openly. Oh, would he? Oh.
**Lee:** yeah, I think he was very negative about it from what I remember.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I loved all that.
**Lee:** Just an aside just because I want to mention it before I forget.
**Lee:** I appreciate that obviously a lot of people have put a lot of money into this and.
**Lady Jennifer:** The film or the.
**Lee:** And want it, the fact that it's a minute and 45 seconds before you get through the fucking idents and the film starts.
**Adam:** You've been looking at my notes.
**Lee:** What?
**Lee:** Oh, it is, so there's a minute and Jennifer missed the time, yeah.
**Lady Jennifer:** I mean you missed the time, yeah.
**Lee:** There's a nearly two minutes of pure ident after and you keep thinking on each one, oh, it's the beginning of the film.
**Lee:** Because everyone is like a huge cinematic epic thing that.
**Adam:** You're doing the you're doing the Family Guy thing.
**Adam:** You're just going.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Right.
**Lee:** It's yeah.
**Adam:** But then, but then this is the problem is that films this is a really, really great film, but it clearly needed so many back, backer and everything else to get it just to get it made.
**Adam:** Whereas, you know, if they'd have gone to Bohemian Grove, they probably could have got three sequels out of it.
**Lady Jennifer:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** But I mean it's great that they managed that and I do appreciate that, I do get it, but yeah, the idents are so long.
**Adam:** I had the time it as well because I just.
**Lady Jennifer:** You know there's a button called fast forward.
**Lady Jennifer:** That's been around for a while.
**Lady Jennifer:** It was on like.
**Adam:** Not in the not in the cinema there isn't.
**Adam:** We were.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah, that's when you open your popcorn, nip out for another wee, get another drink.
**Chris:** Now what I'd like to know is who was the guy, possibly a guy, it might have been a woman, in the skeleton costume?
**Adam:** Oh, no one knows.
**Lady Jennifer:** Oh.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** That's that one knows where you like something's going to happen.
**Lee:** What's that?
**Adam:** He gives a you see that loads of people online are just like, I was just waiting for him to do something, I was waiting during the thing.
**Adam:** And I think actually that's one of the great things about it is it has a nice subversion to it, because like for example, I thought when it got towards the end, I thought, oh, so Carmichael is the devil and the whole setup had been that the guy who's sitting there pooing everything as a skeptic is the devil.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because that there's that sequence where he hypnotizes Gus.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you sort of like, right, that's all gone.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I have to say, I mean, everyone's fucking great in this.
**Adam:** Gus is fucking brilliant, like the the sort of second banana character who's like sort of his announcer and backup guy and warm-up man and everything else like that is just fucking spot on.
**Lady Jennifer:** He's just got all the good jokes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He just plays awkward so so perfectly and believably and getting, you know, deer in the headlights caught in things that he doesn't he didn't expect him to happen.
**Chris:** But then when he has his moment, he takes off.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lady Jennifer:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** But yeah, they're just like I just think everyone's so good in this.
**Chris:** And Lily as well, she was great.
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Adam:** Ingrid Torre.
**Lee:** Torelli, yeah.
**Lady Jennifer:** Australian as well.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Lady Jennifer:** Australian as well or.
**Adam:** Yeah, she's Australian.
**Adam:** And she actually has won, she won awards for playing Matilda in the musical of Matilda.
**Adam:** A few years back like on like like Australian, Broadway, yeah.
**Chris:** Theater, Broadway.
**Adam:** Whatever the Australian broad wide.
**Chris:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** Broadway.
**Adam:** But yeah, and I think,
**Adam:** But yeah, the guy who plays Gus, Reece Auteri, he's only got two credits, but he's like a he's like an improv comedian and actor and like does a lot of stage stuff.
**Adam:** But it's really weird because I got a real Henry Zabrowski vibe from him.
**Lee:** Do you know I I was watching it today and that point when he was pulling all the worms out, I was like, how did Henry not get this, when he's friends with David Dastmalchian, it's amazing that he wasn't called up to do this and he'd have been in there like a shot, wouldn't he?
**Lee:** Let's be honest, he'd be in there.
**Lady Jennifer:** Didn't he go to Australia?
**Adam:** Quite possibly, yes, gone there to run.
**Adam:** That's the thing is it was like sort of just reading that and I was like, oh, he's an improv comedian and it's like, oh, right, okay, so this is this is very much a type, you know.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** we were saying about obviously the budget and the fact that it was funded by lots and lots of smaller studios and production teams.
**Lee:** I I yeah, I loved the effects on this.
**Lee:** I thought it was like that that final effect, right, we're getting into spoiler territory now if we hadn't already.
**Adam:** I think we already have.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We said we were spoiling at the start, if you've made it this far without watching it, you're fucking mental.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** That point where Lily's head splits in half and all the light comes out.
**Lee:** There's just something about the villain of the piece being a a small child with its head splitting in two down the middle, that was horrific.
**Lady Jennifer:** She's not the villain.
**Lee:** The demon in her.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's yeah, it just it's so original and it looked excellent.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I had a weird thought about that though, because when they first contact Mr. Wriggles.
**Adam:** He's very sort of it he seems very he's not aware of where he is and it's kind of like what is going on or whatever like that.
**Lady Jennifer:** He's just pretending, he's lying.
**Adam:** Is this all kicked off because he didn't want to be on telly?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** Because we already know that, you know, he's already sort of whatever's gone on with Jack Delroy and what he sacrificed to get there or whatever like that doesn't necessarily match up between the two things.
**Adam:** And it could just be that the demon's like, right, that is it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, you put me on telly, right, we're right, your your ratings are going up.
**Chris:** It is harder to convince the world you don't exist if you're being filmed on a in front of a huge audience and broadcast to millions, yeah.
**Lady Jennifer:** Hence maybe put it back on Jack Delroy as the you know, perpetrator perhaps at the end.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Actually, I mean that's the thing as well is he is so David Dastmalchian is so it's the right level of sort of charisma, superficial charm, vaguely na sort of present him you see that drop.
**Chris:** Yeah, like it's.
**Chris:** You see that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You see that it's still there, because it's kind of like that's what's made him where he is.
**Adam:** So he's still hey everybody and you know.
**Chris:** He's trained it.
**Chris:** It's not the same.
**Adam:** It's not And especially when he's talking with the producer, who is one of the funniest fucking characters in it.
**Lady Jennifer:** I just love the producer.
**Adam:** Because it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, this person really entertains me on screen, I would never want to be, I would never want to work for them because they're a fucking ass up.
**Adam:** But actually on, you know, just from the outside, this is hilarious, because it's just so just couldn't give a fuck and, you know.
**Adam:** When he's telling Gus to dial up the smile.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And get out there and do your fucking job.
**Lee:** You know.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I mean, I thought the whole the whole setup of this was great, the way as you say, it started off with that kind of setting the time and what was going on.
**Lee:** And then moving into Delroy's history and just, you know, not spending too much time on it.
**Lee:** And and keeping this within the 90 minute runtime is a phenomenal, it's a there's an awful lot goes on in that 90 minutes.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's just such a and it still leaves so many questions.
**Lee:** For me, like the whole obviously they so he made a sacrifice in order to be famous, but we don't know whether he was aware that his wife was going to be that like, was he just told there would be a sacrifice and he didn't realize how deep it was going to go and how bad it was going to be and he didn't realize that this was what he was paying and this was how he would receive.
**Lady Jennifer:** Look at Lee getting his excuses in and ready.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah, I don't think he would have known, I think maybe it would have been just, you know, a really unfortunate thing and you know, he wouldn't have sold his soul then, would he? Or his wife's soul?
**Chris:** Or yeah, or did he not care?
**Adam:** Well, this is this is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, I think one of the key bits for me, because there's a I mean there's there's lovely I mean the stuff that first time we watched the stuff that freak player out the most was just those little did that just happen.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like when where Lily's voice changes very briefly.
**Adam:** You know, and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But like and we've not talked about Laura Golden who plays June the psycholo well parapsychologist.
**Chris:** Because because there's something going on with her and Jack.
**Adam:** But.
**Lady Jennifer:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** But that that look that she is like totally wordless, but that look she gives him where it's like when they're saying about, oh, well, can we get Mr. Wriggles to appear on the show and that look she gives him is proper, please don't do this, please help me, you are in control here and you can change that and just the shitty fucking way when he goes, well, you know, the people have spoken and you're like, oh, you shit bag and it's at that point that I'm like, you probably knew full well what's going to happen to your wife.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's yeah, that's it.
**Adam:** Because because even down to that, they sort of like say, oh, well, the highest rated episode is when she comes on great.
**Adam:** Yeah, for real.
**Adam:** And it's almost like that's the prophecy of like, right, you want your ratings to improve, you need to this is how you do it, but this will improve your ratings.
**Adam:** It's just not, it's the sort of usual sort of trick, Faustian pact where it's like, oh, yeah, we'll get your ratings up, just not in a way that will in any way, shape or form be nice for you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it will happen.
**Adam:** And it's sort of, yeah, there is a real and and again, it's just a lovely film to pick over in that sense.
**Adam:** Not just the influences, but the stuff in there, like I've seen pages online of people just going, but what was going on with the skeleton dude, he was great and stuff like that, you know, it's.
**Lee:** Well, even having watched it before, when I watched it back this evening, yeah, when you see him in the audience while Chris is going to.
**Lee:** And I was like, I don't remember what happens with that, but something must happen.
**Chris:** Something does, yeah.
**Lee:** Apart from the fact he comes and stands with them all at the end in that mock-up of the Grove, there's, there's no, there is no payoff to that bit.
**Lee:** But it does give you the impression, yeah, that those people were involved in the ritual, were there for that reason and they because it was a few of the people in costume from the crowd, get to join him in that later vision, but again, that's only a vision, so it might not be anything at all, it could be anything, which.
**Chris:** Something's there.
**Chris:** It's like there's like there's a good blend of foreshadowing and red herrings that just leave you yeah, guessing and and wondering throughout.
**Adam:** See, I and I've I've seen a lot of people saying about it being like found footage film, which it kind of is, but it utterly breaks that at the end where it's like, no, we are now in Jack's private nightmare.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But then that but then there's a great I think that's great like where Lily's asking is not frightened by the worms coming out of Gus and she's why is Gus being so silly and stuff like that.
**Lady Jennifer:** She's also thinking, why is Gus being so silly?
**Adam:** And it's like, you can either read that of, you know, oh, well, she's possessed and it's all happening and she doesn't care or she cuts she's not been mesmerized.
**Adam:** Like they said there's a few people in the audience who aren't mesmerized who didn't see what we all saw.
**Adam:** And, you know, there's even little touches like that.
**Adam:** That you can sort of read in and sort of.
**Adam:** You know, it's really, yeah, just there's so much in it.
**Lee:** I think that's.
**Lee:** I think as to your point, yeah, that's why it stands up so well to repeated viewings because there's things you pick up on the second time, when you know where it's going, that suddenly have a totally different meaning or, you know, you wouldn't have noticed if you didn't see five minutes into the future.
**Lee:** So it's yeah, it's very cleverly constructed, it's a really, really solid film.
**Lee:** I I was I didn't want my expectations at the beginning to go too high purely because I've been burnt before with stuff like this, where people are trust say it's great and then the public say it's great.
**Lee:** And then I get it and go, yeah, I've I've clearly missed that.
**Lady Jennifer:** They don't trust any of those people or the public.
**Lee:** Well, the fact that you love it and they're here as well.
**Lee:** I mean you're a testament.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah, I just I think I love the whole 70s feel of it as well.
**Lady Jennifer:** But I think, yeah, it's got all those different elements that together like when it starts getting a bit ridiculous like earlier.
**Lady Jennifer:** I was like, oh, yeah, I forgot how ridiculous it gets.
**Lady Jennifer:** But somehow that almost doesn't matter, like five minutes later, it pulls it back in again and it gets dark again and you yeah, somehow it just all works.
**Lee:** Well, again, as you say, it does get ridiculous.
**Lee:** But then it turns out that actually half of what you saw didn't really happen and was all his vision, so it doesn't seem ridiculous if it's just the vision that he's had.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yes, exactly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lady Jennifer:** Yeah, I'm very clever.
**Lee:** I thought it's so good.
**Lady Jennifer:** Are we still Whitely Bree Bree, Whitely?
**Lee:** No.
**Lady Jennifer:** We're not getting.
**Lee:** No.
**Lady Jennifer:** We should, we should bring her back.
**Adam:** I'm going to put I'm going to put five five giant face worms up Whitney Street.
**Lady Jennifer:** Ha ha.
**Lady Jennifer:** Nice, Adam.
**Lee:** Yeah, I second that.
**Lady Jennifer:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, I I just think they they just did they did it all right.
**Chris:** You know, it's it's it did exactly what it set out to do.
**Adam:** Well, the the directors of it, two brothers, Cameron and Colin Kane and I'm going to have to check out their other stuff.
**Adam:** Because this was so fucking good.
**Lady Jennifer:** Have they done other horror or just other stuff?
**Adam:** I think they've they've done two films, one's called 100 Bloody Acres and another is called Scare Campaign.
**Lady Jennifer:** Oh, horror then, yeah.
**Adam:** I I think they're both certainly horror or horror adjacent, but I yeah, I sort of read the synopsis, they both look like interesting films, so yeah, I'll have to check them out.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, so, thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** for definite, yeah, go and watch this if you haven't.
**Lady Jennifer:** Well, it's actually Halloween is coming up soon.
**Lady Jennifer:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly, it's going to be a Halloween film for me now, I think.
**Lee:** Oh, I think this is going to be a yearly Halloween for me after last year, 100%.
**Lee:** so.
**Lee:** Go and check this out, we will be back in a fortnight's time, we will be covering, this is the first of our behind the scenes.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Behind the scenes.
**Lady Jennifer:** Oh.
**Lee:** so.
**Lady Jennifer:** What's that mean?
**Lee:** You tell me Lee, what does that mean, we covered this film, which is obviously behind the scenes.
**Lee:** And our next movie in a fortnight's time, we will be back for the much mentioned Shadow of the Vampire.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Which is again, about making a film.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lady Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, so thanks ever so much for listening, go and watch Late Night with the Devil if you haven't already.
**Lee:** And we will see you in a fortnight, thanks very much for listening, good night.
**Lady Jennifer:** Whoa.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Lady Jennifer:** Bye then.
**Lady Jennifer:** Serious goodbyes.

---

## Ep 206 Guys at parties like it

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-206-guys-at-parties-like-it/
Air date: 8 September 2024
Duration: 00:35:24

### Description

It’s a bit of a different ep this week as Chris and Adam discuss (in a hopefully mostly spoiler-free way) the brand new film from Mattioli Productions; “Guys At Parties Like It”, streaming now on Tubi and Apple TV. “Guys At Parties Like It” focuses on a College Fraternity Party; where the men collectively revel in a crucible of pathetic hazing rituals and toxic masculinity, which results in one targeted woman literally fighting for her life. Events spiral out of control for everyone, with characters revealing either hidden reserves of fortitude or the basest of vile instincts. This is a sometimes uncomfortable watch in terms of subject matter, with some realistically unpleasant characters who having you hotly anticipating their comeuppance. Despite some story beats that may trip close to cliche, this independent feature is shot with a real cinematic polish and flair that belies its small budget, with some incredible gore effects that really add to the horror. This film from directing team Colton David and Micah Coate, described as “a #metoo inspired horror” feels like a response or antidote to those 80s frat comedies that really don’t play in the modern climate. A massive thank you to AJ Mattioli, owner of Mattioli Productions, for reaching out and giving us the chance to view this; check out their website www.mattioliproductions.com for more films and news.

### Transcript

**Adam:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Adam.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And tonight we will be looking at the brand new film Guys at Parties like it from directors Colton David Coat and Mika Coat.
**Adam:** There's no leave this evening, he is otherwise engaged. I'm not going to imply that he is hanging around the bins at Tesco's waiting for cheap dinners, but you know, if if you want to picture him that way you can do.
**Adam:** But no, unfortunately, as mentioned on our last episode, Lee Lee's otherwise engaged, so it's just going to be myself and Mr. Christopher.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** yeah, so we're going to as I say we'll be looking at guys at parties like it. It is a as I say, very new film.
**Adam:** So what we'll be doing is we will talk about the film in more general terms and then we will give you an indication when there is going to be spoilers coming up or if we decide to move into more spoiler territory as we're discussing it.
**Adam:** so
**Chris:** Let's let's try not to forget that.
**Adam:** Yeah, Oh, yeah, no, that's oh, yeah, and the other one is so there will be spoilers, but we will tell you and there will be swear, well there probably will be swearing, but Lee's not here so again, there might not be swearing.
**Adam:** We hope not to disappoint in fact, bugger. There we go, so swearing is involved.
**Chris:** Let's covered.
**Adam:** Yeah, we're we're covered.
**Adam:** Shit.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Adam:** He's done it.
**Adam:** So there is swearing and there may be more swearing, if that's what you tuned in for.
**Adam:** That may be all you're getting, but who knows?
**Adam:** So stick to the end, see what happens.
**Adam:** There could be a final sod, who knows.
**Adam:** But there we go.
**Adam:** So
**Adam:** yes, so, guys at parties like it,
**Chris:** So can we can we can we just start with the title?
**Chris:** Because when I first read the title, it it hinted at something, I don't know if it's my inability to to like somehow the grammar confused me.
**Chris:** And I was like, well, I kind of think I have an idea what it might be about.
**Chris:** There's probably part is, there's probably guys and they could be things that some guys like to do at some parties.
**Chris:** But yeah, aside from that, it didn't give away a whole lot.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** I mean, I, I mean, I along with along with when I saw the trailer, it became clear that it was guy the guys who who are at these parties who like this thing aren't very nice guys.
**Chris:** Not really, no.
**Adam:** That became that became sort of pretty clear to to begin with.
**Chris:** Especially some of them and ultimately pretty much all of them.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Even if it can be shown, you know, sometimes it can appear like there may be wiggle room, but no, they're definitely all bad.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I think it's I think it's degrees of it's degrees of awfulness, but it's all awfulness.
**Chris:** Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not as obvious, but it's still there.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think I think interestingly enough, I think this is something that I mean, I mean to give so to give people an idea.
**Adam:** So the plot is that basically there is a fraternity party.
**Adam:** At a college and it becomes clear that there are pledges.
**Adam:** Who are coming into the fraternity and they have been given a time limit to lose their virginity.
**Adam:** Otherwise, and it's implied that they will lose it in a in a different way than they might want to lose their virginity.
**Adam:** And basically one one guy who's there targets a particular woman, well a particular particular woman who's there.
**Adam:** Who has mostly mostly on sort of hearsay that she may be.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, for want of a better expression that she may be easy.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** not not terminology I would want to use myself, but I'm assuming the terminology that the people involved would be using.
**Adam:** Like the characters certainly.
**Chris:** Certainly, yeah, if if not something even even worse than that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's one of those, I think that's, I mean that was one of the things that I found with the film is that the the I mean utterly sort of I mean basically, yeah, all the antagonists of the film, which is essentially the fraternity, the the the group the group of men who are running this, including the pledges who are by by any means necessary apparently, they have to lose their virginity.
**Adam:** And you know, whether whether the woman is conscious, willing or whatever, you know, is is irrespective.
**Chris:** Secondary certainly to that.
**Adam:** And I think that and I mean, unfortunately, I think it is something that is a pretty, you know, it's a pretty obvious real world problem.
**Adam:** You know, I think that the amount that you've seen in the news, particularly this sort of this level of sort of.
**Adam:** I mean, for want of a better expression, privileged certainly mainly white entitled men or boys in this in the college.
**Adam:** But you do see a lot of horror stories.
**Adam:** You know, real life horror stories about this sort of thing and particularly the one thing that always happens with those stories is that they never seem to actually pay any.
**Adam:** There're never appears to be any justice or any consequence for them.
**Adam:** I mean, there was the really horrible I can't I can't even remember the guy's name, but there was a particular example of a guy who had raped a woman whilst she was unconscious.
**Adam:** And basically he was he got it it went to court but basically he got away with it on the basis that it might ruin his future.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** To which the only natural and decent response is fuck him and fuck his future.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** because he's obviously a fucking hideous creature.
**Adam:** and unfortunately, far far more often this seems to be a thing where, you know, it's got away with, boys will be boys, oh, you've got to expect, you know, when people are regarding sexual assault as high jinks, you know.
**Adam:** Because I mean, that's one of the things that came across in it is that there was that there's a line in it where they say, oh, it's not Porky's.
**Chris:** Yes, yeah.
**Adam:** Like basically there's the cuz there is cuz there's the guy.
**Chris:** Wasn't that was that that was the the girl speaking to this guy, the the leader.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz cuz there's Brad, who is the pledge, who is trying to lose his virginity by any means necessary, who is trying to
**Adam:** well, who is trying to rape Mary, basically.
**Adam:** Or
**Chris:** Well, yeah, or you know, we tricking not to get into too many spoilers.
**Chris:** If we discuss the details of of Brad and his character and his evolution, cuz it's it's
**Chris:** there's a sense early on that there's something a bit you you could say wrong with him.
**Chris:** But he doesn't seem like the worst at this point.
**Chris:** Whereas his brother, or or his the guy who essentially adopted him as a brother.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Who who is the who's the head of the fraternity.
**Chris:** Becomes clear just how twisted and you know, psychopathic, particularly towards all of the women.
**Chris:** Possibly even towards most of the men he is.
**Chris:** So that yes, that was Tony.
**Chris:** So Tony and Brad essentially the main characters.
**Adam:** They yes, and I but when yeah, when the line.
**Adam:** Cuz it's oh when when they say to like when when they say to him, oh it's it's not Porky's.
**Adam:** I did kind of think.
**Adam:** Oh, that's he was Trixie.
**Chris:** That was Trixie, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** says to says to Tony, oh it's not, you know, it's not, it's not Porky's.
**Adam:** And I think that that was kind of like the thing of, you know, it's now got to be recognized that things that you used to be considered.
**Adam:** Like, oh, it's a it's a
**Chris:** It's just kind of fun.
**Adam:** And and no, it's, you know, it's basically isn't drinking and sexual assault fun.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you know, hope I mean, I would you think would hopefully move past certainly in terms of you know,
**Chris:** Is that is that actually a thing?
**Chris:** So I never saw Porky's or anything like it.
**Chris:** But is that essentially, I mean, I got the impression that it's a comedy.
**Chris:** It's not a horror, though.
**Adam:** Oh no, no, it's just it's just a straight.
**Adam:** It's just a straight ahead comedy, but I think that but again, it's that sort of thing where.
**Adam:** Even when we've gone back and watched, you know, you go back and watch stuff and there is a really fucked attitude.
**Chris:** It's clearly from, yeah.
**Adam:** What what is appropriate for what is appropriate and what is considered, you know.
**Adam:** Appropriate for entertainment, but also just appropriate in terms of behavior.
**Adam:** It's like when you go back and like any, pretty much any 80s movie which involves a guy trying to get a girl really fucking comes off stalkerish or weird or creepy today.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I mean, it seems amazing, doesn't it when you see them now and you think how how did that ever seem like the right way to be.
**Adam:** But the trouble is it's it clearly still is or it clearly still is with with some people.
**Chris:** So I mean, they chose, you know, a frat and pledges and and but so, you know, I've known of sort of frat culture for, you know, forever.
**Chris:** But, I'd never knew how closely the way films depicted it, like how realistic is that.
**Chris:** And and of course, this this film is not exactly realistic in in superficially.
**Chris:** I don't suppose anything like this has ever actually happened on these parties.
**Chris:** But but then the serious elements of it clearly are, so it's Yeah.
**Adam:** And I I think I think that's the thing is there's there's sort of points of it that are escudative.
**Adam:** But I can see a lot of I can see a lot of reality in it.
**Adam:** And it's really it's sort of the it's more the the fact that it's, you know, what these
**Adam:** I'm going to call them arseholes, what these arseholes have planned.
**Adam:** Starts getting more and more out of hand, it's not going the way they think it's going to go.
**Adam:** And, you know,
**Chris:** They're they're willing to
**Adam:** They are being questioned or they are being fought against or they are being.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Chris:** And they don't like that power being taken from them.
**Adam:** Yeah, that actually seems to be that that is what brings out the real the real nastiness of them.
**Adam:** And I think it's I mean there's there's a point where again, they managed to call a the police are called.
**Adam:** But the policeman turns up and it's very much, oh, I used to go to this frat and boys will be boys.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, all lads together and it's like nothing, you know, no consequence comes of that.
**Adam:** And it's and it is to be to be honest, it's it's a film that.
**Adam:** Because I mean, that's the thing is I think American, we we don't have in England, we don't have fraternities and sororities.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** College or university or anything like that, so it's very much an American cultural thing.
**Adam:** And I know that sort of like the I suppose the closest.
**Chris:** The closest to things like that would be like the Bullingdon club that I've heard of.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** So I think in some, some you might get it, but yeah, definitely not as a culture throughout all universities.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's not a thing where we have houses and sort of, you know, there's and it does and it's also a thing that there's a weird sort of.
**Adam:** Like you say, there's like a weird history with it where, you know, these fraternities go on for years.
**Adam:** And then it's like, oh, you're an old Delta house or you're an old whatever, you know.
**Adam:** And it's sort of again, it becomes a bit like that sort of it's like any form of club or secretive organization.
**Adam:** Where it's like everyone ends up, you know, it becomes an easy path through life.
**Adam:** If you get
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, if if you can sort of wangle that you're sort of like, oh, you know, that's
**Adam:** It'll get you ahead in business, it's like, oh, you yeah, I went to that I went I was part of that or I was part of that fraternity or whatever like that.
**Chris:** Suddenly you're trusted, no matter what and yeah.
**Adam:** I mean like you say, over here it's much more it's much more just sort of like, did you go to what what we call public school, which America could call private school.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah.
**Adam:** But I mean, so essentially it's but I know that sort of sort of reading about it, they were saying that this sort of like parts of this came from like the director's own experience of being at college and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And you and at that point you're just like, you poor bastard.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, because.
**Adam:** You know, I cannot I cannot reiterate over the sort of course of seeing sort of college life in most circumstances.
**Adam:** And not even sort of stuff as extreme as this, but it does seem extremely just an oppressive thing to be in the center of.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** And I I think actually one of the things is is that is that I think there's a distance.
**Adam:** I mean, you know, we're both.
**Adam:** We both old.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So you in a in a weird way, looking back at that thing when you're sort of like in your teenage years where it's like these things are the most important thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like I've got to get in this club, I've got to lose my virginity or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** Yeah, so it's so hard to think back.
**Adam:** Really to what.
**Adam:** It's hard to put back into that thing where it's like, I almost feel that in a way that sort of made it slightly less successful to begin with.
**Adam:** Because watching a sort of youth-based film now, you do you are sort of like, yeah, I am detached from that.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I think that's the thing is it's just I mean there was a because that's the thing is I think it's a film that has some.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, basically you're not given anyone in particular to like.
**Chris:** No, yeah, Yeah.
**Chris:** They all they all do seem somewhat flawed and again, I kind of thought to myself, that is probably me being older.
**Chris:** And looking at youths and thinking, yeah, you you're lacking some amount of experience here.
**Chris:** No matter who you are, it's all a bit chaotic and a bit like a little bit aggro with each other.
**Chris:** They're all, you know,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and that's not to say I mean, you you I mean, obviously, you you side with Mary.
**Adam:** Because of Yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Adam:** And and again, it's definitely not a, you know, there's there's no sort of there's no sort of there's no sort of victimhood in it.
**Adam:** That should be, do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** There's it's not you know, that no no one does anything.
**Adam:** Apart from the guys there who are actively doing bad things, no one does anything to.
**Adam:** It's not that sort of like you get with slasher films where it's like, oh, someone has sex and they're dead or whatever like that.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** it's it's very much you'd, you know, no, Mary goes to a party, has a drink, has a good time.
**Adam:** Why, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that she's now a target for.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, what what happens.
**Chris:** What happens.
**Chris:** I suppose in that sense like it felt in that regard it felt realistic.
**Chris:** And I thought the dialogue throughout and the acting also seemed like very plausible, you know.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean that's that that's the thing, is I think that and again, I don't know whether it's I don't know whether again it might be my age.
**Adam:** But there was sort of lines of dialogue where I'm like, maybe this is how people talk.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't know, you know, if it was if it was sort of plausible or not, but it's sort of but basically, yes.
**Adam:** I think that there was, you know, there were a lot of I mean, I found one thing I found really interesting.
**Adam:** Is I found, I found the character of Trixie really interesting because she basically doesn't like Mary.
**Adam:** Gives her a load of shit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But is also on her side.
**Chris:** I know.
**Adam:** But almost almost like, I want to be on her side, but not to her face.
**Adam:** I'm going to be a shit to her to her face.
**Chris:** But to everyone else, I will clearly, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which again felt very that felt very like sort of being young and being at you know.
**Adam:** You know, it's that sort of natural level of like back biting and sort of people just sort of.
**Adam:** Like having a pop at each other, but it's sort of.
**Adam:** On a fundamental level, no, actually you you, you know, there's.
**Adam:** I don't like her, but that's not that doesn't mean that this is open season for bad things to happen to her or whatever like that.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** So
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I mean, I think more more than anything.
**Adam:** I mean, that was the thing is I don't know, I don't know if I would watch it again because I think that there is it's it's the horrible thing of spending time with some horrible people.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** And as, I mean, we won't go too deeply into it before we set off any spoiler alarms or anything else like that.
**Adam:** But basically the tables do turn.
**Adam:** But almost to my reckoning, it was like the tables haven't turned soon enough.
**Chris:** No, you don't.
**Adam:** You know,
**Chris:** It's it's not entirely obvious.
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** Exactly how it's going to unfold.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which which I mean again, I think is probably more naturalistic for something that essentially you watch it play out.
**Adam:** Almost in real time, it's basically the the length of the of the party.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, it is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not.
**Adam:** Yeah, it is.
**Adam:** Could be, yeah.
**Adam:** It's not, you know, you, you know, there's a lot of for want of a better description.
**Adam:** There's a lot of rape revenge movies, particularly from the seventies and stuff like that, but they're usually sort of like someone someone is assaulted.
**Chris:** Yeah, so and then.
**Adam:** And then it over a period of weeks they track down people and take their revenge or they.
**Adam:** Whereas this is much more this occurs in an evening.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's interesting.
**Chris:** I didn't thought of that.
**Chris:** I mean, it's it's really clear, yeah, once you say it.
**Chris:** It's yeah, it's kind of an interesting choice.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that's the.
**Adam:** And there's yeah, it's it's sort of like.
**Adam:** You know, there was there is an element of, oh, just hanging around with awful people, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** As as but and, you know, maybe a bit of a spoiler, the ending is satisfying.
**Adam:** Oh, I think that's.
**Adam:** Well, not only that, but also I think that's I mean, we like I say, we're we'll.
**Adam:** I was just going to.
**Chris:** I was I was just.
**Adam:** I was just going to carry out aside from some of the innocent people.
**Adam:** Throughout, who it's, you know, it's a bit upsetting that they don't make it.
**Adam:** There is that there's the thing there's a lot of oddly, there's a lot of collateral damage that sort of is what makes it bigger.
**Chris:** You do need that.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** Makes it sort of like it's it beyond the plausible, not not for it's implausible, but you know what I mean.
**Adam:** It sort of it's at that point that things actually start getting.
**Adam:** And the I mean, the one thing I have to say is it looks brilliant.
**Chris:** Right, so yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** I there's I there's bits where there's people under the influence of drugs, whether they wanted to be or not.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And those scenes are shot exceptionally well, I think they that really gives that sort of hallucinatory.
**Chris:** Sort of surreal sort of.
**Adam:** Sort of, you know, head buzzy.
**Chris:** Lost.
**Adam:** Confused head state and one bit I really liked is there's a bit where they have.
**Adam:** Essentially, it's like someone having a flashback, but rather than having flashbacks, you see phone footage of things that have been mentioned in the film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or sort of people talking about, oh, well, that happened when you did that or whatever like that.
**Chris:** That did work well because of the style difference it did make it even more kind of raw and like, yeah.
**Adam:** And I think also, I think that that is something that is more that is so thoroughly modern.
**Adam:** Because it's like, no, there's you nowadays, I presume people aren't relying on their memories.
**Adam:** They are relying on.
**Chris:** They actually have recorded, yeah.
**Adam:** They have footage, you know, everyone's got essentially everyone's got.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I think that that was a really effective way of doing it.
**Adam:** Because you had sort of like these mentions of it and those are and they are shot as.
**Adam:** People shoot in real life on a video, they're not, they don't they're not sort of, you know, the rest of it is cinematic, it has, you know, it has a look and a style and everything.
**Adam:** Whereas those were just literally handheld phone at a party or some an event or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And I thought that was a real that really I just thought that was a really smart.
**Chris:** I think it yeah, it worked so well.
**Adam:** Way of doing it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and and highlighted just how great the cinematography was for the rest of the film.
**Adam:** Yes, yes, yeah.
**Adam:** It's sort of like yeah.
**Adam:** Because because believe me, I have seen plenty of films literally filmed on an iPhone.
**Adam:** And you know.
**Adam:** And they do somewhat lack a certain level of a certain level of production.
**Chris:** And polish, yeah.
**Adam:** Should we say?
**Adam:** So, I mean, certainly from that point of view, you know.
**Adam:** As as a production, I think that, you know, this is sort of like completely.
**Adam:** and part of that.
**Chris:** The pacing, the pacing was very good.
**Chris:** You know, the action scenes mixed with the dialogue, it seemed to work very well for me.
**Chris:** It didn't it didn't feel too long either.
**Chris:** Like it didn't feel like there was a lot of filler in there.
**Chris:** It it flowed well, I thought.
**Adam:** I think so well, I think there's also
**Adam:** I think that it I think it has because the weird thing was.
**Adam:** Is I think there were certain towards the end certain bits didn't seem to sort of.
**Adam:** Well, they they were paid off, but they were paid off almost as an afterthought.
**Adam:** And I kind of get it because you know what the main thrust of the story is and the main sort of where it's going.
**Adam:** But there were a few sort of like characters who you had seen who had a certain level of importance within the story, who were then essentially on.
**Adam:** What happened to them was like on CCTV in the background rather than, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, I think it was so maybe that maybe that was.
**Adam:** But again, probably like you say.
**Adam:** It would have affected the pacing if you'd have gone back, especially at that point.
**Chris:** There was quite a lot of characters to to cover.
**Chris:** So yeah.
**Chris:** It probably did make sense.
**Adam:** But also like you say at that point you are the the thing is the thing is getting to the point that you really want to be at, you know.
**Adam:** and certainly from an effects point of view.
**Adam:** I believe it's
**Adam:** I believe it was Daniel Adams like effects like doing the sort of makeup effects and everything else like that.
**Adam:** The the sort of the gore and the you know, any any thing any sort of like injuries and so on and so forth were.
**Adam:** I mean, really good, but also to to the point of you know, where you're like.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It genuinely will make you wince.
**Chris:** Which I mean, it doesn't look.
**Chris:** I mean, I don't know what the budget is.
**Chris:** But it didn't look budget, it did look, you know, yeah, very good.
**Adam:** Oh, no, absolutely, I think this is sort of, you know, it's not it's again, I think, you know, I think that they're working on what is a relatively small budget.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's all on the screen.
**Adam:** You know, it looks.
**Adam:** It looks and.
**Adam:** I mean, the the music as well.
**Adam:** I really enjoyed.
**Adam:** I thought that that there was some
**Adam:** Like great actually like atmospheric stuff as well as stuff at the party, you know.
**Chris:** It did look yeah, it really worked.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It did really fit.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely, you know, it looks like thought has gone into this to make it.
**Chris:** It like what it's meant to be, it seems to do excellently.
**Chris:** I could see, you know.
**Chris:** I'd be tempted to watch it again, I could almost see it as a decent film to show my kids when they're older as a a different take on some of this stuff.
**Chris:** Once they start to need to learn about this.
**Chris:** It's not a bad sort of additional viewpoint on, you know.
**Chris:** Certainly, it's like it's dark enough, but it is also somewhat entertaining enough.
**Adam:** Well, I think I think it's that thing.
**Chris:** Even if I'm not that keen on the actual.
**Adam:** You know, the people.
**Adam:** Themselves.
**Adam:** Well, I think it's that thing where it's.
**Adam:** You kind of, it's a bit like they used to say, it's like they said about with, train spotting.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Adam:** Where it's like, you know, you can't you had to kind of show there's an up element to the lifestyle.
**Adam:** Because if it was just the grimness of being a heroin addict.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And similarly, you know, there's got to be something other to this, but I do think it's not just a documentary, it's got to be like, yeah, there's got to be sort of bits and pieces that sort of work in that sense.
**Adam:** Now,
**Adam:** so as I say, this was very kindly AJ AJ Mattioli sent us the link to watch this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Thanks, AJ.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Really appreciate that.
**Adam:** AJ.
**Adam:** Now, AJ actually worked on Blood Knight.
**Adam:** The legend of Mary Hatchet.
**Adam:** Which we did.
**Chris:** yes.
**Adam:** back in 20.
**Adam:** 22.
**Adam:** And so that's when AJ originally reached out to us and said, oh, I I worked on that as like, I I think it's like part of the production, like production designer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah, and has gone on to now form,
**Adam:** Mattioli Productions, which is what this is this is from.
**Adam:** And, just from from AJ's website, so we are a transowned and queer operated film production distribution company. We serve the LGBTQIA plus community by sharing our stories through groundbreaking globally distributed content, representation matters.
**Adam:** And also queer liberation, not rainbow capitalism, so yeah.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** Fucking fantastic.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** But yeah, so AJ has.
**Adam:** AJ's also directed, and I would be interested to see because,
**Adam:** I believe AJ's done a film called,
**Adam:** Killer Unicorn.
**Adam:** And, it's basically,
**Adam:** It's a slasher movie, but it's someone in a unicorn mask who's bumping off drag queens.
**Adam:** Okay, which is definitely.
**Adam:** Which I think is definitely much more on the comedic level than say this is.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** This has a level of extremity, you know.
**Adam:** And I I think that's the thing is.
**Adam:** Is at the end of the day, it's not subject matter that I'm as entertainment.
**Adam:** I don't know that I would go back and.
**Adam:** Watch it from that point of view.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But like you say, if you were going to use it, certainly if you're going to use it as a warning.
**Chris:** Yeah, so I I see it's a very valuable.
**Chris:** I I do like, you know, I I know not everyone is, but I'm quite a fan of using horror with social commentary for me.
**Chris:** It does really work well.
**Chris:** yeah, especially when it's done.
**Chris:** You know, there's different ways of doing it, but yeah, for me, I do like that payoff.
**Chris:** And it does seem to work.
**Adam:** Well, I think that, I mean, I think we've managed to skirt around without spoiler it.
**Adam:** Spoiler anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Too much.
**Adam:** So it's available on to be.
**Adam:** Is it tubi or tubi?
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** I'm I've only ever seen it written down.
**Adam:** So I'm going to say tubi.
**Chris:** Tubi.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, it's funny saying tubi sounds a bit funny, but
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I don't know that is that that is how I think of it.
**Chris:** In my head when I see it, so.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's available there I believe it's also streaming in certain other places as well.
**Adam:** But it is free to see on Tubi, so, you know, that's that's where you can check it out.
**Adam:** but I I mean, I think that as I say, I mean, I think that there is I mean, hopefully by the time if you were to be showing this to the kids.
**Adam:** Hopefully it'll be as a historical document of this is what this is what.
**Adam:** This is how.
**Adam:** We had this is what we had to get rid of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is these are attitudes and frankly people and mood and sort of, you know.
**Chris:** And thanks to films like this.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Yeah, this had to be.
**Adam:** This had to say, you know, this had to be part of no, we're stopping this is stopping.
**Adam:** And, you know, everyone has their part to play in that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And yeah, like I mean, certainly this this has made me.
**Adam:** I think you're going to test you're going to test every time and I'm going to get it wrong every time.
**Adam:** And that's.
**Adam:** how it's going to be.
**Chris:** I know.
**Adam:** I'm just.
**Adam:** To be honest, I was just.
**Adam:** I was just to be honest, I was just working up to you just saying goodbye and then I was like, I've just bottled him in a weird corner here of like introducing him saying goodbye, which is just mental.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** more professional.
**Adam:** He knows that.
**Chris:** Yeah, he he's good at that sort of stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** Thanks, everyone.
**Chris:** Take care.
**Adam:** All right.

---

## Ep 205 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-205-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 25 August 2024
Duration: 01:10:09

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Memoirs of We Have Been Watching”. It’s been a little while - but here’s one of our regular instalments of “We Have Been Watching”, in which we discuss all our extracurricular viewing. This ep covers “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire”; Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin”; Gareth Tunley’s “The Ghoul” (2016); a “Nightmare on Elm Street” double bill of Part 2 “Freddy’s Revenge” and Part 3 “Dream Warriors”; an Alfred Hitchcock triple bill of “Rope”; “The Birds” and “Rear Window”; “Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose”; The TV series of “Interview with the Vampire”; 2011 French horror “Livid” (aka “Livide”); and Tigon classic “The Sorcerers”. No need to prep for this ep, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here again for a general roundup of the shit that we've been watching since, well, it's been months since we've done one of these, I think, so,
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** I have not written half of it down, but let's see how we get on anyway. there will be spoilers, there has been swearing, and there will be more.
**Chris:** It's bad that we've got to that stage.
**Lee:** I know. I know. I can't even get through the welcome sentence without swearing, but never mind, it's, yeah.
**Adam:** Welcome to fucking horror.
**Lee:** Yes. So, thank you Adam for, I'd like to just say a thank you from Welcome to Horror to Welcome to Horror. to Adam for doing the Six Feet Deeper episodes, which everyone seems to be enjoying, and I, I really like because I'm not on 'em, so I get to sit back and listen, which is always nice.
**Adam:** Oh, thank you sir. Thanks, thank you folks.
**Adam:** I do, I do like doing 'em in my little vault down the bottom of the bottom of Welcome to Horror Towers.
**Adam:** That's Welcome to fucking Horror Towers.
**Lee:** yes. So, we are gonna be rounding up as we say, things we've been watching. So,
**Lee:** Chris, I know you've been very busy, but have you managed to squeeze any additional horror in over the last couple of months?
**Chris:** I have. Hopefully I've got some here that you might find interesting.
**Chris:** But I'll start with the failure. So I, I decided to watch Chappie because I've heard a few people say it's worth a watch. And in my head, I was thinking, yeah, it sounds like sort of could be horror.
**Chris:** Turns out it's not really. I was, I was sort of thinking AI gone wrong, there's gonna be some dark bits in it.
**Chris:** And there is, and in a way it was possibly in its elements where it could, could have been because of how young the robot is portrayed to be and the situations he's put in are pretty awful. If that was actually a child we were watching, it would have felt far worse.
**Chris:** And so the, the concept is fascinating. Like and and, you know, it's still very relevant. I know it's 2015.
**Chris:** But anyway, so I was gonna say that was actually my failure, I wasn't gonna cover that.
**Chris:** It was, it was still, it was still a good film.
**Adam:** It's a good film. He's probably, I would agree with you, it's probably not horror. The best way I would always describe that film is, 2000 AD did Short Circuit.
**Lee:** Yes, that is a hundred. I was about to say it's Short Circuit with bad language.
**Adam:** Yeah, and and Dark Cyberpunks.
**Lee:** And De Antwoord.
**Chris:** Yes, yeah, yeah, that was good to hear them again.
**Adam:** Oh, and Hugh Jackman as well. He's Hugh Jackman in that, wasn't he? Yeah.
**Chris:** And Sigourney Weaver.
**Adam:** Sigourney Weaver as well, surprised at both of those, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Chris:** Not their biggest parts ever, but, you know.
**Adam:** And and and yet De Antwoord had quite the role.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Regardless of their, regardless of their acting. So,
**Lee:** I need to go back and re-watch that because I do like De Antwoord, it's as much a reason to go back and watch that as any other reason to watch the film.
**Adam:** It is, yeah, and it's and it's Neill Blomkamp who did, Oh.
**Chris:** Right, so I, I thought I'd recognize his is.
**Chris:** Right, okay, okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, District 9 and that really good set of short films, again, one with Sigourney Weaver in it, that they the Oats Studios.
**Chris:** Oh, right, was that him? Was okay, yeah.
**Adam:** That's him as well.
**Chris:** should've looked that up really.
**Chris:** But anyway, so I wasn't gonna cover that. What I was gonna cover instead was Under the Skin, which is 2013.
**Chris:** film directed by Jonathan Glazer, based on a 2000 novel with the same name by Michael Faber, starring.
**Chris:** Scarlett Johansson, mostly as pretty much the only actor in it, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah. Pretty much everyone else seems to be just real people.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That was a fucking weird movie.
**Lee:** I, I really enjoyed it, and I loved the fact that she made it.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Because it was such a weird indie movie that she just, yeah, when it seemed like a strange role for her to do.
**Adam:** I, I remember someone, I remember talking about it to someone at work and their description was, it was weird that Scarlett Johansson did this after she was Scarlett Johansson, the box office name.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** He said, this feels like the film you do earlier in your career before you've got before you're a movie.
**Chris:** Yeah. Like, you know, versions of the, versions of the.
**Chris:** That me up for thinking, yeah, fair play to her, that is like, yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** I loved that when people do that.
**Lee:** I, similarly, I went back this week because, Chris and I are off shortly to Fright Fest, and we're gonna be watching the film starring Elijah Wood, written by the guy who did Come to Daddy. So I re-watched Come to Daddy, and it's got the same vibes as that. It's like, it's someone who's made it all the way to the top of the tree in Hollywood and then goes, I'm gonna do a really, really weird indie movie effectively.
**Adam:** Yeah, he does a lot of, well, what's his name? Daniel Radcliffe does seem to do a lot of.
**Chris:** That's interesting, yeah.
**Adam:** Like what was the Swiss Army Man where he's basically a corpse that someone uses to get off an island?
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** That's a good film.
**Chris:** I think I need to watch that.
**Lee:** I've not seen that, but I've seen the one, I can't remember what it was called, the one where it's a basically it's an internet show, and he wakes up one morning and someone has bolted guns to his hands.
**Adam:** Oh, no, I can't think what that's called.
**Lee:** That was a weird, but again, like, really good fun, but just a mental movie. Like, he doesn't need to be doing it, but I'm so glad that he did. And I love, I love that. I think it's giving back, isn't it?
**Lee:** It's, it's putting your name to something that nobody would have seen if you hadn't gone on board and been part of it. It would have just been a weird, you know, sort of somewhere something that like The Prince's Trust might show, but wouldn't get a massive release.
**Lee:** And suddenly they put their name behind it and it gives people this big springboard into making big movies. And I think it's a really good way of giving back. I think it's a lovely thing.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, it really is.
**Adam:** But no, it's it's, no, it is a, the soundtrack is fucking incredible, the imagery of it. And not only that, but Jonathan Glazer, I really like as a director because the film he did before that was Sexy Beast.
**Chris:** Oh! Yeah, yeah, I haven't watched that in a long, long time.
**Adam:** Memorably, yeah, memorably reviewed by my father to me as, I have not heard the word cunt that many times in my life. And coming from him, that was saying a lot, yeah.
**Lee:** And he's Ben Kingsley, wasn't it?
**Adam:** He kept shouting it for. Yeah, he plays his like of, his mate, but yeah, that's.
**Adam:** But again, they feel utterly divorced from each other. They don't feel like it's the same person, but that is the beauty of it. And and they're both films I really like, you know, but totally different ways.
**Adam:** It's not like I'm watching, you know, like it's, oh, you watch a Tarantino film, or you watch a direct like a Jim Jarmusch film. You always kind of know where you're.
**Adam:** Whereas with that, it's like, no, these are two cracking films, but I would not have said it was the same guy if I did not know.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** And I might have to end this short review of the film by, saying we've mentioned before about old white man penis from that film in.
**Chris:** Cram, no, they were the Expelz. They were the Expelz. That's it. That's it. That was quite a lot of old man cox.
**Chris:** This, this one has younger men.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's a lot of young men.
**Chris:** But I was surprised at the, the extreme portrayal.
**Adam:** Well, it is very explicit and, you know, made it even more real, like, in that.
**Adam:** In fairness, Scarlett Johansson is full frontal nude in it, so everyone else is.
**Chris:** Oh, it's also true.
**Adam:** You know, it sort of, yeah.
**Chris:** That guy wasn't shy about it.
**Adam:** Well, I don't think you can be at that point, can you?
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean? It's like that, that's like, that's like don't put on your CV you can ride a horse if you can't. Do you know what I mean? If you're an actor, you don't wanna get there on day one, shit yourself and break your leg.
**Adam:** You know, it's like, just don't, you, you might want the job, but don't tell them and then get all coy.
**Adam:** You know, just say, don't. Yeah, happy to show bits. Can do Welsh accent and South American, I don't know.
**Chris:** So yeah, so I recommend that.
**Lee:** Good call, very good call.
**Lee:** Adam, what about you?
**Adam:** well I've, I've gone with, first of all, well, I, I think I might actually veer because I was, I had, I had it in sections.
**Adam:** So in line with Sightseers, I re-watched The Ghoul. Not the 1933 one with Boris Karloff, not the 1975 one with Peter Cushing. The 2006 one, produced by Ben Wheatley, directed by Gareth Tunley, who is in Sightseers. He doesn't get run over in Sightseers, but he is in Sightseers.
**Adam:** I got that wrong.
**Adam:** And, starring, Tom Meeten, who is the shaman in Sightseers and Alice Lowe, Dan Skinner, or Angelos, as you may know him, like does a lot of stuff with Vic and Bob. Rufus Jones. Niamh Cusack and Geoffrey McGivern. Now Geoffrey McGivern's one of those people who is just, it's Crimewatch. If you know him, you'll recognize him. It's because he is one, he's like, he's like the, he's like the sort of pre-Kevin Eldon, Kevin Eldon. One of those guys who's just in, he's, for example, he is either Biggum from the, standing at the back dressed stupidly and looking stupid party. Oh yeah. In Blackadder the Third. Yes, yes. Oh, I know him. Yeah, him. And he's in Chellmswood 123 and Frying LoRry and loads and loads of shit. And he's, he was in that thing that, Mitchell and Webb did after Peep Show. He was the disreputable grandfather in that or uncle or something like that. But anyway, so The Ghoul is, despite all those names in it, The Ghoul is serious, it's not a comedy film, it's just a straight, well, it starts off as a straight thriller where, it's a detective. He's being called in for an unusual murder that has maybe has some sort of weird properties to it. Like, how does this murder take place, you know, without a supernatural element, shall we suggest? I don't know. and then to sort of find out more about it, he goes undercover with, a psychiatrist. Who is, the psychiatrist to one of their leads. and starts telling her the and goes undercover as a depressed person to try and get more facts and more sort of like info on this other guy. and then possibly the film reveals to you that actually he is going to see a psychotherapist. And he is really depressed and the whole, detective thing might be a fantasy. Or it might not be. I remember you raving about this at the time, and I still haven't gotten round to seeing it, but I definitely. Yeah, it does sound interesting. Yeah. It, it sits under my thing, I've now decided that there might be others out there, but as far as I'm concerned, a hard and fast rule is if a film is called The Ghoul, it's fucking awesome. Yes. Because because the Boris Karloff one's fucking great. The one with Peter Cushing and John Hurt's fucking amazing, I love that film. And this again, I just really. And again, like I say, it's a lot of, you know, it's mostly people from that sort of Mighty Boosh kind of era of comedy, like say it's like Alice Lowe, so it's like Sightseers, you got those same sort of people in there. Deadly serious and you're like, oh, actually this is they're really good fucking actors and it's not a, you know what I mean? I mean it is the classic thing that you have to be a great actor to do comedy. but yeah, they're they're just like everyone in it's fantastic. And as I say, it's sort of vies each way because then he goes to. He first goes to a psychiatrist, gets referred to another psychiatrist, but that psychiatrist is into, occultism and esoterica. And starts talking about like loops, time loops and things like that. And it all sort of feeds together, plus the guy's that, you know, so. Is he a detective pretending to have depression or is he a guy with depression who pretends he's a detective to try and get through his day because it's a fantasy? But also is there possibly something actually supernatural occurring in so much as occult practical magic, basically, you know, could that be in the key and it's like, yeah. It sounds awesome. But it's a great film and I will say this, this is, I don't feel I've spoilt it because I don't think it gives you a clear answer. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. You get to the end of it and it's like that could this could go either way, you know, is this which is the fantasy could go either way if you see what I mean? Yeah. So, you know, because he's talking to the psychiatrist, the depressed person, it's like, oh, so what do you do? Well, I just walk around the streets and what do you do? sort of pretend I'm investigating things like I'm a policeman or something like that. And it sort of, yeah, sort of snowballs from there that you're suddenly like, yeah, shit, which way round is this now? And it's, yeah, and it's really, yeah, and it was you saying about Under the Skin, it's that same sort of vibe, you know, where it's like very sort of, very sort of like a lot of mood and sort of an overall feeling to it, you know, a sort of like a sort of darkness or sinisterness and everything. But yeah, so yeah, that's my, my first recommendation is The Ghoul. Sounds amazing. From 2016, but also any other film called The Ghoul is good. Is probably worth watching. Yes.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** I know him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
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**Lee:** Really?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Okay. Yeah.
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---

## Bonus Episode - 6 Feet Deeper: Sightseers

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-episode-6-feet-deeper-sightseers/
Air date: 18 August 2024
Duration: 00:23:16
Film: Sightseers · Year: 2012 · Director: Ben Wheatley

### Description

Here’s Adam with a bonus episode of all the factoids and thingamajigs we didn’t quite get to on our recent “Sightseers” episode. We recommend you listen to our main episode (number 204) first, before diving into this cooling yet petrifying well of information. Hope you enjoy this little transmission from the Welcome To Horror Fact Library.

### Transcript

**Adam:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Adam:** I'm Adam. Still just me then.
**Adam:** I'm in the Welcome to Horror fact library for another six feet deeper.
**Adam:** This time it accompanies episode 204, Sightseers.
**Adam:** Obviously, I recommend that you've listened to that episode before this, as a lot of this may not make sense.
**Adam:** There will be spoilers and possible swearing.
**Adam:** Sod.
**Adam:** So, to kick off, a correction.
**Adam:** I misidentified the actor who played the jogger, who is mown down by Tina, as Gareth Tunley.
**Adam:** It's actually Gareth Jones, who is the production accountant for Sightseers,
**Adam:** as well as on Ben Wheatley's Kill List, A Field in England and Free Fire.
**Adam:** He also worked in a financial capacity on Chris Morris's Four Lions and The Day Shall Come, Peter Strickland's The Duke of Burgundy and In Fabric,
**Adam:** and also on the films Possessor, Bunny and the Bull, Submarine, Tyrannosaurus, 71, and the TV series of This is England.
**Adam:** He actually only has three acting credits: this, The Day Shall Come and Kill List.
**Adam:** Where he plays Beaten Man.
**Adam:** As I say, I accidentally attributed this role to Gareth Tunley.
**Adam:** who does have a part in Sightseers.
**Adam:** He plays the character of Todd Marshall, a role I must confess, I have still been unable to actually identify.
**Adam:** His other acting credits include A Touch of Cloth, The Thick of It, The Cleaner, Peep Show, Hustle,
**Adam:** Pulling, Fresh Meat, Casualty, Birds of a Feather.
**Adam:** He was the priest in Kill List, John in Down Terrace.
**Adam:** And also appeared in Ben Wheatley's sketch show The Wrong Door.
**Adam:** As well as directing Kill List, Down Terrace, A Field in England, In the Earth, High-Rise, Free Fire, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, Meg 2 the Trench, Rebecca,
**Adam:** and a segment for the ABC's of Death.
**Adam:** I think it's also worth mentioning the films that Ben Wheatley has acted as producer or executive producer on.
**Adam:** As I say, it was Gareth Tunley's The Ghoul.
**Adam:** Steve Oram's Aaaaaaaah!, which is a film that has to be seen.
**Adam:** Basically written and directed by Steve Oram.
**Adam:** It's a group of people acting out as a tribe of apes with no actual discernable dialogue.
**Adam:** And yeah, truly a weird thing that people need to see.
**Adam:** He also produced In Fabric and The Duke of Burgundy from Peter Strickland.
**Adam:** Nick Gillespie's Tank 432, Jim Hoskin's The Greasy Strangler.
**Adam:** and Neil Maskell's Klokkenluider.
**Adam:** I can recommend all these films except for the last one as I've yet to see it.
**Adam:** But I do sort of trust the creative team involved.
**Adam:** And we'll be checking it out.
**Adam:** Steve Oram and Alice Lowe were both covered extensively on our episode The World's End, Six Foot Deeper.
**Adam:** With Steve Oram also the subject of episode 34, A Dark Song.
**Adam:** And Alice Lowe appearing in the films Prevenge, episode 25, Black Mirror Bandersnatch, episode 41, and Hot Fuzz, episode 198.
**Adam:** The two other standouts in the film are Eileen Davis as Carol, Tina's mum, who's also in Ben Wheatley's High-Rise.
**Adam:** And also appears in Prevenge, Alice Lowe's Prevenge.
**Adam:** She's also in Meantime, Peter Lou, The Theory of Everything.
**Adam:** She appeared in the TV series 1990, KYTV, Waiting for God.
**Adam:** Keeping Up Appearances.
**Adam:** And it's just one of those weird sort of finds where she's just absolutely perfect in the role and you just feel she should have been in so, so many more things.
**Adam:** Similarly, you have Richard Glover as Martin, who was friend in A Field in England for Ben Wheatley.
**Adam:** Lord Richard in Happy New Year, Colin Burstead.
**Adam:** And the mercenary pilot in Meg 2 the Trench.
**Adam:** He also appeared as Desmond Briscoe in Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and Legendary Tapes.
**Adam:** He's in Sensor.
**Adam:** He's in Rogue One, he's in Bill the Horrible Histories film.
**Adam:** He's in War Machine.
**Adam:** He was also in Red Dwarf, The Mighty Boosh, the episode The Chokes.
**Adam:** He appeared in The Missing, Cracker and again, another fantastic actor.
**Adam:** Also as mentioned on the main episode, we had Jonathan Aris as Ian, who we spoke about again on The World's End Six Foot Deeper.
**Adam:** And Black Mirror, Bandersnatch.
**Adam:** Monica Dolan playing Janice, who's in the films The Days of the Bagnold Summer.
**Adam:** The Falling, which is a brilliant film.
**Adam:** Alan Partridge Alpha Papa, she plays Alan's wife.
**Adam:** Or becomes his wife spoilers.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** I knew there'd be spoilers for Sightseers, I've also spoiled that for you as well.
**Adam:** So I'm lovely, aren't I?
**Adam:** Kick-Ass 2.
**Adam:** She was absolutely brilliant and absolutely terrifying as Rose West in Appropriate Adult.
**Adam:** Again, appearing in Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge, A Very British Scandal, W1A.
**Adam:** The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe, and she's in two episodes of Black Mirror.
**Adam:** She was in Inside No. 9.
**Adam:** And Mr Bates vs the Post Office, Alan Bates' Talking Heads, Tipping the Velvet, Midsomer Murders, that main stay of lots of British character actors.
**Adam:** We did mention on the podcast, Tony Way playing the tourist.
**Adam:** The Tram Museum.
**Adam:** As me and Lee excitedly said, we know him mostly as Danson's Dad.
**Adam:** He started writing and performing as part of the sketch comedy troupe, Stay Alive, Pepé with Reece Thomas, Steve Burgen, Glyn Wiley.
**Adam:** He then formed a double act with Steven Burge as Burge and Way.
**Adam:** They actually had a TV pilot directed by Ben Wheatley.
**Adam:** And he regularly collaborates with Reece Thomas, their early videos got noticed by Bob Mortimer and Charlie Higson.
**Adam:** Which meant that he had earlier appearances in The Fast Show and various Reeves and Mortimer projects.
**Adam:** He's kind of a lucky mascot for Ben Wheatley.
**Adam:** He's in He's Garvey in Down Terrace, he's in High-Rise.
**Adam:** He was in the Doctor Who episode Deep Breath that was directed by Ben Wheatley.
**Adam:** As I say, Burge and Way.
**Adam:** But he's also in Ali G and Da House.
**Adam:** He's in Aaaaaaaah!
**Adam:** He's in Mindhorn, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, that's the David Fincher remake.
**Adam:** He's in Finding Neverland.
**Adam:** He was in He was Gwyn in Fun at the Funeral Parlor, which is a sitcom that I urge you to seek out.
**Adam:** That is just a lovely dose of forgotten silliness that more people should have seen.
**Adam:** He was Ned and Captain Cutnutt in various episodes of The Brian Pern series.
**Adam:** He was Dontos Hollard in Game of Thrones.
**Adam:** We know him from Barking, which was the sketch show which you now couldn't make for love nor money due to the number of really high profile people in it.
**Adam:** But in that he was portraying Danson's Dad.
**Adam:** The sketch show Blunder, The Fast Show, Bang Bang, It's Reeves and Mortimer, House of Fools, Monkey Trousers.
**Adam:** Black Books, Murder in Successville, Tittybangbang, Spaced, Inside No. 9, The Kemps All True, Dez, Jekyll and Hyde, Saxondale, Man Down, Swiss Tony,
**Adam:** Mandy, Sherlock, Electric Dreams, Randall and Hopkirk Deceased, that's the Vic and Bob remake.
**Adam:** Zapped, Yonderland, Mongrels, Drunk History UK, EastEnders.
**Adam:** Extras, Life's Too Short, Derek, and After Life.
**Adam:** So he's worked a lot with Ricky Gervais, but we won't hold that against him.
**Adam:** Also, as we mentioned, Tom Meeten plays the head shaman.
**Adam:** He also was in Prevenge, Alice Lowe's Prevenge, which was episode 25 of Welcome to Horror.
**Adam:** He's a stand-up comedian, writer and actor, and comedy partner of Steve Oram.
**Adam:** He also works a lot with Noel Fielding.
**Adam:** Notable for the character The Baron.
**Adam:** And he was Lance De'Or, which is the Fault of Vince in The Mighty Boosh, The Power of the Crimp.
**Adam:** He's also in the Fountain of Youth episode.
**Adam:** He was Andy Warhol and various other characters in Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy.
**Adam:** He also appeared in Blunder, Intruder, Murder in Successville, The IT Crowd, Strutter.
**Adam:** Saxondale, Dollan Em.
**Adam:** The recent reboot of Worzel Gummidge, The Gold, The Detectors, Count Arthur Strong, Motherland and Skins.
**Adam:** And as I say, he was in Prevenge.
**Adam:** He's in The Ghoul.
**Adam:** Which is again, a film I really recommend that people seek out.
**Adam:** It's a very weird sort of metaphysical detective story with him.
**Adam:** Alice Lowe's in that as well.
**Adam:** And he's in Aaaaaaaah!
**Adam:** And he was David War House in Delia Derbyshire, The Myths and Legendary Tapes.
**Adam:** He's in Tank 432.
**Adam:** He was in Burkenhe.
**Adam:** He was also in Horrible Histories film, Bill.
**Adam:** And he was in Paddington.
**Adam:** Just a few notes on all of the various attractions and sites that Tina and Chris journey through during the film.
**Adam:** So obviously there's the National Tramway Museum at Crake in Darbyshire.
**Adam:** Established in 1963, the museum is within a recreated period village with pub, sweet shop and tram depot.
**Adam:** It has over 80 vintage trams of different periods and designs, most of which are run through the village at various times.
**Adam:** It also contains the George Stephenson workshop and Discovery Center.
**Adam:** And has a Woodland Walk and sculpture trail.
**Adam:** They then head to Blue John Cavern, again in Darbyshire.
**Adam:** A show cave which takes its name from the semi-precious material Blue John, a rare form of Fluorite.
**Adam:** This is still mined in small amounts out of out of season by the cave guides and made into jewelry.
**Adam:** It features in a horror story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called The Terror of Blue John Gap.
**Adam:** Then we come to Fountains Hall in North Yorkshire, a grade one listed building belonging to the National Trust.
**Adam:** Located in Studley Royal Park.
**Adam:** That's Studley Royal Park, not a royal park that is very studly.
**Adam:** Along with the ruins of the Cistercian monastery Fountains Abbey.
**Adam:** The Abbey operated for for 407 years before its dissolution by Henry VIII in 1539.
**Adam:** The Hall began construction in 1598, partly using stones from the ruined Abbey.
**Adam:** It's been a filming location for the BBC mini-series Gunpowder, Omen III The Final Conflict.
**Adam:** The Witcher and two different adaptions of The Secret Garden.
**Adam:** The graffiti that we see at the Hall, Rob Loves Kerry.
**Adam:** Is a reference to the title of a short film that Ben Wheatley made before his feature debut Down Terrace.
**Adam:** Co-directed and starring Robin Hill, who is the editor of Sightseers.
**Adam:** He's worked with Wheatley as both an actor in Down Terrace, Kill List and Meg 2 The Trench.
**Adam:** As well as an editor on Down Terrace, Kill List, Modern Toss, The Wrong Door and Ideal.
**Adam:** His other editing work includes episodes of King Gary, The Thick of It, Misfits, Ballot Monkeys, Poldark and Matt Berry's The Road to Brexit.
**Adam:** Another out notable acting role for Hill is the excellent British found footage horror, The Borderlands.
**Adam:** Which I hope we cover on Welcome to Horror one day.
**Adam:** We then come to Long Meg and her Daughters.
**Adam:** This is the second widest stone circle in England, a Neolithic stone circle comprised of 59 stones in an oval and it's 380 ft at its longest axis.
**Adam:** The tallest stone is Long Meg, a 12-ft monolith situated 80 ft to the southwest of the circle.
**Adam:** Folklore states that the circle was a coven of witches who were turned to stone by Michael Scott, a real figure from the Middle Ages, a mathematician and scholar whose interest in the occult and alchemy meant he went on to become regarded as a wizard.
**Adam:** He even appears in Dante's Divine Comedy.
**Adam:** Spending eternity in the eighth circle of hell reserved for sorcerers, astrologers and false prophets.
**Adam:** Like a number of stone circles, there is a legend that the stones cannot be counted accurately.
**Adam:** Or that if you do count correctly, and then put your ear to Long Meg, she will whisper to you.
**Adam:** Obviously, this is the site where the rambler meets his brutal end.
**Adam:** He's played by Richard Lumsden, who also appears in the film Sense and Sensibility.
**Adam:** The Avengers, My Wrongs 8245 to 8249 and 117.
**Adam:** He played Foggy in Last of the Summer Wine.
**Adam:** He was in the sitcom Is it Legal?
**Adam:** He was in the episode of Coogan's Run, Death of a Salesman, One Foot in the Grave, Chalk, Remember Me.
**Adam:** The Catherine Tate Show, The British Empire, Grace and Favor.
**Adam:** And the usual suspects of EastEnders, Doctors, Casualty, Holby City and Midsomer Murders.
**Adam:** The scene is scored to Nimrod from the Enigma Variations by self-taught composer Sir Edward Elgar.
**Adam:** First performed in 1899 to immediate popular claim, cementing Elgar's reputation as a composer.
**Adam:** The dialogue is the poem and did those feet in ancient time by visionary artist and poet William Blake.
**Adam:** More commonly known as the hymn Jerusalem with music by Sir Hubert Parry.
**Adam:** It's read by the majestic voice.
**Adam:** Of Mr John Hurt.
**Adam:** Who obviously we saw on episode 180, Alien.
**Adam:** And let's just go through the list.
**Adam:** Ten Rillington Place, The Naked Civil Servant, An Englishman in New York, The Elephant Man, 1984, The Shout, The Ghoul, The Hit, Dead Man, Midnight Express, Scandal.
**Adam:** Hellboy and Hellboy II.
**Adam:** V for Vendetta, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Snowpiercer, The Limits of Control, Rob Roy, Only Lovers Left Alive.
**Adam:** Frankenstein Unbound, Krapp's Last Tape, Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs, After Darkness, The Proposition.
**Adam:** 44 Inch Chest.
**Adam:** Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
**Adam:** Contact.
**Adam:** Lost Souls, The Skeleton Key, King Ralph.
**Adam:** Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts I and II.
**Adam:** And himself in Mel Brooks' Spaceballs.
**Adam:** On TV, he was The War Doctor in Doctor Who.
**Adam:** Caligula in five episodes of I, Claudius.
**Adam:** The Storyteller.
**Adam:** The Alan Clark Diaries, Whistle and I'll Come to You, the 2010 remake.
**Adam:** The Sweeney.
**Adam:** Z Cars.
**Adam:** And his magnificent voice has been lent to the AIDS Iceberg advert, Perfume, The Story of a Murderer.
**Adam:** He was the Horned King in The Black Cauldron.
**Adam:** Hazel in Watership Down, Aragorn in the 1978 Lord of the Rings.
**Adam:** Snitter in The Plague Dogs.
**Adam:** Owl in The Gruffalo.
**Adam:** The Dragon in 65 episodes of Merlin.
**Adam:** And the voice of the ministry in Matthew Holness' brilliant drama The Snipist.
**Adam:** We then arrive at Mother Shipton's Cave in North Yorkshire.
**Adam:** The oldest fee-charging tourist attraction in England.
**Adam:** It's been running since 1630.
**Adam:** It's located by a petrifying well or dropping well that patrons can put objects in to be petrified.
**Adam:** Actually encrusted by the sulfur and carbonate rich waters.
**Adam:** It takes its name from legendary 15th and 16th century profit and soothsayer, Ursula Sothall, aka Old Mother Shipton.
**Adam:** We then move to the Derwent Pencil Museum, which is located in Keswick.
**Adam:** The birthplace of the pencil manufacturing industry due to its heavy deposits of pure graphite.
**Adam:** The museum opened in 1981 and it's home to one of the largest coloring pencils in the world.
**Adam:** It's 26 ft long.
**Adam:** And then finally, journey's end at Ribble Viaduct in North Yorkshire.
**Adam:** Constructed between 1870 and 1875 to carry the Settle to Carlisle railway line across the Ribble Valley.
**Adam:** It is 400 m long and 104 ft high.
**Adam:** And it's currently owned by Network Rail.
**Adam:** And now that you are thoroughly fascinated.
**Adam:** We turn to the soundtrack.
**Adam:** The original score was by Jim Williams, who also worked with Ben Wheatley on Down Terrace, Kill List and A Field in England.
**Adam:** He also did music for Woodlands Dark and the Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, which is a highly recommended documentary.
**Adam:** Possessor, Titane, Raw and Horde.
**Adam:** The needle drops in the film are important with 80s synth pop and its often overlooked precedent, Krautrock music.
**Adam:** Krautrock music, aka Krautrock, was the flowering of West German experimental rock bands in the late 60s and 70s.
**Adam:** Particularly drawing on trans type arrangements and synth textures.
**Adam:** The fact that the same songs performed by different artists also appear on the soundtrack was indicative of Tina and Chris's relationship with Tina trying to emulate Chris for his approval.
**Adam:** So we have.
**Adam:** Soft Cell with Tainted Love, Where Did Our Love Go?
**Adam:** So Soft Cell, the incredible duo of Dave Ball and Marc Almond.
**Adam:** This is the extended 12-inch version of the 1981 single from their debut Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.
**Adam:** The medley version eventually appeared on the remix album Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing.
**Adam:** Tainted Love was a cover of a Northern Soul song originally recorded by Gloria Jones and Where Did Our Love Go by The Supremes.
**Adam:** It reached number one in 17 countries including the UK for two weeks and was the UK's second biggest selling single of 1981.
**Adam:** Although it sold well, the fact it was a cover meant that Soft Cell didn't actually make that much money off the success.
**Adam:** We then turn to Vanilla Fudge with Season of the Witch.
**Adam:** Founded in the late 60s, Vanilla Fudge were considered to be one of the bands that straddled psychedelia into proto-heavy metal and proc and were a large influence on Deep Purple.
**Adam:** They were noted for covering songs in a slower, rockier way.
**Adam:** This is a cover of the song by Donovan from his 1966 album Sunshine Superman.
**Adam:** It appeared on their 1968 album Renaissance and was also released as a single.
**Adam:** Then we have Lieber Honig by Neu!
**Adam:** Neu! was a band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother following their departure from the original lineup of Kraftwerk.
**Adam:** This song is from their eponymous debut album of 1972.
**Adam:** Lieber Honig translates as Dear Honey or preferably honey.
**Adam:** To be honest, I'm a massive fan of Neu! but this is not particularly one of my favorite songs.
**Adam:** Next we have Popol Vuh with Ahu.
**Adam:** This was the project of Florian Fricke.
**Adam:** And Popol Vuh were probably notable mostly for the number of scores that they provided for the film director Werner Herzog.
**Adam:** Including Aguirre, The Wrath of God, and his remake of Nosferatu.
**Adam:** The name comes from a manuscript detailing the history and mythology of the Mayan people, the K'iche'.
**Adam:** This is from their 1972 album Hosianna Mantra.
**Adam:** Next we have another version of Season of the Witch, this time by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and The Trinity.
**Adam:** Auger played harpsichord on The Yardbirds' For Your Love and with Driscoll had already had a hit with the cover of Bob Dylan's This Wheel's on Fire.
**Adam:** As I say, this was another the same Donovan song that Vanilla Fudge covered.
**Adam:** And this comes from their album 1967's Open.
**Adam:** Driscoll also played a lead role in a BBC Wednesday play from 1970, also called Season of the Witch.
**Adam:** Then we have Hoe by Harmonia.
**Adam:** Harmonia were a supergroup formed by Michael Rother of Neu! with Hans Joachim Rodelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster.
**Adam:** And this song comes from their debut album Musik Von Harmonia from 1974.
**Adam:** Then you have The Power of Love by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
**Adam:** Liverpool icons fronted by Holly Johnson and one of the first openly gay bands.
**Adam:** This is the third number one single from their 1984 number one debut album Welcome to the Pleasure Dome.
**Adam:** It reached number one for one week in December before being supplanted by Do They Know It's Christmas by Band Aid.
**Adam:** And finally, we have the original version of Tainted Love by Gloria Jones.
**Adam:** Jones released this as a B-side of her 1965 single My Bad Boy's Coming Home.
**Adam:** The single failed to chart in the UK and US and was forgotten.
**Adam:** Then in 1973, a Northern Soul DJ called Richard Sealing bought an old copy of the single on a trip to America and began playing it at dances, where it gained significant popularity.
**Adam:** As the buzz about the song spread, Gloria Jones, now a member of T-Rex and in a relationship with frontman Marc Bolan, re-recorded the song for her 1976 Bolan produced album Vixen.
**Adam:** And also released it as a single.
**Adam:** The re-recorded version also failed to chart.
**Adam:** Bolan would be killed and Jones critically injured when their Mini being driven by Jones crashed into a tree on Barnes Common in 1977.
**Adam:** On recovering and leaving hospital, she found that their home had been completely looted by T-Rex fans.
**Adam:** Jones had been drinking on the night of the crash and was scheduled to appear in court under a charge of driving in a dangerous condition.
**Adam:** But returned to America before the court date, where she remains to this day.
**Adam:** So what have we learned?
**Adam:** Probably bugger all.
**Adam:** But maybe always wear your seatbelt.
**Adam:** If you enjoyed this episode of Six Foot Deeper, I've been Adam Thomas for the Welcome to Horror podcast.
**Adam:** If you haven't, I've been Brentford Poppinjay for the Seeing Jesus in Your Toast podcast.
**Adam:** Thank you, and good night.

---

## Ep 204 Sightseers

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-204-sightseers/
Air date: 11 August 2024
Duration: 00:39:17

### Description

It’s time for that summer break you deserve, as we turn our attention to Lady Jennifer’s Birthday choice - Ben Wheatley’s magnificent “Sightseers”. A film which teaches you that G.B.H. stands for Great British Holiday; that dogs and knitting don’t mix; and that, at a push, faecal matter can be an interesting alternative to lipstick. The minds of writers/stars Alice Lowe and Steve Oram blend perfectly with director Ben Wheatley’s cinematic (and sometimes brutal) vision in this pitch black comedy that pulls no punches; transposing the serial killer road movie over the mundanity of a pair of British misfits on a camping holiday. A film for anyone who knows that true horror is being trapped in a caravan, having a row, in the pouring rain. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening with a special guest, which is why my sound quality is slightly crapper than usual.
**Lee:** I am here with Lady Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** Woo!
**Adam:** Hey!
**Lee:** Because it's someone's birthday choice this week.
**Jennifer:** It's my birthday choice. Woo!
**Adam:** Hey, happy birthday!
**Jennifer:** I, it's always hard because every time it comes 'round, I've watched a lot more films and I'm running out of things.
**Jennifer:** But I hoped when I suggested this, it wasn't one you'd done before and I was correct. So it's Sightseers, a film by Ben Wheatley, probably a little bit under-undernown perhaps. I mean, one of his earlier ones, but I feel it's got a good balance of things that I like.
**Lee:** There will be spoilers and swearing.
**Adam:** It should be better remembered. That's the best way of looking at it.
**Jennifer:** Oh, definitely. Definitely, yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Right.
**Lee:** Yes, so I know obviously that Jennifer loves this film and therefore has chosen it.
**Lee:** I know that Adam has seen it many times, he was there with us opening weekend at the cinema when it was released.
**Lee:** Chris?
**Adam:** I even saw it as a preview.
**Lee:** Oh!
**Adam:** With with a Q&A from Ben Wheatley and Alice Lowe and Steve Oram.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Chris:** I was in, I was in at the, I was in at the deep end, I was.
**Jennifer:** I thought it was cool, Adam. I thought it was cool.
**Adam:** Of course.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So obviously with the Stephen Oram and Alice Lowe starring in this, but also wrote it.
**Lee:** Yeah. And I mean, if you've got something this wrong like like wrong as in it's horrendous, but it's brilliant, he's the person to direct this every time.
**Lee:** I think it's a perfect choice.
**Jennifer:** I just read this bit as well, I didn't know that.
**Lee:** What's that, sorry?
**Jennifer:** Executive producer Edgar Wright.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Well, I mean, this film ticks all the boxes.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, Chris, was this your first time seeing this or had you seen it before?
**Chris:** It was. I've heard it mentioned many times and in ways that sounded like I should definitely be watching it very soon. However, until now it had not happened.
**Lee:** So what did you make of it on your first viewing?
**Chris:** Well, I have no objection to this film in theory, or in practice.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Chris:** I will certainly be having a very different experience anytime I now hear the Power of Love.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Or getting a caravan holiday.
**Chris:** And and I will appreciate caravan holidays in in a way never before expected.
**Chris:** Yeah, like so I just got to the end of it about 10 minutes before we started recording.
**Chris:** And yeah, it is it is quite I didn't see where it was going.
**Chris:** Even up to the very end.
**Chris:** And and like how, I like how mundane and twisted.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Chris:** It's a very impressive combination.
**Jennifer:** And this is why I think I love it, because I think they're my sort of films, ones that are so that that juxtaposition between something and something completely different.
**Chris:** It really is.
**Jennifer:** And that just works when it works, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think
**Lee:** Sorry, go on, Adam.
**Adam:** I was I was just going to say and I think it's it's that thing like you said, Lee, where you've got Stephen Oram and Alice Lowe had created these characters.
**Adam:** But also, you know, there's a real there's definitely a psychological sort of truth to sort of one being a murderer, one becoming a murderer.
**Adam:** And also you've got.
**Chris:** And more.
**Adam:** And and you've got Ben Wheatley who just is so good at making things really horrible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, I mean, obviously, I love we did it yonks ago for my birthday, we did Kill List, which I know is is a bit of a struggle for people.
**Adam:** But then I think that's because it's the same techniques but used in an absolutely terrifying manner rather than in a comedic sense.
**Chris:** Like yeah, there's a quirky element to this even in the worst parts that still make it.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's.
**Jennifer:** It's fine.
**Lee:** It's it's that thing of I watched I laugh the whole time I'm watching it, but I'm also clenching my anus because it is so awkward for the entire movie.
**Lee:** And to have the.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Feeling both moods at exactly the same time.
**Lee:** Is really difficult to pull off.
**Lee:** But just everything lines in this, it's just I I think their timing.
**Lee:** As well is so so perfect.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And the characters are so, as you say, mundane and believable.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Do the most horrendous things.
**Jennifer:** So that's what's so scary, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** How many people?
**Chris:** It does feel like the most realistic death scenes almost ever in any film.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Just yeah.
**Chris:** The way she runs into that guy on the bike.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** What you doing? This is this is chaotic.
**Chris:** This is not.
**Adam:** It's that as well, where it's still over a domestic. It's still a domestic ground.
**Chris:** over the dead.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** But it's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's over it's over a corpse rather than, you know, like you've put someone's ornaments in the wrong position or you've put the saucepans back wrong or something like that.
**Adam:** But it's still that.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, that mundane sort of arguing, but yes, on something much larger.
**Adam:** Well, this was obviously when I watched it, it was the first time Claire's ever seen it and she really loved the fact that he's cleaning it up with a bit of kitchen roll.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's what got me this time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and it's just like those little touches and there's sort of bits in there.
**Adam:** Like I know it sounds really weird, but like Tina's slippers.
**Adam:** Where she's got like proper old lady slippers, she's got like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Oh, that purple.
**Adam:** Just even stuff like that, you know.
**Adam:** And and the the mum's terrific as well.
**Adam:** She is.
**Chris:** Especially when they come back to her with the phone call.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** I wasn't I wasn't expecting.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Adam:** When you've got two brutal murderers and she still feels like the monstrous.
**Chris:** Most monstrous.
**Adam:** Figure in it, you know.
**Jennifer:** That's it.
**Adam:** Fucking ass hole.
**Lee:** It is it's just that great scene of her laying at the bottom of the stairs doing the emergency dial.
**Lee:** And then nobody answers, she just gets up and brushes herself off and goes about her day.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again, it's that horrific thing where you're like, oh, I do I probably do know these people.
**Adam:** You know, I do know people who would do that or, you know.
**Chris:** Not not that far away from going over that the edge.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** In the right circumstances.
**Adam:** Well, they, I mean, this this started off that because Alice Lowe and Steve Oram used to do Chris and Tina as a as characters live on stage.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And basically they'd come out in like cagouls with with a packed lunch and sort of talk about all the castles they'd been to and various tourist attractions they'd been to.
**Adam:** And then slowly it would reveal that they were murdering people, because it'd just be like, you know, like kind of, oh, that's a good lay by to to hide a body if you need to.
**Adam:** You know, that sort of thing, you know, after they've gone on about the Tram Museum or whatever like that, you know, so.
**Adam:** And then the guy who directed the guy who directed The Mighty Boosh, Paul King, made a short film with them of this and they were sort of putting it to, excuse me, they were putting it 'round to TV companies.
**Adam:** And all the TV companies were like, no, this is too dark, we can't do this.
**Jennifer:** Brilliant.
**Adam:** As a, you know, this isn't a series we want to do.
**Adam:** And then Edgar Wright saw the short and sent it to the production company that did the the Cornetto Trilogy.
**Adam:** I mean, which which admittedly was only Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz at this point, because this is 2012.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This this came out.
**Adam:** And yeah, Big Top Productions.
**Adam:** And then they sort of hooked them up with Ben Wheatley.
**Adam:** And at this point Ben Wheatley was at the point that they sort of met, Ben Wheatley was just about to release Kill List.
**Adam:** But he had done another film, which I would say I definitely I definitely recommend tracking down, there's his first film is called Down Terrace.
**Adam:** And it's basically the story of like a London crime family, like there's two he's basically like two generations living in the same house.
**Adam:** And they're like they're like in their sort of like gangsters and they've worked out that the reason that the son and father got sent to cult was that there must be a rat in the organization.
**Adam:** And it's them trying to work that out, but again it's that really sort of mundane.
**Adam:** Kitchen sink, they're just in a in a terraced house in London.
**Adam:** And getting on each other's tits and arguing.
**Adam:** And people are fucking rubbish and, you know, there's a bit.
**Adam:** There's a bit Tony Way, who's in this, who's the guy who gets killed at the Tram Museum, Dan Dan's dad, as Ben Wheatley will always forever know him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Dan's dad.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But he at like at one point they think he's the rat. They've got him locked in but Michael Smiley turns up as a local hitman and they've got him locked in the toilet.
**Adam:** And he's just going, I ain't coming out till he's going, no, he ain't here, mate.
**Lee:** He's not here.
**Adam:** He's all right. He's gone. I can fucking hear him, he's out there.
**Adam:** I know he's out there.
**Adam:** And it's just that sort of like comedically pathetic sort of thing, but still, you know, and yeah, Down Terrace, I'd definitely recommend.
**Adam:** It's much more unlike Kill List, which is a very sort of.
**Adam:** I mean, I still find lots of funny bits in Kill List, but it's a very.
**Lee:** I mean, I do too.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's but it's still a very.
**Chris:** Oh, that is interesting.
**Chris:** I do not remember any funny bits in it now.
**Adam:** I mean, it's it's mainly just the stuff where Michael Smiley's winding him up and going, well, you know, you're hoping that Jeremy Beadle's going to come out, but he's he's not going to help you, he's dead.
**Chris:** And it's.
**Lee:** Speaking of Michael Smiley as well with Ben Wheatley.
**Lee:** So we tried to squeeze a film in before this, another Ben Wheatley one that we hadn't seen and we didn't quite manage it, there's 10 minutes left, but we're watching Free Fire.
**Adam:** Oh, man, yeah.
**Adam:** Again.
**Lee:** It's it's funny because we paused it about 40 minutes in and I was like, this isn't even halfway through.
**Lee:** Where can it possibly go from there?
**Lee:** And the answer is it doesn't really go anywhere, but it is thoroughly entertaining and edge of your seat for an hour and 30 minutes in a single room.
**Adam:** And still and and again, piss funny.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It shouldn't be, because it's basically a shootout in a warehouse.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, when I read the blur for it, I was like, how is this going to be a whole film, but yeah.
**Adam:** But it just, yeah.
**Adam:** And I mean, and, you know, definitely Ben Wheatley brought because the other thing that Ben Wheatley brought to it is when they were developing it is that he was the one who said, can we.
**Adam:** Because originally like the characters as they were, they were a couple who'd been killing for years.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** So he was the one who said, well, can we make it like an origin story almost, you know, where it's like how they met and how they got together?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So that came from him.
**Adam:** and actually Alice Lowe and Steve Oram went on a caravan holiday.
**Adam:** And went to all the places that they go to in it over the course of a week.
**Adam:** To sort of get the experience of living in close quarters and getting on each other's tits and just.
**Chris:** Well, and it was filmed in they were in the locations.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** So they go, yeah, so the places they go to because they go to like Mother Shipton's Cave and Blue John Cavern.
**Chris:** I've been to Blue John Cavern.
**Adam:** Have you?
**Chris:** That's the only that's the only one, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, right, quite quite nice, quite nice to see that.
**Jennifer:** We were last we didn't go into the pencil museum.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** It's fine when I could buy one of them giant.
**Lee:** And again, it's her writing the letter with that giant pencil, it's just
**Lee:** It gets me every time.
**Adam:** I don't want to break your heart, Lee, because it broke Claire's.
**Jennifer:** Oh, the dad?
**Adam:** They don't make they don't that giant pencil was something they made for the film.
**Lee:** They don't.
**Lee:** The big scrible, oh, no.
**Jennifer:** You can get on eBay, Lee, you'll find it.
**Adam:** The the only reason I know that is because like I say, I went to the Q&A and they were talking about it.
**Adam:** And apparently they were like, the thing that impressed Ben Wheatley the most was that they'd used a baked bean can as the pencil eraser metal bit.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** He's just like, that's the he was like, that's the genius of our props people.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** They'd looked at that and just gone, that is exactly right, if we spray this gold, you know, it's exactly right as a pencil giant pencil like a razor holder.
**Adam:** But I think that's another thing as well that they were saying about with it is that they were kind of they it was important that they didn't they don't take the piss out of the places.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** They go to these places, but they're not it's not oh, look, isn't it funny that you go to the Tram Museum or you go to.
**Jennifer:** They they're serious, they're just doing it because they want to do it and yeah.
**Lee:** And I was on his side for that first murder.
**Lee:** When the bloke dropped the Cornetto wrapper and then he ran him over with a caravan, I was like, yeah, he had that coming.
**Lee:** 100%.
**Jennifer:** They've done that, don't they? So you almost are on their side.
**Chris:** But was.
**Chris:** Was that one accidental though?
**Lee:** No.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Chris:** Because it wasn't. See, I wasn't sure.
**Adam:** When he says to him about it, he gives him an out, he says, sorry, I'm defending a murderer, but he gives him an out, he says, sorry, mate, you've dropped your wrapper.
**Adam:** He ignores him.
**Adam:** He says it again.
**Adam:** And then he gives him the finger and quite.
**Adam:** Not necessarily rightly, he then gets run over by a.
**Chris:** He reversed.
**Chris:** I just wondered, did he actually not, was he not able to see him there?
**Chris:** And then but then you see the look on his face over Tina's shoulder and it's like he's clearly very happy it's happened.
**Chris:** But I just I wasn't sure if that one was definitely he knew he was doing it.
**Chris:** I didn't rewind it to check.
**Jennifer:** And I guess that's the point of the start, you are just like, oh, that was a terrible accident. Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** That you kind of go, oh, hang on a minute.
**Jennifer:** He seems to be good at this.
**Adam:** And and that's that's clearly the thing.
**Adam:** He's obviously been doing it for some time, but he's.
**Chris:** Well, he says, he says, I've done more murders in three days than I have in the six months I've been with them.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's but it's clear that that's part of the argument is because he's like careful.
**Chris:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** Whereas Tina isn't Tina's enthusiastic.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And that's the thing as well.
**Chris:** She's not qualified.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, that you're sacked.
**Lee:** You know.
**Adam:** But it's but it's also that thing that and again, it's it's quite, you know, I mean, I remember like the first time I saw it, I just found I found Tina heartbreaking.
**Adam:** Because there's the element that she's it's.
**Adam:** Kind of that thing of you meet someone.
**Adam:** So you want to share in all their interests.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And his interest is murder.
**Chris:** Happens.
**Adam:** And so she sort of like stumbling through and trying to do it, but not quite getting it right.
**Adam:** And actually it's like a bit awkward.
**Adam:** That it's like, no, you're not doing it right.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like she's, I don't know, it's like someone's like trying to chip in on, you know, something that you know a lot about or whatever.
**Adam:** And they've sort of like they're sort of like trying to find their way in and sort of.
**Adam:** No, we can share this.
**Adam:** This can be our thing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is there is something very sweet about it at the beginning.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** And that's why it comes so far out of left field and I'm guessing that's possibly why it's.
**Lee:** Why it's it hasn't found the audience that it should have done because it is tonally very like if you didn't know them and you didn't know Ben Wheatley.
**Lee:** This wouldn't jump out at you at all.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, you took it too serious, you wouldn't get the jokes perhaps.
**Lee:** Well, until you get.
**Lee:** Far enough into it, but yeah.
**Lee:** and again, the fact they don't give too much away in the the cover art and stuff as well.
**Lee:** I guess maybe if you weren't aware of them and like us and were hunting it out specifically their material.
**Lee:** Yeah, it isn't something that jump off of the DVD shelf.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Because that was the thing is I think I I was aware of it mostly through Alice Lowe.
**Adam:** And then it was like, oh, and Ben Wheatley's doing it.
**Adam:** Well, I like Kill List.
**Adam:** And at that point I was sort of discovering Ben Wheatley.
**Adam:** So it was like, oh, that's, you know, definitely I'll have to sort of check that out.
**Adam:** And then it was, yeah, as it went on.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** I'll have to I'll have to I'll have to put it on the I'll have to put it on the Instagram or something.
**Adam:** when I did go to the the screening, they're giving out little.
**Lee:** We got little.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Lee:** What do you call it?
**Lee:** Gunk.
**Adam:** A little sightseer sort of gunk fluffy thing, you know, those things that you get at like the stuff that she's gradually collecting on the dashboard.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which and obviously the first one is the one that Tony Way's holding when he gets run over right at the start.
**Adam:** And she's obviously had that, so there's already that sort of inkling there.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** And then they're taking from their murders and keeping them.
**Lee:** That's exactly it.
**Lee:** The first time I've seen a gunk in probably 20 years.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I love that they've brought that back because it is a caravanning horror holiday type nonsense that you'd pick up somewhere for someone.
**Jennifer:** Pencil museum.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's that sort of tourist sort of, you know, you don't it's either that it's either that I mean fridge magnets are much much more of a thing now, I think.
**Jennifer:** They clas They're not quite that. No.
**Adam:** But, I mean, I remember everyone always used to get me keyrings because I used to collect keyrings when I was a kid because I was such a fucking exciting, vibrantly fucking roguish, you know, devil-may-care chap.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Tits.
**Adam:** So, you know, so I had key keyrings from sort of all over the place because people had sort of like if they went or if I went anywhere, I was, oh, I will take a keyring.
**Adam:** If they like a keyring, man.
**Adam:** You know, so like I say, because I was like a pussy magnet when I was 12.
**Adam:** So.
**Jennifer:** So is that what you thought keyrings would do?
**Jennifer:** They would just bring all the women to the yard.
**Adam:** They bring my keyrings brought all the girls to the yard to mock and decide to never go out with me.
**Adam:** That's what it did.
**Adam:** Which admittedly, Kelleis then turned into a much more interesting song.
**Adam:** So, you know, it's a cover that I I respect and, you know, I'm still enjoying the royalties from it, so.
**Adam:** It's yeah.
**Jennifer:** So Chris, what was your best moment of the film and kind of least favorite moment of the film?
**Chris:** Oh, that's a good question.
**Chris:** Well, there are some that I now understand the references of, such as that's not my.
**Lee:** Regularly saying that's not my vagina.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, no.
**Chris:** That makes a lot of sense.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and like it's so funny and he's just taking his camera and he's just like, I'm just carry on.
**Jennifer:** Stolen.
**Chris:** Taking photos and using it.
**Chris:** And then she just she's looking through it and he's like, he's just letting her, but you know.
**Adam:** But that's that's so and and that's one of those things that's like.
**Adam:** Creepily right for like with sort of someone like that character like not you, Chris, but Chris in Sightseers is the fact that it then he sort of adopts from all these people that he's meeting.
**Adam:** So it's like he's taken his camera and suddenly he's a photographer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or or the bit where the guy takes him home drunk and he says, oh, good luck with the lay lines, because he and who he killed said he was doing a book about lay lines.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So that's obviously where he's now that it's like, oh, that's what I do now.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'm doing that.
**Chris:** And then, of course, plastics.
**Chris:** Although he was, was he, did he know anything about plastics, or was he pretending that as well?
**Adam:** Not sure, but he obviously built himself up that he could be a businessman.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, all of a sudden it's like, yeah, it's going international.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, weird.
**Jennifer:** So was that your favorite moment, the camera?
**Chris:** Well, well, because because I'd heard it referenced so many times, it's like, oh, there we go, it's satisfying to to see it explained.
**Chris:** and then and then I you I think you said what was one of my worst moments.
**Chris:** I wasn't on board with allowing the dog poo.
**Chris:** So I was a bit like, they're the bad ones.
**Chris:** I mean, they're they are the bad ones, right?
**Chris:** But I was like, yeah, I sort of agree with this guy.
**Chris:** Saying you should pick it up, not, I don't know if he did.
**Chris:** Actually, so you should use your hands, she was certainly starting to twist things a little bit.
**Chris:** And I was like, I sort of feel sorry for this guy, it's obviously not going to go his way.
**Chris:** And then it was quite funny, what was it, he's not a person, he's a Daily Mail reader, I'm grabbing some free perspective and, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Looking back at if this was however many years ago.
**Chris:** I would have had to just stand by and allow him to do whatever he wanted to you.
**Chris:** So now we're we're rising up thanks to democracy.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** So technically, you were defending my honor.
**Adam:** You know that thing where she starts she starts joining in the escalation where he's like, I don't touch shit, well, I can't remember, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they sort of start forming that unified front.
**Adam:** And then obviously clubs him to death, which is one of the most fucking brutal.
**Chris:** Pretty blunt.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You see that head, the head is really vicious.
**Adam:** That's that's very that's very Ben Wheatley.
**Adam:** That is.
**Adam:** And it's and actually that's that again, that was one of the things because Ben Wheatley was so pleased that he got to work with John Hurt because he called him they he had to get him in especially to record the version of Jerusalem that's over that bit where it's like and do those feet.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** But and then, you know.
**Adam:** And I think Ben Wheatley was just like, fuck it, I got to work with fucking John Hurt.
**Adam:** That's what I was fucking.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which which again.
**Adam:** Was sort of like.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think there's and and actually, I mean, it's.
**Adam:** There's not a lot of characters in it, really.
**Adam:** There's a lot of people who get bumped off.
**Adam:** There's and it's interesting.
**Adam:** Because there's like the guy that sort of drives him home pissed, he's nice.
**Adam:** So nothing happens to him.
**Adam:** And again, you know, it's not like littering, oh, yeah, run a car over his head is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The proportionate response, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Equally.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's like this.
**Chris:** It's what might have gone through some people's minds on occasion.
**Adam:** But I mean, I think poor, Richard Glover's character, is it Martin?
**Chris:** Martin.
**Adam:** So that's.
**Chris:** Oh, I was going to be Martin.
**Adam:** Next.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Because he's nice as well.
**Chris:** And this is where the whole thing with Tina, it's like, yeah, she is different now from Chris.
**Chris:** She is no longer doing it for any good reasons.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, no more like, no.
**Jennifer:** She likes him.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But that's the thing is you you do get the idea that eventually Chris will, Chris would probably tire of him, or there would be.
**Chris:** Possibly.
**Adam:** Or that it would be if he in some way made Chris feel small, like if it, you know what I mean, if they were like saying it's like, well, actually, no, I don't think it should be that idea, that's probably the point Chris would have just snapped and fucking bumped him off, but he wouldn't just chugging him off.
**Chris:** That that was okay.
**Chris:** It was the way it was just tumbling down.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I'd forgotten it until she went outside and then I was like, oh, what's gonna happen?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Lift up the break and just.
**Lee:** I mean, I'd completely forgotten the ending.
**Lee:** I can I can never I've seen this film three or four times, I can never remember how it ends.
**Lee:** Yeah, and so when you saw the bridge and Jennifer said, I can't remember which stays and which goes, and I was like, I don't even know what you're talking about.
**Lee:** This was for me for the first time.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's funny.
**Lee:** Some bits really stick in my mind and that never does, which is nice, because it means every time I watch it, I go, oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that was a nice wrist at the end. Again, showing the difference between them at that point.
**Adam:** And actually I do remember that was one one of the things that came up at the Q&A is someone said, you know, will there be a sequel?
**Adam:** And Ben Wheatley went, well, how?
**Adam:** And then Alice but then Alice Lowe and Steve Oram were going, no, you could still do it, he could have survived, maybe I'm bringing her up from prison like I'm paraplegic.
**Adam:** In a like in on life support, ring her up saying, go and kill another one.
**Jennifer:** Can you come back as a ghost and then we can.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** No less ludicrous, to be fair.
**Lee:** I mean, they could make that work.
**Lee:** I would I mean, I would see it.
**Adam:** Also, you'll be very pleased to hear this this film won quite a few awards at festivals and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But, I didn't know about this.
**Adam:** You know the you know the Cannes Film Festival and the winner of the Cannes Film Festival gets the Palm d'Or.
**Adam:** There is also an award at the Cannes Film Festival, the the Palm Dog.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Adam:** And the dogs that played Poppy and Banjo won that year.
**Adam:** They won the Palm Dog.
**Adam:** Awarded for performance by a K9 or group of K9s live or animated.
**Adam:** So yes, so they did which I which I think's very good.
**Adam:** Because they are great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Great great dog acting in this.
**Adam:** It has to be said.
**Adam:** I mean, everyone's really great in this, but yeah, there's some particularly great dog acting, I think.
**Adam:** It's also it's also weird that we've done this so close to Hot Fuzz and like Worlds End.
**Adam:** Because obviously Steve Oram's in there, Alice Lowe's in there but not as major a role in this.
**Adam:** and Jonathan Harris, who plays Ian was is really blinking, you miss him, he's in The World's End.
**Adam:** He's like, he's the group therapist that they're like at the start where Gary's in the therapy meeting.
**Lee:** That's right.
**Adam:** And he's like the leader of the group.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** No, I mean, it's it's and musically because that was.
**Adam:** I did ask a question at the Q&A.
**Adam:** I asked about the music.
**Adam:** Because and basically because there was.
**Adam:** I just really liked the fucking soundtrack.
**Adam:** And there's a lot of covers in it.
**Adam:** So you get like two versions of Season of the Witch.
**Lee:** I like that.
**Adam:** You get the original you get the original version of Tainted Love at the end and the Soft Cell version at the beginning and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Tainted Love, yeah.
**Adam:** And that was like and basically Ben Wheatley was saying that it was like a thematic thing of again, like Tina trying to take on Chris's world.
**Adam:** So it's like almost that thing of you start covering like each other's taste and things like that, so you've got these like you've got the same songs but totally different interpretations of them in there as well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And there's also there's also a shedload of crowd rock in there.
**Adam:** Which is fucking magical.
**Adam:** So.
**Jennifer:** Now, what would we.
**Jennifer:** Call this film, because I put when I was watching this at the top, question, is it folk horror?
**Jennifer:** I feel like it's got elements of it.
**Jennifer:** Or is it not quite because it's not quite a sort of story, you know, like a sort of folk tale perhaps.
**Jennifer:** I don't know.
**Adam:** I don't.
**Jennifer:** But it's very British, I felt.
**Chris:** Quaint British serial killer.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, there's not.
**Adam:** I think that's great.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think that's a great way of putting it.
**Chris:** Doesn't exist, but you know.
**Adam:** Because folk horror tends to be, I mean, it doesn't have to be, but it tends to be sort of supernatural or it's something that's coming from the land, but this is this is almost like them coming in and spoiling these places.
**Chris:** appears to be.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's the thing that makes me laugh.
**Adam:** Chris keeps saying.
**Adam:** Oh, he's ruined that for me now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, he's ruined the Tram Museum for me now.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Yeah, by littering not by you killing him, that's what and like when he says, oh, you've ruined that restaurant for me now.
**Adam:** Because you killed the bride outside it and the stuff like that, it's almost that, you know, it's it's them going and fucking up.
**Jennifer:** Do they keep it tidy out there?
**Jennifer:** You know.
**Jennifer:** Like the littering.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Jennifer:** But yeah.
**Jennifer:** I don't know, it just felt that sort of I suppose where you think everything is fine and normal and then it isn't.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** She's often had that.
**Adam:** Well, it's definitely that landscape thing.
**Adam:** It definitely draws from the landscape.
**Adam:** And you've got bits like the dream sequence and and actually that bit where when he kills Ian.
**Adam:** Where you've got like all the shaman stuff going on and you've got the version.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Of the which going on and stuff.
**Adam:** That's very where it's like, you know, you and and again, that's something.
**Adam:** That's something that Ben Wheatley does very well.
**Adam:** I mean, if you like A Field in England.
**Adam:** Has that.
**Adam:** And actually he did a there's a film he did called In the Earth with Reece Shearsmith, which is really fucking good.
**Adam:** And that's folk horror, which actually made during they made it during lockdown.
**Adam:** And it's kind of so that but they made that a sort of benefit of it, so you've only got like there's there's not many people in it basically.
**Adam:** They just formed a bubble during lockdown and that's how they filmed it.
**Jennifer:** Nice.
**Lee:** But yeah, that was definitely one to check because you did watch it and you don't remember it.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** But again, it has it's got that same that same very mundane.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Everyone's very down to earth and regular, but yeah, in a very strange scenario where everything is off.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But off in a almost believable way, which yeah.
**Lee:** What he's about.
**Adam:** Oh, I think I think that's the thing as well with this. This this feels like if if someone had told you this was like 10 Rillington Place or something, but this or like Fred and Rose or something like that.
**Adam:** Like this was an event that had taken place, it would feel like it actually did happen.
**Adam:** There's nothing unbelievable about it or anything else like that, in fact, it's far too plausible.
**Adam:** It's, you know, that's half the.
**Adam:** That's half the disturbing thing about it is just how obvious and sort of like, yeah, you could you could just bump into these people and you wouldn't know.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** And they could get away with it if she hadn't sort of gone a bit off the rails, he'd probably get away with his murders.
**Chris:** Yeah, because it was only once she started doing it that then there was the police reports.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** That's it.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Where it's what is it? A ginger-faced man and an angry police are looking for a ginger-faced man and an angry woman.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah, and as we say.
**Lee:** And there's so many people in this, like we say, like Tony Way and Monica Dolan.
**Lee:** Like people you recognize from being in so much great British TV and a lot a lot of great comedy stuff as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, that they just.
**Lee:** Really pulled everyone together for it.
**Lee:** I mean, Jonathan Harris as well, who you see in so much stuff in Sherlock and always outstanding.
**Lee:** But they all have these very small roles, but it's just great to see so many people in it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, and very blinking you miss him, but the the shaman who's beheading the chicken.
**Adam:** that's do you remember in The Mighty Boosh, they have a false Vince Noir, Lance Dior.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's him.
**Adam:** Tom Meaton.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Actually, he did a Ben Wheatley produced it, but he did a.
**Adam:** It's him, it's him and Alice Lowe, and it's like a noir surreal noir occult detective story.
**Adam:** It's really fucking good.
**Adam:** but it's directed by and if I'm right here, it's directed by the guy they run over.
**Lee:** All right.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah, the cyclist.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, hang on, is it the cyclist?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think so, but yes.
**Adam:** Gareth Gareth Tunley is the, I think he's the cyclist who gets killed.
**Adam:** And yeah, he's yeah, he's like a director.
**Adam:** He's done like I say, the Gaul's really good.
**Adam:** That's worth checking out.
**Adam:** I'm still I mean, I'm a big Ben Wheatley fan, but I've still not seen The Meg 2.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I've not seen The Meg 1, so, you know, I'm not sure if I'll be able to catch up on the plot.
**Adam:** I can't go can't go steaming in on the, you know, on the on the middle part of a trilogy, can you?
**Jennifer:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** So, yeah, I'm not sure what Ben Wheatley's got coming.
**Lee:** At the moment.
**Lee:** But again, I I think he's he definitely is brilliant.
**Lee:** But he just manages to make.
**Jennifer:** You know.
**Lee:** No.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, what about that?
**Lee:** Thanks.
**Lee:** I'm just.
**Chris:** Was that Meg 2?
**Lee:** He's got picture for the Meg on it.
**Lee:** Not your phone.
**Jennifer:** Have you moved it?
**Lee:** Yes, of course.
**Adam:** Oh, of course, yes.
**Lee:** Jennifer's fear of sharks even in picture form.
**Adam:** Don't broadcast it now.
**Adam:** People have got something on her.
**Jennifer:** Oh, everywhere.
**Lee:** Lucky she down anything.
**Chris:** Oh, shame.
**Adam:** He.
**Adam:** Oh, he did.
**Adam:** He wrote it down.
**Adam:** He's back of his.
**Adam:** School schedule and he's listed his fears on the back of it.
**Lee:** That's.
**Lee:** That's.
**Lee:** That's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, he's one of those directors.
**Lee:** Some of his stuff I love.
**Lee:** Some of it I'm not a fan of, but I'll the stuff that that hits for me.
**Lee:** Is so good.
**Lee:** That I always have to check out what he's doing regardless.
**Lee:** Again.
**Lee:** You know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** A bit like.
**Lee:** What's his name?
**Adam:** You have it with Night Shayamalan, definitely.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Where you because you ve really heavily with him, but it's like you either love it or love it.
**Adam:** But it's you always give him a crack of the whip, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely, because when it lands, it really lands.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I shall look forward, but yeah, you don't seem to have anything else on IMDb currently in production.
**Adam:** No, they they're always listing a thing he was meant to do, like a sci-fi thing he was meant to do called Free Shift, but I think they've been talking about that for like years and so I'm not sure if that's going to happen.
**Adam:** In fact, he did a he did like a comic book that I think is mostly that now.
**Adam:** Like the ideas that were going to be free shift.
**Adam:** Because it was going to be like a bit like a sort of like an alien's kind of thing.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think a lot of that got moved into that.
**Adam:** Although if you want to go back through, do try and seek out The Wrong Door.
**Adam:** Which was the sketch show he did like long before he did
**Adam:** Like I think that was pre Down Terrace, actually.
**Adam:** But yeah, The Wrong Door was like a six-part sketch series and it's got some it's got some really good sketches in that.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And at least one episode, Brian Blessed turns up, so, you know.
**Lee:** Sold.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** If that's I was going to say, that's a recommendation of itself.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Nice.
**Lee:** Right, so happy birthday, Lady Jennifer.
**Chris:** Yeah, happy birthday.
**Adam:** Happy birthday.
**Adam:** Great choice.
**Lee:** Thank you everybody for listening, go and check out Sightseers, go and check out all of Ben Wheatley's stuff.
**Jennifer:** All of Alice Lowe's stuff.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, and Stephen Oram's stuff.
**Lee:** Like, yeah, if there's anything out there.
**Lee:** Missing from.
**Adam:** Alice.
**Adam:** Alice Lowe has just had.
**Adam:** Her festivals, she's her latest film.
**Jennifer:** Oh, cool.
**Adam:** Has been on there.
**Adam:** It's I want to make sure I've got the right name for it.
**Adam:** Time Stalker.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Adam:** and that's just started doing festivals.
**Adam:** So I'm hoping that's going to appear fairly soon.
**Adam:** But that's the one she's written and directed.
**Jennifer:** Nice.
**Lee:** Check that out then.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Lee:** Not going to be at fright fest then.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** I don't believe so.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Right, yes, so thanks so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** we will be back in a fortnight's time, we're going to do a what we've been watching because we used to do them every six weeks and we haven't done one so far this year, I believe.
**Jennifer:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, we have.
**Jennifer:** We have.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, we have.
**Jennifer:** We have.
**Lee:** We do.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yes, so we need so we're going to do another one of those.
**Lee:** Because I've got about 10 pages of stuff I've been watching, which I need to whittle down to a 45-minute podcast, which is going to be fun.
**Lee:** Yes, so thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, and good night.
**Jennifer:** Night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Lee:** Don't forget to point out if it's not your vagina.
**Chris:** It isn't my vagina.

---

## Ep 203 Burnt Flowers

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-203-burnt-flowers/
Air date: 28 July 2024
Duration: 00:38:43

### Description

We’re taking a look at another “locally-sourced” horror; the time-tangled psychedelic noir that is “Burnt Flowers” from Director/Writer/Actor Michael Fausti. Spanning across 3 eras, a Police Detective on a missing person’s case in the 90s finds it somehow links to a series of unsolved murders around the shady world of 60s gangland, and also to her own family past. As this is a new film that’s still making waves at various Festivals, this episode is in two stages; first off a general discussion, hopefully giving you an idea of what the film is like, and then we’ll give you fair warning before moving into spoilers. This is a whole-hearted recommended watch from the Welcome To Horror team, and if you get the chance, we urge you to check it out. With a magnificent cast, a haunting premise and a cinematic look and flair that surpasses it’s small budget and then some; this is a real treat for seekers of the smart and strange in horror. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** Hi, I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening to discuss 2024's Michael Fauste masterpiece, Burnt Flowers.
**Chris:** Are you spoiling the people there, Lee?
**Lee:** I'll keep, I'll keep doing it, don't I?
**Adam:** I'll keep your powder dry, boy.
**Lee:** Oh no, I'm sorry.
**Lee:** I just, I just wish I'd done it with bad films now.
**Lee:** Ladies and gentlemen, we're covering the absolute wank basket that is us.
**Lee:** But yeah, I just... Spoiler if you've not listened to the ass episode, I thought it was a pile of Todd. I don't give a house down a lot of great films. Oh yeah, he has. Just that one was an absolute. Don't let that throw you. but yes, so there will be spoilers, there will be swearing, but again, as we've done recently because this is a newly released film, we're going to keep the spoilers to a minimum, and we're going to discuss the film in general, and then what we'll do is we'll come in in about 20 minutes or so, we'll give you a little warning and say, right, if you haven't seen it yet, now's your time, clear out, go and watch it, come back and we can all discuss the ending together. thank you very much to Michael Fauste, obviously, for reaching out to us, and giving us access to this movie. it is available currently, I believe, Adam.
**Adam:** I believe so, it's, oh no, I'm thinking, I'm thinking of, I know that they were just, just recently talking about, his, short The Gessen has become available on TV.
**Adam:** so I don't know if Burnt Flowers is, but I know it is, we'll, we'll have to check into that and we'll put it in like the, blurb for the show.
**Lee:** It does not yet appear, it does not yet appear to be available.
**Adam:** But it is, it has been, it has been at, various festivals.
**Chris:** Several festivals, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, get yourself to a festival.
**Adam:** Yeah, we do, if it's there, it's definitely, definitely one to watch.
**Adam:** If you're, you know, if you've got with, I mean, we're, we're quite spoilt for choice these days, we have Horror on Sea, and we have the Romford, Horror Film Festival, I believe it played both of those, so, you know, we are sort of, we're, we're quite spoiled in our little area, but it's doing around.
**Lee:** So, yes.
**Lee:** yes, so, quick, idea of the story, so it's 1960s, it's London.
**Lee:** there is a group of gangsters who are looking to start up a little club just outside, they found a, a country manor house and they're going to set it up.
**Lee:** and then it cuts to modern day, a detective.
**Chris:** Oh, it's 1992.
**Adam:** Yeah, I was going to say.
**Lee:** Yeah, not quite modern.
**Adam:** Reasonably, sort of modern day as we wish it was, because we're old bastards now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We, we still live there sometimes.
**Adam:** We, we're still, we're still there.
**Adam:** We're sitting there going, oh, that new sensor album.
**Lee:** You know, that's what.
**Lee:** Last year when Terminator 2 came out.
**Chris:** Exactly, yeah.
**Lee:** But yes, so it cuts to 1990s, a young detective has, had a missing person's report filed, and is following up on it.
**Lee:** And the two stories intersect and it, and the story goes from there, I don't want to give any more than that away at the moment.
**Adam:** Yes, so, so you've got, yeah, so you've got the, the sort of, the, the gangster, story line going on in 1968, you've got the current story line going on in 1992, and there's also a brief dalliance to 1983 as well.
**Adam:** but essentially, the modern case of the missing person relates back to the gangsters, but also to an unsolved series of, murders that took place that are in, occurring in the same world as the underworld, but not necessarily, you know, it's not necessarily the, the sort of gangsters, it's a concurrent crime with that, it's not gangland killings or anything else like that, it's serial murder.
**Lee:** And I've got to say, I loved the way that they, they put that together as well, so rather than just having some, you know, like, it'd be very easy to just have a read off of a, oh, so this murder on that date and this murder, but I loved the fact that you'd get like a part of the story, and then it had just cut to a dancer, and then you would just see them dead and it had a top, it was a really nice way of showing you that it was a, it was a constant thing and there were lots of victims, without it, without it A, taking up too much of the run time, and B, without it just being somebody reading you a list, I thought it was a really good way of sort of dropping it into the story and building it.
**Adam:** And and it brought it home as well because you'd have the bit where it was like the, the, the sort of bit of, because it's, it's, it's women who are being murdered, and you'd have, footage of them like dancing or at a party, or, you know, having enjoying themselves, having a good time or whatever like that, then it would sort of almost slam to when the body's discovered, and that is sort of horrible and bleak and like a crime scene photograph.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And that sort of, that was a, I think that was a really good way of you've got this sort of thing of this, you know, of vibrant lives being extinguished.
**Adam:** And yeah, and as you say, yeah, it's much, it brings it out much more than just like if you had something where they're going, oh, it's this series of murders that took place, and then you've got, you've got no faces to that or any sort of.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Adam:** You know, emotion to that as it were.
**Chris:** And I thought they kept to a style, it was well produced in that, you know, the the gory horrific scenes still were were nicely mixed with the more uplifting elements.
**Chris:** It did seem like overall good balance, it did, and a lot of the gore was more the, the sort of gangland violence as well.
**Adam:** And and a lot of the gore was more the, the sort of gangland violence as well.
**Chris:** Well that, that was, yeah, it was pretty hard hitting some.
**Chris:** Even like in the very first scene practically.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Not messing around, it's it is definitely gritty.
**Lee:** He's I didn't feel it went too far, like I thought it did a really good job of kind of showing it, it didn't shy away from it, but it didn't sort of revel in it either.
**Lee:** It was as Adam said, the scenes before, you know, you see them dancing, then you see the photographs, you didn't, you didn't kind of revel in their murder so much, but you still got the story put into place in a really nice and interesting way.
**Adam:** Yeah, it was it wasn't like a sort of it it wasn't a there was gore, but it wasn't a sort of reveling in that gore thing, it was it was there to sort of like, it was there to shock you and rather than sort of, you know, indulge or sort of, you know,
**Chris:** it added the edge, yeah.
**Adam:** and, there's a number of, there's a, actually, there's a number of sort of blink and you miss it sort of appearances from people that we've seen in, films recently like, Tales from the Great War and, and, like the, video shop, Tales of Terror, people, so there's a lot of people in there, where they're sort of like, they've got smaller roles in this and everything, but.
**Adam:** I think it has to be said, Michael Fauste, who plays, who not only wrote and directed it, but also plays the main gangster, and does it very well.
**Lee:** Yeah, he was terrifying.
**Chris:** Tony, Tony Rose.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and friend of friend of the podcast Andrew Elias, was his second in command, yeah, and, and their, their interplay was one of my favorite things about it, because I think they sort of, it just, it just had that right feel to it of like this, you know, he's that sort of weird thing of like friendship and loyalty, but you are doing horrible, horrible things.
**Lee:** Yeah, and also it had that undertone of things that I'd imagine these kind of gangsters have or had, yeah, where you, they never quite trust each other either, I always got the impression, yeah, that despite the fact they've done all this stuff together and they've obviously got a certain amount of connection and loyalty to one another, because of the things they've done, but they both always gave in their performance a kind of, yeah, I don't know what he's going to fucking do next and where it's going to lead, yeah, which, which I'm imagining is exactly what it would be like in this kind of a situation.
**Lee:** I know he's a nutcase, and he could do anything at any moment, and it gives you that constantly off kilter, we're even there, not, you know, they might be topper their tree, but they're not really in a comfortable position at any point.
**Adam:** No, it's a very, it's a very tenuous position.
**Adam:** that can go so, and, and the thing is, is it's one of, you know, the more people that are involved, the more sort of crimes that you're committing, the more that your empire stretches, the more you're attracting attention, the more there's more opportunities for the wheels to come off at various points and due to various different people.
**Adam:** You know, and, and that's the thing is, because we, but yeah, I, but no, I thought, I thought they were, they were great, I also, and you've got, the, the, the main, the, the main character as it were, of, Frank, Frank.
**Chris:** Detective Frank.
**Adam:** Orban, played by Amber Doig Thorne.
**Adam:** who I've, I've not seen, I've not seen her in anything, but apparently she's in, you know, Winnie, Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** so, and she is.
**Chris:** Has anyone seen that?
**Lee:** No, I haven't.
**Adam:** Yeah, no.
**Adam:** but, she's also in Mosaic, which is another of the, sort of, anthology films that has, that, that the, the sort of this group of filmmakers, like local, sort of Essex group of filmmakers, it's another one of their, anthologies, which I'm kind of keen to see.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was going to say, I think it missed the Romford unfortunately, but I know everyone was very, yeah, very complimentary about it from what I heard, so, yeah, keen to see that at some point.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** Yeah, she was fantastic in this.
**Chris:** I mean, like they all, I thought it was all very well cast and they all, as as they have done in other films, chilled together really well.
**Lee:** She was, and again, I was not worried, but it was like there were so many names that I've seen in other stuff, and then the main character was someone I hadn't, you kind of think, oh, they've got all this great talent and a, you know, and then it's someone I've not seen before, but she was outstanding, obviously, I mean, she played it perfectly, it was really, really good.
**Adam:** And I thought, Aviana Snow, who again is someone who I've seen very briefly in other things, I thought, you know, she had a much more expanded role in this, basically of playing the, the sort of classic film Noir, Fem Fatal, who starts the ball rolling on the case and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And, yeah, no, I think she was really good, and really sort of like just constantly sort of playful, sort of slightly amused.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** By the whole thing, which just sort of created a, a, a sort of nice, immediately puts the, puts the detective on the wrong foot, puts her on the wrong foot because it's like, you know, because she's basically turned up to say, I'm reporting my husband missing after eight years, and, whereas last time she, a brothel, and you know, and it's sort of, you know.
**Lee:** But admitting it in such a matter of fact way that, yeah, it does, it gives you that kind of, are you just fucking with me this whole time and, yeah.
**Lee:** And it, I thought that worked really well, it definitely, it gave it that, that off kilter feeling right from the beginning, because you're like, there's something off with her immediately, yeah, and it created that very strange dynamic between them, which was good.
**Adam:** And I have to say, I really, really, really want the fucking soundtrack to this.
**Chris:** It is, again it fits the whole style so well.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, the composer's, Nick Byrne, and yeah, just the amount, because there were, there was a couple of bits where I was like, have they actually got for your love, like the old yard bird song in, but it was but the sort of, the 60s stuff was really, really, the, it was, you know, the music was right for the right points, and all the 60s stuff really did sound like old, like hits.
**Adam:** You know, and it was like.
**Adam:** So, yeah, I, I would really like that, I actually have to say one of the other things that I thought was really good, is there was, because obviously, you've you've where you've got the time shift of, what would it be, it's like 25, 20, 24 years, and they don't stupidly age anyone.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** You know, anyone, anyone who's I mean, essentially, there's only a few characters who cross over the time frame, but they don't sort of ludicrously sort of overtly make them older, but they are clearly older.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I felt the same with the, so as you say, it it jumped a lot between times, and they didn't make it over the top, but at the same time, there was never any uncertainty about what time you were in, you know, it wasn't like, oh, is this happening in 90, or is this happening, like it was very clear, it was done with the sets and the music and everything, so it was really cleverly done to not be, it was obvious enough that you never questioned it, but without having to slap you in the face with the, yeah, we're trying to point it out to you.
**Lee:** It just, yeah, fantastically constructed.
**Lee:** And I've got to say as well, so Danny Thompson is in this, who's obviously, we're big fans of and he's always absolutely outstanding.
**Lee:** but the.
**Adam:** essentially independent horror royalty.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As indeed a lot of these people are, but yeah, Danny Thompson especially, yeah.
**Lee:** But the the bit where they showed her TV show, what was it called, psychic connections from the 70s, and it looked exactly like a 70s TV show, it had that slight multicolored blur to everything and, oh, it just, it was.
**Adam:** Yeah, there was a bit of tracking run.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was, you know, it was, it, the soundtrack a bit like that, and yeah, no, they, that's, that's the, that's the thing is, I think because you like the 60s stuff is, you know, is kind of a lot more sort of vibrant in a way, and then the sort of modern day stuff had a much more subdued, rather palette to it, you know, it was like the difference between summer and autumn almost, that was like the defined the definition between the two eras basically.
**Chris:** Subdued, brighter pallet to it.
**Adam:** But yeah, they had that and they, like they've got the bit where it's the, the sort of silent, like old blue movie sort of thing, and again, and again that sort of that effect looked really well, and actually, although he's not actually in it, the cinematographers, is, Camel Yildirim, yeah, aka Le Chat Noir, and, from, haunting of the Lady Jane and Wastelands and everything.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** And yeah, I think that is a, you know, that's he's definitely sort of I can see because he does that sort of dreamy sort of, look to things really well.
**Chris:** Absolutely, yeah, definitely see.
**Adam:** And, just while we're while as we're recording this, I know that they've been posting, like Fauste Films have been posting on Instagram this week that they are making something else, and, you like say, Michael Fauste and, Camel Yildirim is there, again as, like director of photography and stuff, so, yeah, so we're looking to get more, which is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So I mean, they're certainly honing their style.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Chris:** Absolutely hitting the nail on the head.
**Lee:** One of the things I loved with this was the amount of people who we saw in this, as you touched on earlier, Adam, who we've seen in other stuff and loved.
**Lee:** So, yeah, so seeing Sahe Henty again and Phillip Rogers, Annabel Rich again, just, it was, although they were much smaller roles, it was excellent to see.
**Lee:** Michael, Alexander Churchyard as well was in it, who we know is currently working on Video Shop Tales of Terror 2, and he's taking on a director role in part of that movie.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** yeah, and Lawrence R. Harvey, who.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Like to go from obviously Centipede 2 and just to just see him in all these films now, is so heartwarming, it's, it's, I yeah, no I think, I think, because again, he's, he's one of those people who's just sort of like, he's just out there, and again, I'm just, I just love the fact of out for doing these films he is, you know what I mean, because I mean, obviously, like you say, probably the, the internationally, Human Centipede 2 would be the thing that he's most well known for, but, did you know that he's actually got a, not not a sideline, but there's a company called Cadabra Records, and he does spoken word albums for them with like various people doing musical backing for it, but it's stuff like MR James, Arthur Machen, Polidori, you know, Edgar Allan Poe, Roland Toppor, and Lovecraft, you know, and he's done spoken word albums with like musical backing and he, you know, that's that's another thing that he does as well as being in sort of like all these, horror films.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, I think, I think,
**Adam:** Because again, he's he's one of those people who's just sort of like, he's just out there, and again, I'm just, I just love the fact of out for doing these films he is, you know what I mean, because I mean, obviously, like you say, probably the, the internationally, Human Centipede 2 would be the thing that he's most well known for, but, did you know that he's actually got a, not not a sideline, but there's a company called Cadabra Records, and he does spoken word albums for them with like various people doing musical backing for it, but it's stuff like MR James, Arthur Machen, Polidori, you know, Edgar Allan Poe, Roland Toppor, and Lovecraft, you know, and he's done spoken word albums with like musical backing and he, you know, that's that's another thing that he does as well as being in sort of like all these, horror films.
**Adam:** And he has a real gift for comedy, and, and, and also even even in this where it's like, you know, it's, it's a very slezy cameo that he's got.
**Chris:** It is, it is.
**Adam:** But it's still sort of, it still, it still amusing and still, yeah.
**Adam:** so, yeah, it's again just these.
**Chris:** And it ends well.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, it is very well, thank you.
**Adam:** He usually does.
**Adam:** I think, I think he's going to end, he's going to end up being able to do a memoir like Peter Cushing where he just lists all the ways in which he's been dispatched in film.
**Chris:** I'm just going to look, he's got upcoming 17. Yeah, actually, he's just, they've just released an album by, he's got a band, or he's in a band called Clippety Clop, he plays percussion, and that's just been released like an album from like 20 odd years ago, which when you say that, you then go, oh yes, that's 2004, which still feels dead modern, but there we go.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, it's great.
**Lee:** Yeah, I, I again, and I thought this film looked really nice as well, like it again, as we said, with the Andrew Elias stuff, although it's on a much lower budget, the film quality is incredible, it looks so crisp and so clear.
**Chris:** It is, yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, I know we, obviously we saw it in a an HD version.
**Lee:** but it just looked incredible.
**Adam:** And once again, the sound.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, they, I mean, that, that, full credit, you know, that that that ultimate bug bear of, independent cinema is, you know, especially very low budget cinema, is that keeping the sound grade, and this, yeah, I mean, the score onwards, it's, you know, it sounds terrific, you know, it's, it's really well sort of like mastered and produced and everything.
**Chris:** It's just.
**Lee:** Nothing draws me out of a film more than having to have one hand on the volume control, because you don't know what the next scene's going to do, but it, yeah, like you say, I didn't even think of it, because it didn't cross my mind, because we just put it on and we sat and went right through it and, yeah.
**Lee:** You got everyone was saying, the score wasn't too, that that's the other thing with independent, sometimes we find, I say, luckily not with anything we've covered recently, but when we've covered older stuff like Thanks Killing and stuff like that, yeah, where every time the score comes in, you have no idea what anyone's saying, unless you've got the the subtitles on and it's just chaos.
**Lee:** yeah, and like I think the technology's out there now for people to really tighten this stuff up and they've put so much effort in, and it just, it does just allow you to get so drawn into the film, because you're not constantly, oh shit, that was loud, or what are they saying and just, yeah, it's just, yeah, excellent, really.
**Chris:** Yeah, and talking about the dialogue was good throughout.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's the fact that they, you know, they describe it as film Noir with with like a horror sort of element to it.
**Adam:** And I think that is very accurate, you know, that's kind of it's those, it's, it's those proper good ones where it, you know, you end up falling down, well, you know, as they say in it, you end up falling down the rabbit hole, and, you know, you, you do sort of like, it's, there's a lot, a lot of twists and turns, and you aren't quite sure of people, and no one is quite sure of people and a few people aren't sure of themselves.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and it has that proper sort of feel to it where it's, you know, almost is everyone.
**Chris:** And it's a subtle, it's a subtle thread that runs throughout because again, that could be done very clumsily, but when it holds up all the way through.
**Lee:** And it all falls down to the performances ultimately, if it isn't performed well, yeah, then you either you get the tell or it feels like a cheat because it doesn't feel real, but everyone did such a fantastic job, yeah, that the twists and turns and everything kind of come out of left field every time and catch you.
**Lee:** this is probably a good time to give the spoiler warning, I say if we're going to head into.
**Adam:** I'd say so. Spoiler alert.
**Lee:** go and Adam has just waved his hand over the camera like a, like a screen fade between the pre and post spoiler, yes, so, if you are going to watch this film, which we heartily recommend, yes, pause this now, stop this, go and find it somewhere and then return and, even if you return in a couple of months time when it's readily available.
**Lee:** because I love that sometimes with a podcast, when they talk about something pre spoiler, and it wets your appetite for it, and then you can go back and listen to the whole thing again with a better view of what's to come, so, this is your chance now, so clear off and we'll see you once you've seen Burnt Flowers.
**Adam:** Yeah, we'll still be here.
**Lee:** We will, we will still be here.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh, the twist in this was, the twists, it was multiple twists, which, yeah, which I really, really liked.
**Lee:** as you said, you know some things up with Alice, but then finding out, and I, I got a very slight inkling of it when the dodgy detective was on the phone, to Michael Fauste and said, someone's coming in reported a missing person, no, nobody saw them.
**Lee:** I was like, oh, I wonder if that's going to come back later on, but yeah, I wondered if it was going to be a different person.
**Lee:** I didn't think it was going to be that nobody.
**Lee:** He's showing up, which was excellent.
**Adam:** And and having said, and and again,
**Adam:** having said about the, fact that you've had the good differential with the aging makeup, obviously Alice doesn't look any different in 1968 to 1992.
**Adam:** And so, you know, and I think, I think actually that was possibly the reason why I was so impressed with the aging thing, because it was like, right, okay, so there, at that point, I'm kind of like, well, there's something happening, and obviously, it then starts being, she disappears, midway through a conversation and things like that.
**Adam:** And it was, yeah, you you knew something was up.
**Adam:** and then obviously you've got.
**Adam:** the, Danny Thompson's character's daughter, who then is the sort of driving force for the plot in 92 as well.
**Lee:** It was Alice Stevenson, that's the one.
**Lee:** I've got to say, my money was on Danny Thompson being the killer.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** I had thought because I was like, well, I don't think we'd heard what her end was, but we know she's no longer there.
**Lee:** And I'd kind of pinned it on her, because she was always around and the tarot cards and things, I was like, oh yeah, maybe that's, maybe it was her.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** I was totally.
**Lee:** Thrown when it that wasn't the case at all.
**Adam:** But the the interesting thing was is because at certain points, and then by the end of it, they are dressed the same, essentially.
**Adam:** so, Frank and, Iris, are they both, are they actually half sisters?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** See, now it's funny, Jennifer said that at the when we were watching it, yeah, I think it was about two thirds of the way through, where she got an inkling and then suddenly went, oh, hang on a minute, is this getting into Star Wars territory, she had just unexpectedly fucked her own sister, which would just be.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Super weird.
**Adam:** Yeah, don't ever mention that to a Star Wars fan, but slightly Game of Thrones term, I think.
**Adam:** But well she's already shot a ghost.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Lee:** It's a.
**Lee:** I'm kind of glad that it turned out that one of them was just a ghost, because otherwise it's the story of a detective who just sleeps with everybody who she comes into contact with, which, I mean, I'm sure there are out there in the 90s, probably more than 70s.
**Adam:** I was going to say, I'm sure there are plenty of films like that.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** But they aren't, they aren't the remit of our podcast, you know.
**Chris:** I suppose it's like, I mean, this, this does encompass more.
**Chris:** perhaps it's slightly broader than we would necessarily always cover, because of the whole, actually, I mean, we don't always cover that many, kind of serial killer.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And and actually that was another thing I liked about this.
**Adam:** It's because I could see the interest in the 60s through because obviously, I mean, the the sort of gangsters is a given thing and obviously you've got a, you know, like a gay gangster, so you're looking towards like the Crays and things like that, but also around that sort of time in the 60s, there was also the unsolved, Hammersmith Nude murders, and they were sort of, that was like six, sex workers were murdered like in, I think it was like 60, it was 64 and 65, and they've never been solved, so I think and they were kind of, like a few of the suspects in those murders, because like I say, they've never been solved, they they were actually the killer got the nickname Jack the Stripper, but they, but like a few, a few of the suspects were related to like the sort of cd end of crime in the 60s, like Soho and, one of them was a guy called Freddy Mills, who was a boxer, who was like involved with the Richardsons and new like a lot of, you know, when that whole thing where it was like gangland but also celebrities and, you know, every, basically everyone had money, so they were all mixing together and it all, you know, everyone, everyone wanted a bit of the, the 60s promiscuousness, so they were all, everyone wanted a bit of everyone, yeah.
**Chris:** No, have you not seen it yet?
**Adam:** Yeah, everyone wanted a bit of everyone.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, everyone wanted a bit of everyone.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and it was mostly how a lot of the power traded.
**Adam:** Because it was then sort of people had things on other people, whether it was gangsters with politicians or with celebrities or whatever like that, and so that I think like a House of Cards, you all got to keep it going, yeah, exactly, everyone's got to keep quiet because as soon as the first one goes and everybody starts rolling on everybody else, then suddenly, yeah, there's chaos, and I mean, I don't know, like am I right about this, there was a reminiscent of kind of Tarantino Esk, I was sort of thinking that with the dialogue and some of the slightly more, you know, amusing bit especially when they're they're about to cut off someone's one finger or the other.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Keep it going.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Everyone's got a.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I mean, I don't know, like am I right about this.
**Chris:** There was a reminiscent of kind of Tarantino Esk, I was sort of thinking that with the dialogue and some of the.
**Chris:** slightly more, you know, amusing bits especially when they they're about to cut off someone's one finger or the other.
**Adam:** Yeah, it did, it did have that feel of of like British for me it was like a lot of British gangster movies, good one so I before Guy Ritchie.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Could could.
**Adam:** But they were.
**Adam:** I will.
**Adam:** I will get a slap for that later.
**Lee:** I quite like Guy Ritchie, I was more offended by Chris saying Tarantino.
**Chris:** Well no, right, so, so that's, so that's why I was, I was, I was like, I knew that wouldn't go down perfectly, however, but I I like this.
**Lee:** I like this.
**Chris:** Yeah, no.
**Chris:** But I think, for me, it's it's the way they sort of play off each other.
**Chris:** No, it might, it could be that I am just not well moved enough to have a broader experience of films that do that.
**Chris:** Whereas I think, you know, it's definitely been bits.
**Chris:** Tarantino gets it as it well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'll I'll be honest, the one thing that I've really not not to say that it's because it's a it's a different sort of thing entirely, but watching this, I now really have to rewatch performance, because I haven't seen it for a fucking ages, and performance is, like a, it's a gangster movie, but it's very sort of strange and art house, and basically this gangster goes and hides in a gangster goes and hides away in Mick Jagger's house, and, yeah, Mick Jagger is playing like a faded rock star.
**Adam:** It's like the 70s, so it's a bit more it's a bit more sort of down at heel and a bit more, slezy, but basically, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This this.
**Adam:** This gangster hides out with this washed up, rock star and then ends up doing loads of acid and listening to a lot of like trippy music and everything, and it all fucking plays out from there and it's very same sort of thing of like sort of gets very sort of psychosexual and odd and people transfer identities and things like that.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** You can definitely see, yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's a fucking great film and yeah, that that's what's made me want to go, I'm going to have to rewatch performance because I've watched it for a while anyway, so.
**Lee:** And I, and I, this reminded me that I've only seen, Last Night in Soho, twice, which again, it's that 60s gangster with the slightly supernatural.
**Adam:** Again.
**Lee:** Edgy, but completely different.
**Lee:** But like, you know, it it had the same feel to it.
**Chris:** Yeah, mind, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and when you watch a film like this and it makes you go, oh yeah, I want to go and watch so and so now.
**Lee:** I like, I love that, when you end up as you say down a rabbit hole, where it's like, oh it's similar to this.
**Lee:** And then it leads you onto something else.
**Lee:** And it, yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, I, I, I was absolutely, because I'd looked looked forward to seeing this quite a lot, as I say, we'd seen the posters where it had been played at the film festivals, and unfortunately, it was on days we hadn't gone to.
**Lee:** but yeah, I was so pleased with this because I was like, I've been looking forward to seeing this for a good six months or so.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh, I hope it doesn't let me down, and it didn't in any way, it was such a fantastic view and we had such a great time watching it.
**Lee:** I even loved the, the almost straight down the barrel delivery of the title of the film.
**Lee:** I love to see that in a film.
**Lee:** It always warms my heart, yeah.
**Lee:** Literally as it was delivered.
**Lee:** Jennifer went, woo.
**Adam:** And at least they didn't say, maybe the burnt flowers were the friends we made along the way.
**Lee:** yes, so, fantastic movie, as we've already said, definitely go and check it out as soon as it becomes available.
**Lee:** If if it's showing at a film festival, even though you kind of know the story, it's the journey with this, it's such a lovely.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Lee:** yeah, and it is fantastic.
**Lee:** I was a little bit worried at points at the beginning, that it was, it was going to be like a crime procedural type thing.
**Chris:** But they did break it up well enough.
**Lee:** Yeah, that last act.
**Chris:** It did.
**Chris:** Brought the.
**Lee:** On and you're like, oh, it's been there the whole time.
**Lee:** And we didn't know.
**Chris:** That's why.
**Chris:** Yeah, the whole thing felt like very cleverly done subtle.
**Adam:** You realize quite how warped the reality of it has been from the opening.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, thanks ever so much for listening everybody, go and check out Burnt Flowers, you won't regret it.
**Lee:** It's an excellent film, well done Michael Fauste and everybody involved.
**Lee:** We can't wait to see what you.
**Adam:** Thank you for letting us see it.
**Lee:** Yeah, thank you.
**Lee:** And we we can't wait to see what you're up to next.
**Lee:** speaking of what we're up to next, we will be back in a Fortnight's time.
**Lee:** For Lady Jennifer's birthday request, we're going to be covering Sightseers.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, that's going to be a good one.
**Chris:** It's been a long time coming that one.
**Lee:** Oh, it has.
**Chris:** So it's a, it must be like 10 years ago.
**Chris:** Or longer.
**Chris:** You talk.
**Lee:** Yeah, have you not seen it yet?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh man, oh, you.
**Lee:** You little bastard.
**Lee:** You just got to watch it, you're just going to fucking roll a coaster.
**Adam:** You just got to watch it.
**Lee:** You'd be ready.
**Lee:** so Steve Oram, obviously you already know.
**Lee:** and Alice Lowe.
**Adam:** Alice Lowe, and Ben Weekley.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and Alice Lowe is a lead lead role in this, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Well it was written by Steve Oram and Alice Lowe as well.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** Oh, gotcha.
**Lee:** just to warn you, Chris, because I know sometimes you get confused.
**Lee:** It is comedy.
**Chris:** You're gone.
**Lee:** It's the blackest possible.
**Chris:** All right, that's interesting.
**Chris:** I'm going to see how long it would have taken me to realize that then.
**Lee:** time stamp.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, thanks very much for listening everybody, thanks again to Michael Fauste and everyone involved in this film, and we'll see you all in a fortnight's time for Sightseers.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Night, night.
**Lee:** That's not my vagina.

---

## Ep 202 Killer Klows from Outer Space

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-202-killer-klows-from-outer-space/
Air date: 14 July 2024
Duration: 00:39:02
Film: Killer Klowns from Outer Space · Year: 1988 · Director: Stephen Chiodo

### Description

It’s taken far too long, but here we go with The Chiodo Brothers’ “Killer Klowns From Outer Space”. A film in which Dean Wormer is still having trouble with disrespectful young punks; we discover quite how bad popcorn can be for your health; and reveal the safest place to hide in an ice cream van, in the event of an explosion. A perennial of the video shop, and many a young horror fan’s gateway to the genre; “Killer Klowns…” still looks magnificent, mostly due to the Chiodo Brothers’ mastery of practical effects and unique style. Embracing its B-Movie premise (it’s similarities to “The Blob” are marked), with performances to match; this film knows its ridiculous and revels in it’s cartoonish silliness. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** Hey, Adam.
**Lee:** I can't breathe.
**Chris:** He's coughing.
**Lee:** I can't believe it's taken us 200 episodes to get here, but here is where we are, we're going to be discussing 1988's fantastic movie by the Chiodo Brothers, Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Now, I know this has a particular place in the hearts of myself and Adam.
**Adam:** So, having not seen it, I would be interesting to hear about.
**Chris:** I'm assuming.
**Lee:** I'm assuming.
**Lee:** Spoiler alert.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, speaking of which, there will be spoilers and swearing.
**Adam:** You brick.
**Lee:** So, on your first watching, Chris.
**Chris:** They're they're clowns.
**Lee:** What did you make of Killer Klowns? There are a lot of clowns.
**Chris:** Beware the Bozos. Killer Klowns are carnival of chaos, crazier than critters, more Ghoulish than Gremlins, and freakier than Freddy, and no, the cops aren't going to be much help.
**Chris:** Until a bit later on when they they improve a bit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So, yeah, you just said, how have we waited this long to get here?
**Chris:** Come on, who's who's got a good answer for that?
**Adam:** No one.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** I I think it it's unfortunately, I think it's one of those ones that is just it's so prevalent that it almost seems daft to cover it a bit like The Exorcist.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** It's but it's a very niche film. Everybody who's seen it loves it, but it is a little bit of an odd hard sell, really.
**Chris:** It's another one where you saw the cover a lot in the.
**Adam:** Yes, in Blockbuster.
**Adam:** But it's also one of those, it's on it's on a different list.
**Adam:** Killer Klowns from Outer Space is never going to be on like.
**Adam:** I mean, fuck me, I mean, this is shaming me on a Barry Norman list of films. That was the that was literally the first film critic I could think of, which shows goes to prove how up to the fucking minute I am with my.
**Adam:** with my knowledge on this.
**Adam:** But no, it's The Exorcist or Night of the Living Dead are always going to be on classic horror movie lists.
**Adam:** Killer Klowns from Outer Space isn't, but.
**Adam:** Everyone who's seen it loves it, and everyone everyone who's seen it has an affection for it, which is just as important, I think.
**Chris:** I could imagine it being a film that almost gets better with age.
**Chris:** In that you know, it could it's surprising how good it still looks now for what I assume is a fairly budget friendly film.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** but yeah, as you were saying about it being one of those that you always saw in the video shop.
**Lee:** It that was how I first saw it, so when we were younger, my parents both worked.
**Lee:** So, a couple of nights a week, my nan would pick us up from school and take us to hers, she had no idea what certificates were.
**Lee:** So she would take us to the video shop and let us go.
**Adam:** This little, is this little Geordie nana?
**Lee:** Little Geordie Nana, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** God bless her.
**Lee:** I I don't know how she didn't get ID'd, she's only two and a half foot.
**Lee:** But we.
**Chris:** I get it.
**Lee:** So me and my brother went and hired this out, and then it became one of those staples, every three weeks or so, we'd just hire it out and watch it again, because it's just such a fun film.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And then it was one of the first things I had to get when I got a DVD player.
**Lee:** And I've never fallen out of love with this film, it's just so much fun, and so much better than it's got a lot of right to be in some respects.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, I mean it certainly comes across as we've said, I think a few times recently.
**Chris:** It's a film that knows what it is and it does what it is well, but it's not trying to be something other than that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** And I think weirdly and this is this, I mean, because I'm I'm late I was late to the party on it.
**Adam:** I didn't see it when I was really little when it first came out, but it must have been sort of mid-90s.
**Adam:** And actually, it was sort of it's weird because you do get a glut of or it's or it's a cyclic thing, you get clown horror movies.
**Adam:** You know, you obviously had it and then most recently the example would be Terrifier and things like that, so it's but so clowns are a horror staple, and.
**Adam:** But this I I think the weirdest thing is how well it stands up in terms of its production.
**Adam:** You know, I mean, the the the the sort of character the the human characters and everything else like that is it's clearly the 80s, it's clearly, you know, of it of that time period and everything else like that.
**Adam:** But actually the effects are fucking great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, the the clowns the practical effects, the clowns themselves, the sets, particularly like the big top spaceship.
**Adam:** I mean, that bit I mean, watched it with Claire, it was Claire's first time ever seeing it, and she genuinely wowed when they go into the room and there's the.
**Adam:** Like you know, where it's like the sort of mat shot and they've got the power ball thing, like the power coupling thing going off.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just it it's remarkable that it still holds, you know, holds up so well.
**Adam:** That it's like, you you wouldn't have to make allowances showing this to someone.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, you don't have to prep someone by saying oh, it's the 80s or oh, well, there is there is this bit that's a bit crap or that looks a bit shoddy or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Because actually nothing does in it, it's all.
**Adam:** And and all the the stuff is so you want all the fucking kit.
**Adam:** Because it's like you want their guns, you want their fucking weird sweeper thing that they use, like a giant Hoover thing that they've got.
**Adam:** Or the clown car.
**Adam:** And all that you want the popcorn gun and things like that because everything looks so fucking good.
**Adam:** And follows the the same like everything looks right, it's like, of course that's what alien clown technology looks like.
**Chris:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's it's and that's the thing, it is such a ludicrous idea, it would be a hard sell.
**Lee:** But you know, that but that's what we've said, you know, if once you've seen it, there's nothing about this film that let that lets it down.
**Lee:** It's just excellent and it's yeah, it's thoroughly entertaining, it's gorgeous to look at.
**Lee:** the soundtrack by The Dickies is obviously outstanding.
**Adam:** Well, it's only the theme tune that's The Dickies.
**Lee:** And the theme tune, sorry, not the soundtrack.
**Adam:** Yeah, and but yeah, and but the but the soundtrack is fucking amazing.
**Adam:** The guy who did the soundtrack John John Massari.
**Adam:** And he.
**Adam:** but yeah, The Dickies did the theme song because we were we were listening to some Dickies the other day.
**Adam:** and yeah, they did release an EP called Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which is the theme tune and four other songs.
**Adam:** But the four other songs aren't in the film or anything to do with the film, it's just that was yeah.
**Chris:** But they sound like they could be.
**Adam:** Oh, they it's well, The Dickies have a particular sort of sound that they it's that very sort of jerky punk sound, kind of like sort of Devo, a bit like Devo, a bit Ramonesy but not too much like that, it's that sort of sound.
**Lee:** So Cramps sort of.
**Adam:** Yeah, because they're they're best they're best known song is they did like a really speed freak cover of the theme tune from the Banana Splits, you know.
**Adam:** They did like a cover that's like twice, I mean that's already quite hyped song, and they did it like twice the fucking speed.
**Adam:** And they do a lot of really cool covers, they did like Paranoid by Black Sabbath and just.
**Adam:** Loads of great songs, but they are they're a genuinely great band.
**Adam:** But apparently they did the they were just told the title and did the song, they didn't see the film or anything.
**Chris:** It seems no.
**Adam:** They just did it and got commission for it.
**Adam:** And yeah, and the guy who the guy who did the score for it, the the he reused a couple of bits because the the actual march when they're going into town, which is one of the best pieces of music well, in the film certainly, but just one of the best pieces of music full stop.
**Adam:** he originally wrote that for his high school band, but the rest of the band chucked it out because they were like, oh, it sounds a bit jazz.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** And actually the the music when the Clownzilla appears at the end.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** that was he originally wrote that as trailer music for Friday the 13th Part Six.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** but they didn't use it in that trailer, so it was like, well, I've got this, you know, and so he had so, you know, wasn't afraid to keep all these ideas around and use them when they actually were appropriate and could be sort of utilized.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean, he's done.
**Adam:** Like, because he does lots of because so he did.
**Adam:** Do you remember a film called The Wizard of Speed and Time, Lee?
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I I definitely remember, I do definitely remember that, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, so he did the music for that, and he did the music for Retro Puppet Master.
**Adam:** And then lots of his I think he does a lot of library stuff.
**Adam:** So his stuff's turned up on a lot of TV shows like, like American Pickers, RuPaul's Drag Race, Stranger Things, Key and Peele.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** So like his tracks, he hasn't necessarily written them for that, but those tracks have appeared on there.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, and like The Ray Bradbury Theatre and Practical Jokers and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's sort of stuff that's around and has been used in all those shows.
**Adam:** He also did music for a thing called The Heart She Holler, which I'm fucking desperate to see and I've never been able to find it anywhere to watch properly.
**Adam:** Which is like adult swim did like a comedy version of like a sort of Twin Peaks thing, and it's got Patton Oswalt and, Amy Sedaris in it.
**Adam:** And it looks it looks brilliant, it looks fucking mental because like people have said, oh, it's like, you know, it's an over it's like Twin Peaks, but way more exaggerated and way more funny and weird.
**Adam:** Like deliberately funny and weird, not just like awkwardly funny in the way that you do with sort of Lynch or whatever.
**Adam:** But like, yeah, so there's yeah, I mean, the music's fucking fantastic.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** The I mean, the the acting is the the other great thing is.
**Adam:** It's everyone's doing a B movie, so all the humans are in a B movie.
**Adam:** So it's not it's just on the edge of over the top.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Which fits perfectly.
**Adam:** Yeah, you don't you don't need a Ken Loach version of Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
**Adam:** You don't need like, you know, it's like well, it's it's you know, we want naturalistic performances with people mumbling.
**Adam:** No, you do need people to.
**Lee:** You need The Terran brothers, like that's what you need to be, that is 100% what you need.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And Moony.
**Lee:** And I've got I've got I was about to say I've got to bring it up, my favorite character in it is Moony, he's just absolutely outstanding.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He just.
**Adam:** John Vernon.
**Lee:** Yeah, again always brings in a stellar performance.
**Lee:** but he just works so well in this, just his I've had enough of this shit and I'm not taking it anymore.
**Chris:** It's.
**Chris:** It's just the it's just the amount of venom that comes out.
**Chris:** Yeah, his disdain for the entirety of pretty much all humans, but especially the youth of the town.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's he's coming to work pissed off and he's staying.
**Chris:** It's.
**Chris:** It's it's not getting any better.
**Adam:** And I'll be honest, that's a feeling I know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And just the I mean, just the amount of little prick and just all the stuff that.
**Adam:** But I'd forgotten we've actually had him on the show before, not not on the show.
**Adam:** Obviously, and here he is, special guest.
**Adam:** But because I always forget he's in The Uncanny, the the cat anthology horror film, he's like the Hollywood producer in that.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And I always forget about that.
**Adam:** But obviously.
**Adam:** Probably, I mean, it's Doctor Stone in Airplane II.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is just just the pinnacle, one of the pinnacles of the career.
**Adam:** Where it's is that a good sign?
**Adam:** Oh, well, it does the trick and you know.
**Adam:** What's your impression of?
**Adam:** I'm a psychiatrist, I don't do impressions.
**Adam:** And and obviously Dean Wormer in Animal House.
**Lee:** That's good to say, that's what he's always always going to be Dean Wormer for me.
**Adam:** Did you know that there's a spin-off, there was a TV version of Animal House?
**Adam:** And he's in it as Dean Wormer.
**Lee:** Oh, I might have to track that down.
**Adam:** Apparently, it's called Delta House.
**Adam:** I don't know if anyone I don't think anyone else is in it.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** Yeah, there is like a spin-off TV series that ran for one series.
**Lee:** Oh, I'm 100% gonna try and find that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And obviously, and he's brilliant in as the mayor in Dirty Harry.
**Adam:** And just yeah, he's just a fantastic.
**Adam:** I also didn't realize this.
**Adam:** But during the sort of 60s, he was the voice of half of the Marvel cartoons, like half the Marvel superheroes.
**Adam:** He was Iron Man, the Sub-Mariner.
**Adam:** in Iron Man, the Sub-Mariner in stuff like Captain America, The Mighty Thor.
**Adam:** Obviously, Iron Man, The Hulk.
**Adam:** he was Doctor Strange and General Ross in stuff.
**Adam:** He was Doctor Doom.
**Adam:** and he does like he's did voice work in Heavy Metal and Duckman and stuff like that as well.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** It's just always fucking.
**Adam:** He's just always great to see.
**Lee:** I think I I do think that Heavy Metal is something we could possibly.
**Lee:** shoehorn in as horror, just to cover.
**Lee:** I don't know if you've ever seen it, Chris.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** It's it's a strange adult animation.
**Lee:** It's very fantasy, it's very weird.
**Lee:** It's kind of awesome.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** But it's one of those I I've seen it about four times.
**Lee:** And I can only ever remember the kind of initial wrap around bit.
**Lee:** And every time I watch it, I'm it's like I'm watching it for the first time.
**Lee:** I think because it always goes on at one o'clock in the morning when I'm pissed.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** See I I I I only.
**Adam:** I remember I remember image-wise, but I only saw it once as a kid because I think there was the mistaken belief that it's oh, it's animation, so kids can watch it.
**Lee:** No, it's not really.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, it's not really, it's.
**Adam:** Not not really that sort of thing.
**Adam:** But but like you said, obviously, and I I'll.
**Adam:** I only found out that it's the the so the team who made this.
**Adam:** it's actually The Chiodo Brothers, that's how you pronounce it.
**Adam:** So I heard an interview with him, but I always thought it was Cheeto to be honest.
**Adam:** And basically, it's three they're three brothers from New York who started an effects started doing effects and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And Stephen Chiodo is the director and he wrote it with Charles and Edward like his brothers.
**Adam:** And and they're they specialized in creature design, puppeteering, animatronics, claymation and stop motion and it all.
**Adam:** You can see it all in here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and they designed and puppeteered the critters.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** in that.
**Adam:** They did large Marge in Pee-wee's Big Adventure.
**Adam:** And they also did stuff for
**Adam:** Oh, what's the what's the short, Victor?
**Adam:** The the Edward fuck me.
**Adam:** The Tim Burton short, Vincent.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** They they did they did that as well, and they were meant to do Beetlejuice, but were actually making this.
**Adam:** But you can so see that that following the same and everything else like that.
**Chris:** It would yeah.
**Adam:** but they also did the stop motion stuff in Elf.
**Adam:** You know where it's like him recalling the north like talking about the North Pole.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** That's The Chiodo Brothers, the commercial for the 6000 X in Robo Cop.
**Adam:** Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.
**Adam:** Team America World Police, Monsters in Stupid and
**Adam:** Alien Abduction and The Monsters TV series, Beastmaster 3, Screamers.
**Adam:** and they also did a puppet segment and five claymation segments for various episodes of The Simpsons.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** So, you know, they they do a lot, and you know, and that was the thing, they just started off like together like just as kids.
**Adam:** And that was what they like I listened to this interview and they were like.
**Adam:** Yeah, other kids were out playing ball and we were indoors like making sort of trying to make Ray Harryhausen films and sort of do stuff like that.
**Adam:** Or building monster heads and things like that.
**Adam:** And
**Lee:** Well, yeah, they're clowns in this, I love it is that balance of they are every clown in it is very different.
**Lee:** They've all got a.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** They've got their own style, which I love.
**Adam:** They've all got names as well, did you know that?
**Lee:** I didn't know that.
**Adam:** No, they obviously, obviously you don't hear them on the thing, but yeah, they they have all got individual names as well, so.
**Adam:** It's really, include what I wrote down a couple of them.
**Adam:** There's McGorey, Jumbo, Shorty, Slim, Rudy, and Clownzilla, obviously.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Chris:** That makes it a bit easier to refer to them while you're.
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah.
**Lee:** They just managed to be creepy and sinister.
**Lee:** And just, oh, they just look filthy as well, like I love that, they look dirty, like they're just, oh, they're so.
**Lee:** I wonder how much this led to people's fear of clowns as much as, you know, possibly Pennywise did.
**Lee:** Because they're.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, that that was the one thing we were debating because like having watched it with Claire, we were like.
**Adam:** That would be the only thing, because we were kind of like, you know, Ted could possibly watch it.
**Adam:** Because it's not extreme, it's silly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's not.
**Adam:** But equally, the clowns are scary enough that that would be the thing.
**Adam:** You take away the and she do we do we want to give him what is it, or I can't remember, but.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, I don't know the name.
**Adam:** Do we want to make him afraid of clowns yet?
**Adam:** So, so instead, we just put on a documentary about John Wayne Gacy.
**Lee:** That's a good idea.
**Chris:** That's good.
**Adam:** How many your back.
**Chris:** I I introduced Toby to
**Chris:** I've just completely forgotten his name.
**Chris:** It's in Rick and Morty.
**Chris:** Oh, what is he called? Cronenberg, there you go.
**Adam:** Oh, really?
**Chris:** The Cronenberg episode, which it's funny.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Chris:** But he's got the concept of what a Cronenberg type thing is, and yeah, that's it's gone a bit too a bit too real in his mind.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, well, I.
**Chris:** So, I won't be rushing to show him Cronenberg films just yet.
**Adam:** For a second there, I thought you were actually showing him like The Brood or The Fly or something.
**Adam:** It was like, that's a bit much, Chris.
**Chris:** Not not quite there.
**Chris:** I mean, we'll start with Rick and Morty cartoon, but yeah, you know.
**Chris:** I was going to make this I was going to make this slightly more serious in that another horror film that I think is possibly ahead of its time.
**Chris:** In that it presented the female character, Debbie.
**Chris:** As being very logical, very like cautious.
**Chris:** But also, this is probably not a cotton candy factory.
**Chris:** Like, have you ever seen this before?
**Chris:** And the guy's like typical overconfident, just rushing in.
**Lee:** Like, to back a clueless thing.
**Adam:** Which is a fantastic fucking night.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But also, yeah, that was kind of what they said they wanted to do is they kind of wanted to invert it.
**Adam:** That he was the dumb blonde sort of character that you would usually get in a horror film.
**Adam:** And she was like the smart one.
**Chris:** But it's funny how a lot of horrors do flip it, so like we do get the typical, but then yeah, we also get the very progressive.
**Lee:** Very opposite, yeah.
**Chris:** That's not how it always is.
**Chris:** Yeah, often the men are very stupid.
**Adam:** Horror as as a trope, there is the final girl.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's the woman who survives by actually working shit out.
**Adam:** And actually, you know, either through sense or strength or whatever manages to come out on top.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Mike does have a redeeming quality.
**Chris:** Of he does want to do good.
**Chris:** He's just slightly.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, he's just a bit he's just a bit fucking thing.
**Adam:** You know, he's just And similarly, they actually, there was like the original ending of it.
**Adam:** Apparently, they were going to kill Dave off.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** And then they basically, they showed it to a test audience.
**Adam:** And the test audience were like, oh, we wanted to have a bit of a happier ending.
**Adam:** And so they refilmed it so that Dave survived.
**Adam:** but apparently when like the producers went to them and said, oh, you know.
**Adam:** They've said about that and they were like, yeah, but come on, we want to make it realistic.
**Adam:** And they were like, it's a film about clowns from outer space.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, fair point, okay, we'll go and.
**Chris:** I like the fact I've learned how to.
**Adam:** to suddenly go, no, we want this to be for real.
**Adam:** You know, we don't want this to be.
**Chris:** How how to survive a huge explosion in an ice cream truck?
**Chris:** Hide in the freezer, of course.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Chris:** And don't worry about gravity, how far they fell, that's that's fine.
**Chris:** That's fine.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I did like the very end, the pies on their face.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, not only that, but also everyone knows that an old fridge can survive anything.
**Adam:** That's why they used to put public information films about not locking your mate in a fridge.
**Adam:** Because even with like diamond tip drills.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You ain't getting them out.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was it.
**Adam:** They they were trapped forever, mummified.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** What again Dave is a very similar character.
**Lee:** In that he is trying to do the right thing, but he's just fairly ineffectual, really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Although at least I think obviously.
**Adam:** Because obviously Moony is definitely part of the list of funny coppers of Film Land.
**Adam:** because for a start he he makes the film in, you know, he is the most entertaining.
**Adam:** He's the most entertaining human.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but it's also it's also that sort of thing of being yet another in a long line of American films.
**Adam:** Particularly came out in the 80s, I don't know whether it was well, I do, I kind of get what it was, but of a small town in America.
**Adam:** And chaos turns up to actually sort of.
**Adam:** You know, basically a gang.
**Chris:** They are not prepared to deal with any of this.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** No, but it's like Gremlins.
**Adam:** It's like Critters.
**Adam:** You know, it's just like this.
**Adam:** Basically, it it's the same thing as all that.
**Adam:** Panic, it's almost the same as the panic about.
**Adam:** Oh, bikers are going to turn up and fuck everything up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That is actually one of my favorite sequences as well.
**Adam:** It's just outside the biker club.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where they smash his bike up, and then he just punches his face off.
**Lee:** He's clean off.
**Chris:** You're going to knock my block off.
**Adam:** Apparently, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, because there's lots.
**Adam:** There's lots of bits in that.
**Adam:** It's like Moony saying, you're not going to make a dummy of me.
**Adam:** And then obviously they go.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** He's he's a very slapstick humor.
**Lee:** But a lot like it never, I say it never gets silly.
**Lee:** Of course, it is fairly, but like it's yeah.
**Lee:** There's something about it that isn't too slapstick, cuz I can find slapstick sometimes just tedious.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** But this walks a really nice line of keeping it sort of not too ridiculous.
**Lee:** And you know, the gore and stuff is good as well.
**Lee:** Which again sort of helps keep it less daft in a funny way.
**Chris:** Well, balanced.
**Adam:** Claire referred to it as Looney Tunes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it is that because that's kind of what clowns you need that.
**Adam:** It's clowns, they kind of have to be all sort of over the top and sound effects and sort of ridiculousness.
**Adam:** You know, lots of and that kind of everything has to be sort of that cartoonish level of sort of violence or whatever.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And and actually and The Terranzy brothers.
**Adam:** They're actually that's a they're a double act or were a double act.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Called and they did they like used to do like a comedy show.
**Adam:** Something called a TV sketch film called Cheeseball Presents.
**Adam:** But I don't know if you remember this, do you remember Packing Them In, which was like a variety comedy show that used to be on Channel 4?
**Adam:** And it was Jenny and Frank Skinner played two people who were running a theater.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** I remember that.
**Adam:** Yeah, and they used to just put acts on but it would be like English, American acts.
**Adam:** And apparently they ran an episode of that, and they did The Paul Daniels Magic Show and shit.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Michael Sieger who played Rich moved to the UK in the 90s and he's now he just now crops up in all the usual places that acts have appeared in Britain.
**Adam:** Like Midsomer Murders and casually and things like that.
**Adam:** And, whereas Peter unfortunately,
**Adam:** He unfortunately took his own life in 2020 because apparently he'd had suffered from depression for years.
**Adam:** So which is which is sad.
**Adam:** And what way went this jolly movie that we've been talking about.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Here here I come, here I come with the mallet behind my back of that sad news.
**Adam:** But forever immortalized as The Terranzy brothers, you know, they they.
**Adam:** Again, although Claire was very disappointed that any teenager would not want an ice cream van around.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like, yeah, I mean, it's a crazy idea.
**Lee:** But it does make me laugh, yeah, that they just start throwing beer cans at you.
**Lee:** You just ignore them, surely, you've got better things to but, you know.
**Adam:** I I've worked it out though is because obviously, whenever there's a makeout point, it's always a thing for the police come.
**Adam:** Right, all of you breaking up everything.
**Adam:** So maybe it was just like, we don't need a fucking set of chimes and a screaming megaphone while we're trying to do this.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's it's just one of those great fun classic, it's a great late night film.
**Lee:** It's one of those that's great if you've got people over and you need something mental on in the background.
**Lee:** It it's yeah, it's ideal, really.
**Lee:** I've definitely.
**Adam:** It would be ideal to stick on a Halloween party.
**Adam:** It's just a visual.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** And and actually the weirdest thing is because they did a they had a themed Killer Klowns from Outer Space zone at the Halloween Horror Night at Universal Orlando in 2018.
**Adam:** and they've turned they turned it into a full haunted house in 2019 and then they recreated it in 2022.
**Adam:** at Universal Hollywood.
**Adam:** And as long as I mean, they've obviously always talked about sequel.
**Adam:** But obviously, there's a game coming out fairly soon.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That looks that looks I've not really a fan of online co-op games.
**Lee:** Unfortunately, otherwise, I would 100% be behind that, because it looks stunning.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** And you get to be the clowns, which is which let's face it is the only way that you want a horror adaption.
**Adam:** Yeah, you know, if there if there's a I don't know if there is one, there probably is, but if there's a computer game of Nightmare on Elm Street, you want to be Freddy.
**Adam:** You don't want to be.
**Lee:** Yeah, you don't want to be one of the victims.
**Lee:** No, yeah.
**Adam:** You just.
**Adam:** So, so they've got it the right way around, yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Lee:** And again, I'm kind of glad they didn't do a sequel, because it works perfectly on its own, and it would be one of those that just gets watered down and messed about with.
**Lee:** So I yeah, I think they made the right call.
**Adam:** Yeah, although apparently Grant Kramer who plays Mike and Suzanne Snyder who played Debbie are back for the game.
**Lee:** Oh, cool.
**Adam:** Which is pretty cool, so yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** so as we mentioned, we are not doing this film in conjunction with another in a themed month.
**Lee:** because we've got something rather exciting for our next episode, we are very lucky to have been given the opportunity.
**Lee:** We're going to be covering Burnt Flowers, which is Michael Fousty's new movie.
**Chris:** Oh, excellent.
**Lee:** he's worked on a few films that we've been watching recently, lower budget stuff, so the video shop tales of Taro, which we've been discussing.
**Adam:** And he was the.
**Lee:** Cover at some point.
**Adam:** And and he was the captain, who has to speak to.
**Adam:** in Tales from the Great War.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was the captain who's on the phone to and then he just cheats him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yes, so we're going to be covering that next, we are covering a lot more of these independent movies recently, I'm sure you've all noticed.
**Lee:** it's we've found.
**Lee:** we it's one of those things we've gotten into a vein and realized how much of this and once you start discovering it and then following it down the rabbit hole.
**Lee:** So we're taking you all with us on this, and, you know, as we've said before.
**Lee:** The beauty of independent film as it is, is that there's no studio interference, you've got no one dicking about telling you, oh, well, if you change this, you'll get a bigger audience.
**Lee:** So it's a much more pure vision of the filmmakers idea, really.
**Lee:** yeah, which is something that really appeals to us.
**Lee:** So we are yeah, following this current trend that we're on at the moment of these lower budget films and this circle of filmmakers who are doing stuff.
**Adam:** And and they've just been very generous to let us have the opportunity to see him, so, you know, we want to.
**Adam:** We want to see him spread the word, you know, and yeah, and and not only that, but also we've had a pretty good hit rate so far with a lot of these.
**Adam:** You know, we've we've enjoyed we've enjoyed the the stuff that we've given.
**Adam:** So, you know, hoping the trend continues.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fingers crossed.
**Adam:** Right, but rest assured, we will also do stuff that you can pick up in a bargain bin for 5 quid as well.
**Adam:** Or or or shit that you've seen a billion times before.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's what it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Films that are so old, they're on YouTube and nobody cares.
**Adam:** Yeah, because everyone involved is dead.
**Lee:** Just put your hammer away.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Thanks for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out Kill Klowns from Outer Space, if you haven't seen it, or if you just haven't seen it for a long time.
**Lee:** It's a good one to remind yourself on.
**Adam:** Yeah, always always a great rewatch.
**Lee:** Yeah, and we'll be back in a fortnight's time with Burnt Flowers.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Yeah, night.

---

## Ep 201 Tales from the Great War

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-201-tales-from-the-great-war/
Air date: 30 June 2024
Duration: 00:35:50

### Description

We turn our attention to a cracking little historical horror from Actor, Director, Writer (and all round top bloke) Andrew Elias. “Tales From The Great War” begins with 4 British soldiers stationed in the trenches of the Western Front being “volunteered” for a mission behind German lines, where, it soon transpires, things more terrible than the enemy are stalking the blasted landscape. The narrative shifts in time at various points to give us the separate back stories of how these individuals ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time; before tying all of them together. This episode is in two stages, at first we attempt to give a flavour of what to expect and then we’ll warn you as we move into spoiler territory. Be under no doubt, we all highly recommend you seek this film out (it is currently available for rent on Amazon) - it’s small budget belies its quality and polish, with a strong script and an excellent cast (including some familiar faces) this is a real gem, that manages to pack more into its 60 minute run time than some movies manage in 3 hours. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening to cover a new movie out.
**Lee:** Andrew Elias's fantastic. I shouldn't have said that because I've given away how I felt about the film.
**Adam:** Well, there's a spoiler already, but fortunately not for the film.
**Lee:** Yes, Tales from the Great War.
**Chris:** And this is his second film, isn't it? I think.
**Adam:** I believe so, yes. And so spoilers and swearing before we get any further. So.
**Lee:** Yes, but what we are going to do, so we're going to keep it spoiler-free for the first half, and then what we'll do is, we'll give you a chance if you hadn't seen it, to go and watch it and then return and come back for the spoilers because we definitely need to talk about, the the tie-ups at the end of the film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But, if we are encouraging people to watch it, I think we're going to encourage people to watch it.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, then we don't want to give anything away.
**Lee:** So, let's start with Chris as it is traditional. Chris, what did you make of this?
**Chris:** So, so I think I've been saying this quite a lot lately, but my expectation was set at a certain level and I was trying to work out why.
**Chris:** Right, so partially it's a war film. Now, as much as I do love war films, I don't rush towards them. It might be because they're so real and that could be a little bit to do with Lee's dislike of nuclear holocaust type scenarios.
**Adam:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** It's not something I've got a lifelong phobia of. I just won't watch Threads.
**Adam:** Right.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, but you know, so that's that's going to come back around until we do either watch it, or maybe even if I watch it.
**Chris:** But so I have this sort of idea of I think I don't, I'm not going to like war films, and then obviously I've seen some of the great ones and they are amazing, but I still am slightly averse to it.
**Chris:** So then I thought, well, I'm assuming this is a fairly low-budget film, it's independent, and it's a war film, like it's impossible not to think, I don't know how good this is going to be.
**Chris:** And then I was like,
**Adam:** especially when it's a historical war film.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Adam:** It's not just like equipment.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not just like if you're doing a war film but it's set today, you've got to have all the necessary equipment there to make that work, but also with this you've got to transpose it back, you know, basically over a hundred years.
**Lee:** Yeah, trenches and like it's amazing how much you can take in for a low-budget film, isn't it? It's Yeah.
**Chris:** Like and so if the cinematography, the music from the start, and then it was like, actually it's it's not like dark and difficult to get through. It was like surprisingly just really well-balanced, I thought, from the start.
**Chris:** I mean, it turns out it was Andrew Elias playing Old Dice and yeah, fascinating.
**Chris:** I I I loved the fact that he actually rolled the dice as well and then how keeping spoiler-free.
**Adam:** Well, it was it was to do with he's called Old Dice because he's, obsessed with fate and how the dice roll and things like that.
**Chris:** Which he does sort of say that from the off.
**Chris:** So, yeah, and and again, yeah, and it's like yeah, fascinating story.
**Chris:** It really yeah, was quite a quite impressive.
**Lee:** I think I'm the same as you, Chris. I went in and I was like trying to do a low-budget World War I set horror film and that you're going to come up against so much.
**Lee:** But as soon as it opened, like literally before the credits had ended, I was like, this is gorgeous.
**Lee:** It just
**Chris:** Yeah. I thought they must have spent all the budget on that first opening scene.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Amazing, absolutely incredible.
**Lee:** I mean, I don't know where they managed to find to film it, but it just looked so crisp and clean and the sound was
**Lee:** Like again, we've always said that the other problem with capturing live sound and something like this, it with a budget is that the sound quite often suffers and you end up with one hand on the volume trying to every time somebody speaks, it's too quiet and then the music's too, none of that.
**Lee:** It absolutely incredibly, really well polished.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And then what I loved was the fact that it is this there is supernatural elements, but a lot of it could still be psychological trauma.
**Chris:** Because I'm sure World War I was not not the thing you want to do if you want to flourish and grow really.
**Adam:** Well, let's face it, I mean, we are talking about a period of time where it was, you know, post-traumatic stress disorder and so on and sort of, you know, that was basically no, you've got shell shock, so you're being a coward and go back to the front.
**Adam:** Or if you did or if you did the perfectly understandable thing of running away, you got shot as a deserter.
**Adam:** And you know, it's I I
**Chris:** Oh, it turns out that doesn't bring out the best in people.
**Adam:** No, it doesn't.
**Adam:** But I mean, yeah, I I I think I think all of us because I mean because obviously, so Andrew Elias, who has appeared in some of the,
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, actually, I mean, he's in he he is in, he's in The Phantom Menace. He's one of the Naboo Royal Guard in The Phantom Menace.
**Chris:** Oh, really?
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** So, you know, so we covered him in Mos Eisley Happa as well. but yeah, I mean, he's in, he was we spotted him in, the pocket film of Superstitions. he was in the man on the stairs in that and, he was the caretaker in Casting Kill.
**Adam:** And at that point he's sort of stood out to us as well, as like an interesting figure.
**Lee:** Oh, he's a he's a good figure.
**Adam:** You know. So and and, you know, so I was aware aware of him as an actor and obviously he's part of that sort of whole conglomerate of conglomerate, that's probably the wrong word, but that whole collection of, local filmmakers and sort of horror, filmmakers.
**Adam:** so he's in so like so he's in in he's in those films, but obviously he, I really want to now I now really want to watch The Numbers, which is his first film, which is apparently a similar sort of a similar sort of thing where it's a a horror but also, kind of kind of an anthology because that's the thing I liked about this is you've got that sort of I was going to say that, it's episodic rather than an anthology, but it's yeah.
**Adam:** sort of everything sort of you've got essentially you've got three stories of the people involved that then wraps up at the end, so it's that kind of thing a bit like Trick 'r Treat or Pulp Fiction where it's, you know, you gradually begin to piece it together of how this all interconnects and then you get your finale and everything and.
**Chris:** But what I loved about that is actually it really works well for a second viewing, because that's what I was thinking at the end is like, yeah, this actually would replay fantastically.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely, yeah.
**Adam:** And and he did, he did one of the segments of Video Shop Tales of Terror, and I'm really he's got one coming up called The Vampire of Cripple Gate that I'm really I really want to see as well.
**Adam:** That looks.
**Adam:** Again, I think that's like a period one, and having seen this, it's like, you know, he can fucking do it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, to be on the budgetary level that it is and it look as good and as not just technically proficient and everything else like that, but, you know, they managed to do a period war drama, regardless of anything else that goes into it in terms of like the story and the supernatural and things like that.
**Adam:** You know, just doing that is a fucking achievement on its own.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** And then actually having an interesting story with, you know, with good actors and action and stuff like that.
**Adam:** It's a real sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** I think that it's it's definitely it's definitely a recommend from me, that I think people should go and see this.
**Adam:** Because and it's and one of the other great things, brevity.
**Adam:** Is the fact that it's just over an hour long, isn't it?
**Adam:** It's like 63 minutes or something like that. So it's just over an hour, and the pace is good and you get a lot of story in there and a lot of incident, you know, in that sort of time frame.
**Chris:** The pace is good.
**Adam:** It's really, yeah.
**Lee:** I think for me again, that was part of why it worked and a lot of filmmakers would have made, fallen into that trap of, oh, it's a feature link, I've got to stretch it to an hour and a half, whereas with this, as you say, because it's condensed, it it it cracks along really well, and it it just it it's really quick-paced. yeah, and it plays out for as long as it needs to play out.
**Lee:** And I love that. I I hate, there's nothing I hate more than when filler is put in or stuff is stretched more than it needs to be because you've got this 90 minutes in your head, like if your story takes an hour and five minutes to tell, do it in an hour and five minutes, I would much rather that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And the other thing I wanted to mention as well.
**Lee:** Animation.
**Lee:** That animation in the in the in the in the
**Chris:** There was an animation.
**Lee:** That was fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That was the bit that creeped Claire out most.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was sinister.
**Adam:** That was just a lovely, yeah, there's there's so many and that's another thing that with it you've got so many styles because obviously there's the the the sort of main filming as it were, but also they have stuff that's done so it's of its time, so you have like silent footage, black and white, that's a bit juddery and a bit sped up and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And even to the point where they have, there's because obviously there are parts of it that are, excuse me, parts of it that are genuinely comedic.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, so one of the sequences that they do in that sort of black and white thing is that is the kind of thing where it's lots of and, you know,
**Adam:** the caption comes up and, oh, crikey.
**Adam:** And stuff like that. And it's just again, it's just very sort of evocative of the period, but also just genuinely funny.
**Adam:** And again, it's that sort of there's a lot of bits and pieces going on in here and lots of varying styles.
**Adam:** So it's sort of, you know, it does keep interest in that sense as well, I think.
**Chris:** But and it holds together.
**Chris:** It doesn't feel like it's
**Lee:** I was going to say that, it wasn't jarring.
**Chris:** It's it's like
**Lee:** They all melded perfectly well.
**Lee:** again, possibly because of that sort of anthology feel where you can jump from one thing to another and it just feels yeah, it just feels right because you've moved from one chapter to another rather than you know, to a separate segment or story.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** But yeah, it it was and the cast as well, I think we should mention.
**Lee:** I know you mentioned obviously saying about local filmmakers and stuff. So Singlal we saw in this.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** and and Tom Lee Rutter was the compare, which was just hilarious.
**Adam:** And obviously, obviously, we we these are people that we've spent time with and, you know, Tom's great, Lau is fantastic, you know, there we.
**Adam:** So it was there was a genuine sense of, ooh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and you're spotting people as well and it was just so sort of like just great to see it.
**Adam:** And again, it's that lovely thing of this sort of there's this sort of collection of filmmakers who are all sort of appearing in each other's things and they'll do a bit of acting in one.
**Adam:** And obviously you've got Kamal Yildirim in there from who did The Haunting of the Lady Jane and The Wastelands.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And in probably the funniest role in the thing.
**Adam:** Which is fantastic from someone who produced such.
**Lee:** Incredible.
**Adam:** Well, from someone who gives you such dark.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, particularly The Wastelands, that is not that is not a lighthearted comedy, you know, that is that is some dark, emotional, sort of shit.
**Chris:** He's he's got some stuff to get out.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But he's achieved it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But he's he's the, you know, he's he's pretty much a comic character and so good for it.
**Adam:** And, you've got Annabella Rich from Candlewell.
**Chris:** Annabella Rich from Candlewell, yeah, she was quite.
**Lee:** Yeah, she was awesome in this, she was one of my favourite characters in that.
**Lee:** She was it was such a stark contrast to what she did in this.
**Lee:** I have seen.
**Adam:** Yeah, and obviously, she was in Pocket Film of Superstitions as well, like Tom Tom Thomas Lee Rutter's, film that he directed and.
**Adam:** yeah, there's, also,
**Adam:** the guy who played the devil is the sacrificial offering from the, Pocketbook of Superstitions.
**Adam:** So we've seen the devil's bits.
**Lee:** I was about to say, so we've seen his cock and balls.
**Adam:** His cock and balls.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, and
**Adam:** But it's just sort of like it was.
**Adam:** So it was that and also just Captain Sinclair, that's the director Michael Michael Fasty.
**Adam:** Who also did a segment from video shop tales of terror, like the first one.
**Adam:** And Burn Flowers as well, which Annabella Rich is in and loads of people are and it's yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was going to say, Annabella Rich was I saw again recently in the in the video shop terror as well. So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's all that sort of it's all that sort of like little that sort of collective of everyone who knows each other.
**Adam:** And but actually, I mean, sort of I have to say, I mean the the was the just just looking at my notes here.
**Adam:** But so you had Glynn Bentley Angel as Henry, who was the guy looking for the book.
**Adam:** And I I mean, and.
**Adam:** You know, it's a it's certainly a compliment coming from.
**Lee:** What was it called? Strange Growth?
**Adam:** Strange Growth.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I wondered if that was.
**Adam:** Well, I think but more to the point, I just found him to he was doing a very what I would describe as a Reese Shearsmith role.
**Chris:** Right, that is exactly what.
**Chris:** Yeah, like I was reminded.
**Lee:** Oh, he's going on, yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely a thing.
**Adam:** sort of a fastidious person but also a bit aggressive and sort of, you know, and
**Lee:** It put me very much in mind of MR James' Ghost Stories for Christmas his performance.
**Lee:** It was very much Yeah, in that same vein.
**Lee:** And yeah.
**Lee:** And again, I I thought the performances in this were spectacular.
**Lee:** Like it really it really drew me in.
**Lee:** I was really enjoying it.
**Chris:** They all worked well together as it would make sense.
**Lee:** shall we drop a spoiler warning here?
**Unknown:** [growling]
**Lee:** so we are going to spoil from this point on.
**Lee:** it's available on Amazon, it's not on Prime, but it is available on streaming, so you can go and get it from Amazon and pay for like a rental thing.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And also, obviously, a massive, massive thank you to Andrew Elias, because he reached out to us and said, do you want to watch this?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So he like he arranged that so we could see it.
**Adam:** And he's always like, since we since we covered Casting Kill, he's always like been in contact with us and, you know, he's always supported the show.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Thank you.
**Adam:** Thank you.
**Chris:** Thanks. We appreciate it.
**Adam:** Hopefully, hopefully we shall meet one day, because we because we passed like ships at Romford Horror Festival, we didn't we didn't realise he was there until afterwards.
**Adam:** So, you know, but yeah, so a big, massive shout out to him.
**Adam:** But yes, from here on in, here be spoilers.
**Lee:** yes, so the I I loved the fact that it came back.
**Lee:** I say, although it's only an hour long, because there's so much story in it, you do feel that it opens up with that where I was, you know, you get the sort of predator vision at the beginning with the
**Chris:** Yeah, the early story with Old Dice.
**Lee:** yeah, and I was like, it's France, it's it's got to be werewolves, it's got to be werewolves.
**Lee:** yeah, and then you kind of and then of course it comes back to it later and I was like, that is what a great way to come back to it as well, you know, once once all those stories start wrapping up, to suddenly then, you know, you think the devil is going to be the end of it and that he's had a hand in it all and then it's like, nope, werewolves, it's all been fucking werewolves, I was like, yeah.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** I mean, I I must admit my first response when I first saw the werewolf was Panthro.
**Lee:** It's exactly what I thought, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, it wasn't just me. But, but I mean, I think Chris looks lost cuz he doesn't remember Thundercats. Oh, no, I did. Yeah, I did see Thundercats. Okay.
**Adam:** No, no, I was doesn't remember Thundercats.
**Adam:** But, but yeah, I and I think that the so yeah, the fact that they draw everything together.
**Adam:** And the one thing I'm really pleased about and again coming back to, the, Kamal Yildirim's character.
**Adam:** I'm so pleased because the first time I saw, Le Chat Noir was here, I thought, well, they fucked up and spelled that wrong.
**Adam:** Turns out no. No, they they they've spelt shat exactly the right way for this.
**Adam:** And, yeah, I mean that was just fucking ridiculous, that's hilariously where he just goes around flapping at various points around the trench.
**Lee:** I laughed so loud through the whole of that scene. It was brilliant.
**Adam:** But I have to say that is one of my favourite things about this is that when Ginger revealed that he was like one of the werewolf sort of creatures, you know.
**Adam:** And it's just the he didn't want to attack him, it was just like, well, you can keep my secret, I've been keeping yours.
**Adam:** And it's like, I love that, a serial crappier and a werewolf have decided.
**Lee:** Yeah, fair play. We're on the same team now, really.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So, yeah, I's
**Adam:** Yeah, and and effects-wise.
**Adam:** I think that, I mean, okay, there was a I think there was the CG on some of it was for the werewolves wasn't great.
**Chris:** I I kind of felt like that was forgiven again because of the style.
**Adam:** But it's
**Chris:** It's not
**Adam:** It wasn't it didn't mess up too much, it's like it wasn't a make or break.
**Chris:** It didn't take me out of it because of the work that had been done already.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** I was totally with it, you know, there's no way that that was like a deal breaker or anything else like that.
**Adam:** But also when you compare to, you know, how much has gone into this.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's sort of like it's it's so sort of like yeah, I'm just so impressed.
**Adam:** I know that sounds ridiculous, well, not ridiculous, but, you know, I'm just so impressed that on this budget, you've got this film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Again, we're looking at that sort of thing of it's like, this doesn't tick any of the problems of a small budget film.
**Chris:** All the actors are great.
**Adam:** It looks brilliant, the sound's great, the score was brilliant.
**Lee:** Yeah, fantastic score.
**Adam:** And especially because I like that where they were sort of again much like the film where it would veer between the absurd and the serious.
**Adam:** Which I suppose in many ways is probably the only way you can the the only way that you can sort of look at the situation that they're in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, is that that sort of combo of the two where it's like, this is either ridiculous or terrifying, you know, is deadly serious or absolutely.
**Chris:** Probably probably changes between that, yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly, it's the only it's the only coping mechanism that you've got is to, you know, sort of out there.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean there's so many sort of and the devil stuff, I mean, I love anything where the devil shows up is always great anyway.
**Adam:** But the devil turning up in the trenches just seems like absolutely perfect.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Where else would he be at that time in history that's right there?
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you know, the sort of the fact that they'd all been led there to be there together on that one night, it just.
**Lee:** Yeah, and and I liked that as well, the fact that you didn't that you saw old Dice saying, right, you're the four volunteers, but you don't see them, so it's not until the second story, when he ends up then you suddenly go, this is going to be who the four people are and how they all ended up being where they were. Yeah, and it just wrapped it up so nicely.
**Lee:** It's those things that loose ends that you forget and then when it brings them all back, you go, wow, that's really well written, it's really really well put together.
**Chris:** Like like you said, Chris, I think that's the thing this it's going to bear up to multiple watching, because once you know where the thing's going, you're like, right, okay, now this sort of, you know, you're you're seeing those intricacies and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean, it's almost reminded me of you know, like yeah, I like an anthology, but it is funny how it is, as each scene plays out, you just think, yeah, where is this going to go and how is it wrapping background, but it's it is amazing when someone gets it right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah, I can't imagine how many boards you must have with bits of string and pins in order to bring everything back together so tightly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It must look like a serious murder investigation on that planning board.
**Chris:** And so, so it came out in 2023, but so yeah, do we know how long he spent making it?
**Adam:** I'm not entirely sure.
**Adam:** I mean, again, this is something where, we, I mean, we can ask him, I suppose.
**Adam:** but certainly, yeah, I I mean, I think because I know that he did, so he did The Numbers.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So when was that?
**Adam:** the numbers was, I haven't got my screen in front of me.
**Adam:** but I think that was, and then then that was followed by the segment that he did for video shop Tales of Terror.
**Adam:** And then it's this. So, you know, but and and like I say, I mean, he's been in in terms of his.
**Chris:** It looks like 2018, the numbers.
**Adam:** Oh, there we go.
**Adam:** but I mean, you know, he's also he's also a a working actor.
**Adam:** So he was in he's like he was in Red Dwarf, he was in EastEnders and
**Adam:** And as I say, he's a he was in Phantom Menace.
**Adam:** And and and lots of, you know, he's he's in he's in video shop Tales of Terror and he's in Burnt Flowers, like Michael Fasty's film and obviously we saw him in casting kill.
**Adam:** And yeah, so.
**Adam:** You know, he's he's steeped in film.
**Chris:** He's he's busy.
**Adam:** As it were, you know, so I think it's it's clearly, you know, and clearly all that all that work behind and in front of the screen has really paid off here because, you know.
**Adam:** I I did I did see one thing I I sort of found an an interview with him where they was talking about because obviously he's playing, because he plays Old Dice and as he put it, it was like, well, it was partly practical in terms of it was kind of practical in terms of the fact that there's, you know, that's one member of the cast sorted and I know what performance they're going to give and I know it's going to be the performance that I want for that character.
**Adam:** So, you know, and and again, it helps, it's not, you know, it helps when someone can act, it's not a Gormangey job, you know, so.
**Lee:** Actually, I know we've touched on the CGI, but the practical effects on this and stuff.
**Lee:** Like that, you know, the shots to the neck and stuff, god, that looked so brutal, didn't it?
**Lee:** It was really.
**Lee:** and I I watched some films.
**Adam:** Well, there's a lot of brutality in it that really works like taking the finger off, you don't see much until the finger comes off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, it looks so good, though.
**Adam:** And it's just again, it's just grim enough that you're like, oh, no, that's.
**Chris:** But yeah, it's so well-balanced throughout. Dark bits, humorous bits, entertaining, like yeah, fantastic.
**Lee:** Yeah, fantastic.
**Lee:** So, definitely a recommend from all of us.
**Lee:** yeah, and just I say, it's available to watch now, so go and get stuck in.
**Lee:** And yeah, you will not be I'm definitely going to be looking up more of his stuff.
**Adam:** Well, like I say, I I definitely want to see The Numbers and, and like I say, I think he's got.
**Adam:** So you've got like The Vampire of Cripple Gate and Terror on the 315.
**Adam:** Are two films that he's got coming up.
**Adam:** So again, you know, hopefully we won't have to wait too long for those and we get to see some more excellent work, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I've just looked up The Numbers. It says three people in three different time periods find themselves face to face with fate. So he certainly does have this as a thing that that runs through his mind.
**Chris:** so yeah, I mean,
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I think.
**Chris:** If that's anything like this then.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I think it'll be excellent as well. I think it's done under similar lines, I think it's basically like the three stories that then coalesce and you know, and and back to what you were saying Lee about that fucking animation sequence, which now we're now we're talking spoilers, yeah, that was genuinely fucking creepy.
**Lee:** When it was just.
**Lee:** When it was just like, oh, we saw a man who turned out to be you'll know the devil if you see him.
**Lee:** And then it's sort of, yeah, just and really quite simplistic.
**Adam:** Like, you know, but so fucking effective.
**Chris:** Effective, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's that white on black, it just creates such an atmosphere to it.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'd I'd love to know how they did, you know, how they got that done.
**Lee:** Because it just looks awesome.
**Lee:** It's.
**Chris:** That's why yeah, the production just seems fantastic throughout.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, again, I mean, I think sort of like just like sort of reflecting back on sort of, you know, me and Lee obviously we're keeping keeping things under wraps, but we were on set for, some of the stuff that's coming up in Video Shop Tales of Terror 2. And it is just and it is just that thing where everyone is there, sort of yeah, everyone is focused, everyone is there to make the best thing they can and the sort of camaraderie of that and the sort of but, you know, when you.
**Chris:** That's everyone is very passionate about these things, yeah, and the whole thing.
**Lee:** Oh, but yeah.
**Lee:** Speaking of which, I've got some good news, I've been speaking with actor from this film that we discussed earlier, Thomas Lee Rutter. so obviously we loved Pocket Film of Superstitions.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** and I saw he did a short, like a 30-minute film, called Bella in the Witch Elm.
**Adam:** yes.
**Lee:** Of the mystery.
**Lee:** So I was discussing this with him and I've seen it and there is a possibility that it's going to be an extra on the Blu-ray for Pocket Film.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Oh, nice.
**Lee:** If if you weren't already going to buy that.
**Lee:** The second it comes out.
**Lee:** yeah, and it looks just like Pocket Film, it's got exactly the same shooting to it.
**Lee:** and it's basically it's the mystery of Bella in the Witch Elm, which is a real life mystery for anyone who's unaware of a a woman's skeleton that was found inside a tree just outside Birmingham.
**Adam:** For more information, go and listen to the episode on As Yet Unexplained.
**Lee:** Yeah, what a fantastic episode that one.
**Lee:** I think he did two episodes on that.
**Lee:** He really.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it might have been a double actually, yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** So hopefully that's going to be coming out as an extra on that.
**Lee:** So
**Adam:** Oh, that's fantastic.
**Adam:** I mean and and again, just such a lovely group of people.
**Adam:** And like I say, it was just it was just so.
**Adam:** Especially with him doing a Brucy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where he was just as he was doing the comp in it was just that.
**Adam:** Repeat the same line, flip it, yoga it, and there you go.
**Lee:** And.
**Adam:** And and the other thing because he did he was when when we were talking to him, he he also talked about he did an Acid Western, like a Yodowski inspired Acid Western.
**Adam:** So, I'll have to see if I can track that down as well.
**Adam:** Have a watch of that.
**Lee:** I'd.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's so much talent locally.
**Lee:** It's unbelievable.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, see so I didn't realize that Andrew Elias, yeah, was was part of this scene as well because I thought Casting Kill and stuff was a different group as it were.
**Lee:** But yeah, to then see Thomas and Sing and Annabella Rich and everyone in these as well, it does go to show you just how much crossover there is in independent British film.
**Adam:** And and he did a segment on video shop Tales Terror, which we know is Singlal's project, you know, project, so, you know, he's in there as well. So it's but yeah, it's no, it's and it's just again, it's just such a go and fucking watch it, you know, if you if you've if you've got this far, having listened to the spoilers and we've made things slightly more meaningless in a weird way for you, but go and fucking see it, go and watch it because.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Go and support independent film, go and support Andrew Elias.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** And I think even someone who's not not massively into horror would get a lot out of this.
**Chris:** You know, it's.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely, yeah.
**Chris:** It's like.
**Lee:** Yeah, so
**Lee:** So go and support independent horror, go and watch Tales from the Great War, you won't regret it.
**Lee:** yeah, and we look forward to seeing what these people are going to be producing in the future.
**Lee:** Because they seem to have a really quick turnaround, not everyone has a film out every year, but everyone seems to be involved in something.
**Chris:** In something, yeah.
**Lee:** So there's stuff coming out all the time and it's it's yeah, there's so much shit out there.
**Lee:** That once you get into this, like you say, with films like Numbers and stuff, there's a massive back catalogue of stuff as well.
**Lee:** So there's so much out there to still to still get through.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's really exciting.
**Lee:** When you've watched all the mainstream shit and all the kind of weird sub-genres that we see in stuff.
**Lee:** You then realize this whole fountain of stuff is there.
**Chris:** That's what I was going to say about expectations as well. I kind of keep having a feeling, we must have covered all of the great films, right? And I have a sense new films also can't be that good compared to everything we've watched.
**Adam:** Well, I know people often I've seen people often saying about horror that it is like gold prospecting.
**Adam:** You have to clear through a lot of you clear through a lot of dirt, but fuck me, when you find the gold.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** That's that's the.
**Adam:** And it isn't necessarily it isn't necessarily always going to be from the same places.
**Adam:** You know, there's there's films with astronomical budgets that are bloody awful, and there are films shot on an iPhone for 20p that are bloody amazing.
**Adam:** And it's yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There is no telling, it just happens that way.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, it's exciting, I think that's one of the things I love about independent horror.
**Lee:** Is when you sit down, especially with films like this where you might have a couple of minute trailer, but other than that, you've got nothing, there's no reviews, there's no you can't trust the IMDB reviews because only six people have rated it or whatever.
**Lee:** So every time you sit down, you're like, yeah, it could be a piece of shit, or it could be the next one, yeah, where you suddenly just go, oh, I've discovered a new director, writer, actor or something.
**Lee:** And and it sends you off on a whole another tangent and you suddenly open up this massive wormhole of all this stuff that you can suddenly just start getting your hands on and yeah.
**Lee:** It's hugely exciting.
**Lee:** yeah, and discover how much shit's out there that we didn't even have any idea about, it's incredible.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Indeed, it's a welcome that we all experience.
**Adam:** Because that's the thing with this, obviously none of us have seen it before.
**Adam:** So all of us were being welcomed to this horror.
**Chris:** It's it's nice when that happens.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Especially when we're all like.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** Fucking good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** And on that note, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** We'll be back in a fortnight.
**Lee:** covering something.
**Lee:** And
**Lee:** You did point out something that we haven't covered.
**Adam:** So, should we just do Killer Clowns from Outer Space and be done with it?
**Lee:** Oh, fuck yes, 100%.
**Lee:** Right, we're going to do Killer Clowns from Outer Space in a Fortnite's time.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, excellent.
**Lee:** That means I've got a legitimate excuse to watch it three weeks after I watched it the first time.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Have a great time, everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out this film, go and check out your local independent horror.
**Lee:** Follow all the people we've mentioned today and go and watch Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
**Lee:** And we'll see you in a fortnight. Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 200 WTH Hall of Fame

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-200-wth-hall-of-fame/
Air date: 16 June 2024
Duration: 01:02:59

### Description

It’s our 200th episode (well, it’s actually our 246th, but who’s counting?) and to celebrate we’re holding the inaugural Welcome To Horror Hall of Fame Awards (or “Welkies” as all the cool kids are calling them). Lee, Chris and Adam have chosen favourites from 4 categories - best trope, best performance, best film and best cinema experience. No prep needed here, just join us for the ceremony live from Essex’s glittering west end, and see if you agree with our choices.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And by some kind of miracle, we are here for episode 200 of the Welcome to Horror podcast.
**Lee:** Despite public demand, we're still going.
**Lee:** I mean, thanks for listening, but you know.
**Chris:** Probably not with divine intervention at any point.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We've we've managed to get through a pandemic, all of our internet issues.
**Lee:** Literally this evening, someone has hacked the Zoom account that we're called on.
**Lee:** Everything is stacked against us.
**Lee:** But you know what?
**Lee:** We're going to keep going because we're professionals and we're angry.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, there's nothing, there's nothing quite as motivating as spite, is there?
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** I've had family members who've survived on it for decades.
**Lee:** Right, so as promised, we are here for the first, and I'm pretty sure not the last, because I'd quite like to do this more frequently.
**Adam:** Well, we'll have to do it for episode 300.
**Lee:** I'm not going to survive that long, let's be honest.
**Lee:** So, yes, so we are doing the Welcome to Horror Hall of Fame is now being opened.
**Lee:** and we this evening we are all putting in our favorite things from the four topics chosen.
**Lee:** for anyone who is still listening,
**Lee:** from episode 101, we are doing the same topics that we did for our Room 101 episode, where we did our least favorite of these four topics.
**Lee:** so Adam in a stroke of genius thought it'd be a great idea to reverse that and actually talk about good stuff.
**Lee:** And not just have Chris get really angry about Tom Cruise, which is justifiable always.
**Adam:** Well, so I I was thinking if this is the Welcome to Horror Hall of Fame awards,
**Adam:** what I would imagine is all the cool kids are calling it the Welkies.
**Chris:** Ooh.
**Adam:** Some thought's gone into this.
**Adam:** You know, people can put people can put it on their box cover art, you know, winner of two Welkies.
**Adam:** And, you know, people will just think is this something to do with men in white coats who sell fish and chips?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Are we going to have to have a theme tune for the beginning of each one like the, like the Oscars do?
**Adam:** We'll just make Wogan. Yeah.
**Lee:** I was thinking the the Great White North.
**Lee:** Yeah, I've been watching a lot of that recently.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But anyway, without further ado and bullshit,
**Lee:** which, I mean, if you're listening to this, you've listened for 199 episodes, this is not new to you.
**Lee:** there will be swearing, there might be spoilers, depending on our choices.
**Lee:** but yeah, so
**Lee:** Let's kick things off and get stuck in with our first category.
**Lee:** So we are going to put into the Hall of Fame our favorite movie trope.
**Lee:** So, I think as Chris is the one who has been being welcomed to horror for 200 episodes,
**Lee:** but he's now definitely a cornerstone of knowledge when it comes to horror.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you chosen?
**Chris:** Of course, in the vein of the previous one, there was a big temptation to not not take this quite so seriously again.
**Chris:** However, I thought, all right, no, we're going for best, I am going to give my best, and so I was looking back, I was thinking what what has stood out to me,
**Chris:** you know, what seems to be recurring the recurring theme again and again.
**Chris:** And it would seem to be that my favorite trope is a combination of psychological horror and supernatural,
**Chris:** but where you don't know what's real, is it just everyone going mad, or is there actually something supernatural going on?
**Lee:** Good choice, we have covered a lot of films where where it goes, it could go either way.
**Lee:** That's fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah, and that we had, I've got a list of a few.
**Chris:** and some of them we didn't cover,
**Chris:** but some we have.
**Chris:** So hereditary, The Babadook.
**Chris:** The Lighthouse.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Black Swan, which I don't remember we covered, but I watched and we may have talked about.
**Chris:** Did we actually cover it?
**Adam:** We haven't covered it. We we haven't covered The Lighthouse either as well.
**Chris:** Okay, you must have mentioned that.
**Adam:** We've definitely discussed them, yeah.
**Chris:** Voted it for me.
**Chris:** And yeah, and Jacob's Ladder,
**Chris:** which I would have thought we might have covered by now.
**Chris:** That was one of my favorite films when I was younger.
**Adam:** I think we need to add that to the list.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That that definitely needs.
**Chris:** That that could be a like a good step towards Shawshank Redemption, which again, we're not exactly allowed to watch.
**Adam:** On on the basis of being a Stephen King book.
**Chris:** Exactly, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I was going to say, I'm sure we and let's be honest, was it only five episodes in before I said, right, fuck the format, I want a big trouble in Little China.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, but yeah, but Big Trouble in Little China, you know, again, it's the connection there, you got it's it's a John Carpenter film, so.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Not that I'm not that I'm suggesting we do fucking Starman or whatever it's called.
**Chris:** Can draw a line somewhere.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Chris:** And and there is one more film I would mention in this list, but I will save it for best film.
**Lee:** Oh, excellent.
**Lee:** Good call, I like that.
**Adam:** But that that lovely ambivalence is
**Adam:** a fantastic.
**Adam:** It's a very good horror trope just on the basis that it's it it feels the most naturalistic, you know, way.
**Lee:** Yeah, it does.
**Lee:** Yeah, that idea of am I imagining this or is it genuine?
**Lee:** Which I'm sure in a lot of scenarios of the stuff we watch, your brain would just go, this can't be happening and you go, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it lets people play with with, you know, different film styles a bit, you can you can do some interesting things with it, how far do you take it either way?
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Adam:** I I always I always like the ones that still, you know, that I I like the ones that leave you in doubt at the end.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, you can it's like say another example, The Omen.
**Adam:** Is that the story of the Antichrist?
**Adam:** I mean obviously.
**Chris:** We did watch that.
**Adam:** Quite clear, but The Omen on its own is is that is this a series of coincidences that lead a poor a man to try and kill his child or has the Antichrist been born?
**Adam:** Who knows?
**Chris:** And on that.
**Lee:** Excellent choice.
**Lee:** Adam, over to you.
**Adam:** Well, I've gone with my best trope and I think this says a lot about me and what I,
**Adam:** you know, certain levels of confirmation bias.
**Adam:** my trope, I've called it in in honor of Charlie Brooker, I've called it Twatty Old Humanity.
**Chris:** Ooh.
**Adam:** And that is and that's just the fact that the humans are the real monsters.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Examples I've got a for examples I've got of that.
**Adam:** 28 Days Later.
**Adam:** All of George Romero's zombie films.
**Adam:** Wayland Yutani in the Alien franchise.
**Adam:** Captain Vedel in Pan's Labyrinth.
**Adam:** Oh, that fucking bastard.
**Adam:** Even now.
**Lee:** It makes me want some real people.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, you said it, it made me angry.
**Lee:** It's such a great character.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Frankenstein obviously, both the title character and society in general in most Frankenstein's.
**Adam:** other films that we haven't covered like The Mist, Night Breed and and obviously The Monster Club.
**Adam:** where man is the greatest monster of all.
**Lee:** You know, but that that needs to go on the list more than anything, I think.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's it's just yeah, I do like that thing where it's sort of, you know, yes, there's supernatural horrors, yes, there's monsters and everything.
**Adam:** But Christ on a bike, human beings are bloody awful.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** And and proud of it a lot of the time.
**Lee:** As we showed in our last film, in fact, we saw that human beings are proud of being total fuckups.
**Adam:** Oh, mate.
**Adam:** And and the I mean, that's the thing, the the weirdest part about it is is when you when you look at it and you watch a horror film and you think, yeah, the stakes are high on this, you know, people are going to fuck each other over for so they don't get eaten by the zombie hordes or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Whereas actually it's, oh no, they're just going to fuck you over because you're there.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, in many in many ways real life, it's like another one, Grease's Grease or gangs in Stephen King books.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, again, like like when we watched it, and it was like, oh, thank Christ, the the child killing supernatural entity has turned up, because all the human beings are worse.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, non-chemists, abusive parents, Grease with flick knives, it's just, yeah, you're actually like, oh, thank Christ, it's here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, yeah, so that is my contribution.
**Adam:** That is my my hall of Fame.
**Lee:** Very good call.
**Lee:** I have gone for a a trope that is in some of my favorite films.
**Lee:** and it it is a a running thing, and a lot of these films actually we covered, it is the horror party, Halloween party, sorry, gone wrong.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** So that is, Night of the Demons 1, 3, It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To, Hell Night.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Lee:** Blood Night as well.
**Lee:** Like, there's just loads of them, and it the reason I love it, I think,
**Lee:** is because it gives them the excuse to go all out Halloween, which obviously is my favorite time of the year.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and you get that Halloween feel and then on top of that, if you believe in such things,
**Lee:** it is the night when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest.
**Lee:** So it it creates a good excuse for these things to happen.
**Lee:** And and it is.
**Lee:** It's it's like.
**Lee:** Halloween used to be and I, you know, we've said it before on the show, I spent two Halloween nights in a graveyard.
**Lee:** Like, just doing.
**Lee:** Kids do stupid shit like that and the idea that it suddenly all goes wrong and you do it just for bravado and before you know it, you're in a terrifying situation with actual supernatural beings, yeah, just it's just one of those.
**Lee:** It's a great concept and it's done so well so often and uses a lot of fun as well in those films mixed with a lot of full on horror.
**Chris:** And it.
**Adam:** It also it also has that lovely thing as well where everyone's in costume, so the killer can be in costume as well.
**Adam:** Or they can start stealing other people's costumes, or people can think that a monster is just a really good costume.
**Adam:** You know, so immediately you've got those sort of lovely playful sort of moments as well where it's you know, someone comes in as a trick or treat or you know, a trick or treater comes in, are they actually really a person in a costume?
**Adam:** Are they the monster, are, you know, and it's yeah.
**Adam:** A lovely lot of messing about and sort of, you know, Michael Myers wearing the ghost sheet in Halloween and things like that.
**Adam:** You know, where it's just, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and Trick R Treat as well, is obviously one of my favorite, so.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's just it's it's one of those when I thought of it, I was like, there are so many great titles that we've discussed that we all love that that that do sort of cling to that as the sort of base story.
**Lee:** Yeah, and because I love Halloween, it just works for me and they're all the films that I have to reel out every year and have to spend the whole of October watching, so.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent, right.
**Adam:** Excellent choice.
**Lee:** Thank you, thank you.
**Adam:** So, the Welkies for best trope include the ambivalence of psychological versus supernatural, old humanity, and the Halloween party gone wrong.
**Chris:** Hey.
**Lee:** Hey.
**Lee:** You like that?
**Lee:** I need I need to stop watching that.
**Adam:** Clearly.
**Lee:** For anyone who's unaware, it was a comedy sketch that Rick Moranis used to do on, SNL and then he did it on loads of other stuff, where it was basically two drunk Canadians on a cable access show and they didn't have a theme tune so one of them would literally just do that with his mouth as the thing and it was great.
**Lee:** If you've never seen and they made a film with, Maxwell von Side out called Strange Brew,
**Lee:** which could technically be squeezed into horror, it has got supernatural elements.
**Lee:** And it's amazing.
**Adam:** I must have seen it, I'll take it.
**Lee:** And it's all about ice hockey and beer, so I mean, I'd be up for it literally every day of the week.
**Chris:** Sounds good.
**Adam:** And the film.
**Lee:** So without further ado,
**Lee:** we are going to be going onto our favorite films.
**Lee:** So Chris, what are you going to be putting into the Welcome to Horror Hall of Fame?
**Chris:** Well, so based on what I've said so far and based on what I've said in the past, you may not be too shocked that I'm going to say The Witch by Robert Eggers.
**Lee:** Very good one.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** And of course, it does fit and that was the last one of my list of the best trope.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** I guess it does have both psychological horror and supernatural that even by the end you're not sure, not 100% sure it could have been one way, it could be the other, both are very good explanations.
**Adam:** Although I hope it is supernatural, cuz then you have to believe.
**Chris:** Yes, yeah, exactly.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** Some depending on my mood, I don't want it to be, so, you know, it's it's all there for the taking.
**Chris:** but yeah, like especially what I love about it, it's got themes of isolation, religion, exploring religious fanaticism, the family strict, Puritanical beliefs.
**Chris:** amplifying their fear and guilt, drives them to suspect one another.
**Chris:** As they become more isolated from the community and from each other.
**Chris:** the supernatural versus psychological, The Witch cleverly leaves it ambiguous.
**Chris:** Whether the events are genuinely supernatural or the result of psychological stress and madness brought on by their dire situation and it it's funny because
**Chris:** dysfunction, one bad thing happens, that means people react in a certain way, that means more bad things happen, which mean more bad things happen.
**Chris:** It's like, who's going to break that if you're all kind of falling down this.
**Chris:** pit of despair, how do you get out of it?
**Chris:** And then,
**Chris:** I think Adam, you said, there's also potentially the, what was it, the weep or corn that they had.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, there's the the thing about which apparently is something that's been, to a greater or lesser extent debunked, but there is the thing about,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** ergot poisoning.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which certainly does cause hallucinations and things like that, so, you know, I think there's.
**Adam:** I'm still saying that's still in for a contender if you want to, especially on a small scale like that.
**Adam:** I mean it may not excuse why a community would go that way, but certainly a a small a small.
**Chris:** Although you could say if a few people start to, that leads people.
**Chris:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Madness.
**Adam:** Oh,
**Adam:** absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and the fact.
**Chris:** the other thing I really loved about it was, I think I said at the time, like it almost has a documentary like feel.
**Chris:** Like just so you think I'm actually learning something.
**Chris:** About how this was back then.
**Chris:** And it's pretty awful.
**Adam:** Well, much like the much like The Northman, Robert Eggers really.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Goes to town with that, wanting to be as authentic to the period as possible.
**Chris:** Yeah, as much as you can within a.
**Chris:** a fictional film that's meant to entertain as well.
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah.
**Chris:** So yeah, I think he he blends that perfectly.
**Chris:** along with that the cinematography by Jaren Blash, again, like says it uses natural light and shadow.
**Chris:** And it does create a hauntingly beautiful and eerie visual look.
**Chris:** and the sound design and music by Mark Koven.
**Adam:** Oh, Mark Koven's score is.
**Chris:** Yeah, very unsettling atmosphere.
**Chris:** So, yeah, that's.
**Chris:** That pretty much ticks all the boxes for me.
**Chris:** And again.
**Adam:** Such a great cast.
**Lee:** I was going to say and that's where.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** We first discovered Anya Taylor-Joy.
**Chris:** It was.
**Lee:** Who I think we all said at the time, we really hope goes on to bigger things because her performance was amazing.
**Lee:** And and look what she's done now, like she's in literally everything.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I'm hoping I'm hoping to get to see Furiosa.
**Adam:** That's probably the most recent thing.
**Lee:** I can't wait to see that.
**Adam:** I really want to see that.
**Chris:** That that might be the first, the first Mad Max I ever watch.
**Adam:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** You've not seen Mad Max.
**Chris:** No, I've seen like, seen clips of them, you know, and I've seen it.
**Chris:** zed and referenced.
**Adam:** I'd watch Fury Road.
**Adam:** Fury Road.
**Lee:** Absolutely amazing.
**Chris:** So that that was fairly recent as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So it's the the one.
**Lee:** So it's the new sort of reboot.
**Lee:** Yeah, Furiosa is the the prequel.
**Chris:** Prequel, right, yeah, okay.
**Lee:** Oh, it's excellent.
**Lee:** It's it's so much action and it's fantastic like it's just non-stop and it looks beautiful and it's oh, yeah, it's massive.
**Chris:** I get the impression it's over the top.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, but but that works.
**Chris:** That's what it's meant to be.
**Adam:** Because the the weirdest thing is that the very first one is the is an example of what I can only describe as a pre-apocalyptic movie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because the very first one is basically just as everything's going to shit.
**Adam:** And then Mad Max 2, The Road Warrior, is basically, right, everything's gone to shit.
**Adam:** And we now all live in a desert and everyone's fighting each other for petrol and dressed up like the fucking Legion of Doom.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But the first one sort of still kind of tries to be in in a base of.
**Chris:** Some normal.
**Adam:** In reality.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's it's it's a world you can recognize, just a world that's literally on the brink of absolute fucking collapse.
**Chris:** One you still would not want to be in.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** Probably the most out of all of them.
**Adam:** Is again, back to it, it's a bit of a it's a bit of a fucking relief when it's when it's.
**Chris:** Yeah, once you're in it, it's like, that's this is what it is now.
**Chris:** We're going to just enjoy it.
**Adam:** Yeah, we can crack on now.
**Lee:** There is a fantastic Mad Max game as well, if you get a chance, Chris, on the PC, you can get it on Steam.
**Lee:** It's absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** I loved it.
**Chris:** Oh, all right, perhaps I'll check that out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** Adam, what is the film that you're going to be putting into the Welcome to Horror Hall of Fame?
**Adam:** Well, I had I had a few ideas, sort of bubbling under was a the fictional basically the fictional idea of Jodorowsky's Dune was what I was going to possibly put in.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but what I've actually gone with is a film that I feel in many ways is like a embodiment of a lot of the stuff, certainly the stuff that I like, but a lot of the stuff that we always rate on the show.
**Adam:** And most importantly, it's the film that welcome watching for Welcome to Horror.
**Adam:** that Claire has been introduced to that is her favorite.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I am going with Theater of Blood.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** Because you've got.
**Adam:** Obviously, you know, it's.
**Adam:** Like I said, I like a bit of grimy 70s Britishness.
**Adam:** you've got a.
**Adam:** Absolute fucking horror icon there, because you've got Vincent Price in the title role.
**Adam:** It's both it's both a horror and a comedy.
**Adam:** But the horror is in places, the horror's absolutely fucking ghastly and grim.
**Adam:** Because you've obviously got all the stuff and the holdovers from Shakespeare, which are obviously always gory and violent and vicious and things like that.
**Adam:** You've got a cast of, apart from Vincent Price, the cast is entirely British character actors.
**Adam:** You've got, you've even got Mad and Smith from, like, so you've got a hammer connection in there.
**Adam:** And you've got like Michael Horden and Robert Morley and,
**Adam:** Arthur Low, Diana Rig, obviously, also pretending to be Jeff Linn from The Electric Light Orchestra.
**Adam:** And, but, you know, and and in a way, it's almost like,
**Adam:** because obviously another thing that we're always we always like on the show is we like an Anthology film.
**Adam:** It's not an Anthology, but it has that thing of it's a series of set pieces that link, you know, so it could almost fit into that category, even though it's a continuing story with the same characters.
**Adam:** But it's got it just ticks so many of those boxes and is just such an astoundingly fucking good piece of work.
**Adam:** It's one of those things that you you kind of almost go, I can't believe this exists.
**Adam:** You know, it's so fucking good.
**Adam:** And also it's one of those ones where again, it's one of those ones where you think much like how Jodorowsky's Dune.
**Adam:** Would have been if it had actually become to fruition.
**Adam:** Let's face it, best wheel in the world, it had been a fucking disaster.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** The imagined version of it is brilliant, but it probably would have been a sort of Curio.
**Adam:** Or sort of like people saying, you know, when David Lynch did Dune, they were like, oh, did you see this one back from the 60s?
**Adam:** It's fucking mad as a box of frogs and sound god in it for some reason and.
**Adam:** But whereas Theater of Blood, you know, I think it's sort of, you know, it's really well put together, it's funny, it's dark, it's, you know, it's got it's got Shakespeare in there, obviously.
**Adam:** And, you know, it's just and also, if you get the arrow Blu-ray,
**Adam:** you get the League of Gentlemen doing a commentary, so it's almost like every aspect of shit that we go on about on this show.
**Adam:** That is.
**Adam:** That.
**Adam:** Incidentally, if you've.
**Adam:** Not that you ever would, but if you were to bore a Theater of Blood, watch it with the league commentary and it becomes alive once again.
**Adam:** If you, you know, even if that was possible, but I don't think it is, I think that it's just, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, what a great film that is.
**Lee:** Yeah, two great choices so far.
**Lee:** again, a bit like James McAvoy, as soon as we said you need, you know, we're going to do this, this is what it's going to be, and I wrote down in my notepad, I was like, right, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to work all these answers out, and I wrote down film, and then immediately just wrote Devil Rides Out, because.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It can't be anything else.
**Lee:** It it, you know, like you were saying, Adam, it it hits so many of our favorite.
**Lee:** things.
**Lee:** Like it's Hammer.
**Lee:** It's that 60s psychedelic color scheme.
**Lee:** Music is batshit.
**Lee:** It's Christopher Lee and Charles Grey.
**Lee:** It's got my best, my favorite representation of the devil.
**Adam:** Can I ask, is your favorite representation of the devil?
**Adam:** The Goat of Mendez sitting on the rock or the man in red pants?
**Lee:** It's the Goat of Mendez sitting on the rock, but I do love the man in the red pants as well.
**Lee:** Because he is truly terrifying.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** So originally based on the book by Dennis Wheatley.
**Lee:** But then adapted by Richard Matheson.
**Lee:** Like it's it's just it's it's got everything and it's it's such a comfort watch for me.
**Lee:** It's that it it again, it's one of those, it doesn't matter what mood I'm in, it'll always hit the spot.
**Lee:** It's a great like Sunday night movie, it's just phenomenal, I absolutely love it.
**Lee:** I love watching it with other people, I love watching it on my own in bed.
**Lee:** It just it always works for me because it's got so much atmosphere and it's got so many great performances.
**Lee:** And and just everything comes together perfectly.
**Lee:** It's got loads of action.
**Lee:** And it's just brilliant.
**Lee:** And it is bat shit.
**Lee:** And it it did come close.
**Lee:** to being my favorite of our last, subject as well, which is our favorite cinema experience, at least in my favorite film.
**Lee:** They aired it, oh, must have been three or four years ago now, they aired it, at the cinema.
**Lee:** What's the name of the cinema.
**Lee:** In East London that we went to.
**Lee:** Oh, can't remember now.
**Lee:** but they showed it on my birthday.
**Lee:** with Robin Ince doing the intro.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** so obviously we went to that and got pissed up and had a fantastic time watching it.
**Lee:** And then I want to well, Jennifer technically.
**Lee:** won a limited edition print of the the artwork big poster that now hangs in my hallway prior to place, so as soon as you come in the front door, it's right there, you can see it.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's couldn't be much more perfect.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly, it's such and it is such a good film in so many ways.
**Lee:** I just returned to it over and over again, it really is my comfort food of films really.
**Adam:** And it's good and it's it's.
**Adam:** It's great to see.
**Adam:** Christopher Lee is the hero.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Exactly, not even though he is still a stern, funny bastard.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean he's still being a prick, but he's doing it for all the right reasons.
**Lee:** Which again is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It works.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'd rather you were dead than mixed up with black magic.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** God.
**Lee:** Oh, and the artwork goes for it as well.
**Lee:** He's just phenomenal.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, I mean, that that opening, the like the opening titles, I mean Hammer sort of like titles pretty good.
**Adam:** But yeah, that is an amazing.
**Lee:** Really.
**Adam:** That like you say that sort of psychodelic sort of colors and everything.
**Adam:** Because Hammer's usually very vivid, but at that point it had gone very.
**Adam:** yeah, very trippy.
**Lee:** Yeah, Terence Fisher as well.
**Lee:** Mentioning all the the great points that it hits.
**Lee:** Terence Fisher directing as well.
**Lee:** Awesome.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I like how patriotic you both are.
**Chris:** Choosing English.
**Chris:** British films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, there was just something this is the thing, I've said before about the 60s and 70s in Britain.
**Lee:** I would have hated to have been alive in that time because it's so, oh, it's everything I hate.
**Lee:** But we were just smashing it out the park with cinema at the time.
**Lee:** It really was it would be the only reason to live at that time would be to see these films actually.
**Chris:** That was the out.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And we've got them.
**Adam:** We still got them, so you don't need to travel back in time.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Thanks.
**Adam:** So, yeah, stop stop building that time machine now, Lee, so.
**Lee:** Oh, good.
**Lee:** I can turn off and go to bed.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** The Welkies for best film, The Witch, Theater of Blood, and The Devil Rides Out.
**Chris:** Hey.
**Lee:** Hey.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** Well, fantastic.
**Adam:** Can I just say, I'm proud of both of you.
**Lee:** I'm.
**Chris:** I'm proud of you too.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Because all all of these films are without a shadow of a fucking doubt Hall of Famers.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I could have picked either of those as well as there.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We're so in sync, we've been doing this too long.
**Lee:** so for our final category of the evening,
**Lee:** by Chris's behest, we are going to be covering.
**Lee:** Our favorite cinema experience.
**Lee:** So Chris, would you like to lead us off?
**Chris:** Hey, well, following it on in the vein of my favorite.
**Chris:** psychological, is it real, is it supernatural, what's going on here?
**Chris:** I'm not a huge cinema goer.
**Chris:** So part of mine could be a little bit dramatized.
**Chris:** See see see if you can tell what's real and what's not.
**Chris:** So my my favorite cinema experience is when I attended the premiere of The Witch with a Mr. Tom Cruise.
**Chris:** Where he is so excited by the greatness of the film that he jumps up and down the chairs and frightens everybody.
**Chris:** It was a night to remember, not only because the chilling atmosphere of the film,
**Chris:** but because I had the inexplicable fortune of attending it with a Mr. Tom Cruise.
**Chris:** Yes,
**Chris:** you heard that right.
**Chris:** The Tom Cruise.
**Chris:** As if his presence in the world of horror was not already an eyebrow raiser, imagine him as my movie-going buddy for the night.
**Chris:** It all began with an invitation that mysteriously arrived at my doorstep, marked with an ornate TC.
**Chris:** I assumed it was some sort of secret society thing, but no, it was from Tom Cruise himself.
**Lee:** Oh, my.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He had apparently heard of my hilarious ribbing at his expense during our 100th episode and decided to turn the tables.
**Chris:** I invited me to what he called a transcendental cinematic experience.
**Chris:** How could I refuse?
**Chris:** We met at the theater and let me tell you, Tom Cruise does not do anything by halves.
**Chris:** He arrived in a black helicopter that landed right in the middle of the red carpet, his million-dollar smile reflecting the flash bulbs of countless cameras.
**Chris:** He greeted me with that firm, intense handshake of his and said, are you ready to be witch-slapped by sheer terror?
**Chris:** How could I say no to that?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Inside the.
**Chris:** Inside the theater, as the lights dimmed, Tom leaned over and whispered, I've been preparing for this all of my life.
**Chris:** I thought he was joking until he started doing some kind of deep breathing exercises, presumably to ready himself for the horrors to come.
**Chris:** As the eerie soundtrack of The Witch filled the room, Tom's intensity only grew.
**Chris:** Every time a goat appeared on screen, he would mutter something about bovine transcendent under his breath.
**Chris:** The real highlight, however, was his reaction to Black Phillip when the goat finally spoke.
**Chris:** Tom jumped out of his seat and shouted, I knew it, I knew goats were sent goats were sentient beings.
**Chris:** He then proceeded to take furious notes, which I later learned were for a potential sequel to Top Gun involving fighter pilots versus satanic livestock.
**Chris:** I can't make this stuff up.
**Chris:** During the film's climax, Tom was gripping the armrest so hard that I'm pretty sure he left permanent dents.
**Chris:** His post-film analysis was equally intense.
**Chris:** He insisted on a debrief session right there in the theater, analyzing the symbolic representation of Puritanical oppression and comparing it to Hollywood's treatment of action stars.
**Chris:** He had a particularly poignant take on the ending,
**Chris:** describing it as a metaphor for an actor's eternal struggle against typecasting.
**Chris:** After the movie, we attended the after party where Tom insisted on performing his own rendition of Ye Old Timey Witch Trials.
**Chris:** The musical.
**Chris:** It was a performance so unique that people are still talking about it or trying to forget it.
**Chris:** All in all, attending The Witch Prim with Tom Cruise was an experience as surreal and unexpected as the film itself.
**Chris:** While I might still poke fun at Tom in the future episodes, I'll always cherish that bizarre goat-filled night.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Chris:** That might have been a dream.
**Adam:** How the fuck do we follow that?
**Lee:** That is.
**Adam:** I know what a prick.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'm glad I'm glad that you and Tom have found some common ground as well.
**Chris:** Yeah, I thought.
**Chris:** It was time.
**Chris:** I can't hate on him forever.
**Adam:** Don't let him Simon Pegg you. Yeah, suddenly you've lost a load of weight and you're not in very good films anymore.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But thank you so much, everybody.
**Adam:** It made so many friends over the last seven years of doing this through this show.
**Adam:** yeah, and we're amazed by the response really that anybody listens to this shit.
**Adam:** so thank you so much and, yeah, we really appreciate what we really love is the amount of people who have have said that it actually has re-introduced them to horror.
**Adam:** People who, you know, we've said it before, saw something when they were too young and it scared the piss out of them and they haven't listened or watched horror since.
**Adam:** And this is kind of encouraged a few people to get back into it.
**Adam:** And rediscover it and realize that it's a lot more nuanced and intelligent than a lot of people think.
**Adam:** yeah, and and that's what it's all about.
**Adam:** Really for us.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Thanks for listening.
**Adam:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** We love you all.
**Adam:** Is it?
**Lee:** Is it?
**Adam:** Is it.
**Lee:** Is it number two?
**Adam:** Oh, God damn it, I could manage that.
**Lee:** But thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** We'll be back in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** we're going to be covering something new.
**Lee:** Adam, what are we covering on our next episode?
**Adam:** Oh, it's Tales from the Great War by friend of the show, Andrew Elias, and yeah, looking forward to that.
**Adam:** He's a top man and yeah, this very intrigued.
**Adam:** Because I haven't seen it yet.
**Adam:** So I'm really looking forward to this.
**Lee:** Yeah, so go and find it.
**Lee:** It is available on Amazon.
**Lee:** So go and watch it on there.
**Lee:** and we'll see you back here in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening to 200 episodes.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Bonus Episode - 6 Feet Deeper: Worlds End

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-episode-6-feet-deeper-worlds-end/
Air date: 9 June 2024
Duration: 00:28:26

### Description

Here’s Adam with a bonus episode of all the facts and gubbins we didn’t quite get to on our “The World’s End” episode. We recommend that you listen to our main episode (number 199!) first, before diving into this moras of info; and take a shot every time he manages to crowbar in a mention of Doctor Who. We hope you enjoy this little transmission from the Welcome To Horror Fact Library

### Transcript

**Adam:** Good evening, and welcome to horror.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Adam:** Yep, still just me.
**Adam:** So, this is The World's End, 6 feet deeper.
**Adam:** So, this is a little episode where I'll go through some of the interesting gubbins that I found out whilst researching for the film that we never got round to on the main episode.
**Adam:** I obviously urge you to go and listen to that main episode first because, well, starting here is madness.
**Adam:** And there definitely will be spoilers, obviously, and there may be swearing, so you have been warned.
**Adam:** Obvious place to kick off is that the five friends are named after positions within a royal cult.
**Adam:** So you've got Gary King, Steven Prince, Andy Knightly, Oliver Chamberlain, and Peter Page.
**Adam:** During the filming, the young versions of the team were on set most of the time that the older versions were, as they'd be required to come in and film their sequences at each pub and each location as well.
**Adam:** So this meant that the two generations were sort of together for most of the shoot.
**Adam:** Luke Bromley, who plays Young Oliver, wore a prosthetic nose to make him look more like Martin Freeman.
**Adam:** He's been in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Torchwood, Ruddy Hell, It's Harry and Paul.
**Adam:** Similarly, Simon Pegg had to wear lifts to make him the same height as Thomas Law, who played Young Gary.
**Adam:** Thomas Law is probably most famous as the current incarnation of Peter Beal in EastEnders.
**Adam:** Now, Newton Haven was a combination of locations in Letchworth Garden City and Welling Garden City in Hertfordshire.
**Adam:** And not all the pubs are actual pubs in real life, so, unfortunately, you cannot attempt the Golden Mile yourself.
**Adam:** The name of the brewery is Wanshire Breweries.
**Adam:** Named after the fictional county where Midwich is located in John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos.
**Adam:** A little bit of English cozy catastrophe there.
**Adam:** Worth noting is that each pub landlord performs exactly the same motions when the team enter the bar.
**Adam:** Of these publicans is of particular note is Mark Heap, who was offered a role was offered roles in Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but had been unable to take part.
**Adam:** So it's good to see him here.
**Adam:** He was obviously Brian in Spaced.
**Adam:** He was originally part of a comedy double act called The Two Marks with Mark Saben.
**Adam:** He's in the films Bring Me The Head of Mavis Davis, Stardust, Holy Flying Circus, he's a fire juggler in Octopusy because he's actually a trained like clown and acrobat.
**Adam:** Most notably on TV, he's in Big Train with Simon Pegg.
**Adam:** The Brass Eye, Jam.
**Adam:** Memorably, he's Leonard Hatred in Look Around You.
**Adam:** Again, go and watch Look Around You.
**Adam:** He's Jim, hello Jackie, in Friday Night Dinner.
**Adam:** Doctor Statham in Green Wing, Upstart Crow, The Strangers, Happiness, Swiss Tony, Spine Chillers.
**Adam:** Smith and Jones, just loads and loads of stuff, he was the voice of stressed Eric.
**Adam:** He's in the Forte video for Smile Around The Face.
**Adam:** And, yeah, he's just it was just great to see him finally sort of come in because most of the rest of the cast had Spaced had been there.
**Adam:** The landlords of the first two pubs, Teddy Kempner and Mark Kempner, are actually cousins who hadn't seen each other for years, but coincidentally met up at the auditions for the film.
**Adam:** Mark Kempner has appeared in a number of Ben Wheatley's productions, he was in Doctor Who Deep Breath, he was in Kill List, Down Terrace, and in Sightseers.
**Adam:** The barman in the Rising Sun, the post-apocalyptic tavern is Ken Bones.
**Adam:** Who's in the magnificently bizarre split second with Rucker Hower, and big shout out to the Not For Everyone podcast for recommending that madness.
**Adam:** He was also the General in Doctor Who The Time of the Doctor, The Day of the Doctor and Hellbent.
**Adam:** And he was in the Michael Caine Jack the Ripper two-parter.
**Adam:** He was in Des, Paris.
**Adam:** And he's the he's Salazar Slytherin in Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey amusement park ride.
**Adam:** Music is such an important part of any Edgar Wright film.
**Adam:** But here, there's added resonance of music appropriate to the time Gary longs to recapture.
**Adam:** Interestingly, all the songs that Gary quotes from in the film are either covers or remixes, which could be indicative of the nature of the blanks replacing the originals, who knows?
**Adam:** I'm free to do what I want any old time is from the soup dragon's cover of the Rolling Stones I'm free.
**Adam:** Twist the melon man refers to Happy Monday step on, which is a cover of John Congo's he's going to step on you again.
**Adam:** And the we want to be free, we want to be free to do what we want to do.
**Adam:** is from Primal Scream's loaded.
**Adam:** Loaded itself is actually a remix of their earlier song, I'm losing more than I'll ever have, recreated by the late great Andrew Weatherall.
**Adam:** And the dialogue which Gary quotes is also borrowed, it's a sample of Peter Fonda from the biker film The Wild Angels, directed by Roger Corman.
**Adam:** Again, RIP.
**Adam:** When the Sisters of Mercy's This Corrosion plays over the network unveiling the young blank versions of the five friends.
**Adam:** Edgar Wright has said his intention is that the network is actually playing the song into the chamber to further seduce Gary back to his glory days.
**Adam:** Also seemingly inspired by Gary's love of golf, when he appears in the doorway of the post-apocalyptic tavern accompanied by the teenage blanks, this image is clearly inspired by the cover art of The Fields of Nephilim album, Dawn Razor.
**Adam:** Google it and you'll see what I mean.
**Adam:** The score by Oscar winner Steven Price only begins once the guys enter the cross hands.
**Adam:** As it at this point, as it's at this point that they uncover the invasion replacement plan.
**Adam:** Up until then, it's all needle drops.
**Adam:** So, Steven Price did the music for Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho for Edgar Wright.
**Adam:** He won best original score for Gravity, he did Suicide Squad, he did Attack the Block with Basement Jacks and various David Attenborough documentaries.
**Adam:** In terms of the soundscape of the film, the network is apparently phone based.
**Adam:** There's GSM interference layered into the film at various points.
**Adam:** And when the network leaves, there's the sound of a dial tone.
**Adam:** Bill Nye is the voice of the of your call cannot be connected messages the guys hear on their mobiles, and he's also the voice on the phone to the Reverend Green.
**Adam:** The network symbol, five vertical lines with the middle one longer, appears on various places including on beer taps in all the pubs and on the face of the statue.
**Adam:** All the blanks wear green or blue, and all the cars seen in Newton Haven are the hybrid Vauxhall Ampera, again, either in green or blue.
**Adam:** Both Oliver and Peter, who end up being turned into blanks, are already in blues and greens as they set out on the Golden Mile.
**Adam:** And Gary is wearing subdued blues in the opening scene of him in the hospital group session, again implying that he's moving towards the social conformity the network wants to establish.
**Adam:** Worth noting here is that some viewers think that Gary was in an AA meeting but one thing to note is that no one in the circle has shoelaces, which would seem to indicate a secure hospital with patients being monitored for possible acts of self-harm.
**Adam:** Edgar Wright has stated that another of the inspirations behind the blanks and the network are the Autons in Doctor Who.
**Adam:** First appearing when John Pertwee was the doctor, the Autons are plastic dummies brought to life by the Nesting Consciousness, a disembodied hive mind with an affinity to possess and animate plastic.
**Adam:** They returned in the first episode of the series when it was revived in 2005 and have cameoed a few times since.
**Adam:** Interestingly, in the 90s, whilst Doctor Who was off air, the Nestings and the Autons appeared in a trilogy of semi-professional fan films named Auton.
**Adam:** Which was the first place I ever saw Reece Shearsmith.
**Adam:** Who here
**Adam:** returns from Shaun of the Dead, he's obviously Dexter in Spaced.
**Adam:** And he was Mark in Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** He's in films, he's White Hair in A Field in England, Zach in In the Earth, Stealing High Rise.
**Adam:** We saw him as Peter in The Cottage in episode 187, Baly Rectory, Burke and Hare, Saltburn.
**Adam:** Venom, let there be Carnage, Auton and Auton 2 Sentinel, and some of the other Doctor Who spin-offs, Pro the Devil of Winterborne and Pro Ghost of Winterborne.
**Adam:** He was Matthew Hopkins in The Witchfinder.
**Adam:** He was Rasaman in Doctor Who sleep no more.
**Adam:** Tony in Cattrick, if you've not seen Cattrick, that is Vic and Bob's exceedingly dark sitcom that was just brilliant and should have got more notice than it did.
**Adam:** House of Fools, Psycho Bitches, In the Red, Horrible Histories, Alexis Sale's Mary go round, Midmorning Matters.
**Adam:** Obviously, co-creator and star of The League of Gentlemen, Psychoville, and this this podcast's very favorite British anthology, Inside Number Nine.
**Adam:** Other returnees from Shaun of the Dead are the Garden Zombies, Mark Donovan, who here is a big ugly bastard, having been the Hulking Zombie in the garden in Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** And Nicola Cunningham, who's sitting next to Gary in the therapy meeting, who was Mary from Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** She's also in the Grind House trailer that Edgar Wright did, and she's a housewife in Look Around You.
**Adam:** Again, go and watch Look Around You.
**Adam:** We also get a more substantial appearance by Michael Smiley as the Reverend Green, who was the Tyre Zombie in Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** And obviously was Tyres in Spaced.
**Adam:** He was also in Luther, Black Mirror White Bear, Life of Rock with Brian Pern.
**Adam:** He was in Doctor Who in Into the Dalek, 15 Stories High.
**Adam:** And again, just so many amazing films, Kill List, A Field in England.
**Adam:** Down Terrace, Free Fire, Tank 432.
**Adam:** He was Doctor Eversan in Rogue One, a Star Wars Story.
**Adam:** Censor, Burke and Hair, The Lobster, Come to Daddy, Jawbone, Outpost, The Toll, so many amazing films.
**Adam:** He's basically guaranteed that you're watching something fantastic and British if you spot him there.
**Adam:** Again here, case in point.
**Adam:** Another return from Shaun of the Dead is that The World's End bar sells Hog Lumps, which was Shawn and Ed's preferred pig based snack from Winchester.
**Adam:** There's obviously new faces in The World's End, most obviously Eddie Marsan as Peter Page.
**Adam:** He was in Gangster Number One and The Bunker, V for Vendetta, Pierpoint, he's Lestrade in the Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes films.
**Adam:** And on telly, he was in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
**Adam:** He was on Curse of the 9th on Inside Number Nine, not two days ago when I was when I'm recording this.
**Adam:** He had early appearances in The Comic Strip presents, he was in Red Riding, his voice was in the Sarah Jane Adventures of Merlin, and I think the first thing I ever saw him in was Game On.
**Adam:** To my ever lasting shame, I'd forgotten Steve Oram's name on the main show.
**Adam:** But to give you a bit of a more depth of what he's been in, he's, as we said, he'd been he was in a Dark Song, which is an incredible, incredible film, Sightseers.
**Adam:** He's in Aah.
**Adam:** Which he also wrote and directed.
**Adam:** He was in In Fabric, The Canal, The Toll.
**Adam:** And he was Joseph Williamson in Doctor Who Flux.
**Adam:** He's been in The Mighty Boosh, Strange Tale of The Crack Fox.
**Adam:** He was in Hang Ups, The End of the Fucking World, Killing Eve, The More Side, Kill List, Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy, Green Wing, the and The Living and the Dead.
**Adam:** Nicholas Burns, who we already saw in Ghost Stories, episode 127.
**Adam:** He was the original Pridel when we saw it on the stage.
**Adam:** He's in Censor.
**Adam:** But most importantly, he is Nathan Barley.
**Adam:** And he was in Manstroke Woman with Nick Frost.
**Adam:** Benidorm, Black Mirror, The Track Take Midith.
**Adam:** He was in Thin Ice, the episode of Doctor Who.
**Adam:** The Mighty Boosh, The IT Crowd, Psychoville.
**Adam:** Again, so many great appearances.
**Adam:** Then you've got Darren Boyd as Shane Hawkins, the bully.
**Adam:** Who is one of those figures a bit like Kevin Eldon who just appeared in so many comedies, he's in Four Lions, he's in The Magicians.
**Adam:** He was incredible as John Cleese in Holy Flying Circus.
**Adam:** He's in Alan Partridge Alpha Papa, Bridget Jones's Baby.
**Adam:** But he was the token man in Smack the Pony.
**Adam:** He was Hugo in Hippies with Simon Pegg.
**Adam:** Rich McDuff in Dirk Gently, he was in Saxton Dale, Green Wing, again Killing Eve, Midmorning Matters with Alan Partridge, The Salisbury Poisonings, National Treasure, Spine Chillers.
**Adam:** Again, just one of those people whose face is quite familiar.
**Adam:** In an almost blink and you'll miss him moment is Jonathan Aris as the head of the therapy session.
**Adam:** Who was Anderson in Sherlock, and also appeared in Sightseers and She Will, Rogue One, and The Death of Stalin.
**Adam:** If you've not seen The Death of Stalin, go see it, it's fucking great because I watched it the other night for the first time and it's fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** At last by no means least is Rosamund Pike, who was in Saltburn, Gone Girl, Radioactive, The Libertine, Doom.
**Adam:** Johnny English Reborn, and she was Miranda Frost in Die Another Day, which was the last appearance as James Bond by Pierce Brosnan.
**Adam:** He was also in Gold Night, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough.
**Adam:** He was first Irishman in The Longer Friday.
**Adam:** And he's in Nomads, which is an extremely weird film if you ever get the chance to see that.
**Adam:** The Fourth Protocol, Taff in Mars Attacks.
**Adam:** The Lawn Mower Man, Dante's Peak, Mrs. Doubtfire, Mamma Mia, Mamma Mia, Here We Go Again.
**Adam:** He was Remington Steele on Remington Steele, Hammer House of Horror, The Carpathian Eagle.
**Adam:** And obviously, like anyone worth their salt has had his voice on The Simpsons.
**Adam:** The character Brosnan plays, Mr. Shepherd, was actually based on Edgar Wright's drama teacher, Peter Wild.
**Adam:** Who not only had the exit pursued by a bear quote on his wall, but also appeared in Hot Fuzz as one of the Village of the Year judges.
**Adam:** Which leads us nicely to those returning from Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** For a start, you've got David Bradley as Basil, who was Arthur in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** He's Mr. Filch in the Harry Potter films, he's Granddad in Await Further Instructions, which is a really dark Christmas horror film, Broadcast Signal Intrusion, Harry Brown, Captain America, The First Avenger, Exorcist The Beginning.
**Adam:** He's in Prick Up Your Ears, I first saw him as Eddie Wells in Our Friends In the North, he was Stem Roach in Ideal, Abraham Secton in 46 episodes of The Strain.
**Adam:** He played William Hartnell in an Adventure in Time and Space, and then Solomon in Doctor Who, before becoming the first doctor in the Doctor Who, The Doctor Falls, and Twice Upon a Time, and The Power of the Doctor.
**Adam:** He was the evil, well, everyone was fucking evil in Game of Thrones, but he was Walder Frey, he was a particularly unpleasant man.
**Adam:** He was in Britannica, Broadchurch, Cracker, Ashes to Ashes, he was the voice of the Shan Sheath in the Sarah Jane Adventures, The Death of the Doctor.
**Adam:** And when conspiracy theorist Basil describes the takeover by the network, he states their arrival was mistaken for a shooting star, which was the same one Gary sees on the original night in 1990.
**Adam:** Also returning is Alice Lowe as one of the couple that Oliver is showing round houses at both the start and the end of the film.
**Adam:** She was we've seen her before in Prevenge, episode 25 and episode 41 Black Mirror, Bandersnatch.
**Adam:** She also wrote and directed Prevenge.
**Adam:** She was Tina in Hot Fuzz and again, she was Tina in Sightseers, which she also co-wrote.
**Adam:** She was she's got another film coming out called Time Stalker, which she's also written and directed.
**Adam:** She was in The Ghoul, Black Mountain Poets, Steve Oram's film.
**Adam:** Fight, moment of horror.
**Adam:** Sweed Caroline, but most notably, she was Madeline Wall as Liz Asher in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.
**Adam:** Susan Nup in This Is Jinsy, Monkey in The Mighty Bush, The Priest and the Beast.
**Adam:** She's been in Inside Number Nine.
**Adam:** She was David Bowie in Snuffbox, she was in Horrible Histories, Ruddy Hell, It's Harry and Paul.
**Adam:** She was in Sherlock, The Sign of Three.
**Adam:** She's her voice is in Kill List and she was Kitty Hitchens in The Battersea Poltergeist podcast.
**Adam:** And also returning is Paddy Considine.
**Adam:** He wrote and directed Tyrannosaur, which stars Olivia Coleman, you can watch that and have a bloody good cry.
**Adam:** He was obviously Andy Wainwright in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** He's worked a lot with Shane Meadows, probably their best film together is Dead Man's Shoes, which is a fantastic film.
**Adam:** Also the ridiculous score Z, he's in Submarine, The Death of Stalin.
**Adam:** The Backwoods, a Room For Romeo Brass, Funny Cow.
**Adam:** Chris Morris's My Wrongs 8245 to 8249 and 117.
**Adam:** He was Peter Hunter in The Red Riding Trilogy, well, he was in 1980.
**Adam:** He was in Peaky Blinders and he's in The Maloco video, Feeling Familiar.
**Adam:** So, we've now come to the end of the Cornetto Trilogy.
**Adam:** And there's a few elements that recur throughout the three films.
**Adam:** Every film has a take the shortcut fence jumping sequence.
**Adam:** Which nearly didn't happen for The World's End, it was only added when they film pick ups after the main shoot had wrapped.
**Adam:** Each film features identical twins, although this is actually something common to Edgar Wright films overall, not just the trilogy.
**Adam:** And the slot machine, Oh Dracula, appears in a pub in each film, in The World's End it's in the hole in the wall.
**Adam:** The people who completed the Golden Mile by appearing in all three of the films.
**Adam:** Are Garth Jennings, who is the director of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Son of Rambo, Sing, Sing 2.
**Adam:** And loads of videos for Supergrass, Radiohead, Beck, Sleeper, Eels, Blur, Fat Boy Slim, Badly Drawn Boy.
**Adam:** Here he's a blank at The Good Companions.
**Adam:** But he's also one of the fundead zombies in Shaun of the Dead and a crack addict in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** You've also got Patricia Franklin, here she's the upstairs beehive lady.
**Adam:** But she was also the spinster in the Winchester in Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** And Annet Roper in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** She appeared in a lot some carry on films, she's in Carry On Camping, Loving, Girls Behind, England, and she was in Bless This House.
**Adam:** She's also been in Black Books, The Sweeney and The Bill.
**Adam:** As I said earlier, Bill Nighy is here as the voice of the network.
**Adam:** He was obviously Philip in Shaun of the Dead and the chief inspector in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** But he's also Mr. Johnson in Guesthouse Paradiso, Ray Simms in Still Crazy, Slarty Bart Fast in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
**Adam:** Quentin and The Boat That Rocked, Victor in the Underworld movies, Davey Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
**Adam:** He's in The First Omen, The Limehouse Golem, he's Wilson in The Dad's Army remake.
**Adam:** And he's in The Total Recall remake as well.
**Adam:** He's in the Harry Potter film, well, I think he's only in one.
**Adam:** Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one.
**Adam:** He's in he was Doctor Black in Doctor Who Vincent and the Doctor.
**Adam:** He was in State of Play, the revived Alfie, Same Pets.
**Adam:** And he is the voice of Saint Germain in Castlevania.
**Adam:** Julia Deacon, who is the landlady of the B&B.
**Adam:** Who was Yvonne's mum in Shaun of the Dead, she's Mary Poltry in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** And obviously, she was Marsha in Spaced.
**Adam:** She's in Down Terrace, she's in High Rise, she's in The Snarling, which we covered a while ago.
**Adam:** She's been in I'm Alan Partridge, Big Train, The Peter Serafino Show, The Wrong Door, plus one, The First Men in the Moon, The Life of Rock with Brian Pern.
**Adam:** Again, one of those real sort of stalwarts of comedy shows.
**Adam:** You've got Martin Freeman, who we saw in episode 127 Ghost Stories, who was obviously Declan in Shaun of the Dead and the sergeant in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** He was Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
**Adam:** He was Bilbo in The Hobbit Trilogy, Captain America Civil War, Black Panther.
**Adam:** He's obviously Tim from The Office.
**Adam:** He was Watson to Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock, he played himself in Toast of London, the Life of Rock with Brian Pern.
**Adam:** He was in the obscure sketch show Bruiser, World of Pub, Hardware, Black Books.
**Adam:** And he is also in the music video for I Started a Joke by Faith No More.
**Adam:** For those of you who are trying to spot when Oliver is swapped for his blank duplicate.
**Adam:** It's offscreen in The Trusty Servant, which is the pub where Young Oliver became too drunk to continue on their first attempt.
**Adam:** Another indication of this switch is that his Bluetooth earpiece flashes continuously from that point, presumably as he's sent instructions from the network.
**Adam:** Also returning as a part of the couple with Alice Lowe is Rafe Spall.
**Adam:** Who is the son of Timothy Spall, and we previously saw him in Welcome to Horror, episode 21, The Ritual.
**Adam:** He's Nolan in Shaun of the Dead and he's Andy Cartright in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** And he's also a ghost in the Grindhouse trailer that Edgar Wright filmed.
**Adam:** He's in Prometheus, he's in Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom.
**Adam:** Men in Black International, he was in the 2006 Dracula.
**Adam:** He was Jay Ratten in The Shadow Line, which is a drama well worth seeking out.
**Adam:** That was just
**Adam:** a fantastic bit of telly.
**Adam:** He was Harry Price in Harry Price Ghost Hunter.
**Adam:** He was in Black Mirror, White Christmas, War of the Worlds, The Salisbury Poisonings, Pete Versus Life, He Kills Coppers, Frankie Howard, Rather You Than Me, and Cracker 9/11.
**Adam:** Hornchurch boy made good, Nick Frost.
**Adam:** Obviously was Ed in Shaun of the Dead and Danny in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** He's the baby eater in the Grindhouse trailer and he was Mike in Spaced.
**Adam:** He was along he was alongside Simon Pegg in Paul.
**Adam:** As I say, Attack the Block, The Boat That Rocked, Cuban Fury.
**Adam:** He did a sketch show called Man Stroke Woman, he was Santa Claus in Doctor Who Death in Heaven and Last Christmas.
**Adam:** There was the show Truth Seekers again with Simon Pegg.
**Adam:** He was in Black Books, he was Commander Henderson in Hyperdrive.
**Adam:** He appears in Big Train, appears in Look Around You, surprise, surprise.
**Adam:** It's Kevin, Green Wing, Twisted Tales.
**Adam:** And then we have Simon Pegg.
**Adam:** It's obviously Tim in Spaced.
**Adam:** And he also did Is It Bill Bailey, which Edgar Wright directed.
**Adam:** He's in the Grindhouse trailer.
**Adam:** He was Mr. Nice in Guesthouse Paradiso with Rick and Ade and Kate Ashfield and Bill Nighy.
**Adam:** He was the photo booth zombie in Land of the Dead, he's in Paul, he was Unkar Plutt in Star Wars Episode 7, The Force Awakens.
**Adam:** Nandor Four Door in Nandor Four Door and The Talking Mongoose.
**Adam:** He's Burke in Burke and Hair.
**Adam:** Ready Player One.
**Adam:** He was in he's Benji Dunn in the Mission Impossible films, Run Fatboy Run with Simon Pegg.
**Adam:** A Fantastic Fear of Everything, 24-hour party people.
**Adam:** The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse.
**Adam:** On TV, there's Big Train.
**Adam:** He was the editor in Doctor Who The Long Game.
**Adam:** He was Ray Pubbs in Hippies.
**Adam:** Brass Eye, Doctor Terrible's House of Horrible, Black Books, The Boys.
**Adam:** Truth Seekers, I'm Alan Partridge.
**Adam:** Look around you.
**Adam:** Band of Brothers.
**Adam:** And he's the voice of Dengar in Star Wars The Clone Wars, and the Chamberlain in The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance.
**Adam:** And last by no means least, obviously, director Edgar Wright, who does actually appear in all the films as well.
**Adam:** He's various voiceovers, but also a frat falling zombie in Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** He's a shelf stacker in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** And obviously, he was in Look Around You.
**Adam:** He was in quite a lot.
**Adam:** He was in Spaced, he was the other photo booth zombie in Land of the Dead.
**Adam:** And he's a deep thought technician in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and a resistance trooper in Star Wars, Episode 8, The Last Jedi.
**Adam:** Apparently, he's directed a few films as well, you might have heard of him.
**Adam:** So, what have we learnt?
**Adam:** Cornettos are lovely, dogs can't look up, the Sisters of Mercy are fucking great.
**Adam:** I would say that the three films have such a pool of talent who would have appeared in so many things, you should seek out if you enjoy the trilogy.
**Adam:** In terms of comedy shows, obviously Spaced, if you've not seen it.
**Adam:** But also Black Books, Big Train, Brass Eye, Is It Bill Bailey, Asylum, and most importantly, Look Around You.
**Adam:** And now I will stop telling you to watch Look Around You, but watch Look Around You.
**Adam:** If you've enjoyed this episode of 6 feet deeper, I'm Adam Thomas for The Welcome to Horror Podcast.
**Adam:** If you haven't enjoyed this, I'm Herman Trever Law for the Smell My Beefy Finger Podcast.
**Adam:** Thank you, and good night.

---

## Ep 199 The World's End

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-199-the-worlds-end/
Air date: 2 June 2024
Duration: 00:37:35
Film: The World's End · Year: 2013 · Director: Edgar Wright

### Description

It’s the conclusion of our watch through of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy as we reach “The World’s End”. A film in which we learn what that thing above the door is called; another Bond gets the chance at some classy villainy; and we can all acknowledge that the Sisters of Mercy are fucking awesome. The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy ends by combining the story of five school friends growing apart, with a sci-fi conspiracy of body-snatching alien invaders. There’s a few new faces in the cast, but essentially this is a victory lap for many of those we’ve seen before. Whilst it may be the lesser of the three films, that’s still no slight when you consider the quality of the first two. Still funny, still wonderfully executed, and possibly the best way to round things off, this is still great movie, even if it doesn’t quite match the dizzying heights of its predecessors. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, and I'm Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** How are you lot not perfected this by now?
**Jennifer:** Oh, we've only been doing it seven years.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Jennifer:** I thought you had it all planned.
**Adam:** The worst part is,
**Adam:** I knew that it was Chris next, so I was going to say I'm Chris.
**Adam:** Which is why I stopped.
**Adam:** Because I was like, no, I'm not.
**Jennifer:** No. Oh, dear.
**Jennifer:** Well, it's good to see that you've really been doing this and you haven't just been lying to me.
**Chris:** I think it's because my my internet might actually be playing up.
**Lee:** Yeah, your your your voice is out of sync to your lips.
**Chris:** So I'm apparently connected to the wrong network.
**Jennifer:** Oh, what next door is?
**Jennifer:** You're stealing it.
**Adam:** Or is it the network?
**Lee:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Now he's gone now.
**Lee:** He's got rid of him completely now, he's that upset.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Oh, dear. Well, when he comes back, we'll know that he's a blank.
**Jennifer:** Well, I feel like you stole my joke later Adam, but I am going to be making that comment.
**Jennifer:** That's mainly why I'm here, really.
**Lee:** Good.
**Chris:** Not not at my expense, surely not.
**Jennifer:** Yes, very much so.
**Chris:** While I was in the, you know, the netherworld there,
**Adam:** The nether regions.
**Chris:** I was I wasn't there, but
**Chris:** Yeah, while I was gone, there you are talking about me being a blank, how how wonderful of you.
**Jennifer:** How did you know that when you weren't here?
**Chris:** I have ways and means.
**Lee:** right.
**Lee:** So, yes, we are here to discuss the
**Lee:** the final part of the Cornetto trilogy, 2013's The World's End.
**Lee:** we've all had fun until now. I've enjoyed this film. I'm keen to see what you guys made of it on a rewatch.
**Lee:** yes, so let's start with Chris.
**Lee:** How'd you get on with this?
**Chris:** I I remembered kind of not liking it as much as the other two.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Chris:** Right?
**Chris:** And I was I was thinking to myself, why? Because I thought I remembered what happened in it.
**Chris:** Turns out I didn't, but.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** Right, somehow, I completely did not know that they were aliens and slash robots if they are or not robots, but yeah.
**Jennifer:** That's why it's not.
**Jennifer:** Does that mean slash actually?
**Chris:** Well, I realized, yeah.
**Lee:** Slash slash your head.
**Chris:** Yeah, there you go, that's what they are.
**Chris:** But I don't know, yes, so I I actually totally forgotten that's what happened.
**Chris:** All I remembered was the pubs and I think what I didn't like about it was Simon Peg's character is kind of he's much more unlikable
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Chris:** to begin for at least for quite a lot of it
**Chris:** than he is in the others, so it but it's like it was also an evolution in a way of his acting.
**Chris:** So he did act well in it, but yeah, so it just I guess it must have left a memory of,
**Chris:** yeah, it's not quite as good as the others.
**Chris:** But as I was watching it, I was thinking, it's kind of getting better and better as it goes through.
**Chris:** And and yeah, and actually by the end,
**Chris:** I was really enjoying it.
**Chris:** And I was like, it's great.
**Chris:** It is it's a sci-fi.
**Chris:** And they have actually got some interesting aspects to it,
**Chris:** especially at the very end.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** But that's where for me it really, okay, you know, I accept this, this is this is got some really interesting parts.
**Chris:** Yeah, so so I did actually end up really enjoying it.
**Chris:** But for quite a bit, I was thinking,
**Chris:** oh, it's not it's not there.
**Chris:** Like the other two are just so good.
**Lee:** I will say I
**Chris:** And I probably do still think Shaun of the Dead probably is my favorite.
**Adam:** Go on, you.
**Lee:** What were you going to say, Lee?
**Lee:** I was just going to say, before we cut over to Adam, yeah, I was just going to say that that was my experience with it is, I remember seeing it and being mildly disappointed and therefore I didn't go back for ages.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And then when I did, after, yeah, maybe eight, nine years, I suddenly went, oh, actually, no, once you put a bit of distance between the other two,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, then all of a sudden, I saw it for all of its, its great features. Yeah, and I was like, oh, excellent.
**Jennifer:** It does have a lot.
**Lee:** I've now got I've now can really enjoy it. So.
**Lee:** yes, Adam.
**Adam:** Yes, I mean, I saw this once before.
**Adam:** And I think it was at Lee's, Lee.
**Adam:** which was the only time I saw it and I know that there was,
**Adam:** I remember sort of we were all talking about it at the time.
**Adam:** And your brother Dean said, he thought that Simon Peg and Nick Frost were playing the wrong characters.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In that they're sort of like, you know, basically Simon Peg has the Nick Frost character in this because Nick Frost character is kind of feckless, sort of, you know, useless or pain in the ass.
**Adam:** In sort of in sort of not necessarily major ways, but enough that you sort of like,
**Adam:** but yeah, and we were sort of like, did Simon Peg want to have all the good lines?
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** Maybe.
**Adam:** Because usually, you know, it's like Nick Frost is the funniest thing in Shaun of the Dead and possibly the funniest thing in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** And it's almost like, no, I want that.
**Adam:** I'm sick of being the straight man.
**Adam:** Can I have the the feature role of the ne'-do-well with good lines?
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** But and I, yeah, I seem to think that was how we were talking about it at the time.
**Adam:** Now, obviously, like you said, Chris, I've seen it once before.
**Adam:** And up until our discussion of well, actually, up until our discussion of Shaun of the Dead, I was perfectly prepared to say I remembered this film.
**Adam:** However,
**Adam:** whilst discussing Shaun of the Dead and not remembering that Kevin Eldon is in Hot Fuzz,
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I was then like, but I've seen Hot Fuzz quite a lot.
**Adam:** Not recently, but I've seen it quite a lot.
**Adam:** So I was like, why did I not remember that?
**Adam:** So I was perfectly prepared that this could be an utterly new viewing.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** You know, almost so I was but I I did remember I I remember I mean, I remembered the the essentials of it,
**Adam:** but none of the dialogue, so the dialogue was still brand new and funny and stuff. But I still I know what you mean.
**Adam:** I still hang on to that thing that maybe Simon Peg just isn't charming enough to play the Rogish Nick Frost character.
**Chris:** They're roguish.
**Adam:** Ness.
**Chris:** Messy.
**Adam:** Yeah. Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** He comes over more as a dick than a lovable dick.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** If you see what I mean.
**Lee:** I'm not sure they could have played them the other way around that like if you'd switched their roles, I don't think they would have worked.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I think they've done it the right way around.
**Chris:** It made sense.
**Adam:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** It's they are playing the right roles.
**Chris:** It's just our adjusting to that.
**Adam:** But it just is, yeah.
**Adam:** It's sort of.
**Chris:** I almost felt like if if I was watching it in a cinema with a group of drunk people, I would have appreciated the first major half of it more.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** I was going to say,
**Lee:** before I throw it over to Jennifer, my so my first viewing of this, I it was one of my mentioned days at the cinema when I used to book a day off work.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** and I watched like a 10 a m. screening of Despicable Me 2.
**Lee:** And then 1 o'clock or something, I watched Pacific Rim, then I went and sat in the pub with Jennifer and Chris Drains and had some and a few beers.
**Lee:** And then we got a bottle of rum and then we went in and watched this for the last screening and.
**Jennifer:** Doesn't sound like me.
**Adam:** Nah.
**Lee:** yeah, and yeah, and that's what I yeah, so I was in the right. I was drunk and there was a load of us and we did have a really good scream.
**Lee:** But yeah, again, it was one of those I came away and went, that was a little bit disappointing, but I wasn't too disheartened.
**Lee:** But then, yeah, like yourselves, didn't rush back to it the same way as I did with the others.
**Lee:** No.
**Jennifer:** Yes, I think something similar.
**Jennifer:** But I wonder if it's because the other two were so good that I was I had very high expectations of this,
**Jennifer:** which it didn't meet, whereas now going back to it, as you say,
**Jennifer:** appreciating it for what it is, it's a good film. But I think at the time it was like, oh, they're going to do it again.
**Jennifer:** And it's going to be almost the same but better.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** It wasn't, it was different.
**Jennifer:** And that's probably the initial thing and as you say, yeah, not liking Simon Peg, you're like, oh, but he's sort of a guy.
**Chris:** He's not wrong.
**Jennifer:** It's not his fault.
**Lee:** Well I almost felt that with him throughout this though, like.
**Jennifer:** No, he's a twat.
**Lee:** He's he's a twat, but it's that thing of everybody knows that guy who was the coolest person in their youth.
**Lee:** And therefore.
**Lee:** Never sees any reason to change anything.
**Lee:** And doesn't realize that, yeah, what's, as she says, what's charming at 17, now you're pushing 40.
**Lee:** Now it's just not quite.
**Lee:** yeah, so like I did see him as yeah, I mean he is a dick.
**Jennifer:** I think now maybe I appreciate it more.
**Jennifer:** Because I think this must be the third or fourth time because we are now the old people.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** I think I probably have a little bit more sympathy for him trying to recreate that.
**Jennifer:** Whereas maybe when we watched it, how long ago was it then? 15, 10 years?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think.
**Adam:** Nine.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, we're still a bit too young and cool ourselves to really appreciate that.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** We were somewhere.
**Adam:** I think I think you've hit the nail on the head there, Jennifer.
**Adam:** I think being at the being at the age that they were at or the characters are at is like, oh, no, yeah, that does it a lot of it makes a lot more sense.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Adam:** Because as I mean, there is the thing like sort of I was thinking about it that there's it's weird that everyone cracks on if he's because he's that much of a dick, if you see what I mean.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, why not to leave him alone?
**Adam:** It sort of it sort of implies more of the friendship.
**Adam:** Is that they're willing to stick it out even though.
**Chris:** I was wondering if it was a bit of morbid curiosity,
**Chris:** like, how how bad? We've just got to see what he's like.
**Chris:** Like I think I I would be tempted if that'd been the situation.
**Chris:** Like let's let's go see how awful this night can become if we just let him run things for the evening.
**Chris:** And and and potentially they are even though their lives have gone well, they probably, you know, they're probably quite living quite sedate safe lives.
**Chris:** And they may have just fancied a bit of a, okay, you know, so I don't know, I yeah, I was questioning that, but I kind of thought, yeah, maybe.
**Chris:** It could.
**Chris:** I don't necessarily appreciate which village they've come from either.
**Adam:** But I think weirdly, like you said, it's but not as it turns out like Paddy Constantine and Nick Frost characters aren't doing that well.
**Adam:** You know, Paddy Constantine clearly is like sort of unfulfilled or whatever like that and then like Nick Frost says that his marriage is down the toilet.
**Adam:** And stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's all but it but then curiously the two who seem to be settled and what they're doing are the ones that become blanks.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So there isn't an element of that message there.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, I assume there probably is more more message going on than I'd necessarily realized the first viewing.
**Chris:** And yeah, started to to perhaps appreciate that this time.
**Jennifer:** Chris, don't be a blank.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** Is that like Billy don't be a hero? Because if that's like the B side of that one.
**Lee:** Chris, don't be a blank.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I like that a blank.
**Lee:** But yeah, I mean, it is true.
**Lee:** I mean, I yeah, I've picked up on it more in my later viewings, yeah, that it is more of a metaphor for like going from doing your own thing and to yeah, to fitting into society, so when they become the blanks, it's when they basically just give up and just go into this is what I should be doing.
**Lee:** This is how I should be and not, you know, not wanting to tear it up and go your own way and have your own.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** And I sort of think I saw that more and in the later viewings.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And even seems to be almost like South Park idea of essentially.
**Chris:** Every option is bad.
**Chris:** Because really, you know,
**Chris:** having the aliens is bad at the end, but also getting rid of them is bad.
**Chris:** It's like you kind of everything can be good or bad, just going to extremes is probably not what you want to do.
**Chris:** You just got to be aware of when the limit is.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Reach.
**Jennifer:** I think I was less upset by the very, very end this time because I think initially I wanted it to finish on the sort of high almost like they're driving off into the sunset.
**Jennifer:** And I felt like the end bit was the sort of afterthought.
**Jennifer:** I didn't mind it quite so much this time, maybe because I was ready for it.
**Jennifer:** But it felt a bit like, do we need this?
**Jennifer:** What do you think?
**Chris:** I quite liked.
**Chris:** Yeah, go on, yeah.
**Adam:** To be honest, I'd like to see more of the apocalypse.
**Jennifer:** Oh, I thought you might.
**Adam:** But I do like a post-apocalyptic film.
**Adam:** If they if they were to do like, if they'd have done it almost like this is the this is like the opening monologue.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Adam:** And then just shown us the the post-apocalyptic world as a comedy.
**Adam:** I'd have probably.
**Adam:** But also.
**Adam:** But and I I can't help but feel that this is one of the main problems with it is that.
**Adam:** It starts off and obviously you've got some you know, obviously the music's all appropriate for them at school and everything else like that.
**Adam:** So there's a lot of throwback songs in there and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** The fact that it ends and the credits and it's bloody Happy Hour by The House Martins.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Adam:** I fucking hate that song with a fiery fucking passion.
**Jennifer:** Do you like that song?
**Adam:** And so I was almost like, right, we've gone post-apocalyptic, it's going to be a fight. Oh, fuck off.
**Adam:** We're a good place to be, that's what we are.
**Adam:** Fuck you, prick.
**Adam:** And sorry, that song just tits me off.
**Adam:** And then, then you get fucking this corrosion by the Sisters of Mercy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is I think I would have been a bit more.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It almost it sort of it sort of caught me just at the last moment, you know?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** I only listened.
**Adam:** Oh, you bastards.
**Lee:** When it comes in and it's primal scream and I hate primal scream and I particularly dislike that song.
**Lee:** But there's no getting around the fact, once you've heard it, you're fucked for a week because you're not getting it out there.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely, yeah.
**Lee:** And you need, that's it.
**Lee:** And you're like, oh, nuts.
**Lee:** Why have I done that to myself again?
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But there is.
**Adam:** But no, I think that the I like that because the ending is obviously the bit where's because they're talking and Andy is saying to.
**Adam:** Is saying, oh, where he's given up booze.
**Adam:** And he's just saying it takes balls to walk in and order a order a glass of water.
**Jennifer:** Oh, that's right.
**Adam:** In a room full of people who more paint.
**Adam:** Which is obviously what he does at the end.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's kind of, you know, that's the there's the implied growth.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** I see.
**Jennifer:** Oh, what's got that.
**Adam:** Gary has been through is that he's, you know, he's not sitting there thinking that actually this is the.
**Adam:** The exemplar of manliness is that he has to be hard all the time.
**Jennifer:** I thought now.
**Jennifer:** I assumed they'd stopped brewing and run out of beer and water was all that was left.
**Jennifer:** So.
**Adam:** That was the other thing as well.
**Adam:** I just thought, surely beer.
**Adam:** would be more of a pain in the ass to get hold of at that point.
**Adam:** And you see the way he looks at that Cornetto rapper which is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Just a beautiful little bit of little visual bit.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, that was nice.
**Adam:** I love that.
**Chris:** Doesn't beer become easier because water is often you know, essentially poisonous, you need to.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Only if you've got them because people used to drink more alcohol because drinking water get you sick or something.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, who knows who knows how to brew it like that nowadays when they just press a button and it does it magically.
**Adam:** Oh Christ, you've just give me a nightmare vision of a thousand fucking pop-up brewerries on a.
**Adam:** On a fucking plane somewhere.
**Adam:** Oh, Jesus, yeah, you can't get water anywhere, but you can get.
**Adam:** Hopsen's old cock or.
**Jennifer:** Stop.
**Jennifer:** Artisan beer.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Chris:** I suppose interesting that Gary is happy, essentially, he's still disliked by the majority of people in his new role.
**Chris:** you know, looking after the minorities and and drinking healthily, but it's like he can be happy.
**Chris:** being, you know, a drunken loser, he can also be happy being a a healthy loser.
**Jennifer:** As long as he's upsetting people then.
**Chris:** Yeah, he's he just seems to like being a bit of a an outsider, really.
**Adam:** It's like it's like sort of, yeah, he does he does get rewarded.
**Adam:** It's like, no, you go off and be a marauder, everyone else is going to be like a fucking subsistence farmer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And now you'll just go from place to place with your your four robot mates and a big sword and you you know, you go off and live the Viking existence.
**Adam:** And it sort of like, just seem a trifle unfair to me.
**Jennifer:** You feel like he shouldn't be rewarded somehow he should have been, yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, maybe.
**Jennifer:** But then it was his idea for the pub crawl.
**Jennifer:** I mean, it or is that the problem he shouldn't have therefore, yes, taken everyone down with him.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But no, he's I mean,
**Adam:** he definitely seems to be having the best time.
**Adam:** But then maybe sometimes I do think that the end of the world would be the only thing that would actually sort things out.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** in the you know, personally.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** it just be like, oh, well, you know, that there'd be I mean, let's face it, well, at the end of the world, we don't have to clear up in the morning.
**Adam:** There you go, that's fucking brilliant.
**Jennifer:** That's why.
**Adam:** The side one.
**Adam:** That's the point one, mate.
**Adam:** You know, there's a lot that you could let go at that point, you know, you don't have to give two shits about.
**Adam:** Which is quite nice.
**Adam:** So, yeah, maybe it is a better better reality.
**Adam:** You know,
**Jennifer:** But then would you not.
**Jennifer:** just go along part of me was like, why not just go along with the aliens?
**Jennifer:** You know, a nice, you know, sensible lifestyle.
**Jennifer:** No, did only I thought that?
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I thought that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** As well.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's that's the age we're at.
**Chris:** It's like, yeah, that sounds like they got things in order, really, doesn't it?
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well,
**Adam:** I mean, essentially, it does that's the other question, is does it make anything particularly different?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because all you've done is sort of, you know, it's only the people that they, you know, it's the people you go along with it, you're fine. But then when they come back and they've essentially got their memories and still and everything else like that, so it's essentially it's like, oh yeah, they didn't even kill him.
**Adam:** They just sort of made.
**Jennifer:** I think they did and they just put their memories into a robot or not?
**Chris:** Who is that killing then?
**Lee:** Yeah, but then the robot has got the memories so effectively, yeah.
**Adam:** It's all gone extremely blank, hasn't it?
**Chris:** We can't we can't get philosophy, you know, this this fast.
**Chris:** What what about what's what's everyone's favorite name of pub?
**Chris:** And are any of them real?
**Chris:** I'm assuming they might be.
**Adam:** Apparently, they're all they they Googled it. They're they're the name they are the names of all pubs of real pubs.
**Adam:** But they're also they're also literally the journey that they do through the film.
**Adam:** So, I've got I've got the list here somewhere.
**Adam:** But but the pub the pubs are where is it?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** So, so what you what what which pub and what happens? So you've got the first the first post, which is obviously where they start.
**Adam:** The old familiar, which is where they think where they notice that the inside looks exactly the same as the last pub.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they start talking about like, what is it Starbucks?
**Lee:** Starbucking, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's it.
**Adam:** then they go to the famous cock, which is where Gary is first recognized.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** For being a cock.
**Adam:** So, then it's the cross hands, which is where they have the fight like so it's the fight sequence and also it's them working together.
**Adam:** The good companions, which is where they decide that they've got to just pretend they're having a good time.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, together and carry on.
**Adam:** And get to get out of it.
**Adam:** then it's the trusty servant where they meet the Reverend Green.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** the two-headed dog.
**Adam:** Is where Sam meets the twins that she used to know.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** The mermaid is where they send the three girls to seduce them.
**Adam:** So that's like sirens, like a siren call, so mermaid.
**Adam:** The beehive, which is where the plan is revealed and the network says about a universal hive mind.
**Adam:** There's the King's Head where Gary smashes against the world to prove he's not been swapped.
**Adam:** hole in the wall where
**Adam:** oh, I can't remember, Paddy Constantine drives the car through the wall.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then obviously the world's end where the world ends.
**Jennifer:** Oh, I've got, yeah.
**Adam:** And actually the the the pub the pub after the world has ended, the post-apocalyptic pub is called The Rising Sun.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** That's pretty good.
**Chris:** So that's I mean, that's it what I was I was wondering watching it this time, it felt like more had gone into it than I had appreciated.
**Chris:** And clearly, it had.
**Adam:** Oh, it's it's the usual thing that they have they've really put in.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there's there's that same thing, there's a lot of construction goes on there.
**Adam:** But the one thing I still can't work out is quite how they get from I've just we've just had a fight with people who come apart.
**Adam:** To like it's a conspiracy.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** That they couldn't just go out and immediately say to someone.
**Lee:** You're not going to believe what's just happened in there.
**Adam:** You're attacked by robots.
**Jennifer:** Well, have a look at the police and stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** The other ones went no.
**Lee:** And that's right.
**Lee:** The phones didn't work and then.
**Lee:** But yeah, it was slightly spurious
**Jennifer:** They were very tenacious.
**Adam:** They just stayed on the pub crawl.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well done to them.
**Adam:** Well done to them for being intelligent because there's nothing more infuriating than when you're watching a sci-fi movie and the fucker who won't fucking get it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Even when they've seen this shit.
**Adam:** Whereas at least with this, everyone sees it, everyone's like,
**Adam:** no, that's not right and this is not something this is not just something we don't know about because it's a specialist thing or.
**Jennifer:** Oh, love it.
**Adam:** You know, this is weird, alarming shit.
**Jennifer:** Still not laughing, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and we've and we've all we've all seen it.
**Jennifer:** We have.
**Adam:** You know, it's.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, I think that they sort of but yeah, that sort of leap is also, how fucking good are they all at fighting?
**Lee:** I like, well.
**Adam:** I mean, not Eddie Marson, but yeah.
**Lee:** Nick Frost turns into Kung Fu Panda in the beehive when he just picks up those two two stalls and suddenly becomes a Marshall life expert.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** To be fair.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I yeah.
**Lee:** I still enjoyed it.
**Jennifer:** You think by this film they, you know, they practiced.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I I think that's the thing is I I think it's again, it's that hybrid thing.
**Adam:** You know, because it's not because it's obviously, it's partially sort of a getting older story and, you know, that the personal side of it.
**Adam:** Whereas the genre side of it is clearly alien invasion, like body snatchers stuff.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but, you know, those don't usually turn into action films like sci-fi action films.
**Adam:** You know what I mean? Body snaps, they're always much more insidious.
**Adam:** But but still, you know, it's Edgar and Simon Peg, they want to put fight they're going to put fight scenes in there.
**Adam:** And like you're saying, maybe they've just got too good at it at this point that they were like.
**Chris:** It would have seemed a bit weird.
**Adam:** Anyone could whack some prick.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** Because even down to that, Gary does seem to be just starting on the bloke.
**Lee:** Yeah, I thought that, yeah, if it wasn't for the fact he turned out to be a robot,
**Lee:** he would have just murdered a bloke for not taking his invite to come on a pub crawl and smashed his head in against the toilet.
**Lee:** Which is.
**Jennifer:** He's not a good bloke, is he? We hate him.
**Lee:** We hate him.
**Jennifer:** But you know.
**Jennifer:** Luckily for him it was a blank.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And also now some of his best friends are blanks.
**Lee:** So, you know, you can't.
**Lee:** Yeah, going back, trying to work out again the point where
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Gets turned.
**Jennifer:** That's what I enjoyed this time, knowing the story.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Jennifer:** And this was where my link came to my brother because I was watching it and as they came out the pub,
**Jennifer:** and I knew at this point, obviously, he had been turned, so I was watching it from the sister's point of view.
**Jennifer:** Going, why hasn't she worked out that her brother has been turned?
**Jennifer:** And in that moment, I went, yeah, I've met my brother.
**Chris:** You got to be able to tell.
**Jennifer:** And I was like, So.
**Jennifer:** Let's put the up to vote.
**Chris:** Who does that make more of a blank?
**Jennifer:** Yes, when would we work out that Chris is a blank?
**Jennifer:** Adam, when would you work out many days, hours, minutes?
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** When you told me?
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I was going to say,
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Lee:** When he shows.
**Adam:** From his own lips.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Lee:** He's going away now.
**Adam:** I can't remember what it was me and Claire were watching the other day.
**Adam:** But there was the question came up of when would you start to believe this.
**Adam:** weird thing had happened.
**Adam:** And it was definitely, well, as soon as someone else was saying it, because at that point.
**Adam:** You sort of buy into it, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think before that, I'd just be oblivious.
**Adam:** So, never fear, Chris, it's but then.
**Adam:** As they point out, the blanks are essentially just the same.
**Jennifer:** Good.
**Chris:** Same much.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They're the same.
**Adam:** Apart from.
**Adam:** I'd imagine they're basically, you know, because obviously, I'd assume that the network would put things in there such as, no, you'll never want to not be part of the network or you'll never not want to.
**Adam:** You'll never think, do you know what, this is a bit crap and I want something else.
**Adam:** You know, they would put in essentially, you know, restraining sort of elements in them.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, isn't that the point till the end and then they can all do what they like.
**Jennifer:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Once, yeah, once the network leaves, yeah.
**Jennifer:** Which isn't much different perhaps from what the network would have made them do anyway, which is the sad bits.
**Jennifer:** Or.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's a little bit Cabin in the Woods with the whole yeah, but if these two people weren't pricks, the entire human civilization could have continued.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And then and then one stoner has to go and balls it up for the entire planet. It's it is it's back to that selfish stoner cabin in the woods.
**Jennifer:** Who's the stoner?
**Lee:** What no, so the I mean, yes.
**Lee:** So he's a drunkard in this.
**Lee:** But in Cabin in the Woods, it's the stoner.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Chris:** I see.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Chris:** He does he does try to get some, doesn't he?
**Adam:** The the stoner is in Cabin in the Woods.
**Adam:** The stoner is being asked to be killed by someone.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like a self-sacrifice thing.
**Adam:** Where this is I mean this side round, it's more just Gary's like, fuck off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And because his mates are pissed,
**Adam:** they back him up.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Will be.
**Jennifer:** That's it.
**Jennifer:** The next morning you'd all be going, what did we why did we agree to that?
**Jennifer:** Oh, we should have just left him in pub one.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because that's the thing as well, is that there're there's got to be I mean, I love the fact that there's a sort of there's that element to Andy that he's got to.
**Adam:** Fuck it.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean? Where it's like, no, this is already gone fucking weird.
**Adam:** And at that point, he's found out that Gary is lying about his mother dying.
**Adam:** And he's almost got to he he's literally got to the world's end.
**Adam:** He's like, yeah, fuck it.
**Jennifer:** We just take those, why am I bothered?
**Adam:** Yeah, fuck it, we'll do it.
**Adam:** Because at that point, they're all like, oh, well, he can drive us out.
**Adam:** I mean, I love again, I love that sort of thing because I can assure you that in in the event of, you know, blue plastic people invading.
**Jennifer:** You'd be ready for us, Adam, is this what you're telling us?
**Jennifer:** You'd be there.
**Adam:** Well,
**Adam:** I'm just saying, if I was pissed, I'd still probably drive away from it.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** This this was my thought as well.
**Lee:** A someone who doesn't condone drinking and driving and has literally gotten in the car having had a single sip, you think the alien apocalypse.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Lee:** The alien apocalypse is an acceptable reason to get What's the worst that's going to happen?
**Lee:** They're going to pull you over, you've survived and you're going to get a ticket for under.
**Jennifer:** Oh, no, but you saw that.
**Jennifer:** police officer, didn't you?
**Jennifer:** He's in.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, great to have him back in as well.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, what's his name?
**Jennifer:** Adam I'll know.
**Adam:** Oh, shit.
**Adam:** That's I've completely fucking blank now.
**Adam:** That's that's really bad.
**Lee:** I've got I M D B in front of me and I can't find him.
**Chris:** It wasn't it wasn't Kevin Eldon.
**Adam:** No, what's what is his fucking name? Help me.
**Jennifer:** I don't know.
**Jennifer:** He's.
**Jennifer:** He's been.
**Adam:** oh, for fuck sake.
**Adam:** Steve Oram.
**Adam:** Christ on a fucking bike. I'm very sorry, Steve Oram.
**Adam:** I am a fan.
**Jennifer:** Well, yeah, we love you.
**Jennifer:** Steve.
**Lee:** Yeah, we're massive fans, which is why it's so annoying.
**Jennifer:** Because you act so well we forget you're a real person.
**Jennifer:** Does that work?
**Adam:** Well, at this point, I feel it only right that we mention again a dark song.
**Adam:** If you've not seen a dark song, fucking see it.
**Jennifer:** I remember the other day.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's it's not definitely not in the same vein as the Cornetto trilogy, but fucking watch that film.
**Adam:** Because it's fucking great.
**Adam:** It's like sees, but you know,
**Jennifer:** Are we done size yes, yet by the way?
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** We haven't.
**Adam:** We haven't, and I feel we should have.
**Chris:** But we have mentioned it.
**Jennifer:** Because I feel like I'm getting ready for a birthday choice, you see.
**Jennifer:** Oh, I know it's a month and two months away, but I'm trying to pick something that we haven't done that is well worth doing.
**Jennifer:** And that's my consideration at the moment.
**Lee:** It would be a good.
**Jennifer:** But yes.
**Lee:** That's a good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Oh, bless.
**Adam:** It's a good.
**Jennifer:** I'm going to crochet.
**Chris:** Was revenge the last the last Alice Low film we watched?
**Adam:** Well, she was in she's in Hot Fuzz, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** She was as well, apparently.
**Lee:** It must be.
**Lee:** She shows in the credits on IMDB, so it must be like a quick.
**Adam:** It's her she she's with Ralph Ball.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** Oh, fucking hell, this is a brilliant podcast, this is, because I remembered Martin Freeman.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Adam:** Fucking hell.
**Adam:** Martin Freeman's showing a couple around a house and then he shows a couple round the house and it's Ralph Ball and Alice.
**Jennifer:** Lowe.
**Jennifer:** Tell me she wasn't in it, you lied.
**Jennifer:** Yes, yeah.
**Lee:** Again, it's such a she's in it twice as well.
**Lee:** It's a cameo, but they both get it twice, which.
**Adam:** And Ralph Ball is one of the few people who's in all the trilogy.
**Adam:** And this obviously.
**Adam:** In this one, it is pretty,
**Adam:** it's basically a very very.
**Chris:** Yeah, Bill Nighy is as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, Bill Nighy's just the voice, isn't he?
**Adam:** He's the voice of the network.
**Adam:** So he's in he's in.
**Chris:** I I thought I I recognized him as one of the people in the pub, but.
**Chris:** Might not have been then.
**Adam:** No, you I think you're thinking of David Bradley, who was the the old boy.
**Adam:** They the conspiracy theories who they took.
**Chris:** No, no, there was.
**Chris:** Just a quick clip.
**Chris:** And I thought.
**Adam:** Oh, right, it may not it may not have been.
**Chris:** That much.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Chris:** Bill Nighy.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Was in this?
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** No, I don't know.
**Adam:** I've been sort of keeping the notes on it and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And one thing I was doing was is I thought,
**Adam:** well, I won't talk about anyone who turns up in all three or turns up until they've appeared in both films.
**Adam:** Like or all three films that they're appearing in and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But this has fucked me up, Peter Sarafinowic is supposedly in this film.
**Adam:** And he is supposedly the man when right at the start when they're going.
**Adam:** Sorry, when they start the pub crawl and Gary knocks on a bloke's door.
**Adam:** And they run off.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's meant to be him.
**Adam:** That's meant to be Peter Sarafinowic, I really don't fucking think it is.
**Lee:** No, he definitely isn't.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Adam:** And loads of he it's.
**Adam:** He's credited for it on IMDB.
**Adam:** And he's credited like, I've seen it on other sites credit it.
**Adam:** But I don't know if those credits are just fed from IMDB.
**Jennifer:** Can we start a conspiracy on this?
**Jennifer:** Because I feel like, you know,
**Adam:** Well, I did I did find a what culture video which had people who aren't in films, but they're credited in them.
**Adam:** and one of them was and they said,
**Adam:** they don't think it's Peter Sarafinowic.
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** he's a,
**Adam:** he's a tall bloke.
**Adam:** But I don't know.
**Jennifer:** Maybe he's acting.
**Adam:** Acting.
**Jennifer:** acting like you've got a thinner face.
**Chris:** He's a good actor.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And obviously and I'm glad that Chris you said that you're thinking of looking at watching look around you again.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Adam:** After hearing your six feet under. Oh, six feet deep.
**Adam:** Yeah, that.
**Adam:** It's just because there's so many fucking great people in these.
**Adam:** Films.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, they are.
**Lee:** It's great.
**Lee:** And I just.
**Lee:** I'm really enjoying those Adam, so yeah, wherever you've, you know, you've got enough research to add one on.
**Lee:** Yeah, please keep them coming.
**Lee:** Because yeah, because I look forward to listening to them.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, bless you.
**Adam:** Well, I hope the audience feel the same.
**Adam:** But, all I've received so far are three death threats and a letter bomb.
**Jennifer:** That's why you're made.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You made.
**Adam:** It was it was either Anthrax or sugar.
**Adam:** So, I just put it in me tea.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Still.
**Adam:** I'm still here.
**Adam:** So I'm assuming it was sugar.
**Adam:** Although I am diabetic, so fuck knows.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, it could have been sugar and it would have damaged you anyway.
**Lee:** Pass.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** But we haven't given up.
**Lee:** We're still going.
**Lee:** So we're going to be back in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** For episode 200.
**Lee:** Which you.
**Lee:** There will be no homework for that.
**Lee:** We are doing something again a bit like we did on our episode 101.
**Lee:** We're doing something a bit different.
**Lee:** so there'll be no homework.
**Lee:** And we just want you to come and join us and we're going to have a lovely long chat.
**Lee:** Aren't we?
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** We are.
**Jennifer:** Is it by the fire? Is it going to be like Jack and Ory?
**Jennifer:** That sort of, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Less boring.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Less Rick Mayall in it, Jack and with Rick Mayall was.
**Jennifer:** Jack.
**Jennifer:** Jack.
**Jennifer:** Jack and orry.
**Jennifer:** Is that the thing where everyone like famous people books?
**Jennifer:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, there's loads there's loads online, but Rick Rick doing George's Marvellous Medicine was the fucking best.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** That was.
**Jennifer:** There you go.
**Jennifer:** You see.
**Lee:** yes.
**Lee:** So, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out all of the films we've talked about in the Cornetto trilogy, go and check out a dark song, go and check out Look Around You.
**Jennifer:** All 199 of them so far, in fact.
**Lee:** All of our episodes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** and we will see you for episode 200 in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for still listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Jennifer:** Good night.

---

## Bonus Episode - 6 Feet Deeper: Hot Fuzz

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-episode-6-feet-deeper-hot-fuzz/
Air date: 26 May 2024
Duration: 00:23:42
Film: Hot Fuzz · Year: 2007 · Director: Edgar Wright

### Description

Adam brings us another bonus episode of random facts and things about “Hot Fuzz” that we didn’t quite get round to on our main episode. This time round he overuses the word “stalwart” and, once again, recommends you listen to the main episode first! We hope you enjoy this little transmission from the Welcome To Horror Fact Library

### Transcript

**Adam:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Adam. Yep, still just me.
**Adam:** I'm down in the Welcome to Horror Fact Library to bring you another 6 feet deeper, this time on Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** Obviously, I recommend that you go and listen to the actual episode on Hot Fuzz. This is just an addenda that in which we will detail some of the interesting facts and points of interest that we found about the film that never actually made it into the main episode.
**Adam:** If this is your first time listening to Welcome to Horror, please don't start here because this is utterly unrepresentative of what the actual show is like.
**Adam:** There's possibly going to be swearing and there's definitely going to be spoilers.
**Adam:** So, to start with, the initial scripts for Hot Fuzz
**Adam:** had a love interest for Simon Pegg's character Nicholas Angel. This character called Victoria was cut out fairly early in the scripting process, but a large number of her romance-tinged lines were given to Danny without any changes whatsoever.
**Adam:** Edgar Wright also wanted at some point to name it Hot Fuzz, spelling Hot with two T's. This was apparently he'd noticed that a number of action films were two words,
**Adam:** each with an equal number of letters in those two words, Lethal Weapon being an example. But, Simon Pegg kiboshed this, mostly on the basis that he didn't want to have to answer in every interview why there were two T's in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** As stated on the main show, the film was shot in Edgar Wright's hometown of Wells in Somerset.
**Adam:** The town in the film is called Sanford and this is actually named after the fictional town used in the majority of UK police training exercises.
**Adam:** Incidentally, the street plan for that Sanford is based on Dundee in Scotland.
**Adam:** We have a few returnees from Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** Right at the start in the forensic sequence where Nicholas Angel is talking to Kate Blanchett's character Janine.
**Adam:** Not Janine, the person he mistakes Janine for, is Robert Popper, who is the co-creator of Look Around You.
**Adam:** With Cornetto Trilogy stalwart Peter Serafinowicz, and also the creator of Friday Night Dinner.
**Adam:** Both of these shows are well worth seeking out.
**Adam:** Look Around You in particular is just simply brilliant and features so many familiar faces from
**Adam:** British comedy at the time, the Cornetto Trilogy Spaced and so on, and is just an actual pure work of genius.
**Adam:** He plays the presenter Jack Morgan in Look Around You.
**Adam:** Bob, another member of the forensic team, is played by the comedian and director Joe Cornish, who directed Attack the Block.
**Adam:** See Welcome to Horror episode 118, and is also in the process of doing the upcoming sequel to Attack the Block.
**Adam:** And as a further note, Danny's video/DVD collection is a combination of Joe Cornish's with Edgar Wright and Wright's brother Oscar. Oscar Wright also drew Danny's flip book that we see in the film.
**Adam:** Two further returnees are the Butcher Brothers, the twin brothers Kevin Wilson and Nicholas Wilson,
**Adam:** who are also twin zombies in Shaun of the Dead, and they're also twins in the trailer for Don't in Grindhouse, directed by Edgar Wright.
**Adam:** Joe Cornish's comedy partner Adam Buxton obviously plays Tim Messenger.
**Adam:** Who can be seen in Son of Rambo and Stardust, but most most famously for The Adam and Joe Show.
**Adam:** And his own his own show Adam Buxton's Bug. He's also Jahaed the Riddlemaster in The Crystal Maze.
**Adam:** What the- my!
**Adam:** Time Trumpet, it's Kevin, Look Around You, The IT The IT Crowd, The Last Chance to Swiss Tony, Ranlflin Hopkirk Deceased The Remake, and he is also the voice of Messi in Messi Goes to Okido.
**Adam:** Adam is not a returnee from Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** But he is part of the list of comedy stalwarts who make their Cornetto Trilogy appearance here in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** Another is obviously Bill Bailey, who plays the Sergeant's Turner. He is he was Bilbo Bagshot in Spaced.
**Adam:** And his own sketch series Is It Bill Bailey was directed by Edgar Wright and co-starred Simon Pegg.
**Adam:** And that's where we doing comes from.
**Adam:** He's in Burke and Hare, he's in Saving Grace, he's in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. But on television he was in Black Books with Dylan Moran from Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** Again, highly recommended.
**Adam:** He was in Doctor Who The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe, which no one should ever watch ever.
**Adam:** He was in 15 Stories High, It's Kevin Again, Blue Heaven, Hustle, Worzel Gummidge the Remake, Jonathan Creek, Wild West, Skins, Midsomer Murders, and he's the voice of The Whale in the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
**Adam:** Stephen Merchant also appears as Peter Ian Staker, the owner of The Lost Swan.
**Adam:** Who was the co-creator of The Office with Ricky Gervais.
**Adam:** And Extras, and Life's Too Short.
**Adam:** He was also Auggie in The Office.
**Adam:** He was he's Caliban in Logan.
**Adam:** He's in Fighting with My Family.
**Adam:** Again, he's in Burke and Hare.
**Adam:** Run Fat Boy Run.
**Adam:** He's particularly memorable as the chef in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, he's in the series The Outlaws, Hello Ladies, which he also created.
**Adam:** And has appeared as has done voice work on Robot Chicken, and The Simpsons, and American Dad, and is all right all around doing all right for himself.
**Adam:** However, of all the
**Adam:** 90s to naughties comedy stalwarts that we see in this film, I feel remiss that I had forgotten that Kevin Eldon appeared in this film as Sergeant Tony Fisher.
**Adam:** Kevin Eldon, or the actor Kevin Eldon, to give him his full title, if you watch Tutomanger,
**Adam:** is just is British comedy.
**Adam:** He just has been in so many things.
**Adam:** He had his own show called It's Kevin, which is fantastic.
**Adam:** He played a agent in Spaced.
**Adam:** And he's in Four Lions, he's in Funny Cow.
**Adam:** He's in the Tim Burton, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
**Adam:** But he was Simon Quinlank.
**Adam:** Rod Hoe and others in Fist of Fun.
**Adam:** As mentioned, this morning with Richard Not Judy.
**Adam:** He was Tony Rudd memorably in Look Around You.
**Adam:** Again, can't stress enough, go and seek out Look Around You.
**Adam:** Brass Eye, Big Train.
**Adam:** Now Big Train was a sketch show that featured him, Mark Heap from Spaced, Simon Pegg, Amelia Bullmore, Rebecca Front, and Catherine Tate and Julia Davis, and is again just a brilliantly weird sketch show.
**Adam:** Has no recurring characters or catchphrases, is just 12 episodes of just brilliance.
**Adam:** Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle.
**Adam:** He was in Charlie Brooker's Dead Set.
**Adam:** He was in Doctor Who It Takes You Away, which you should watch.
**Adam:** He was the barber in Nathan Barley.
**Adam:** Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan where he was Fanny Thomas.
**Adam:** He's in I'm Alan Partridge, Jam, Attention Scum, Dodgy Phil in World of Pub, Hyperdrive, Damned, Smack the Pony, 15 Stories High, How TV Ruined Your Life, Game of Thrones, Inside Number 9, Zanzibar, again Black Books, Hippies, Psycho Bitches, The Life of Rock with Brian Pern, Saxondale, The IT Crowd, This is Jinsy, Utopia, Truth Seekers, Green Wing, Horrible Histories, Red Dwarf, Hang-Ups, Packing Them In, Blue Heaven, In The Red, The Last Chance to, Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul.
**Adam:** Nightingale, Funland, The Last Kingdom, Hustle, Wolf, Am I High, Skins, New Tricks, Mr. Sloane.
**Adam:** Midsomer Murders and The Three Body Problem.
**Adam:** And he was the voice of Hugh the Monkey in I Am Not an Animal.
**Adam:** And he is the new Penfold in Danger Mouse. He also had some voice work in the series of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared.
**Adam:** I once saw him at a Matt Berry gig and yes, he was a very polite man and yes, Kevin Eldon is just the word comedy running through the stick of rock that is British comedy.
**Adam:** The film also has as I say, it had a number of comedy stalwarts, but also it then has the weird Venn diagram of cherished British character actors falling into the center of that Venn diagram.
**Adam:** Surely are Jim Broadbent and Olivia Colman.
**Adam:** As we mentioned on the show, Jim Broadbent actually was asked to appear in Shaun of the Dead, he turned it down.
**Adam:** Then he saw Shaun of the Dead, realized how good it was, asked if he could be in their next film.
**Adam:** So the part of Frank was specifically written for him.
**Adam:** Film-wise, I mean he's been in a lot of Terry Gilliam stuff, so he's been he was in Brazil, he's in Time Bandits, he was in Life Is Sweet, The Crying Game, Gangs of New York, Eric the Viking.
**Adam:** Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
**Adam:** The Hit.
**Adam:** The Paddington Films, Richard the Third.
**Adam:** He's Professor Slughorn in the Harry Potter films.
**Adam:** The Borrowers, Superman IV The Quest for Peace.
**Adam:** Peace.
**Adam:** Topsy-Turvy, Mulan Rouge.
**Adam:** Loads and loads of films, but on television he was during the 80s and 90s, was just in loads of British comedy.
**Adam:** He was another memorably horrible policeman in Only Fools and Horses, where he was Roy Slater.
**Adam:** He's Prince Albert in Blackadder's Christmas Carol and Don't Speak English in The Black Adder The Queen of Spain's Beard.
**Adam:** He's shouting George from The Weenie in The Comic Strip Presents Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown.
**Adam:** All of these things are definitely worth tracking down.
**Adam:** He was the Archmeister Ambrose in Game of Thrones, of course he was, because every British actor was in there, even Kevin Eldon was in Game of Thrones.
**Adam:** Tales of the Unexpected, Murder Most Horrid, Victoria Wood has seen on TV, Not the 9 O'Clock News.
**Adam:** Just loads and loads of stuff.
**Adam:** Similarly, Olivia Coleman, while she's done she's obviously won best best actress Oscar for The Favourite.
**Adam:** She's in Tyrannosaur, written and directed by Paddy Considine, who's also in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** The Lobster, La Donk and Scozzie, again with Paddy Considine.
**Adam:** And Wicked Little Letters, The Iron Lady.
**Adam:** But she is also Pan Bachelor.
**Adam:** In Look Around You.
**Adam:** Again, please if there's one thing you take away from this, it's go and seek out Look Around You, both series are just beautiful.
**Adam:** Sophie in Peep Show.
**Adam:** She was in Broadchurch, Flowers, Green Wing, Bruiser.
**Adam:** That Mitchell and Webb situation, The Mitchell and Webb Look.
**Adam:** She's in Doctor Who The 11th Hour.
**Adam:** She's utterly wasted in that, but it's still a good episode.
**Adam:** She was Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown.
**Adam:** 2012, Black Books, This is Jinsy.
**Adam:** She was the Godmother in Fleabag, Rev, Swiss Tony.
**Adam:** She was Janet Sloane in Mr. Sloane with Nick Frost.
**Adam:** Hancock and Joan.
**Adam:** And she is the narrator of The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, and has also been in The Simpsons.
**Adam:** Again, as mentioned on the show, the Summerfield Supermarket was where Edgar Wright worked as a teenager.
**Adam:** But the at one point they were thinking of changing the name to Summer Isles, Isles as in shopping Isles.
**Adam:** As a Wicker Man reference, which leads us nicely into our list of amazing British character actors.
**Adam:** With that Wicker Man reference leaping in the air, we moved to Edward Woodward, who played Tom Weaver.
**Adam:** Obviously, he was Sergeant Howie in The Wicker Man.
**Adam:** I recently watched a film with him called The Appointment, which is a very strange odd horror movie of a man basically being haunted by his own daughter's disappointment as he goes away on a road trip.
**Adam:** Also recently watched Deadly Advice, where he plays Major Herbert Armstrong advising Jane Horrocks on the best way to bump off her mum.
**Adam:** Incense for the Damned, Sitting Target.
**Adam:** He certainly has his action credentials as he played David Callan in Callan between 1967 and 72.
**Adam:** Which is a very noir spy drama and is very very much the opposite end of the espionage from say the glitz and glamour of James Bond, this is genuine espionage work, it's dirty, it's horrible.
**Adam:** And he basically that was the thing that made Edward Woodward's name.
**Adam:** He then went on to be Robert McCall in The Equalizer for 88 episodes, again someone writing wrongs and imposing justice at the end of a gun.
**Adam:** He's in a dystopian drama called 1990, which is obviously meant to be six years on from 1984.
**Adam:** He was in CI5 The New Professionals, Common as Muck, Messiah.
**Adam:** Which again, very good, the first series of which was was really good serial killer police procedural.
**Adam:** He's been in Peter Cushing's Sherlock Holmes and The Saint, The Baron, The Lone Gunmen.
**Adam:** And he also was the narrator of the series Insuspicious Circumstances, like a true crime documentary series.
**Adam:** One of Edward Woodward's co-stars from Deadly Advice, Billie Whitelaw, plays Joyce Cooper in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** We've previously seen her in The Omen, see Welcome to Horror episode 103.
**Adam:** Where she was the utterly terrifying Mrs. Baylock.
**Adam:** She also, as I say, she was in Deadly Advice with Edward Woodward playing Kate Webster.
**Adam:** She's in The Flesh and the Fiends.
**Adam:** Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy.
**Adam:** Hell Is a City.
**Adam:** She was Violet Kray in The Krazed, that's the one with the Spandau Ballet, not Tom Hardy, Emira and the ninth Doctor.
**Adam:** She's also the voice of Aura in The Dark Crystal, which once you realize that, you cannot unhear it.
**Adam:** Paul Freeman, who plays the Reverend Shooter, is Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Colin in The Long Good Friday.
**Adam:** He's also Professor Moriarty in Without a Clue.
**Adam:** All three are highly highly recommended films.
**Adam:** He's also in A Fantastic Fear of Everything with Simon Pegg.
**Adam:** Who Dares Wins and countless television appearances, stuff like The Sweeney, Crown Court, Between the Lines, etc.
**Adam:** Kenneth Cranham, who plays James Reaper, should be very familiar to horror fans as Chenard from Hellbound Hellraiser 2.
**Adam:** He was in The Last Yellow, Requiem Apache.
**Adam:** Prospero's Books, Gangster Number 1.
**Adam:** And he was Harvey Moon in the TV series Shine On Harvey Moon.
**Adam:** And he was also in a drama called Chimera from the, I believe, early 90s, which was a very nasty, grim, sci-fi slasher with a mutant monkey boy.
**Adam:** And yeah, lots of fun.
**Adam:** But he's also been in Inside Number 9 and The Winner Is.
**Adam:** Orange Is Not the Only Fruit, Against the Crowd.
**Adam:** Zed Cars, just tons and tons of stuff.
**Adam:** Midsomer Murders, that's pretty much a given for any British actor now.
**Adam:** One face I was pleased to see in there was Tim Barlow as Mr. Treacher.
**Adam:** Now Tim Barlow's a actor who's been in my.
**Adam:** One of my favorite films, The Nine Lives of Thomas Cats.
**Adam:** He's in Cockney Vs. Zombies, The Tall Guy.
**Adam:** He was Mr. Lobley in Inside Victor Lewis-Smith, which is where I first saw him.
**Adam:** He was in Doctor Who, Destiny of the Daleks.
**Adam:** He was in Cracker.
**Adam:** The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock The Abominable Bride.
**Adam:** The Omega Factor, Crown Court, Gormenghast.
**Adam:** Very interesting actor.
**Adam:** He was profoundly he was actually profoundly deaf, he there was an accident while he was testing a rifle in the army.
**Adam:** Which left him which left him deaf.
**Adam:** He still continued and went on to have a long acting career and actually had his hearing restored by a cochlear implant in 2008.
**Adam:** This also sees the first James Bond to appear in The Cornetto Trilogy in the form of Timothy Dalton.
**Adam:** Timothy Dalton's mustache was was sorry, Skinner's mustache was Dalton's idea.
**Adam:** He decided it would add an extra sleaziness to the character.
**Adam:** It has to be said that whenever Timothy Dalton turns up in a mustache, such as when he's Prince Baron in Flash Gordon or Nevil Sinclair in The Rocketeer, that does tend to be an indicator that you're in for a good film.
**Adam:** Another Doctor Who actor, he was Rassilon in The End of Time.
**Adam:** He was Niles Caulder in Doom Patrol, which I've still yet to see, but I love the comics, so I've got high hopes for that.
**Adam:** And Sir Malcolm Murray in Penny Dreadful.
**Adam:** He's also Mr. Picklepants in The Toy Story franchise.
**Adam:** Hot Fuzz was also the first thing that I ever saw Rory McCann in, who obviously went on to be Sandor The Hound Clegane in Game of Thrones.
**Adam:** A few little bits and pieces to watch out for.
**Adam:** When Danny throws the DVD for the Jackie Chan movie Police Story 3 Supercop.
**Adam:** Meet the cop that can't be stopped.
**Adam:** Back into the bargain bin, there's a copy of Shaun of the Dead DVD in the pile.
**Adam:** It's retitled Zombie Zombie's Party, which is what it was called in some other countries.
**Adam:** And there's a price sticker over Simon Pegg's face.
**Adam:** Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's mums are part of the Village of the Year judging panel.
**Adam:** And the NWA, who obviously, who they're named after.
**Adam:** Their Latin motto, Bonum Commune Communetartis, translates as for the common good of the community.
**Adam:** Or the greater good.
**Adam:** Every character that Nicholas Angel sees when he's out jogging on the first morning,
**Adam:** that is where those characters will be standing for the final shootout.
**Adam:** And he also at one point walks in slow-mo with birds in frame, which is a nod to the director John Woo.
**Adam:** And along with all the other with all the obvious sort of bits and pieces that they've put in there.
**Adam:** Apparently Peg and Wright wanted to tick off all the action film clichés as described in Roger Ebert's book, Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary.
**Adam:** These clichés include a character waking in an unfamiliar room and immediately finding the light switch.
**Adam:** And a driving shot with the car following the middle the lines down the middle, not in one of the lanes.
**Adam:** And finally a word on the music, now the score was by David Arnold.
**Adam:** Who'd also did the music for the Grindhouse trailer Don't, directed by Edgar Wright.
**Adam:** But more famously is his Bond association, he did Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day, Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace.
**Adam:** He also did the music for Paul with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, The Young Americans, Stargate, Independence Day, Zoolander, In Between Us 2, Shaft, Stoned, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Venus.
**Adam:** Godzilla, Too Fast, Too Furious, and on TV, he did the music for Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's Sherlock.
**Adam:** Mark Gatiss's Crooked House, Tractate Midtoff.
**Adam:** Moffat and Gatiss's Dracula, Toast of London.
**Adam:** Good Omens, Little Britain, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).
**Adam:** That's the Vic and Bob Remake.
**Adam:** And along with tracks by variously Adam Ant, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Supergrass, The Kinks and others, as well as Simon Skinner's habit of playing songs related to the murders he's helped commit.
**Adam:** There are extracts from other action film scores including Lethal Weapon 3 trailer score by John Eric Alexander.
**Adam:** Which is when they see all the guns at the farm.
**Adam:** Foot Chase by Mark Isham from Point Break and Hostage Situation by Trevor Rabin from Bad Boys 2.
**Adam:** I don't know if like Shaun of the Dead's use of tracks from Romero's zombie films, if these were temp tracks that were that fitted so well they decided to include them, or it was the or that was the intention from the start.
**Adam:** There are also specifically written pieces by action director Robert Rodriguez.
**Adam:** Anyway, that's just a few of the extra pointers that turned up from Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** I hope you enjoyed this.
**Adam:** If you did enjoy this, my name is Adam for Welcome to Horror.
**Adam:** If you didn't enjoy this, this is Peter Spillsbury for the Welcome to Nakas podcast.
**Adam:** And I wish you a bond good evening, goodnight and God bless you.

---

## Ep 198 - Hot Fuzz

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-198-hot-fuzz/
Air date: 19 May 2024
Duration: 00:37:27
Film: Hot Fuzz · Year: 2007 · Director: Edgar Wright

### Description

It’s part 2 of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy, which means we get to make a hot fuss about Hot Fuzz! A film which features four Oscar winners, only two of whom are actually credited; James Bond retrospectively auditioning to be a Columbo villain; and even if we don’t see a dog look up, we do see a Hound say “Yarp”. Whilst “Hot Fuzz” is an exceedingly British spin on the very American sub genre of the buddy cop action movie; it also borders fantastically into the familiar trappings of folk horror; with our hero moving to an insular village of spiteful Daily Mail readers, willing to sacrifice anyone and everyone for “the greater good.” With some returnees from “Shaun of the Dead”, along with more 90s/00s comedy stalwarts and a whole host of distinguished British characters actors; this movie maintains the momentum of its predecessor without ever being in its shadow, and, most importantly, is as funny as fuck. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And as promised, we're here for the second installment of our Cornetto Trilogy series. We're covering 2007's Hot Fuzz.
**Lee:** A film that I literally can close my eyes and play in my mind from beginning to end, pretty much.
**Lee:** And and Adam sounds like he hasn't seen it for a long time.
**Lee:** Chris, have you seen it before?
**Chris:** So, I've definitely seen it before.
**Chris:** I don't know what state I was in, because it's amazing how much I did I did not remember, and yet some like so in my head, I remember the model village at the end, for some reason that stands out.
**Chris:** And I guess you can see why, it's it's got quite a hard-hitting moment.
**Lee:** Or or a couple.
**Chris:** But yeah, so a few a few scenes I was like, yeah, totally. I've seen this absolutely.
**Chris:** And I remember it being great, but yeah.
**Chris:** I don't know like it's interesting, there is quite a lot that happens, there's quite a lot of different scenes and especially the way it changes in tone and so.
**Lee:** It's a lot of film for two hours, isn't it?
**Lee:** It's it feels almost like a whole series that somehow.
**Lee:** And that's because it's got so many great moments and classic quatable bits and all the rest of it.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's a really busy two hours, but it doesn't feel rushed. I mean, it's a masterpiece.
**Lee:** Adam, what did you think going back after so long?
**Adam:** Well, as you say, I haven't seen it for a very long time.
**Adam:** When I when I did first I saw it at the cinema, absolutely loved it, and I'm now I've now got to the point where I'm like, yeah, no, I'm I'm definite that Hot Fuzz is probably my favorite of the trilogy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That is that is interesting.
**Chris:** Go on.
**Adam:** That said, I I am only reserving judgment on that because I'll be it because I've literally only seen The World's End once.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** So who knows, that could be a real because that I barely recall.
**Adam:** Whereas there were pubs in it.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's oh, no, I remember I remember the Sisters of Mercy, but that was.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** But no, so.
**Adam:** Yeah, so Hot Fuzz.
**Chris:** Really interesting.
**Adam:** Really loved it at the time it came out, eventually came out on DVD.
**Adam:** So I would have got that, watched it with all the extras.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** I don't know, some at some point, I just didn't.
**Adam:** Go back to it as regularly as I had done when Shaun of the Dead came out.
**Adam:** So when that came out on DVD, I watched that and and that would be a that was a fairly regular watch for me.
**Adam:** You know, for for a while it was at least once a year or whatever like that, you know, at the least.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Whereas Hot Fuzz for some reason, I didn't do that with.
**Adam:** Now, I don't know if they were you know, whatever it was, I'd have to sort of
**Adam:** I mean, I'll I'll have to go back and work out if there was other stuff on or other stuff was out or.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's it's not horror, so so it might have been a little harder to prioritize.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think that maybe the thing because I don't.
**Adam:** Because I'm not really I've seen I've seen loads of action films, but they're not ones that I necessarily return to.
**Chris:** And yeah.
**Adam:** Maybe it's the maybe it's had that same effect. I don't know because I'm not in the mood for an action film.
**Chris:** Yeah, so say that you saw it.
**Chris:** Like in the cinema because it's I'd forgotten how much action it was, and I could imagine that really working well.
**Chris:** And of course Lee's got the big projector, so it's basically in a cinema.
**Chris:** So it fits.
**Lee:** I I know. Yeah, but.
**Lee:** so I watched this literally, without exaggeration, I think I'd probably watch this film every three to four months.
**Unknown:** Wow.
**Lee:** And I have done for the last couple of years. I love it that much.
**Adam:** I'll I'll just I'll just say, I can see why.
**Lee:** Yeah, I know.
**Adam:** No, this is this is my fault, definitely, I have not watched this for like over the years.
**Lee:** It's just it's got everything it has got everything and and it's my it's my Sunday movie basically.
**Lee:** Sunday afternoon, when you start feeling a little bit down because you're like, oh, I've just got a few hours left until work tomorrow, I just need something to cheer me up and bring my mood up.
**Lee:** This is my go-to if I'm having a slightly blue Sunday.
**Lee:** I put this on, and it always just and it's got it had the same effect this time as it always does, and I don't know why.
**Lee:** I get this with about three films.
**Lee:** But there's something about it when it gets to the end and the closing music starts, my first thought is, might as well knock that back to the beginning and start again.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's just such a great journey that you almost want to go back to where it started and just really the whole thing.
**Lee:** It's just it's phenomenal.
**Chris:** What was really interesting I thought after having watched in such close succession, Shaun of the Dead spaced and then Asylum and then seeing this, it's like, you can really see the evolution of the actors.
**Chris:** And the way that they're similar characters, but yeah, they've made him different enough.
**Chris:** Like in this, it's so funny how Simon Pegg is like he's still kind of an anti-hero, but it's because everyone around him is so awful that they actually make him bad.
**Chris:** Even though he is amazing.
**Chris:** He's like, I'm the best humans essentially who could ever exist and yet they make him awful again.
**Chris:** Like it's still unfair.
**Chris:** But yeah, for the opposite reason.
**Chris:** As from all the other films.
**Adam:** I think that's the thing as well is that we like Britain doesn't really have this kind of action like a buddy cop movie.
**Adam:** Because obviously it's like Point Break, Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys II all the references in.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Everything's in there and
**Chris:** Is Bad Boys I not much good.
**Adam:** I saw Bad Boys I at the cinema and I would like it on record that I want that time back.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't think I've seen I don't think I've seen either of them.
**Lee:** But I but every time but then again I didn't see Point Break until about five years ago.
**Lee:** So now every time I watch this, I do think, I need to add that to my watch list.
**Lee:** And then every time I go, yeah, no, I don't think I do.
**Adam:** See in Point Break Point Break I did see at the time.
**Adam:** I remember like all me mates were watch like watched a lot of action movies.
**Adam:** So a lot of the eighties and that was another one where I was like.
**Adam:** Yeah, okay.
**Lee:** You just.
**Adam:** You know, it was like, yeah, that was competently made, no one fell over, everyone remembered their words.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That was it, it left no sort of further effect on me.
**Adam:** So, yeah, again it's the sort of but Britain doesn't really have.
**Adam:** Those kind of films.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It's quite because basically Angels are a pain in the ass.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know.
**Adam:** To a great extent.
**Adam:** He's extremely competent at his job, and actually you do want him to be a police officer.
**Adam:** But yeah, he is just the rule stickler.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, but as you say, he turns up somewhere where.
**Adam:** Very dreadful people, well, basically rocks up and there's a murder conspiracy that's been going on for some time.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And actually the thing the things that I love most about Hot Fuzz are the bits that I've always thought about with action movies.
**Adam:** Like where it's like like the grand conspiracy that he weaves, but then it turns out it's actually the mundane reason.
**Lee:** Yeah, I love that.
**Adam:** Bringing the town into disrepute, so it's like, oh, well, he was involved in you know, the solicitor was involved with the property deal and they, you know, he was set to make so much money or he had this on this person.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, he was a bloody awful actor. We're not how can we do that when we've got when we've got some semi-professionals as understudies.
**Adam:** You know, so.
**Lee:** I mean and the other thing with this, I think that elevates it, which just is such a game changer. That cast.
**Lee:** Like, you know.
**Lee:** Jim Broadbent.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Timothy Dalton, Anne Reid.
**Lee:** And then you add those on top of, yeah, all the others who you, you know, as you say, you Kevin Eldons and Paddy Constantine, Rafe Spall, who I love.
**Lee:** It's just it's non-stop. Everybody who turns up, you're like, oh, I love them.
**Lee:** Oh, they're brilliant.
**Lee:** Olivia Coleman.
**Lee:** I I know.
**Chris:** Yeah, even Olivia Coleman.
**Lee:** She's an amazing actor.
**Lee:** But her comedy timing in this is fantastic.
**Lee:** And I don't know how I do a lot.
**Adam:** Weirdly enough, one of four Oscar winners who appear in this film.
**Adam:** And one of those others is Jim Broadbent, and when I was watching it, I was like, Jim Broadbent and Olivia Coleman, it's a very similar sort of career trajectory.
**Adam:** You know where it's like someone you saw loads in comedy and like, you know, like sort of stuff like Victoria Wood with Jim Broadbent and he was like in like all sort bits and pieces like that.
**Adam:** And then they get this real sort of suddenly the world takes notice and goes, actually, they're fucking amazing actors and look at them in this extraordinary, you know, in this film they've been in or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's just that sort of weird thing that you sort of hark back, you always get that, oh, stop being a serious person, go back and do comedies because they were good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** No, but genuinely.
**Chris:** Even though Bill Bailey, like.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck it.
**Chris:** Hell.
**Chris:** He does his classic appearances and again, just gets it so right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That that was something I do remember from seeing it at the cinema was Dean leaning over to me and pointing out that the two like the twins that Bill Bailey plays are reading.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** They're reading books by the same author, but the names are different.
**Adam:** Because it's one of them's reading an Ian Banks book, and the other one's reading an Ian M Banks book, and Ian M Banks is the name Ian Banks uses when he writes sci-fi.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So so one of them reads so it was kind of it's like a thing so that anyone picking up his books can either get, you know, straight fiction would be the wrong term, but, you know, like basically so you don't get sci-fi if you are not into, you know.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But yeah, that was but so yeah, so we have two Oscar with four Oscar winners.
**Adam:** I have named two, which is Olivia Coleman and Jim Broadbent.
**Adam:** and also it's uncredited, there's loads of people who are uncredited in this, Steve Coogan's not credited.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and it's Kate Blanchett is he's the girlfriend, the woman he's leaving.
**Lee:** I had no I didn't know that until today when I was watching it, and I was like, I always just assumed it was a a bit actress or something.
**Lee:** And I was like, I'm just going to have a little check on IMDb and just see, yeah, and then I was like, holy shit, no, it is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And she's won two Oscars.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Adam:** And the the final Oscar winner, which will be the one that I think Chris will be most interested in, Peter Jackson is the Santa Claus who stabs him in the hand.
**Chris:** Oh, that is that is quite surprising.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But again, I think I think everyone after Shaun of the Dead, everyone was like, oh, can I be in the next one.
**Adam:** Can I be in the next one.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** You could imagine.
**Adam:** I mean, Jim Broadbent apparently specifically asked to be in their next film.
**Adam:** Because he'd passed on Shaun of the Dead and was like, I saw it and it was brilliant.
**Chris:** Oh dear, regret.
**Lee:** I.
**Chris:** You absolutely would, wouldn't you?
**Adam:** I assume he was up for Philip, and I'm not sure whether he would have been.
**Adam:** In the same vein as Bill Nighy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Again, Bill Nighy coming back as well.
**Chris:** Who's also in this.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, we start getting to the point where we've got a few recurring people and people who then turn up in The World's End as well.
**Adam:** Like Paddy Constantine.
**Adam:** Because Rafe Spall's in all of the three.
**Adam:** And but yeah.
**Adam:** And can I just say.
**Adam:** Because at one point we were watching it and Clare mentioned, well, they has Simon Pegg because he's got cool glasses at the end.
**Adam:** And she was like, that feels a bit bad because that policeman wouldn't have that cooler set of glasses.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it was like, yeah, but you've got to make allowances for the fact that this is clearly Nick Pegg and Simon Frost get to do the action films that they love.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And get to be in real shootouts.
**Adam:** And it's like, I am not not I'm not not looking my coolest.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** While I'm doing that.
**Adam:** But on that same note.
**Lee:** I'm.
**Adam:** The fucking childhood joy on the faces of Paddy Constantine and Rafe Spall when they use those trollies as a battering ram.
**Lee:** Yes. Yeah.
**Adam:** And and and Nick Nick Pegg and Nick Frost and Simon Pegg as well are clearly.
**Adam:** But I think they've been watching them like shoot up the town square and been like, why can't we beat in this bit? Why can't we.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then it's like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You get you get a bit of do a little bit of yobbery in the local supermarket.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, it's that final act it changes, because it's such a a fun, as you say, it definitely is an action film, but only for the last 15 minutes.
**Lee:** Because up until that point, it's a kind of mystery and you're trying to work out what's going on.
**Chris:** It's full horror.
**Lee:** It is, it's definitely full horror.
**Chris:** I mean that's why.
**Lee:** Until he kicks the old woman in the face.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Which just makes me laugh every time. It's just.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But that but also yeah, they've I get the impression like Shaun of the Dead was like, right, we've got all our mates.
**Adam:** And all the people we know we can call on and everything else like that, so we've got them.
**Adam:** And then with this it's like, right, people are noticing us now.
**Adam:** And we can, you know, we can actually put feelers out and we've got a successful film that we can show people and say, that's what we did last time, you fancy working with us now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And just use that as an excuse to get like so many fucking brilliant British character actors in.
**Lee:** Yeah, like.
**Adam:** You know, I mean fucking Edward Woodward for Christ sake.
**Lee:** I know, I know.
**Lee:** It's it's funny because he looks so different now that every time it yeah, it.
**Adam:** He really looks fucking different now he's dead.
**Lee:** Well, yeah, so.
**Lee:** But yeah, every time it sort of catches, you know, because I now picture him in this film more than anything else.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it's it's always a bit of a shock when you suddenly go, oh, yeah, that I mean that is Edward Woodward, but this is how I think of him now, this is my reference to him more than anything.
**Lee:** Yeah, same with Timothy Dalton.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** As soon as I see him, it's this.
**Adam:** It's because he's so fuck I mean, he is.
**Adam:** He's just fucking having a ball, isn't he?
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** He I I really feel that this is almost like, he would have been around, but he wouldn't have been he didn't get asked to be a villain when they revived Columbo in the nineties.
**Adam:** And he would have loved two hours of sparring with Peter Falk and just being dropping hints.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, not not even fucking hints, just blatant like sort of villany.
**Chris:** Yeah, villainy.
**Lee:** Oh, it's just.
**Chris:** That's it, you like you don't trust anyone really.
**Chris:** Like from the start, you're like, they all could be in on it.
**Chris:** Like what is, you know?
**Chris:** And it turns out a lot of them are.
**Lee:** Yeah, and literally all of them are, which is fantastic.
**Lee:** Again, it's that is it Murder on the Orient Express.
**Lee:** It is, it's that you spend the whole time I it might be him, it might be her. Oh, it's all of them, everybody did it.
**Chris:** Practically.
**Adam:** By the way, swearing and spoilers.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well done.
**Adam:** In a swear jar.
**Chris:** 2007.
**Lee:** Oh, most people have seen it.
**Adam:** The swear jar.
**Adam:** The have you freeze frame the swear jar.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** But what makes me laugh every time is the fact that they've starred out letters in the F word, but not in the C word.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Adam:** That that was the bit that got me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's that it's Nick Frost getting hit in the face with that being.
**Adam:** Fuck off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's yeah, it's just a such a oh, yeah.
**Lee:** It's a beautiful film.
**Lee:** I just.
**Chris:** It's got everything.
**Lee:** It's so much for your money, as you say, not only all these actors.
**Lee:** It's got.
**Lee:** It's got folk horror elements, it's absolutely hilarious.
**Lee:** It's got.
**Adam:** Technically, you get a plot.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, no, genuinely, you could you could sell the plot of this as a like as a straight film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, it's like it's it's well, it's the fucking Wicker Man.
**Adam:** It's everything, it's like, you know.
**Lee:** It is an episode of Midsomer Murders, but with like gob gags in it.
**Adam:** But on a purely horror level though, the folk horror side of it really is in there of that.
**Adam:** You know, the outsider comes to the village.
**Adam:** And then slowly but surely finds out that everyone there is in on it and.
**Adam:** But it's it's also got it's quite bloody.
**Adam:** Like the head going in is it's pretty spectacular.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I do love the fact that it's sort of as a wonder around and a floy before it hits the ground.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's such a great kill. Absolutely brilliant.
**Adam:** So you you've you've definitely got that in there.
**Adam:** And I don't know why it is, but it's ever since I saw it the first time, it's always struck a cord with me.
**Adam:** And I do not know why.
**Adam:** That Jim Broadbent is dressed in a Victorian policeman's uniform.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't know why because that's like that's it's never explained or anything like that.
**Adam:** But it's just in there as like part of this weird ritual and this cult that has risen up and yeah, just something about that.
**Adam:** It's because it's like him coming out the fog in that sort of, you know, it's like Victorian gaslight sort of look and yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it makes him feel more out of place, which yeah, just adds to the kind of uncanny valley of the entire thing.
**Adam:** Yeah, he almost becomes a ghost, a spectre sort of thing.
**Adam:** He's an inspector, there you go.
**Adam:** And that's why Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg multi, you know, multi-award winning successful people.
**Adam:** And I must confess, I'm not even wearing pants.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, it's it's I was so pleased when you said you hadn't seen it for a long time, Adam.
**Lee:** Because when you said about Kevin Eldon, Kevin Eldon was it? And I was like, he's quite a big part. I was like, so how do I remember almost nothing of this film?
**Lee:** And again, it's that envy of, oh, I'd love to see this again for the first time.
**Lee:** Because I just remember grinning like an idiot coming out the cinema, just being like, well, that was on par with Shaun of the Dead.
**Lee:** And then I was thinking about it today and I was sort of trying to say which are my favorites.
**Lee:** I think I like them all equally because they're such different films that you kind of can't compare them too much.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Which which is excellent, that they managed to make three films in three completely different styles and managed to in my opinion, nail every single one perfectly.
**Chris:** They still blend the comedy into it perfectly, so it's yeah, a different style and yet the elements that make them great are still there, so it's like they've been able to adapt while yeah, keeping what works.
**Lee:** Yeah, I this this is a holiday coming up now. So I was looking at the fact that San Ford is actually Wells in Somerset, near Wells.
**Lee:** yeah, and that the pub The Crown, you can actually they go, you can actually stay in that pub.
**Adam:** Oh, wow. Okay.
**Lee:** So, oh, yeah, so I was looking that up just before we came on here and I think I might have to squeeze that in later in the year, a little weekend away up there.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz it's yeah, it's Wells in Somerset, which is where Edgar Wright comes from.
**Adam:** And they had to they basically had to digitally remove Wells Cathedral out of any shots you could see it in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, because they wanted it to be, you know, this isolated village and you've got a cathedral there, that's that's not being a village, that's not just a village.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think it was saying that Wells is the smallest city in England, so it is classed as a city, but it's more sort of, you know, town size.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Wouldn't feel like it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** the the supermarket, the Summerfields there is or was the Summerfields in Wells and Edgar Wright used to work there in the school holidays.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah, so they've gone he's gone back and yeah.
**Adam:** I love the fact that it's like, well, where where's, you know, where where can I imagine.
**Adam:** A cabal of nasty.
**Chris:** You imagine he might have thought most of this up while working there.
**Chris:** To pass the time.
**Adam:** Well, apparently I think originally the supermarket manager was named the same name as his manager when he worked there.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** They said his name was Stockwell and they said that sounded like they'd just done a shit pun on like a supermarket manager's name.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, of course.
**Chris:** That's Stockwell and yeah.
**Adam:** But so.
**Adam:** I mean that's that's an interesting scenario, isn't it, when it's like, yeah, we're we're we're we want to make sure people don't think that we wrote a joke that's a bit shit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** That's that's why.
**Adam:** That's why these films are the way they are, that's why they're so good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Is that that attention to detail and everything.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's.
**Adam:** I mean, I genuinely do not know why I drifted off it really.
**Adam:** As I say, it's just, yeah, I should be watching this far more regularly.
**Adam:** But then in fairness, I don't think I'd watch Sean the Dead for about 10 years.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's nice sometimes as well when you forget how good something is.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then you put it back into your kind of more frequent rotation.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's just have that thing of if someone says Hot Fuzz, it's like, yeah, fuck yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's nice to make a connection.
**Adam:** You know, it's like.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think again, I think this went down pretty well at the was well received at the time when it first came out, wasn't it?
**Lee:** I think it was acclaimed.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** I think it was a pretty.
**Chris:** Could imagine it was.
**Adam:** Oh, no, I think it was a pretty pretty universally pretty universally loved.
**Adam:** And I assume so you know, a box office success as well, you know, it wouldn't have been.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, basically after Shaun of the Dead, they were just told, right, what what is the next thing you want to do?
**Adam:** It wasn't.
**Adam:** They were just like, right, okay, come and come and do it make us another film. So, yeah, so this was from the point of view of this is what they.
**Adam:** This is what they came up with wanting to do now that they've been given that free rein that they could sort of
**Adam:** Because I want again.
**Adam:** It's it's like you say, it's somewhere between the Wicker Man, Midsomer Murders and and an eighties action movie, but funny.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, that probably was that probably would be a more complicated sell, but when you're actually in that position and it's like, well, this is what we were thinking.
**Adam:** And they're going, yeah, yeah, do that, please do that.
**Lee:** Anything you want.
**Adam:** We want more of it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and that's the thing like I'd like them to do, I know obviously they set out to do the trilogy.
**Lee:** Pretty much from the off and did so.
**Lee:** But yeah, I'd I'd like to see them come back and work together on more stuff again.
**Lee:** Because I know obviously they've gone off and kind of done their own stuff.
**Lee:** So obviously Simon Pegg has gone off and become an action star.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes, and Edgar Wright is.
**Chris:** I don't think I've seen I don't think I've seen many of his more recent stuff. I saw Paul.
**Lee:** Paul.
**Chris:** I can't remember.
**Adam:** He's a mainstay of the Mission Impossible films.
**Lee:** Yeah, he is, and he's very.
**Chris:** Oh, I've not seen any of them. Okay.
**Adam:** Same. So.
**Adam:** Yeah, so yeah, that's why I think that's why.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's what that's what went wrong, you know.
**Chris:** Perhaps I'll check them out one day.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And he he got into Star Trek as well, didn't he, because he was a big Trekkie.
**Lee:** He was.
**Chris:** No, that's right, yeah, he was a believable.
**Chris:** Believable younger Scotty, I thought, I mean, I love those. I thought they did really well with those remakes.
**Lee:** Yeah, I love those as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm glad you touched on that actually.
**Lee:** Because I remember I because when Paul came out.
**Lee:** I thought that was going to be the third of the trilogy.
**Adam:** Well, because that was the thing is that at that point they'd called it the Cornetto trilogy.
**Adam:** And obviously red Shaun of the Dead, this one's blue, which is probably why you watch it on a blue Sunday, like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's the blue film from their Cornetto trilogy.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah, and then they were like, oh, so everyone was like, right, so the only other Cornetto is mint, so it's green, so and it's Simon Pegg and Edgar right, so it's probably going to be aliens.
**Adam:** So that was.
**Adam:** So yeah, I I think we all did when first heard about Paul, it was like, oh, is this the next, is this the new the new one.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously it became apparent very quickly it wasn't because it wasn't Edgar Wright directing it, but yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, but that I mean that was a great film as well.
**Lee:** I really enjoyed that.
**Lee:** That's another one I don't I don't watch as often as I should.
**Lee:** And then I'm always shocked when I watch it again just how much I enjoy it.
**Adam:** See, I again, I think I've only seen it once, maybe twice.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** The only thing I remember is the Lorenzo's oil joke at the end of it.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And obviously and obviously a stoner alien, which is just literally, which is just basically eighties and nineties rave culture.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's just like it's it's an alien, but he's got a beanie on.
**Adam:** And he's holding a spliff and he's got take me to your dealer in those sort of mushroom letters that the goodies use.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** So at that point, I've it's just blurred into like a thousand shops in Camden.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I yeah, that's all I remember from Paul.
**Adam:** But I I remember enjoying it's again, it's just I haven't thought to look it back up, I might have to give it another watch.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, no, it's definitely worth it.
**Lee:** It's it's yeah, it's a I say, it's not exactly a mainstay with me, but it is one I do watch fairly fairly frequently.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** But what about Nick Frost.
**Chris:** What what has he done, anything recently.
**Adam:** He did actually.
**Adam:** He did a series with with Simon Pegg cameo in on Sky.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, Truth. Yeah.
**Adam:** That was it, Truth Seekers, thank you.
**Lee:** Thank you.
**Adam:** I was getting confused, I was going to say The Unexplainers, but that's Mike Bubbins and from Goldie Lookin Chain's paranormal podcast.
**Adam:** So yeah, so yeah, he's doing that.
**Adam:** But I mean, I mean basically just he's in.
**Adam:** He crops up in far more things than Simon Pegg does and I think he's and yeah, and mainly British as well.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Can I just say that.
**Adam:** This film possibly, and this is not a current observation, this was from when I first loved it.
**Adam:** This film does feature possibly my favorite line in any film ever.
**Adam:** And it's not necessarily it's not necessarily like it's not one of the obvious ones or anything else like that.
**Adam:** But it's pack it in Frank, you silly bastard.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And that and in a weird way, maybe that's the cog in my head with action movies.
**Adam:** Is that I do want to see that in a film. I want to see someone going, oh, for fuck sake.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, this is no, this is stupid now, stop.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** I think there's and can I just say that's not just the action genre.
**Adam:** I think films are on many many films out there where someone at one point should have just gone, you what.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or sort of.
**Adam:** No, no, pack it in now.
**Adam:** Look, look.
**Adam:** You're it's ridiculous. What why are you fighting now?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** It's great, and it's the callbacks and stuff.
**Lee:** You know, the the fact that the swan keeps coming back and that like, it is it's got those little in jokes that crop up all the way through it.
**Adam:** Both the the swan and the dog got credits.
**Lee:** Yeah, I noticed that on IMDb.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz the the swan's been in a few things, but the the dog has only been in here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But apparently that dog and this is this is going to be a deafening course of ours. in the that dog was meant to be a police dog.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** But he was just too friendly, so they couldn't accept him.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** So he was a fully trained police dog, but he was just a bit too he's got a dog's face.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's got a dog's face.
**Adam:** He's got a dog's face.
**Adam:** To to to actually be a police dog, so unfortunately, yeah.
**Adam:** But that that means he got to be in Hot Fuzz, so good on him.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, I think he won there.
**Adam:** That apparently I remember at the time they're doing an interview where they said that's actually based on a real thing that Simon Pegg heard from a policeman like a rural policeman of having to take the sort of undecipherable guy from the.
**Adam:** from the police station to translate for the undecipherable farmer and another guy.
**Lee:** It's just genius, it's pure gold.
**Lee:** So much of it is, it's just.
**Adam:** You put an action film in the middle of the bill.
**Adam:** It's like, unfortunately, this genuinely that is rural policing.
**Adam:** And probably rural policing is also, oh, yeah, when we killed them, why, because they were a bad actor or they were showing up the they were messing up the
**Adam:** The look of the village for when we win flower of the year, what is it? Fake I can't remember what they're after.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, I just love the fact that they killed Eve Draper, just because she had a terrible laugh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** She had a very annoying laugh, very annoying.
**Adam:** And the fact and the fact that Ron Cook, the guy who's who's got the Goldie house, but he made his money in fridges, so he's a fridge magnate.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** That is beautiful. That is fantastic.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, just looking at it today as well, I saw that so in the the early scene with Kate Blanchett when he turns up.
**Adam:** He says about Bob, who's just another guy in a white hazmat suit, you don't really see. Yeah, it's Joe Cornish for no reason whatsoever.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah, oh, so.
**Adam:** And one of the other guys is Robert Popper from look around you.
**Lee:** Oh, is it?
**Adam:** Jack Morgan.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah, the the other like him and Peter created it and yeah.
**Adam:** Then they're in the same series.
**Adam:** But yeah, that's him.
**Adam:** In the.
**Lee:** Oh, it's beautiful.
**Chris:** That's something else I need to watch again.
**Lee:** Oh, look around you.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'm I'm going to dig that up a lot.
**Adam:** On the I've I've big it up a lot on the bonus content because I was just like, no, if we can get lots of people seeing fucking look around you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Again, I don't think a lot of people heard about it because I I think it came. I mean, I didn't hear about it until after it was finished and you brought it around on DVD, Adam, because yeah, it was on.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck yeah.
**Adam:** Well, it was the original like the the sort of programs for schools, 10 minute shorts.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, it just it's such a fantastic show. It's yeah.
**Lee:** So funny for anybody our age.
**Lee:** It's just so so perfect, the music and the color palette and just the lunacy of the whole thing.
**Adam:** It's a it's a joy to behold that series.
**Adam:** It must be said.
**Lee:** Right.
**Chris:** Yeah, so so on to World's End.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** This is going to be this is the most intriguing for me because as you can see, I'd managed to blank out like Kevin Elden for fuck sake.
**Adam:** Well, I'm obviously behind schedule on that, so I'll get I'll get to it.
**Adam:** Because that was the thing you said Lee, knowing it for.
**Adam:** It was I got that with Shaun of the Dead, didn't have it with this and I was like, why haven't I got it with this?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it does.
**Lee:** It just it worked, and it's one of those as well where the jokes are quite quick fire sometimes, so you'll be laughing at something and you'll miss the next sort of joke that comes in underneath.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, and it's just so the rewatchability on this is through the roof.
**Lee:** So on that note, thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out Hot Fuzz if like Adam and Chris, you haven't seen it for a while, it's just a magnificent piece of.
**Lee:** Yeah, a really well put together.
**Adam:** Slightly fried gold.
**Lee:** It is, it is, it's exactly what it is.
**Lee:** So go and check that out, go and check out The World's End and we'll see you in a Fortnite. Thanks ever so much for listening. Good night.

---

## Bonus Episode -  6 Feet Deeper: Shaun of the Dead

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-episode-6-feet-deeper-shaun-of-the-dead/
Air date: 12 May 2024
Duration: 00:15:46
Film: Shaun of the Dead · Year: 2004 · Director: Edgar Wright

### Description

Welcome To Horror - 6 Feet Deeper: “Shaun of the Dead” Here’s a little bonus episode from Adam of facts and things that we didn’t quite get round to on our main episode on Shaun of the Dead. He apologises in advance for over use of the word “fantastic”, and warns that you should definitely listen to our main episode first, as this is a collection of random stuff that was thrown up whilst researching the film. This may become a semi-regular addition to the main show in those circumstances that we have too much information to get through on an episode, so hope you enjoy this little transmission from the Welcome To Horror Fact Library.

### Transcript

**Adam:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Adam:** Oh, it's just me actually.
**Adam:** I'm sitting here in the Welcome to Horror Fact library where we keep all the notes after all of our shows with all the fascinating things that we've recorded ready to let you know on the show and then we just don't get round to because we're too busy talking and enjoying ourselves and going, wasn't that bit good.
**Adam:** So this is what could be the first of a series of little occasional bonus episodes in which we go through stuff that we didn't get round to on the main show.
**Adam:** We're kicking off today with the follow-up to Shaun of the Dead because there were plenty of bits and pieces that we didn't get round to that you may be fascinated to know, or alternately, you may be bored stiff, but there we go.
**Adam:** We're going to call this Welcome to Horror Six Feet Deeper.
**Adam:** So, kicking right off, one of the main things that a lot of people know from Shaun of the Dead is that there is a sequence in the film whereby Nick Frost's character Ed tells Shaun his plans for the following day, and this basically is a rundown of the action for the remainder of the film.
**Adam:** So the plan, the day drinking plan is have a Bloody Mary first thing, which is a reference to the checkout girl in the garden who is the zombie checkout girl in the garden who is called Mary.
**Adam:** Then a bite at the King's Head, so Philip, Shaun's stepfather, the king, is bitten by a zombie.
**Adam:** A couple at the Little Princess, which is when they rescue Diane and David, the couple who live with Liz, the princess.
**Adam:** Stagger back here, impersonating zombies to make it to the Winchester.
**Adam:** Bang, back of the bar for shots, fending off the zombies with a gun.
**Adam:** That is finally rounded off with, how's that for a nice slice of fried gold, which is just an expression that Nick Frost has used and has now entered the common lexicon thanks to Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** Interestingly, there is even more foreshadowing at a certain point when Pete is arguing with Shaun and Ed, he tells Ed that he should go and live in the shed, which is obviously where Ed ends up.
**Adam:** And Ed says next time I see him, he's dead, and the next time he sees Pete, yes he is, he's dead.
**Adam:** Pete, as played by Peter Serafinowicz, does receive a phone call from someone called Dom.
**Adam:** And that is actually a reference to Spaced where Peter Serafinowicz's character Dwayne Benzy also receives a phone call from someone called Dom.
**Adam:** This itself is actually a reference to the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs, Nice Guy Eddie is taking a phone call from someone unseen called Dom.
**Adam:** So at that point we're getting a bit too a bit too far down the references, it's references all the way.
**Adam:** Another piece of lore from the background of the making of Spaced is that Big Al says that dogs can't look up, and this is actually something that Nick Frost said when they were attempting to get some footage of Colin the dog for Spaced.
**Adam:** I believe it comes up on one of the commentaries and then low and behold it turns up as part of the lore of Shaun of the Dead as well.
**Adam:** The film also has a number of zombie film references, none of them are too outlandish to make things make sense, but they're just there, those tiny little bits so that people can spot them.
**Adam:** For example, there's we're coming to get you Barbara, which is one of the first lines from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.
**Adam:** Sean's colleague Ash is not in today, possibly a reference to Ash from the Evil Dead films.
**Adam:** And Sean works at Forry Electrics, this is a reference to the actor Ken Foree who plays Peter in Dawn of the Dead, he's also in The Devil's Rejects from Beyond, fantastic actor.
**Adam:** And the restaurant that Sean tries to book for him and Liz is called Fulci's, this is in homage to Lucio Fulci, the director of Zombie Flesh Eaters, The Beyond and City of the Living Dead amongst many other fantastic films.
**Adam:** Interestingly enough, when Liz is talking to Sean, she says, what's that place that does all the fish, if you pause the film and look, the listing in the phone directory is Fulci's restaurant, the place that does all the fish.
**Adam:** The website Spaced Out was a forum online that the makers of Shaun of the Dead recruited Spaced fans to come and fill out the numbers as zombies and they were all paid a pound a day, but the opportunity to be in Shaun of the Dead, I'd be paying them.
**Adam:** The excellent score that has finally seen release recently was by Daniel Mudford and Pete Woodhead, they were a part of a band called the Sons of Silence who again had tracks on the soundtrack to Spaced.
**Adam:** I think I'll also take an opportunity to look at some of the cast members, as we'll be doing the full Cornetto trilogy, I think that we'll be sticking strictly to actors who are only appearing in Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** So obviously you've got Liz played by Kate Ashfield, who is actually in Guest House Paradiso with Bill Nighy and Simon Pegg.
**Adam:** And rather memorably in that, she's also Carol in a film called Christy Malory's Own Double Entry, which if you've not seen or not heard of, do seek it out, it is a very, very good film.
**Adam:** Basically the premise of it is that there's a guy who's doing an accountancy course and they teach him about double entry, profit and loss, which he then starts applying to real life, which starts off as man nearly runs me over, loss, I key his car, gain.
**Adam:** But unfortunately, as that takes a more existential sort of turn, it's then mum's died, I'll poison most of London.
**Adam:** So it sort of works its way through, but it is a genuinely, genuinely good film and just a film that sort of not enough people know.
**Adam:** She's in Byzantium, she's in The War Zone, which is a fucking tough watch.
**Adam:** But she also appeared in Fist of Fun on the TV, and Midsomer Murders, which is now basically the British equivalent of.
**Adam:** Murder She Wrote in that pretty much every single actor has appeared, every single British actor has appeared in Midsomer Murders at some point.
**Adam:** You've also got Lucy Davis as Diane, now she is the daughter of the stand-up comedian Jasper Carrot.
**Adam:** She's in Sex Lives of the Potato Men, she's in Wonder Woman, but obviously mostly she is known as Dawn in The Office, that's the English version obviously, and as Hilda in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
**Adam:** She's also been in Black Books, which again, if you enjoy Shaun of the Dead and you enjoy Spaced, if you've not aware of Black Books, go and seek that out because it is a fantastic show.
**Adam:** She was in, she was in The Detective, she was in Blue Heaven, Frank Skinner's sitcom, The Bill, which is second in line to Midsomer Murders as being a show that every British actor's ever been in.
**Adam:** Also you've got Dylan Moran who played David, who's Bernard Black, and he's the main character in Black Books along with Tamzin Greg and Bill Bailey, and again, like I say, if that's not a film you, if that's not a program that you've seen, seek it out immediately because it is fantastic.
**Adam:** There was a weird period where for some reason he was considered something of a leading man, so he was in a sitcom called How Do You Want Me, he was in a, he was in a film with Michael Caine called The Actors, he's in Notting Hill, he was in Run Fat Boy Run with Simon Pegg.
**Adam:** So again, well worth checking out the back catalog, but also just his stand-up is fantastic.
**Adam:** Obviously, you've got the fantastic Jessica Hynes, or Jessica Stevenson as she was when Shaun of the Dead was made, again from Spaced, she was in Asylum with Simon Pegg and directed by Edgar Wright.
**Adam:** She also appeared in Mash and Peas, Lucas and Williams original show, which was directed by some parts of which were directed by Edgar Wright.
**Adam:** She's written and directed The Fight, she's in Burke and Hare with Simon Pegg, Son of Rambow, sees them, the Bridget Jones films, baby the Baby of Mason.
**Adam:** She was Cheryl in The Royle Family and Old Myers in The Witchfinder.
**Adam:** Now, The Witchfinder was a six-part series, any folk horror fans or whatever, you should seek that out if you did not see it because it was very, very good.
**Adam:** She was Joan Redfern in Doctor Who, Human Nature and The Family of Blood, and then Verity Newman in Doctor Who, The End of Time.
**Adam:** She's appeared in Inside Number Nine, a random act of kindness, she was in Years and Years, 2012 and its follow-up W1A, she was in Hang-Ups, there she goes, Alexis Sales Merry Go Round, she too appeared in Black Books.
**Adam:** She's been in the rebooted Crystal Maze, Harry Enfield and Chums, Armstrong and Miller, a natural Axe, the remake of Randle and Hopkirk, just tons and tons of stuff.
**Adam:** And yeah, again, the, you know, Spaced is as we said on the main program, Shaun of the Dead is not the Spaced film because you don't have Jessica Stevenson's input there, which is half of what makes Spaced so great.
**Adam:** You've also got the landlord of the Winchester, John is a stuntman called Steve Emerson.
**Adam:** who's been in loads of Bond films, Dr. No, You Only Live Twice, Octopussy, The World Is Not Enough.
**Adam:** He was in Batman, he was in Last Night in Soho, another Edgar Wright, he was in the 2010 Wolfman, he's in the Harry Potter films.
**Adam:** The Assassination Bureau, Krull, Willow, Were Eagles Dare, Carry On Cowboy, and he was in Doctor Who the Macra Terror and the War Games, the Claws of Axos, Frontios and Revelation of the Daleks.
**Adam:** Catweazle, Doomwatch, Callan, and loads of other stuff, he also makes an appearance in the Danger 50,000 Zombies extra that appears on the DVD of Nick Frost's Danger 50,000 Volts.
**Adam:** Shaun's mum, Barbara, played by Penelope Wilton, who is again another main stay of British comedy, mostly from the 80s, she was Ann Bryce in 27 episodes of Ever Decreasing Circles.
**Adam:** Again, another Doctor Who connection, she was Harriet Jones, the Prime Minister, the the the well, the MP for Flydown North, then the Prime Minister, then the ex-Prime Minister, here in several episodes of that.
**Adam:** She was Homily in The Borrowers, she was in Bob and Rose.
**Adam:** Film wise, she was in Clockwise with John Cleese, Operation Mincemeat, she's in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and is married to Bill Nighy in those films as well.
**Adam:** She's in The History Boys, she's in Pride and Prejudice, and is again, just one of those familiar faces who thankfully they picked up on because she is brilliant in the role.
**Adam:** As mentioned earlier, you've got Tamsin Greig, she's one of the, she's one of the other the alternate group who are who are working their way through the apocalypse with Jessica Stevenson.
**Adam:** As I said, she's in, she's one of the main three characters in Black Books, she was in the fantastic Friday Night Dinner, Green Wing, Doctor Who the long game, Inside Number Nine the last gasp.
**Adam:** Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman's first thing for television, episodes, World of Pub, Blue Heaven, lots of these things, and also is the narrator of the children's cartoon Love Monster.
**Adam:** Also part of that team was obviously Matt Lucas, obviously Lucas and Williams did Little Britain for 23 episodes.
**Adam:** He was Nardole in 15 episodes of Doctor Who, the excellent Rock Profiles.
**Adam:** Mash and Peas, which was, as I say, directed by Edgar Wright.
**Adam:** He's in the latest Wonka, Willy Wonka movie, Harry Hill movie, Plunkett and Macleane, also just again, one of those people who just runs through British comedy with stuff that you either are familiar with or should go and seek out right now.
**Adam:** Like Shooting Stars, Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Bang Bang, it's Reeves and Mortimer.
**Adam:** Fun at the Funeral Parlour, Catterick, Vic and Bob's Big Night Out, Look Around You, Monkey Trousers.
**Adam:** Life of Rock with Brian Pern, Bernard and his characters are Bernard Chumley.
**Adam:** Sunny Side Farm, Barking.
**Adam:** ABCD a rock opera, and also in the video for Country House by Blur and I'm with Stupid by the Pet Shop Boys.
**Adam:** One final thing that I cannot confirm or deny is that I've always just assumed that the name of the pub, The Winchester, is a reference to the club that Arthur Daley used to drink in Minder, but I've never seen anyone mention that, so that might be just something I'm making up.
**Adam:** Who knows, that could be an absolute slap in the face to the makers of Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** But there we go.
**Adam:** And yeah, so that's just some little bits and pieces, hope you enjoyed that.
**Adam:** If not, it was over quite quick.
**Adam:** So that'll be this could be something that we do on a more regular basis if we get, as I say, sometimes we just throw up lots of research and it just doesn't get around to on the main show, other times we are pulling teeth to try and talk about things, so that won't be something that happens for every episode.
**Adam:** As I say, hope you've enjoyed that.
**Adam:** If you have enjoyed that, I'm Adam for Welcome to Horror, if you hadn't enjoyed that, I am not Adam from not Welcome to Horror, and I bid you a good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 197 Shaun of the Dead

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-197-shaun-of-the-dead/
Air date: 5 May 2024
Duration: 00:39:14
Film: Shaun of the Dead · Year: 2004 · Director: Edgar Wright

### Description

As Johnny Vegas once said - “Who’s ready for ice cream?” After nearly 200 episodes, we’re finally getting round to Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy, kicking off with the absolute belter that is 2004’s “Shaun of the Dead”. A film which features more dead celebrities than Austin Powers’ address book; more cameos than a karaoke machine stuck on “Word Up”; and dares to ask the eternal question about whether or not dogs can look up. Having honed their cinematic flair with the essential turn-of-the-century sitcom “Spaced”; Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg took their love of Romero’s Living Dead Trilogy (as it was then); melded it with British RomCom mundanity and created probably the best horror comedy hybrid since “An American Werewolf in London”; with scares, gore and laughs in equal measure, plus an absolute genuine heart. Twenty years on, this film remains a high watermark of British Horror and British Comedy, its status as a classic was never in doubt from day one. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** and we are here this week for a very spoiler heavy, very sweary look back at one of the best films, well, one of my favorite films.
**Lee:** from 20 years ago, cuz we're old as.
**Chris:** That is that is just insane like really that is wrong.
**Lee:** this month as well, I mean, when this episode comes out, it'll be just past. But yeah, 20 years in April.
**Lee:** So that's.
**Adam:** It was it was 20 years on Good Friday and actually it was Good Friday when we when it first went UK nationwide.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And that film is.
**Adam:** Shaun of the Dead.
**Lee:** Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** He hadn't actually mentioned that.
**Lee:** No, no, sorry, I got too wrapped up.
**Lee:** I mean, obviously, Chris, I assume you'd seen this prior to.
**Chris:** I had, yeah, yeah, I don't know how quickly I saw it when it came out.
**Chris:** But it was big and being an English film and I'd seen Spaced and it was like, yeah, okay, this is pretty much all kind of the best bits of Spaced distilled into an amazing film.
**Chris:** So I must have heard how good it was, I don't know, like I just remember being very excited.
**Lee:** I mean, I was kind of worried when it came out, if I'm honest.
**Lee:** Yeah, I, I loved Spaced, Adam introduced me to it and I absolutely just fell head over heels with it, but I was aware that it has got a very specific audience and I was like, it'd be such a shame if they tried to like go all big and Hollywood with it and it fell on its face.
**Lee:** but yeah, people who I would never suggest watching Spaced to were coming to me and going, oh my God, have you seen this film yet, it was just fucking everywhere.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, in the run-up to this, I, I re-watched Spaced.
**Adam:** Yeah, and and the one the one thing I would say is go back and watch Spaced because Shaun of the Dead is not the Spaced film.
**Chris:** It's not.
**Adam:** It's not, yeah, it's not like you can't, it's not like Guesthouse Paradiso is the Bottom film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They may have different surnames, but it's the Bottom film.
**Adam:** It's yeah, this is cuz I mean the one key factory is Jessica Hines, Jessica Stephenson, as she was then, you know, that's an integral part of Spaced.
**Adam:** Yeah, and but but still it's like it was also one of those things where you just like you felt like especially cuz a lot of people were then like, oh, this is amazing, have you seen Space? it's like late to the party.
**Adam:** even though even though I kind of was, I I I first started watching Spaced in the second series, which I think when I showed it to you, Lee.
**Adam:** Yeah, but my sister had been watching it like I'd seen the first series and the first series had just come out on video so we could watch that and yeah.
**Chris:** On video.
**Lee:** Yeah on DVD I think season two of Spaced was one of the first things I ever owned on DVD actually, so.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think cuz it was very much that crossover time, wasn't it?
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, it was just a it was a weird one because I think we'd missed it because we were basically the same age.
**Adam:** So we were out, that's why, you know, we didn't see Spaced like the first time around.
**Adam:** The two people who told me about it were like I say, my sister and Wesley's brother Wayne had also watched it and it was like, oh the people like the person who's now older so isn't out on a Friday night and the person who's too young to be out on a Friday night are the two people have sort of clocked this and just gone, yeah, this is brilliant, you should watch this.
**Lee:** Well, the irony of it is, yeah, as you say, the reason we didn't see it is because it was on a Friday night, but the first time I watched it, I it was a Friday night, Adam had given me the VHS of season one, I'd gotten home from work, gotten ready to go to the pub, and I was ready half an hour before my bus, and I thought,
**Lee:** Right, I've just got time for one episode, so I thought, I'll put this on, I'll watch the first episode before I go to the pub, I didn't make it to the pub that night, I sat and binged the whole season.
**Adam:** It's extremely addictive.
**Adam:** And obviously most of the cast appear in a great or lesser extent in the in Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** Twist isn't there and Brian like Mark Heap.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think they're the only two notable exceptions, everyone else is.
**Lee:** I mean, obviously, Simon Peg and Nick Frost.
**Chris:** The the landlady.
**Adam:** Yeah, she's she's she's that's one of my favorite bits is the alternate team.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's that is so good.
**Adam:** You got Martin Freeman and Reese Shearsmith and Julia Deakin, who is who's Marsha and Matt Lucas as like the alterna.
**Chris:** So I I didn't recognize cuz I was looking out for him this time, for some reason, I didn't recognize them, so I think this is my third viewing, and I didn't pick up on it first time around.
**Chris:** I probably, in fact, I probably didn't really know some of them, I didn't know Reese Shearsmith probably at that time.
**Chris:** And yeah, but this time I was like looking out for it, but yeah, it's
**Adam:** Cuz Spaced Spaced is very much like a is an absolute like snapshot of the comedy scene at that point of everyone.
**Adam:** And so like Reese Shearsmith's in there, Mark Gatiss is in there, Kevin Eldon, Bill Bailey, you know, so many people.
**Adam:** And some of whom end up coming into the what becomes the Cornetto trilogy.
**Adam:** But but yeah, it's the thing you get watching it is obviously, there's so many things with Spaced where it's direct film references rather than Shaun of the Dead, which is it has like little minor bits, but it's essentially its own story, it's not a take on Dawn of the Dead.
**Adam:** It's not like Young Frankenstein or something like that.
**Lee:** I think that's kind of what I was expecting it to be.
**Lee:** If I'm honest.
**Lee:** And I'm not, you know, I've said before of all the supernatural thing, zombies are my least favorite.
**Lee:** But I was like, do you know what, knowing how much they know about films, if anyone can get this right, it's going to be them, but I didn't expect it to be anything near as spectacular as this film ended up being.
**Adam:** Well, I suddenly realized, again, going like watching Spaced, that was the thing I got is it was like, that is one of the smartest movies ever.
**Adam:** Like obviously, Edgar Wright directed Spaced as well as doing the the Shaun of the Dead and but when you think about it, it's like all of the bits in Spaced where it's like right, we want to recreate this bit of Stanley Kubrick or this bit of Steven Spielberg or the spinning number plate from Back to the Future.
**Adam:** You want to put all those things in, but it's actually, you then have to learn how to do all these genuine like film techniques, you know, how to be able to.
**Adam:** It's not as straightforward as it sort of sounds and you have to learn how to do, you know, you have to really understand film and I think that, you know, it's such a brilliant sort of thing of, well, we can do all these things without people going, oh, you know, oh, that's just you ripped that off, you know, it's a reference, it's not a rip-off, if you were to just present a film and you put those bits in.
**Adam:** Whereas in Spaced, it's it's always a reference, so it's always you you get to learn all these techniques and show them off, but you're not actually then people just going, oh well, it's not as good as when they did it in that, because you're doing when they did it in that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It was interesting, I didn't realize how many of the the horror scenes could actually be horror from this if they were in a different film.
**Chris:** It's like I hadn't remembered that really properly at all.
**Lee:** I was always like, yeah, take that out, put it in another one, it was horror.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's I completely forgot that he shoots his mum's face off.
**Chris:** I was like that is clearly very harsh.
**Chris:** Like and somehow, I guess you remember the comedy or at least that that is exactly what I'd done.
**Lee:** I always remember that bit, you know, I do think of the funny scenes, and then my brain always on like the third mental image hits Dylan Moran being dragged out of that window and his guts ripped.
**Adam:** horrific.
**Chris:** No, it's like in a normal horror film, that would be like, yep, that is that is seriously harsh.
**Adam:** Well, that's, I mean, that is very much Day of the Dead.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So much and it and watching it, it's almost very Day of the Dead because it's basically, what do we do with the fucking most horrible character in this?
**Chris:** Yes, yeah, they did make him especially horrible just before.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's he's increasingly proved himself an arsehole and then it sort of yeah.
**Lee:** I hate to say it, I still side with him on that.
**Chris:** It's it's the way he does it though, isn't it?
**Chris:** Like he could have just even just slightly and that's fine.
**Lee:** Oh look, what's that over there, bang, oh no, the gun went off, I seem to have shot your mum in the head.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, it had to be done.
**Adam:** That's that's a lovely thing as well is the fact that everyone's shit with a gun.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's not America, it's people in a pub in London.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** No one can really aim, you know.
**Chris:** Even even with the PlayStation 2 practice, it's not enough.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Well, cuz that's that's that's that's the thing as well is cuz they did in Spaced there's the third episode of the first series is Tim's done a load of speed and he's playing and has been up all night playing Resident Evil.
**Adam:** Yeah, and that's kind of their sort of starting point of putting zombies into.
**Adam:** Cuz even those bits are actually done for horror effect, you know what I mean, they're not sort of they're not comedy zombies, they're horrible zombies.
**Lee:** Oh, shot at the Pleasant Theater, I've been there twice, that that theater where they shot all of that, is the theater where I went to see the Night of the Living Dead musical thing.
**Lee:** Which was excellent.
**Adam:** But I think the I mean, when so me and you saw this at the cinema, didn't we, Lee?
**Adam:** We we it was me, you and Dean.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then I had my own Shaun of the Dead experience afterwards because like I say, it was Good Friday, and you and Dean, we we've like we've gone gone to the pictures, but it was like mid-afternoon or whatever like that.
**Lee:** So you and Dean went clubbing uptown, Yeah, we got the train and went to the the Intrepid Frox in Wardor Street to wait until Skid Row had finished playing at the LA LA2 till they've turned it into a nightclub.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We got bollocks that night, we honestly.
**Lee:** But it was great cuz we just literally, we sat in the pub for about four hours talking about how much we loved that film.
**Adam:** But then I walked back through and I'm not exaggerating, a genuinely deserted Romford, but like with in on a sunny afternoon.
**Adam:** All the shops had shut, there was no one in the shopping center, like in the main shopping center.
**Adam:** And I walked through and went down to the car park, but the car park gate was locked and like had been bordered across, which I'd never seen before.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and so I had to walk back, as I'm walking back, there's one guy in the distance clean and I said, excuse me, mate, is there do you know if there's if there's another way around the car park.
**Chris:** Genuinely, his reply was.
**Adam:** So already I'm feeling that.
**Chris:** Anyway, so I have to, your spiders are tingling.
**Adam:** So I well I had to double back out of the Liberty shopping center to get walk around the street to get to their car park.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Again, not a fucking soul.
**Adam:** And then just as I turned the corner to get in the car park, what I now realize or what I quickly realized was a very, very drunk woman staggering at me, but looking very sort of vacant and drawn.
**Chris:** Did you laugh and say look how drunk you are.
**Adam:** vacant with a hint of despair, you know.
**Adam:** And yeah, so I got the I got the full experience, I got like the Secret Cinema experience of that thanks to a conflagration of a early closing in Romford.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** So I was, you know, had had its exciting moments, should we say.
**Chris:** Sorry, man.
**Lee:** No, go on.
**Adam:** No, I was just going to say, I also, I also do remember Dean and Lee having to explain me what Henry's was.
**Adam:** just cuz I'd never heard that.
**Lee:** No, I just never heard it.
**Lee:** I was like, oh, that's good.
**Chris:** Make sense now.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, like the start of the film is just so good, the way it's referencing what's going to happen, like all the way through, you're just seeing in the background these are the things like picking up and the way he doesn't pick up on any of it, and then the obvious that day when he's then walking through and it's just chaos but he's so out of it.
**Chris:** And there's blood on the door, the the glass.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, he's little slip in the blood and he doesn't bother looking down, he just keeps walking.
**Chris:** It's just such a good start to a film.
**Adam:** I I think also it's just I think that came I read somewhere that Edgar Wright was saying it was something to do with he basically turned on the telly one day and they were setting fire to loads of pigs and he'd not heard about Foot and Mouth.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** Back in the back around 2000 or whatever it was.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so yeah, but yeah, they they do a very good job of sleepwalking into a disaster.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think that they they always talk about American Werewolf and I think they've got that same thing.
**Adam:** You know, American Werewolf has genuine scary horror or genuinely like stuff that stuff that is unquestionably a horror movie, gore, you know, tension and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Yeah, but it's also piss funny throughout and doesn't have to sort of yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, again and I think it was one of the first ones to really get that balance right as you say, I think that's why it hit the mainstream so well.
**Lee:** Because, yeah, it was just it was comedy that reached everyone, as you say, it wasn't too nerd-centric, you didn't have to like with Spaced, you didn't have to know, you know, you didn't have to know Star Wars, you didn't have to know all these classic horror movies, you could just go in and watch it.
**Lee:** but yeah, and it and so it kind of again, it's one of those that does catch you off guard, cuz you're getting into the jovialness of it all and then all of a sudden, when it kicks off, say it starts off quite subtle like when he's in the shop and he can see the guy who's about to eat the pigeon and you're like that's a bit wrong, yeah.
**Lee:** And then before you know it, it just goes bat shit out of nowhere, yeah, and all of a sudden there's a strange girl in the garden.
**Lee:** And and it's it's the little bits they set up as well, like Peter Serafinowicz, I always forget every time when he comes in and he goes, oh yes, I'm crackered bit me and that's it and I've got a headache and it's kind of left there, yeah, and then about 10 minutes later you suddenly go, oh shit.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz I think I think it's zombies are like werewolf, people know what the thing is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's very simple, so it's quite like you say, you can go into this, you don't have to it's not something that's essential that you know your zombie movies, you can present this to someone who's never watched one in their life, they get what's going on, they yeah.
**Adam:** And it doesn't and it doesn't really there's a couple of throwaway references, but it doesn't really indulge apart from the similarity between Dylan Moran dying and the the cat the major in Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Other than that, there's not they don't really do set pieces or anything, they create their own.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is essential as well, you know, you've got I mean, even down to the fact that this was the I just again talking about like how this was that sort of cusp point between buying it on video, buying it on DVD.
**Adam:** And I think similarly, this was just it was just a brilliantly observed joke at that time when it's everyone at the bus stop and it used to be the everyone looks at their watch in unison, but this time around it was everyone checked their phone in unison because that's how everyone that's how everyone tells the time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But you know, it was that sort of, oh yeah, that that was the sort of first thing I saw that acknowledged the fact that that's what you do, you know, it's not.
**Lee:** I mean, and the cast in this as well is, you know, as we said, the amount of people who come in and do like little bit parts.
**Lee:** like Rafe Spall, I mean, he looks so completely different in it, he's almost unrecognizable.
**Adam:** Yeah, but we've but also that's a very relatable one.
**Adam:** Everyone's always, you know, where it's like, so what are you, 20, 25, 79.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Bryan, all right, okay.
**Adam:** And he he is one of the the select group of people who's in all three of the trilogy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Rafe Spall.
**Adam:** And but no, I mean, there's I did you know the one person who is weirdly missing from this trilogy though, because he should be there is Kevin Eldon.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Because literally every other British comedy thing from about 95 to sort of well, almost today, Kevin Eldon will have turned up at some point.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's great in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** is he in Hot Fuzz?
**Lee:** How long's it been since you've seen Hot Fuzz?
**Adam:** very long time.
**Adam:** I mean, I I love it, but I haven't watched it for yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, he is one of the, I thought you meant he should have been in all three, yes, he is one of the coppers in Hot Fuzz.
**Adam:** Oh, is he? Oh, right, okay.
**Adam:** I've clearly not remembered that at all.
**Lee:** I can't wait for you to rewatch that, now I'm jealous again because as I say, I can't go since it's been released, I have not been out to go six months without watching that film.
**Lee:** I absolutely adore it.
**Lee:** even above this, as much, that's what I mean, when this came out, I went so bat shit for it, I think I kind of watched it once a month for about two years.
**Chris:** But is that it you you overdid it slightly.
**Lee:** Exactly and I've not I mean that's obviously an exaggeration, but I think I did watch it five or six times in the first couple of years it was out, yeah, then kind of didn't go back for a long time.
**Lee:** I think this is possibly the second time I've seen it in the last 15 years.
**Adam:** Probably the same.
**Adam:** I think that certainly at the when it first came out was absolutely obsessed, and even sort of what and it's one of those weird ones where I watched it watching it back for this, obviously is yeah, like you say, it's probably been about 15 years.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough, I knew everything that was going to happen, I knew I remembered everything that was in it and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But that it was just like an old mate, you know what I mean, it was just it was just just great watching it again, I didn't you know it was just yeah.
**Lee:** It is one of those, I can close my eyes and pretty much just run through this entire movie scene by scene exactly as it is, I remember it so vividly.
**Lee:** but it's still thrilling to watch, despite the fact I know it so well, I I still absolutely absolutely love it.
**Lee:** I had such a great time and that was the thing at first, I was like, oh, I know these films so well, do I have to rewatch it really and I was like, oh, it's a weekend, I've got time, I'll squeeze it in.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then as Chris said, just before we started recording, I wish I'd watched it all yesterday, then I could have rewatched it all again today.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean, it's it's it is interesting cuz like you say, I don't know if I don't know if killed it would be the right word, but it was just I'd watched it a lot.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so I felt, oh no, that's that.
**Adam:** I mean, that wasn't to say that, you know, the DVD weren't going anywhere.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or or anything like that, you know, there was it wasn't going to be like a I I need to have this in my collection somewhere.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, cuz when you're in the mood for it, there's nothing else that will that will scratch that itch, this is such an essential.
**Lee:** But it's funny, the other thing Jennifer said is, has there been another really good zombie film since then.
**Lee:** And I thought about it and I was like, for me, no, because I don't like zombie films.
**Lee:** So it was the only ones I like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So so was this before.
**Chris:** 28 Days Later.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** It was.
**Adam:** Wonderfully enough, in the very end of it in the aftermath.
**Adam:** And I'll tell you some other names Edgar Wright is one of the radio voices and it's a voice that's just going, it's like along the lines of reports that the outbreak was due to the due to angry monkeys have been dismissed as bollocks.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then it cuts before bollocks.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, it had just cuz.
**Adam:** I think 28 Days Later is.
**Lee:** Oh no, 28 Days Later was two years earlier.
**Adam:** 2001.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** 2001.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And then yeah, and this is 2004.
**Adam:** 2004, so so there is, yeah.
**Adam:** But at this point, I think also cuz they then had the sort of conversations and people go, well, why aren't you doing running zombies?
**Chris:** Well, that's yeah.
**Adam:** We're doing we're doing the classic version of zombies.
**Adam:** That's like, you know, oh what.
**Lee:** You can choose.
**Adam:** It depends, it's like how let's face it, it's how like mythology, most horror mythology works.
**Adam:** It's like, right, we're doing a vampire film, can these ones do these ones react to crosses, not these ones, no.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's.
**Chris:** You can choose.
**Adam:** And similarly.
**Chris:** Yeah, you can choose what the thing is.
**Adam:** It's not like, you know.
**Chris:** But I I think it was a good choice that to to go the classic.
**Chris:** I think them shambling around added to the the comedy aspect, I think if they were running.
**Chris:** You know, that's not quite.
**Lee:** It makes it more manageable as well.
**Lee:** Like the fact that they go places and do stuff with just a cricket bat and a lovely big.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Lee:** And you're like.
**Lee:** Yeah, if they're shambling zombies, you can take out five of them.
**Chris:** You can take out five.
**Lee:** But if they're running.
**Lee:** And you just and you can mimic them as well and and walk between them.
**Adam:** That I that I do wonder, I was trying to work out, I think that might be entirely unique to Shaun of the Dead.
**Adam:** Or certainly at that point, they were possibly the first person to do it because I don't see it in any other zombie movie, people pretending to be zombies.
**Chris:** It would it would be a bit too silly in a serious.
**Chris:** One, no, sure.
**Chris:** Like you'd have to do it so carefully that it didn't seem.
**Adam:** I I think you, I mean, it's it's a tense enough scene whilst when in a comedy film, I think it actually be could be quite a good one to attempt because it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's also that cuz sort of.
**Adam:** watching it with Clarence, she said, I was that, you know, she was asking me and I was like, no, I can't think of another instance when that happened in something.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It's also the question is then can in certain films if you were to do it, do the zombies know, do you know what I mean, is it is it not just an appearance thing, is it a smell, is it a sense, is it some weird connection that they all have or whatever like that.
**Adam:** That they could see through that anyway.
**Adam:** But it's.
**Adam:** But I think but it's back to the thing that they're the slow-moving zombies are really good, particularly comedic ways, but it's also that thing of it's being stupid and fucking about that gets you killed.
**Adam:** Technically, you should be able to manage this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, technically you should just be, well, stay out of their way and don't get caught by them or cornered by them should be the sort of.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's the.
**Chris:** But it's like the disagreements and the the people fucking idiots and will you know, it's like.
**Chris:** Bumble about and just really.
**Adam:** Like it's like too many people on a lifeboat.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean.
**Chris:** People rocking about and.
**Adam:** People rocking about and you're all fucked.
**Lee:** Well, it is like and it's what gets me every time, you know, when people do things that you kind of, oh you go, you know, oh no one would really be that stupid.
**Lee:** And then you see people, see the look at the way people drive.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And then you suddenly go, oh yeah, people really are that stupid, you know, the bit when he answers the phone outside the pub, when they're all pretending to be zombies and he goes, oh just a minute, oh yeah, I know people who are that stupid who would think, oh yeah, but it's a call, I've got to take it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** What.
**Adam:** It is it's yeah, and that's that's all it.
**Adam:** Well, not only that, but also you then get things where it's like, like where his mum's like.
**Adam:** Oh, well, I got bitten but I didn't like to say.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Didn't want to worry you.
**Adam:** I'm crying, you know what I mean, that.
**Chris:** But there probably is actually what he does.
**Adam:** Exactly, it's like it's it's funny but it's also quite heartbreaking because it's like, well, I didn't want to worry, didn't want to make a fuss.
**Lee:** You know.
**Lee:** And I think that's the third level to this film, so it's got the comedy, it's got the horror.
**Lee:** It definitely does play to stuff like that, the stuff with his mum, the stuff when it's just the two of them in the basement at the, well, and it in the basement at the end and they're trying to decide are they going to kill each other, are they just like, how are they going to get out of this?
**Lee:** Like, it's really, it really is dramatic, it's really hard to watch in the middle of a an over the top gory comedy movie.
**Lee:** They still manage to somehow put seriousness in it so well.
**Adam:** Well, it's it's it's definitely it's a testament to how much you care about the characters.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, you know, it's not just sort of empty laughs or something like that, you develop a real affection for everyone, you know, for for for good or ill as it as it goes on.
**Chris:** And I suppose especially Shaun cuz because he does start off he's so useless and he just gradually does become not quite a hero, but he's like, yeah, you're actually taking charge, you are making decisions, still getting them wrong sometimes but yeah, you're.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's essentially growing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Hero's Journey.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But yeah, it's I think you've got so obviously you've got Nick Frost is just exceptional.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I just, you know, I mean and he.
**Adam:** Cuz again, it is that thing of you get why Shaun's his friend, but also it's like, Jesus Christ, you know, he is a fucking menace.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Although though that was the that was the thing I remember that was.
**Adam:** Said about it was that it the bit that made him laugh was going for a Cornetto.
**Adam:** Because that was I was the first person I'd ever see do that.
**Adam:** I was like, do you want anything for breakfast, yeah, Cornetto.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, before even opened his eyes, it was the first thing on his mind was an ice cream.
**Adam:** It's it's it's perfect, I recommend it to all.
**Adam:** Anyone out there who's thinking no, that's too no, it's not.
**Chris:** What flavor Cornetto?
**Adam:** well, obviously this is the strawberry film because it's red so it's as in blood.
**Adam:** But each of the each of the films are different types of Cornetto.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I I did manage to procure some.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** for for watching as I.
**Adam:** I don't know where I'm going to get Mint Choc Chip from.
**Lee:** No, I'm going to be honest.
**Adam:** They don't seem to be anywhere these days.
**Lee:** I'm going to say I haven't seen Cornettos anywhere in a long time.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But there's I mean, the good thing is is that as the repeating of the cast means that we can talk about them as we're going to go through the Cornetto trilogy and stuff like that. But I mean, there's a there's a few notables in there, but I the weirdest thing was going through cuz the zombies, the majority of the zombies were people that they recruited through the website Spaced out, which was like a a fan site for Spaced that was on, I don't think it's being updated anymore, I think it's still there, but but it was like a fan site and loads of they basically got loads of people through to sort of come along and be zombie extras for I think a pound a day. but you know, it was like basically you get the call on you're on the Spaced out website and there's a thing on there saying, right, if you're in London next week and you're not doing anything, do you want to come and be a zombie in our film, fuck yeah. So they got quite a big crowd, but amongst that as I've described them, the celebri dead. you've got Joe Cornish who directed Attack the Block and he's from Adam and Joe. Lucy Akers who is Sophie in Spaced, the one who works for the comics guy in the second series of Spaced. Lauren Laverne from Knicky, Russell Howard, Michael Smiley's in there and is Tyres, he's like dressed as.
**Lee:** I did spot him as Tyres this time.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, so obviously yeah, he's basically dressed as the character he is in Spaced.
**Adam:** one of the Fundead, the the game show thing at the end, it's Garth Jennings, who's the director of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Son of Rambo, who's who is one of the few people who's in all three.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** as well, and Andy Diggle who was an editor for 2008 D and a comics artist is in there. Paul Kaye, the comedian who's Hoover in Spaced and was Dennis Pennice and Mike Strutter.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Paul Putner is one of the zombies as well from as as Clare always mentions, Len Pounds from Look around you, but obviously but he's another one like Kevin Eldon, interesting facts about Paul Putner, I did once hold the door open for him at a Matt Berry gig.
**Chris:** Oh, cool.
**Adam:** And and and and thanked him because it's Paul Putner and he's been in so many fucking great things, he was the curious orange in this morning with Richard and Judy and lows of shit. and the twins from the twins who turn up in Hot Fuzz are in there as well and also Chris Martin from Coldplay but you know as well as being one of the talking heads who's in it as well.
**Chris:** All right.
**Lee:** Yeah, I did see that as well, yeah.
**Adam:** And then and for for our American for our American listeners, both of them.
**Lee:** Hi, hi, Bobby, hi, yeah.
**Adam:** There a lot of the people who there's Trisha, who obviously had her own talk show at the time, so there's a lot of familiar British TV faces.
**Adam:** Christian O'Connell Murphy is the Channel 4 newsreader who's also in Dead Set, so he was doing quite well in like zombie comedy stuff for a while. Carol Barnes, the newsreader, Rob Butler, the newsreader and Jeremy Thompson from Sky News, who was the destroyed the head.
**Adam:** Remove the head, destroy the brain.
**Chris:** Never thought I'd say that.
**Adam:** No, I never thought I'd say that.
**Adam:** He's he's very good, I think he just, you know.
**Adam:** I think all the newsreaders are pretty good anyway because it's like you've probably had to say quite some very quickly and maintain a gravitas, you know what I mean.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Adam:** and then.
**Adam:** Voice-wise, you've got Keith Chegwin in there.
**Adam:** Who again, American people, American listeners would have no idea that Keith Chegwin was a mainstay of British television from the '70s.
**Adam:** With Checker's Place pop and multicolour swap shop and that thing he did called Naked Jungle where he presented it in just a hat and call that was that was commitment that he didn't need to have shown, I don't think.
**Lee:** I don't think.
**Adam:** but other voices like radio voices, Mark Gatiss is in there, Julia Davis and Rob Brydon, David Williams, and Robert Popper, the guy from Look Around You.
**Adam:** Who also created Friday Night Dinner.
**Adam:** And yeah, there's some fucking there's also some good tunes in here cuz they use bits of Dawn of the Dead like the score from Dawn of the Dead.
**Adam:** that Goblin did and then they just paid for the rights cuz they were like we can't fucking.
**Lee:** You can't make it.
**Adam:** They used it as a temp track and they were like just no we just want this, this is what we want.
**Adam:** But fortunately half of Day of the Dead, half of Dawn of the Dead is library tracks so they could get stuff like the Gonk, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The lady's bras as we know it.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think that I'm so fucking pleased to have seen it again.
**Adam:** After all this time.
**Adam:** And like I said, I've been revisiting Spaced and stuff.
**Adam:** I also found, I was at me mum's earlier, so I went through me old DVDs and I found it's blurry.
**Adam:** But I found danger 50,000, danger 50,000 volts.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** The Nick Frost show because there's an extra on basically was him going around talking about survival techniques and things like what to do in the event of a get trapped in the desert and that sort of thing.
**Chris:** I've not seen that.
**Adam:** But one of them is there's an extra on here Danger 50,000 zombies, which is him and Nick him and Simon Peg how they would deal with a zombie apocalypse and John the Barman's in it as a as a zombie.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because John John the Barman's a stuntman.
**Adam:** Which is why they could just him with all cues.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just I.
**Lee:** I picked up on that as well, it's because one of my favorite things about Baby Driver, which I always rave about, is the the shootout to Hocus Pocus by Focus, again, I forgot that this kind of preempt it with them like hitting him in time to Queen and I was like, oh yeah.
**Lee:** So I wonder if he just took that as the kind of impetus, I went, oh yeah, that quite worked.
**Lee:** Let's do that on a massive scale and that's how we.
**Adam:** Again, rewatching Spaced, there's bits of it as well where they do sort of similar things.
**Adam:** And I think it's something that like Edgar Wright's awareness with use and placement and how to just.
**Chris:** Exceptional.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, in terms of film making probably reaches its apotheosis with Baby Driver to be honest, where you know.
**Chris:** So I still haven't seen that, I know Lee you went mad over it, I did didn't realize it was Edgar Wright, I mean, you probably mentioned it, but so that's yeah, I think I should probably watch that.
**Lee:** You definitely need to.
**Adam:** Well, he also did the Sparks documentary recently, didn't he?
**Adam:** That was that.
**Lee:** Yeah, again.
**Lee:** And I've not I've never really listened to Sparks, I just knew the one song and only knew that from Green Wing, but yeah, but actually I still found it really entertaining, I thought he did a really good job of yeah, of showing them and making it interesting even for someone who isn't really interested in the music particularly.
**Adam:** Well, and then obviously he did Last Night in Soho, Scott Pilgrim versus the World and the other bits, you know.
**Lee:** Scott Pilgrim is another underrated gem, I think, I love that film.
**Adam:** The the other thing as well is Asylum, which is where Jessica Stephenson, sorry, Jessica Hines, nay Stephenson.
**Adam:** Simon Peg and Edgar Wright first met, which was a Paramount comedy series and they all just it was the pre-runner to Spaced, basically it's where they met and started and came up with Spaced and.
**Adam:** But like Edgar Wright was the director on that.
**Adam:** Claire used to watch that when it was like when it was on and so she was when.
**Adam:** When I was talked to her when we were first talking about Spaced, however long ago that was.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, Claire was like, oh no, have you seen Asylum? I'm like, no.
**Lee:** I haven't heard that, yeah, I think I'm going to have to check that out.
**Adam:** It's all on it's on YouTube.
**Adam:** Julian Barratt's in there as well, there's quite a few Norman Love, the cast of Spaced, yeah.
**Chris:** The cast of Spaced.
**Chris:** And I did notice he's he's doing the running man as well.
**Adam:** What, just dancing like it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, apparently, it's upcoming.
**Adam:** Directed.
**Adam:** Fair enough.
**Lee:** That'd be interesting.
**Lee:** Right, yes, so, thanks for listening everybody.
**Lee:** I'm sure you've already seen Shaun of the Dead, but if you haven't seen it for a while, go back and check it out, you won't be disappointed.
**Lee:** Go and check out Hot Fuzz.
**Lee:** And we'll be back in a fortnight's time to discuss that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 196 The adventures of we have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-196-the-adventures-of-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 21 April 2024
Duration: 01:05:15

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Adventures of We Have Been Watching”. Once again it’s time for the team to spurt forth with their brain translators to inform you of their extra curricular eye feasting. Items explored include “Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me”; Rod Serling’s “The Night Gallery”; Glenn Danzig’s “Death Rider in the House of Vampires”; Cecelia Condit’s creepily surreal short “Possibly in Michigan”; 2018 British Horror Comedy “Book of Monsters”; and Shudder’s “The 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time”. No prep needed, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I am Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here this evening for another we've been watching, where we run through all the shit we've been watching in the last six weeks since we last did one of these and try and squeeze it all into not enough time.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but before that, we do have some housekeeping to cover. Adam.
**Adam:** Well, first off, we, we put it up on Instagram, but this is the first sort of recording we've done since since it happened, we, our very good friend and designer of our logos, guest on welcome to horror, co-host on Mosle Happy Hour, Mosle Happy Hour, Mr. Wesley Smith has unfortunately passed away and, we're not we we, we're not going to sort of go into anything too much at the moment and we're probably going to look to talking about it more as on a later episode, you know, maybe focus on like just paying tribute to our amazing friend. And, yeah.
**Chris:** We could.
**Lee:** So I mean,
**Chris:** see I mean some of the artwork is done, you know, certainly crosses over with
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** with the sort of sort of things we cover and we can mention.
**Adam:** Well and.
**Chris:** Well and he had
**Adam:** Well, he had he also had his own podcast,
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** which is definitely in the wheelhouse of a lot of listeners and I think a lot of, a lot of our listeners listen to that and, yeah.
**Chris:** That's why he's going.
**Adam:** You know, so many sort of,
**Chris:** He's going on.
**Adam:** so many people have reached out on Instagram and sort of like, you know, who he we we know or and he spoke to and he knew as well and,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** yeah, it's quite sudden, obviously deeply sad. all our love goes out to to Sam and his family. And, yeah, we'll talk about it more when when we are sort of more able to. but for the moment, it's yeah, just a a very sad time and, but yeah, hopefully we can we'll pay him a better tribute at some point, but for the moment just goodbye, Wes and thank you for everything, mate.
**Lee:** Yeah, well said.
**Chris:** Rest in peace, my friend.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so as well as that, there is some other news, more uplifting news, as it were.
**Lee:** we can't give too much away at the moment, it's still all happening, and is for several months to go.
**Lee:** but a friend of the show, Sean, contacted us and we were chatting and we've discovered he's been working, on some recent
**Lee:** local horror movies that have been going on, involving a lot of people who we've been seeing their films and we've been discussing in recent months and years from horror on Sea and Romford Horror film festival.
**Lee:** and as a result, Adam and I had the opportunity to go and be extras in an upcoming movie.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** That is really cool.
**Lee:** Oh, it was fucking awesome.
**Adam:** It was
**Lee:** It was just
**Lee:** now we we can't give anything away so we can't give away who was there or to whom we
**Chris:** As tempting as it is.
**Lee:** were or oh yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** Oh, it's it's so tempting, believe me.
**Adam:** we, rest assured, we took plenty of photographs on set and we were speaking to people, obviously, you know, this is it's not our production, they were very kind to allow us to go on set and to allow us to be part of the whole thing. So, you know, we won't be posting anything in that sense, you know, we won't be putting up anything that could be spoilerific or Yeah, or even just to give any of the game away.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** but yeah, it was a very, very exciting day.
**Lee:** It was excellent.
**Lee:** So we just wanted just in case anyone involved is listening, yeah, we just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you so much again. obviously, once the film is, announced and we know more of when it's going to be coming out and stuff, then we're going to shoot our load and tell you all about it.
**Lee:** but yeah, until then, we're going to keep it under wraps.
**Lee:** But what we did find out and we can discuss because it is, non-related almost, SeaWork productions were there. Someone from SeaWork Productions was there.
**Lee:** which is a, it was a new writer director who's in the process of doing their first movie.
**Lee:** they're going to be shooting, think she said seven weeks from the day that we saw her on set.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's it sounds fantastic. It's called the domestication of vampires in Essex.
**Lee:** it it's first first piece of work, it's a short film, but she has got such a fantastic cast and she's so excited about it.
**Lee:** Like, you know, when someone's so excited, you can't help but get sort of drawn into it.
**Lee:** And all of a sudden you're going,
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, she was just.
**Adam:** babbling over with excitement.
**Lee:** and.
**Chris:** I'm I'm wondering domestication of vampires in Essex, but domestication of vampires. Yeah. Well, it certainly sounds like
**Lee:** We shall find out what that's about.
**Chris:** I can't.
**Lee:** Yeah, as soon as we had the title, we were like, yep, we're in.
**Lee:** That's good.
**Lee:** We're already there.
**Lee:** but she's very kindly agreed once shooting is complete,
**Lee:** to come on and discuss what it was like to go out and and make this film.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** yeah, and then obviously we'll be behind backing this all the way because it it sounds fantastic.
**Lee:** so.
**Lee:** Yes, it was one of a plethora of very exciting and really interesting people who we got to speak to at the weekend. it was a long day. I think we were on set for about 11 hours in total.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Probably around that, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and about two and a half to three hours of shooting.
**Lee:** And the rest of it, was just kind of hanging around.
**Lee:** But because there were people coming in and out and everybody else was hanging around, we just had a great, it was like a party all day.
**Lee:** It was just different people coming in and everybody was interested and funny and.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, we had absolute killer time.
**Lee:** So thank you, Sean.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And, do you know what, I'm going to say, thank you to Sing Loud as well who also helps us put this together. It's the only name I will mention, because he's involved in so much stuff, so I can say that and it won't give too much away.
**Lee:** But,
**Lee:** but yeah,
**Lee:** nearer the time, we will be gushing about everybody else who was there and how amazing everything was.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Can't wait for that.
**Chris:** Very excited.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, we've just we've just got to sit on that now for a little while and like like excited but brooding hens.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yes, so.
**Lee:** Let's cover what we've been watching.
**Lee:** let's start this evening with Chris.
**Lee:** We've been watching.
**Chris:** Okay, so I've had I've had a fun on so so a little while back now, I decided to start watching a wonderful film, gifted to me this Christmas by Adam.
**Chris:** called Southland Tales and after not too long into it, I thought this probably isn't quite the right thing to cover.
**Chris:** And also I'm probably going to have to watch this maybe once or twice more before I fully understand what's going on in it.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Either I'm getting more stupid or it's it's
**Adam:** It's
**Chris:** a little bit harder to follow than Donnie Darko.
**Adam:** I I will I will say that it it it certainly does you when you watch Southland Tales you you go, oh, Donnie Darko was quite comprehensive.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** In terms of That was in terms of it sort of like straightforwardness.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it certainly did did come to mind, yeah.
**Chris:** But so, so I'm not covering that one. instead, I decided to watch a film that, is connected with a series that I was I've definitely been planning to go back and watch, because I saw it quite a long time ago. Now, again, I sort of got to the point where I was like, this is more confusing than I expected, and I expected to be quite confusing.
**Chris:** Is there a reason for that? And so I'm going to going to have to ask Adam and Lee what you both think.
**Chris:** But if you haven't guessed it already, I'm just going to give you a few sentences that I've I've drawn up
**Chris:** to hint at what it could be.
**Chris:** So, I share a kinship with Blue Velvet in exploring the dark underbelly of quaint town life, though our melodies differ, our themes intertwine darkly. And back to another reference, like Donnie Darko, I delve into the surreal side of youth, but swap the synthesizer for more orchestral mourning. And, imagine if the X-Files met a composer known for deep unsettling orchestrations and pure eerie human mysteries. And in the cold corridors, similar to the shining, you'll find my story unwinding. Not composed by Wendy Carlos, my soundtrack still chills the spine.
**Chris:** Now, either, either some of those completely don't make any sense, or they will once you know what it is, or they are good.
**Chris:** I'm not sure.
**Lee:** No fucking idea whatsoever.
**Chris:** Okay, that's fair enough.
**Adam:** No, I.
**Chris:** No idea right.
**Adam:** I recognize everything in there except for the context.
**Chris:** How do you come.
**Chris:** Right, okay, so I've got one more that hopefully, well, I'm I'm fairly certain this will give it away.
**Chris:** I am not Mulholland Drive, but I traverse similar eerie landscapes, my melodies, though not penned by Bernard Herrmann,
**Chris:** echo with a similar spectral resonance, which film am I?
**Lee:** Is it Fire Walk with Me?
**Chris:** It is, it is.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** So do any of those others actually help now you know?
**Adam:** Not in the slightest, cuz cuz I mean Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive are both David Lynch.
**Chris:** Yeah, so I, but I wondered if that is worth watching as well.
**Adam:** I yes.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Blue Velvet.
**Adam:** Blue Velvet is I'm so so did you watch Twin Peaks the series?
**Chris:** Right, so so so so so I did.
**Chris:** I saw the original but I saw it about 20 years ago.
**Chris:** And you've obviously mentioned it a few times.
**Chris:** And in my head I know what happens and I remember it being fantastic, but I'm not sure.
**Chris:** So I definitely have to watch that again.
**Chris:** Anyway, I was going to do that and then I saw the film and I was like, oh look, I'll watch the film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it turns out I I didn't exactly know what to expect.
**Chris:** But it starts off as I sort of remember.
**Chris:** Right?
**Chris:** But then I was like, where's this going?
**Chris:** It's like getting more weird and it's not exactly about a detective story, it's now sort of a very traumatic experience of Laura Palmer.
**Chris:** And then I realize it is a prequel and, you know, it starts to make more sense, but it's still quite it well, it is very surreal all the way through.
**Adam:** It's it's absolutely surreal that the I mean, I'm sort of treading ground here because I do me and Claire sort of are going to start watching Twin Peaks.
**Adam:** So I want to be
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** somewhat edgy in that sense because because that's the thing is.
**Adam:** Like a lot, I feel that like a lot of prequels, it does have the thing of you should see it after.
**Chris:** After, yeah, okay.
**Chris:** Okay, so that's where I was sort of getting to.
**Chris:** I was like, should I've actually just watched the series first again.
**Adam:** It's, well, if you saw the, if you saw the series, at least you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, I I I definitely did have what is going on and everything else like that.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** But definitely, yeah, so and because I remember when I first saw fire walk with me, I was a bit disappointed because I really enjoyed the very weird first half.
**Adam:** The first like 20 minutes with Chris Isaac and.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Pika Sup.
**Chris:** And there is some.
**Chris:** Some odd scenes and and David Bowie turns up.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, what he's going.
**Adam:** We're not going to talk about Judy, we're not going to talk about Judy at all, we're going to leave her out of there. Who do you think this is there?
**Adam:** And, that was just me just highlighting to David Lynch because they did, in the sequel series that they did recently, they actually got a Bowie impersonator in.
**Adam:** I can do a better Bowie.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** If David Lynch is listening, which we know he is, obviously, you know, if you if you
**Lee:** He's Omni present.
**Adam:** decide to do Yeah, if you if you if you need to do any more, you know,
**Adam:** I am offering up my clenched teeth as a as a Bowie impersonator.
**Chris:** I so.
**Adam:** But no, I I I yeah, and but then the second half, because that's the thing is I think a lot because I remember a lot of fans were very divided by the film, but just the film is a lot harsher.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In some ways.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So that's what I was in the in the sort of strangest way, it's kind of like because Laura Palmer's murder is the catalyst of the entire of Twin Peaks.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And as a backstory and a way of getting into the town and then you meet all these quirky characters and all their sort of little foibles and you get all these other bits that shoot off of it and everything else like that, you kind of almost forget, oh, no, this is actually about.
**Chris:** He's.
**Adam:** It's
**Chris:** a dark.
**Adam:** someone awful fucking life.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's.
**Adam:** And then finally being, you know, someone's awful victimhood.
**Adam:** And then the final days of that.
**Adam:** And it's fucking hellish, you know, and and that's the thing is also David Lynch at that point.
**Adam:** It was like, right, we're doing this as a movie, it's not on TV, you know, you you can kind of get away with more because there's meant to there's a greater guardianship of who can get in and see it.
**Adam:** Or certainly, you know, in in terms of if it's on at the cinema, I'd imagine things have changed now because of the way everything works, pretty much anyone can watch any film at home. So they probably have a greater awareness that, yeah, it's possible to, but back in 90.
**Chris:** Well.
**Adam:** three or something like that.
**Adam:** and and again, thank you, Wes, because the only reason I saw it is he taped it off the telly.
**Adam:** Off of Sky for me, so because I was like, I've got to fucking see it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and, but yeah, it was a very sort of but a lot of the fans didn't like it.
**Adam:** Because it wasn't the sort of quirky catchphrasy end of Twin Peaks.
**Adam:** It was much more the fucking darkness and the realness underneath it.
**Chris:** Brutal, dark, yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, there's a lot in there that's quite sort of Yeah, it's it's a very fun film.
**Chris:** It is.
**Chris:** Yeah, but so it'd be interesting, yeah, to to watch the series again and perhaps if we even cover it then if you're watching it or talk about it again.
**Adam:** Well, because I I think also what happened was is I I'm not sure quite whether it was always intended to be the the sort of prequel thing, but apparently at the time, Kyle McGlocklin, who plays Dale Cooper in the series, was kind of like, I don't want to just be typecast as Dale Cooper and the show had been quite a success.
**Adam:** The show had concluded at that point and then it was like a couple of years down the line, do I want to do this again?
**Adam:** Which, you know, a lot of actors do have have to make that decision of like, do I want to do I want to So, although he agreed to be in it, he wasn't in it as a main character.
**Adam:** So they couldn't continue the story in that sort of sense because he wasn't in it enough.
**Adam:** And I think because of that, there was also a thing when you watch Twin Peaks, it's kind of like you realize how many lives Laura's involved with.
**Adam:** But in terms of it being her last few days, she probably wouldn't have made, you know, she it wouldn't show her dealing with everyone.
**Chris:** No, yeah.
**Adam:** Or, you know, so you lost a lot of the characters that had become fan favorites, you know, and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And they're sort of like, you know, so a lot of that there is a version of it though, there is there's a thing called the missing pieces.
**Adam:** Which is about is round about an hour and a half's worth of stuff that was cut out from the I think the film's nearly two hours long.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah, David Lynch had more stuff that was in there with the the locals of Twin Peaks, so there was more to be in there, but obviously you were then talking like a three and a half hour film or whatever.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And no, I the studio probably wasn't going to go for that and also, you know, it's it's quite an ask.
**Chris:** But yeah, that would make for a good mini series on Netflix now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, I mean the the the missing the missing parts is is an is a fascinating thing to watch and it is just great because it's like, great, more Twin Peaks, which is always good.
**Adam:** but I think, yeah, there was I think they sort of like the decision was right, we're going to focus on this being Laura Palmer's story.
**Adam:** And in in a curious way.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously, Cheryl Lee who plays Laura Palmer is an amazing actress.
**Chris:** Well she's great, yeah, that yeah, seriously, great.
**Adam:** But it's kind of lucky that basically, she was obviously originally picked as to be someone who looked right and then to be found as a body.
**Adam:** And then I think they because she turns up she turns up in the series as Laura's cousin Maddi.
**Adam:** And I think that was almost like they suddenly were like, actually, she's she's a really good actress, so you know, she could do more in this.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's a real sort of showcase for her and Ray Wise's Leland and Grace Brisky as Sarah like the parents.
**Adam:** but yeah, it is it's it's a hell of a and it's certainly unlike, say for example, like with Star Wars where it's now you kind of think, oh, well, you should start with the prequels.
**Adam:** I would argue no, because you get given too much away.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, you know, so it's not really much of a revelation when everyone knows what Empire strikes back, you know, if you if you start if you start in release order then you get you get a much better sort of sense of the surprises that are going to be in there and stuff.
**Adam:** though obviously if you watch it, if you watch Return of the Jedi before any of the prequels, it's like, well, that's clearly the fucking emperor, and that's still clearly the emperor, just because he's got a hoodie on, it's not changed that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah, definitely Twin Fire Walk with Me is definitely.
**Adam:** I wouldn't say to anyone watch that before you watch.
**Chris:** Watch that.
**Chris:** No, yeah, okay.
**Adam:** Because the series is so, you know, is so driven by the mystery of who did this.
**Adam:** And, you know, obviously in the film they show you, so you know who killed Laura Palmer, so it becomes.
**Adam:** yeah, it would it would take it takes away that.
**Adam:** element that you you wouldn't have the fun of the guessing game that Twin Peaks is or kind of was.
**Chris:** But it has made me I think I might I'm I'm very tempted to watch some more David Lynch films again.
**Adam:** Oh, mate.
**Adam:** Go for it.
**Chris:** So yeah, so so that was that was a a fun one.
**Adam:** Oh, and it's also also I mean just the the score for it is fucking awesome.
**Chris:** It yeah, no, I mean yeah, that stays with you so much.
**Adam:** It's amazing.
**Adam:** It's so fucking haunting.
**Adam:** but yeah, excellent choice, but I yeah, I would say now now go and rewatch the series and just love it again.
**Lee:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Lee:** What did you watch?
**Adam:** well, I'm going to go, one thing I'm going to mention is I did see Late Night with the Devil at the cinema, like a proper person, went with went with former guest Drew and we both thoroughly enjoyed it, but it's coming on Shutter soon.
**Adam:** Everyone should get to see it and it's a,
**Adam:** I frankly, I want to do an episode on it and I think you guys probably will feel similarly.
**Adam:** Once we've once it's actually out and you've seen it.
**Adam:** So I won't go into that too much.
**Adam:** I am going to go very weird here though.
**Adam:** In that I am gonna the film I've watched, which is a short film from 1983 called possibly in Michigan.
**Adam:** it's on YouTube, it's about 12 minutes long.
**Adam:** And basically, my,
**Adam:** my good lady wife and scientific advisor,
**Adam:** she watches a lot of TikTok.
**Adam:** she is far too old for that sort of thing.
**Adam:** But then so am I.
**Adam:** So who am I to judge? because she's she's not a she's not a teenager or a predatory male in her 50s.
**Adam:** So what she's doing on TikTok, we don't know.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But a lot of weird stuff comes up on there and basically there was a very strange sound effect that was doing the rounds on there.
**Adam:** A lot of its sort of sounds and things like that that just go viral or people use and everything else like that and there was this thing where it's a woman sounding slightly deranged going on about she put her poodle in a microwave.
**Adam:** And we found out what this thing was and it was from a short film called possibly in Michigan directed by,
**Adam:** oh,
**Adam:** Cecilia Condit.
**Adam:** with music by Karen Sladani, who is also one of the three actors in the film.
**Adam:** And basically, it's a very disjointed little piece of two women being pursued round a shopping mall by a man with a mannequin face.
**Adam:** And it is very much very much in the sort of sense of the Lynchian end of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This this feels weird, this feels icky and uneasy and just doesn't sit right.
**Adam:** and,
**Adam:** yeah, it's very bizarre, the music, which is as I say is done by Karen Sladani,
**Adam:** who is one of the actors in it,
**Adam:** is very strange like homemade casio sort of almost like Devo sounding stuff.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** Basically, it sounds it sounds a lot like an album that me and Dean would try and force you to listen to, Lee.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you would not be happy about it.
**Adam:** but it was, but basically, yeah, it's it's a very weird thing and sort of I've started watching some of her other shorts and,
**Adam:** yeah, it's just this weird little underbelly of these sort of home movie like home video sort of shot films that she made.
**Adam:** And she's still making films today and, but yeah, it's a very odd little.
**Adam:** Basically, it's like having a little 12 minute nightmare to yourself.
**Adam:** but apparently, and this is the thing that sort of interested me as well, is that it's kind of inspired by.
**Adam:** Cecilia Condit was dating a man called Ira Einhorn and it turns out that and she freely admits herself that she was on medication that meant that she had no sense of smell.
**Adam:** While she was dating him.
**Adam:** he'd killed his ex-girlfriend and had her mummified in the cupboard.
**Lee:** Oh, shit.
**Adam:** while she was dating him.
**Adam:** And, only found out later.
**Adam:** he apparently is apparently the case is referred to as the unicorn killer.
**Adam:** Which sounds a lot more interesting than it is because his name's Einhorn, which is like one horn.
**Chris:** One horn.
**Adam:** So, so he's only I mean, you know, he one's enough, let's just say, for any killers listening, one's enough.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** You don't have to keep going.
**Adam:** But, yeah, so it's sort of a sort of almost like a sort of dealing with that or trying to react to that.
**Adam:** But basically, yeah, so these two girls are pursued round a shop shopping mall by a very strange man, who then follows them to their house and then they exact their revenge upon him.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah, it's a it's frankly, it'll be the weirdest fucking 10 minutes you spend this week if you go and if you go and look it up.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Claire Claire was particularly interested in seeing what you made of it, Chris.
**Adam:** Because yeah, because it's a yes, very strange little thing.
**Adam:** And it's one of those lovely things where I sort of we found out what this sound was from, looked it up online and.
**Adam:** Suddenly there's whole loads of people and hundreds of articles and saying, oh, you're not you know, this and I've discovered this whole new little pool of weird film.
**Adam:** And I was very sort of, I was very pleased with it.
**Adam:** So it was a certainly as a gateway drug to that, as well as being just a very entertaining, disorienting little, piece.
**Adam:** yeah, go and find it.
**Adam:** It's not it's like I say.
**Adam:** It's all over YouTube, so it's very easy to find.
**Adam:** And if any of our if any listeners out there know TikTok, they'll probably be bits of it where you go, oh, yeah, I have heard that before, like overdubbed over someone making a cake or something.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Interesting.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so I caught up following the review that we heard a couple of months ago from Adam von Art.
**Lee:** I decided to go as soon as I got the opportunity and check out Death Rider in the House of Vampires.
**Lee:** the Glenn Danzig movie.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** The yeah, the cowboy vampire film.
**Lee:** I don't disagree with anything Adam said.
**Lee:** I think that's important to say up front.
**Adam:** You can't you can't disagree with he's he'll be a counselor soon.
**Lee:** I know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You can't disagree with someone in parliament.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** But, he's America, though, they don't count over there.
**Lee:** but I yeah, I I I found it.
**Lee:** More entertaining than I was expecting.
**Lee:** I think because he'd said how terrible it was, but I I was like, I can't not watch a film with that concept, so I have to go and see it.
**Lee:** So I did.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And I I probably won't rewatch it.
**Lee:** But that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if one night, you know, 1:00 in the morning, drunk.
**Lee:** Can't get to sleep, I want something stupid.
**Lee:** If I fall asleep halfway through, I don't give a shit.
**Lee:** It it worked for that.
**Lee:** It's and it is fairly slow going.
**Lee:** it's quite a nice looking film.
**Lee:** I thought it looked really good.
**Lee:** So is it Danzig directed it or or starring or.
**Lee:** Both, both, obviously.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Both, he's starring in it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's written it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, I mean you can tell it's written by Danzig.
**Lee:** I mean compared to the last film of what was it his I saw No, no, it's the first one of his I've seen, I think.
**Lee:** but yeah, I mean I give you an idea of what it is.
**Lee:** The first 10 minutes is a man leading a topless woman with enormous boobs across a desert on a horse so that she's having to jiggle around a lot.
**Lee:** And nothing is happening.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Lee:** a woman jiggling on top of a horse for about 10 minutes.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** You sure Patrick wasn't the director?
**Lee:** It got to the point where even I was like, I'm going to fast forward through this because.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like it's a nice.
**Lee:** visual for 30 seconds.
**Lee:** And then you're like, yeah, I need more than this out of this film really.
**Adam:** Oh, the the other film we did, wasn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah, that was it.
**Adam:** That like broke cover for a while and then everyone just went Yes, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't think I got to the end of that one.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** I did make it to the end of this one.
**Lee:** It did take me three nights to watch it, but I did make it to the end of it.
**Lee:** So what is the what what's the concept then?
**Lee:** So basically, it sounds like a spoiler, but it isn't, because you know straight away as soon as basically a guy turns up who is a vampire at a vampire sanctuary in the desert.
**Lee:** they're all cowboy vampires and he basically turns up and says, I'm seeking sanctuary.
**Lee:** yeah, and it transpires that he's actually, he is a vampire, but he's there to kill all of the other vampires.
**Lee:** of whom, we, you know, Glenn Danzig, obviously, Eli Roth, oh, crock, what's his name?
**Lee:** Julian Sans is the head of the vampires, so like it's got a really solid cast.
**Lee:** And it it looks pretty nice.
**Lee:** some of the.
**Lee:** Southern accents are so shonky, it's painful.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Yeah, but I I enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I thought, you know, it like.
**Lee:** He went out there, he did it.
**Lee:** Some of the writing is God awful.
**Lee:** again, I saw it a couple of weeks ago now, but I seem to remember one line getting repeated ad nauseum or one phrase or something.
**Lee:** But,
**Lee:** again, I didn't really take notes and I watched it over three nights because I kept putting it on and getting about half an hour in.
**Lee:** And being like, I'm definitely going to fall asleep if I leave this on any longer.
**Lee:** So I'd have to stop it and then the next night came back and did exactly the same thing again.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's.
**Lee:** Don't pay for it, but if you get a chance when it pops up on Amazon or whatever, definitely give it a watch.
**Chris:** It didn't anger you.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I said, I came away and I was like, I enjoyed my time with it.
**Lee:** And but yeah, it isn't yeah, if I'd squirrelled around and struggled to find it when it was first released and I'd paid over the odds for it, I would have been a bit pissed off.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, not a terrible film at all.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Fair play.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Chris:** Right, so, so I watched something that I thought I was like, I'll give it a go, like I'm not sure it it could I could talk about it, and then I started watching it, I was like, no, this is actually amazing, like really good, I just loved watching it.
**Chris:** Right, so it was on Shudder, it's 101 greatest horror moments.
**Chris:** But also kind of film.
**Chris:** So it mentions a few of the moments.
**Chris:** In the films, right?
**Chris:** So, so I thought I'll I'll watch the I'll watch the first episode, but then I thought I'll watch the top three, let's see what they are.
**Chris:** And then I'll talk about those.
**Chris:** And like and just watching them back again and hearing people talk about them and just seeing the clips at the same time and it's the different directors.
**Chris:** And it's like it's so brings it back and you realize, as we've said many times,
**Chris:** like that you remember films in a certain way.
**Chris:** And so you watch it again, it's like, no, there is there's a lot more there than you remembered.
**Chris:** Even though you think you remembered it all.
**Chris:** But yeah, so so I'll go through the top three fairly quickly.
**Chris:** And I'll sort of read out what they are and you can see if you appreciate it.
**Chris:** As much.
**Chris:** So, and I I just did not expect necessarily what they were going to choose.
**Chris:** But so third is hereditary.
**Chris:** And of course it's the decapitation.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** About the way that it happens and the build up to it.
**Chris:** And then the fact the camera stays on the brother's face and he's just lying there, motionless through the night.
**Chris:** And then in the morning, you can hear the parents talking in the background and it's kept in the background.
**Chris:** Then they start screaming and it and he's just lying there traumatized and you're like, that is a big scene already, and then at the very end of it, where you almost like you're just relieved that it's ending, you suddenly see the decapitated head with ants crawling all over it on the road.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it's like,
**Chris:** oh, it suddenly hit again.
**Chris:** And it's just like.
**Adam:** Yeah, you don't you don't get a let up with it.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** It is.
**Chris:** It's unbelievable.
**Adam:** You sort of think, oh, well, they've done that.
**Adam:** Oddly, you kind of go, well, that's tastefully done.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** For for a for a roadside beheading.
**Adam:** And then it's like.
**Adam:** Oh no, there's another.
**Adam:** Well done.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Well done.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** It's amazing.
**Chris:** So yeah.
**Chris:** I want to watch that film again.
**Chris:** Then the next one, again, a bit of a surprise, but it was The Thing.
**Chris:** And again, like in my head, there's no way I would've expected it to be number two.
**Chris:** I remember it being a fantastic film, really good fun.
**Chris:** Great action with maybe a few horror bits throughout.
**Chris:** Right, but it's kind of not.
**Chris:** When they show it to you and remind you, it's like, so.
**Chris:** They show you like essentially a few of the scenes, and it's the fact that you're kind of on edge because you don't know what the thing is going to be.
**Chris:** Is it going to be someone you know or an animal?
**Chris:** And yeah, and the way it changes and the practical effects, it's like, no, they are really good.
**Chris:** Like just it is it encapsulates everything you really want.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, he's a fucking amazing film.
**Chris:** He's amazing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So what what bit of The Thing was it?
**Chris:** Yeah, well, to.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, so they showed a few different bits of it changing and they showed the dog and and it's like, yeah.
**Chris:** So just just yeah, overall, it was really good.
**Chris:** so absolute I want to watch that again.
**Chris:** And then number one, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
**Chris:** Right, and and again, like you remember it amazing, but then they so the clip of a Kirk walk into the house, and the way he just trips over the ram, and then suddenly leather face appears, and just whacked him with a brutal hammer.
**Chris:** And just from there on, it's like, oh.
**Chris:** And then then they show the, bit where she's picked up and put on the hook.
**Chris:** And you don't you don't even see the hook, right?
**Chris:** You don't see anything almost, and your head, it is awful.
**Chris:** And it is, it's just so well done.
**Adam:** You put so much into that film that's not there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's crazy.
**Adam:** Which I'm in I'm in.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** It's so wonderfully.
**Chris:** I was like,
**Adam:** Wonderfully perverse.
**Chris:** So what.
**Chris:** what bit of the thing was it?
**Chris:** Yeah, well,
**Chris:** So so is is that actually the end is it two parts, there's not a third part.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** It's the end of the first book, so it's it is a self-encapsulated story.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** So it's going to continue.
**Adam:** It's going to.
**Adam:** from the books.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Can't wait for that.
**Lee:** Because yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, he's he's got his intention.
**Adam:** He's his intention is to do three films.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** As you say, Lee.
**Adam:** They've he's now completed the first book.
**Adam:** So they're going to move on to the next.
**Adam:** I don't know whether it's the next book, the next few books, or.
**Adam:** You know, how how they're going to work it, to be honest, but apparently he does want to do it as a trilogy.
**Adam:** So he's going to and it's going to continue from the books.
**Lee:** Yeah, can't wait for that.
**Lee:** Because yeah.
**Lee:** Absolute blast.
**Lee:** Fantastic film.
**Lee:** All right.
**Lee:** We've got that.
**Lee:** So two.
**Lee:** All right.
**Lee:** right, so.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out all the stuff that we've talked about.
**Lee:** oh, quickly, honorable mentions.
**Lee:** Chris, have you got any honorable mentions?
**Chris:** Yes, so I watched something else that's probably not horror unless you turn it off after the first scene, and then it's definitely horror, and you probably won't allow it on on their station.
**Chris:** It's it's Fallout.
**Chris:** And it's a dystopian futuristic, based on the game, some nuclear bombs go off and, yeah, all hell breaks loose.
**Chris:** And then people live in vaults.
**Chris:** And it's great.
**Chris:** Like, so it just came out from on Amazon.
**Chris:** And and it's the reason that I watched Fire Walk with Me because, Kyle.
**Chris:** Maclachlan.
**Chris:** is the father in it who gets kidnapped and then his daughter, it's her journey out to the service to try and try and find him.
**Adam:** That's all.
**Adam:** That's all over Instagram.
**Adam:** He's bloody useless.
**Adam:** I follow him on Instagram, he ain't fucking mentioned it.
**Chris:** Oh, he's he's not in it a lot, but but he's in it enough that I'm like, yeah, I like you, I'm going to watch Dune, the one that Lee and you hate.
**Adam:** Of course.
**Chris:** And then I'm like, oh,
**Chris:** I'm not going to watch that.
**Chris:** I'm going to watch Fire Walk with Me instead.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I love you, I hate you.
**Chris:** Oh, did you?
**Chris:** Oh,
**Adam:** I love.
**Chris:** That's funny.
**Chris:** See, now I remember.
**Chris:** You both hate it.
**Chris:** That's weird.
**Adam:** No, no, I I love it.
**Chris:** I love it.
**Chris:** I think it's.
**Adam:** I think it's amazing.
**Adam:** It's so wonderfully.
**Adam:** Wonderfully perverse.
**Lee:** I'm going to give it a second.
**Lee:** Go now I've seen June part two.
**Lee:** I think I'm going to.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Adam:** Yeah, because that's the thing as well.
**Adam:** The the crippling thing for Dune, like the David Lynch one,
**Adam:** is the fact that what they've done now as.
**Adam:** What they did.
**Adam:** two hour films, two two hour films.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's good.
**Chris:** It's good.
**Chris:** It's good.
**Chris:** I haven't seen.
**Chris:** Part two.
**Chris:** But yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I've heard it is good.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Adam:** But basically,
**Adam:** yeah, part two.
**Adam:** David Lynch does part two in like.
**Adam:** 20 minutes.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Having done pretty much nearly two hours worth of the first.
**Adam:** First half.
**Lee:** So I'm.
**Lee:** I'm definitely going to give it.
**Lee:** I'm definitely going to give it a go.

---

## Ep 195 Dreamcatcher

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-195-dreamcatcher/
Air date: 8 April 2024
Duration: 00:34:30
Film: Dreamcatcher · Year: 2003 · Director: Lawrence Kasdan

### Description

In the second half of our Not For Everyone Podcast recommendations, we’re watching another Stephen King adaptation - 2003’s “Dreamcatcher”. A film in which Morgan Freeman’s eyebrows are designed to stop pigeons nesting; Damian Lewis auditions to play the Joker as Hugh Laurie; and Jason Lee just needs to leave those fucking toothpicks where they are! For a film about killer worms that burrow into your arse; “Dreamcatcher” has a remarkably glossy and expensive look, with a cast of big names. Written by King whilst high on painkillers, the story has a lot of similarities with his classic “It”, even down to its fictional location. Somehow though, the film manages to either take itself too seriously or not seriously enough, and may have been improved for amping up the (toilet) humour of the premise. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I am Adam.
**Lee:** and we're here as previously advertised for 2003's Dreamcatcher following our Christmas delve into Stephen King and saying that you guys obviously hadn't seen this before.
**Lee:** I have, I enjoy it, I know I shouldn't and I don't know why I enjoy it, but I do, so I wanted to get your input on it as well.
**Lee:** so, yeah.
**Lee:** There will be spoilers, there will be swearing, I'm sure.
**Lee:** so yeah, let's crack into it.
**Lee:** What did you guys think?
**Chris:** You go first, Adam.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You should do as you haven't seen it, that's that's the rule.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** An entertaining, entertaining enough film.
**Adam:** I feel.
**Adam:** this was Bobby's by the way, this was Bobby of Not For Everyone's film that he mentioned that me and Chris had not seen, and yeah, it was yeah, an entertaining enough film, a film that I spent the first 40 minutes of going, this isn't as bad as people reckon.
**Adam:** Why are people moaning about this?
**Adam:** And then it sort of takes a few choices and a few roads and stuff like that and you're like, oh yeah, I'm beginning to see the the wheels falling off this a bit.
**Adam:** But yeah, the the thing I would say is it reminded me.
**Adam:** That felt like someone trying to make a John Carpenter movie.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** They weren't John Carpenter.
**Adam:** And it was 2003, so you had to make a two-hour film.
**Adam:** Because the way Claire watched it with me and her her take on it was that it was like watching a director's cut.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it was like there's a lot in here that feels like it's now in here because it's the director's cut rather than this is the theatrical version that's a bit more snappy.
**Chris:** Needed.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** And the one thing I would say is it was the receiving a phone call on a gun.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So there were there was lots of stuff in this that I really fucking loved, I will say that.
**Adam:** Getting a phone call on a gun made me realize should have this is basically they should have gone more the John Dies at the End route.
**Adam:** And maybe not taking themselves as seriously or played up because basically it's people getting their arseholes called out by aliens.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And with farts and burps and everything.
**Chris:** It seemed for me to go a bit Starship Troopers but still.
**Adam:** Starship poopers is that.
**Chris:** Exactly, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Lee:** Yeah, like.
**Lee:** It was Slither without the humor.
**Chris:** Yes, effectively.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Because I think there's you've got a good cast who can do comedic stuff, I mean you've got like like Jason Lee is obviously perfect for something like that.
**Adam:** And I did feel there were bits where it's like, oh, I wish he'd got Rick and Aide in for this, you know, when it's like they're fighting a shit weasel in the toilet.
**Adam:** And like there's a man who's been farting.
**Adam:** And belching his way to death.
**Chris:** What did they say just as they were, I don't want to see this it's like yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I'm.
**Chris:** That suddenly stepped things up a bit.
**Adam:** Also, I mean.
**Adam:** Fucking hell.
**Adam:** You know, quite the cast.
**Adam:** All of whom I assume don't mention it that often.
**Chris:** I was surprised to see Morgan Freeman.
**Adam:** Morgan Freeman was the weirdest one.
**Adam:** Especially because he's he's got like the top billing even though he's not.
**Lee:** He ain't up for 40 minutes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He basically doesn't show up within certain, yeah, within about 40 minutes.
**Chris:** And is it one of his strangest roles that I've seen him in?
**Adam:** It's his strangest fucking eyebrows I've seen him in.
**Lee:** They were huge.
**Adam:** They were fierce, they were attack eyebrows, I believe is the term.
**Adam:** But but weirdly enough.
**Chris:** Hard eyebrows.
**Adam:** It was just, yeah, and you've got like.
**Adam:** Like I said, you've got Jason Lee, you've got Tom Sizemore's in there, usually plays in slightly harder edge stuff.
**Adam:** Not necessarily like harder edged in the sort of sense of like, you know, more realistic because we're talking stuff like.
**Adam:** like he's natural born killers and things like that.
**Adam:** But you know what I mean, stuff where it's like where his character will usually be in slightly more.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's rare to see him in a heroic role.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Really.
**Lee:** Tom Sizemore, who I also know is not Michael Madsen.
**Lee:** Because whenever I see him, I think and I had exactly the same as well with Thomas Jane, who I also know as not Christopher Lambert because.
**Adam:** Yeah, actually there is.
**Adam:** Yeah, because because Thomas Jane is probably, although he's like the the main sort of character.
**Adam:** You know, he's sort of he's not the biggest of the names.
**Adam:** No, sort of in this, but also he's in The Mist and he's in 1922.
**Adam:** So he's he does a lot of Stephen King stuff.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He was excellent in this.
**Lee:** I mean, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, no, I.
**Adam:** I mean, I'll be honest, I mean, I was Morgan Freeman, it was like.
**Adam:** Thought you'd have gone for something a bit classier, Morgan.
**Adam:** That's kind of the role more than anything, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** So it was actually quite refreshing that he's like, oh no, this person is in the wrong and is, you know.
**Adam:** He's doing the right thing but doing the worst thing at the same time.
**Adam:** So it's like, yeah.
**Adam:** so you do you need someone with some fucking chops for that.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** I think and when Jason Lee first appeared, I thought it was Elvis Costello.
**Adam:** Even though I knew even though I knew that that was impossible for Elvis Costello in 2003 to look like Elvis Costello circa like.
**Lee:** 1985.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And also, I mean, and Damian Lewis, where it was like, that's why Damian Lewis is in it.
**Adam:** Because they needed someone to do a posh English accent.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it was a a bit like the a bit like the what's it called when we were saying with The Dark Half where I was like, I don't recognize the main actor.
**Adam:** And what would he normally be doing?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, yeah, sort of like, you know, upper class smart ass is what I would expect of Damian Lewis.
**Adam:** So when.
**Adam:** But also weirdly, I think that that was that's that didn't quite work for me because.
**Adam:** I think again, I I quote her regularly now, she's a much better commentator than I am on this.
**Adam:** But Claire said, do you think they showed this to James McAvoy?
**Adam:** When he was doing Split and went.
**Adam:** But not like this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean I quite liked that, I mean I thought having the the other voice.
**Lee:** Was quite a good way of differentiating between the two, I'd kind of forgotten about that, yeah, that he has conversations between himself and the alien which has taken over his body.
**Lee:** And yeah, it's it's the only way of doing it I suppose to to separate off screen.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And I thought it was.
**Adam:** He was just so he was just so jolly as Mr. Gray.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was it was a.
**Adam:** It was a bit like if you'd got Hugh Laurie to do House.
**Adam:** And then been Prince George.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As but as the villain, you sort of like, now and I sort of I've sort of gone there, I don't know, mate.
**Adam:** Timothy Olyphant who I have to confess, I can never recognize.
**Adam:** And I suspect that he is some form of animal, you know, it's an elephant.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, this
**Adam:** No, I mean.
**Adam:** I I mean again, I'm glad I've seen it.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it is just sort of entertaining nonsense, I think is the best way of putting it without shadow of a doubt.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I was also, I mean, I was also quite, I was quite shocked for a second when it was like.
**Adam:** Oh, I thought Damian Lewis was in this a lot because he's quite credited quite high.
**Adam:** And then apparently gets and then gets hit by the car right near the start.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And everything.
**Adam:** But once again, our intrepid author Mr. Stephen King.
**Adam:** Do you know what had happened, can you guess what had happened to Stephen King just before he wrote this book?
**Lee:** Did he possibly get hit by a car?
**Chris:** By a car.
**Adam:** That's right, yes, yes he did.
**Adam:** Because everything is his meal.
**Chris:** Bless him.
**Chris:** Write write what you know about, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and actually in his defense, well, not his defense, but he said about the book is it's he said.
**Adam:** Because obviously like The Dark Half was the last book he wrote before he like cleaned up completely.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** When he wrote Dreamcatcher, he was off his fucking tits on oxycodone and painkillers.
**Adam:** Because because it was bad.
**Adam:** He had like a like basically this bloke plowed into him in a van while he was out walking one night.
**Adam:** in 1999 that was.
**Adam:** Hit him with such force that King was flung over the top of the van into a ditch and his glasses end up on the passenger seat.
**Adam:** he had a 30 stitch gash on his forehead, four broken ribs, eight chips in his spine, two serious hip fractures and damage to most of the bones in his right leg including a split knee cap and an exploded tibia.
**Lee:** Bloody hell that's bad.
**Adam:** And he had to be.
**Chris:** Imagine being the person that did that.
**Chris:** Like.
**Adam:** Well the guy who did that was was a chap called Brian Smith.
**Adam:** Who had a long history of driving offenses, including driving under the influence and speeding.
**Adam:** and apparently his defense in court was that he was distracted by his dog that was loose in the van.
**Adam:** they tried to get his license taken.
**Chris:** It's not the best defense I've ever heard of.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** It's sort of like, I was driving dangerously.
**Chris:** He's not.
**Adam:** I thought I was drunk.
**Chris:** I was drunk.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You're meant to do with that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it but
**Adam:** But they they didn't get his basically he got six months in jail and a driving ban for a year.
**Adam:** Which apparently Stephen King was like, no, I'm we want to get his license.
**Adam:** But he played to a lesser charge or something like that.
**Adam:** But here's here's the bit where it gets weird and kooky and interesting.
**Adam:** He was found dead from an accidental overdose of painkillers on the 21st of September 2000, Stephen King's 53rd birthday.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And they both shared the middle name, Edwin.
**Adam:** And once again, apparently, this guy appears as a book in one of the Dark Tower's books.
**Adam:** As basically a pissed up bloke in a van who nearly hits Stephen King who is also in the Dark Tower books apparently.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** It was.
**Adam:** Once again.
**Lee:** It's such a.
**Adam:** But yeah, so that that sort of came in and it hit me as a third well hit Damian Lewis obviously, but.
**Adam:** No, hit me as a thing, I was like, oh, that's a bit of a, and then I was like, oh yeah, I remember now, yeah, you got hit by a.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But so but how close is this to his book?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I don't I'm assuming there's more links to the title because obviously it's called Dreamcatcher and there's a couple of references.
**Chris:** And they show you the dreamcatchers, yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I had.
**Adam:** I had a look into it, obviously I've not I've not read the book because there's a lot of Stephen King I haven't read, so I'm not starting with Dreamcatcher, a book that he is basically said.
**Adam:** I was off my fucking tits on morphine.
**Adam:** You know, when I wrote that.
**Adam:** There's my excuse.
**Adam:** Having been sober for the best part of 20 years, or whatever he was.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But apparently yeah, the Morgan Freeman's character is called Colonel Kurtz, which is obviously an Apocalypse Now reference.
**Adam:** Which they changed to Curtis because they were
**Adam:** Because in fairness, that is a thing too far if you've also put in your actually got genuinely your film, we call this Ripley after the.
**Chris:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** I mean that did seem really odd.
**Chris:** That there was actual references to Alien.
**Adam:** So I suppose yeah, because because if he's called Colonel Kurtz and no one mentions it, at that point you're like.
**Adam:** So this exists in a universe where the film Alien was made, but the film Apocalypse Now wasn't.
**Chris:** Was it.
**Adam:** You know, for some reason.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** And I'm but the apparently there's more backstory.
**Adam:** Between Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore's character.
**Adam:** To kind of.
**Adam:** And I saw someone online saying that it makes it seem more it it it gives a better reason for why he would just go, well this bloke's psychic, so I'll follow him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Apparently him and Morgan Freeman had beef back in the day and it was like, so he is kind of, you know, they're they're on a bit of a fuck you relationship anyway that doesn't sort of come across in it.
**Adam:** And Dudits is not an alien.
**Adam:** he's just a boy with Down syndrome and.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** But then how does he give them telepathic.
**Adam:** Oh, no, he's he's he's telepathic.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** He's he's he's he's a still a magical person, but apparently it's coincidental compared to the fact that there's aliens.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And I think it I think in the book also there's like there was something about it's only when.
**Adam:** I think the reason it's called Dreamcatcher is because it turns out at the end that Jonesy was one of the people immune to the psychic control but did actually but thought he wasn't, so therefore Mr. Gray was able to control him.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which yeah, I don't know.
**Chris:** But but he was able to hide part of himself from Mr. Gray in in the mind warehouse which most people can't do, I guess.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** Just getting taken over completely, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So what do you make of it, Chris?
**Chris:** yeah, you know, not too far from Adam's summation, it was definitely a lot of fun.
**Chris:** It's one of those where when you start watching Stephen King, you know, you've you've definitely got expectations.
**Chris:** And this blew some of them away.
**Chris:** Because it's like it started off and I was you know, it sort of reminds me of it the way they've they've got the friends and playing back and you know, and then the bullies.
**Chris:** And it's like.
**Chris:** I kind of like all that, that's, you know, and I like the way they stood up to them, that all seemed to to be pretty good.
**Chris:** So you can kind of see how how they become friends, you know, and they stay good friends.
**Chris:** as they get older.
**Adam:** It shows that they're good people as well.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, and so it's definitely explains the purpose later on.
**Chris:** But then yeah, when it did kind of change, it's like it's definitely fun, but is it almost two different films.
**Chris:** And and it.
**Chris:** Like it is sci-fi, but how good is it sci-fi in a sense.
**Chris:** It's like it's just hard to know if that blend of more serious Stephen King with the craziness is is the best.
**Chris:** But that's where I was sort of thinking, I am still enjoying it.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** It's, you know, it's hard to know, I I kind of think I probably would need to watch it again.
**Chris:** To to perhaps appreciate some of the some of the subtleties that might be in there.
**Chris:** I you know.
**Lee:** I think.
**Lee:** I think the reason it doesn't do so well is possibly because the two halves of the film feel so completely different.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Lee:** Whatever you're in the mood for.
**Chris:** No, I yeah.
**Lee:** The film isn't what you're in the mood for.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** You're never quite going to go.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I'm quite in the mood for.
**Lee:** You know.
**Lee:** I've just watched it, I'm in the mood for something similar.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It isn't going to jump out, yeah.
**Chris:** It's not.
**Lee:** And if you just want to.
**Chris:** I wonder if you'd just watch it at the cinema.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Would you come out going.
**Chris:** What did we just watch that.
**Adam:** Well, the weirdest bit as well is that it's set in Derry, Maine, which is one of Stephen King's fictional towns that he has like Castle Rock and stuff like that and
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is the same town that It happens in.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like so Derry, Maine is really on like.
**Adam:** It's like an accident black spot for alien.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Incursion.
**Adam:** Because that was the thing is watching it, I was kind of like I was sitting there thinking, you know, Stephen King doesn't really do sci-fi.
**Adam:** And then I was like.
**Adam:** Oh no, It is sci-fi.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it is like it's like an interdimensional.
**Adam:** Alien incursion kind of thing.
**Adam:** But but it's still in that sort of boat, so it's actually weird because it does feel like Stephen King's kind of.
**Adam:** Redone it, but decided to make it with.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Loads of burp casts.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Pretty much so.
**Chris:** But yeah, but there's some really good scenes and, you know, there's some great moments.
**Chris:** There's some great quotes.
**Chris:** I thought all the characters were fun and enjoyable to watch.
**Chris:** I'd say I didn't I wasn't too sure about Morgan Freeman's character because, I guess I've got a view of what I expect from him.
**Chris:** And that wasn't quite it.
**Chris:** I can't say I've seen him in that many films, but I probably think of him from Shawshank Redemption, which is also.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's another Stephen King, isn't it?
**Chris:** Yeah, and so, so that's what I expect.
**Chris:** When I see him.
**Chris:** so then it's like is it it's not I mean, maybe a little bit disappointment, but.
**Adam:** The the last film we did with him in it was Seven.
**Adam:** Where he is literally the voice of moral reason and decency.
**Chris:** Like.
**Chris:** But but equally that's it like it was making me laugh partially because of all of this, so it's like, yeah, okay.
**Chris:** In that regard, it's it's good, it's hard to say that I would rank it above other things.
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** But so yeah, so how did you first come across it, Lee?
**Chris:** What did you go see it in the cinema?
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No, I didn't.
**Lee:** I I think it was one of those I used to have a habit back in the day of going on like eBay and going on to horror films and going from cheapest first and just scrolling through until something caught my eye.
**Lee:** And I've got a feeling that's what this was.
**Lee:** And I saw it and was like, oh, it's a Stephen King adaptation.
**Lee:** I'll give it a go on on nothing more than that really.
**Lee:** so I went in with no idea or expectations.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh, yeah, that was interesting.
**Lee:** And I just kind of forgot it existed for yeah, probably a decade.
**Lee:** And then all of a sudden I was like, oh yeah, that was a, I think it was it's funny enough.
**Lee:** I think it was when what was the vampire thing.
**Lee:** That Timothy Olyphant was in with Drew Barrymore.
**Adam:** Oh Santa Clarita Diet.
**Lee:** I think it was when that came out.
**Lee:** And I suddenly went, oh shit, I know him, he was in that weird Stephen King thing.
**Lee:** yeah, so this is probably the fourth or fifth time I've seen this, I think.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's only because every time I watch it and forget everything about it.
**Lee:** And then I go.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, that was a weird.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like for sure would.
**Lee:** I think the aliens turn up right at the end, but I don't remember what they look like.
**Lee:** And every time I put it in and go, this is not what I remember ever.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Adam:** Well, that's that was the thing that it reminded me of as well.
**Adam:** Is it had that sort of it had that X-Files sort of sheen to it.
**Adam:** But then I think that that was just such an ingrained thing by then by like 2003, that was like that right.
**Adam:** That's how every show is done like this.
**Adam:** And because you obviously had the X-Files and then all the sort of rip offs after it like Dark Skies and the sort of stuff that all followed and it was all in this similar sort of vein.
**Adam:** And it also had that slightly.
**Adam:** shot in Vancouver film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That you you know what I mean where it's like well it's we get cheaper rates there.
**Adam:** I don't I don't know if it was shot in Vancouver or whatever, but it just had that sort of, yeah, just that sort of look to it a bit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, I mean, in terms of like effects and everything else like that, okay, it's dated a bit, but I don't think there's anything in there that doesn't stand up and certainly didn't wasn't shonky at the time.
**Adam:** I think it's just, you know, it's stuff that's just been surpassed really rather than, you know.
**Adam:** But I mean, I thought the the effect of the shit weasels was wonderfully gross and horrible and sort of yeah.
**Adam:** And if anyone out there can tell me what that because when Jonesy would change into Mr. Gray.
**Adam:** And he turned around, put his hood up and there was like noise.
**Chris:** Yeah, there's a noise, yeah.
**Adam:** Like I know that from somewhere else.
**Adam:** And I'm sure that you know what I mean, it's obviously just online a sound effect thing somewhere.
**Adam:** But it's it was like I fucking know that noise.
**Adam:** And I just could not place it.
**Adam:** I was looking online, but I don't think clearly no one's as fucking weird as me to like.
**Adam:** Picked up on a noise.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean it definitely stood out to me, but I couldn't place it.
**Lee:** Some people are very weird.
**Lee:** Some people apparently have such an obsession with toothpicks.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck it.
**Chris:** That they're willing to try and.
**Lee:** Why wasn't it cigarettes?
**Lee:** Or so.
**Lee:** Like I'd understand it if it was cigarettes and he was a chain smoker and he had to get so, but it was just it's just a toothpick.
**Lee:** And it's on that disgusting floor.
**Chris:** But when you get addicted to something, it doesn't matter what it is.
**Chris:** But yeah.
**Chris:** Like you would.
**Chris:** Oh, that's it.
**Adam:** Claire will often Claire will often voice at a certain point that, well, that's it, you're stupid, I don't care, I hope you die during moments in horror films.
**Adam:** And that was definitely one for her and she was like, I like this character, but no, this is fucking stupid.
**Adam:** Why can't you die?
**Chris:** Addiction does make you a bit stupid though, doesn't it?
**Lee:** Even if he'd kept it in the toilet and got that toothpick, that would still have been what killed him eventually.
**Lee:** Because the.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well.
**Lee:** The bacteria.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** On that.
**Chris:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** Floor.
**Lee:** I was like, you're definitely going to be dead in six months of, you know, dysentery or God knows what.
**Lee:** So like.
**Adam:** It was a.
**Chris:** I mean, not after the guy before's even had to come out of him.
**Chris:** He's like.
**Lee:** You're not.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You wouldn't want to rush.
**Chris:** To where you've been already.
**Adam:** There was a bit later on where someone like just exploded a box of matches and I was like, what is it with you little on tiny bits of wood?
**Adam:** I can't fucking pee together guys.
**Adam:** Come on.
**Adam:** I know he's given I know Dudits gave you psychic powers, but you lot are shit at very small pieces of wood.
**Adam:** And actually.
**Adam:** That was another thing because because in my head I'd gone like, oh well, he's been hit in a car crash.
**Adam:** And he's really injured and everything because that's what happened to Stephen King.
**Adam:** There was also a part of me that was going, after after after he recovered, was Stephen King doing a lot of DIY at home?
**Adam:** Because there are at least three different scenes of people walking around a shed looking for something and getting really fucking hacked off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I just thought, is this is this what happened at home?
**Adam:** You know, you've got a burst pipe or something.
**Adam:** I'm fucking I'm just fucking duct tape here somewhere.
**Adam:** But.
**Lee:** The character I associated when which I think probably says more about me than it should, or than I should put out there on a recording and the, is the when that they when he leaves Timothy Olyphant with that woman.
**Lee:** And as he walks off, he says, whatever you do, don't go back to the car for the beer, just stay here and watch her.
**Lee:** And you see him disappear beyond the trees and I was like, the second he's out of you.
**Lee:** I'd be like.
**Lee:** There's a 50% chance I'm going to die and there's a load of beer 100 yards away, I don't I'm if she dies in the meantime, I couldn't have saved her anyway.
**Lee:** I'm going for that beer.
**Lee:** Like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think you're probably and on the basis of what happened to him.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He should have just gone and got it.
**Adam:** And actually, that was another bit as well where it was fucking beaver and Jonesy with the fucking thing trapped in the toilet.
**Adam:** Where he like had to come back and make a quip and it was like.
**Adam:** No, that was not the fucking time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because that's.
**Adam:** The thing is, I think you can joke that was the bit that was like, yeah, but the absurdity of the situation because I think they got it right as well where they would just like.
**Adam:** Laughing and slightly awkward every time he was farting and belching, you know, and everything else like that.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think that they just they.
**Adam:** They should have just doubled down on it and just gone, no, we know this is fucking mental.
**Adam:** But this this it felt a bit like it was like, no, no, we can do it we can do it properly and it's like.
**Adam:** Morgan Freeman's got eyebrows that are there to prevent pigeons nesting on him.
**Adam:** And people are getting their bum holes caught out by like toot eels.
**Chris:** I did wonder when he came back to make to make the joke.
**Chris:** Was it because he knew there's a chance he was not going to stay seated?
**Chris:** And it's like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I'm trying to reinforce this.
**Chris:** And it still didn't stay seated.
**Adam:** The weirdest part was, and I'm going to count the I'm going to count a bit of watching Star Wars earlier with Ted as research.
**Adam:** I'm going to claim it for that.
**Chris:** Which Star Wars.
**Adam:** it was Desimpia back and strike as the Europeans call it.
**Adam:** but
**Adam:** So the director of this is a guy called Lawrence Kasdan, and he's done films like, he directed Body Heat, White, the Accidental Tourist.
**Adam:** But and get this, he wrote The Empire Strikes Back, the Return of the Jedi, the Force Awakens, Solo a Star Wars story and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** I kind of thought I'd recognize his name when you said it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I knew the name and I was like, I must have seen something and I was like, I don't think I've seen any of his actual directed films, but yeah.
**Adam:** He's like just wrote most of the.
**Chris:** I wondering now, was was the sound effect for the hood, putting his hood up?
**Chris:** I wonder if.
**Adam:** I wonder if it's a Star Wars effect.
**Adam:** Because both of us have clearly just.
**Chris:** It was a bit.
**Adam:** Yeah, stuck in there.
**Lee:** I think that this.
**Adam:** It could well be.
**Lee:** This film is clearly written as you say in a drug-induced state.
**Lee:** But like the the directing of it was pretty good.
**Lee:** I like I thought he did a really good job.
**Adam:** Oh, no, I I have no problem with the way it was directed at all.
**Adam:** I think it was, you know, it it it looked the part.
**Adam:** I think it's probably just a bit long.
**Lee:** Yeah, it definitely needed a proper edit.
**Lee:** But again.
**Lee:** I think there's so much going on, I don't you're right, it's one of those things where you say two and a quarter hours is way too long.
**Lee:** But then you think, yeah, but what would I cut out necessarily?
**Lee:** I'm not sure.
**Adam:** Actually, in fairness, two and a quarter hours, but I still think at that point if you had the rest of the film.
**Adam:** Two and a quarter hours turns out to be very short because that is a hell of a fucking.
**Adam:** Full stop.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, you you need a bit more.
**Adam:** You know, on that.
**Adam:** Even if it's just a voiceover from Morgan Freeman to say.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But we've we've stopped the aliens.
**Adam:** And everything was fine.
**Adam:** Or you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was literally within, you know, that they killed the big bad and less than 10 seconds later the film's over.
**Lee:** You're like.
**Lee:** Whoa.
**Lee:** Jesus.
**Adam:** And they do that weird thing in the credits where it was just like, oh, well, just show them all sitting around a table having a lot it's like what to remind us that all but one of them has been fucking killed.
**Adam:** Or two of them have been killed, but there's been a lot of.
**Adam:** You know, drilled out bits and spores and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And that
**Adam:** I it's unfortunate because I think the CGI would be better now.
**Adam:** But I did love the.
**Adam:** Animals running through the just just as a concept, that would just be.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Shit.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I mean it's.
**Adam:** Something.
**Lee:** Going on.
**Adam:** Although again, this was something that Claire discussed, it's like, yeah, there's a lot of animals running past here, including bears.
**Adam:** I'd get back inside the house.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I know that they're clearly worried.
**Adam:** But they're fucking bears.
**Adam:** And I don't want to I don't want to mess with a bear.
**Adam:** On a good day.
**Adam:** And this is clearly not a good day for this bear.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** yes, so it's to surmise.
**Lee:** It's a, I mean, I think it's a loose recommend.
**Lee:** I think if you if you're at a loose end and it's on TV, watch it.
**Lee:** Like I don't.
**Chris:** No, I.
**Chris:** I absolutely enjoyed watching it.
**Chris:** Yeah, I just don't quite know what to make of it now.
**Lee:** Like.
**Adam:** And for Stephen King fans, I think it's very close.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I I gather that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Kingism.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's got enough it's got a lot of his hall marks in there, including including fucking psychotic bullies, you know, in flashback.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** right.
**Lee:** So we are going to be returning in a fortnight's time as usual with our what we've been watching.
**Lee:** and then after that, we are going to instead of doing a two-part month, we are going to do three episodes back to back.
**Lee:** Adam has come up with an excellent point.
**Lee:** It's 20 years since Shaun of the Dead has come out, we've managed to make it nearly 200 episodes and we haven't covered it yet, so it's definitely well overdue.
**Chris:** You got to save some some gold for.
**Chris:** Later on.
**Adam:** Some fright gold.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so we are going to be covering in the subsequent three episodes the Cornetto Trilogy.
**Lee:** Which, you know what, it doesn't matter what mood I'm in, it doesn't matter what time of day it is, I can sit down and put any of those films on and have a great time.
**Lee:** So I'm really looking forward to doing this.
**Lee:** I think it's a great idea.
**Chris:** It turns a bad day into a good day and a good day into a great day.
**Adam:** Hey.
**Lee:** Very much.
**Adam:** Can can we use that as just the quote for the podcast?
**Lee:** That's.
**Lee:** Right, so thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** possibly go and check out Dreamcatcher.
**Lee:** But, you know, don't.
**Lee:** Don't go nuts.
**Adam:** What, watch it.
**Adam:** Don't pay for it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think that's a that's a good.
**Adam:** If it's on telly.
**Adam:** If it's on telly, definitely watch it.
**Chris:** If I just turned it on, I would I would leave it on absolutely.
**Chris:** I'd be like, yeah, I'm going to this is this is got my attention, definitely.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** I don't regret the 1.50 or whatever it cost me to buy it in the first place, so.
**Lee:** Right, yes.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out the not for everyone podcast.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** We will see you in a fortnight's time for all the shit we've been watching in between.
**Lee:** Thanks very much.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 194 The Dark Half

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-194-the-dark-half/
Air date: 24 March 2024
Duration: 00:34:14

### Description

As a follow up to our Christmas Crossover with our Kurt Army Cousins, The Not For Everyone Podcast, we decided to take a look at two of the Stephen King adaptations that were mentioned, but unseen by us. First up is George A Romero’s “The Dark Half”; a film in which we learn that pure, undiluted evil must be dressed like Tom Waits; that Henry (Portrait of a Serial Killer) has even less idea of the law when on the other side of a police badge; and that Eleanor Lance escaped from Hill House to become pipe smoker of the year (1993). A faithful adaptation of King’s take on his own outing as the author Richard Bachman, this is a superior slice of 90s horror, reuniting King with Romero, with a superb cast backed up by incredible practical and visual effects that still hold up today. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I am Adam.
**Chris:** Are you sure you're not your alter ego?
**Adam:** My alter ego, Amos Daython. the world.
**Adam:** Yeah. No, it's it's me tonight. I haven't got my hair gelled up or anything.
**Lee:** so we are here this evening, to cover a film that was discussed in our Christmas we Three Kings episode, because none of us had seen it and
**Lee:** Adam across the pond very much raved about this film, so we decided it's only fair we should go and track it down and give it a fair go.
**Lee:** So we are talking about 1993's The Dark Half.
**Lee:** there will be spoilers and there will be swearing.
**Lee:** But before that, I think Adam, you've got some housekeeping you would like to cover.
**Adam:** Yes, a couple of episodes ago, we put up, we put up a previous episode under the original under the new episode title.
**Adam:** So we got it sorted and the proper episode was put out. It was one of our We Have Been Watching.
**Adam:** but I just wanted to say a big thank you to Forest_Walking who was the listener who messaged me and just said, I think I mean anything. I think you put the wrong episode out.
**Adam:** And it was at that point that was like, oh shit, I hadn't listened. So.
**Lee:** That's very gracious of you Adam, for us to collectively take that responsibility. But let's be honest, I fucked up. I put the wrong episode out.
**Lee:** Yeah, I don't know how I managed it. I just.
**Chris:** To be fair, it's few and far between. You've done a a sterling job, I would say.
**Adam:** Yeah, but in fairness, he messaged and it was on a night we were actually recording.
**Adam:** So, you know, I could have listened at 9 o'clock in the morning when it went up and realized, but there we go. So I'm taking collective plane with you.
**Adam:** So you remain sweet and innocent as always.
**Chris:** Of course.
**Lee:** I never listen. I don't listen to any of our episodes because I hate my voice and.
**Lee:** I think if I.
**Adam:** Yeah I know that.
**Chris:** Who doesn't, you think like there you go all the things you could improve about it is so like it's so hard to shut that part of your brain down, isn't it when you're listening back?
**Lee:** I think if I listened to a single episode, you would never hear me on this show again.
**Adam:** In fairness, it's in fairness I don't really and it's there is an there is an element. It's the same I used to get in trouble in bands that I was in because I'd be like, well, we've played that song a lot and it's like, yeah, but it's not like we've recorded it or anything. Can we actually it's like, yeah, we've played it a lot. I'm bored of it now.
**Adam:** And it's the same sort of thing. It's like, I don't want to hear what I've already said.
**Adam:** Or go back and listen and go, oh no. Why did you fucking say that? Oh that's it.
**Adam:** You've revealed too much there.
**Lee:** That's part of why I stopped editing them, you know, and they now just go out literally as they as they go into the mics because if I go in and start editing stuff,
**Lee:** yeah, then I go I didn't like what I said there. I didn't like this. I didn't I could have worded that better and then
**Chris:** you end up with like two minutes of show.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly. I just cut myself out entirely. So it was like just let it go out and just forget about it, it's fine.
**Adam:** We just end up with the stencil of an episode.
**Adam:** What I've got a Stanley knife. That's how I'll do it.
**Lee:** yes, so if we go over to Adam first cuz none of us had seen this film.
**Lee:** So Adam, if you would like to start us off, what were your thoughts on this?
**Adam:** Well, I had a listen back just cuz I wanted to I just had a listen back to the episode. So obviously it was Adam from Not For Everyone podcast and we're basically we did the episode where we discussed various Stephen King adaptations. both him and Bobby came up with ones that I think Bobby's one you'd seen, but me and Chris hadn't. And none of us had seen The Dark Half.
**Adam:** Listening back to it, I've said, I think I might have seen it, but I don't remember it. And now I've seen it. Now, I've definitely not seen it.
**Adam:** So, I don't know what I was talking about. I remember the cover from video shops cuz it was just a cool cover with like the half purple face and the birds like the the sparrows and everything.
**Adam:** but yeah, I've never seen it. And I'm rather pleased I've ticked off another George Romero film.
**Chris:** Because it's sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** I was just, it's utterly it feels utterly 90s but also there's nothing in it that's like there's no shit effects really. You've got some great practical stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah. And and some fucking harsh violence.
**Adam:** Like there's there's bits in there where it's just like, no, that is I mean, the whole point is that it's this brutal other figure.
**Adam:** That the author sort of spawns. but yeah, brutal is the fucking word because it there's no fucking around.
**Adam:** The weirdest thing is though, and again, it's possibly the 90sness of it is that so obviously this is spoilers, you should have watched it, don't care anyway.
**Adam:** But so the main character who is the author, Chad Beaumont, whose alter ego, what is it? Richard Stark.
**Adam:** and Richard Stark is like the a brutal toper from his own imagination of this other author that he writes really harsh crime books under.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's weird because basically it's like he's dressed like Tom Waits or Nick Cave.
**Lee:** I thought that he looked like Tom Waits.
**Adam:** Cuz it starts off and I'll give him his due. Timothy Hutton, I don't know if I know him from anything else.
**Adam:** I've I've got like.
**Chris:** He kind of he looks like he's sort of familiar and yet I don't think I've seen him in anything else.
**Adam:** I don't think I'm I think he must have been in stuff I've seen.
**Adam:** But apparently at one point the people people who were offered the same part, the Chad Beaumont and.
**Lee:** Because obviously he plays both roles for Ted Ted Beaumont.
**Adam:** Yeah, Ted Beaumont and Richard Stark.
**Adam:** Is it Richard Stark?
**Lee:** George Stark. That's it.
**Adam:** Yeah, where where are we getting Richard Stark from?
**Adam:** Oh, I'm overthinking myself. That's where I'm getting Richard Stark from because I know where Richard Bachman came from. So there we go.
**Chris:** The dark half is appearing.
**Adam:** Yeah, the dark half isn't appearing, but it's and I've completely disrailed myself there as well. That's that's a good start.
**Chris:** Where Timothy Hutton might might have appeared.
**Adam:** Yes, apparently other people who were offered the part were William Defoe and Gary Oldman.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Adam:** And so I don't know is Timothy Hutton like badass Evil Cooper Timothy Hutton, what we normally get from Timothy Hutton.
**Lee:** Yeah, possibly, yeah.
**Adam:** And you know, the nice guy that sort of every man bit is not the one we get usually.
**Adam:** Because it reminded me when I watched The Shining with Claire and she said the only thing with it is you're just waiting for Jack Nicholson to be Jack Nicholson.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it'd be the same if it was William Defoe or Gary Oldman, you'd be waiting for them to fucking flip out and be George Stark and be evil.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, so I don't know, like I say, I don't I don't know if anything sort of I mean I jotted it down, but I don't think there's anything I've seen.
**Adam:** He's won an Oscar. He was best one best supporting actor for ordinary people. But yeah, I didn't really sort of recognize anything else that he'd been in.
**Adam:** So I wasn't sort of like too sure.
**Adam:** But I think he's really good.
**Lee:** Oh, outstanding.
**Chris:** What, yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's only because I'd done the thing then the research for it that I knew that Timothy Hutton was playing both roles.
**Adam:** Because initially, I think he does look strikingly different when he's George Stark.
**Lee:** Yeah, to the point where I thought it was for the beginning, even when you saw his face for the first couple of scenes, I thought it was a different actor. He looked so completely different. And it makes sense to have a different actor, but actually, yeah, when you get to the end story and find out it is just the other part of his personality.
**Lee:** You think well it has to look like him effectively because it's the idea is it's the same skin and a different part of his mind. So.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's I think that the yeah, just his it did take me a moment even then.
**Adam:** Especially because you've got Michael, he looks not when he's George Stark, he looks not unlike.
**Lee:** Yeah, Michael Rooker. Yeah, similar hair, yeah.
**Adam:** So we were watching it and Claire at first Claire said, oh, so it's the sheriff doing it.
**Adam:** And then it was like, oh no, because I know because I knew what the thing was about and I know I've read, you know, unfortunately spoiled it slightly for myself, I suppose.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Chris:** Now Michael Rooker, he doesn't seem to have aged ever cuz he looks very similar in this as I've now seen him in Slither and Guardians of the Galaxy.
**Chris:** So Guardians was the first time I sort of knew of him as far as I knew, and then yeah when we saw him in Slither, but I don't think I've seen him in anything else. I know he has been in films.
**Adam:** He's also the dad, the scary dad in More Ratz who gets stick palmed.
**Adam:** And he is also Henry in Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, which means that every time Michael Rooker shows up, my fucking asshole drops out because I'm like, he fucking done it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or it's like.
**Adam:** He he was in the third series of True Detective and literally there's a bit the episode ended and you just got someone got a phone call from Michael Rooker and it was the first time he'd appeared in the show and it was just his voice. And I was like, well, you're dead.
**Adam:** Michael fucking Rooker, that's it. You're fucked, mate.
**Adam:** You know. Although policing.
**Chris:** Not not not.
**Chris:** Not the perfect role for him.
**Adam:** No. I just I just mean the I think the sheriff was a bit sort of like, oh, I've come around here because you've done it, but now I'm just going to come over and have a couple of beers and discuss it with you.
**Adam:** And at no point did anyone go, just lock him up.
**Lee:** Yeah. if the murder happened, it weren't him.
**Lee:** That's what I kept saying. I was like, just agree to be in a cell overnight and then when someone's get killed, you're 100% off the hook.
**Lee:** Like just I know it's not exactly the Hilton, but you can put up with it for a night, surely to clear your own name.
**Adam:** Yeah, it did seem a bit a trifle sort of weird.
**Adam:** While we're talking of other names, Reggie, the like the Professor of Law folklore.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** she's in she's from The Haunting. She's Eleanor in The Haunting.
**Lee:** She was excellent in this. I thought she was walking around smoking that pipe.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No, she's.
**Chris:** I don't she had one of my favorite lines as well, The Almighty is on a sabbatical.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And while we're actually Beaumont's wife as well, Liz. I really recognized her and I, you know, I said at the time when we're watching it, I was like, I know her. She was in a she was a put upon wife in something else in the 80s.
**Lee:** And Jennifer quite rightly pointed out, all wives in 80s films were much put upon. That was what women did in the 80s apparently.
**Lee:** but yeah, it so it was Uncle Buck, it was driving me nuts, but yeah, she was the girlfriend of John Candy in Uncle Buck.
**Adam:** Yeah, she was in Carnival as well. She was Mr. Krab's sister.
**Lee:** Oh, I haven't seen that in such a long time. I need to rewatch it. I I really enjoyed it, but I remember just being pissed off when it got to the end because I was like, oh, now they've canceled it. We'll never find out the rest of the story.
**Chris:** True.
**Adam:** But yeah. yeah, Julie Harris, who was Reggie, who's in who's Eleanor in The Haunting, yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, and also, Chad's I've said it again. Chad, Thad.
**Chris:** Well, so I thought, I thought they did say Chad early on in the film, but I must have misheard it.
**Chris:** Cuz I was like, so because it's that, isn't it? It's.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Which I can only hear me and Claire been re-watching the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes. So I can only hear the name Thadeus in a ridiculous Welsh accent because of the sign of four.
**Adam:** So it's just Thadeus, you see.
**Adam:** But also, there was, oh and and the guy Fred Clawson, the guy who tries to blackmail him at the start.
**Adam:** That's what happens if Tim Roth had run really fast at Steve Buscemi.
**Adam:** He's
**Adam:** And but he's he's in he's in Land of the Dead. He's like the shotgun guy in Land of the Dead.
**Lee:** I've just actually you saying about the cover of this, like the original VHS cover.
**Lee:** It's funny, again, it clearly is Timothy Hutton in the photograph, but it looks like Stephen King.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Again, another story about an author and the picture on the cover looks exactly like Stephen King.
**Adam:** Well, they've got like the story that he writes, like the first story that he writes is a child.
**Adam:** Is I did jot it down. Herbie Tigers is actually the first short story that Stephen King wrote.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So that's there's a link in there. Also this is the lake house is in Castle Rock, which is obviously the Stephen King's fictional town.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and Sheriff Pangborn's in a few books. He's in Needful Things as well.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Of course, yes.
**Adam:** But he's played by Ed Harris in that and like the and the deputy is the has the same name in Needful Things and this.
**Adam:** And actually the weird thing is, Needful Things came out in 93, but this was this actually was made in 91. Orion Pictures went bankrupt.
**Adam:** Then the another film they'd made, Silence of the Lambs, won every fucking Oscar.
**Adam:** And suddenly they had a bit of a reprieve so they had the money to release it. So actually it came out the same year as Needful Things even though it's like it's actually two years up at that point.
**Lee:** yeah, I I've got to put my cards on the table now and say, I quite enjoyed this film.
**Lee:** But I don't think many Stephen King films make it particularly well to the screen.
**Lee:** Even with George Romero, I wasn't terribly drawn in.
**Lee:** But I mean, it was a good watch. I'm glad I watched it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, they just.
**Adam:** I don't know if I'd watch it again, but I would not mind watching it again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** If we if we were to if yeah, if we were to do it as a watch party or whatever.
**Lee:** yeah, I'd definitely watch it. But yeah, I don't think I'd ever go to my shelf and go, oh, I need to need to pull that DVD back off the shelf. I think it's one that's going to just be there to make up the numbers.
**Lee:** So Chris, what did you think?
**Chris:** Yeah, well I I did enjoy it.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely enjoyed it.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, I'm trying to think I'd say maybe I I would say it could have been just a tad shorter and still still have achieved what it did.
**Chris:** But like, it is a fascinating story.
**Chris:** and it's an interesting idea, right? So so it's Stephen King is a writer writing about a writer.
**Lee:** Who has what he always does.
**Chris:** A dark half. Well, yeah, so.
**Chris:** yeah, like, but it's interesting how many times he can do that and it still be effective.
**Chris:** And and the idea that like in order to be able to write the kind of horror that he does, especially when when you anytime I've ever seen anything of Stephen King, he seems like a way too nice person to be able to come up with the sort of stuff he comes up with.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And yet that's exactly what this story is, is a guy who's way too nice and cannot come up with this stuff until he kind of releases this, you know, inner demonic half of of his brain.
**Chris:** Like, and and then that's that is really what Stephen King has to do. He does have to kind of engage something that he doesn't want to use in everyday life because that wouldn't be very good for a successful life.
**Chris:** Right, but so I mean, I find it it's really fascinating.
**Adam:** Well, it's interesting. Apparently it's the first book he wrote sober.
**Adam:** Like after he cleaned up.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So he cleaned up. Okay, so I didn't know anything about his.
**Adam:** Which which I, I mean, I think he's I mean, he's been on record about drug use and drinking and so on and so forth.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** yeah, and fuck me, just watch the trailer for Maximum Overdrive if you want to see someone on coke. I mean, it's fucking unreal.
**Adam:** But but but yeah, so he sort of.
**Adam:** yeah, he'd cleaned up by the time he wrote this and I think that definitely sort of you see that in there.
**Adam:** but also he'd done, because this is like his 27th book.
**Lee:** Bloody hell.
**Adam:** So, you know, there was a but.
**Adam:** So he released other basically he himself, Stephen King himself had a alter ego called Richard Bachman.
**Adam:** That's why I kept saying Richard Bachman.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Richard.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Cuz I really, I'm I'm really melding the two. The brain is sloshing around like a whiskey ship.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, right, who is this guy.
**Chris:** So so Stephen King's got an alter ego.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he wrote.
**Adam:** Basically what happened was is that the publishing company that he like was was releasing his books would only let him do one a year.
**Adam:** Because you're flooding the market basically, or you're going to make, you know, you're just sort of overdoing things.
**Chris:** So he was able to write
**Adam:** he was more than prolific he wanted to release more.
**Adam:** It's a bit like when it's almost a bit like when Prince's record like Prince had the dispute with Sony, I think it was where it's like basically they wouldn't let him release even though he'd written like five albums.
**Adam:** You know, they but they wouldn't let him release him because they were like, well, you know, you're just putting out too much prints.
**Chris:** Too much prints.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, so they said said to him.
**Adam:** So basically, he did it for that because he wanted to release books, but also, as he put it, he wanted to see if his success was through talent or luck.
**Adam:** Which again, is one of the most cokey things I've ever heard in my life.
**Adam:** I'll be honest, you know.
**Chris:** I find that really interesting.
**Adam:** Someone. What? I got to see if it's it's luck or or you know, it's it's talent or is it luck? You know, I'm driving myself mad with it.
**Adam:** So he began releasing books as Richard Bachman. The first was or Bachman. the first was Rage, which was released in 1977, which is the same year as he writes The Shining and releases The Shining.
**Adam:** So it's quite early in his career because I mean I think Carrie's like 72 or something like that.
**Adam:** So he'd only written, I think he'd written Carrie, Salem's Lot, maybe something else and then but yeah, he wanted to, he wanted to release this this book Rage.
**Adam:** Which actually has gone out of print. He allowed it to go out of print because it was about school shooting.
**Adam:** And he's like, it's subsequently sort of dropped out of the anthologies and things like that. It's just yeah, he's just let that go out of print.
**Chris:** was was it ever implicated in a school shooting?
**Chris:** Oh, no, no, no, I hadn't I hadn't heard that.
**Adam:** No, I think it was just Stephen King was just basically like, well, you can write about horror, but this was a bit too near the mark. So I'll just let it I'm just going to let it.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, that's fair enough.
**Adam:** Not be.
**Adam:** because by then people and I think by the time that that decision was made, people knew that he was Rich Bachman or Richard Bachman.
**Adam:** I'm going to go with Bachman because apparently it's named after Bachman Turner Overdrive.
**Adam:** The band.
**Adam:** Because that's what Stephen King was listening to when the publishers basically rang up and said, well, what the fuck do you want to call yourself?
**Adam:** And yeah, so he's Richard Bachman.
**Adam:** And yeah, so because so he created a fictional biography. So it's a different and so in the about the author blurb on the books, it's like a completely different life that Richard Bachman has.
**Adam:** he did another four books, in Bachman's lifetime including The Running Man. So and actually The Running Man is is credited as Richard Bachman, not Stephen King.
**Chris:** on the like on on the screen adoption.
**Adam:** and then he then released Thinner in 1984 and a guy who worked in a book shop called Steve Brown noticed that Thinner read a lot like Stephen King.
**Adam:** He just said there was similarities in the style, similarities in the language, whatever.
**Adam:** And so this guy then looked into publisher's records at the library of Congress and found a document that listed Stephen King as the author of one of the Richard Bachman books.
**Adam:** So this guy then rang the publishers and said I've worked this out that Stephen King's Richard Bachman, but I don't know what you want me to do?
**Adam:** I don't think it wasn't like a black, it wasn't like in the film. I don't think like a blackmail thing or something like that.
**Adam:** And then apparently Stephen King phoned him up. Like Stephen King himself phoned this guy this guy up and said to him write an article about it and you can interview me if you want. So he was pretty cool with it, you know.
**Adam:** And and actually at the time Stephen King was working on Misery, which he was going to release as Richard Bachman, but he but obviously it all come out then so it just came out as Stephen King.
**Adam:** after that all came out, King then declared that Bachman had died of cancer of the pseudonym.
**Adam:** But but even better than that, they've also two further Richard Bachman books have been published posthumously in inverted commas. both have been found in his Bachman's personal effects by his equally fictitious wife, Claudia Innis Bachman.
**Adam:** So they're sort of they're releasing them like sort of two pack from the archives of a completely fictional author.
**Adam:** But that's sort of, but you can see how all of this subtly into The Dark Half and you know.
**Lee:** It
**Lee:** I mean it is a fantastic concept.
**Lee:** I've got to say like I didn't dislike the film, you know, I I'm not to. But it's a fantastic concept and I think it was pretty well done.
**Lee:** Yeah. But yeah, as you say, finding out the back story as well was even more intro.
**Lee:** Like I did love the idea of them having the fake funeral so they could do the photo shooting that stuff like it's just all so well thought out.
**Adam:** But also just that eerie thing where it's like they've cut out the the sort of tumor conjoined twin ingested twin rather.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and grown into a person effectively, which.
**Adam:** It's really yeah.
**Adam:** And that was the thing like Adam said there's there's bits of it.
**Adam:** I mean it's like that was the point where Claire Claire just said to me, oh, and this is the film that Adam recommended is the bit where it was like, yeah, beaten to death with his own wooden leg.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean I've got to go back to the effects. I know you mentioned them earlier. That final I say big spoiler. Yeah, the final death scene of Richard was yeah, it looked absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** Like some of the stuff where you see the flocks of birds in the distance looked a bit shonky.
**Chris:** The actual.
**Lee:** But yeah, that bit, which was the close-up, which must have been really hard to do, looked fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It is.
**Lee:** It's grim as well, so gory.
**Adam:** Cuz they used I think they used like 4,000 cutthroat finches like for for the birds in all the various sequences.
**Adam:** But all that stuff in the house is all like digital overlay basically.
**Adam:** And I don't think it looks bad.
**Adam:** I don't think it looks.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** It's a bit like it's a bit like watching Ghostbusters where you're like, actually nothing seems too cranky or clunky in this. You know, nothing seems that dated or anything else like that. It's just yeah.
**Adam:** Also, and if you can track it down, this is one one for Chris. I feel this one.
**Adam:** There is an MS DOS adventure game based on the book on the film.
**Adam:** It was like released as a tie in.
**Adam:** Apparently it is so poorly received, basically no one good word to say about it.
**Adam:** But it was like one of those old clicker games.
**Chris:** I might have to.
**Adam:** But yeah, apparently it's now a collector's item for both gaming fans and Stephen King fans because it just so such a weird little offshoot that's out there.
**Adam:** But also the weirdest part was is George Romero, obviously he did Creepshow like Stephen King wrote Creepshow for.
**Adam:** Like George Romero wrote it, fuck me.
**Adam:** George Romero directed Creepshow, which was a screenplay by Stephen King, it wasn't adapted from his books, it was original screenplay.
**Adam:** But I didn't know this, he's in he's in the film Nightriders, which is George Romero's weird film about people jousting on motorbikes.
**Adam:** like Stephen King's in that.
**Adam:** but also at various points, George Romero was attached to the original mini series of Salem's Lot, the original mini series of It, The Stand and the first adaption of Pet Sematary.
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Adam:** But just circumstances meant that he didn't, you know, he didn't finish like he was involved in the production initially, but he never actually sort of got to the end of the project or directed or anything like that. So this was kind of like the the first time that they actually got to do that like of George Romero adapting King, not like sort of going from his film script as it were.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's yeah, it's a very I'm surprised I haven't heard more about this film.
**Lee:** I mean it's compared to some of the other ones as you say that the fact that none of us have seen it, I I kind of half knew the name but not very well, but it definitely doesn't seem bad enough that it should have been forgotten to the, you know.
**Lee:** I mean, people talk about Sleepwalkers more than they talk about this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then I think that's is that the thing though, is at least Sleepwalkers has that sort of element of, oh no, you got to see this. Whereas actually in fairness, there's not a single person I wouldn't say watch the Dark Half too.
**Lee:** No, no, I agree.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know. I think it's I think it holds its own.
**Adam:** It's it's just yeah.
**Adam:** I think what was it? again, I keep referring to Claire because she was just a very inspirational lady. Well, we're watching this.
**Adam:** And what was it? silly, not stupid.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think that is a good way to with a lot of his stuff actually, that seems to be a good way of looking at it.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's.
**Lee:** It's kind of daft, but it never gets into that. So as you say, the sleepwalker's so mental you've got to see this because it's an insane concept.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And sleepwalker's has tons of cats.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Right, so so so tell me so the bit where he dies at the end, also did remind me a little bit of Fight Club, the fact which, you know, it's all go and he dies.
**Chris:** But so.
**Chris:** So nobody else could see him dying?
**Adam:** I don't know. I mean, well the only two witnesses were the kids. And I just want to say, those kids seem to have a great time.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** I never saw those kids stressed once.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's just it's always heartening to watch that, you know.
**Adam:** So oh no, no one felt the need to scare a fucking like no one felt the need to scare a toddler just for the sake of a for the sake of a film.
**Lee:** Well it's funny you say that about people not seeing because that was my comment was obviously Michael Rooker bursts into the room while his alter ego is still being destroyed and then as the birds fly off and carry away the last of the skeleton.
**Lee:** I literally went good luck explaining that to the Marshall Rooker because there's no way they're going to believe you and they're going to you're going to have to explain where this killer was.
**Lee:** Oh, there it definitely wasn't him. There definitely was a killer, but I watched a flock of birds carry him away.
**Lee:** You like, yeah, good luck with that one. Oh, your mate, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we thought so.
**Lee:** You're going down and all mate. It's But yeah, but then it just cuts. That's the end of the film.
**Lee:** Like, no follow-up, no.
**Adam:** I was so pleased with that though.
**Adam:** Because no, no, cuz that's the point of the film. It's you just want to see, you know, does does the dark half win or not?
**Adam:** And then anything after that, it was like, I don't want to have to watch Michael Rooker trying to explain this like with two guys with a camera going, you know, you you are aware that you're on tape, Sheriff.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Anything you say maybe in evidence. Now, run this bias again.
**Adam:** about a flock of Sparrow.
**Chris:** I suppose that's a good good sequel for two traumatized twins every time they're walking out in the countryside and the birds start tweeting. They go psycho and they have no idea why.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, I mean, I suppose actually, it wouldn't have by the time the inquiry came round Sheriff Pangbones already involved in riots because the devil set up an antique shop.
**Adam:** So I'd imagine that I'd imagine it's like that's one of those things where it's probably got lost in the lost in the paperwork somewhere.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, you you can imagine being the marshal is what's happening in Castle Rock now.
**Lee:** Oh for fuck it's definitely that sheriff. He's at the heart of all of this stuff and it's all nonsense.
**Lee:** None of it makes sense.
**Adam:** I don't mean anything, but every time I see him, he's a different man.
**Lee:** It's just
**Lee:** Oh, yes. So, so we caught up with this one.
**Lee:** on our next episode, we are going to be watching Dreamcatcher. if you thought this film was what the fuck, you wait and see what's coming.
**Adam:** Oh, bet.
**Adam:** I I only know I only know one thing about this film.
**Adam:** And please please also correct me if I'm incorrect here because I might be going into it with a a song in my heart.
**Adam:** But I do understand that the term shit weasel.
**Lee:** Yes, I believe it is.
**Adam:** Right. Okay.
**Adam:** That's fine.
**Lee:** so yeah, that's one to look forward to.
**Chris:** Are we doing Maximum Overdrive after that?
**Lee:** Oh, I am so Stephen King out. I will be after that. I couldn't do a third one.
**Lee:** I'd go nuts.
**Adam:** I think I think Maximum Overdrive should be that's that's distinctly a party episode.
**Adam:** We'll save that for the summer.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Get a load of beer in, watch it and record straight afterwards when we're all off tanked up.
**Lee:** Right, so thanks very much for listening everybody. Go and check out The Dark Half.
**Lee:** Go and check out Dreamcatcher ready for our next episode and we'll see you all in a fortnight.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening. Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** You're just disturbing my peaceful state of mind. Good night.

---

## Bonus Episode - Caretaker with James Hood

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-episode-caretaker-with-james-hood/
Air date: 23 March 2024
Duration: 00:52:46

### Description

Welcome to Horror bring you another filmmaker interview! Lee sits down with James Hood, writer and director of “Caretaker”, the haunting and enigmatic film that won Best Short Film at this year’s Romford Horror Film Festival. Massive thanks to James for his time, and for giving us the opportunity to view “caretaker”, the episode also comes with a brief spoiler free review from the team as well, and we urge you to seek this film out now! Find James at Instagram: james_w_hood Letterboxd: https://boxd.it/ffeD

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening, we've got something very exciting planned.
**Lee:** we have been in touch and had a little chat with James Hood, who made a film called The Caretaker, which showed at Romford Horror Film Festival, which we visited recently and did an episode on.
**Lee:** James his short film Caretaker won best short film at the festival.
**Lee:** and he has been in touch and said, would we like to see it and talk about it?
**Lee:** so we have watched it, we're going to have a little chat, and then after this, there is an interview that I did when James was gracious enough to spend a couple of hours chatting with me online.
**Lee:** and discussing making a a short independent movie as well as getting it out in the festival circuit and everything that's involved, all the stuff that we don't normally see. We normally just see we see it on the big screen and have no concept of how it's got on there. So he kind of talks us all the way through that process.
**Lee:** yeah, so that's very exciting.
**Lee:** So that will be shortly.
**Chris:** And so what what should have happened? We were meant to see it at the festival, weren't we?
**Chris:** Did there was there some change?
**Adam:** No, it was Romford's Romford In fact, thank you to loads of people who have sort of been in contact and been very lovely and reposted about us, because our last episode was about our visit to Romford Film Festival, and the, they reposted the fact that we'd done an episode, but they mentioned the Caretaker in that post, which we hadn't seen.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** I think James thought, right, thought we had James, I think assumes that we were reviewing it in that episode.
**Adam:** So he really rather lovely of him offered to let us see it, because we hadn't seen it when we were at the festival.
**Chris:** And it won best short.
**Lee:** Yes, yes, over the whole four days, four three days.
**Lee:** yeah, so obviously a lot of films in there, there's a lot of competition.
**Adam:** And and best and best film actually was was one of the films that we watched while we were there, wasn't it?
**Adam:** It was
**Lee:** Guess how to kill monsters.
**Adam:** How to kill monsters was one best like feature length film.
**Adam:** So, yeah, so we've seen now we've seen the best of the Romford horror, like the the winners of the best short and best feature length.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's really cool.
**Lee:** It's very cool.
**Lee:** Yeah, so thanks again to James for, for sharing that with us so that we could go and watch it.
**Lee:** it's yeah, it's it's a a strange one to to put out, again, I don't want to reiterate everything that's going to be in the interview.
**Lee:** but yeah, he was saying, obviously, 25 minutes is quite long for a short, especially for one with that very slow pace, very dark.
**Lee:** A lot of the time the shorts are sort of snappy, comedy, you know, more like, collection only and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Yeah, be quite punchy, sort of usually, they're sort of,
**Adam:** but I would say that this needs the length that it is.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it is it is all about slow burn, in a weird way, it was like the it had that sort of I don't know, that sort of weird melancholy of like a Ghost Story for Christmas.
**Lee:** Yes. Like the vibe of that.
**Adam:** It isn't, you know, it doesn't have a sort of overall narrative, it has a a mood to it and it has a sequence to it, but it doesn't have like a narrative in that sort of sense of like a ghost story for Christmas would, but yeah.
**Chris:** But it was Something that really stood out, like the the music and sound design was very powerful with the imagery.
**Chris:** I thought, and like especially the even in the, you know, there were a few shots where it's warm golden sunlight and it still felt quite bleak and it's quite a jux to position.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It definitely it was, and what I really liked about it is it was very bleak, but it was very sort of English bleak.
**Lee:** Yeah, that was one of my takeaways is it's such a British as you say, that was why in my mind while I was watching it, I was like, yeah, this is Ghost story for Christmas, those seventies like the haunted and those type of shows that had that same feel.
**Lee:** That sort of oppressive, and yeah, and the isolation and everything, yeah, it was really drew me in to a very dark place.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and obviously, obviously we don't want to sort of like go over what's in what's in the interview or everything.
**Adam:** But I mean, it's it's basically for want of a better phrase, a study in
**Adam:** you know, what it means to for when people get older and develop dementia.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But in a way that probably surprises you as it goes, you think you know what you're looking at, and then, yeah.
**Adam:** And it's that sort of there it's like not a haunted house, it's a haunted mind.
**Lee:** Yes, yes, that is yeah, that is a very good way of putting it, definitely.
**Adam:** And yeah, I really,
**Adam:** it has to be said though, the tiles in the bathroom were the carpet from the Shining.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And if, you know, if they're original features, that's that's fantastic, you know.
**Chris:** That's really cool.
**Lee:** Yeah, they were I spotted that on the first watch as well. I was like, oh, yeah, that's the, but yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, obviously it was a it was a fairly common design back then, but yeah, it it hasn't really carried through so it feels so retro now as you say, because of the shining, you automatically associate that design with it.
**Lee:** And it is it's funny because it is that same isolation and it it sort of comes from the same place, doesn't it of people's mental state.
**Lee:** So it is actually quite close to the shining as you say, that's quite a strange.
**Lee:** synchronicity.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, no, definitely.
**Adam:** And also in line with our, I think that, I mean, certainly with Romford Horror and obviously when we've been going to Horror and Sea at South End, and a lot of the same sort of filmmakers and everything are all sort of club together.
**Adam:** the mother in Caretaker was also in the haunting of the Lady Jane. She was the the main girl's mother in the Lady Jane.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, I thought she looked vaguely familiar and I couldn't quite place it. Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But again, like I say, there's going to be just like we could do like the Peter Frame Rock family trees for the films we've seen at the festivals of like how it crosses over and who's in what and, you know, that that director's acted in that, and, you know, it's yeah, it's really great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic little community. And again, having Romford as we say, right on our doorstep, but it it it seems to be a good way a good place for all these people to meet and get together. And I'm sure a lot of collaborations and things come out of days like, you know, like weekends like the Romford Film Festival where they're all there and they're all hanging out after the film's are shown and having a drink together and chatting and yeah, it seems quite a melting pot of ideas and yeah, collaborations and yeah, I can't I can't wait to see what comes next.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, but overall the Caretaker definitely worth seeking out.
**Adam:** And yeah,
**Adam:** be prepared, it is,
**Chris:** it's a powerful piece.
**Adam:** Yeah, it will it will leave you affected.
**Adam:** You know, you will not it's it's not one that you're just going to forget about.
**Chris:** Unless you're not very human and, you know.
**Adam:** have have no thoughts about the way the brain works. Yeah, you know.
**Lee:** I would say that sounds like me, but it affected me as well. I was left thinking about it for a few days.
**Lee:** It's yeah, it is a really clever piece. It really niggles and gets at you, doesn't it?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, so well done to to James.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, you said that so you obviously the interview, you said you did it in two parts, Lee?
**Lee:** Yes, yes.
**Lee:** So just to make the listeners aware, when you listen to the interview, we recorded half, then we had some technical issues, and we had to come back to it a few days later.
**Lee:** So you will notice that the sound quality is quite different in the first half to the second half.
**Lee:** but yeah, I mean it it's all it's all good and, yeah, it was a fantastic chat.
**Lee:** yeah, and found out an awful lot.
**Lee:** So that's coming up right now.

---

## Ep 192 Horrhiffic The Romford Horror Film Fest 2024

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-192-horrhiffic-the-romford-horror-film-fest-2024/
Air date: 10 March 2024
Duration: 00:42:33

### Description

Welcome To Horror Episode 192 is a round up of our visit to this year’s Romford Horror Film Festival. We had an excellent time on our first visit to the festival. We got to see two amazing features - “The Pocket Film of Superstitions” and “How To Kill Monsters”, (which went on to win several awards at the festival, including best director and best actress). We give spoiler-free reviews of these features, as well as the shorts “Collection Only” and “Kin”, and talk about the festival as a whole, and some of the lovely people we met there; such as author, actor and podcaster Lauren Jane Barnett, director Tony Mardon and actor Ross Sambridge. This episode is (hopefully) spoiler free, but with (likely) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening to cover the Romford Film Festival Horrific, which we made our first outing to this year.
**Lee:** We were actually organized enough to put it in the fucking diary last year when we missed it, so we finally got there. There will be spoilers but there will be swearing, just to warn you. So, you know.
**Chris:** Was anyone else slightly like, why did we not come here before?
**Lee:** I wanted to.
**Chris:** What was wrong with us?
**Lee:** I wanted to every year, but it's one of those things because I've not been before, I haven't got it in my mind over that happens that end of the year coming up, we need to plan. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so every year it comes up on Instagram, like people who are follow independent filmmakers and people post that they were there, and every year I go, oh, bollocks, we've missed it again. So, yeah, this year, last year, when I missed it, I put it straight in the diary for this year, which is how we managed to be organized enough to get tickets.
**Chris:** Well, I could say, well done.
**Adam:** In fact, you were so organized, Lee, you messaged me a month early.
**Chris:** Yes, that would have been good.
**Chris:** It wouldn't have been quite so enjoyable going to.
**Lee:** so for anyone who's unaware, Romford in London, I think they're now saying Romford is part of London, it's still a London borough of Horing.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** there is an independent cinema there, it used to be an Odeon back in the day.
**Lee:** Like, I saw some classic, like, I saw Terminator 2 there for the first time.
**Lee:** I went on one of my first dates there, like, it was a big part of my childhood.
**Chris:** Oh, that's that's got some big memories.
**Lee:** Oh, it has.
**Lee:** yeah, and basically it stood empty for a lot at least a decade, and then an independent bought it and made it a kind of, they were selling it cheap, it was like a five or a ticket, any screen, any time.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and now because they've got this space and they've got so many screens, they've put all the money they've made back into, so like them seats yesterday were so comfortable, it's crazy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And they've really made a thing of it, and they do like this like cult screenings and loads of stuff. So, it it's it's a fantastic resource right on our doorstep.
**Chris:** So, is it? I've got to say, like, I didn't really rush it to it when it's been mentioned before because it's Romford, so I absolutely did not have the correct expectation for just how fantastic it was.
**Lee:** I was blown away, it was great.
**Lee:** And again, it's got that lovely big foyer area, that's always, like, it's always just been a waste of space effectively.
**Lee:** They've got, obviously they've got the concession stand there, but it's like it's a big foyer that had nothing in it.
**Lee:** but for this, what I mean when it was an Odeon, I don't mean since it was premiere.
**Lee:** Because now they've got a bar area, yeah, and then like stuff like this, they had all their concession stand set all their you know, people selling stuff and celebrity signing shit.
**Lee:** oh, and it was just it was so well laid out and so well planned, everything was I was blown away.
**Lee:** I can't wait for next year.
**Adam:** Talking of celebrity signing shit.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I managed I accidentally caught the eye of a guy behind a stall who I didn't recognize, to be fair.
**Lee:** yeah, and he just kind of.
**Chris:** He looks he looks a bit different. A lot more friendly, I would say.
**Lee:** Yes, seven foot one, he was, but once he stands up, yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, so Ross Sambridge was there, who was, the guy who played the character of, Supreme Leader Snoke.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** and he was also one of the Wookies in Solo.
**Lee:** yeah, and I just kind of caught his eye and he was like, hey, are you a Star Wars fan?
**Lee:** I was like, who isn't a Star Wars fan?
**Lee:** And then it just got chatting to him for 15.
**Lee:** What an amazing guy.
**Lee:** He was so amiable and so lovely.
**Lee:** And yeah, and I got a lovely signed photograph and yeah, got a photograph taken.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was just, oh, it was a lovely day, wasn't it?
**Chris:** It really was, yeah.
**Adam:** I also I also spoke to, Lauren Barnett was down there.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** who I know from, I listen to a thing called the London Horror Movie Club.
**Adam:** which is a podcast and it's her, sometimes it's just her and other times it's her and her brother.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** They, basically they're American, but they talk about.
**Adam:** Specifically horror film set in London.
**Adam:** And you don't quite realize, even though that seems like there's going to be a lot, you don't realize there is a lot.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Of London, literal London based horror films, not British horror films or you know, like specifically London.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, it's really good because you get the sort of perspective of people who didn't grow up in England.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** It's they have a very different, take on it.
**Adam:** And, no, it's a good podcast, but yeah, she was really really nice because I I said to her like, I listened to the podcast.
**Adam:** And yeah, she was she was really cool.
**Adam:** But she was there with a guy called Tony Morden, who she's also an actress.
**Adam:** And she's in something called The Witches of the Sands and the director of that was down there sort of and he's like doing.
**Chris:** That does look great.
**Adam:** Pre-publicity and post-production on that as well.
**Adam:** And yeah, he was really cool.
**Adam:** But they had like a glossy book of, set photographs and sort of like the making of the film and everything else like that.
**Adam:** It looks mental.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, I can never think more that's a very high credit that I tend to give things.
**Adam:** So I really forward to that actually coming out so we get to see it maybe next year, I don't know.
**Lee:** Oh, fingers crossed, that'd be awesome.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I
**Lee:** It isn't a podcast I'd come across before, but Adam came here before we left to go to the film festival and was telling me about it.
**Lee:** And I was like, I'm surprised I've not heard of this podcast, because it sounds great.
**Lee:** yeah, and then meeting Lauren, she was lovely.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** I that is definitely, I had to scroll through today and had look at all the, all the episodes.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're right, there's so much stuff I was like, oh shit, yeah, there's loads of amazing films that I'm a massive fan of, so I cannot wait to binge through that podcast now, that's my task for the week.
**Chris:** I'm assuming we haven't covered them all.
**Adam:** We've covered a number of them.
**Lee:** Have we?
**Adam:** Yeah, there are, there's, I like, I believe, what's there? Death line's in there.
**Chris:** I was going to say that that was the one I was absolutely thinking of.
**Lee:** American Werewolf.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** oh, and also the thing that, because Lee mentioned last episode about Horrors of the Black Museum.
**Adam:** Him and Jennifer have been watching that's another one that's a London set horror film that they talk about.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'll definitely be getting stuck into that tomorrow, first thing tomorrow morning, in the office I will be getting into that.
**Lee:** And hopefully binging through a load of those episodes and getting caught up.
**Lee:** you mentioned, Adam, there's a book that you were hoping to get but you'd sold out.
**Lee:** Which is excellent that she'd sold out.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** of Walks of London.
**Lee:** Which I think.
**Adam:** Yes, it's called Death Lines.
**Adam:** And it was a book that I I'd sort of, so I listened to the podcast and I, was aware of the book.
**Adam:** And then I said to Lee, oh, she's down there promoting and the book will be for sale, so I was going to get it then.
**Adam:** and, so I've ordered it now anyway because it had been on my to-buy list for some time anyway.
**Adam:** And,
**Lee:** But didn't need much pushing, to be fair. When she said I haven't got a copy, I then went straight to the bar and by the time I came back from the bar, he's like, yeah, I've ordered it. He just pulled it up on his phone there and then and was like, yeah, I'm not waiting any longer. I told myself I was going to have this now and I wanted.
**Chris:** That's the way to do it.
**Adam:** And, but yeah, I think it it's, like I say, it's, yeah, it's called Death Lines, Walking London's Horror History, and, you know, it's basically like taking you through the roots of stuff that's.
**Adam:** Because that's the interesting thing is there's a lot of not it's not just London films, but there's the combination of you get locations that become iconic because of the film.
**Adam:** And then there's use of iconic locations in a film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's a a weird sort of thing that you've got like, you know, because obviously it's not.
**Adam:** It's not Hobs End in there isn't a Hobs End in, Quatermass in real life.
**Adam:** But, you know, there there is a Russell Chewb, so you get all these.
**Adam:** Yeah, weird sort of stuff that's legendary but not actually it's an iconic film landmark but not an iconic landmark.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so that's so anyone like us who's kept saying.
**Lee:** I need to pull my finger out, get it in your diary this year and go.
**Lee:** Because it's excellent.
**Lee:** yeah, we had a really good day.
**Lee:** I I still say because I'm a fidgety fucker, I I still think two films is pretty much my limit in a day.
**Lee:** Just because I just start getting too.
**Lee:** I mean, poor Chris and Adam had to put up with me fidgeting the whole way through the film.
**Lee:** I cannot sit still for more than three minutes at a time.
**Lee:** and then I get conscious that I'm fidgeting and I must be annoying other people.
**Chris:** Which probably makes you fidget a bit more.
**Lee:** Exactly, makes you even more uncomfortable.
**Lee:** but to be but those seats, as I say, in that cinema were they were all lovely and they reclined back, but then they don't from so you don't then le person behind you.
**Chris:** And and they got an extra little tilt mechanism in the seat part, so yeah, it's good.
**Adam:** Can I just say, the first time that I lent back and that happened?
**Adam:** I thought I'd broken the seat, didn't want to make a fuss and then tried to sit suspended.
**Chris:** Like, so, I don't look like I've just busted the seat.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was excellent.
**Lee:** And they had.
**Chris:** That was probably good for your posture.
**Lee:** And they had a really good, really good and reasonably priced bar.
**Lee:** They had local beers.
**Chris:** Yeah, it was.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Special cocktails for the day.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** It was great, it had everything.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely go.
**Lee:** shall we crack into the stuff that we watched yesterday then?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Excellent. Right, if we go through in the order in which we saw them.
**Lee:** so the first thing we saw was we saw a short called Collection Only.
**Lee:** which is written by Alan Reese Morgan.
**Adam:** who directed it as well, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I pissed myself the whole way through.
**Chris:** It was it was that was great, it hit the mark, really.
**Adam:** Just just an unusual encounter when someone goes to pick up a chair on Gumtree.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** A very dark little hilarious tale was told.
**Lee:** It was great, it just it did it was what, 10 minutes long, maybe.
**Lee:** And it just had everything, it had over the top gore, it had some really chilling moments, it was absolutely hilarious.
**Chris:** A sweet little evil elderly lady who who made who made some lovely looking tea.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** And again, that just set me up as well because that was the thing, as soon as we saw that, I was like, right, I know what we're in for, we're in for some quality stuff today.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And I just had a great time in there.
**Lee:** And again, I'd forgotten that there were shorts, so when it started playing, I thought it was the film and then I very quickly realized that it wasn't and it was the the short.
**Adam:** Yeah, I wasn't sure at first for a second.
**Lee:** But yeah, what a lovely little surprise that was, yeah, that really really raised my spirits.
**Chris:** I I do always think, you know, we'll talk about the other short as well, but it's like it's an interesting skill being able to create something that does draw you in and does, you know, give you enough substance.
**Chris:** That it's like, it's it's got to be an interesting, you know, thing to try and make a short and get enough in there, and yeah, that certainly managed that.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was.
**Lee:** It was just very self-contained, like it didn't leave any loose ends.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it just it it made me smile and made me cringe, and I think at one point I did literally go, oh, fuck.
**Lee:** Because it was just disgusting.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I loved it, it was great.
**Lee:** so that was the short before, The Pocket Film of Superstitions.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** so who would like to kick off on this one?
**Adam:** What.
**Adam:** If if I may.
**Adam:** Basically, so to to describe it, it's a, basically like a a almost like an old-fashioned documentary real about various superstitions.
**Lee:** It felt and looked like Haxan.
**Adam:** Exactly, it's like but it's yeah, it looks like thirties silent cinema like German Expressionism of yeah, you know, et cetera.
**Adam:** It.
**Adam:** And, yeah, with a lovely narration.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** just humorously listing, superstitions, where they come from.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** you know, the weird sort of ways you can dispel them or things that mean curses and, you know.
**Adam:** And, yeah, I thought it was really good.
**Adam:** What it reminded me of, and this is a very obscure reference, so I apologize, but you, this might find one person, I don't know.
**Adam:** But it had that thing of there's a comic in in the 2000 AD, there's a comic strip called Phenomenax.
**Adam:** And it's basically like they tell you things like it'll be, you know, the life of Alistair Crowley in five issues, like in five parts or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But they're drawn like really great little humorous cartoon sort of figures.
**Adam:** And, you know, sort of filled with jokes and things like that.
**Adam:** But it is like, it's genuinely what they're telling you.
**Adam:** What they're telling you the story, but in a humorous way and, you know, really just.
**Adam:** Having fun with it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that's kind of what that was, I think.
**Adam:** It's, yeah.
**Adam:** I was I think it was one of those things where you're like, I don't know if this is going to sustain.
**Chris:** Well, that's it.
**Chris:** You realize what's happening.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then.
**Chris:** They clearly thought of that and it progressed, it did build up and and it did get extra depth.
**Chris:** And and and what, there was certainly a few slightly shocking moments, which like, okay, you've changed the the feel of this enough.
**Chris:** That you you've suddenly taken me out of of what I was getting used to.
**Chris:** In a way that balanced well, I would say, it wasn't you know, it wasn't.
**Adam:** The playfulness drops at certain points.
**Chris:** And then it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, oh, okay.
**Chris:** But then drawn back in again to that wonderful narration of, yeah, such a great blend of humor.
**Chris:** And and eloquence and yeah, like.
**Chris:** Just great.
**Chris:** I almost there were points where I was thinking, oh, I could almost show this to my children.
**Chris:** And then there was points I was like, no, no, definitely not, no.
**Chris:** I'll skip that bit.
**Chris:** But, you know.
**Chris:** It it it was, it was such a charming, you know, walk through all of the the sort of most well-known superstitions and a few less known ones.
**Lee:** It was.
**Lee:** It was great and the cast as well.
**Lee:** Like, it's all people who we have seen in other indie stuff, so, you know, Danny Thompson was in it.
**Lee:** Sai Hentee was in it,
**Lee:** oh, Pablo was in it from The Snarling.
**Adam:** Yeah, the director, oh God, what is it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Rob.
**Lee:** Rybold.
**Adam:** Andrew Elias was actually there, who was in, Casting Kill, you know, the.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he he was he was actually there.
**Adam:** I saw on Instagram earlier.
**Adam:** which is really annoying because we'd I'd have said hello.
**Lee:** I was going to say, yeah, if we'd known.
**Adam:** but yeah, no, so friend of the show, Andrew Elias.
**Adam:** I don't think I'll speaking out of turn there.
**Lee:** And there you go.
**Lee:** Raise a drink to you.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, yeah, but also you've got, you had like Caroline, Caroline Monroe.
**Adam:** Lynn Lowry, Paula Pit, it's like, you know, you've got these, like more well-known names in there as well.
**Adam:** Like from sort of the horror history and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And the narration, the guy who did the narration, is a guy called The Shend, who I think was there.
**Adam:** And he's like, he's like this weirdly, I don't know much about him, it's just a name I've heard a lot, and yeah, he's just in he's just in the credits of lots of TV shows.
**Adam:** I think because he is a he's a big physically imposing tall man and so like he's in Knowing Me, Knowing You and Red Dwarf and sort of Twitchwood and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's a name that I'd seen.
**Adam:** But yeah, so he sort of tends to play these sort of like background like heavy, you know, sort of like sort of,
**Adam:** Barbarians and sort of things like that, but then you actually he you know, he's got a beautiful voice.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And I don't know if that's why he's a legend, I don't know, but he's yeah, his narration of this was absolutely fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah, really was.
**Lee:** Yeah, I again.
**Lee:** I had the same feeling as you guys, like we wanted so the the the later film was the one that we'd gone to see primarily.
**Lee:** But we said, oh, this looks like it could be interesting, but equally, I had a hit and miss feeling about it because I didn't know if the concept could sustain for a whole.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, as you say, it just had enough going on and enough like changes of tempo.
**Lee:** yeah, and I just I just I love the look and feel of it.
**Lee:** I just.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** So well polished.
**Lee:** So good.
**Adam:** Because it was weirdly enough, I think there was in in my head when I just sort of like read about it and didn't I think I kind of thought it was.
**Adam:** It was kind of an anthology film, but in the more specific sense of like separate stories that are kind of.
**Adam:** The linking thing.
**Adam:** But yeah, actually just as a sort of a a series of sort of takes on these little sort of, ideas and stuff, made it kind of more like a documentary.
**Adam:** Like you were watching an old educational newsreel or something like that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But also done in that sort of brilliant,
**Adam:** Oh, and yes, this is the weird bit.
**Adam:** the director of that is a guy called Thomas Lee Rutter.
**Adam:** Who I looked up.
**Adam:** he's in, The Haunting of the Lady Jane, he's one of the blokes on the, you know, there's the the boat that follows them with.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, with the weird.
**Chris:** With the weird.
**Lee:** Boat.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's one of them.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** But only in the context of that film.
**Adam:** I haste to add.
**Lee:** Yes, no, I said.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, that's excellent.
**Lee:** See.
**Lee:** That's what I love about this, and I do wonder if it's because of this, this, a horror festival scene that we kind of have around here with this and with Southend.
**Lee:** Yeah, where you do get people in each other's films.
**Lee:** So somebody will be an actor in something and then direct and write something and people.
**Lee:** One of the guys who we always see at, Southend, I do follow him on Instagram, I can't remember his name at the moment.
**Lee:** Yeah, he was actually in the film that we watched yesterday, he was in the pocket film.
**Adam:** Johnny Vivash.
**Lee:** Possibly.
**Lee:** yeah, I say, I've seen him walking around and I've always said hello to him and he's got a really interesting Instagram.
**Lee:** But yeah, then he was one of the people in the Saance scene, sitting around the table.
**Adam:** Oh, right, okay.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, I can't quite remember his name at the moment.
**Lee:** but yeah, I say, I've just always seen him as one of the people at the festival who's always there and always says hello, but I don't really.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's great how they all come together in different ways.
**Lee:** It was probably just on the piss with them all at some point.
**Lee:** And said, oh, I'd love to be one of these films, and I went, oh yeah, we'll put you as an extra in a thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's.
**Lee:** It's lovely, it's really good.
**Lee:** I could be wrong, he could be an actor, I'm not saying he couldn't act, I'm just saying, I've only ever seen him hanging around.
**Lee:** So, sorry if that, if, you know.
**Lee:** Oh, I've caused trouble now, haven't I, unintentionally.
**Adam:** Dive, dive, dive.
**Lee:** But that's the thing, like there's so many of these independent films, that it's easy to not recognize people because.
**Lee:** There's so many of them out there, as much as I'd love to, you just can't get your they're hard because of the distribution to get hold of a lot of this stuff.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** I mean, look at last year, so Horror-on-Sea obviously, they'd done The Snarling and then last year they did The Last Twitch, which I didn't make it to.
**Lee:** and that hasn't been released.
**Lee:** There's been no date on it and nowhere I can find, I've been trying to get hold of that film now for over a year.
**Lee:** And it's just still not out there, so there's so many of these films that are out there, that even if you're searching for them, you just can't find them.
**Lee:** It said, yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Just a thought.
**Adam:** No, it is, it's in a way, it's really annoying that you're actually haven't you feel like you've gone back to the olden days, the very olden days, you know, where it's like, well, if it was on the telly once, you might have seen it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And once it's gone, it's gone.
**Lee:** The amount of stuff that we've that, you know, when we've gone to Horror-on-Sea that's been on days that we've not gone to, and I've said, I definitely need to check that out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I've just never managed to track it down or it comes out on limited release of like 200 DVDs, and if you've missed that window, like it's gone and you just don't get to pick this stuff up.
**Lee:** But again, it is nice to have that to have that rarity and that collector's thing, like I've got a few DVDs in my collection, that I've bought literally just because they've been on a release of 150 copies or whatever.
**Lee:** And then it's it's once it's gone, it's gone and they don't do them again, and it's lovely in a, you know, in in the YouTube era to have something that still feels rare and hard to get hold of.
**Lee:** But.
**Chris:** Sure.
**Lee:** But that's because I'm.
**Adam:** But it's worrying when that rare that rare and difficult to get hold of thing is 28 Days Later.
**Lee:** Heh.
**Lee:** Heh heh heh.
**Adam:** Just.
**Adam:** Fucking mental.
**Adam:** At that point, you're like, yeah, probably no one's seen these things if that can apparently slip through the fucking net.
**Lee:** Heh heh heh.
**Lee:** yes, sorry, I took us off on a tangent there.
**Lee:** as you can tell, I am still drinking from yesterday.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** so, yes, so the next film that we caught up with again had a short before it.
**Lee:** so we saw the short Kin.
**Adam:** James Waterhouse was the director for that, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, which was a snippet of a it was it was a snippet.
**Chris:** Pretty badass woman.
**Adam:** Of a of a, it was it was a snippet of a badass woman in a on a bad day.
**Adam:** In a bad time.
**Chris:** It was.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Sort of, I don't know, you know, it was.
**Chris:** Arguably, arguably could could quite possibly happen, you know, the way we're heading.
**Adam:** Oh, mate.
**Adam:** It yeah, it sort of it unknown civilians now just feels like, oh, probably that.
**Lee:** Heh heh heh heh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, it did, it felt more of a show reel to me.
**Lee:** Possibly than a short because there was, as you say, like there was no real context for a lot of it, and it just felt but but as you say, it was that just dropped in for a snippet, it was unexplained post-apocalyptic.
**Lee:** You didn't quite know what was going there was a woman on her own with a child, there was some kind of a compound which she'd snuck into to try and steal some canned food.
**Lee:** and then she just proceeded to beat the shit out of a load of people who were trying to stop her from stealing that food.
**Lee:** It was beautifully shot.
**Lee:** It looked.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was just.
**Lee:** It looked fantastic but it just on its own, I felt a bit, what, I'm sure I should have checked before before we came on, but
**Adam:** I should have I should have checked before before we came on, but
**Adam:** I did see I'm sure I saw in the credits that I think it was like the fight choreographers were the actors in it.
**Adam:** So I.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I wonder if it was like it was almost like a show reel of their.
**Chris:** To be fair, if if I wanted some action like that, I'd probably be contacting them.
**Lee:** It looked incredible, didn't it?
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** It was just.
**Lee:** Like, and it was people being smashed through walls, and it just looked like it looked like a like a, you know, like, an Avengers style budget.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Didn't it?
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** Nothing about it looked cheap or shotty, it looked fantastic, the choreography was amazing.
**Adam:** The choreography was like the rave, you know, it was just really.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was just really intense, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It did.
**Lee:** It looked fantastic.
**Lee:** I say, it just as a standalone short, it just it didn't it didn't kind of have enough of a carry through of the story, it was just a very small short, but what we saw was absolutely phenomenal.
**Lee:** It was intense and powerful and yeah, it looked brutal.
**Lee:** Didn't like the fights like it looked so what I loved was the sound, it didn't have when there was punches and kicks, it didn't have that overblown sound, very unrealistic.
**Lee:** It sounded like.
**Chris:** That is it, right?
**Chris:** I mean, I haven't.
**Chris:** Been to a huge amount of independent film festivals, but the production does seem to be, you know, impressive in the ones I've seen.
**Chris:** So either.
**Chris:** Either you've both picked, you know, especially well or yeah, it's it's really fantastic how well they can produce these.
**Lee:** I think that's the thing.
**Lee:** I think in the now people can buy stuff.
**Lee:** So if you've got a talent.
**Lee:** And I think that's the thing, with company, you know, with, stuff like this, so like Romford and to go back to to the Southend one as well, Horror-on-Sea.
**Lee:** I'm guessing they get an awful lot of people put stuff in and they get to choose the stuff.
**Chris:** Okay, well, yeah.
**Lee:** And and and that's the way it should be, you know, like you pick the stuff that's got real talent and really shines through and and and looks looks like what you want, really.
**Lee:** You know, you want to people are paying ticket prices, they want to be impressed.
**Lee:** So you kind of pick the cream and leave everything behind.
**Lee:** but yeah, I I think it's a it's a great time at the moment that people can, you know, you can buy a camera for a few hundred quid.
**Lee:** And if you got the talent and the know-how, you can make something look exception.
**Adam:** And do it yourself.
**Lee:** Or you could do on your own.
**Lee:** That is why.
**Adam:** That is why I will not make my masterpiece.
**Lee:** Because your iPhone has only got so many gigs.
**Lee:** And you've got to save some for your WhatsApp and your.
**Adam:** Yeah, kind of.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Number of gifts I've got saved in there, not in the cloud, mate, in there.
**Lee:** Heh.
**Adam:** Burning.
**Adam:** Burning circuits.
**Lee:** Yes, so our final feature length.
**Lee:** So, our second feature length of yesterday, we saw How to Kill Monsters.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yes.
**Lee:** I so I.
**Lee:** Sort of had a flick through of films and I recognized Lindsey Crain.
**Lee:** Who we'd seen previously in Eating Miss Campbell.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I thought, oh, we've seen her in something, she was pretty good.
**Lee:** And I watched the trailer for this and immediately I was like, right, we're going on Saturday.
**Lee:** Because I need to go and see that on a big screen with a crowd, it looks like it's going to be it looks like it's going to be funny and an all-out gorefest.
**Chris:** So I didn't watch the trailer, I didn't know what to expect, I didn't really know anything about it, at this point, I was like, well, so far, you guys have have done a fantastic job.
**Chris:** So I did have I did have reasonably high expectations and glad to say it it achieved all of them and possibly went over and above.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** so the director's Stewart Spark.
**Adam:** Now.
**Adam:** Have you seen that he's also done he's done a film before this with.
**Adam:** a number of the same cast called Book of Book of Monsters.
**Adam:** I don't know if that had come across.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** If you'd you'd come across that, Lee.
**Adam:** Because I, you know, just because he's as far as I'm aware, that's like that's out and.
**Adam:** Viewable, you know, somewhere.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, the cover definitely looks, yeah, I've seen the cover somewhere, but I haven't seen the film.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Yeah, having seen this now, I will 100% be trying to track a copy of that down, I think.
**Adam:** Yeah, as as I say, it's got pretty much the same.
**Adam:** Not the same, sorry, it's got a lot of the same cast members in it.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Chris:** Now the the comedy style of this did remind me of The Snarling, it was it was just done just right, mixing the the drama.
**Chris:** The slightly weirdness, a little bit awkward sometimes.
**Chris:** And yeah, just a great, great, great range of cast playing off each other.
**Adam:** It's that it's that lovely thing of the weird button against the mundane.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But like the very mundane, you know, so much.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but just very quickly though.
**Lee:** Mentioning the trailer.
**Lee:** You saying you didn't watch the trailer.
**Lee:** What I particularly liked, if I'm remembering correctly, the trailer sets the film up to just be that opening part in the cabin.
**Lee:** So everything comes afterwards.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Lee:** You might see in flashes, but it sets it up as if it's a whole story in that cabin.
**Lee:** And without giving spoilers, which I've just accidentally done.
**Chris:** It.
**Chris:** Turns out.
**Lee:** That is only the opening of how it all kicks off, and then it goes fucking mental from there.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** So, so I really liked that, like the fact that the trailer kind of tricks you into thinking it's something it isn't.
**Chris:** Disguise it.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Definitely have a nice twist.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it was.
**Adam:** And, like you said, like with it has that same sort of thing.
**Adam:** So, it's, a girl is led from a cabin.
**Adam:** Covered in blood by the police, there's four bodies there, she's clearly the suspect and is taken to the police station to ask about it.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** She tells the story of how into the, you know, monsters from another dimension were involved.
**Chris:** And they absolutely have self-awareness about what they're doing with this.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's clearly an an in joke if you've.
**Chris:** Appreciate any other horror even close to this.
**Adam:** It has, yeah, it it's definitely.
**Adam:** It knows that it's it knows it's daft and it's but it's quite happy to deal with that and but also.
**Chris:** Do it effectively with a chain saw.
**Adam:** But I don't find anything within the scenes moving away from that, you know, it's like the sort of,
**Chris:** You still get to enjoy all of that, the original horror aspect with the extra layer added.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I was I was quite excited, Lee got a Lee got a poke in the ribs and me excitedly going.
**Adam:** It's, it's Nicholas Vince, it's Nicholas Vince, Nicholas Vince.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Nicholas Vince, Chara.
**Adam:** Hilla.
**Adam:** Hellraiser.
**Chris:** I got I got to say his role in this was was top top quality.
**Lee:** Again, just subverting expectation and going the way you wouldn't expect for that character to in such a brilliant and hilarious way.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah, which everybody in this did, like I I really liked everything, I liked.
**Chris:** Some several times.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just thought all the characters were great.
**Lee:** They all worked perfectly well together, all the actors were on the same page.
**Lee:** It looked great, it sounded really good.
**Lee:** yeah, it was it was ridiculous in the right places, but it still had a really suspenseful feeling to it.
**Lee:** yeah, I I had an absolute blast watching this.
**Lee:** And I was gutted when it ended.
**Lee:** Heh.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Heh heh heh.
**Adam:** And it has I mean it and it does sort of.
**Adam:** It does have its share of surprises and sort of it's not just straight ahead.
**Lee:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I mean it looks.
**Adam:** It looked.
**Adam:** Amazing, it had Tony from Dinner Ladies in it, that's that's always a good sign.
**Lee:** Heh heh heh heh.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's great.
**Lee:** I was saying, I think Lindsey Crain is going to be one to watch, this is the second film I've seen with her in.
**Lee:** and yeah, both of them are fantastic and exactly my cup of tea, especially the type of film like this to watch at a film festival.
**Lee:** With a load of people and you've all been drinking all day.
**Lee:** And everyone's in that party mood.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean, I'd gladly watch this again at home, I definitely will be watching this again at home when I get hold of it.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's a great film to watch with a crowd.
**Lee:** And everyone was laughing and everyone was just having.
**Lee:** A a while of a time, it was such a a fun movie, it it's perfect for a festival like this, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah, really is.
**Lee:** We've all gone.
**Lee:** Very quiet.
**Lee:** For a while.
**Adam:** I was actually.
**Adam:** Because I could still see you moving.
**Adam:** So I was like, as as my microphone gone.
**Lee:** I thought I just stopped talking because I've been waffling for quite a while.
**Adam:** We were.
**Adam:** No, I think we've, no, I'm going to put that, that's not dead here.
**Adam:** That is the stun silence of how much fun we had.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I'm.
**Lee:** I'm leaving this in.
**Lee:** I can even hear Claire laughing.
**Lee:** I can even hear Claire laughing in the background.
**Lee:** Heh heh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fuck it.
**Lee:** I'm leaving that.
**Adam:** This this poor woman, poor woman, she had she had to she had to put up with me, around the countryside.
**Lee:** Heh heh heh heh heh. Romford is the countryside now, is that where we going?
**Lee:** We've said it's.
**Lee:** London, we can't.
**Unknown:** That's syllables, right?
**Lee:** Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
**Adam:** On that beautiful note.
**Lee:** Heh heh heh.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** So, go and check out, How to Kill Monsters.
**Lee:** Go and check out, The Pocket Book of a Pocket Book of Superstition.
**Adam:** Pocket film of Superstitions.
**Lee:** Pocket film.
**Lee:** I keep calling it book, I'm terrible.
**Adam:** It's because it is, it should be in. I love even that concept that it's like, well you just take the little real and put it in your pocket, put it in your pocket. It's just that that's that that just appealed to me.
**Adam:** It was just so.
**Adam:** Yeah, just brilliant.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was, it was lovely.
**Lee:** So, it was a lovely day and it was really good and we had a really good laugh.
**Lee:** So, yeah, go and check it out next year, people, check out the films we saw.
**Lee:** there's so much stuff on there as well that now I I've seen the stuff that we saw.
**Lee:** Now I'm gutted for the stuff we missed, so I'm going to be again.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Like I say, some of it's going to be hard to find because it seems independent.
**Lee:** It takes a little while to come out sometimes, but
**Adam:** Also.
**Adam:** Also, I forgot to mention.
**Adam:** I in the, like in the program, like, they do classic films as well during the day.
**Lee:** Yeah, I saw that.
**Lee:** I didn't realize that until now, but yeah.
**Lee:** They got great.
**Lee:** Oh God, they showed Turbo Kid and we missed it.
**Adam:** They showed the fucking Medusa Touch.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** I need to see that.
**Adam:** I need to see that on the big screen.
**Lee:** Heh.
**Lee:** See.
**Lee:** This is what I love about independent cinemas like that, like I'd love to.
**Lee:** so I don't know, I thought when they when it first reopened, that was one of my first thoughts is, if we could get an equivalent of the Prince Charles in Romford, that'd be awesome.
**Lee:** Where they do like all nighters and they do regular classic showings.
**Lee:** So, yeah, like, you know, like the Breakfast clubs they do and stuff where they show it regularly and do like an early Sunday film and the hangover club and all that stuff.
**Lee:** So, yeah, fingers crossed, but yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Go and check out, premiere cinema at Romford, it's a great place to go and watch all your films anyway.
**Lee:** If you're in the area over any of the other cinemas, I'm going to go on record and say that, because it's whenever I get a chance, if I'm going to the cinema.
**Lee:** Which I don't do very often.
**Lee:** That is the place I'll go.
**Lee:** Yeah, and they'll get not to the point that we can't get tickets.
**Chris:** Not to the point that we can't get tickets.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, no.
**Lee:** Don't fucking fill the place out, so we don't get in.
**Lee:** Pricks.
**Lee:** But, but if you're not a prick, and you're not too many people, then come.
**Lee:** It'd be lovely.
**Lee:** Heh heh.
**Unknown:** You're not too many people.
**Lee:** Heh heh heh.
**Lee:** You know.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Lee:** That's all right.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** So, yeah, I I'd love to get to a point where it's like that like the Prince Charles where they do kind of, you know, like, you know, like the breakfast clubs they do and stuff where they show it.
**Lee:** Regularly and do like an early Sunday film and the hangover club and all that stuff.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Fingers crossed, but yeah.
**Lee:** Go and check out, Premier Cinema Romford, it's a great place to go and watch all your films anyway.
**Lee:** If you're in the area over any of the other cinemas, I'm going to go on record and say that, because it's whenever I get a chance, if I'm going to the cinema.
**Lee:** Which I don't do very often.
**Lee:** That is the place I'll go.
**Lee:** Yeah, and they'll be there for next year for the horror show.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right, thanks ever.
**Lee:** So much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 191 Bampire - Interview with Zoe & Malachite

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-191-bampire-interview-with-zoe-malachite/
Air date: 4 March 2024
Duration: 01:14:36

### Description

The BAMPIRE Interview Bit of a change this episode; Lee and Adam chat with filmmakers Zoe Wassman and Malachite Saaquya about their movie “Bampire”, which they are in the process of crowdfunding. Bampire is a 90s-set horror comedy, introducing a brand new element to vampire lore - vampires who morph into deer! Combining live action with practical effects and animation - it’s described as “Evil Dead 2” meets “Roger Rabbit”. It has a cast including genre stalwart Diane Franklin, “The Room”’s Greg Sestero and the legendary “Lloyd Kaufman”; animation from Josh Stifter; visual effects by the award winning Trysta Kelley; and Taylor Morden in the director’s chair. Having completed filming, the guys are now looking to raise the funds required for post production. As you will hear, Zoe and Malakhai’s passion and love for this project is infectious, they really want to get this out there, and from what we’ve seen of the amazing footage they have, so do we!Have a listen, and go to bampiremovie.com which will take you straight to their Indiegogo page, there you’ll see a teaser and find out exactly what you can do to help this movie get out there, and pick up some lovely merch too! Support independent film.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here this evening for something really different and really exciting.
**Lee:** we heard about a new movie coming out and we've been contacted by the makers, both writers we have here with us this evening.
**Lee:** so that's Malachite Zakaya, is that correct? Awesome. And Zoe Wasserman.
**Lee:** Welcome guys, how are you doing?
**Malachite:** Oh, so good. Thank you for having us.
**Zoe:** Yeah, very excited. We're excited to talk about our project. I mean, it's all we think about.
**Lee:** We I think that's the thing with independent movies, like it must
**Lee:** I I've never been a part, but where you have so much to do, it it must be hugely time consuming, yeah, and you must have to fill so many different roles to to get through a project like this.
**Zoe:** Oh yeah.
**Zoe:** And we had very few people to fill those roles, so for every one person we had, they did four to five jobs.
**Zoe:** And that's just, you know, where we're at in the industry.
**Zoe:** fulfilling those roles is very expensive, it's very time consuming and when it's not what someone is doing on a professional level at that point in their lives, it's also hard to make that kind of time.
**Zoe:** So every single person actually went out of their way, took PTO, just really committed and gave us everything that they had to spare for the entire year and a half that we were in pre-production and production.
**Zoe:** and it's crazy, like you said, with the timeline, we were in pre-production for
**Zoe:** a year and three months and we filmed the movie in three weeks.
**Zoe:** So you prepped for this long.
**Malachite:** And then it is crunch time.
**Malachite:** And you just gotta nail it.
**Malachite:** It's kind of this thing where like if you are an independent filmmaker and you have even an idea for a movie you want to make, it starts out on that level of almost like a dream or like a like a huge goal, but you don't know what steps to take to get to it.
**Malachite:** Because you don't have all these resources available and so you even with the curating a script that you feel like is possible to achieve on a lower budget or without that Hollywood support.
**Malachite:** from there through you're sort of just building this like, okay, I don't know how I'm going to get this to happen, but the story's in my head.
**Malachite:** I'm passionate enough about it and so finding like, oh, what can I tweak or what pieces fit and and I can build around those, I can build my script around maybe like a location that I know we have in town, or just all that sort of a thing.
**Malachite:** It becomes this very like ethereal dream building process for those first steps because it's like you're asking for something that you just don't have.
**Malachite:** You don't have the help from the actors, you don't have a crew, you know you can't really pay them, at least not up front.
**Malachite:** And so you go around just trying to pull on strings and and find like a almost it's like the world has to start working with you a little bit and and give you.
**Malachite:** offer up on a plate like, oh this is your here's your gaffer, you just You met him like in line at a at a coffee shop.
**Zoe:** Today.
**Malachite:** But now you can make your film.
**Zoe:** Yeah, exactly, like we actually met a group of people who moved to Oregon.
**Zoe:** a handful of weeks before production. I mean, we did not know them from Adam nor Eve before they made it, you know, to Eugene kind of a thing.
**Zoe:** and they reached out to Malachi because they saw some of his acting and they were really impressed.
**Zoe:** He's actually one of the actors in the movie as well, he plays one of our lead roles.
**Zoe:** and one of those people actually helped us build one of our most insane sets.
**Zoe:** He actually constructed a fully movable, so like it's built of a ton of unique individual pieces that all can refit together and it's a cave.
**Zoe:** So it's like a a cave that is now like built inside of a studio and it was one of our most important sets.
**Zoe:** The hardest to find, the hardest to do practically because you're literally underground with a bunch of lighting equipment.
**Zoe:** And blood that you're spraying everywhere.
**Zoe:** No way.
**Zoe:** Like who's going to let you do that?
**Zoe:** so this was like, we have no idea how to do this, we have no one in our lives who builds caves for a living.
**Zoe:** and then we meet this guy a handful of weeks before production and he's like, of course, yeah, sure, let me at it.
**Zoe:** we didn't know if he could actually build a cave from scratch, but we trusted him.
**Zoe:** He seemed confident.
**Zoe:** And he just set off and really created just a magnificent set.
**Zoe:** I mean, I was stunned when I saw the results.
**Zoe:** So
**Zoe:** Thank you, Michael Rucker.
**Malachite:** He ended up saving us about $11,000 on what it would have costed to like order a pre-made cave set in a like professional filmmaking sort of sense.
**Malachite:** and instead he made it cut it all out of foam and like painted it himself.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** Yeah, because I was going to say we've skipped so far.
**Lee:** We haven't actually mentioned what the film is.
**Adam:** Oh, sorry.
**Lee:** That was my fault.
**Malachite:** We get a little excited.
**Malachite:** No, but our film is called Bampire and it is a amalgamation of if you imagine Bampi and Vampire brought together.
**Malachite:** Basically the concept, so we live in Eugene, Oregon, on the West Coast of the US and there's a ton of deer around here, just everywhere.
**Malachite:** we have like lots of wildlife and lots of forests.
**Malachite:** But the deer will just pop up in the road, almost like every other day.
**Malachite:** You'll see a deer and sometimes they'll just stare you down.
**Malachite:** Like you know, honestly the most intimidating way of like, no hit me, I dare you.
**Malachite:** And so we came up with this concept of like, well,
**Malachite:** what if vampires are shapeshifters that can turn into bats, fanged bats, but also, what if they could turn into fanged deer?
**Malachite:** and they're there is truly a species of deer that have fangs rather than horns.
**Malachite:** They're called musk deer.
**Malachite:** Crazy and so we realized all these are real, let's write a whole script around them.
**Malachite:** but they live traditionally in like China and Russia and not over here in in Oregon, so we wrote this concept of like, okay,
**Malachite:** what if they had discovered evidence of musk deer in this area and they go out to try a community group of community college students.
**Malachite:** Driven by their over enthusiastic biology teacher, they all go out into the woods just to try and explore these like cave paintings that have been found of musk deer.
**Zoe:** But that's not what happens.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** I mean great concept as soon as I saw the trailer, what I loved about the trailer is that it doesn't give too much away.
**Lee:** we were discussing just before we before you guys joined us.
**Lee:** We were saying how much we love the trailer, it looks incredible, it looks absolutely fantastic.
**Lee:** And again, it's that it leaves enough ambiguity for you to be like it it draws you in but doesn't just give you the money shots of the film in the first five minutes and then just you know.
**Lee:** When you watch it, you know, there's nothing worse than a a trailer, which is ultimately just the best scenes of the film.
**Lee:** And then you just watch the trailer with extra bits in that drives us nuts.
**Zoe:** Me too. I don't watch trailers anymore for that reason.
**Malachite:** And it's it's been a hard thing to balance because we captured such cool pretty effect, like gore effects and we have like some practical creature transformations in the film.
**Malachite:** that we want to show so badly.
**Malachite:** Like it's it's one of the things we're most excited about.
**Malachite:** We're huge horror fans and we set out just trying to find like all of the the.
**Malachite:** best way to elevate some of these practical effects and so now that we've achieved them.
**Malachite:** It's like, of course we want to show you guys our monster in full makeup and then.
**Malachite:** But then you'll know who it is.
**Zoe:** And then.
**Malachite:** It's yeah, we've been really careful.
**Adam:** It's that horrible balance, isn't it?
**Adam:** Where it's like when when you're so especially because, I mean that's the great thing is we with a lot of independent films you're so excited about it and you're so into it that it's like, no, we want to show you.
**Adam:** No, seriously, we want to show you this bit.
**Adam:** And then but it's like, no, I've got to back off here.
**Adam:** Because like you say.
**Adam:** You you can't just you can't just sort of like just immediately give everything away and sort of you know, it's got to be there, so it's the part, because that I mean, I've always thought that's the thing when you watch sort of.
**Adam:** like American Werewolf, they won't go too, they didn't go too detailed into what is the bit that everyone talks about when they've seen the film.
**Adam:** And it's trusting to that sort of thing of, no, when they see this.
**Adam:** They are going to be blown away.
**Zoe:** And.
**Malachite:** Yeah.
**Zoe:** American Werewolf in London was one of our like initial dreams.
**Zoe:** Like we're like, if we could have a transformation sequence that is even an echo.
**Zoe:** of this greatness.
**Zoe:** Then we have, you know, we'll have something to talk about.
**Zoe:** And our director, Taylor Mordon, he was on board with that vision from the get go.
**Zoe:** I mean, our group love of the 80s and the 90s nostalgia of practical effects of some of the staples of the movies that came out during those times.
**Zoe:** Like we actually, we have this VHS camera, I don't know if you can see it back there, but it's all wrecked.
**Zoe:** so we actually used this not just as a prop, we had an identical camera that we actually filmed found footage on.
**Zoe:** So we're using real like VHS found footage in the movie itself that our director, who is like raised, born, you know, grew up in the 90s is still like a big nostalgia fan.
**Zoe:** he actually was the guy like operating the camera and I mean he grew up like in high school using one of these.
**Zoe:** So it really just reads like a pro in his element getting to do something that he's been excited about and wanting to do for a while.
**Zoe:** and that's like the VHS found footage is what it is, but that goes for every single one of his shots.
**Zoe:** I've never seen a man work a camera the way that guy does.
**Adam:** Yeah, because I was I was looking into what he's done because he's done a lot of I see he's done like he's done a lot of short films, but most of his features have been documentary.
**Adam:** But there was for example, one of them was the the last Blockbuster about the Blockbuster video store.
**Adam:** So you know where that sort of where he's coming from.
**Adam:** Like a lot of them and like music documentaries about the 90s and things like that.
**Adam:** So you know that that's where, you know, that's where he's coming from, that's where his sort of interests lie and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's you know, it's so when you guys so was it originally it started with you guys?
**Adam:** and then he came on board and then and gradually a lot of the time a lot of indie filmmaking.
**Adam:** always seems like a cult almost where it's like.
**Adam:** One one person's got a vision.
**Adam:** And you just have to draw so many people in.
**Adam:** And they do have to give up a lot.
**Zoe:** Oh my gosh, yeah.
**Adam:** To sort of help and bring that about and everything and manifest the whole thing, so it's it kind of feels like that.
**Adam:** But so it started so it started originally from you guys, it was your sort of like like script and was where it sort of the initial spark came from was yourselves.
**Malachite:** Yes.
**Malachite:** So Zoe and I sat down with that concept of like these deer could be vampires.
**Malachite:** They want to make us crash so they can drink our blood.
**Malachite:** And then we wrote that into just a really exciting, youthful, also just really grounded and realistic sort of script.
**Malachite:** and brought it to Taylor because we he had just moved to town.
**Malachite:** And we had seen his portfolio and kind of that just amazing like sense of like flavor that he brings to all of his projects.
**Malachite:** And kind of youthfulness and his ability to just inspire and make contacts with people.
**Malachite:** Like initially, we brought the script to Taylor and the first person we reached out to is we emailed Rick Baker, who does the the Werewolf transformations.
**Malachite:** just as a dream, like no way we're going to get Rick Baker.
**Malachite:** But.
**Zoe:** Yeah.
**Malachite:** But that's how we approach this whole film and Taylor really came in with that sense of like.
**Malachite:** that attitude of like, well we might as well ask, like they might want to help us, it's you don't know until you try.
**Malachite:** And through that attitude, he's been able to bring in just some amazing people to our film, which we would have made either way.
**Malachite:** We would have made it with no famous actors with nothing, just with our friends in our backyard if we had to,
**Malachite:** But so we wrote this great script that had all those elements and then we found Taylor who had that kind of mind.
**Malachite:** And that skill set for bringing more and more people together.
**Malachite:** And he was able to find a lot of amazing people, he got Diane Franklin, who is the princess in Bill and Ted's excellent adventure.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Malachite:** She came in for a role.
**Malachite:** And one of the sweetest people I've ever met, absolutely amazing, so talented.
**Malachite:** She does a French a French accent in our film and it's like.
**Malachite:** the just the vigor she approaches that with, like she brings out, is incredible.
**Malachite:** And then we also went on to get Greg Sestero from The Room,
**Malachite:** Hi Mark.
**Zoe:** Hi Mark.
**Malachite:** Oh, hi Mark.
**Zoe:** I know.
**Malachite:** We we were in contact with him for like half of a year and he was like, yeah, I'm interested for sure, this is awesome.
**Malachite:** And so Taylor just kept talking to him about it and by the end, Greg actually came in and.
**Malachite:** acts in our film and he did it for free, he did it as a volunteer.
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Zoe:** Yeah.
**Zoe:** Just to support indie filmmaking.
**Malachite:** Yeah, just because his relationship with Taylor and with our script and with trying to schedule with us and seeing how much we were just giving it all we could.
**Malachite:** He's like, you know what, guys.
**Malachite:** all you have you paid for my flight and that's all you need that's all I need.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** That's.
**Lee:** That's incredible.
**Lee:** I mean it's.
**Lee:** It's fantastic to see people.
**Lee:** But it it must be nice for you guys to have had this as you say this initial crazy idea in the car and then you kind of knock up a script.
**Lee:** To think, we'll get some friends in.
**Lee:** Maybe we'll make a short.
**Lee:** And then before you know it, you've got people who you've, you know, yeah, who've come all this way and who you watched on screen as when you were younger.
**Zoe:** And like, seriously.
**Lee:** Have them excited by your idea must be really, really reassuring to know that it's not just some crazy idea that no one's going to no one's going to be on board with.
**Lee:** Like you've just managed very easily to sell it to a whole group of people who you, you know, really aspire to be part with.
**Malachite:** Yeah.
**Zoe:** It feels like a real accomplishment just to have had the amount of energy and excitement and love.
**Zoe:** I mean, there's no better word for it, it's love, you know, every single person who joined this project did it because they love filmmaking.
**Zoe:** Because they love the story, because they love their craft, because they loved us.
**Zoe:** You know.
**Zoe:** in some cases.
**Zoe:** I mean, it really was an act of love and dedication toward this project that got it to where it is right now.
**Zoe:** and honestly like, you know, I I I can't sing Taylor's praises enough because he really was just such a huge part of this.
**Zoe:** And I I met Taylor while he was working on a project that was called Space Beavers two.
**Malachite:** Not one.
**Zoe:** Two.
**Adam:** Pretty good.
**Zoe:** I know I was like.
**Malachite:** Yeah.
**Zoe:** He had found this archive of footage from the 90s and 80s of these kids who had essentially tried to make this movie about beavers in space and they had done it in the style of the original Star Wars with like miniatures, you know, flying through just darkness, right?
**Zoe:** and like practical beaver costumes in astronaut suits.
**Zoe:** And when I like when he told me about that idea, we had already had the.
**Zoe:** these deer our vampire conversation.
**Zoe:** And at that moment, I was like, this is our guy, he'd do it.
**Zoe:** I know.
**Zoe:** He'd do it.
**Zoe:** but then I learned later that Taylor, when he saw my reaction to Space Beavers two, thought, okay, this chick's real.
**Zoe:** Yeah.
**Zoe:** Yeah, and that helped me do something like pretty cool too.
**Zoe:** So like I think the the love of, you know, the art form but the specifically like nostalgic and, you know, these things that we've watched growing up that we'd never gotten the opportunity to do, most filmmakers don't get the opportunity to do one of the things that we pull off in this movie.
**Zoe:** But we've managed to create this piece strictly by adapting when there were problems, solving everything that came into our path as quickly as we can.
**Zoe:** we were able to actually bring in some really exciting elements to this piece.
**Zoe:** That we didn't even plan to have to be given with, but now we couldn't imagine our movie without them.
**Malachite:** Yeah, like one of the coolest elements in Bampire is that we've chosen to animate certain things, always on top of practical, so a world where you have your real life actors.
**Malachite:** but then maybe like a feral deer jumps out of a bush and scares them and for that moment it's this animated deer and it,
**Malachite:** wasn't originally in our concept, we thought we'd go practical, we even thought we'd go more like silly, obviously fake sort of like Monty Python esque practical.
**Malachite:** but that's not the way it went, we were really open to adapting and trying to use all the resources we could find as well as possible.
**Malachite:** We ended up meeting and getting connected with just an incredible makeup and practical effects artist named Trista Kelly.
**Malachite:** And she is just a total up and comer works out of Portland, Oregon right now a ton.
**Malachite:** But she was able to elevate a lot of our transformations into like, okay, we're really going to do this, we're going to have multiple steps where it looks like the horn's coming out a different amount and we're going to shoot it all.
**Malachite:** And we're not just going to throw an animated horn on this head.
**Malachite:** So we we adapted like, okay, we'll we'll animate some things due to safety and due to the fact that we don't have the budget.
**Malachite:** And also due to that just amazing kind of Who Framed Roger Rabbit flavor that we thought.
**Malachite:** hasn't been shown in a movie in a while and could really fit into this horror genre.
**Malachite:** So, we we just said yes to all of that.
**Malachite:** And I think I'm really proud of us because we didn't stay too hard to any one aspect.
**Malachite:** We found what could shine in in any moment, what could shine the brightest is what we chose.
**Malachite:** And it just led to this really interesting amalgamation film.
**Malachite:** Where we have there's like a one of the characters brings a VHS and is filming stuff and so we cut to you seeing what is actually filmed through his VHS and that's all.
**Malachite:** Like Zoe said, practically literally recorded on tape before we digitalize it.
**Malachite:** and then we have animated sections over everything and it and then real practical stuff.
**Malachite:** And it just it turned into something that was so so unique and almost so like specialized and diverse that it was.
**Malachite:** I don't know that we could have set out to make it as a plan, but the fact that we were able to incorporate those elements when they when they popped out as options for us.
**Malachite:** Just really gave us the biggest ability to achieve as as many of these things as possible.
**Malachite:** Because we we set out, Zoe wrote us the incredible script, which really I feel is like step one and what got a lot of interest here, but we're a small group and we didn't have a lot of funding.
**Malachite:** We didn't have a lot of you know, like we said like our initial our initial concept was, hey, we'll do it in the backyard with our best friends if we have to.
**Malachite:** And then from there we just made all these cool little connections where where we got it to add a little bit of value, a little bit of value and before we know it, we got Greg Sestero showing up for free.
**Malachite:** And we've we ended up putting a bunch of all of our own savings into the film.
**Malachite:** And that's like the only budget we got.
**Malachite:** So a very humble initial starting budget.
**Malachite:** and then a lot of people who are willing to sign on just for potential payment and stuff like that.
**Malachite:** So I I know I'm rambling but it it's like every step of the way it just grew a little bit, a little bit, a little bit into something that now.
**Malachite:** has had so much love poured into it.
**Malachite:** And it's just humbling.
**Zoe:** and like, yeah.
**Malachite:** Just truly amazing, like if everybody is passionate about one thing and nobody is in it just for themselves, it's incredible.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Malachite:** Like like a culty sense of like, we're doing this because we love it.
**Zoe:** All hail Vampire.
**Malachite:** It's incredible what what you can do.
**Malachite:** And incredible how much work people put into this film for for very little personal gain and, oh, we just want to pay him all so much.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** It's got to be said, you're saying, you know.
**Lee:** It it was done on a on a a low budget and it's entirely independent and stuff, but Adam and I were discussing from the trailer, it looks incredible.
**Lee:** Like it looks fantastic, it really does look, yeah.
**Lee:** Head and above what I would expect in, you know.
**Lee:** From a from a a lower budget, you know, as you say, just just pulling a team together and getting friends involved and stuff.
**Lee:** Oh, it just looks magnificent.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Zoe:** Oh, thank you.
**Malachite:** Yes.
**Adam:** It really, really does, guys, it just, you know, we were.
**Adam:** We were we were we were stunned that it because it looks it looks like a it looks like, I mean, the love is showing there and the talent is showing there, but also it looks like this had, you know, a lot of money poured into it and a lot of and, you know, the fact that you guys did that in like three weeks and stuff like that really does look terrific.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** And like you say, it's that whole thing of you've just managed to be like sort of draw so many people into the orbit of it, all of whom are just contributing their parts or their multiple parts.
**Adam:** Like you say, because you you're sort of you're doubling up both as an actor and the writer and it sort of, you know, there's a lot of people wearing multiple hats on it and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think certainly from the footage we've seen, I mean, it looks.
**Adam:** it you know, it looks a million dollars, you know.
**Adam:** It's it's.
**Adam:** really, really good.
**Zoe:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, it doesn't have.
**Zoe:** Honestly.
**Adam:** You go.
**Adam:** I was going to say, it doesn't it doesn't have that sort of thing sometimes where there'll be there'll be some sort of drop off on an independent film in some way or another.
**Adam:** It might be, you know, it might be like the sound wasn't there or it might be that the effects weren't there or something like that.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it's just, but yeah, overall what we've seen looks incredible.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It does really.
**Zoe:** It's got.
**Adam:** Certainly excited us for it.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** We really we really can't wait to see this.
**Zoe:** This project, like our our practical effects artist.
**Zoe:** Trista Kelly said it more than once onset.
**Zoe:** And I think it's just a beautiful way of saying it.
**Zoe:** You can put a decapitated neck wound on somebody, you can take off their arm.
**Zoe:** You know, and have it be fake.
**Zoe:** You can spray blood as much as you want, but if you don't have someone underneath that prosthetic.
**Zoe:** selling that blood spray.
**Zoe:** If you don't have someone behind that camera.
**Zoe:** capturing that frame to be magnificent and stunning and full of depth, it doesn't matter.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Zoe:** It doesn't matter how great that effect is, it doesn't matter any piece of it could fall apart.
**Zoe:** But none of it did for us.
**Zoe:** And by every right it should have.
**Zoe:** I mean, and I I don't say that lightly.
**Zoe:** We had a hundred challenges that we overcame, one a day.
**Zoe:** I mean, one show stopping challenge per day is what I would say this project.
**Malachite:** One day it was bees.
**Zoe:** Like millions of wasps.
**Malachite:** Thousands of wasps.
**Zoe:** Yeah.
**Malachite:** Literally.
**Zoe:** Like we had accidentally cooked meat over a fireplace and left, I guess, a chunk of meat in the campfire.
**Zoe:** And the next day we show up to film.
**Zoe:** And we're supposed to be at this set all day, we've got, you know, three weeks, right, 21 days.
**Zoe:** One of those days is at this set.
**Zoe:** And it's full of bees.
**Zoe:** Million bees.
**Zoe:** I mean, I've never seen so many bees.
**Zoe:** And we've got two people who are allergic, our director is literally like paralyzingly terrified of bees.
**Zoe:** And he overcame that as well as a hundred other challenges.
**Zoe:** That only he knew about, you know.
**Zoe:** really like the testament to this piece could be said by any one of the 28 people who were there.
**Zoe:** Because every single one of them was a champion for this project.
**Zoe:** Every single one of them fought a million bees, you know.
**Zoe:** But yeah, it's definitely had its own sense of gravity, like people have been pulled.
**Zoe:** Like you said, into the orbit of this project and until each one of those pieces came into play, there wasn't a project.
**Zoe:** Even even for us, you know, having Taylor show up and say, I'm working on Space Beavers too, we hadn't even started writing the screenplay.
**Zoe:** And there he was, the guy who was supposed to direct it.
**Zoe:** And you know, it's just one of those moments where you got to listen to those signs, you know, the second that you're given that opportunity, like you better kick that door down.
**Zoe:** Because like it might shut again in a moment if you're not careful.
**Zoe:** And we just took advantage in every every time that we could of someone who was.
**Zoe:** We didn't take advantage of people every chance we could.
**Zoe:** But we took advantage of the love that people were willingly giving us.
**Zoe:** Like they were really just excited.
**Zoe:** And essentially said, hey, if you don't if if it means that we get to make Bampire, don't pay me till we can make some money off Bampire.
**Zoe:** Then pay me with that.
**Zoe:** I'll take some of that money.
**Zoe:** But if it means that we get to make this movie right now, with these people, then yeah, I'm in, sign me up.
**Zoe:** That was their everyone's energy from the get-go, no matter how much we offered to pay them.
**Zoe:** They were had this attitude of, no, please, put it toward the movie.
**Lee:** Incredible.
**Lee:** That's incredible.
**Lee:** And and that's just the beauty of of indie filmmaking, you know, from what I've seen is that it is a project of love for for everyone involved.
**Lee:** because it does always seem a bit of a house of cards, as you say, every day you turn up and you're like, right, what's going to go wrong today, what is going to threaten the entire project this time next week.
**Lee:** And it's and it it must be a matter of troubleshooting all the time.
**Lee:** But if you've got a core group and you're all you're all as dedicated as one another.
**Lee:** And as you say, you haven't got anyone who's just showing up for a paycheck or whatever, then is amazing what you can you can get through.
**Malachite:** Yeah.
**Malachite:** It takes that much love and if any single person is willing to say.
**Malachite:** Oh, that's okay, let's move on.
**Malachite:** And and just treat it like that casually or without that much perfectionism, it's going to show.
**Malachite:** And so yeah, putting together, I mean, it's.
**Malachite:** yeah, none of it happens on on accident, like we took this huge leap, but we've been making short films in the same community for five to 10 years, you know.
**Malachite:** And just just meeting people and seeing everyone's skill set and how to.
**Malachite:** empower each other, I mean, I think that's that's the keyword to focus on if you want a group of people who are all passionate and encouraged.
**Malachite:** and and willing to speak up, you need a group of people who all feel empowered and feel like.
**Malachite:** we're making something great and I can make it a little better and there's not a sense of ego, if I have an idea that can make it better, people are going to love me for that.
**Malachite:** No one's going to feel mad at me for taking the spotlight or or any of that.
**Malachite:** It's that that sense of like empowerment and just appreciation is.
**Malachite:** in the workplace in general, that that gets lost really quick sometimes.
**Adam:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Malachite:** But if you're able to, if you pour the love back into the people who are working and and giving themselves to to your project.
**Malachite:** It's definitely will pay off.
**Malachite:** that's one thing that we learned for sure.
**Malachite:** It's like we everybody, everybody on set of like probably 30 people all became best friends.
**Malachite:** And and just just like at the end we all held hands.
**Malachite:** And talked we said stories and we sang a little Kumbaya.
**Malachite:** And you know.
**Malachite:** It was the most hippie thing I've ever participated in.
**Malachite:** And we're from Eugene, Oregon, which is like it's hippie Central over here.
**Malachite:** So.
**Malachite:** Everywhere.
**Malachite:** Fliers in the hair.
**Malachite:** So.
**Malachite:** But that passion, that love, and that empowerment where everyone is like, no, I'm going to make the lighting a little bit better.
**Malachite:** Even though I might not be getting a lighting credit or like you do it every way you can.
**Malachite:** You do it by saying, hey, I'll give you a lighting credit.
**Malachite:** You know, you'll do it by just thanking them every time you see their face in the morning.
**Malachite:** But that also we took such a leap on this and another one of the takeaways is.
**Malachite:** Don't make a film in three weeks.
**Malachite:** It's so we got so lucky.
**Zoe:** It was a miracle.
**Malachite:** We got so lucky.
**Zoe:** There are only so many times that I would use that word.
**Zoe:** But this project was miraculous.
**Zoe:** And I know that we've talked about 18 different elements that we've got involved in the film and how excited we are about every single one of them, but that's what no sacrifices looks like, that's taking a piece that by every right, we should not have been able to make at this budget level and we didn't miss a scene.
**Zoe:** We have stunts taking place in moving vehicles in the original screenplay, well, now we we have more intense stunts taking place in a moving vehicle, but it's cartoon.
**Zoe:** So no one's getting hurt.
**Zoe:** You know.
**Zoe:** It's like, there's no way we were going to have someone hanging half out of a window being pulled on a trailer with eight people strapped to the hood of the car, all with gear strapped onto them.
**Zoe:** Heck, no.
**Zoe:** We're like, we're not there.
**Zoe:** We're doing this, like we said, with people that we love, no way are we going to risk them in that way.
**Zoe:** No way.
**Zoe:** That's where the conversation stopped when it came to our practical stunts because it was never going to be worth risking hurting somebody.
**Zoe:** So everything that we've done was not just for the love of the piece, although the story was our top priority.
**Zoe:** For the love of the people, it was taking our human resource that we had, treating them as respectfully as possible.
**Zoe:** And if they were saying, hey, there we can't do this, you know, there's no way we can do this amount in this much time.
**Zoe:** Okay.
**Zoe:** We're not going to do that amount then.
**Zoe:** We're going to do this much in this much time and everything that we execute, we're going to execute perfectly.
**Zoe:** Everything else, we will figure out a way to do it, but it might not be the way that we set out to do it.
**Zoe:** And like that level of adaptation had to come from every member of our team.
**Zoe:** Every member.
**Lee:** It is something we say a lot in independent film, Adam and I have discussed it.
**Lee:** Adam on the show, how when you've got an indie film and you can see for budgetary restraints or whatever.
**Lee:** You have to adapt and change and sometimes those things can end up being the key things that you love the most.
**Lee:** Like you say with the idea of bringing in the animation.
**Lee:** Okay, we can't actually do this.
**Lee:** Let's animate it, let's do that.
**Lee:** And and it ends up going from what could be a negative of I can't really afford it, it's going to look chunky or it's not going to.
**Lee:** And all of a sudden you you elevate it by thinking around the corner and coming up with a whole new way of doing it.
**Lee:** And all of a sudden it's it's an extra spark.
**Lee:** And it goes in the plus column.
**Adam:** It it suddenly becomes someone's favourite part of the film and it's something that is an adaptation of due to time, budget, you know, capability or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And also it's just great to hear that level like you say about being responsible to everyone because that's why everyone wants to show up.
**Adam:** Because quite frankly, there are, as we've seen recently, there's a lot of bigger budget movies that aren't doing that, you know, there's there's a lot of heartache out there about how people.
**Adam:** you know, treated on set and how you know, things things corners are cut and things like that and it's just, you know, at the end of the day, like you say, you're making a film.
**Adam:** You know, if you if you're if you know, if.
**Adam:** I don't know, it's not not like heart surgery or bomb disposal or something, you know.
**Adam:** You know, it's like, we're making a film, we're not going to, you know.
**Zoe:** We're not going to.
**Adam:** We're not going to hurt someone or get someone, you know, injured in in for the sake of a film.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's but again, it makes it it brings everyone together, but also it just means that you.
**Adam:** find these ways around that quite often are just so much, you know, they become the parts that people remember.
**Adam:** They become the parts that people go, that was unique, I haven't seen that before.
**Adam:** And, you know, it's a real sort of it can become a selling point.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's it's just great.
**Adam:** You know, it's a fantastic.
**Adam:** scenario and and like you say, it's having to be adaptive, it's having to bend with how things go.
**Malachite:** You know, I think at least as an artist, I feel really passionately that acceptance is like a.
**Malachite:** that is the key source of like growth and beauty and ownership of who you are.
**Malachite:** And love for things.
**Malachite:** So just that sense of like, yes, we will show those vulnerabilities in a way that.
**Malachite:** we love and other people will be able to love them too.
**Malachite:** Instead of maybe covering up those parts and hoping people don't notice, that's I think that's the opposite of acceptance.
**Malachite:** And so in these moments where we said like, yes, we can't afford to.
**Malachite:** We we accept that we're not going to have an actor ripped out of a truck while it's moving, but if we animate it, we can have him ripped in half and his legs can stay in the bottom of the truck.
**Malachite:** It's such a weird way to say it, like acceptance can be usually turned towards the self in such a beautiful way.
**Malachite:** But when you turn it towards the film or towards your art, too, it just allows unique things to shine.
**Malachite:** And that's.
**Malachite:** beautiful.
**Zoe:** Absolutely.
**Malachite:** And so I think historically and culturally sometimes we snuff out the unique things or we try to cover them up because they're risky.
**Malachite:** we might be judged for them.
**Malachite:** But yeah, let let the uniqueness shine, it's it's it's worth it.
**Malachite:** And you wouldn't you wouldn't get a film like Bampire if you didn't just have that that attitude of like that sort of yes and.
**Malachite:** Or that like, oh, it hasn't been done before, but I could see it working, I could find love for it, even if I don't know, who cares if anyone else does.
**Malachite:** But
**Zoe:** Absolutely.
**Malachite:** Gosh, I do I want to say like we had this almost like miracle level of success in this thing that we set out to do.
**Malachite:** And and kept saying yes to, but one of the things we had to say yes to was.
**Malachite:** let's try to shoot this in in two and a half weeks because our budget isn't there.
**Malachite:** And we flew like four or five out of state actors in during those weeks.
**Malachite:** It was an intensive, very high stress two to three weeks, like often times 16 plus hour day.
**Malachite:** I mean like often times like 16 hours on set and then for us as producers and me as an actor producer, that's on set for 16 hours, come home.
**Malachite:** Prep for tomorrow, try to put a social media post out, and then you then you get to like eating and sleeping maybe for four hours before you're back.
**Malachite:** And no joke, that was our that was our schedule for two and a half weeks and
**Malachite:** that was the only that was what it took to to put everything we could, all of the money we could into the film.
**Malachite:** And not have to worry about different segments or, you know, all of that, it was what was needed, but.
**Zoe:** Man.
**Malachite:** It's the next film, hopefully we don't have to say yes to something so extreme.
**Lee:** I was just about to say.
**Lee:** I'm going to say you guys have to need some downtime.
**Lee:** But equally, I can still.
**Lee:** I can see that you're both still buzzing from the from the production.
**Malachite:** Oh my gosh.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Are you already thinking of new thoughts?
**Lee:** And writing some ideas down and possibly.
**Malachite:** I've been thinking Bampire two, Bampire two.
**Malachite:** There's so much love for Bampire and there's so many open-ended story elements, especially if you think like in in the prequel sense and the after the math.
**Malachite:** after math of Bampire sense.
**Malachite:** So I've been thinking a lot about what kind of stuff we can come up with to build off of Bampire specifically.
**Malachite:** Zoe is just a prolific writer in general, she this is her first.
**Malachite:** feature that she's written and that will be produced.
**Malachite:** But she's got a whole you know, bag full of other features and they're all just really unique.
**Malachite:** And so I she's been putting a lot of work into that.
**Malachite:** But right now, the real truth is all we can really focus on is is Bampire still.
**Malachite:** It's been trying to build a marketing campaign and find.
**Malachite:** we're not as much as we sound like we're finished it and we're so excited that it went well.
**Malachite:** We have so much work.
**Zoe:** We have a lot of work.
**Zoe:** Yeah, it's like post-production.
**Zoe:** is 50% of a project.
**Zoe:** So we've done 50%.
**Zoe:** We still have about half to go in terms of taking all of that.
**Zoe:** And combining it into an amazing film.
**Zoe:** Putting in the animation, putting in the music, you know, finishing our fundraaising like we're going to run this Indiegogo campaign for.
**Zoe:** Absolutely.
**Zoe:** But one thing that I really want to make clear is that we're doing this because we believe in independent film.
**Zoe:** I completely see the value in major studios, who wouldn't.
**Zoe:** Right, it's kind of you can't ignore the value of working with a major studio.
**Zoe:** and I also see the value in working with a union, you know, and and figuring out how to make that something that really does benefit your career.
**Zoe:** But there are a lot, a lot of talented artists out there who can apply for a union and not get into it.
**Zoe:** And who can wish to work with a major studio, but may never even get the opportunity.
**Zoe:** And what other avenue is there for those million.
**Zoe:** I mean, I'm talking like a large handful of artists, who those are just not pathways toward success.
**Zoe:** This is that pathway for so many artists out there.
**Zoe:** This is the way that they can hope to make their dream come true is through independent filmmaking.
**Zoe:** through uncensored filmmaking.
**Zoe:** And as a writer who specializes, if you will, in uncensored film writing.
**Zoe:** I personally believe it's it's one of the only ways to keep the art out there pure.
**Zoe:** I and by that, I mean something that's coming from the heart, not coming out of a wallet and back into a wallet.
**Zoe:** Not that.
**Zoe:** Something better than that, something that people choose to do because they love it, because they believe in it, because they think it's going to be impactful artwork.
**Zoe:** I mean, and that's something I don't see coming out of a lot of these other pathways.
**Zoe:** does it happen?
**Zoe:** Sure.
**Zoe:** But what I love to see 800 times more, yeah, like of course, who wouldn't.
**Zoe:** It's good art.
**Zoe:** So if this is the way that I get to make my artwork and if I get to make it with these people, then this is the path that I would choose.
**Zoe:** Again and again, no matter that dollar sign and even though we say, yeah, I hope we don't have to do that again.
**Zoe:** It's like what I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that no matter how well Bampire does, we're going to be back out there making another movie.
**Zoe:** So.
**Zoe:** You know, Path films and Pop Motion Productions is not done yet.
**Malachite:** It's the best experience of my life personally, because it brought a community together.
**Malachite:** Where we all were so passionate and so supportive of each other and there's just that's.
**Malachite:** I think just the peak of human experience is is being.
**Malachite:** so lucky to be appreciated and useful to like like 20 people.
**Malachite:** I'm such like a hermit.
**Malachite:** I'm used to like only talking to my friends and my family.
**Malachite:** But 20 people all said thank you to me, it was like, I know.
**Zoe:** I had someone say, they've never been hugged this much on a film set.
**Zoe:** And I just I just love that.
**Zoe:** You know.
**Zoe:** Not to just resonate.
**Zoe:** On what people have said, but the man who built our cave, Michael Rucker, he said something that was really passionate and subtle in his way that he is.
**Zoe:** where he said, you know, if if people kept doing what we're doing out here.
**Zoe:** And if this project goes as well as I think it could.
**Zoe:** Then we could really turn the tides.
**Zoe:** And coming from someone like him, that's incredibly meaningful and I think it's really true for the industry nowadays.
**Zoe:** We need good examples.
**Zoe:** You know, we can't have indie films out there hurting people, underpaying people.
**Zoe:** And then ultimately not turning out a good product.
**Zoe:** That's just not it's not worth it.
**Zoe:** You might have to choose, like I said, not paying people to make it like work because then they're all showing up just for the love of it.
**Zoe:** That's not ideal.
**Zoe:** But at least it made a piece of artwork that no one's getting hurt for, that is going to be good.
**Zoe:** And ultimately, the people will get paid for.
**Zoe:** So it's it's one of those things where you just don't get a lot of good examples in independent filmmaking right now.
**Zoe:** We've both been subjected to some pretty crazy stuff on the film sets that we were on before Bampire.
**Zoe:** And it was a really big part of our experience to make sure that everyone on set was safe to be around.
**Zoe:** That everyone felt like they could ask for things and were comfortable.
**Zoe:** I mean, these were the most important objectives going in, even despite knowing.
**Zoe:** what we were going to do is absolutely insane.
**Zoe:** It really did it really did take precedence for us though to keep people safe.
**Zoe:** You know, and to keep them feeling respected.
**Zoe:** And I think that is why it went as well as it did.
**Zoe:** Bottom line, is because we went into it.
**Zoe:** Caring about the human element, which is something that's missing from.
**Zoe:** those two pathways for sure, but independent film as a freaking third.
**Zoe:** You know.
**Zoe:** You need some folks to come in and say, this is what it could be.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** And I think also.
**Adam:** You've got that it's it's like you say, it's about bringing an artistic vision with no one interfering where the interference is the restrictions of budget, the restrictions of what, you know, who you've got in your team or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But it's not the restrictions of, oh, can you not do that because that doesn't play well, or can you not do that because we're not those films, we don't do them, you know, we're not we're we don't look, no one watches cows in Space Foams this year.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** or whatever.
**Adam:** And it's sort of, you know, it's it's remaining true to that vision in the sense of you do with it what you can.
**Adam:** But it's not a team of people telling you, don't do this, don't do that, this is not the way it's done.
**Adam:** And indeed, you know, sort of like, or if you cut that corner, we can get this done quicker, but, you know, you then end up with someone who doesn't want to work with you ever again.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** something went wrong or something wasn't, you know, someone wasn't treated correctly or whatever like that.
**Adam:** You know, there's something to be said for having that sort of thing.
**Adam:** Of having like a rep company where you can you sit see it where it's like, you know, there are directors and who have a group of people who are happy to always go back and work with them.
**Adam:** Because you know they've had a good experience and you know, it's not just.
**Adam:** Oh, we did that film and it was successful, it's clearly because, oh, actually, I had a good time whilst doing this.
**Adam:** You know.
**Zoe:** I've gotten messages from every single one of our cast members at this point just saying, I can't wait till we're back on set together making Bampire two.
**Zoe:** And.
**Malachite:** I'm like.
**Zoe:** I'm like.
**Malachite:** I'm like, please.
**Zoe:** Let me get off Bampire one.
**Malachite:** This guy.
**Zoe:** Always.
**Zoe:** planning over here.
**Zoe:** But it's it's it's true.
**Zoe:** I mean to have 28 people tell you that this was one of the best experiences they've had in their life, it's it's humbling.
**Malachite:** It's meaningful and it's and it's not something that happens on accident.
**Malachite:** From the very beginning, I mean, we we made we made our company Path Films last year and with the goal of.
**Malachite:** we want to bring paid work to Eugene, Oregon because we think that paid work is kind of the only way to elevate the quality to the point where we think these indie projects could start becoming profitable and just continue to build a community around that.
**Malachite:** So we want to bring paid work.
**Malachite:** But all but all that means nothing if people don't want to work with us twice.
**Malachite:** And that that's the real essence of what we are about.
**Malachite:** Just as a company even.
**Malachite:** We think it's the best way to be as a company to have that legitimate sort of upstanding, honest, generous attitude toward the people we work with.
**Malachite:** Because if we're good business people, we can still make money, we can calculate, we can be generous and yet still calculate right, still make the amount of profits needed to make another film.
**Malachite:** And everybody will be all the more excited.
**Malachite:** While they're working, if they're being valued properly and they'll be all excited to come back again next time too, and so somehow even with like a shoe string budget and with.
**Malachite:** most of the people to this day still not having been paid, we we captured just that essence and I think it's because it's it's not on accident.
**Malachite:** It's because we set out saying, this is this is our goal.
**Malachite:** We've seen a lot of independent sort of like amateur films get made and a lot of the time, it's just one person's idea, one person has enough respect to bring a group of people together around their one idea.
**Malachite:** But a lot of times it it can become sort of hostile and and not turn out.
**Malachite:** into a positive experience and it we just really wanted to find a way to do it in a grounded, holistic way.
**Malachite:** That we could, even if Bampire isn't what our dreams were for it, people would want to work with us again.
**Malachite:** And then if if what we really see as our vision for Bampire happens, I mean all of a sudden it's a it's a real world changer for
**Zoe:** Everyone.
**Malachite:** involved.
**Malachite:** And just everyone and for our whole community.
**Malachite:** I mean, nothing like this has been made in Eugene for a very long time.
**Malachite:** The film Animal House was made here.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Zoe:** Our claim to fame.
**Malachite:** And since then there's been nothing in Eugene and we're it's like a two, three hour flight to LA from here.
**Malachite:** It's like we're not that far from a lot of talented people.
**Malachite:** I mean, the people in our community for sure, but the people just up two hours drive north in Portland, Oregon.
**Malachite:** There're that's a pretty big hub and Seattle is up further from that.
**Malachite:** Lots of people on the Pacific Northwest that are good at making film.
**Malachite:** And so.
**Malachite:** Yeah, we just we just wanted to build that that little section where you know.
**Malachite:** we care enough to get a good product and we care enough to also treat people right.
**Zoe:** No matter what.
**Zoe:** As the first priority.
**Zoe:** And that that will like I think it's a key part of our belief that that will turn out a good product.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Malachite:** I mean my hope, my hope with Indiegogo is that back you know.
**Malachite:** Back in the day it was always you'd have these films that maybe funded by a very eccentric millionaire.
**Malachite:** Well now maybe you can be funded by a thousand very eccentric people with a normal wage.
**Malachite:** As long as you've got enough like-minded eccentric people, you know, it can come together.
**Malachite:** You know.
**Malachite:** I love it and I love being able to interact as a fan and a viewer of the art form.
**Malachite:** I love being able to sort of push the wave in whatever direction you're interested in.
**Malachite:** and I think that that is just another opportunity for that too.
**Malachite:** Like if films are funded partly by interested audience, it's it takes away a lot of the guess work and the overly carefulness of trying to make a film people will like.
**Malachite:** Because they're saying directly, yes, we want this, yes, we want it super gory.
**Malachite:** It doesn't have to be like some crazy intricate like current fitting into the current story this year.
**Malachite:** Or anything like that.
**Malachite:** It's like.
**Malachite:** we want a bloody awesome, exciting horror film.
**Zoe:** We'll pay for it.
**Malachite:** Yeah.
**Zoe:** Yeah.
**Zoe:** And the way like with Indiegogo as a platform.
**Zoe:** It is really nice because we can offer perks for people who do decide to back us at this super early, you know, level of us trying to get this movie out there.
**Zoe:** One of the ways that we can thank you guys for supporting us via this platform is by offering up a pre-release digital download of the movie.
**Zoe:** So there will be like a digital showroom where if you go on, you donate, I think it's $29, you'll be sent a link and you can actually watch Bampire before it ever comes out to the general public.
**Zoe:** So that's one way that you can, you know, benefit.
**Zoe:** Is you actually get to see our movie before everyone else?
**Zoe:** Because.
**Zoe:** you helped us make it, you know, that's the idea.
**Zoe:** And our merchandise that we can also sell via Indiegogo.
**Zoe:** Sell more more giveaway at this point.
**Zoe:** it's all limited edition right now.
**Zoe:** So that means, you know, it could be worth a lot of money someday to say, hey, I was in at the ground level of this thing, let us give you something that's unique to being at that ground level of this production.
**Zoe:** because that that's really the cool part about this as well.
**Zoe:** Is that it's not just us coming and saying, please give us everything you have.
**Zoe:** It's let us give you something in return, let us show you that what you just donated your money to was really, really worth it.
**Zoe:** And we can prove that by like actually showing you the product, and so our Indiegogo campaign is like really based on thank yous.
**Zoe:** You know.
**Zoe:** It's based on thank you for being our sponsors.
**Zoe:** That's why we've selected the gifts that we have, that's why we're trying to show you guys the movie as one of our biggest like opportunities for being a part of the campaign at this level.
**Zoe:** We want to give you guys that feeling of, I really did, you know, I started this.
**Zoe:** I'm now getting to see it at the ground level of where it's at and that's because I put in that $20.
**Zoe:** 30, you know.
**Zoe:** to make it happen for these people.
**Zoe:** So that really is the level that we're still at right now.
**Zoe:** But I really believe that this product is going to be exciting enough that everybody should go get that link.
**Lee:** There you go.
**Lee:** You heard.
**Lee:** You heard them there, they're excited.
**Lee:** We're excited, go and get involved.
**Lee:** The more money you give, the faster you'll get to see this film, I mean, I don't know what more incentives you could possibly need than that.
**Lee:** But there it is.
**Lee:** Right, thank you very much, guys, for your time.
**Lee:** This evening.
**Lee:** It's been wonderful, it's been lovely to speak to you.
**Lee:** fingers crossed, we get to speak to you again soon.
**Lee:** We get things going.
**Lee:** yeah, obviously keep us updated.
**Lee:** And, yeah, we can't wait to see it.
**Malachite:** Awesome.
**Malachite:** Yeah.
**Malachite:** We'll be in touch and you guys mean the world to us just thanks for this opportunity, it's been really truly fun.
**Adam:** Thank you for reaching out to us because we we're excited.
**Malachite:** Yes.
**Lee:** Let's go.
**Lee:** Excellent, right, thanks very much, everybody.
**Lee:** Take care, goodnight.
**Adam:** Goodnight.
**Zoe:** Thank you.

---

## Ep 190 We Have Been Watching And The Monster From Hell

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-190-we-have-been-watching-and-the-monster-from-hell/
Air date: 25 February 2024
Duration: 00:38:47

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “We Have Been Watching And The Monster From Hell”. It’s time, faithful listeners, for the WTH team to have another one of our fireside chats about our inter-schedule viewing, and this time we’re joined by special guest; Lady Jennifer (her motivation: it’s half term and she was bored). This episode we discuss 70s anthology series “Thriller”, 1959’s “Horrors of the Black Museum”, Channel Four’s “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared”, Hammer’s “Scars of Dracula” and “Taste the Blood of Dracula”, 2014’s “It Follows”, 2023’s Ghost Story for Christmas “Lot No. 249” and the brilliant series “Wellington Paranormal” which now has a podcast. No prep needed, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And this evening we are joined by repeated, return offender Lady Jennifer. Good evening, Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** Woo! Good evening.
**Adam:** Hey.
**Lee:** What we are this honor. every time she gets dragged back in.
**Jennifer:** Yes, the the honor is, it's half term next week, so I know I'm free up and, you know, what else am I going to do with myself?
**Lee:** I would like to point out, she is a teacher. I am not a 40 year old man married to a ghoul, just to be clear.
**Jennifer:** Don't end up on a list. Speaking of lists, I hope everyone's got their list. This evening is a, what we've been watching.
**Lee:** there will be spoilers, there will be swearing, as always there is.
**Lee:** so as you are the guest and it's been quite a long time, Lady Jennifer, what have you been watching?
**Jennifer:** Don't want to go first.
**Jennifer:** Oh, right then. so we watched, Horrors of the Black Museum. Not a film I'd heard of before.
**Lee:** What have you Michael got?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, Michael Goff with exciting hair, kind of, you know, gray side bits and, I only ever see him in Batman being much older, so, yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** I think not knowing anything about it and just going in cold, really pleasantly surprised. I thought, why wasn't it one that's been on our list earlier or, you know, we've heard of, or I feel like it's sort of passed me by somewhat.
**Jennifer:** Well, I don't know if you heard Adam, you've heard of it particularly or.
**Adam:** I've, I remember as far as I can remember, because it's, it's more of a murder mystery, isn't it? It's like a crime mystery rather than.
**Jennifer:** It's still horror, though.
**Adam:** Yeah. Oh, no, absolutely, it's horror.
**Chris:** Yeah. It's the horrors of the Black Museum. If you call it anything else, it's like.
**Chris:** What, what is it that makes it horror then? If it is predominantly a thriller?
**Jennifer:** Well, like it's why it's Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, the way it's sort of set up, he has a museum of, you know, horrific killing implements, so, and it's quite, there's a sort of element of hypnotism, kind of drugging someone to do his bidding.
**Jennifer:** So it's all a little bit, you know, okay.
**Adam:** It's a bit heightened, yeah.
**Jennifer:** It's a lot going on.
**Adam:** And Black Music, the, because that's what Scotland Yard have, the Black Museum, which is where they keep all their stuff from famous crimes and things like that. So like that's where really.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah. And that's where the name comes from.
**Adam:** I went to an exhibition of it at the London Museum years ago.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** But they, yeah, they had a whole thing. I mean, that was me and Sarah, my sister, who are Siamese true crime buffs. Joined at the head and we were sort of,
**Adam:** yeah, we just went around, oh my God, it's John Hate's apron.
**Adam:** It's Christy strangling chair.
**Adam:** And I know you shouldn't be in the same way that you'd go around, but it's these things you've read about and think, you know, much in the same way as you go around and go, oh, that's the costume that someone wore in that scene or something like that.
**Adam:** but, but yeah, no, the film is, it's that same sort of, I suppose thriller thing.
**Adam:** You know, where it's like, it doesn't, it doesn't have a supernatural side to it, but it definitely is more macabre and stuff than a, you know, I don't know, the way seven is.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly, yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think the only thing I knew about it was the, the binoculars, obviously, it's one of those pictures that gets used on the clip shows so frequently.
**Jennifer:** No, I was not expecting that.
**Lee:** And it was on in the first two minutes of the film.
**Jennifer:** Oh, I see where this is going.
**Jennifer:** It was, yeah, it was quite horrific.
**Jennifer:** but the most horrific thing was not the pointy binoculars, it was the pointy bras that they wear or wore back then in the fifties. it's horrendous.
**Jennifer:** I think they're torture implements.
**Jennifer:** But, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, they were pretty creepy.
**Chris:** We we can't fully appreciate this, but.
**Jennifer:** No, we could.
**Jennifer:** I stopped getting one, I'm sure.
**Jennifer:** Give it a go.
**Jennifer:** But, yeah, no, it was, it was good fun.
**Jennifer:** We saw the, the, the precursor to Tetris, didn't we?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** There's this big weird machine, just a long entire wall. No idea what it did.
**Jennifer:** But on the screen, it kept flashing up shapes, but like Tetris shapes.
**Jennifer:** No apparent reason. I say, there was no explanation of what it did.
**Lee:** They never just said now I've got my amazing new supercomputer.
**Jennifer:** And the museum.
**Lee:** The museum.
**Jennifer:** Will be even better.
**Jennifer:** But he didn't.
**Lee:** He didn't.
**Jennifer:** He didn't even say what it was, just a machine that did something, but the shapes were Tetris, so that's where they got it from, really.
**Adam:** I suppose back then just computer was a word you invoked.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like, well, obviously, clearly, obviously that will enhance whatever evil scheme I'm doing. He's got a computer. Oh, supernatural itself, yeah.
**Adam:** I still use that at work. I do have to say to them sometimes, it's like, look, tell me it's a magic box where I put something in it and the email goes somewhere else.
**Adam:** You don't telling me is going to make less sense.
**Adam:** You know, just just explain it to me in sort of fabulistic terms and I'll be fine.
**Jennifer:** Nice.
**Lee:** Excellent. Right. So, Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** well, the first one I'm going to kick off with is, me and Claire spent most of three months watching,
**Adam:** an old series called Thriller.
**Adam:** from 1973, ran from 1973 until 1976 on and was shown on ITV.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** it was an anthology series created by Brian Clements who basically is the man who made the Avengers what the Avengers became.
**Adam:** And he wrote Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde and Captain Chronos and lots of bits and pieces and created the professionals and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And Thriller is a series of TV movies that were made sort of on the premise that they would be shown on American TV as movies as well. So you'd get a majority English cast and then one token American actor in a lead role. And, yeah, but there are, it's a pretty consistent series, certainly the first sort of like, the first four series are pretty solid all the way through, which is very rare on a anthology series.
**Adam:** But definitely, and it was obviously it was made over here, as I say,
**Adam:** it was made over here with like a sort of token American cast in, but you've got people in there like Robert Powell and Julian Glover, Ingrid Pitt, Anthony Valentine, Dennis Elliot, Dennis Waterman, Jeremy Brett,
**Adam:** Brian Blessed, who appears on the menu screen, and Claire was desperate for Brian to be in it and spoiler alert, he turned up in the penultimate episode of series six.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** But he's been on that menu screen since disc one. And we've been, we've been counting through everyone else.
**Adam:** Right. We've seen Peter Vo, we've definitely seen Da Elliot, we've seen, we've, we've seen, you know,
**Lee:** You should have got Robert Powell or whatever. And then you could have played Bingo and whoever got there first.
**Adam:** Oh, I wish. We should have. You know, you're not going to miss him if he's, if he's got a part to play.
**Adam:** Yep. Oh, actually, on a side note, I've also been watching Space 1999.
**Adam:** He's turned up twice in it, and the first time round he was very subdued. And then the second time round, I think he was making up for the fact that he was very subdued in the first fucking bat shit the second time round he turns out.
**Adam:** First time round you're like, oh yeah, Brian's a really good actor.
**Adam:** The second time round it's Brian.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And, certainly the only man who you feel, yes, he probably could shout for someone in a snowstorm.
**Adam:** But that's by the by.
**Adam:** but they're, it's a bit like a sort of Tales of the Unexpected. You get like a sort of murder like a sort of crime or murder plot or something like that.
**Adam:** But a lot of them are puzzles that you have to unravel and some of them are, you do get some that touch into the supernatural and horror and stuff like that.
**Adam:** there's some episodes that I definitely recommend. There's one called someone at the top of the stairs, which is someone, which is in the first series and it's someone this couple of girls go and stay at this house that's been converted into flats.
**Adam:** And everyone there's really weird and it gets weirder and weirder and there's possibly someone at the top of the stairs that might suddenly appear.
**Adam:** And it almost feels like Sapphire and Steel. It's very, it has that same sort of woozy sort of horror of haunting thing to it.
**Adam:** there's also one called Nurse will make it better,
**Adam:** which is, which stars the fucking get this, Diana Dors and Patrick Troughton.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And Diana Dors basically plays a, she's a nurse who's hired to look after this, paraplegic girl who's like, I think she, she falls off a horse or she's in a car crash and is paralyzed.
**Adam:** And she comes in as the new nurse. And slowly but insidiously,
**Adam:** you realize there's a lot more to her, and there's a lot more sort of going on.
**Adam:** And, yeah, she has powers and she has influence and she's malign,
**Adam:** and she does it so fucking well.
**Adam:** And then Patrick Troughton turns up, very much like a sort of early, like,
**Adam:** it's like his character from The Omen did this on his way to tackle Damien.
**Adam:** That same sort of character.
**Adam:** but yeah, they're the very sort of like supernatural ones, but there's also, there's really good just mysteries where you'll be like,
**Adam:** there's, there's one called where the action is, where this guy somehow gets trapped in the house of the world's biggest gambler who basically imprisons him because he just wants to play him at poker.
**Adam:** Because he always wins is the thing.
**Adam:** And it's like just, and that gets dark as fuck as that goes on.
**Adam:** and there's another one called The Crazy Kill, where Anthony Valentine and another guy have have broken out of prison.
**Adam:** So they break into this guy's house and it's Den and Denm Elliot and his wife. And slowly, but surely, first of all, they have to pose Anthony Valentine has to pose as his butler when the police come round.
**Adam:** And then it oh no, when a journalist comes around. And then it gets weirder and you realize that actually Anthony Valentine's not the only person with something to hide.
**Adam:** And it's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, seriously, as a series, there's a lot more, there's a lot more hit than miss.
**Adam:** And, unfortunately, they're long gone now obviously, but the network DVD, which is the version I've got, as a bonus includes in America, they would bung in about 15 minutes extra, so it would run for two hours on their showing because they'd put more adverts in and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And these were basically little precursor bits that they filmed that were meant to stick into like sort of be a prologue to the film.
**Adam:** And they're all fuck no, it's brilliant because they're all fucking so wrong.
**Adam:** Because, you know, you've you've got a, you've got like a thriller that's set in North London and then like they just film a guy's feet clearly in New York. Walking around clearly not English streets as the murderer, because there's close-ups of his trainers in the actual program.
**Adam:** And, and they are ridiculously sensationalist. It's just magical to watch those because you just you watch it and it'll be something like, oh, that one's yeah,
**Adam:** it's just setting a library with John Le Mesurier as this creepy old man. And then by the time it's on there, you've got like fucking death wish by the time that like the American intro's been added in.
**Adam:** But yeah, so network put them at the end of the thing, which was like a nice thing of it was almost like having an ad break between episodes that you could sort of watch, oh, this is what they, this is the mad shit that they bunge in here that doesn't fit. Well done.
**Lee:** You got Peter Von, though, at the start of Charles the Unexpected. I mean, he said some random. It's just brilliant stuff.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah. That's the thing. It lacks a narrator in that sense. It doesn't have a presenter or anything else like that. But the stories, like I say, they're pretty consistently good and even the ones that are, you know, it's the stuff that isn't supernatural, there's enough stuff where you're just like, I just need to know how this, what is the puzzle of this?
**Adam:** You know, there's, there's, what was there, there was another one called Ne of Teresa, which is just, yeah, track that one down because that is,
**Adam:** because you're like, but what, how is this happening? And the, the final explanation, whether you go with it or not, it's like, that's fucking clever.
**Adam:** I have not seen that in any other thing and this is from like 1973. So I'm surprised it hasn't been ripped off a lot.
**Chris:** That's truly impressive.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely rip.
**Adam:** But yeah, so Thriller would be the one I would say, yeah, that's been a lot of our watching, so.
**Lee:** Excellent. Fantastic.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you managed to squeeze into your watching agenda?
**Chris:** So, so I have watched, Don't hug me, I'm scared,
**Chris:** which in my head was still, I don't know, it just been released on, I think it was Channel 4. It was on one of the streaming TV channels I watched it on.
**Chris:** And but I think it was like 2022 now that it actually came out.
**Adam:** I think it was Whenever the Queen, it was whenever the Queen died because they fucking took it off air, like the final two episodes off air.
**Chris:** Well, that still seems like it should have been last month, as far as I'm concerned.
**Chris:** So, who knows, whatever's happened in the past year or nearly two.
**Chris:** But yeah, so, so and I didn't know what to expect.
**Chris:** I I can't remember if we talked about it when it was released. I don't know if either of you or Jennifer, you've watched it.
**Jennifer:** I feel like we talked.
**Adam:** I've watched, I've watched some of it. Okay. The actual Channel 4 one, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay. So, so it was interesting at first. I didn't get into it as quickly.
**Chris:** I suppose because it changed to 20 plus minutes per episode. It sort of felt a bit, it's just a bit of a change where you're expecting it to be sort of quick and explain, you know, the theme and then get to the end.
**Chris:** But but after a little while, I really did start to get into it. And then what was funny, I actually went back and just watched the first episode of the web series and it's like, oh, that's that's kind of now,
**Chris:** it's now more uncanny that it looks like a wrong version of that.
**Chris:** When that looks like a wrong version of all your kids programs. It's like, no, I've got used to that now. So that's sort of almost looking normal. Now this looks really weird to see the originals.
**Chris:** But yeah, it's like, so I really enjoyed it. I I do love the the themes that they cover, like we got jobs, death, family, friendship, transport,
**Chris:** and then the final one, electricity, which is certainly more than just electricity.
**Chris:** But it's interesting, there's definitely some character development throughout.
**Chris:** And I I started to quite like yellow guy and in this one, things kind of step up a bit. He even goes upstairs in the house and there's there's a there's a sort of hint there's something, because you, I mean, they've clearly got loads of references throughout all of the episodes that if you're so inclined, you know, there's probably quite a lot you could think about and try and see what they're getting out at deeper levels than than the obvious.
**Chris:** And how so I think there is, there is an extra layer of story, which whether they do continue to go into it or not, I don't know. I haven't seen if there's any plans.
**Chris:** But but yeah, it's I I definitely did enjoy it.
**Chris:** interesting. My son caught a few bits and found it very funny and it's like, no, I have to press stop because it is about to turn very bad.
**Chris:** And he's like, what what would it how how can it be? Like, look, it's it's silly. It's funny.
**Chris:** But there's like even the the bits and parts, that's on the first episode on jobs and it's like, oh yeah, you're making bits and parts. And of course, he found it very funny, this idea that you've got this generic factory and they just make these weird bits and parts and then then they make the weird one and then it gets sort of squashed in the machine.
**Chris:** It's like, it still is, you know, it is a bit horrible still.
**Chris:** But yeah, so, so I I did really enjoy it.
**Chris:** and I would quite like it if they made more.
**Adam:** I remember the jobs one.
**Adam:** I don't think.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's the first episode.
**Adam:** I can't remember how many how many further I watched.
**Adam:** It wasn't actually through lack of interest. I think it was just genuinely. Didn't yeah.
**Adam:** Forgot they were on, you know, just forgot about it and yeah, didn't.
**Chris:** Well, I guess I guess it didn't have, it didn't have a huge announcement,
**Chris:** but it clearly has got, has got, you know, some people really do like it,
**Chris:** from some of the comments I saw online.
**Chris:** So, yeah, it's got a bit of a following.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I do need to go back and finish it up, certainly, yeah.
**Chris:** I I think it was, yeah, and I I definitely enjoyed it. I think it's worth a watch.
**Lee:** Oh, excellent.
**Jennifer:** Nice. Got there for the list.
**Lee:** so I've watched two films, both in exactly the same vein,
**Lee:** and both came out in the same year, which is how I actually, the film I'm going to cover now, I watched by accident because I thought it was the one that I'm going to mention later.
**Lee:** but as it features both Patrick Troughton and Dennis Waterman, who you've just mentioned, I watched Scars of Dracula during the week.
**Adam:** I thought it must be, yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, what a funny little film that is.
**Lee:** I I I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** It's just, it's such a strange cast. I don't know why.
**Lee:** obviously a lot of the sort of Hammer films carry the Michael Ripper's in it and people who you'd expect and obviously Christopher Lee is Dracula.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's just a very strange little story,
**Lee:** but it works really well and I really enjoy it. Patrick Troughton always, I always find it weird when he's in horror stuff because in my mind, I always remember him from being in The Box of Delights, which I'm a slightly fan of and watch every Christmas without fail.
**Lee:** yeah, so I remember him as this kindly old gentleman. So whenever you see him like in this where he plays Clove, who's who's basically Dracula's familiar and just, you know, chops bodies up for him.
**Lee:** It just seems odd. I just can't, but I mean, he looks sinister as fuck. So it definitely works, but it's.
**Adam:** That's that's the weird thing. Patrick Troughton naturally does look like a villain.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So the fact that to me, to me he's the doctor, to you, he's the guy from Box of Delights, you know, these sort of like helpful heroic sort of but no, but his calling is, yeah, he is designed to sculpt around laboratories.
**Adam:** That's, you know, he's, that's him. Yeah.
**Lee:** and I'd really like, I really like Dennis Waterman in it. I mean, it's, you know, often when they pick somebody out of British TV and put them in a, you know, a big movie like this, it doesn't always carry over so well.
**Lee:** It's a completely different style.
**Lee:** but I don't know if it's just because it's so British being a Hammer film, then it's Waterman just just works really well in it.
**Lee:** But it's just, it's a really strange story. I don't know why.
**Lee:** There's something about it.
**Lee:** It just seems very short.
**Lee:** Like the film doesn't feel short, but the story is just his brother turns up, he goes missing, him and his girlfriend go looking for the brother.
**Lee:** And and that's basically what happened, and then they killed Dracula, unsurprisingly, because it's Hammer film.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's really good. It's really enjoyable. I love all the sets and the, it's got a lot of those backlog sets that they use still.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's great, really good fun.
**Lee:** So,
**Adam:** The the Hammer Dracula series, weirdly, apart from like the seventies ones, because they kind of go a bit balls out to make it a big deal.
**Adam:** but the the rest of them after the first one, they're very sort of, they feel like there was a Dracula TV series.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know, like you say, they're not big plots, they're not like the universe of horrors of world plots. They are very sort of just a story that occurs around Dracula in that moment almost. It's not about the bigger sort of story.
**Adam:** It's just it's quite sort of, not mundane's the wrong word when you're dealing with fucking the undead and magic and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Just think type of situations that they sort of, but yeah, I mean,
**Lee:** as I say, the fact that they knocked this and the other film I'm about to talk talk about later on out in the same year.
**Lee:** Yeah, I suppose that's the thing.
**Lee:** So they didn't go too much into plot. They were just like, people are going to turn up.
**Lee:** Let's just have somebody else with a two minute back story stumbling on Dracula's castle and then it all kicks off.
**Lee:** And they work. I don't know how they manage, but they just make it work.
**Adam:** Well, speak speaking of Dennis Waterman, that's another episode I'd recommend from Thriller is there's one called The Eyes Have It. And it's Dennis Waterman and, oh, I can't name, but basically, it's setting a school for the blind.
**Adam:** And these terrorists turn up, they're going to use it as a point for an assassination, and it's Peter Vaughn is one of the terrorists.
**Adam:** And it's one of those things where it's just done so again, so brilliantly on like, you know, but anyway, that's besides the point, but yeah,
**Adam:** that that's another one of the recommends is definitely, yeah, because it was just you saying Dennis Waterman, I was like, oh shit, yeah, that's a really fucking good one.
**Lee:** Excellent. Yeah.
**Lee:** Jennifer is Googling at the moment, trying to find a copy of that box set right now.
**Jennifer:** I'm trying to find for a reasonable price.
**Lee:** So, next film,
**Jennifer:** Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** Yes. next film, we went back and rewatched, Lot 249 from the Ghost Stories for Christmas.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Jennifer:** Once, obviously, when it was actually aired on Christmas Eve.
**Jennifer:** And it'd been a long day.
**Lee:** It had been a long day.
**Jennifer:** I probably, I think watching it this time, I probably did fall asleep just before the end.
**Jennifer:** So I was like, I don't remember that bit.
**Jennifer:** so it was good to watch it whilst wide awake.
**Jennifer:** And yeah, I mean it obviously very biased because anything that Mark Gatiss does,
**Jennifer:** obviously, love.
**Jennifer:** But, yeah, really well done.
**Jennifer:** Managed to sort of weave the eeriness into it. But also, I thought like of its time, you know, it really set that up, didn't it, with the way they're, you know, they would be behaving at that time and, you know, playing cricket and all these different things and, yeah, I thought it was great, really good.
**Adam:** Yeah, because it's based, because it was based, obviously, it's a Conan Doyle story.
**Adam:** And I I'll be honest, I wasn't too sure about them bunging Sherlock Holmes in it.
**Jennifer:** He's sneaky, wasn't he?
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You like just a sneaking, is it, is it Sherlock Holmes and then getting him to say no ghosts need apply and it's like, right.
**Jennifer:** Oh, I mean, yeah.
**Jennifer:** I thought.
**Adam:** But, but it's my favorite mummy story.
**Adam:** because because it's the, you know the Ladybird books of horror they had?
**Jennifer:** No, I was going to find mine earlier.
**Jennifer:** Just so I could wave it at you, because I love that. Obsessively read it over and over again.
**Jennifer:** It was great.
**Adam:** Yeah. And it was just so, it's always stuck with me that that's like that.
**Adam:** In my head that's, that's the mummy. If someone says the mummy, it's not Imhotep, it's not the sort of, you know, lost loves or anything else like that.
**Jennifer:** It's.
**Jennifer:** Burning leaves and burning leaves in a student, in a student flat and yeah, that's what it is to me.
**Lee:** You said about Sherlock Holmes though, I quite liked it, but mainly because I thought John Heffernan who played him in this.
**Lee:** he's got the look. Like he could play Holmes, so I I was sold just on that.
**Adam:** Because I was because I think that was the thing is I think I twigged it that early that I was like, he could play Sherlock Holmes. Right. Okay, I see what you've done there.
**Adam:** also, apparently, and I don't know if this is, this is a worry in a way is apparently they were doing a documentary about, Sherlock Holmes, around Christmas. and that they got it made on the back of that, but apparently initially they weren't going to ask for a ghost story for Christmas.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** And Mark Gates, I'd read an interview with him somewhere where he was just saying, you know, don't know if there'll be any more because we sort of piggybacked this on the fact they were doing a Conan Doyle related thing on BBC Four.
**Jennifer:** He can ask, he could piggyback one each year, I reckon, surely.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think they must be able to.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** I mean, they're just, they're still so, so I love the Gatiss ones too. They're Christmas Eve.
**Lee:** There's not much else when you're an adult. Not much look forward to the next day really.
**Lee:** I mean, I love.
**Adam:** Well, I've loved.
**Lee:** Sorry Dave, if you're listening, lovely day, also Chrissy, it's amazing.
**Lee:** Christmas was. I mean, it's not the same excitement, is it?
**Lee:** The TV, it's a highlight of the TV schedule for the last five years.
**Adam:** Yeah, and last, last Christmas was a bloody wash out in terms of telly. I don't think there was.
**Adam:** I don't think there was anything on.
**Adam:** Like, usually you get a few bits and pieces. Again, I was slightly disappointed there wasn't a Christmas Inside number nine.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But in fairness, if you've got I think they're doing series nine, which I think is going to be the last series.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, that's what they've said, isn't it?
**Adam:** So maybe they didn't want to like, do we want to have to come up with a Christmas related one or can we write six? You know what I mean?
**Adam:** You don't want to necessarily lobby in there and only have five episodes left to do in the series or something.
**Lee:** Yeah, and the cast as well, wasn't it? It was like Freddie Fox was just as you like, isn't he?
**Jennifer:** He's got that look about him, hasn't he? Just, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And obviously Kit Harrington, it's the only thing I've seen him in other than obviously being Jon Snow and it's such a completely different character.
**Jennifer:** Oh, yeah, he can act.
**Lee:** There you go. It's amazing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He was actually, yeah, no, he was, I was sort of because you expect it to just be Jon Snow.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But he, the guy who played the mummy, James Swanton. he was when I saw the live Quate mess thing they did back in September with Mark Gatiss,
**Adam:** he played Karoon, like the astronaut. And obviously, it's not a particularly vocal part, but he actually just did like mime against light to do transformations and stuff like that at the show.
**Adam:** And it was really fucking good. And yeah, and I can see the physicality of him why he was in as the mummy.
**Adam:** but apparently he is, obsessed with Conrad Veidt from, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and and others.
**Adam:** so yeah.
**Lee:** You could see it, you really could. His performance in this as the mummy was.
**Lee:** And I mean, the look of the mummy was just, oh, it was.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah. No, they did it. They did it very well.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** well, I think I'll just give it a this is, this was one of my, this was a a Christmas present from, my beautiful, my beautiful wife.
**Adam:** but on the Conrad Veidt, tip, watched Wax Works, the silent anthology and very fucking good, very fucking good.
**Adam:** but also on a brief note, we also watched Wellington Paranormal series four, which we hadn't seen before, which is like the the last one that they made.
**Adam:** and now there is a Wellington Paranormal podcast.
**Adam:** And it's Mike Miano and Karen O'ry who play officers Manog and O'ry.
**Adam:** And just listening to them is fucking magic,
**Adam:** because they're just such good mates and everything else like that. It's like getting extra time with Manog and O'ry anyway.
**Adam:** But it's also really fascinating to hear like the background of how the show worked and stuff like that.
**Adam:** They've just had Jermaine Clement on for an interview. so obviously, yeah, and like, Sergeant Mark has been on there and officer Parker have been, you know, they've interviewed lots of people with regard to it
**Adam:** and it's just a really good podcast and I'm hoping that if we all listen to it, they might make series five.
**Jennifer:** Right, let's get on there then quick.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Lee:** To our lists.
**Adam:** So you have your, you have your instructions.
**Jennifer:** That's how it works today. Brilliant.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think we watched the first series and we didn't and I I don't think.
**Lee:** I think I didn't hear about the others coming out, so we never.
**Jennifer:** Is it what? Oh, seriously.
**Adam:** Seriously.
**Jennifer:** On Amazon, in which case.
**Adam:** To be to be honest, get them, watch them,
**Adam:** and we talk about it on the show, we do an episode on Wellington.
**Adam:** because, you know, it's, it's so in our fucking wheelhouse.
**Jennifer:** Cool.
**Lee:** Excellent. That sounds fantastic.
**Lee:** Definitely have to do that.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Chris:** So I went, I went for it follows.
**Chris:** Now, superficially, I didn't watch this a few times when I nearly did, because it's called it follows, and in my head, I'm like, I could watch this.
**Chris:** I could just watch it, just because it's its name.
**Lee:** Was there a film called follows?
**Chris:** Well, possibly.
**Adam:** Or was it just you being lazy when you were typing it in, you got to start.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** I'm done. I'm done.
**Chris:** Look at that.
**Chris:** But but I decided, no, I'm going to do it.
**Chris:** I've heard, I have heard positive things about it.
**Chris:** I I want to see what's about.
**Chris:** I think I did hear, you know, the rough premise, and I was like, I can't exactly imagine how I could really want to watch a film about that for the whole length of time.
**Chris:** However, as as I got past the the initial premise, and it got deeper and deeper, I realized actually, it does have extra layers of interest and sort of philosophical ideas of children entering adulthood and realizing that one day they will expire and it's impossible to avoid that and tied up with the whole, you know, idea of sex and what that can mean to different people, at different ages and, you know, what experiences you have.
**Chris:** It's like, okay, you know, actually, they've they've done something pretty good with the plot line.
**Chris:** And then also, what really sold it to me, amazing music by, Rich Vreeland, also known as Disasterpiece.
**Chris:** And the whole, the whole aesthetic of it was, it was kind of nostalgic, like it did seem, I don't I don't exactly know when it was set, but it seemed both old and new in some of the decisions that they'd made.
**Chris:** yeah, and so overall, it it really worked well.
**Chris:** yeah, I I think I'd quite happily watch it again, knowing now a bit more about it.
**Adam:** I still got to bloody see it.
**Chris:** Well, that'd be interesting.
**Chris:** It's so.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I've got the soundtrack, and I love the soundtrack.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Okay. Yeah.
**Chris:** It is. It is amazing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In contention. It's like, just but again, getting around to it.
**Adam:** It's I'm sure I'm sure I have plussed it, from from one of the from one of the cable channels.
**Adam:** but yeah, but the disaster piece, yeah, like the music is just fucking good.
**Chris:** Really is.
**Chris:** Yeah, because I mean, it it calls back to to some classics, such as John Carpenter and and others, but I think he has added his own elements that really, yeah, add something extra.
**Chris:** So, no, I was I was impressed. It it turned out a lot better than I expected from the start.
**Jennifer:** I feel like the name is a little bit boring, isn't it? It follow.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Jennifer:** It's a bit subdued, isn't it?
**Jennifer:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think it did a bit when the public domain as well, which is why I was a bit, oh,
**Lee:** any horror film that generally gets picked up by people who aren't generally horror films, horror fans, nine times out of ten.
**Chris:** Well, I can't see, yeah, I can't see why, because it it appears to be something that is, more easily accessible. I think it it does appear to be a simplistic plot idea, but yeah, I would say there is there is a lot more going on in it than and and it just played out really well.
**Chris:** Yeah, just the tension was built perfectly.
**Chris:** And even the fact there were not really many adults, they're all youths. I don't exactly know what their ages are, but yeah,
**Chris:** it's like and then they did. It was a really good cast.
**Chris:** So I was I was impressed.
**Adam:** I've always, I mean, I've always heard good things about it,
**Adam:** but again, it's just.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** There's always something else.
**Adam:** There's always.
**Chris:** There's always something else.
**Adam:** I mean, you know, I'm trying if I started catching up chronologically,
**Adam:** we are fucked.
**Lee:** You're doing 70s now.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** yeah, but I'd have to go back further than that.
**Adam:** That'd be. Haven't watched everything from the silent era yet.
**Adam:** Not yet.
**Lee:** Well, keeping us in the seventies.
**Lee:** So my other film that I watched, which was the one I wanted to watch when I watched Scars, my second favorite Hammer film of all time, Taste of Blood of Dracula, I've rewatched.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** My God, that's a good film.
**Lee:** Jeffrey Keene again turned up in Horrors of the Black Museum. And it was funny, because the whole time I was watching it, I'd only watched Taste of Blood of Dracula about three days before, but because he's so much younger in Black Museum, I kept going,
**Lee:** I've seen him in something as some miserable old shit really recently.
**Lee:** Took me a while.
**Lee:** but yeah, obviously Peter Salllis is in it as well, talking about taking British TV who totally random. Anthony Higgins is fantastic, who I've only also seen in Young Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Young Sherlock.
**Lee:** Young Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** but yeah, oh, and Linda Hayden as well. So, who's from, Blood on Satan's Floor.
**Lee:** Blood on Satan's Floor.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's really nice and it it does feel like it's got a much bigger story this one,
**Lee:** as you were saying, as opposed to Scar.
**Lee:** there's so much going on.
**Lee:** And oh, it's just, it's bloody brilliant and it looks gorgeous and it sounds great and it just ticks all the boxes for me.
**Lee:** I just absolutely love it.
**Adam:** And it's it's interesting because it's kind of like you see that there's another option they could have gone
**Adam:** where you've got Dracula as a false and Dracula is not diminished in it. Dracula is still evil. But you've got Dracula as an indirect force for good because of these fucking appalling people that he's decided to ruin their fucking like tear their world apart.
**Adam:** And you're sort of like, yeah, that that feels, you know, that that sort of feels it's like justice, you know, so.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It does.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** Anyone who hasn't seen it, honestly, go and watch it.
**Lee:** It's it's my favorite of the Dracula films of out there.
**Adam:** It's possibly mine. certainly of the traditional ones. 80 72 is probably my ultimate favorite, but I like.
**Lee:** I like.
**Adam:** Of the actual of the ones that you could show someone and say this is a Dracula film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right. So, let's wrap things up.
**Lee:** thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** We will be back in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** Adam, what are we doing because I haven't fucking written it down.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Lee:** we'll put it up on social and let you know.
**Jennifer:** Jennifer, you're in charge for that one.
**Lee:** We'll we'll put a little agenda on.
**Lee:** yeah, sorry, we should have discussed that before we started recording it.
**Lee:** I think I fucking did this last time as well.
**Lee:** I'm so sorry.
**Lee:** But at least Adam picked the ball up last time.
**Lee:** Right.
**Jennifer:** He need a pool, got ready, it's Adam.
**Lee:** He's the one.
**Lee:** Right, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody. take care of yourselves, go and watch all the things we've recommended,
**Lee:** go and listen to the not for everyone podcast and we'll see you in a fortnight.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 189 The Group

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-189-the-group/
Air date: 11 February 2024
Duration: 00:24:41
Film: The Group · Year: 1966 · Director: Sidney Lumet

### Description

We present a spoiler free look at “The Group”, the debut feature of director William Higo. A group meeting for (mostly) recovering addicts is suddenly hijacked by an unknown man, who conducts his own brutal group therapy session, down the barrel of a gun. Secrets are exposed, truths confronted and loyalties are torn and formed as the situation reaches boiling point. A taut thriller set in one location, this film is so much more assuredly cinematic than those restrictions may suggest, and it succeeds in being a tense and intriguing ride. The small cast work wonders with a smart and unflinching script, holding the viewer in their seat for the film’s duration. A big thank you to Will Higo for reaching out to us (via longtime friend of the show Tony Wash) and allowing us to view this excellent thriller. Having wowed at festivals, “The Group” is available in the US, and coming soon in the UK, and we urge you to seek it out! For our US listeners The Group is available on: Indemand Dish Directv Vudu https://www.vudu.com/content/browse/details/The-Group/2716039 Hoopla https://www.hoopladigital.com/movie/the-group-jennifer-aries/16479645 Microsoft link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/the-group/8d6kgwxxkw2f?activetab=pivot%3aoverviewtab Apple link, which should open the app: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/the-group/umc.cmc.2fopy9nvq50zdk3drpyfze72c

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Sound effects and music
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening to cover a movie yet to be released in the UK, which is really exciting.
**Adam:** Exclusive.
**Lee:** And we're going to be doing our very best to discuss it without spoilers.
**Lee:** Because obviously normally we we will knew we're going to spoil the shit out of it, but we're not going to do that for this because that'd be unfair.
**Lee:** And I personally think people should go out and watch this. So,
**Adam:** They should.
**Lee:** Yes, so we are covering the group by William Higo. He has he's friends with Tony from Scotch worthy, yeah. Sorry, it's Sunday night and my brain is shutting down already. And so I'd seen some of William's work previously. He directed a short called My Name Is, which was actually one of my favorites from the the first Wo to Death DVD.
**Adam:** Oh, yes. Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's sort of similar to the movie we're covering this evening, but twists in a very different way.
**Lee:** So anybody, I'd recommend if you go and Google Will Higo, he's got a website and if you go it's there's got an editor and director tab. If you go to the director tab, all his short stuff's on there. Yeah, and I've been through and watched all of them at least a couple of times because they're all really good, so
**Lee:** I recommend people go and do the same.
**Adam:** And also he has worked on so much stuff like in the capacity as an as editor or as in you know like not not in a directing capacity, but yeah he's sort of he's worked on.
**Chris:** I'm going to say
**Adam:** It comes through.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, this doesn't this doesn't feel like a first go, No, even though this is his first feature length film as a director and writer.
**Chris:** It definitely felt polished to me.
**Adam:** It it did.
**Lee:** I mean it looked lovely, it was really well put together.
**Lee:** And the acting in it again, I know we always say, that's the thing with lower budget and independent stuff that can be quite hard is getting a decent enough cast to carry your
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And that works well together.
**Chris:** Because they could all individually be great, but it's it's got to be a believable set up of all of them.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I I thought it worked perfectly with this.
**Lee:** Because there was that
**Lee:** You know, there was the kind of those who got on and those who it was a little bit clicky and very different personalities.
**Chris:** And I thought it would they didn't all stay exactly the same either.
**Chris:** There was definitely intrigue with each of them that folded nicely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean just to
**Adam:** Just so we're obviously we like we say, we're remaining spoiler free, but the essential setup is is that a the group refers to a group like a meeting for reformed or reforming addicts.
**Adam:** Mainly basically mainly drug addicts, but addiction, basically. And so it's a group therapy session for that that spirals out when a new person comes into the room,
**Adam:** Pulls a gun and starts doing their own version of a group therapy session.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, like you say, you've got you've got all these characters who weirdly enough they they give you a nice
**Adam:** It gives you a nice feeling from the off that you feel familiar with all the characters, you know, they're sort of like, oh right, so that's that person, that's that person.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then that alters as people's truths are coming out as people's what what has led them to this point.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you get sort of like you suddenly it's you know, there's a lot of you realize that yes, you know these characters, but you then know them on a much deeper level.
**Adam:** And their actions change in in that context or they're feeling, you know, it's
**Adam:** Yeah, it's an impressively done little because it's
**Adam:** It's almost literally just in one room.
**Chris:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Lee:** That was the point I was about to make. I when I watched the trailer, yeah, and I was like, are they is he going to be able to sustain an hour and 15 minutes of just
**Chris:** And
**Lee:** Half a dozen characters in a single room, but as you said Adam, it's that character development and all those little twists and turns of finding out people's secrets and backstories.
**Chris:** That was really keep it moving.
**Lee:** It rushed by. Yeah, it really does.
**Adam:** It's it's weird, it's in that tradition thinking of like single location films, it's it's a very similar thing you get you get a very similar sort of thing with 12 Angry Men and Phone Booth.
**Chris:** That's it, yeah.
**Adam:** That thing where you're restricting to that, yeah.
**Chris:** Phone booth is the one I always think of.
**Adam:** Where you're restricted to that single location, but it's just done to the, you know.
**Adam:** That drives it, that sort of claustrophobia and that.
**Chris:** It's it's all about the character or characters that then
**Chris:** And so yeah, you get that right and it it works amazingly well.
**Lee:** It is, but yeah, that's the thing, it does all hinge on everybody selling it.
**Lee:** Because you only need one weak link in there, sort of act to wise or whatever and it it it yeah, it it can it can destroy a movie, can't it?
**Lee:** I mean and again trying to find this many what is it seven or eight people.
**Lee:** And you need everybody to be perfect, otherwise the entire thing falls like a house of cards.
**Lee:** But yeah, I was I was totally blown away by this, I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I said it's not I know it's a lot more of a thriller than stuff that we normally cover.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** but yeah, I I I totally loved it. I really really really drawn in.
**Adam:** I mean we've we've definitely covered thrillers in the past and I think that they are so they can rub so closely to horror.
**Adam:** It's a similar sort of thing of it's that, you know, it comes from the tension.
**Adam:** It comes from the sort of
**Adam:** You know, it's whether the tension is whether a werewolf's going to appear or
**Chris:** Well, that's it. Yeah, it's like you are on the edge of what's going to happen next. Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** But I also think that
**Adam:** Because basically, yeah, the one the one location is this is this meeting which is basically taking place in a community center.
**Adam:** And it's weird that it feels it feels cinematic. It doesn't feel like someone in a community center with a camera.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Not in an attempt to make it documentary in that way or just not looking right. It just somehow
**Chris:** It it does have that artistic element to it. It really does.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think it's the lighting and everything that they've put it. It's got that as you say, it's got that kind of lived in feeling.
**Lee:** Yeah, whereas if it's just a community center under fluorescent light, it's a bit it's a bit glaring and a bit off.
**Lee:** Yeah, whereas this felt like you sort of settled into it quite nicely cuz it all just felt Yeah, I felt real, really.
**Adam:** And I think that there are, I mean clearly there are, you know, there are harsh moments because this this is a film about people who are already
**Adam:** Battling struggling that struggling in many ways, and then someone's coming in and poking at that and.
**Chris:** Struggling that yeah.
**Chris:** What was interesting is how there was elements of positivity throughout where you know, you can clearly see they are they are the people who they're they are trying to better themselves and in a way what Jack does is also getting them to reflect on on that.
**Chris:** So even though it's it's yeah, there's so much negativity, but it's it is that sort of can we move on from here in some way?
**Chris:** It's I tell you what
**Chris:** You reminded me of and the obvious similarity was the scene in Fight Club where he pulls the gun out on the Garage Clerk.
**Adam:** Oh yes, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and so it was, you know, definitely had an element of that like just putting someone under very intense experience.
**Chris:** And getting them to think about what they're doing is almost like, you know, mindfulness but extreme.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's mindfulness of on the down the barrel of a gun. It's.
**Adam:** But that's the curious thing as well is that his presence actually does it makes them a group.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Which they are not they're kind of not before.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, they you know, weirdly enough they all sort of chip in in one way or another.
**Adam:** You know, and like the of there's there's a scene of yeah, warning scenes of extreme drug use.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** But there is you know, there there is the sequence where there is a sequence where they're sort of like almost egging each other on.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Of like to sort of rally around and save a life, but it's just but it's not someone that but it's not even someone that any of them have rated.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Before, you know, they're not sort of.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's it's but I think that because that's the weird thing is because right at the start of the group there's the there's the woman who runs the group who
**Chris:** Right, so that's yeah.
**Adam:** I understand she's actually Canadian, but you know, I was like at first I was like, American, Canadian, I'm not apologies to her, but she's Canadian. And I did think that was the one thing that was missing possibly was
**Adam:** When he first pulls the gun out, no one disbelieves the gun.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I don't know if you would in the UK.
**Adam:** Because it's because that's the thing it's a British set film.
**Adam:** You know, it is Yeah.
**Adam:** And I don't know why, you know, I mean you've got an ex you've got like an ex-policeman in there who could maybe be maybe identify that it's real or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But I also thought if you've got if you've got someone who's like from somewhere where guns are more freely available.
**Adam:** Just going, no, no, sit down, this is real.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, But then admittedly there is a far more pertinent exposure that the gun is real.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's just the fact that you know, but no one I don't it was just weird that no one at first was like,
**Adam:** Is this a joke?
**Lee:** Even questioned it. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, is it that real, you know?
**Adam:** But it's but still I mean I
**Chris:** I wonder if that's that's that could be indicative of the lives they've been leading, they probably have seen some bad things.
**Adam:** That's I mean very true.
**Adam:** I mean that's the thing but I think it's just sort of like yeah.
**Adam:** But that is a very minor thing that crossed my mind in an otherwise.
**Chris:** And it fears reasonably quickly on that front.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, it didn't it didn't take me out of it or anything like that.
**Adam:** I was just sort of like when he was a.
**Chris:** He is he is like.
**Adam:** I was like, oh yeah, maybe.
**Chris:** He is a a character, isn't he? Like really, it just the way he comes in and takes over it's like.
**Lee:** And he and again I found I found him an unusual character because in spite of the fact what he's doing is terrible.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It at no point does it feel like he's doing it maliciously, does that make sense?
**Lee:** Like he doesn't come in and you immediately go what an absolute monster.
**Lee:** You immediately think he's here for a reason, he's yeah, so I thought he carried that across quite well, like he didn't just come in like a arrendo villain.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You knew immediately.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know, he's been put upon, you know he's been pushed to the point where he's there.
**Lee:** So you almost you really want to find out.
**Chris:** Yeah, what.
**Lee:** Yeah, what his back story is.
**Lee:** As much as.
**Lee:** Yeah, which I
**Adam:** Because that's the thing.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** It's there there is that as well where it's like you still, you know, for it for a great deal of the film, you do not know.
**Adam:** Why this is occurring.
**Adam:** There's people some it's interesting because there's a few people who have inklings.
**Adam:** And it turns out they're completely wrong.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They're like, oh sort of, you know, they assume that it's something they've done and then he's just very calmly, no, it's not me.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, that's that's not the reason, but you know, thanks for sharing.
**Chris:** It's so
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I suppose it's the way he you know, like I said he's not just being horrible.
**Chris:** Like he there the way he's talking, the things he's saying, the things he's doing, it's yeah, absolutely that you just don't know for sure what he's his aim is.
**Adam:** It's everything feels like an end to end to a means.
**Adam:** It's not it's not sadism.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** It's not getting off on doing it, but it's like, no, I'm having to do this to get to this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, that's.
**Lee:** And the thing that I liked as well, which again not to try and to do it without giving any spoilers.
**Lee:** Is I don't know how much of what what what happened while he was in there.
**Lee:** He knew going in.
**Lee:** So like the amount of people who were involved in that, it seemed like he was surprised at points.
**Lee:** By the things that he was discovering along with us. Yeah, so that I was kind of wondering I was like, oh, when he wrote it, I wonder if he had in mind that, you know, the guy has gone in there for a reason and he knows what he knows, but does he know everything or is he.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I thought that added a level to it.
**Adam:** It's it's like.
**Adam:** Because at first like you say, that there is that sort of element where yeah, he does stuff may come out that he's not aware of and things.
**Adam:** Because at first it feels very like an Inspector Calls.
**Lee:** That was what I kept thinking an Inspector Calls.
**Lee:** Very similar.
**Adam:** Where, you know, obviously obviously in an utterly different way, but he's like, he's like the 24 version of an Inspector Calls, like you said someone who with a gun who breaks legs to sort of, you know.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, just again sort of there's a lot of.
**Adam:** And it's it's not a long film.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** Which is always which is always fantastic.
**Chris:** It captured exactly what was needed in in the time without.
**Adam:** But it actually it you know, it does ripple along.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Especially for something in one location, you know, that you.
**Chris:** I think that's it like when you know,
**Chris:** When you know that's the setup, it's impossible not to think, oh, is this, you know, is this going to struggle at some point?
**Chris:** And it's like as it, you know, every few minutes you're like, no, it's getting it right.
**Adam:** It's just I think it's just you get this, you know, it just it doesn't piss about, you get into the situation immediately.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's the lovely thing as well, which is I just love the touch that obviously because it's quite a common practice with any sort of meeting, I know they do it in like they do it at work and things like that where you lock up everyone's phone beforehand.
**Adam:** So someone's not sitting there on their phone or getting calls or whatever like that, so you have to focus on the meeting.
**Adam:** And it's like, brilliant, you've just in one you know, in one move of something that is absolutely common to that situation.
**Adam:** You've removed right, why isn't someone called for help?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, brilliant.
**Adam:** Just immediately sort of, you know, well done.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think it's the tension.
**Lee:** I think for me as well, I think it because it it maintained that tension all the way.
**Lee:** Like there's no, it doesn't let off at any point.
**Chris:** Doesn't love.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** I think that's why it went so quick because you are literally on the edge of your seat for the entire duration.
**Lee:** It's not like, you know, when you get a breather and then it's back in again or whatever, like there there's no letting up.
**Lee:** Which yeah, which which kept you and again it's those twists and turns.
**Lee:** Just enough characters that you don't get bogged down in everybody's backstory and confused with who does what, it's just enough characters, but it it's enough characters that yeah.
**Lee:** Every five minutes or so, you get a new piece of information or a new reveal or a new angle on it that keeps keeping it fresh.
**Lee:** And taking it in a different direction to where, as he say, you're sort of expecting it to go.
**Chris:** Sure.
**Adam:** I think that's the thing it's it's tense and fascinating.
**Adam:** Because you're intrigued because you want to know what is going on.
**Adam:** But it keeps it at that sort of real run that sort of knife edge through it.
**Adam:** So you're sort of like, you know, cuz let's face it, you can do a film that's very tense for an hour and 15 or whatever.
**Chris:** But it'll be just too much.
**Adam:** But you might not no, but you don't necessarily have would have character development or something like that.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Or something like that, you know, you can relentlessly chase someone with a pickaxe for an hour.
**Adam:** You know, it it would get dull, but you know.
**Chris:** I think I I noticed a few times the music was very good as well.
**Chris:** I don't know if you've know any details about that, but.
**Adam:** No, I didn't know the I didn't recognize the composer's name, but I am going to be looking him up.
**Adam:** Because yeah, I really.
**Adam:** I really liked a lot of what that.
**Adam:** But again, it wasn't a it wasn't an intrusive sort of
**Adam:** Thing it was partially partly sound designish sort of, you know, it's that sort of gray area now, isn't it really?
**Lee:** Yeah, that's what I liked about it as well. It didn't feel too sometimes it can feel a little bit too overdramatic.
**Lee:** And like it's pushing too hard, especially with this where it's limited cast, single single scene.
**Lee:** They can sort of use the music to keep pushing that.
**Chris:** To try and convince you of something.
**Chris:** But really it just felt like it was adding to the energy and the.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** The sort of the mood and that's that's why I think overall just the production seemed fantastic. It wasn't too much or or you know disjoined it would just yeah, it was really well put together.
**Adam:** You know, I've I've I've seen far worse third you know, as your debut feature is like this is you know,
**Adam:** This is this is someone who knows what they're doing.
**Chris:** I also had a sense that I would quite happily watch it again.
**Chris:** I felt like it wouldn't, you know, even though there are some reveals, it's like, no, actually.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I would.
**Adam:** I would watch it again mostly because now I know those reveals.
**Chris:** Yeah, no.
**Adam:** Yeah, then you would see from that point of view of someone is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's those usual suspects where you want to go back once you know who went up, you want to go back to the start and see what you can up on the next time through.
**Adam:** And that's the thing it's it's not a plot it's not plot twisty in that in the sort of usual suspects sense.
**Adam:** It is much more the, you know, it's just these characters that you find out all these secrets about and where their resolve leaves them and where their sort of.
**Adam:** And I I really liked its ambiguous nature with you know, where it was like no one is clearly bad or worse.
**Adam:** You know, I mean Jack is obviously, you know, a you know, he's not right.
**Adam:** He is.
**Chris:** He's upset.
**Adam:** He upset.
**Adam:** Yeah, there's there's that's nicely put there.
**Adam:** So but no, but what I mean is I think it's there's there doesn't there's not a lot.
**Adam:** There's not a clear you know, it doesn't demonstrate any sort of morality in the sense of this person's definitely bad, this person's definitely good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again, not wanting to get into spoiler if it territory, but certainly there was a a line.
**Adam:** One of the very last lines of it was just perfect. It was my favorite thing about the the movie.
**Adam:** And I won't give it away.
**Adam:** But there is just a bit where it's like, wow, you know, just.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, it yeah.
**Lee:** It's I can't wait to see what he does next.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** So hopefully this is a if I've got it correct.
**Lee:** I believe it's available in North America at the moment.
**Lee:** I think it's just got distribution.
**Lee:** and he's working on cuz Will is
**Lee:** is is London-based as well, he is British. Yeah.
**Lee:** So I think he's working on getting released over here.
**Lee:** I did emailing to ask him details of when it might be coming out and where people will be able to see it.
**Lee:** But in my usual disorganized way, I did that about six hours before we started recording.
**Lee:** And I'm guessing he's a very busy man, so that's it.
**Lee:** So, but what we'll do is.
**Chris:** You think so.
**Lee:** But yeah, hopefully if we hear back in the next week, what we'll do is we'll drop it in the show notes any information as to where you'll be able to see this and when.
**Lee:** so I think it was completed in 2022.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So it's been so it's done the festivals and stuff and now it's getting like a slow roll out.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz I think it it was definitely at Fright Fest.
**Adam:** So they, you know, they would also have like some info on it there as well.
**Adam:** Probably, you know, but definitely, yeah.
**Adam:** This is this is one to check out, it's definitely as I say.
**Adam:** I think as a superior thriller, you know, this is definitely one to one to go and seek out.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** 100% couldn't agree more.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, so go and check this out as soon as it is available, we'll let you know where and when that will be.
**Lee:** thank you very much, Will for sending this film our way and and.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Suggesting that we check it out.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was a it was a really, really nice surprise.
**Lee:** Yeah, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
**Lee:** So we will be back in a fortnight's time, are we doing what we've been watching because we haven't done one of those in about two months.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** It's going to be easier than remembering what we were going to do as a film next.
**Adam:** So let's do that.
**Lee:** Then.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, yeah, so we'll be back for what we've been watching, so no homework for next week.
**Lee:** and go and check out.
**Lee:** I say if you go to Will Higo's site and you can check out all of his shorts on there.
**Lee:** It's yeah, it's an entertaining hour or so just going through and and and watching all those.
**Lee:** So, thanks very much, take care and see you on the night's time.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Sound effects and music

---

## Ep 188 Severance

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-188-severance/
Air date: 28 January 2024
Duration: 00:39:40
Film: Severance · Year: 2006 · Director: Christopher Smith

### Description

It’s the next film in our Countycide season, and today we go down to the woods for a big surprise, with 2006’s “Severance”, from director Christopher Smith. A film in which the arrival of a gang of brutal, sadistic murderers relieves the true horror of an office team-building weekend; Lord Percy steps in something rather nasty; and Danny Dyer provides niche observational humour for all the ‘shroom heads in the audience. Another under appreciated film from the man who brought us high-seas time twister “Triangle”, “Severance”, despite its once ubiquity in secondhand shop DVD racks, seems to have also fallen out of sight, which is a real shame. It has a strong cast portraying believable, genuinely funny, characters (whether the character knows it or not) evoking perfectly that mismatch of work colleagues thrown together outside of office hours. With a genuinely nasty streak and scenes of gore and murder that would be much more gruelling in a straight narrative, and a lovely playful mixing of perspectives; this film should be rightly remembered and embraced by more fans of the fusion of comedy and horror. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening, as promised, as always, to discuss the second part of our countryside.
**Adam:** Countryside.
**Lee:** Yes. Or as Lady Jennifer pointed out at the very first five minutes of this film, what should have been called Kick-Ass Blondes, because this film also starts with two blondes really giving it some heavy stick. We are covering 2006 film Severance.
**Lee:** there will be a lot of swearing, there will be a lot of spoilers. I, I am going to go out on a limb and say, if you haven't seen this film, stop now, crack it down, watch it and return.
**Lee:** Because I am very confident that we all love this movie and we are not alone.
**Lee:** But not enough people have seen it, so it's one that there's a chance you've not seen, I know Chris, you, it took a while for you to track it down.
**Chris:** Absolutely, yeah. I had not heard anything about it. So you mentioned it, it did not stand out to me as, you know, something that I absolutely needed to check out.
**Chris:** And it turns out I should have done.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** So, on that, let's dive right into it.
**Lee:** So, on your first viewing, Chris, I, just to give you a bit of background, I heard about this from a Canadian podcast, the the godfather of horror podcast, The Horror Etcetera Podcast.
**Lee:** did, an episode on British, fucking Nora.
**Adam:** Horror comedy.
**Lee:** I'm not even drinking.
**Adam:** This is sobriety for you.
**Lee:** British horror comedy, and they covered The Cottage and this, and Shawn of the Dead and a film called Botched, which they were less fans of.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** So I tracked it down, watched it in the week, had to have Adam over on Saturday night to rewatch it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I think I'll, don't think I've been back to it again since.
**Lee:** But, Chris, what was your?
**Chris:** Yeah, well, that's what's funny, I, as I was watching it, I was thinking, this is definitely something I would be happy to watch again.
**Chris:** And I don't always think that, you know, sometimes it's like, this is an amazing film, but I just don't feel like I want to rush back to it.
**Chris:** Saying that, there's a bit of a a double take here.
**Chris:** So, I just want to start off with my little bit of alliteration, I definitely don't dislike Danny Dyer.
**Lee:** Hnh.
**Chris:** I don't know why it's not like him, like clearly there's something about him that seems to he's had some negative press as far as I gather, but I have completely missed all of that.
**Chris:** The only two things I can think of ever seeing him in is Human Traffic and this.
**Lee:** Amazing in both.
**Chris:** Yeah, right, so he absolutely, it's hard to think of a better actor for these two roles.
**Chris:** But like, I, yeah.
**Chris:** I did not expect this to be anywhere near as funny as it was making me just laugh so much with so like, just overall the dialogue and the characters played together so well.
**Chris:** Especially, I did not realize Captain Darling,
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Oh, Luke Perso.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So Tim McKinlay.
**Adam:** It's.
**Chris:** I always said.
**Adam:** McInerney.
**Adam:** I always said McInerney, but I think it's McEwen.
**Lee:** McEwen, right.
**Chris:** McEwen.
**Lee:** Tim McEwen, that sounds like three people.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But like, so when I saw him, but, you know, you've seen him on the on the coach.
**Adam:** It's a Nicola.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And you're like, okay, he's interesting, this is, they've clearly captured exactly how one of these coach trips plays out.
**Chris:** And I, I saw him leading it and I was like, is that going to be good, and it just absolutely it was just so entertaining.
**Chris:** yeah, but just some of the quotes cracked me up.
**Chris:** But on the whole, the dialogue is amazing.
**Chris:** But it's just things like, I found the pie.
**Chris:** And it's just the way they're all like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** What.
**Chris:** He just like, yeah, these are, these are real characters.
**Adam:** I cooked, I cooked it for the full hour.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, because every pie takes an hour.
**Chris:** It's so good.
**Chris:** and I'm not, you know, I don't tend to like sexist things.
**Chris:** But when Danny Dyer delivers it, English birds ain't complicated, you buy them a Bacardi Breezer and they ride you like Seabiscuit.
**Chris:** And it's just, he just delivers those sort of lines.
**Chris:** It's.
**Chris:** It's just him.
**Chris:** And you think, I could so imagine him delivering that when he's just out with his mates.
**Chris:** In a casual kind of way.
**Adam:** I believe that's the secret of Danny Dyer in his successful roles is when Danny Dyer is playing Danny Dyer.
**Lee:** He is, he's one of those.
**Lee:** If you put him in the right thing, he's perfect.
**Lee:** Because he's timing and he's delivery.
**Lee:** And you were saying about the, you know, not wanting to just, you know, sort of go through all the hilarious lines.
**Lee:** But his line when he's mushroomed out of his tits and he goes, to that bloke, you turn around with that big wide eye.
**Lee:** I literally laughed until I thought I was going to poo.
**Adam:** I, I and I don't, I don't wish to name and shame anyone on the podcast.
**Adam:** So I'll be as abstract as I can in my next statement.
**Adam:** But I recall the main thing that Lee, when Lee said he'd seen it, because weirdly enough,
**Adam:** Sarah, my sister, for listeners, is a massive Danny Dyer fan.
**Lee:** Sarah.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** And she's a massive Danny Dyer fan, she thinks he's great, I think she went, she went to a book signing where apparently he did his catchphrase, which if you remember from Danny Dyer's deadliest men was, I'm shitting myself.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, but, yeah, he,
**Adam:** I remember you, sort of like, so she, I saw it a few times, like, where she had it as well.
**Adam:** But, yeah, I remember the specific reason when we got round there was Lee and was particularly talking to Dean, his brother.
**Adam:** About a piece of what I'm going to describe as somewhat niche observational comedy in this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Involving experiences in altered states, so let's just say that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It, yeah, not to confess to anything on the show, but that, like, that bit when he's going,
**Lee:** I think I, I feel damp, I think I might have pissed myself, can you check?
**Lee:** Like, it, just, like, it just rang so true as the kind of thing that you hear people saying.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On mushrooms.
**Lee:** On mushrooms.
**Lee:** It's, yeah, it's that very, oh, and he just, he plays it.
**Lee:** So well.
**Lee:** Like, he's just.
**Adam:** Everyone fucking does.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The cast I know and the cast I don't are all fucking good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the, the fact that all the characters are characters and are all humorous.
**Adam:** There's not a straight person, some of them know they're being funny and some of them don't know they're being funny.
**Adam:** But everyone has a comic feel to them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there's, there's not like.
**Adam:** No one in it is the the nearest, I don't know, it's not, like, the nearest.
**Chris:** I think I think it can be kind of be epitomized by how when the bear trap is is chopping off his leg, it's still, still they're funny in it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The gore is horrible.
**Lee:** But, but they just do.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Chris:** The fact that they can't hold it open.
**Adam:** It's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, the fact they can't hold it open is so realistic.
**Lee:** Andy Nyman is and again, another one of the scenes that I particularly liked where they it it felt like a lesser film had show it and they didn't, was him on the diving board.
**Lee:** Yeah, but you keep seeing him and you're waiting for him to fall and you don't see it, you just see the next scene where he's soaking wet and covered in leaves.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it almost makes it funnier, because if you'd seen it, you know exactly what's coming, the fact that you don't see it somehow is more powerful.
**Adam:** I tell you what, I forgot, the other thing I forget is when you watch it, this this film is so well fucking shot and you know, there's a lot of.
**Adam:** That sounds really basic, but there's a lot of thought in it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah, more than you might think.
**Adam:** It's interesting, you don't, it's also interesting, you don't lose track of a film that has horror elements to, well, three fictionalized flashbacks.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, when they're telling the story of what the lodge used to be.
**Chris:** That that was, yeah, all in different styles.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** And someone on hallucinating on mushrooms, and a cheese dream, but you never lose track of.
**Adam:** It's never confusing even though it should be.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** On paper it definitely should be.
**Adam:** You can follow, you can follow those.
**Adam:** You you you follow those turns and it never sort of detracts.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and even within all those moments, like the overall, the overarching story arc is ridiculously, but ridiculously terrible as well.
**Chris:** Because it's it's got a serious element to it all.
**Chris:** And it's like I almost, I got to the point where it was, you know, you could tell it's got that.
**Chris:** Even from the start, because it's like, well, this is clearly a morality situation.
**Chris:** If they were working for an arms manufacturer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I wonder if it was made now that would have been a different thing in some way or another.
**Adam:** Because I think because I think for a start, you can have a company that has their hands in a lot of different things.
**Adam:** And there's still an argument of culpability if the umbrella corporation, if you're, if the thing that owns your company also owns a company that sells weapons or.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Then you can't really, so you can't differentiate between what you're doing scientifically and how it's being applied into an into an unpleasant use.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think nowadays I think they'd make it somewhat less because watching, it's, it's weird because it's not that old a film.
**Adam:** But I just don't think it would be, it's like you say, there's.
**Adam:** They all work for the fucking weapons company.
**Chris:** That's kind of funny.
**Chris:** Like, because that is weird though, so I mean, 2006 is literally quite a few years ago.
**Chris:** But it is of a modern, modern.
**Adam:** Big mess.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's funny though, Jennifer said the same thing about the the scene with
**Lee:** Neil McInnerny.
**Adam:** Tim McInnerny.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, the scene with him where he's talking to that woman and it keeps getting more and more sort of complicated because he's trying to correct himself.
**Chris:** Yes, yeah.
**Lee:** And she's like, yeah, that that's having a conversation now, but you didn't think of that as having a conversation in 2006.
**Lee:** Like it's what, and even on the bus at the very beginning, where the the woman suddenly says, you do realize that what you've made is a, you know, a training video for the SS or whatever, like you.
**Adam:** Kill you, I think.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But it is, it's that felt like it was self-aware of itself back then.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It hasn't a, and but also it's that weird thing which highlights that odd juxtaposition of corporate culture versus a weapons manufacturer.
**Adam:** You know, where it's like, well, I don't want to cause offense, and I didn't want to do, you know, I don't want to look like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I've sexually harassed someone or, you know, or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But we are selling things that kill people.
**Chris:** You sell.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it's sort of.
**Adam:** Yeah, but yeah, it's, but like I say, and weirdly enough, I think the thing, the weird thing is with it.
**Adam:** Is it is actually, it's fucking brutal.
**Chris:** Right, so.
**Chris:** This, this was going to be my, this was going to be my negative, right?
**Chris:** And I was trying to figure out, is it one, just my mood, I'm not wasn't quite ready for it, I don't know what it was, right?
**Chris:** But I almost think they did too good a job of it being too funny and too entertaining that I just wanted more of that.
**Chris:** And when it turned, it was like, oh, I sort of want a bit more funny.
**Chris:** But, but I absolutely did did get into it.
**Chris:** And then all the way through to the end, when it starts to get very entertaining again, especially the very last word, I was like, yeah, no, you've done me.
**Chris:** Perfect, perfect ending.
**Lee:** It is, it is very much a, as you say, like, we've said it before, a film of sections.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, where literally, when I rewatched it this time, for the first, from when they're on the bus.
**Lee:** Until he finds the tooth in the thing, I literally giggled the whole way through nonstop.
**Lee:** I was still laughing at previous jokes when the next scene was happening.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And you just laugh and laugh and then all of a sudden, as you say, the bear trap stuff starts happening.
**Lee:** You go, oh fuck yeah, now this is getting really brutal, really over the top.
**Chris:** When they see the coach, it's like, yeah, this is, this is going bad.
**Lee:** And the guy of his guts, his guts dragged out into the walk.
**Chris:** But the but the right, but all of that is after the first scene where the very first scene is the flashback.
**Chris:** To the sort of roughly the end.
**Adam:** Or flash forward, I suppose.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** and but yeah, and so you almost completely forget that, really.
**Chris:** It's like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's mad.
**Lee:** It's brilliantly constructed, it's excellently paced, it's got, like, it's got everything, and it is, it's one of those films I'm disappointed in myself for not watching more frequently because no matter what you're in the mood for, this has fucking got it in an abundance and really well done.
**Lee:** It's, as you said, Adam, it's so beautifully shot.
**Lee:** Like all the scenery and stuff is all amazing.
**Lee:** The comedy is exceptional.
**Lee:** The gore.
**Adam:** But also the the sinisterness is in there right from the start.
**Adam:** Because there's bits like where you've obviously had that, the fucking ridiculous scene where he's tripping and having a piss.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then he turns around to finish his piss and no one sees it, but it slowly uncovers a dead body.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Like just the slowly uncovers like some someone's face buried under the dirt.
**Lee:** And you're like, oh yeah, that's horrific, I'd forgotten all about that.
**Lee:** That's really horrific.
**Adam:** It's but just it's so, it's, yeah, it's, it's a testament to it.
**Adam:** Because I think because there are bits of it that are, you know, are near torture porn.
**Chris:** So that's yeah, that was it.
**Adam:** In terms of fear.
**Adam:** In terms of characters in fear.
**Adam:** Because I think like particularly, like Andy Nyman and Jill, Clodie Blakeley.
**Adam:** both their deaths, I mean that's fucking horrible.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it because it's again, they're not, they're characters you've come to like or come to sort of, or you understand, if nothing else.
**Adam:** And then you sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** Andy Nyman is such a, like he's such a lovable character.
**Lee:** As you say, despite the fact he works for that company, you can see how he doesn't even have that part of his brain switched on, he just does his job, he doesn't think about it, and he's very focused on it, he's very single-minded.
**Lee:** And, oh, and he's just.
**Adam:** Well, he's, he's a typical sort of like, you know, not quite management but, yeah, been with the been with the company for years, like.
**Adam:** And just.
**Chris:** Gets on with his job.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's just very efficient at his job.
**Adam:** And his job is being a pain in the arse.
**Lee:** Chh.
**Lee:** He just excels at it.
**Lee:** As you say, everybody does, and I think that's again, that's another one of the things I love about it.
**Lee:** Is the fact that, I know we say it quite frequently, but there's no weak links in this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like, of the main characters, everyone, as you said, Adam, even those who you don't recognize so much.
**Lee:** You know, hold their own people who you see day in and day out in TV and in movies and just.
**Lee:** Yeah, just absolutely sell it 100%.
**Adam:** It's like even the fact that like Harris is likable.
**Adam:** Even though in other films he would be much more, you know.
**Adam:** You understand him, yes, he does want Tim McInnerny's job.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, but he probably is more competent than Tim McInnerny.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, it's not, it's not hard to be better.
**Chris:** Almost anyone.
**Adam:** Because he's a fucking idiot.
**Lee:** He's just a shitting idiot.
**Lee:** That's how they are.
**Lee:** Like, nobody does anything of noxious or, you know, that you'd be like, oh, yeah, what a prick move, like the majority of people just are, they just live for a position, but they're doing it in a realistic and believable fashion.
**Adam:** I said.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And especially on one of these kind of team-building weekend exercise things where you, you know, you know you are being judged, but it's supposed to be a relaxed atmosphere, but nobody's relaxed because you all know.
**Lee:** Apart from obviously Danny Dyer, who's just like, it's a weekend abroad, I'm going to get out my fucking nut and have sex with some prostitutes.
**Lee:** And he's quite happy with that.
**Lee:** He's, he's not trying to get up the ladder, so he doesn't give a shit.
**Adam:** But that, but that's the thing, is it's it's that proper thing of it's a workplace thing.
**Adam:** In as much as sometimes when you're at work, you do meet people who become friends.
**Adam:** You might hang around with them outside of work or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But in the main, you're with a group of people that you would not.
**Adam:** You don't have much in common with other than you all work there.
**Chris:** Aside from working, yeah.
**Adam:** And so when you go away on this, as you say, like, supposed holiday.
**Adam:** It's still fucking work.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It is a bit of an.
**Adam:** And it's still sort of, there's still the hierarchy there.
**Adam:** And there's still.
**Lee:** And it takes us back to that that same scene, the Danny Dyer bit with that guy, when he's, you know, obviously tripping pretty hard, and he says, I know we're mates and everything, but if you look at my cock one more time, I'm going to proper fucking kick your ass.
**Lee:** Laughs.
**Lee:** Like it's, it's that like proximity thing of people who you work with, who you wouldn't.
**Adam:** You wouldn't kick.
**Lee:** Laughs.
**Lee:** Oh, I just love it.
**Lee:** I've got to say actually, I know that obviously we're selling this and 100% recommending it, but I can't think of a better recommend right now than to, bring up the quote that Jennifer sent.
**Lee:** Now, Lady Jennifer, frequent guest on the show.
**Adam:** Contributor.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Team member.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** She's like the Jeremy Dyson of Welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Who doesn't swear and generally will only watch films once, and then once she's seen them, she doesn't have to return.
**Lee:** So we watched this and while the closing, the closing titles were still coming up.
**Lee:** She sent to the group, Danny Fucking Dyer, I forgot he even did anything good, loved rewatching this film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that does sum it up pretty good.
**Adam:** The weird thing is as well, is because I had to, so I had to track it down.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing, I get the impression this was something we were talking about like on the WhatsApp.
**Adam:** Is I get the impression that this is something that's fallen between the cracks of streaming and physical media.
**Adam:** In that this was, Danny Dyer did a lot of films that did that sold a lot of DVDs.
**Adam:** And then ended up in cash converters or charity shops and things like that.
**Adam:** So it's.
**Chris:** Is it is it like the people that own the licenses to this just haven't answered some of their emails and like streamers trying to get it and it's like, you know.
**Adam:** Then who knows, there could be some mad rights issue in it, I don't.
**Adam:** Nothing I could see online, it was just, I think.
**Chris:** But sure, it would surely be fine, you know, you'd just thought it would be valuable to have on there.
**Lee:** I don't know who's in it who wouldn't want it to be out there.
**Lee:** Like, anything in it that you'd look back on and go, oh shit, yeah, no, that was a bit.
**Chris:** Oh no, I don't think I'd love to know what it was.
**Adam:** Ability, you know what I mean, I don't know if that would even be a thing they would have any say in.
**Adam:** in terms of the film.
**Adam:** I think it, but like I say, I think it was just one of those things that when people like.
**Adam:** This sounds terrible, but like, everyday people still bought DVDs.
**Adam:** Everyday people now stream everything.
**Adam:** No one bothers buying DVDs, it's a dying me.
**Adam:** I do.
**Adam:** But, you know, I'm twisted and obsessed and.
**Lee:** Me too.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's, so, I'm still buying the bloody things.
**Adam:** Because I like having.
**Lee:** Yeah, the extras.
**Adam:** Yeah, I want the extras, I like having the thing, I like having a little thing that says, look, I've seen that.
**Lee:** That's good.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** So, but it's weird, when so I had got this, I think I got it like secondhand off of Music Magpie or something like that.
**Adam:** And it came through and the cover is just bright red with the characters in like black and white sort of monochrome over the top of that red.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Is that not just the same cover that was like The Football Factory, Rise of the Foot Soldier?
**Adam:** There was a lot of DVDs that looked like that that all were very much cash converter classics.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, and Danny Dyer's in a lot of them.
**Adam:** I think I don't know whether it's like, but also when I when I was looking at the DVD, it was really clear as well that it all come from Shaun of the Dead as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like the the artwork of the Shaun of the Dead, it was the same, you know, and everything.
**Adam:** So I think.
**Lee:** I think they tried to tie into that UK-based horror comedy thing, yeah, and maybe just looked at, as you say, Shaun of the Dead and gone, let's make something that looks a little bit similarish.
**Adam:** It's, it's so, it's so the cover identifies it to people.
**Adam:** It's like, you haven't got a trailer in front of you, but it's that, it's that, oh, well that looks a bit like Shaun of the Dead, I'll buy that.
**Lee:** You know.
**Lee:** It's like we said before with the, was it when we covered Near Dark.
**Lee:** And we were saying, oh yeah, when Twilight came out, they did a new release of Near Dark and made it look a bit Twilight.
**Lee:** And I was like.
**Adam:** It was just May's face in close up, quite sparkly, sort of yeah.
**Lee:** That's going to fuck everybody up who sees this and thinks that looks a bit like it and it's another vampire movie and then watches it.
**Lee:** But hopefully, it does the job.
**Lee:** But unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have worked for this because nobody talks about this film anywhere near as much as they should.
**Lee:** It's an absolute.
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** Like we've said, it's literally got everything.
**Lee:** It's fantastically made.
**Lee:** It's brilliant.
**Lee:** It it just, yeah, it it just isn't as well recognized as it should be.
**Adam:** It's, it's weird as well because it's that.
**Adam:** Like The Cottage.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like on our previous episode, like you pointed out, Lee, you've got that thing of you've got like Andy Nyman representing the.
**Adam:** And Danny Dyer representing comedy at that point.
**Adam:** And Tim McInnerny in there as like representing the previous generation.
**Adam:** Much like when we had Stephen O'Donnell and Reece Shearsmith in The Cottage.
**Adam:** And they all sort of come about at this same sort of time.
**Adam:** And I think even something like, I definitely would include Dog Soldiers in British Horror Comedy.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, 100%.
**Adam:** You know, I think there was like the 2000s, like that that sort of had a really good fucking hit of these things.
**Adam:** And rightly or wrongly, I think they've all sort of gone a bit by the wayside.
**Adam:** It's, I mean like Dog Soldiers.
**Adam:** There's now started getting a a much more higher profile, but then that's because it's like the 25th anniversary or something like that.
**Adam:** So it's like.
**Lee:** Critically.
**Adam:** Or 20th, sorry, I don't I didn't want to worry you that much.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's like 20th anniversary, I think.
**Lee:** We're old.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think it was last year.
**Adam:** I think it's 2023.
**Lee:** Dog Soldiers would have been a perfect, if we'd done this as a triple bill rather than a, you know, a a two-episode monthly thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, Dog Soldiers I think would have been the perfect accompaniment to this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, because it's got that same perfect balance, like super gore, good high production values.
**Lee:** Really funny and then you think back of it as.
**Lee:** Oh that was funny and horrific, and then when you watch it back, you go, yeah, no, both of those are ramped up to 10.
**Lee:** And it's in perfect.
**Lee:** Have you not seen Dog Soldiers, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** We cover.
**Chris:** We covered it, yeah.
**Lee:** We did, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Thank fuck for that.
**Chris:** But but I'm no, but I could totally understand.
**Chris:** Because I'm trying to think back to the scenes in it and it's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's it's become murky.
**Chris:** I bet if I did watch it again, like this, I'm sure this will have exactly the same thing, I'll remember it as being funny and dark, but it's like watching it again, I'll be blown away just how good it is.
**Adam:** It's all the Landis and Carpenter fans all suddenly got old enough to make films.
**Lee:** Chh.
**Adam:** I think that's what happened.
**Adam:** And you get, so you get this stuff that is, it's, because it's in that same sort of thing with American Werewolf.
**Adam:** Of having genuine horror and genuinely funny comedy.
**Chris:** Like I still can't get my head around American Werewolf being funny.
**Adam:** On purpose, you know.
**Chris:** Because in my head it it was always that terrifying film that I'm almost never going to be old enough to watch.
**Chris:** But I'd heard about it for so long.
**Chris:** It's like it's so weird when I found out it was funny.
**Adam:** I think most people knew it from the video, the making of Michael Jackson's Thriller.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, yeah.
**Adam:** That's what they knew of, you know, the bit with, there's a disturbance in Piccadilly Circus with some sort of mad dog.
**Adam:** David, all right.
**Adam:** And that was the clip they showed to say why John Landis got the kick.
**Lee:** But it absolutely is, like American Werewolf launched all of these films.
**Lee:** Like being able to perfectly blend that came came from that.
**Lee:** From that one film, I think really.
**Lee:** I mean, there was a lot of horror comedies before, but they were mainly, correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, but I feel that before that, a lot of it was comedy based on the monsters or whatever.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Whereas, yeah, American Werewolf was a perfect blend of the two.
**Lee:** And then all of these films, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's plagiarism or whatever.
**Lee:** But like, it's created my favorite genre, if I'm honest, yeah, is the horror comedy where both are, both are equal and fantastically done.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's been done so fucking well over the last few decades.
**Adam:** Now, the interesting thing is, and I don't know, did you guys realize, you know who the director of this is?
**Lee:** -
**Adam:** It's, so it's.
**Adam:** Christopher Smith, who also directed Triangle.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which we obviously fucking love.
**Lee:** Holy shit.
**Lee:** How did I not know that.
**Adam:** But also is another film that has sort of doesn't seem to get its due, it's starting to get it, you know, like I said with Dog Soldiers, it's starting to get its due now.
**Adam:** Even though that's like 20 years ago.
**Lee:** Critically.
**Adam:** Or 20th, sorry, I don't I didn't want to worry you that much.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's like 20th anniversary.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** We're old.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think it was last year.
**Adam:** I think it's 2023.
**Lee:** Dog Soldiers would have been a perfect, if we'd done this as a triple bill rather than a, you know, a a two-episode monthly thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, Dog Soldiers I think would have been the perfect accompaniment to this.
**Lee:** Yeah, because it's got that same perfect balance, like super gore, good high production values.
**Lee:** Really funny and then you think back of it as.
**Lee:** Oh that was funny and horrific, and then when you watch it back, you go, yeah, no, both of those are ramped up to 10.
**Lee:** And it's in perfect.
**Lee:** Have you not seen Dog Soldiers, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** We covered.
**Chris:** We covered it, yeah.
**Lee:** We did, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Thank fuck for that.
**Chris:** But but I'm no, but I could totally understand.
**Chris:** Because I'm trying to think back to the scenes in it and it's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's it's become murky.
**Chris:** I bet if I did watch it again, like this, I'm sure this will have exactly the same thing, I'll remember it as being funny and dark, but it's like watching it again, I'll be blown away just how good it is.
**Adam:** It's all the Landis and Carpenter fans all suddenly got old enough to make films.
**Lee:** Chh.
**Adam:** I think that's what happened.
**Adam:** And you get, so you get this stuff that is, it's, because it's in that same sort of thing with American Werewolf.
**Adam:** Of having genuine horror and genuinely funny comedy.
**Chris:** Like I still can't get my head around American Werewolf being funny.
**Adam:** On purpose, you know.
**Chris:** Because in my head it it was always that terrifying film that I'm almost never going to be old enough to watch.
**Chris:** But I'd heard about it for so long.
**Chris:** It's like it's so weird when I found out it was funny.
**Adam:** I think most people knew it from the video, the making of Michael Jackson's Thriller.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, yeah.
**Adam:** That's what they knew of, you know, the bit with, there's a disturbance in Piccadilly Circus with some sort of mad dog.
**Adam:** David, all right.
**Adam:** And that was the clip they showed to say why John Landis got the kick.
**Lee:** But it absolutely is, like American Werewolf launched all of these films.
**Lee:** Like being able to perfectly blend that came came from that.
**Lee:** From that one film, I think really.
**Lee:** I mean, there was a lot of horror comedies before, but they were mainly, correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, but I feel that before that, a lot of it was comedy based on the monsters or whatever.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Whereas, yeah, American Werewolf was a perfect blend of the two.
**Lee:** And then all of these films, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's plagiarism or whatever.
**Lee:** But like, it's created my favorite genre, if I'm honest, yeah, is the horror comedy where both are, both are equal and fantastically done.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's been done so fucking well over the last few decades.
**Adam:** Now, the interesting thing is, and I don't know, did you guys realize, you know who the director of this is?
**Lee:** -
**Adam:** It's, so it's Christopher Smith, who also directed Triangle.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which we obviously fucking love.
**Lee:** Holy shit.
**Lee:** How did I not know that.
**Adam:** But also is another film that has sort of doesn't seem to get its due, it's starting to get it, you know, like I said with Dog Soldiers, it's starting to get its due now.
**Adam:** Even though that's like 20 years ago.
**Lee:** Critically.
**Adam:** Or 20th, sorry, I don't I didn't want to worry you that much.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's like 20th anniversary.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** We're old.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think it was last year.
**Adam:** I think it's 2023.
**Lee:** Dog Soldiers would have been a perfect, if we'd done this as a triple bill rather than a, you know, a a two-episode monthly thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, Dog Soldiers I think would have been the perfect accompaniment to this.
**Lee:** Yeah, because it's got that same perfect balance, like super gore, good high production values.
**Lee:** Really funny and then you think back of it as.
**Lee:** Oh that was funny and horrific, and then when you watch it back, you go, yeah, no, both of those are ramped up to 10.
**Lee:** And it's in perfect.
**Lee:** Have you not seen Dog Soldiers, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** We covered.
**Chris:** We covered it, yeah.
**Lee:** We did, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Thank fuck for that.
**Chris:** But but I'm no, but I could totally understand.
**Chris:** Because I'm trying to think back to the scenes in it and it's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's it's become murky.
**Chris:** I bet if I did watch it again, like this, I'm sure this will have exactly the same thing, I'll remember it as being funny and dark, but it's like watching it again, I'll be blown away just how good it is.
**Adam:** It's all the Landis and Carpenter fans all suddenly got old enough to make films.
**Lee:** Chh.
**Adam:** I think that's what happened.
**Adam:** And you get, so you get this stuff that is, it's, because it's in that same sort of thing with American Werewolf.
**Adam:** Of having genuine horror and genuinely funny comedy.
**Chris:** Like I still can't get my head around American Werewolf being funny.
**Adam:** On purpose, you know.
**Chris:** Because in my head it it was always that terrifying film that I'm almost never going to be old enough to watch.
**Chris:** But I'd heard about it for so long.
**Chris:** It's like it's so weird when I found out it was funny.
**Adam:** I think most people knew it from the video, the making of Michael Jackson's Thriller.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, yeah.
**Adam:** That's what they knew of, you know, the bit with, there's a disturbance in Piccadilly Circus with some sort of mad dog.
**Adam:** David, all right.
**Adam:** And that was the clip they showed to say why John Landis got the kick.
**Lee:** But it absolutely is, like American Werewolf launched all of these films.
**Lee:** Like being able to perfectly blend that came came from that.
**Lee:** From that one film, I think really.
**Lee:** I mean, there was a lot of horror comedies before, but they were mainly, correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, but I feel that before that, a lot of it was comedy based on the monsters or whatever.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Whereas, yeah, American Werewolf was a perfect blend of the two.
**Lee:** And then all of these films, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's plagiarism or whatever.
**Lee:** But like, it's created my favorite genre, if I'm honest, yeah, is the horror comedy where both are, both are equal and fantastically done.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's been done so fucking well over the last few decades.
**Adam:** Now, the interesting thing is, and I don't know, did you guys realize, you know who the director of this is?
**Lee:** -
**Adam:** It's, so it's.
**Adam:** Christopher Smith, who also directed Triangle.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which we obviously fucking love.
**Lee:** Holy shit.
**Lee:** How did I not know that.
**Adam:** But also is another film that has sort of doesn't seem to get its due, it's starting to get it, you know, like I said with Dog Soldiers, it's starting to get its due now.
**Adam:** Even though that's like 20 years ago.
**Lee:** Critically.
**Adam:** Or 20th, sorry, I don't I didn't want to worry you that much.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's like 20th anniversary.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** We're old.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think it was last year.
**Adam:** I think it's 2023.
**Lee:** Dog Soldiers would have been a perfect, if we'd done this as a triple bill rather than a, you know, a a two-episode monthly thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, Dog Soldiers I think would have been the perfect accompaniment to this.
**Lee:** Yeah, because it's got that same perfect balance, like super gore, good high production values.
**Lee:** Really funny and then you think back of it as.
**Lee:** Oh that was funny and horrific, and then when you watch it back, you go, yeah, no, both of those are ramped up to 10.
**Lee:** And it's in perfect.
**Lee:** Have you not seen Dog Soldiers, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** We covered.
**Chris:** We covered it, yeah.
**Lee:** We did, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Thank fuck for that.
**Chris:** But but I'm no, but I could totally understand.
**Chris:** Because I'm trying to think back to the scenes in it and it's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's it's become murky.
**Chris:** I bet if I did watch it again, like this, I'm sure this will have exactly the same thing, I'll remember it as being funny and dark, but it's like watching it again, I'll be blown away just how good it is.
**Adam:** It's all the Landis and Carpenter fans all suddenly got old enough to make films.
**Lee:** Chh.
**Adam:** I think that's what happened.
**Adam:** And you get, so you get this stuff that is, it's, because it's in that same sort of thing with American Werewolf.
**Adam:** Of having genuine horror and genuinely funny comedy.
**Chris:** Like I still can't get my head around American Werewolf being funny.
**Adam:** On purpose, you know.
**Chris:** Because in my head it it was always that terrifying film that I'm almost never going to be old enough to watch.
**Chris:** But I'd heard about it for so long.
**Chris:** It's like it's so weird when I found out it was funny.
**Adam:** I think most people knew it from the video, the making of Michael Jackson's Thriller.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, yeah.
**Adam:** That's what they knew of, you know, the bit with, there's a disturbance in Piccadilly Circus with some sort of mad dog.
**Adam:** David, all right.
**Adam:** And that was the clip they showed to say why John Landis got the kick.
**Lee:** But it absolutely is, like American Werewolf launched all of these films.
**Lee:** Like being able to perfectly blend that came came from that.
**Lee:** From that one film, I think really.
**Lee:** I mean, there was a lot of horror comedies before, but they were mainly, correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, but I feel that before that, a lot of it was comedy based on the monsters or whatever.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Whereas, yeah, American Werewolf was a perfect blend of the two.
**Lee:** And then all of these films, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's plagiarism or whatever.
**Lee:** But like, it's created my favorite genre, if I'm honest, yeah, is the horror comedy where both are, both are equal and fantastically done.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's been done so fucking well over the last few decades.
**Adam:** Now, the interesting thing is, and I don't know, did you guys realize, you know who the director of this is?
**Lee:** -
**Adam:** It's, so it's.
**Adam:** Christopher Smith, who also directed Triangle.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which we obviously fucking love.
**Lee:** Holy shit.
**Lee:** How did I not know that.
**Adam:** But also is another film that has sort of doesn't seem to get its due, it's starting to get it, you know, like I said with Dog Soldiers, it's starting to get its due now.
**Adam:** Even though that's like 20 years ago.
**Lee:** Critically.
**Adam:** Or 20th, sorry, I don't I didn't want to worry you that much.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's like 20th anniversary.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** We're old.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think it was last year.
**Adam:** I think it's 2023.
**Lee:** Dog Soldiers would have been a perfect, if we'd done this as a triple bill rather than a, you know, a a two-episode monthly thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, Dog Soldiers I think would have been the perfect accompaniment to this.
**Lee:** Yeah, because it's got that same perfect balance, like super gore, good high production values.
**Lee:** Really funny and then you think back of it as.
**Lee:** Oh that was funny and horrific, and then when you watch it back, you go, yeah, no, both of those are ramped up to 10.
**Lee:** And it's in perfect.
**Lee:** Have you not seen Dog Soldiers, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** We covered.
**Chris:** We covered it, yeah.
**Lee:** We did, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Thank fuck for that.
**Chris:** But but I'm no, but I could totally understand.
**Chris:** Because I'm trying to think back to the scenes in it and it's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's it's become murky.
**Chris:** I bet if I did watch it again, like this, I'm sure this will have exactly the same thing, I'll remember it as being funny and dark, but it's like watching it again, I'll be blown away just how good it is.
**Adam:** It's all the Landis and Carpenter fans all suddenly got old enough to make films.
**Lee:** Chh.
**Adam:** I think that's what happened.
**Adam:** And you get, so you get this stuff that is, it's, because it's in that same sort of thing with American Werewolf.
**Adam:** Of having genuine horror and genuinely funny comedy.
**Chris:** Like I still can't get my head around American Werewolf being funny.
**Adam:** On purpose, you know.
**Chris:** Because in my head it it was always that terrifying film that I'm almost never going to be old enough to watch.
**Chris:** But I'd heard about it for so long.
**Chris:** It's like it's so weird when I found out it was funny.
**Adam:** I think most people knew it from the video, the making of Michael Jackson's Thriller.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, yeah.
**Adam:** That's what they knew of, you know, the bit with, there's a disturbance in Piccadilly Circus with some sort of mad dog.
**Adam:** David, all right.
**Adam:** And that was the clip they showed to say why John Landis got the kick.
**Lee:** But it absolutely is, like American Werewolf launched all of these films.
**Lee:** Like being able to perfectly blend that came came from that.
**Lee:** From that one film, I think really.
**Lee:** I mean, there was a lot of horror comedies before, but they were mainly, correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, but I feel that before that, a lot of it was comedy based on the monsters or whatever.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Whereas, yeah, American Werewolf was a perfect blend of the two.
**Lee:** And then all of these films, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's plagiarism or whatever.
**Lee:** But like, it's created my favorite genre, if I'm honest, yeah, is the horror comedy where both are, both are equal and fantastically done.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's been done so fucking well over the last few decades.
**Adam:** Now, the interesting thing is, and I don't know, did you guys realize, you know who the director of this is?
**Lee:** -
**Adam:** It's, so it's.
**Adam:** Christopher Smith, who also directed Triangle.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which we obviously fucking love.
**Lee:** Holy shit.
**Lee:** How did I not know that.
**Adam:** But also is another film that has sort of doesn't seem to get its due, it's starting to get it, you know, like I said with Dog Soldiers, it's starting to get its due now.
**Adam:** Even though that's like 20 years ago.
**Lee:** Critically.
**Adam:** Or 20th, sorry, I don't I didn't want to worry you that much.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's like 20th anniversary.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** We're old.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think it was last year.
**Adam:** I think it's 2023.
**Lee:** Dog Soldiers would have been a perfect, if we'd done this as a triple bill rather than a, you know, a a two-episode monthly thing.
**Lee:** Yeah, Dog Soldiers I think would have been the perfect accompaniment to this.
**Lee:** Yeah, because it's got that same perfect balance, like super gore, good high production values.
**Lee:** Really funny and then you think back of it as.
**Lee:** Oh that was funny and horrific, and then when you watch it back, you go, yeah, no, both of those are ramped up to 10.
**Lee:** And it's in perfect.
**Lee:** Have you not seen Dog Soldiers, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** We covered.
**Chris:** We covered it, yeah.
**Lee:** We did, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Thank fuck for that.
**Chris:** But but I'm no, but I could totally understand.
**Chris:** Because I'm trying to think back to the scenes in it and it's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's it's become murky.
**Chris:** I bet if I did watch it again, like this, I'm sure this will have exactly the same thing, I'll remember it as being funny and dark, but it's like watching it again, I'll be blown away just how good it is.
**Adam:** It's all the Landis and Carpenter fans all suddenly got old enough to make films.
**Lee:** Chh.
**Adam:** I think that's what happened.
**Adam:** And you get, so you get this stuff that is, it's, because it's in that same sort of thing with American Werewolf.
**Adam:** Of having genuine horror and genuinely funny comedy.
**Chris:** Like I still can't get my head around American Werewolf being funny.
**Adam:** On purpose, you know.
**Chris:** Because in my head it it was always that terrifying film that I'm almost never going to be old enough to watch.
**Chris:** But I'd heard about it for so long.
**Chris:** It's like it's so weird when I found out it was funny.
**Adam:** I think most people knew it from the video, the making of Michael Jackson's Thriller.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, yeah.
**Adam:** That's what they knew of, you know, the bit with, there's a disturbance in Piccadilly Circus with some sort of mad dog.
**Adam:** David, all right.
**Adam:** And that was the clip they showed to say why John Landis got the kick.
**Lee:** But it absolutely is, like American Werewolf launched all of these films.
**Lee:** Like being able to perfectly blend that came came from that.
**Lee:** From that one film, I think really.
**Lee:** I mean, there was a lot of horror comedies before, but they were mainly, correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, but I feel that before that, a lot of it was comedy based on the monsters or whatever.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Whereas, yeah, American Werewolf was a perfect blend of the two.
**Lee:** And then all of these films, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's plagiarism or whatever.
**Lee:** But like, it's created my favorite genre, if I'm honest, yeah, is the horror comedy where both are, both are equal and fantastically done.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's been done so fucking well over the last few decades.
**Adam:** Now, the interesting thing is, and I don't know, did you guys realize, you know who the director of this is?
**Lee:** -
**Adam:** It's, so it's.
**Adam:** Christopher Smith, who also directed Triangle.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which we obviously fucking love.
**Lee:** Holy shit.
**Lee:** How did I not know that.
**Adam:** But also is another film that has sort of doesn't seem to get its due, it's starting to get it, you know, like I said with Dog Soldiers, it's starting to get its due now.
**Adam:** Even though that's like 20 years ago.
**Lee:** Critically.
**Adam:** Or 20th, sorry, I don't I didn't want to worry you that much.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's like 20th anniversary.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** We're old.
**Lee:** But.

---

## Ep 187 The Cottage

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-187-the-cottage/
Air date: 14 January 2024
Duration: 00:33:21
Film: The Cottage · Year: 2008 · Director: Paul Andrew Williams

### Description

It’s the new year, so it’s time get some fresh air and take a rejuvenating break in our Countrycide season. First up is 2008’s “The Cottage”, a film in which Pinhead has joined the local neighbourhood watch; Gollum proves to be related to a large number of the inhabitants of Royston Vasey; and Spudgun is a pain in the arse who fucks up everything he touches. The surprise follow up to director Paul Andrew Williams’ gritty debut “London To Brighton”, “The Cottage” came out during that brief flowering of British comedy horror that followed in the wake of “Shaun of the Dead”, and, like a lot of films from that period, appears to have been unjustly forgotten. It starts up as hilarious crime caper with a small group of well realised and brilliantly portrayed characters, only to perform a mid-point rug pull as that story suddenly crashes headlong into a slasher film. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening. Happy New Year. We are, welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Adam:** I think that sums up, sums up the start of this year.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is 2024, let's hope it's less wank than the previous years have been in recent memory.
**Adam:** Or if you're going to get worse, that's it. It's just armageddon.
**Chris:** Like it proper worse. Yeah, don't mess around.
**Adam:** Stop shilly-shallying.
**Lee:** Stop talking with me.
**Adam:** Stop talking with me.
**Lee:** so, but on that note, I feel we are off to a good start.
**Lee:** Spoiler alert. This evening we are discussing the 2008 movie The Cottage. There are a lot of films with this title so to be very clear this is the Andy Serkis and Reece Shearsmith.
**Chris:** Oh, phew.
**Lee:** That should I don't understand. This is one of those films I'd never heard of. I heard somebody cover it on another podcast and I was like, that sounds interesting.
**Lee:** And I've never hardly ever, apart from people in our circle whom we all watched it together, nobody ever talks about this film and it's outstanding.
**Adam:** It's, because I think I was only aware of it because I'd heard there was a film with Reece Shearsmith in it.
**Adam:** But other than that, never investigated it. I don't think was given the opportunity almost. I don't I don't really remember it being out at the cinema.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** But yeah, sort of like just watching it around yours all of a sudden it's like, yeah, why the fuck wasn't this out, you know, or isn't this a record?
**Lee:** Why are they not going nuts over it?
**Chris:** Why aren't there not not more noise, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yes, so before we, before Adam and I launch into our over-excitedness about this movie. Chris, what did you make of your first viewing of The Cottage?
**Chris:** You know, I'm going to say, I don't remember if you mentioned this before, so you've obviously carried on the the trend of not talking about it. This is the film that must not be mentioned until someone just sees it and they're like, what?
**Adam:** Good point actually, yeah.
**Chris:** So that, I mean, that it was a great romping start to this 2024, I would say, and it lured me in as I'm sure it was intended to do. I did not quite see the.
**Chris:** I did not see it ramping up to the levels that it hit.
**Chris:** Even after it, it's a strong start and it's very entertaining and it's funny, but yeah, and I and I expected it but not quite where it got on to. So, I mean, am I wrong to call it the British Chainsaw Chuckler where Inside Number Nine meets Texas Horror?
**Lee:** That is perfect. That should that is definitely a wonderful alternative title.
**Chris:** Yeah. Like they they hit all the right marks and kept it absolutely British, silly humor, like all the way through, but with some seriously hard-hitting bits.
**Lee:** The gore in it is he's comically over the top but still done fantastic.
**Chris:** Done done well, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, there's no shitting about with them. They're proper. They they're awesome. Oh. Yeah. Proper those moments, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I because when I I yeah, I genuinely think for some reason this film just when you watch it, you love it and then you just don't seem to pass that on.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm the I've seen this film maybe a dozen times but every time within a week of seeing it, I forget it exists until something triggers it and then I go and I go back and do it again and every time I just I don't know why.
**Chris:** I wonder, is it something to do with it's not a big story. It is a bit like a an experience piece. So is it that you yeah, as time goes on, you just forget all of the moments of of, you know, excellence that appear throughout.
**Adam:** I think that's cuz weirdly enough, I think this is possibly only my second viewing of it.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** I watched it late.
**Chris:** Wait and so what year?
**Chris:** What year did you say it was?
**Lee:** 2008.
**Adam:** 2008. Yeah.
**Chris:** That's a little while ago now.
**Adam:** Yeah, so I would have seen it at Lee's. And then possibly maybe it was on one night and I caught half of it or something like that because I was like, oh, I'll watch that. That's good, you know, or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And then literally this is the so it's either the second or third time that every time that I've seen it.
**Adam:** But oddly enough, it comes back. Those bits like the bits when you're like, shit, yeah, like you pissed yourself, but you're like, yeah, I really fuck that caught me last time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Maybe that's maybe that's the key to it is that there is you need to leave it. It's not necessarily a quotable film.
**Chris:** I actually I wrote down one quote. Why are the hands in the freezer?
**Chris:** And it's just because it's that kind of thing, yeah, like they're not ground-breaking but when they happen during the film, it's like, yeah, that just works in that moment. You've just changed the film enough.
**Chris:** And especially because it happens to each of them. I think they're as I was watching it, I was thinking, they're all failing all of them, even though they're different characters.
**Chris:** Some are strong. Andy Serkis, I mean, he he plays a really good part. Like he's pretty serious.
**Chris:** And he's he's trying to do his best, but with a couple of very inept. Or I guess I guess Reece Shearsmith and Peter, he's he's kind of normal. I mean, he is he is inept, but not quite to the level of who's the other? Andrew.
**Adam:** Andrew.
**Chris:** Andrew, yeah, right. So he he's really inept and fails miserably.
**Chris:** Peter seems like he might do all right occasionally and then it just goes terribly wrong.
**Chris:** And David is obviously, he's he's he's tough, you know. You wouldn't really want to mess with him probably, but he's still fails miserably. So yeah, it's like even being overconfident, that that can only take you so far. Probably only a little bit further than the inept guy who's also going to end up terribly.
**Lee:** Who I I forgot how heavily he's in like the comic strip and stuff. So I'd forgotten what like a a, you know, a staple of British comedy he is. He's one of those people who just he he kind of goes under the radar and then every time he see him, you go, I've never seen him do a bad performance. Like he always totally smashes it every time.
**Adam:** I must confess if I see him anything, I'm just immediately Spudgun.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's just in my head is Rich out in that.
**Adam:** If if Christopher Ryan had walked in at that point, I the whole scene would have played out.
**Adam:** But yes,
**Adam:** it's Stephen O'Donnell.
**Adam:** And yeah, like you say, he's in like he's Spudgun in Bottom. He's in loads of the comic strips. He's in he's he's one of the angels in the video for the Eurythmics There Must Be An Angel.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah, there's a lot of like sort of cherubs and one of them weirdly enough, I did spot him.
**Adam:** I remember seeing him, yeah.
**Chris:** I expect nothing less of you, Adam.
**Adam:** Thank you. Thank you.
**Lee:** Sitting up late at night watching your music videos on YouTube.
**Adam:** Yeah, and he was in yeah, he's in 12 comic strips.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So he's in, you know, he's he's in a lot and sort of so him being in it, I like the fact that it's like it links the sort of late 80s comedy scene with the late 90s comedy scene because you got Reece Shearsmith in there. And obviously like League of Gentlemen was like 98, I think and, you know, and the comic strip was sort of like early 80s and stuff like that, but it's almost like you get those two generations there. Both of whom act it's really strange that everything in this, everyone works as a double act.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So when obviously the brothers when it's Andy Serkis and Reece Shearsmith that works perfectly as a double act but also he has a double act relationship with Andrew.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, like when he's sitting there and he's going, I didn't just do it for the money and he's like, everything you've ever done in your life, you've fucked up. You've shut up or whatever it is.
**Adam:** Actually, that said, there is one line in this that is the quote of this film but is also the quote that could never be used on a movie poster or on a t-shirt or something like that. And that floors me every single time I've watched this is just that build-up as Andy Serkis is going off to go to use the payphone in the village.
**Adam:** And he's like, I go at them both. He's stormed out. And then he has to come back in, get his keys off him and just walks off and it's that.
**Adam:** Block me in you.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's it's outstanding but the the thing that gets me every time and it it still does. And it's I think if anything, it's what would have put me off of watching this, if I'm being absolutely honest, is Jennifer Ellison. Like if someone had said, oh, there's a new comedy, there's a new horror comedy out, it's got Jennifer Ellison in it. To me at the time in the sort of early two, I was like, well, that's a mark in the negative. Her comedy timing in this is so perfect. It gets I've seen this as I say, probably eight, ten times and every time I forget how outstanding she is in this film.
**Chris:** She's amazing.
**Adam:** Yeah, I again, because I mean, really.
**Chris:** And as a double act there as well, like Adam was saying.
**Adam:** Yeah, when she's totally with Reese.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Her and Reese is fucking brilliant, especially because that that sort of weird turnaround of she's kidnapped him.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, cuz there's a lovely thing about this film that it it's like you get this really nice absurd underworld comedy. Like a kidnap plot of a gangland boss's daughter and sort of stuff like that, which is quite sort of of its time, you know, sort of like heist movies and sort of cool gangster stuff and things like that.
**Adam:** And then it's weirdly enough it happens to take place across the road from England's version of Camp Crystal Lake.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the fact that it can just sort of like trip over itself and stumble into that film.
**Adam:** And it's really good because it doesn't change anything that's happening within the characters from the first half.
**Adam:** Is there now like, shit, we're in this utterly this utterly changed environment. We've got all this other shit still going on. But now this is really sort of just.
**Chris:** It's it's taken priority.
**Adam:** Yes, it's ripped the rug out, you know.
**Lee:** But it's very much a film of two halves and I'm sure the first few times I saw it, I kind of forgot that. I remembered the funny stuff in the house. And then I kind of forgot how mental it gets at the end when they end up in the farm.
**Lee:** yeah, and it just it it it's it's it's strange because you kind of.
**Lee:** You's like, well, how can you forget the strange, you know, deranged farmer killer?
**Lee:** But actually, all I remember is Jennifer Ellison's hilarious lines and, you know, Andrew Serkis.
**Lee:** Getting so frustrated and losing his shit in such a comical way. I kind of that's what I gravitate to in my mind when I think about it and I forget about the fact it's basically Friday the 13th.
**Adam:** Yeah. It's like they they stumble into like part three of a ongoing like sort of slasher film series.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, you know, when it's sort of like it's got fully bedded in and it's the guy who plays the classic version of the farmer.
**Adam:** Is is in that what is the first film he did. Everyone agrees it's the best one, you know.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's but yeah, going back to Jennifer Ellison, obviously, I mean, she was in Brookside and basically was sort of in a lot of like lads magazines and stuff like that. And oh my God, she's fucking great in this.
**Lee:** And that's the thing. If it's the fact that she was in a show I was well everybody, I think like either you were a Brookside fan or you hated it more than anything.
**Lee:** So the fact that she's in it, I'd have gone,
**Lee:** no, I'm not I'm not watching it. I'm not. But yeah, you're right.
**Lee:** She's absolutely perfect.
**Adam:** Also soap star kind of always gives off that vibe.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, you see something and it's like, what they're going to try and do proper acting. It's like, they have been doing acting regularly like,
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** you know, when you actually think about it's like, oh yeah, they've been regularly acting as a steady wage for about three years.
**Lee:** For about four five hours on five hours a week on TV. That's pretty heavy going. Yeah. But yeah, you're right. They're sorry, you're right.
**Lee:** It's not so much Brookside. It's yeah, all soap actors would automatically put my heckles up and I'd be like, oh no, I don't I don't think I need to see this but.
**Chris:** I always thought the the the other way around with them, Craig Charles as Lister going into did you go into Emmerdale?
**Adam:** Corry, Coronation Street.
**Chris:** Coronation Street. Oh, okay. I'm I'm terrible at soaps.
**Chris:** But but yeah, and I always thought if he'd gone the other way around, would that have put me off Red Dwarf?
**Chris:** Like, and yet that would have been such a miss to have said, I'm not going to watch that because it's from Coronation Street and yeah.
**Adam:** Well, as they said the first time first time around with Red Dwarf, as they said, the weirdest thing was is that the setup was we've got who's starring in it? A poet, an impressionist and a dancer.
**Adam:** And a stand-up comedian. It was like, there's not an actor in this. Or if you like.
**Lee:** But yeah, so.
**Adam:** But I I loved the fact that her character is is from the off utterly in fucking control of the situation.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** That's precisely what I was about to say. You see her unconscious in the back of the car and you're like, oh my God, that poor girl.
**Lee:** And as soon as she wakes up, despite the fact she's tied to a bed and cannot move, she is in control from moment one.
**Chris:** I'll tell you what, you know what made me think of if somebody did that to Jennifer, it'd be like, yeah, you're going to regret that.
**Chris:** It's not going to go well for you.
**Adam:** Yeah. But it's just and also she's just she's the weirdest thing is, she's very good at looking menacing with a fucking gad off.
**Chris:** Even at that.
**Adam:** And she's just sitting there and it's like she she's just like, it's it's a look that you only see on like caged animals.
**Adam:** You know, it's like he's like and proper sort of like, when I get free, I'm going to fucking kill you.
**Adam:** It's yeah, it's it's a and also it's the right side of comedic as well.
**Adam:** You know, and it's yeah, it's it's just a very.
**Adam:** It's a very strange film in that way, even though it's actually a fairly easy film to enjoy.
**Adam:** You know, it's not a complex plot.
**Lee:** No. Very many people in it either.
**Adam:** You say, the people who are there, they they do they all bounce off of each other fantastically, like everyone's on the same page with exactly what they're trying to achieve and the level of seriousness and comedy.
**Adam:** yeah, and it's just a perfectly put together little set.
**Adam:** It's it just works so well.
**Chris:** And I even I got slightly I was like, oh, is it going to get too dark?
**Chris:** And then they just kept that that balance perfect all the way through right to the end when he goes down the steps and you're like.
**Chris:** You know, it's almost gone right for him.
**Chris:** What's going to happen next?
**Adam:** Does that mean that you have not seen the end of credit sequence thing.
**Chris:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** Where.
**Adam:** And I'll be honest.
**Adam:** For no fucking reason, Steven Berkoff turns up to not utter a single line.
**Adam:** And then sort of have the farmer run at him.
**Adam:** Like he's basically he's meant to be the gangland dad turns up at what is it? Arnie?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Turns up at at the at the farm, gets out the car, walks up, they do a big panning shot go, yes, we've got Steven Berkoff to do our film. Doesn't say a word, farmer runs out and then it comes up the end question mark.
**Chris:** Okay. Well, I've got this to look forward to then.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** There's a cameo Doug Bradley.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Who gets a much better cameo than Steven Berkoff in that he gets to speak.
**Adam:** And and he gets it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You can see he gets the tone.
**Adam:** You know, he's like sort of like, no, this is going to be a bit arch.
**Adam:** And there are going to be and probably three quarters of this audience should be shouting, fucking pin it.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I just this is one of the again, this is another one of those films that I just feel we should be screaming from the rooftops because a bit like the film we're going to cover on our next episode as well.
**Lee:** They're they're they're perfect companion pieces. They're so well put together. They're so balanced between the horror and the comedy and.
**Lee:** And again, people again, like with Jennifer Ellison, people in them who you wouldn't necessarily go, oh, a horror film with them in it. I definitely need to put that on my watch list.
**Lee:** But if you don't, you're really missing it. And I think a lot of people don't and and I don't know why this film. Yeah, I still don't know why this film went as unsung as it did really.
**Adam:** I went and had a look back cuz there wasn't really much online like, you know, and I'm talking basics, like there wasn't a big trivia section on IMDB or anything like that. And I did sort of but one of the things was is that I saw I went and found some old interviews with the director Paul Andrew Williams from around the time. And all they all they keep mentioning is Severance and Shaun of the Dead.
**Lee:** And I think that it's.
**Adam:** Coming out in that same sort of thing. It's like, yeah, it's a good film. It's not Shaun of the Dead.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's it's a different thing. I'm not saying that it has to be Shaun of the Dead.
**Chris:** I reckon it may it make a decent double bill.
**Adam:** Oh, exactly this is exactly it.
**Adam:** And but it was sort of with that coming up, I was like, that's probably why it's just been outshown.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I thought you said though that whether it deserved it or not, we know.
**Chris:** Yeah, when you've got something as good as Shawn of the Dead that comes out,
**Chris:** yeah, you kind of other things will suffer unfairly, really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they sort of and both this this and film we'd be doing next Severance.
**Chris:** Severance, yeah.
**Adam:** Same same sort of time, same same sort of thing. I think that Shaun of the Dead is the one that's resonated or sort of like has maintained a profile.
**Chris:** And No, you have mentioned Severance I think at least once, maybe a few times.
**Chris:** But I still don't know anything about it.
**Adam:** And again, it's not one that is I think people liked it at the time, but it just never seemed to get any traction beyond that.
**Adam:** I mean, Paul Andrew Williams who directed The Cottage, I was like, right, I don't know anything else he's done and he did but the film he did before this he he wrote The Cottage to be his first film. He like started off wanted to be an actor then he decided to be a director.
**Adam:** And he wrote The Cottage because it was like, right, this is a simple film to make, you know, one location.
**Adam:** very few characters, etcetera, etcetera.
**Adam:** And he couldn't get that made.
**Adam:** And in the meantime, he wrote over a weekend, he wrote London to Brighton, which is the film he went on to make.
**Adam:** Now, London to Brighton is like a proper.
**Chris:** That's a bike ride, isn't it?
**Adam:** Yes, but it's also a very heavy brilliant film.
**Adam:** I mean, it's a great fucking film, but he's like, it's but it's Ken Loach sort of great.
**Adam:** In so much as oh, Christ. Oh, Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** You know, it's I like that in a movie. I don't like that every night in a fucking movie.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** It's brilliant.
**Adam:** Just just to give you an idea of how bleak it is, the dad's from fucking This is England is in it.
**Adam:** And he only turns up for the for terrible things.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** but yeah, so he did London to Brighton and then everyone was like, he won loads of awards for it.
**Adam:** And everyone was like, oh, this this new director's out.
**Adam:** He followed it up with The Cottage.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And he was and he was basically like, no, fuck off. You're not putting me, you know, you've said yes.
**Adam:** He's he's like, everyone kept saying, I was like Ken Loach, I watched half of Kes for the first time yesterday.
**Adam:** It was like, you know, he's like, yeah, I get what they mean, but he'd sort of written London and Brighton almost in this like vacuum.
**Adam:** and created this thing.
**Adam:** But he doesn't like you said, he doesn't want to just do that.
**Adam:** It's not,
**Adam:** you know, and which is fantastic.
**Adam:** So it's like it's not going to be he wants to do, you know.
**Adam:** You just want to do horror or you just want to do social realism or you, you know, whatever it is.
**Adam:** But yeah, so the other films he's done, he did the documentary Murdered for Being Different, our murder by my boyfriend.
**Adam:** Cherry Tree Lane, which is a bit bloody hard going.
**Adam:** from what I gather.
**Adam:** I've not can't confess I've seen it, but
**Adam:** some episodes of Broadchurch and a film that I'd heard a lot about recently called Bull, which is like a sort of gangland revenge thing, with Neil Maskell in it.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** But yeah, so I think The Cottage is kind of like his outlier of I mean, that's not to say there aren't moments of humor in any of his films.
**Adam:** But I think The Cottage was his you know, and the way he talks about it is it was like, yeah, I wanted to do this I wanted to do this film and also it's like my tribute to 80s slashers.
**Adam:** You know, in so much as it's like, yeah, you have to have, you know, these archetypes have to go in there.
**Adam:** This moment has to happen as it were.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** you know.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** It's it's a surprise 80s slasher, which is what I love about it because you do.
**Lee:** You kind of you again, it's another one of those films we've had him a few times.
**Lee:** Where we know it's a horror film because we're sitting down to watch it for a horror podcast, but you get wrapped up in the comedy of the comedy of the comedy.
**Lee:** And it goes on for like 40 minutes and then all of a sudden you go, oh shit, yeah, no, this is a horror film.
**Lee:** There does have to be some, you know.
**Lee:** Some actual, you know, a slasher or whatever.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, like you get so comfortable and so into it.
**Lee:** that your mind just forgets where you're inevitably going to end up, which is excellent, isn't it?
**Adam:** Maybe and maybe that's another thing as well is it's just that that sort of switch in the middle.
**Adam:** That's that sort of false start almost. It's not a false start, you know, but is that another reason why it's sort of like people weren't as.
**Adam:** into it or you know, or you know, it didn't get because I mean, the.
**Adam:** The one thing I mean sort of like yeah, when I I think, what was the sorry, I've just completely lost it there.
**Adam:** Talk about themselves, get some magazines or whatever like that.
**Adam:** I had a black.
**Chris:** First day back. We're doing well.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's well, you know, I'd I'd managed to ramble for that's it. There we go. I found it.
**Adam:** It was quote. It was written down, which I got from the direct.
**Adam:** like from a quote of by the director was, it's a film to watch with your mates on a Friday night.
**Adam:** Which is.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** But also what was it? It's that's that's the term he used when he was talking about 80s movies.
**Adam:** He said, that but then there are some films that are like R-rated Scooby-Doo episodes.
**Adam:** That's what I've tried to make.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** You know, I I was like, yeah, I I get I totally get that.
**Adam:** they definitely have that sort of feeling.
**Adam:** Oh, the.
**Adam:** And another thing that I did the one sort of fact I could gleam for you is the symbolism of the mugs.
**Adam:** So each of them drinks tea.
**Adam:** Each of the three main characters drinks tea from and the mugs that come out side all have something written on them.
**Lee:** Yes, Jennifer Ellison's one's got the boss written on it, doesn't it?
**Adam:** Because she is.
**Lee:** Yes, yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Reece Reece is says I love tea because he does.
**Chris:** That's.
**Adam:** And and Andy Serkis has got I'm with stupid.
**Adam:** You know, I was just like so I'd seen that. I was like, I'm watching out for that.
**Adam:** It was very pleased to see it there, but yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's very well done.
**Lee:** But again, like a lot of things in it, I think it is a very well thought out film.
**Lee:** I'll it's.
**Lee:** Although it's a very basic story to begin with it it's two basic stories effectively to together.
**Lee:** But yeah, they cram so much stuff in like comedy wise and as you say the references and stuff.
**Lee:** Like I always forget that there's that Chinese gang outside who have turned up to to kill her and the head. Oh yeah, because they seem like they're going to be very important.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, because they seem like they're going to be very important.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I'm like I know.
**Adam:** They are.
**Adam:** That I I wondered if that was something that was stuck in for runtime or something like that almost.
**Adam:** Because because it just don't go anywhere.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** The only thing it indicates to you is that they're on Andrew and the fact that they've got a bag full of napkins tells you that they're on to Andrew.
**Adam:** So I think it'd be just more interesting.
**Adam:** It's like and they, you know, just they didn't need to be there cuz eventually all that happens is that.
**Adam:** Jennifer Ellison and Reece Shearsmith stumble on the farm anyway. So they all the time was kicking them off.
**Adam:** I don't know whether it's just to suggest how dangerous the farmer is or.
**Chris:** So it's incidental.
**Chris:** I think it does add to the this is like it's a fantastical story, but it still feels real. It's like this is what happens when a horror film happens really in real life with these people who are just this is how they would be. It's not a film where it's been written to be, you know, really impressive. Everybody's doing great kind of thing.
**Chris:** Like so yeah, so I think in a way they they add to that. They're like they're incidental, but they could just be there and they've got involved a little bit but really, that's that's the end of their story.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, they need somebody needs to relay back to the head of the family where the cottage is. So I suppose they're in there.
**Lee:** So they're in there just to make the after credit sequence work.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We need to explain it.
**Adam:** So that maybe that's what it was. It was just because it's like, well we we paid for Steven Berkoff.
**Lee:** We need to explain it.
**Adam:** Oh dear. He he turned he turned up making Marlo look like Marlo an Apocalypse Now seem like a professional well, well demeaned man to deal with. Told them to wear off, said he wasn't going to say a line, said you can film me boots and then lick them. And fucked off back to his theater.
**Lee:** But yeah, so this is definitely a recommend for me again.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is one that I I do bring out semi-frequently and always enjoy.
**Lee:** and it is it is funny. It does come out in a cycle with Shaun of the Dead and Severance generally.
**Lee:** It's it's you know, when you watch something and you enjoy it so much you want to watch something close to it, so.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** He's helpful in that sense definitely that you've got those others that you can sort of latch on to them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so yeah, it's always a fun fun cycle.
**Lee:** So yes, speaking of which, as we've said, so this is our countryside.
**Lee:** month, we're calling it. Countryside C I D. E, very nice there Adam, by
**Adam:** That's that's.
**Adam:** That sounded like we'd just formed the police.
**Adam:** Countryside, C I D.
**Lee:** But yes.
**Lee:** So we are going to be doing,
**Lee:** Severance for our next episode.
**Lee:** the Danny Dyer movie from a year somewhere around 2008.
**Adam:** I think before 2008.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** It's easy to find, you'll manage, guys.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's the one with Danny Dyer. Don't watch like two series of the American TV series Severance.
**Adam:** And then wonder what the fuck we're talking about when we say about Andy Nyman, all right.
**Lee:** it's 2006.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Lee:** Yeah, and again, it's back to that not to, you know, blow our load before we've covered it, but it's that modern horror modern comedy horror, but bringing in people for because there's an actor in it from like Black Adder and stuff.
**Lee:** So it's got all that tie up as well as you were saying with previous decade, you know, stand out characters.
**Lee:** So yes, so go and check out The Cottage if you've never seen it.
**Lee:** Go and check out Severance and we will see you to discuss that in a fortnite's time.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, have a good New Year, goodbye.
**Chris:** New Year, goodbye.
**Adam:** Goodbyel.
**Lee:** Yeah.

---

## WTE - We Three Kings

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/wte-we-three-kings/
Air date: 22 December 2023
Duration: 02:03:00

### Description

And we’re back like a vertebrae! Two worlds collide and we present “Welcome To Everyone: We Three Kings”. The Not For Everyone and Welcome To Horror podcasts have teamed up again for what the cool kids are definitely still calling the most ambitious crossover event in history. It’s Christmas; so we bring you “We Three Kings”- where we each choose our top 3 Stephen King adaptations. Between double-thinking each other’s lists and a few participants wilfully ignoring the assignment, this is a truly eclectic selection of the King on screen. A Christmas present from the people who brought you the unique podcast idea of squabbling man children talking about films. Enjoy.

### Transcript

**Adam:** Eight martinis are working just fine for warming me up.
**Chris:** That does a trick too.
**Adam:** Goddamn right.
**Adam:** All right, ready?
**Lee:** I thought we were already going.
**Adam:** What are we ready for?
**Lee:** All right, Snobby Bobby.
**Adam:** All right, it's time for our semi-annual welcome to everyone.
**Adam:** We've done this probably three or four times now.
**Chris:** What d'you think?
**Lee:** What d'you think, Snobby Bobby?
**Unknown:** Snobby Bobby.
**Adam:** but yeah, we, we combined forces yet again for a Christmas holiday special, themed 'We Three Kings'. Is that what we went with?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, we'll go with that.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's a good title.
**Adam:** Okay, well, my name is Snobby Bobby. I got the Crud Rood Dude with me, on his, on his work telemarketing headset.
**Adam:** Which, is that tax write-offable for the, for the podcast?
**Lee:** Multi-use, multi-function, folks.
**Adam:** And then, why don't we go around the old Mulberry Bush here and introduce the, Welcome to Horror guys.
**Lee:** Hey, I'm here. I'm Lee from Welcome to Horror. Hey.
**Chris:** And I'm Chris from Welcome to Horror.
**Unknown:** And I am Adam from Welcome to Horror.
**Adam:** He's our, is that resident Vincent Price?
**Adam:** And Roger Corman?
**Chris:** He hasn't done as many different voices lately.
**Lee:** He doesn't do that. He doesn't do that shit for us. He pulls out all the stops for you guys.
**Adam:** He You have to ask.
**Lee:** Well, he doesn't tell us either, so I'm listening to one of your episodes and I'm like, 'Roger... Hang on a minute.'
**Adam:** I don't even tell, I don't even tell Adam or Austin whenever we add those. I just keep it. It's me and Adam's, Adam, not Crud Rood Dude, other Adam's, special little secrets.
**Lee:** That's how Bobby checks to see if I'm even listening to the episodes, is if I know these things that he sneaks in that I wouldn't have had no prior knowledge to.
**Adam:** Isn't that a really good impression that I did, Adam?
**Unknown:** I'm like, I know this one you, Bobby.
**Chris:** You're just going to throw traps straight for you as well.
**Lee:** Say that again?
**Chris:** Just see if you can catch people out.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** All right, so, tonight, I guess, we're going to just talk about I don't, there's no real rules here. The, the theme is our personal top three Stephen King adaptations, like film or or, or sketch, I guess, or anthology adaptation stories.
**Adam:** Crud Rood Dude, are you still with me? I, I can't tell.
**Unknown:** I'm here.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Unknown:** Crud Rood Dude is here.
**Adam:** For those of you at home that are just listening, the camera is on the floor and I see this ominous silhouette, blurry silhouette.
**Unknown:** It's on the counter. It's on my kitchen counter.
**Adam:** I'm just waiting for you to spit on your phone.
**Chris:** It does a pretty good job of focusing on you every so often.
**Adam:** Yeah. We need to get some, we need some 3D, 3D glasses.
**Chris:** It kind of gives you the same look as that view from out of like the trunk of a car.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm going for.
**Lee:** I was going to say, for a new.
**Adam:** It's P.O.V. Goodfellas right here.
**Unknown:** This is how the ladies look at me.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah, so I'm here. I'm here.
**Unknown:** And the thing about the Stephen King, like, look, I went through a a list online, I'm like, let me actually like look up all the goddamn adaptations.
**Unknown:** And if we're just talking movies, that's like a list as long as your arm.
**Unknown:** And then if you start talking about TV movies, not even counting the movies themselves, there's your other arm, you know what I mean?
**Unknown:** There's just so much media of Stephen King shit.
**Unknown:** And it's not all good.
**Unknown:** But some of it is really, really, really great.
**Adam:** I like to jerk myself off with both arms when it comes to Stephen King.
**Unknown:** And you can. You really can.
**Unknown:** You absolutely have that with Stephen King.
**Adam:** And I think he does too, to be honest.
**Adam:** Unless a more talented filmmaker adapts one of his films and then it's like just, you know, he's flaccid.
**Unknown:** Am I am I correct in assuming that the only movie he directed was 'Maximum Overdrive'?
**Unknown:** I mean, did it?
**Unknown:** Did it do so bad that I mean, it's a great movie.
**Unknown:** My kid is in, he's enrapt in it right now. He is in this thing. Thumbs up. Give me a thumbs up right now.
**Unknown:** So he's over there watching this movie because it's badass. I saw it when I was like seven years old. It's great.
**Chris:** Isn't it like insane?
**Unknown:** It's insane. It's insane.
**Chris:** No, I've I've only seen it once. I did want to watch it for this, but I didn't manage to.
**Lee:** You should definitely seen it more. It's one of Lady Jennifer's all-time favorite terrible movies.
**Chris:** That's it. I seem to remember it was her and Sharon showed it to me. It was like, you've got to watch this.
**Chris:** But I I'd no I I did not know it was Stephen King. I did not know that.
**Adam:** Until until I saw this list that both of you have 'Maximum Overdrive' as their number three.
**Adam:** Interesting.
**Adam:** So let's start with that as an honorable mention.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Unknown:** Honorable mention, honorable mention.
**Adam:** That's how segway.
**Unknown:** Stephen King's top three. My son's top three, he's definitely screaming that this is an amazing movie. So.
**Adam:** Now, is your child named after Stephen King?
**Unknown:** I tell him he's named after Stephen King. I also tell him he's named after Burger King and the King of Siam and he didn't believe any of it.
**Unknown:** so, yeah, he is. He doesn't believe some of them.
**Unknown:** But, he is definitely named after Stephen King, 100%. That's it.
**Adam:** So, real quick, before we jump into our, our picks for this very special Welcome to Everyone episode.
**Adam:** let's just go around, does everyone here, I mean, are you guys really just what's your kind of relationship with Stephen King as far as his, is everyone read a handful of his books or are we all just kind of exposed to the movies? How does that work?
**Lee:** I have to admit I have never read a Stephen King book.
**Lee:** I've seen quite a lot of his adaptations. I've watched some new stuff, well, not some new, I've watched some stuff I hadn't seen for a very long time for this episode, but in a slightly different way because I knew we were all going to go for the same ones.
**Lee:** I went to the other end of the list, and I went with the worst of his adaptations that I could get my hands on.
**Chris:** Which I've come to realize that they're some of those are the best.
**Unknown:** Winning that mentality and like nobody's going to mention the fucking 'Dead Zone', you know?
**Adam:** Here's, this is, I'm going to throw this out there.
**Adam:** My list is not going to be the seminal classic adaptations of Stephen King.
**Adam:** I went very autobiographical as to what is not necessarily a great film, but something that really means something to me.
**Adam:** So that's the angle I'm taking.
**Unknown:** Sometimes they come back.
**Adam:** You love that shit.
**Adam:** I love 'Sleepwalkers'.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah.
**Unknown:** It means a lot to us.
**Adam:** That's why I'm a furry today.
**Chris:** So that has been one of the big surprises for me, 'Sleepwalkers'.
**Chris:** I cannot believe that was not mentioned first and foremost of this.
**Adam:** The great Mick Garris, 'Sleepwalkers' where the cat boy fucks his cat mom and,
**Adam:** All right.
**Unknown:** That's the one.
**Adam:** That's the one. Every time I hear that, what is it, Johnny and Santos song, what I forgot, the, the guitar, the sleep, the song 'Sleepwalker'. Every time I hear that now, I just think of cat fucking, and I love that. It's a classic, you know, instrumental guitar piece, but now it's just like, nope, cats having sex, humanoid cats, incestuous humanoid cat sex.
**Chris:** It's like, it's like.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah. What was it? Q Lazarus.
**Chris:** 'Goodbye Horses'.
**Lee:** No, no matter what.
**Adam:** Was was that a song, was that like a popular song before 'Silence of the Lambs'?
**Unknown:** It was a song before. I don't know if it was a popular song.
**Adam:** Okay, it was a it was out.
**Adam:** I only know it from that. I, I worry that like Johnny and Santo are rolling in their grave because now whenever everybody hears the fucking badass sleepwalking guitar, they think about cat fucking.
**Adam:** No, not everybody, just me and you and maybe some other people on this call.
**Adam:** Not everybody. We haven't tainted the good name of that, that track.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Anyone who's seen that movie.
**Chris:** That's the thing. It's it's it's done the Tarantino trick of like just imprinting that on that song. That's what I.
**Adam:** That's what Mick Garris does. Mick Garris destroys great songs.
**Unknown:** Yeah. That movie's fucking terrible.
**Unknown:** Hey, I love Mick Garris. I don't love that movie though.
**Unknown:** Come on, Mick. What are you thinking?
**Unknown:** All right, have we talked about any movies that are on anybody's list yet?
**Adam:** No, we got to get the, the, intro banter out of the way here.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Adam:** Okay, so, real quick, I, I just want to say, I am not a avid reader of Stephen King.
**Adam:** I've done a lot of his short stories, 'Skeleton Crew' I read when I was a kid, 'The Long Walk' which I highly recommend, 'The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon' which is a book about a girl being lost in the woods, it's about two, 300 pages and it's just like, how does he write entertaining literature just about being lost in the woods and it's fucking incredible.
**Adam:** and then I started listening to 'It', the, the audio book of 'It' when 'It' phenomenon came back a few years ago with the movies.
**Adam:** I was like, I should probably just knock out this book. I've only really seen the Tim Curry version.
**Adam:** and it's just like, did it have to be like 1,600 pages? I don't think it did. I don't think it needed to be that long.
**Adam:** So, I got about maybe two-thirds of the way done, I'm like, I think.
**Unknown:** Well, they got to, they got to fit the child orgy in there somewhere, you know?
**Adam:** Well, that is important. That is an important.
**Unknown:** So, there's nobody, there's nobody knows that that's a huge bit in the fucking book of 'It'?
**Adam:** I think everybody knows that now because they're listening to us.
**Unknown:** Is it time to go after, has it been titled?
**Chris:** So, what, so I thought, like, so I read some of his books, but I was probably 12. And now I'm wondering, did we just skip most of the books because it was like me and a few other friends and just read some of the scenes because there's a lot I don't remember from.
**Chris:** From 'It' and that being one of them.
**Chris:** For, yeah, from 'It', definitely that and, and I'm sure I read 'The Stand' and maybe 'Dark Half' and 'Pet Cemetery'.
**Adam:** I thought you were the guy that would like accuse like noodle horror, but you're the one rattling off like.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Chris:** No, no, but so, so we, we got hold of the books. We were able to read the books, but we couldn't watch the films until later.
**Chris:** So we were all reading the books going like, these are amazing.
**Chris:** And then, yeah, a few years later, like, so 'Pet Cemetery' was one that I did see.
**Chris:** the 'Dark Half'.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** yeah, so so I did, as far as I know, I did read some of them.
**Adam:** You're a bigger reader than you give yourself credit for.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah, yeah. I read a lot of Stephen King back in the day.
**Unknown:** mainly the kind of shit you're saying, like, all the short stories and stuff, that's my, that's my jam when you can make a complete story in 20 pages that it keeps my attention, right?
**Unknown:** But I did read, you know, the child orgy 'It' and, 'The Stand' and.
**Adam:** Just that part.
**Unknown:** Yeah, that's just you go to what, what your interests are.
**Unknown:** No, I read some of them back in the day and they were, they were decent.
**Unknown:** I don't read so much anymore.
**Unknown:** I mean, if they were going to make it in like a, put pictures in it, if they're going to make a movie of it, I mean, I'll watch it.
**Adam:** The one one, the one I, that stands out to me, I, I wish there was a at least some sort of 'Creepshow' kind of thing, vignette about it.
**Adam:** But there's one called 'Here There Be Tigers' in, I think, 'The Skeleton Crew' about a boy that wants to go to the bathroom really bad in his elementary school, but there's a actual little, literal tiger inside the bathroom.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Adam:** It's, very weird.
**Unknown:** Wow. Interesting.
**Unknown:** Well, I'll say this,
**Unknown:** I watched a movie today that, that was a Stephen King adaptation, 'The Dark Half'.
**Unknown:** Which, I will say this, boys, this makes my list, this 100% makes my list of the top Stephen King movies, 'The Dark Half'.
**Unknown:** And at the beginning, the, the main character who's an author is writing a story as a child called 'There Be Tigers' or whatever the name is.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, yeah, 'Here There Be Tigers'.
**Adam:** Interesting.
**Adam:** Little, little.
**Unknown:** So that was probably the story that you're talking about.
**Adam:** Interesting.
**Adam:** And then Adam, other Adam, what is your background with Stephen King?
**Unknown:** I've read 'Salem's Lot', which was quite the fucking like brick of a book to get through.
**Adam:** Jeez.
**Unknown:** I was probably, I don't know, probably 11.
**Adam:** Still make sense.
**Unknown:** Maybe 10, when Chris was reading them. Yeah, I was like 11 or 12 or whatever. So I read 'Salem's Lot'.
**Unknown:** And I've read a couple of, I've read a couple of short stories, but that's about it.
**Unknown:** The, the weird thing is, is, I read recently his short story 'The Lawnmower Man' because someone said, 'Oh, yeah, the film's nothing to do with, nothing like it.' If, if, if people haven't read it, it's fucking mad.
**Unknown:** It's wrath.
**Unknown:** It's absolute fucking madness.
**Unknown:** Basically, a guy.
**Unknown:** Yeah, a guy comes around your house and he's possibly Pan and he he he's a landscape gardener and all he does is he just runs around in the nude on all fours.
**Adam:** Why was that not part of the movie?
**Adam:** That is, that is the story of 'The Lawnmower Man'.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, I liked the story of, you know, like the character of Job in the movie and stuff, but it's not the book at all.
**Adam:** Certainly not.
**Unknown:** Does it even have Stephen King's name in that one?
**Unknown:** Yeah. Like at the beginning, it's like based on.
**Chris:** So, apparently, they told New Line because he was so not close to the book.
**Unknown:** He was so Steve.
**Unknown:** Did he did he sue Kubrick?
**Adam:** No. We'll talk about that later.
**Adam:** That was a paycheck.
**Adam:** yeah, I mean, if there's any kind of license, like if, if they're going to adapt a Stephen King story in the even the most remote, you know, stretch of a way, they're going to put his name on there to get, get people in the seats, I think.
**Unknown:** Cash. Cash flow.
**Adam:** okay, well, what was the one you just mentioned there, Crud Rood Dude, 'The Dark Half'?
**Unknown:** Yeah, I'll start.
**Adam:** You want to start with that one?
**Unknown:** I'm going to start with 'The Dark Half'.
**Unknown:** I was going to, I was trying to think of like what are the best King movies, and I got to think of like who's made King movies because there are certain guys that have made a few of them, you know?
**Unknown:** most notably Darabont and, George Romero.
**Unknown:** So I was like, I was, I was trying to find 'Needful Things' to watch, but I couldn't find it online, but 'The Dark Half' was online, I was like, 'Oh shit, I should watch that'.
**Unknown:** 'The Dark Half', directed by George A. Romero, 1993, I think, and I did see this shit in the theater when I come out, when it came out.
**Unknown:** So, to kind of give y'all just the recap of what it is, is a writer, and he's going Richard Bachman style, right?
**Unknown:** He has a pseudonym that he writes more graphical content. So he makes a whole to-do to kill off his other writer, right?
**Unknown:** But when he was a kid, he had a brain tumor, but the brain tumor was actually like an absorbed twin.
**Unknown:** So there's a great scene at the beginning where they're like doing brain surgery.
**Unknown:** He's like an eyeball opening up at the kid's brain.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So that thing comes back.
**Adam:** Very Takashi Miike.
**Adam:** And, you know, Masters of Horror.
**Unknown:** Very George Romero in 1993.
**Unknown:** So, the, the, the evil version of him comes back, starts killing people.
**Unknown:** It's all played by Timothy Hutton, so he's like the main guy, but also the bad guy and the bad guy is so fucking great.
**Unknown:** It ends with a dude getting eaten to death by birds and they're like slowly pecking away his body and it's all just beautiful, graphically horrifying, gory practical effects.
**Unknown:** I almost went with 'Creepshow', you know, but I figured somebody else is going to say 'Creepshow' and people really need to watch 'The Dark Half'.
**Unknown:** Like, this I recommend, Bobby, we need to watch this on the show because it's just that good a fucking movie.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I saw it probably in the 90s. It's none of this is ringing a bell though, but that sounds very intriguing.
**Unknown:** Spectacular, as they say, somewhere.
**Unknown:** Who has seen 'The Dark Half'?
**Unknown:** Other than me and Bobby, maybe 20 years ago.
**Adam:** nice hipster choice, Adam.
**Unknown:** Nope.
**Unknown:** It's how does.
**Unknown:** I genuinely think I've seen it, but again, I can't remember it.
**Unknown:** I think it must have looked when it came out.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But if I know you guys, like I think I know you guys.
**Unknown:** As in like you do a horror podcast, you all going to fucking love 'The Dark Half'.
**Unknown:** Trust me, this is I hope this if nothing else the four other people on this line fucking watch that shit because you'll love it.
**Adam:** And generally I think at least giving, I, I like non-zombie Romero is usually still fucking primo.
**Unknown:** Well.
**Unknown:** I've watched a lot of Romero and the shit that really stands out the most are his original trilogy of zombie movies and, his, his King stuff.
**Unknown:** Like because 'Creepshow' is fucking spectacular, you know, and like 'Dark Half' is Two Evil Eyes is all right, but that's still not even like Romero at his best.
**Unknown:** But when he has King to sink his teeth into, it's, it's some of the best shit that's out there, you know, in terms of King adaptations for sure.
**Lee:** Excellent, definitely on my list now to watch.
**Lee:** Although although someone did point out to me that it's the same plot as whichever I can't remember which anthology, 'Amicus Anthology' as you know where it's the Gentlemanlier and he's a writer and he keeps it and you strangle a Dominic in the country.
**Unknown:** Well, some sometimes they come back. Yeah, I'm like, this is like a shittier version of the fucking 'Dark Half'.
**Unknown:** Like I, I, I, King might regurgitate his ideas.
**Unknown:** but you know, I mean, the guy's make a very good living out of it.
**Unknown:** They based 'Satyr Cane' on the guy. You got to give him credit for that, you know.
**Adam:** No, let's not get carried away here, Adam.
**Adam:** You read 'Satyr Cane'.
**Unknown:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Today is Mommy's Day.
**Unknown:** Who's next? Who's up?
**Adam:** Well, I I was just, yeah, go ahead, Adam.
**Unknown:** I'm I'm I was just going to pause it there.
**Unknown:** Can I just say that your, Adam, your 'You read 'Satyr Cane'' is fantastic.
**Unknown:** Thank you.
**Unknown:** But also listening to the last episode, Bobby, what some two, buddies, the gawk.
**Adam:** Not Sub-Two, buddy.
**Unknown:** It's great.
**Unknown:** We should just, Bobby, what this is telling me is we need to adapt 'The Maste and the Madness' for the stage.
**Unknown:** And we need to start it.
**Adam:** That sounds incredibly work-intensive.
**Unknown:** That's.
**Unknown:** It does seem like a lot, but imagine what you could do with the budget in some like construction paper.
**Unknown:** I don't know how they do theater.
**Unknown:** But we can make some love crappy theater.
**Adam:** Construction paper. Spirit gum and construction paper.
**Unknown:** I've been to a theater production once or twice.
**Adam:** All right, let's get the other Adam out of the way. What's your number three, I guess?
**Unknown:** Well, back to what you were saying about sort of not necessarily nostalgia or something like that, but just the sort of connection of when you saw something.
**Unknown:** So, my first one, and sorry to say, I think it it may not be everyone's favorite, but I think I've got to go with 'The Dead Zone'.
**Unknown:** Because it was the first Stephen King film that I saw.
**Adam:** It was hard for me not to make that my number one because I figured someone would.
**Unknown:** I intentionally kept 'The Shining' and 'The Dead Zone' off of my list because I'm like, they're going to, somebody else is going to bring them up because they're just fucking excellent, excellent film.
**Adam:** And, little teaser for later, remind me guys, I want to hear Lee's, take on 'The Shining'.
**Unknown:** Hey. I'm interested to hear that too.
**Unknown:** You won't, you won't need to remind us.
**Unknown:** Just mention it.
**Chris:** So I I don't think I'll know much about 'The Dead Zone'.
**Unknown:** Well, 'Dead Zone', it might, I'm not sure, I think 'The Fly' was the first David Cronenberg film I saw, but I'm pretty certain this is definitely the first Stephen King film I saw.
**Unknown:** And there was like, I think it was Channel 4 had shown the mini series of 'It'.
**Unknown:** Then they showed the mini series of 'Golden Years' which stuck in my head more because they had the Bowie song on the advert.
**Unknown:** And then they just decided to do some, just show some Stephen King films and everything else like that.
**Unknown:** And I think, I can't remember what it was, but 'The Dead Zone' and then a couple of weeks later was when I first saw 'Carrie'.
**Unknown:** And, yeah, and, you know, both, both brilliant.
**Unknown:** But yeah, 'The Dead Zone', I rewatched it the other day, it's just so fucking cold, sounds so obvious, but it's clinical.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Unknown:** You know, it's because it's David Cronenberg, but it just is it's like reading the doctor's notes on what happened.
**Unknown:** It just feels like so fucking real, you know?
**Unknown:** It's like you're reading Herbert Lom's journal, you know, when you just fucking hell, this is dispassionate but fucking massive, tragic and horrible thing.
**Chris:** And I'm assuming Christopher Walken is a good choice.
**Adam:** He's never a bad choice.
**Unknown:** Oh, fuck yeah, he's amazing.
**Adam:** He could play Buttercup and he'd be amazing.
**Unknown:** But it also also.
**Unknown:** I'd watch that.
**Unknown:** Yeah, I'd watch that.
**Unknown:** Also Martin Sheen as President Stills.
**Adam:** The president.
**Unknown:** Oh my God, just such just brilliantly a fucker. Just, you know, it's just can't stick the prick and he's like, well done, Martin, because I like you, Martin, but well done because I fucking hate you as this guy.
**Unknown:** And, yeah.
**Unknown:** And I do, I do remember, I mean, a few years back because it's always been a connection of Cronenberg films with, me and, Lee's brother Dean, when when Trump won the election, I did just message him, 'The missiles are flying. Hallelujah'.
**Adam:** He did.
**Unknown:** Because it was just, you know.
**Adam:** And I knew, was that Cronenberg's kind of first big budget property to, oh, trying to. No.
**Adam:** I'm looking at it now.
**Chris:** Yeah, I think I don't know.
**Chris:** I think it was.
**Adam:** Were were they getting, you know, they gave him some like, like a story that has some, you know, budget and actors and, I don't know.
**Unknown:** I mean, he'd already made 'Scanners', you know.
**Unknown:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Unknown:** Yeah, 'Scanners' was before 'Dead Zone'.
**Unknown:** Right.
**Unknown:** I think this was the first he was given money to make stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, it was a big deal.
**Unknown:** And he did a great job on it.
**Unknown:** But it it it when you what you said there, like, the fact that it feels like the clinical notes of it, that makes total sense.
**Unknown:** That's like totally Cronenberg, like all of it, right? Like, 'The Brood', 'Scanners', 'The Fly', like all of it, you know?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Even that description is body horror, so.
**Unknown:** All of them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, that that combination of him and King has just.
**Unknown:** The thing about 'Dead Zone' is like.
**Unknown:** It may it was it was made the same year as 'Videodrome' and 'Videodrome' feels 100% like this is David Cronenberg.
**Unknown:** Where 'The Dead Zone' feels like a totally different movie, totally different vibe of movie, right?
**Unknown:** Which is him taking on King, but it's it's fucking beautiful.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Because that was like the 'Holy Quadrilogy' or well, what what's five, what's five, what would be that?
**Unknown:** Dude, that's not a thing.
**Unknown:** What are you doing?
**Adam:** No, I'm just saying like, like this is a hell of a a run here, 'The Brood', 'Scanners', 'Videodrome', 'Dead Zone', 'The Fly', like all in a row. Like that's fucking pretty.
**Unknown:** But then he did 'Dead Ringers' and 'Naked Lunch'.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, he didn't stop, you know, he kept on going.
**Adam:** He has some.
**Unknown:** He didn't stop.
**Unknown:** He does a lot of book adaptions, you forget it, but it's like, you know, because obviously there's this, 'Naked Lunch' and, yeah, just loads of stuff that is not his necessarily his stories.
**Adam:** Yeah, Cronenberg's very dynamic.
**Adam:** He doesn't he he'd do more than just body horror, but I think that's what he's, yeah.
**Unknown:** So I have a question.
**Unknown:** You made it sound, Adam, as if there was a certain time where all of a sudden in England, they started showing all this Stephen King stuff.
**Unknown:** And like we were spoiled over here with all of it the whole time, like, is that kind of what you're saying?
**Unknown:** Like all of a sudden, like, okay, BBC is going to show all these fucking things now that you'll never get a chance. You Chris said that too, like you never get a chance to see before.
**Unknown:** They were basically Stephen King's following over here was pretty much on video, certainly in like, you know, it was people had read him and, you know, but the videos were what you saw it.
**Unknown:** And in that initial eight years, I was probably too young to get any of that access to any of those.
**Unknown:** And then, yeah, it would have been sort of late.
**Unknown:** It was it was basically, it was like I say, it was definitely when they'd done 'It' and 'Golden Years' and they were like, oh, these are these are really successful.
**Unknown:** So we'll import them over and then we're like, and we could show loads of his films as like films and was like, and they just, yeah, suddenly it was like, oh, we're doing a Stephen King season.
**Unknown:** And, and yeah, I mean, and the thing what I think there was, you know, there there was loads of stuff in there, you know, there was, that was that the first time I saw 'The Shining'?
**Unknown:** Probably.
**Unknown:** So it was just this weird, but the weird thing was, I hadn't watched 'It'.
**Unknown:** Because 'It' was kind of like, as I'm sitting there, I'm like.
**Adam:** Yeah, you know.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And you were.
**Unknown:** Yeah, and then somehow, I think it was it was obviously just like, maybe it was a year later or whatever like that.
**Unknown:** But then it was like, oh, great, they're showing all these. They didn't repeat 'It'.
**Unknown:** I probably would have watched it then, but yeah.
**Unknown:** But there are still, I've so it was from that little season, but I've still got like 'Sleepwalkers' and 'Pet Cemetery'.
**Adam:** Oh, the movie?
**Chris:** The original.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Unknown:** In any any version of 'Pet Cemetery'.
**Adam:** Hey, what did the guy say about him?
**Adam:** He's really getting up there.
**Adam:** It's, what's his name from 'The Munsters',
**Adam:** I almost said Fred Ward, but that would work too for some reason.
**Unknown:** Fred Gwynn.
**Unknown:** Fred Ward's, yeah.
**Unknown:** It's.
**Unknown:** It's Herman Munster.
**Adam:** He's really getting up there and then it's just an innocent old man making the observation that a kite is really getting up there and then a child, the child from 'Kindergarten Cop' gets hit by an 18-wheeler big rig on a, on a country road.
**Adam:** That is 'Pet', that's the story of 'Pet Cemetery'.
**Adam:** it's a good one, it's a good one.
**Adam:** I got a,
**Adam:** I got my first contrarian unpopular opinion pick of the episode.
**Unknown:** You mean all?
**Adam:** I feel like I'm in safe company already to bring this up.
**Adam:** Again, this these are more autobiographical than they are quality.
**Adam:** but this was one of the first times I got over the self-consciousness of going to the movies by myself and not feeling like I need to, you know, have a friend with me or something.
**Adam:** I'm just like, whatever, I don't care, you know, I'm just going to go to a movie.
**Unknown:** You need to have friends to do that in the first place, Bobby.
**Adam:** I know, right?
**Adam:** The internet wasn't around yet.
**Adam:** But actually it was, it was 2003, Lawrence Kasdan directed, hell of a cast, 'Dreamcatcher'.
**Adam:** Okay?
**Unknown:** 'Dreamcatcher'. Wow. Interesting choice.
**Adam:** This movie is panned by most people.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Understandably, mind you.
**Adam:** Okay, it's not a quality film.
**Adam:** However, it has.
**Unknown:** But it makes your list.
**Adam:** It has the, the sum of its parts are not quality, but the parts are quality, okay, if that makes sense.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Chris:** No, this doesn't say this, but I've never heard of this.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Adam:** Don't go bad.
**Adam:** I am 50. It's got Tom Sizemore in it.
**Unknown:** It's got Tom Sizemore, right?
**Adam:** Tom Sizemore, listen to this cast.
**Adam:** Lawrence Kasdan directed, first off.
**Adam:** The cast is.
**Adam:** Tom Sizemore.
**Adam:** Morgan Freeman.
**Adam:** Stephen King regular, Thomas Motherfucking Jane.
**Adam:** 2003 era, Jason Lee.
**Adam:** the fake, who I call him the fake Bill Paxton, Timothy Olyphant.
**Adam:** and, and not Mark, but Donnie Wahlberg as in the New Kids on the Block, playing a bald, retarded boy alien with psychic abilities.
**Adam:** Now.
**Unknown:** Whoa.
**Adam:** Now, this all sounds bad on paper.
**Unknown:** No, it does.
**Adam:** No, it does.
**Adam:** No, here's the thing with 'Dreamcatcher'.
**Adam:** I, I am 50% convinced that Stephen King had access to AI before anyone else and they just shoved all Stephen King's stories into an AI and it spit out 'Dreamcatcher'.
**Adam:** Because it has your, it has kind of your ensemble, it's, and then you have Lawrence Kasdan who wrote 'The Big Chill', I believe.
**Adam:** It feels like 'The Big Chill' meets 'The Blob' meets, there was something else I thought of earlier, anyway.
**Adam:** It's a weird fucking movie and it's about a group of guys getting the band back together, getting the old crew back together, they go on their yearly vacation.
**Adam:** Turns out their childhood friend who turned out to be an alien, played by Donnie Wahlberg, gave them special psychic powers when they were children.
**Adam:** Not knowing why, they just kind of used it.
**Adam:** They just kind of used it to their advantage through life and then all of a sudden they're at this cabin in the woods and, and there's an evil alien presence that has, kind of taken over the vicinity of those woods.
**Adam:** And it is not good.
**Adam:** But.
**Unknown:** Why, why, how did this make the list?
**Adam:** Because I love.
**Adam:** Damian Lewis playing Jonesy in this movie is incredible.
**Adam:** All the flashback scenes with the, I call him Kiefer Sutherland bully scenes, even though Kiefer Sutherland's not in this movie.
**Adam:** Kiefer Sutherland Stephen King bully scenes, you got that in there.
**Adam:** and then you have like Morgan Freeman playing the kind of like government agent that's blocking off the corridor of the area so that the alien presence doesn't escape, but he's he's doing his job, but it's also like, we're Americans, you can't do this to us.
**Adam:** It's that whole thing.
**Adam:** it's.
**Adam:** It's definitely worth watching.
**Adam:** Not a great movie, but my top, in my top three.
**Adam:** Thank you.
**Lee:** I enjoy it. I feel exactly the same, like it it.
**Lee:** It's too weird and there's too much crammed in and it's very much a film of two halves, but it's a great hangover movie.
**Lee:** If you want something to just put and just occasionally you sort of nod off and you wake up.
**Adam:** Let me put it.
**Lee:** What the fuck is happening.
**Adam:** I saw it in the theater by myself, had a great time alone.
**Adam:** One of the best times I've had alone in a long time watching.
**Unknown:** How was this before, this was before you could drink.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, I was like, I was like 20.
**Adam:** but and then here's what it is, it's the perfect, we used to have, they don't really sell DVDs anymore, but at Walmart they have this big giant bin of unorganized DVDs.
**Adam:** That go for $5 back in 2003 and 'Dreamcatcher' was always in there and, I was like, I saw this in the theater, I enjoyed what I saw and I still have the, the $5.
**Adam:** It's the, the cardboard opening box, shitty.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** I've got that version too.
**Lee:** I don't I don't think they ever made it on a proper. No one was asking for it.
**Adam:** No one.
**Lee:** It was always just been an A4 paper envelope.
**Adam:** But I I just think I mean, as as not great as it is, it's weird that it exists and it's not as bad as people say it is, so I will double down on the hipster contrarian bullshit.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah, yeah. You won, Bobby. You won. Well, let's see what Lee and Chris have to say, but I think you won on shitty.
**Unknown:** Fucking random.
**Adam:** Don't talk to me until you've seen it, Adam.
**Unknown:** I'll watch 'The Dark Half'. I'll watch the fucking 'Crow' again.
**Adam:** No, it has Jason Lee.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It has.
**Adam:** No, it has Jason Lee.
**Adam:** In, in the era of 'My Name is Earl'.
**Unknown:** Isn't Damian Lewis basically just like Richard Atherton or that other guy?
**Adam:** You shut your goddamn mouth right now.
**Unknown:** He's like the same guy.
**Unknown:** It's the same fucking guy.
**Adam:** Damian Lewis in this movie does the whole skitzo thing where someone, he's having a conversation with the alien possessed in his own head while he's riding a motorcycle and it was that scene where I was like, or not a motorcycle, a snowmobile.
**Adam:** He's on a snowmobile and he's going crazy and talking back and forth to himself on a snowmobile.
**Adam:** One, two different characters, one actor.
**Adam:** It's, it's fucking wonderful cinema.
**Unknown:** All right, all right.
**Unknown:** I'll watch it.
**Unknown:** I'll watch it.
**Adam:** Well, don't, if you're disappointed, don't come after me.
**Unknown:** No.
**Lee:** Sounds like.
**Unknown:** No.
**Lee:** It's what.
**Adam:** I think Lee put it perfectly, it's a good hangover movie.
**Adam:** You don't really have to pay attention to it, but it's very.
**Adam:** Oh, we're real quick, while we're on the topic, it has shitworms in it.
**Adam:** No.
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---

## Ep 186 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-186-the-cabinet-of-dr-caligari/
Air date: 22 December 2023
Duration: 00:39:16
Film: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari · Year: 1920 · Director: Robert Wiene

### Description

And so we conclude our festive season of ‘Silent Nights’ by going back even further, for the magnificent “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”. A film in which we witness possibly the worst interior design for a psychiatric hospital; the best (and only correct) response to petty local bureaucracy and we all empathise with a man who sleeps for 23 years and still wakes up knackered. If the point of German Expressionism was to emphasise and represent the internal emotional state over a depiction of actual reality - “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” is an absolute blueprint of how to do it. A triumph of ingenuity and flair over budgetary restrictions, “… Caligari” creates its own complete world that immerses the audience. However, this is not mere style over substance, with a convoluted plot featuring many a twist, making for a film that feels fresher and more modern than a lot of what would come after it. A perennial influence to this day, from Tim Burton to Rob Zombie and the Laika animation studio, this unique film may have its homages and imitators; but the original is never diminished, retaining its power over a century later. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid 103 year-old spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror, I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And Merry Christmas if I had some bells, I would ring them right now, but I don't, so instead we're going to replace that with horror, information and swearing and spoilers.
**Adam:** So, please be ready for that.
**Lee:** Is there anything more festive than swearing and spoilers?
**Lee:** as promised, we are back now to cover, 1920.
**Adam:** 1920.
**Lee:** So, 103 years old now, we've gone back in time, Caligari, yes, even further back into the creepy shit.
**Lee:** I think this is the oldest film we've covered, isn't it, so far?
**Adam:** It's got to be, yeah.
**Lee:** yes, so, this again is part of our Silent Night series for Christmas.
**Lee:** and I'm very keen to hear what Chris would have thought of this film because it's, it's just, not for R2 as we said before, with the last one is a fantastic film and still plays well after all these years, but is a pretty straightforward narrative.
**Lee:** This is full of twist and it feels like a fucking M. Night Shyamalan.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's what I said, like I said last episode, yeah, this could absolutely be ruined by someone giving out spoilers, and it feels strangely modern.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** In, in that, and also, is this the first, like, big horror movie then?
**Adam:** It's, there's, there's debate but it seems to me considered like one of the earliest or possibly the earliest horror movie or horror feature maybe, I don't know.
**Adam:** there's, there've people made like little shorts that Edison made a show of Frankenstein that was like seven minutes long or something like that.
**Adam:** which you can still see, but yeah, it's, I, I think it's certainly the oldest we've covered, it's probably one of the earliest examples of ones that you can probably still see.
**Adam:** As I say, there was a lot of, a lot of stuff got lost.
**Chris:** So, was there another one that could have got lost?
**Adam:** I don't think this was successful at its time and I think they, it was pretty much running, there was no, it was that legal action that really was the scuppering point for Nosferatu more than.
**Adam:** Yeah, but, you know, if you your film was successful, which this was, you know, it sort of, and again we're back to that thing of this, this was internationally successful because anyone could go and see anyone could go and see it.
**Adam:** And, yeah, I mean, as, I mean, even it's just so extraordinarily its own world.
**Lee:** There's nothing like this film, it's just, it's so weird and, and, and that's the thing it's taken the German expressionism although Nosferatu was obviously first.
**Lee:** oh no, it wasn't, this was first, but.
**Adam:** No, this is first.
**Lee:** Yeah, this is like pushed that, like all the, the weird angles.
**Chris:** Yeah, so, so that's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So, so I got to check about that, right? So, so that's why I thought this is German impressionism because it's, it's not like it, it's, yeah, it's it's strange.
**Chris:** It's not accurate representation, it's almost like what's in the mind more than, so I, but, but we call this expressionism.
**Adam:** That, I mean, that was the term for it but it was sort of,
**Adam:** I mean, it's Caligari is the sort of progenitor of it.
**Adam:** And you still see it, I mean, obviously you still see it in Tim Burton.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** yeah, very much so.
**Adam:** You see it in the sort of stop motion stuff like, Coraline.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I can't remember what that company Laika, the animation studio Laika who did that and, the, oh, James and the Giant Peach stop animation that was out a few years back.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, I think again, I was watching because I especially sort of like the this sort of more unusual stuff.
**Adam:** I really love watching it with Claire because I get her take on it.
**Adam:** And as she said it feels like that film, that film would look like that if you made it now.
**Chris:** Like yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** You know, it's so its own world and so and so deliberate.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know, because you've got stuff in there like.
**Lee:** The chairs they're sitting on.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And the sort of school.
**Chris:** Yeah, especially the one who's the the clerk or the town clerk, yeah, who's sitting up really high.
**Chris:** Like just it's almost he's like cartoon or so exaggerated.
**Adam:** Well, Caligari's wearing Mickey Mouse gloves, isn't he?
**Adam:** He's got big white gloves with the black lines on the back.
**Lee:** Like every it feel and it feels harder to make than a standard square room, you know, like when you see his office in the sanitarium, like it's just so like it doesn't look anything like it.
**Lee:** It'd be easy to make it look like an actual office, but they haven't, they've gone for this weird, crazy angles and strange painting on everything and it's, it just creates such a a nightmareish impression because everything's half real and half surreal.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's such an unusual choice, but it works fantastic, especially for the, you know, once you the further you get into this story, the more everything you've seen till that point makes sense, kind of preempting you for.
**Lee:** It's incredibly intelligent.
**Chris:** I thought the way they used color as well throughout for the different kind of environments.
**Chris:** Which was strange.
**Adam:** I've, I mean, that's the thing, I mean, are you getting better in that sanitarium, because, you know, you've got triangular doors that peel off into the ceiling and swirls over everything.
**Adam:** You know, it's it doesn't feel like it would stitch a damaged mind back together.
**Lee:** It feels like a stoner's house, is what it feels like.
**Lee:** A stoner architect.
**Adam:** I said it's like a crooked house at the fair.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again, it's something that's definitely sort of, it, it, it's weird because this is one of those things where Nosferatu is quite influential but in sort of story terms and things like that.
**Adam:** Whereas this, you can see this in things.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like I say, you can really see it in Tim Burton, you can see it in sort of some other films as well.
**Adam:** But I was flabbergasted with this.
**Adam:** So, all the sets are this was done on a pretty.
**Adam:** You know, this was done on a pretty low budget.
**Adam:** And all the sets are made from card and paper essentially.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** And in 1920, in Germany, electricity was heavily rationed.
**Adam:** It was still on the ration after the First World War.
**Adam:** And all the light and all the shadow that you see in this film is painted on.
**Lee:** What?
**Adam:** And when you watch it with that knowledge, it's mind-boggling.
**Adam:** The the the thought, the detail and the it's, it's like someone's fever dream.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Holy shit, I'm just I'm just looking at images now, there's a picture of the somnambulist when he's standing there and he's got the light behind him.
**Lee:** And you're right, I can see it in the still that it's, it's painted on the wall and they've placed his head in exactly where it would be.
**Lee:** If the light were around it, but yeah.
**Lee:** You can, you can, now you've said it, I'd never have picked up on that, but now you've said it you can totally see it.
**Lee:** That's incredible.
**Adam:** It's like there's a bit where there's they keep doing a staircase which is obviously meant to be lit through it's got like a huge shadow of some bars that go up the stairs and when you actually look at it, those shadows are painted.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's shot in such a way and the way the characters are dressed and things like that means that it's sort of.
**Chris:** It all just.
**Adam:** It doesn't stand out except the sort of it really is a total trick of the eye.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's and you know, like I say, when I found that out, I was just like fucking flabbergasted because it's just so.
**Adam:** You, you know, it's like this it feels like it's made by an obsessive.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where actually it's made by a series of obsessives, but it sort of has that sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** But it lends back to that pre, because obviously theatre was, you know, a theatre was it was it had been going on for a long time previous to this and this is a new medium that they were bringing that to.
**Lee:** But yeah, it is, it's that set painting and stuff that you see at live productions in the theatre and it's bringing that onto a big screen.
**Lee:** Where now we assume, oh, that's how they do it now, that was how they did it back then.
**Lee:** But they didn't, you're quite right, they'd taken the old styles and given it this whole new lavish.
**Lee:** And this probably led to a lot of the way that stuff was lit and things because of how they'd not lit it but made it look as if it were.
**Lee:** It's incredible.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Adam:** And and this is the thing, although, and I, I hope that it qualifies my statement on Nosferatu about, oh, it's a moving photograph.
**Adam:** is that this is a moving illustration.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But not in the sense of a cartoon, this is just, you know, it, it, it feels like an like Edmond Gory or something like that.
**Adam:** It feels like illustrations from a collected works of Edgar Allan Poe or something like that.
**Adam:** And it's sort of just so mind-boggling that it's sort of, you know.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** They even use like effects at one point with the text at different angles and, and, and the amount they use a lot of the, like vignetting and darkening parts.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And, yeah, but again, like you'd think potentially like it could have been done too much, too wrong and some, but yeah, just the whole thing, every element, all of that just comes together to work perfectly.
**Adam:** And and it is and it is out of necessity, it's out of financial necessity essentially.
**Adam:** You know, they couldn't afford to have lights burning to do, like set up like these huge shadows.
**Adam:** So it's like.
**Lee:** Especially if you've got cardboard sets, you don't want too much hot lighting going on or you're just asking for a massive disaster really.
**Adam:** But that the bit where he's running along and it's Dr. Caligari and keeps appearing.
**Adam:** And that was the that was the publish the publicity for this film was they just put up posters with just that written on it.
**Adam:** Didn't say didn't say it was a film, didn't say it was.
**Adam:** It didn't tell you anything, it was just posters with you have to become Caligari posted all over fucking Berlin, you know.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** So, in a weird way you're like, there's that sort of thing where it's like, oh well, you know, if it's a silent film, probably if you like arthouse, you'll probably be able to deal with watching silent or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And it's like, I, I feel this was, this was arthouse at the time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, this, this sort of was.
**Adam:** This was like the a 4AD, not 4AD, that's a record label.
**Lee:** A.
**Adam:** 24.
**Adam:** That's why I think.
**Adam:** To be honest, 4AD, very much in the same sort of wheelhouse, the Gothic wheelhouse there, I would say, so I was probably on the right on the right lines.
**Adam:** But it's also really interesting because you've got, so Cesare, the somnambulist is played by an actor called Conrad Veidt.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Conrad Veidt is fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** And apart from the fact of of the that effect of just his like heavily made up eyes.
**Adam:** But when he opens them gradually and then just stares and you're like, that's that that is not a special effect, that is not.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, that is just an actor with just the right look and the right level of intensity and everything else like that that it just comes through.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** but Conrad Veidt was, this was like one of the films that sort of really made him a household name.
**Adam:** And so he, he did lots of, he was in a silent anthology horror which I've got to see now called Waxworks.
**Adam:** he's in a film called The Hands of Orlac which is the classic tale of when someone gets their hands cut off and replaced with those of a murderer.
**Adam:** The
**Adam:** Student of Prague.
**Adam:** But he's in a film called The Man Who Laughs and that the character he plays in that is someone who's had a smile carved into their face.
**Adam:** Because that's the thing is this is all pre-code as well, like sort of, you know.
**Adam:** Before, again, like we were saying about early days, there were no standards and practices at this point, they just happened to not, I don't know.
**Adam:** I have like live fucking on camera or whatever.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, there wasn't any law saying you couldn't do that sort of shit.
**Adam:** So all the stuff that they would imply would be pretty sort of like heavy duty like Caligari is, you know.
**Adam:** It's like murder and mental illness and things like that.
**Adam:** but yeah, so The Man Who Laughs, he plays this character who's had a grin cut into his face.
**Adam:** And he is that image is the inspiration for the Joker, the Batman villain.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I sent you guys that on the WhatsApp.
**Lee:** That's what it was.
**Adam:** The picture of Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs.
**Adam:** And he's just the fucking Joker, isn't it?
**Adam:** It's just that comic book Joker.
**Adam:** But he was, like, so he, he started life he wanted to be a surgeon.
**Adam:** And found out that he was absolutely no aptitude for it.
**Adam:** and then.
**Chris:** Probably lucky he didn't continue with that then.
**Adam:** Yes, very much so, otherwise he wouldn't have been Conrad Veidt.
**Adam:** The amazing actor and philanthropist, it would have been Conrad Veidt.
**Adam:** The the Berlin mass murderer of Berlin who fucked up more operations than anyone.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** And then he sort of, he looked into he was in a play at school and really enjoyed it and got some good notices and so he was like, oh, maybe I'll try acting.
**Adam:** And apparently his dad fucking hated the idea.
**Adam:** But his mum quietly encouraged him.
**Adam:** And bunged him a few quid, you know, she sort of like financed him and encouraged him to keep going.
**Adam:** And he became part of a theater troupe and was doing quite well, then World War I breaks out and he's in he ends up in the German army at the Eastern front.
**Adam:** And gets sent evacuated home with the jaundice and pneumonia and his was declared unfit for service.
**Adam:** And then he went back to the theatre, got some really rave reviews and then just became this figure in German silent films.
**Adam:** He was doing and playing a lot of like, obviously, like villainous roles and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** In the 20s he went to Hollywood and was doing quite well there.
**Adam:** but he, because obviously he was still doing silent initially been doing silent films,
**Adam:** He didn't have a great grasp of English, so when talkies came in, he went back to Germany.
**Adam:** But then, he obviously you then get to the point where the Nazis come in.
**Adam:** To the to the story, as usual.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** When they took power, one of the things that Joseph Goebbels did was they they went through the film industry and like the entertainment industry.
**Adam:** And they were, I mean, they were closing down anything that they considered decadent and everything and they went through the film industry and basically,
**Adam:** Everyone there, they were trying to get rid of anyone, obviously anyone Jewish, anyone politically opposed to them and it was just like a sort of mass clearing out.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** he had this racial questionnaire that everyone involved in the film industry had to fill out.
**Adam:** And Conrad Veidt put his race down as Jewish, he wasn't Jewish but his wife was.
**Adam:** And it was and basically they'd said to him, oh, well, if you, you know, if you, if you get divorced and declare your support for the Nazi party, you can keep working.
**Adam:** Because he was that big a star.
**Adam:** And he basically told them to fuck off.
**Adam:** And it was like, no, that's my wife.
**Lee:** What are you talking?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he was, you know, and out of solidarity with the Jewish people, he was it was also because he he'd already been quite a vocal opponent to the Nazis as they got to the point where they took power.
**Adam:** So, basically, yeah, he was like, no, that's we're not doing that.
**Adam:** So, him and his wife emigrated to England in 1933.
**Adam:** And he started appearing in British films and obviously he was living in England, so his his English had improved.
**Adam:** And he worked with, like did a few films with Michael Powell, like during the 1940s and stuff.
**Adam:** You know, and it was, you know, he was doing quite well over there, then he went to Hollywood.
**Adam:** And basically, it was he did it because he was, he did it to assist the British war effort by trying to appear in films that would encourage America who weren't in the war.
**Adam:** To join in, you know, so essentially, you know, anti-Nazi propaganda for want of a better word.
**Adam:** But, so so he went to America and was doing that and he said that he realized that he was going to get type cast as Nazis anyway because he because of his accent.
**Adam:** So his contract stipulated, yeah, I'll play a Nazi but they've always got to be the villain.
**Adam:** You know, there was no sort of soft soaping it or anything as far as he was concerned.
**Lee:** I mean that's, I mean that's a ridiculous thing, isn't it?
**Lee:** Will you turn on your wife, basically accept her terrible fate.
**Lee:** But yeah, and say you love us.
**Lee:** But you get to keep your job.
**Lee:** Who in the world do they think would do that?
**Chris:** You got to be pretty selfish, aren't you?
**Adam:** Yeah, no.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** This is, I mean, it's, it's, I mean, well not only that, but also, but, I mean, this is something that I just thought was incredible.
**Adam:** So, as I say, he moved to America in 1941, but he was he just was worried about the like the kids in the Blitz.
**Adam:** So, he got his lawyer in London, like he got his lawyer in London to buy on his behalf, 2000 large chocolate bars, 2000 envelopes with, cash in them and 2000 one tin one pound tins of sweets.
**Adam:** And got them sent to all the bomb shelters in, London to be given to needy kids.
**Adam:** Like if, you know, just sort of like that was the the thing.
**Adam:** And it was like, you know, he I think it was a genuine, you know, he genuinely seemed to have a.
**Chris:** So, cinema villain, real life hero.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Very much so, and he just sort of and that's the thing, he ended up I think his.
**Adam:** Like his big American film was he's like the villain in Casa or one of the villains in Casablanca.
**Adam:** And it's,
**Chris:** And funnily enough though, I was going to say in Doctor Caligari, he's not actually a villain, he's kind of a victim.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** Really.
**Adam:** And it's just, but I was just, you know, I was just astounded by the fact that this guy was like, you know.
**Adam:** It's just like, and it's also, I mean, when you compare it to,
**Adam:** Werner Kraus, who plays Caligari, was a Nazi supporter.
**Chris:** He does a great job.
**Adam:** Oh, he was a Nazi supporter.
**Adam:** and actually he ended up he ended up getting tried for war crimes because a minor war criminal in so much as collaboration, not like not as possible as you could think war crimes could go.
**Adam:** But he was, yeah, because he was basically, he got declared, what was it, an act an actor of the state, he really didn't have any trouble with keeping his job.
**Adam:** But, and.
**Adam:** And yeah, he ended up like after the war he got like exiled from Austria and just, yeah.
**Adam:** He's sort of I mean it was it's it's weird to actually read about someone, you know, actually being held accountable for things they've done.
**Adam:** Because just don't happen anymore, really.
**Adam:** But, you know, in this sort of but in this sense, I mean, he was like sort of, he was.
**Adam:** Ostracized for like five years or whatever it was and, you know, and and never worked again, basically because at the time he was very much, yep, I'm a Nazi.
**Adam:** And then tried to but then did try to say afterwards, oh, no, I was coerced.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, I don't.
**Lee:** By.
**Adam:** By the sounds of it, I don't think many people believed him.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** who were actually sort of aware of him.
**Adam:** But but like I saying, Conrad Veidt just seemed like this sort of like amazing guy and like you say.
**Adam:** It's it's hell of a fucking thing to turn around and tell the Nazi party to go fuck yourselves.
**Adam:** You know, it's not easily done.
**Adam:** and then to actually sort of like, you know, I mean, like I say, I mean, apparently the chief air raid warden wrote him.
**Adam:** Who was like, do you know, you're the only person who's done anything.
**Adam:** Like like any charitable thing for these kids.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** And it was like and and he was basically it was like and you're not you know, you're not even English.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but you're, you know.
**Lee:** You're the one putting yourself out there and spending your own money to to to look after people who, yeah, are falling through the cracks and I mean.
**Adam:** And it was just, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, government in time of war, obviously, have got their hands full.
**Lee:** They they you know, they can't look after everyone and without philanthropists like this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it makes all the difference to somebody, you know, like a.
**Lee:** Like you say, the kids.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, they must have been, that must have been like a fucking such a startling moment.
**Adam:** And like I say, it's just a weird thing that you you'd sort of think that it was because I know the name Conrad Veidt, but it was only sort of like when I'm reading into it, it's like this sort like just got this guy just seemed like this very amazing person, you know.
**Adam:** He did, he did die of a heart attack whilst playing golf with his doctor.
**Adam:** And a singer called Arthur Fields as well.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** And that golfing in LA, so it wouldn't, it weren't it weren't too bad an exit, I think.
**Lee:** He was doing all right, really.
**Lee:** And to be fair, if you die on a golf course and you've got a doctor at hand and you still die.
**Lee:** I don't think there's much can be done for you, really, it's.
**Adam:** No, it's very true.
**Adam:** It's very true, I don't think that anyone was sort of.
**Adam:** Yeah, I don't think no suspicious circumstances there certainly, you know, it's like.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** I mean, something, I don't know what the score was like on the version you, you guys were watching.
**Adam:** I watched the Eureka Blu-ray and it was, a guy called Cornelius Schwerk.
**Adam:** And I actually preferred it to, because the one on Nosferatu was actually the one I watched was the original score.
**Adam:** They've recreated the original score that was given out with it.
**Adam:** But, yeah, this this one seemed pretty good, but Caligari's been like a real, both Nosferatu and Caligari because they're silent.
**Adam:** They've had so many people do.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** music for them, like sort of redone the score and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But like John Zorn and In The Nursery have done Caligari and,
**Adam:** Just you know, it's it's just an it's just a no-brainer, I suppose, it's like, well, it hasn't got any sound, so.
**Lee:** And that's what I love as well with these public domain, films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Is that anybody can just get a copy and just have a crack at it.
**Lee:** And you get such a a totally different experience, you know, as I said with Nosferatu when I saw it live and it was one guy.
**Lee:** Basically with a whole, you know, like he had loads of different instruments and he was sort of flitting in between them and at first I found it a little bit distracting because I was, because I knew the film, so I kept kind of watching what he was doing.
**Lee:** But he did such a good job that I just got immersed in the film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it it sounds and it didn't feel at all distracting.
**Lee:** But it is great that, you know, you can watch the film with one soundtrack and then watch it with a different and it has a whole different feel to it.
**Lee:** And and.
**Chris:** That is really interesting.
**Lee:** And you've got that ability to do it because it's public domain and it's silent, so literally you can just get it.
**Lee:** Turn the sound off, chuck a mixing desk in it and just put your own stuff on it and it's it's a beautiful way to.
**Lee:** To to to experiment with sounds and yeah.
**Adam:** And again, I think Caligari's pretty special because of because it's it's own thing, it's own world almost like that.
**Adam:** You don't whatever you put on it doesn't necessarily feel inappropriate in the sense of, you know, oh, well, they wouldn't have had they wouldn't have had an electric guitar then.
**Adam:** They might have put a little.
**Adam:** Or something like you.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Lee:** It sort of.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's so crazy just because it's such a fucking bizarre little entity on its own.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and like Robert Robert Wiene who was the who directed it.
**Adam:** he also directed Hands of Orlac, the Conrad Veidt film that I mentioned earlier.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** He,
**Adam:** He also was.
**Adam:** Where are we?
**Adam:** Oh, I completely lost my thing.
**Lee:** It is Christmas and we are celebrating, just to let everybody know.
**Adam:** But, yeah, he was, he, he was another one who got a brush with the,
**Adam:** With the Nazi authorities because his last film in Germany was a film called Typhoon.
**Adam:** And it got banned on the basis that they showed Asian characters in a more favorable light to European ones.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** I suppose, to be fair, that probably isn't the most petty thing.
**Chris:** Not the worst thing.
**Adam:** Not by not by a long shot.
**Chris:** They did a lot.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Really vexed, apparently.
**Adam:** Oh my God, but it was just so, but again, you just sort of like.
**Adam:** Oh, that was it as well, and the implication that the authorities.
**Adam:** Because the film's set in France and like they were like, well, you show the authorities are competent.
**Adam:** Yeah, in France.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But still they're like, yeah, but people can mistake it for Germany.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But so quite rightly, I think, he, he quite rightly got the fuck out of Dodge as well.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I think it just seemed to be, it's, it's weird the because it comes from such a weird little period of German.
**Adam:** History where you've got sort of like post-World between the World Wars, but you have got these sort of like flourishes.
**Adam:** And basically, I mean, as I say, I mean, it it went both ways in terms of the main cast of this film.
**Adam:** Of whether they were sort of in or out.
**Adam:** After 1933.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it's sort of.
**Chris:** So, so I was going to ask, so did you say this is was from a book?
**Adam:** No, this is purely, this was basically.
**Adam:** This was.
**Chris:** No, it was written for.
**Adam:** It was written by two guys called Carl, Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz.
**Chris:** And not as a play, it was.
**Adam:** No, this was always written as a film.
**Lee:** It was actually been quite unusual at the time really.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Because it's.
**Lee:** It's a new thing, it's a whole new technology.
**Chris:** Like seem.
**Lee:** People are going to.
**Chris:** To come up with ideas, like seem ahead of the time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** And I mean, this is because, they they'd written quite a few sort of like separately, they they wrote quite a few films, but this is the only one I think they wrote together.
**Adam:** But they both of them worked with Murnau and, Hans Janowitz said that it was basically the inspiration came when they went to to a carnival.
**Adam:** And there was just an odd looking man in the shadows.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then the next day there was a report that a girl had been murdered and it was like in his head, it was like it was that guy.
**Chris:** And he started to add all these details in.
**Adam:** And it all sort of yeah, and it all sort of turned into.
**Chris:** Cuz I mean I suppose a lot of it would have worked as a play.
**Chris:** And that so some of the story aspects like it starts off, the like the early frame is off the end of the film.
**Chris:** Isn't it and and so calling back to that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and then all of the twists.
**Lee:** Yeah, so reusing sets and.
**Adam:** Interestingly enough, though.
**Adam:** That was the the script writers didn't write that bit.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** That was an addition because they, I think they actually said at one point Fritz Lang was meant to direct.
**Adam:** Or was possibly going to direct Caligari, Fritz Lang who did like, Metropolis and, just.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's just such a again an amazing,
**Adam:** Like director of like German silent and, talking pictures.
**Adam:** but they were like, oh, but basically, yeah, so they think it might have been something he suggested or the producers suggested or something like that.
**Adam:** But basically, yeah, the script writers were really anti that.
**Adam:** So it's one of the first, there you go, already there's a dispute over.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there's creative differences, it's 1920.
**Adam:** And, there's still a couple of disgruntled script writers who are getting shoved by a producer, it's like, yeah, but can we make it a bit nicer, Rob?
**Adam:** Because, because that's the thing is I it's a weird one though, because you've got.
**Adam:** There's like the implication of that final twist and I, I saw that they said, oh, the producers felt that it would be.
**Adam:** To to lighten the the mood of the film, it's to give it almost like a sort of, well, not a happy ending but like a sort of up, more upbeat ending.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I don't know about you, but the fact that the guy puts the Caligari glasses on.
**Adam:** And then takes them off and says, I know exactly what's wrong with him, he thinks I'm Caligari and I know how to cure him.
**Adam:** That does not does not come over as.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Doesn't sound happy.
**Adam:** That's not it's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It came over as like the third twist.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's like, oh, now I fucking is him.
**Adam:** And he's going to brutally do murder him in his bed.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I know the cure for him thinking I'm Caligari.
**Lee:** It's funny, I.
**Lee:** You saying about, you know, sort of making it more palatable, recently I saw the the newest, Murder in Venice, the Nero one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I didn't realize at the time when I watched it that it was actually based on an older, story, the Halloween party, in which the the victim is a a young girl.
**Lee:** yeah, and basically she's drowned while bobbing for apples.
**Chris:** But yeah, it's a mainstream audience you can't murder an eight-year-old girl in the first 10 minutes and and I was like, well, if you're going to scream off at that point.

---

## Ep 185 Nosferatu

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-185-nosferatu/
Air date: 17 December 2023
Duration: 00:38:17

### Description

It’s nearly Christmas; so we’re bringing you some ‘Silent Nights’ - first up is 1922’s beautifully sinister “Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror”. A film in which we learn the very worst way to cut a slice of bread; that nothing looks more confused than a striped hyena in a German forest; and that when your manager finishes every sentence with an insane cackle, it’s probably time to check out your other employment options. This silent occult masterpiece still manages to feel more modern and pacy than a lot of the talkies that followed over the next few decades, and it’s imagery remains burned into the collective unconscious. The first feature-length adaptation of “Dracula”, it offers enough variation from its source material to become a story in its own right - with the spectre of plague and contagion married to the concept of the vampire in a way that chills in the light of our own recent history. It’s Count Orlok is far removed from the suave romantic figure screen Dracula would become; instead being a near folkloric creature from the other side of the forest, and all the more disturbing for it. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid 101 year-old spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Festive Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Christmasy Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Christmasy Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Festive Adam.
**Chris:** Not dark twisted German expressionism.
**Adam:** Same thing, isn't it?
**Chris:** Actually, have you got, have you got just a black T-shirt? What, what is, look, move up a bit.
**Adam:** Me?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's just a black T-shirt, yeah.
**Chris:** It is. There you go.
**Lee:** You move up as far as you like, it doesn't, you know, it's just still a black T-shirt.
**Chris:** It's still black.
**Adam:** Black all the way down.
**Lee:** He's all he's worn since I've known him in school.
**Adam:** There you go.
**Adam:** Well, wore a school uniform then, but.
**Adam:** We all wore, and I like to think you all copied my look.
**Chris:** Whereas Lee is looking very festive.
**Adam:** Lee is very festive.
**Chris:** But it is black.
**Lee:** It is a black festive. I am still in a black festive top.
**Lee:** so we are here for the beginning of our Silent Night, Christmas episode series.
**Chris:** Unholy Night.
**Lee:** Indeed.
**Lee:** there will be spoilers.
**Lee:** To be fair, it's what, 120 years old, I think we did.
**Chris:** Although, although, although, right, I'm going to say actually, someone absolutely could have spoiled this.
**Chris:** Well, Dr. Caligari.
**Lee:** No, we're not doing Dr. Caligari, today's Nosferatu.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** You have you did watch Nosferatu, didn't you?
**Chris:** I did.
**Chris:** But I thought we were covering both, I was sure we were covering both in one session.
**Adam:** We will we will cover both.
**Lee:** We will cover both, but tonight we are covering Nosferatu.
**Lee:** yes, so from 1922, so 101 years old, Yes, and so we will be spoiling it, if you haven't seen it in 101 years, and it's public domain, I don't know what your excuse is. and there will be swearing quite possibly.
**Chris:** I'm looking forward to finding out the explanation as to why he has the name he does, and if it's based on Dracula, what, what's happened?
**Adam:** Oh, we'll get into it, don't you worry.
**Lee:** We will indeed.
**Lee:** so, Chris, as someone who hasn't seen this film before, I'm assuming.
**Lee:** What did you make?
**Chris:** Yeah, not only have I not seen this film, I've not seen many, it might be one or two silent films before, I kind of think one of them was the Three Amigos where they have the silent clips during the film.
**Chris:** I actually cannot even think of any others, right?
**Chris:** So, yeah, so this was a bit of a, of a, of a different experience.
**Chris:** However, like seriously way better than I was expecting.
**Chris:** Like surprisingly, I was.
**Chris:** I mean, I did see rough, yeah, how old it was and it's like, how is this actually still really quite watchable and really good?
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** It's so I think because of the it hasn't got the sound, and because it's black and white, the cinematography in it it's just like.
**Lee:** There's just so many stills from this film that people have up in the house as prints, I've got a couple myself.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just stunning.
**Chris:** But that's really interesting, right, because I've seen the stills, I've seen the images, and in my head that meant it was going to be a very different feel throughout.
**Chris:** Whereas it was way more accessible than I was expecting.
**Chris:** I was thinking it was going to be really heavy, like really like.
**Chris:** Oh, and especially when you said what, so you said it's German impressionism.
**Adam:** Expressionism, yeah.
**Chris:** Expressionism.
**Adam:** And this is kind of the birth of it, yeah.
**Chris:** Right, okay, and and and it's a horror film.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** So, so I thought this is going to be a tough watch, really.
**Chris:** Like and yeah, I'm going to try and appreciate it, but actually it really was quite entertaining.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and it's there's no secret to it, it's you can follow it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, there's because I think even when you go back and read books that were written in different periods, like if you read a book that was written a hundred years ago, the language can be quite, you know, you have to untangle it to sort of get where you are.
**Chris:** It's quite yeah.
**Chris:** You have to put some effort in, yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Whereas, whereas this where images all they've got and that's where they're creating their narrative and I mean okay you get.
**Adam:** Written bits, like sort of subtitles and little caption cards in there, but essentially, yeah, everything is told through everything is, you know, everything is the vision, that's the only sense that it's got, it can't add music, it can't, you know, but it's so just so well done.
**Chris:** Well, and then it creates a sense of atmosphere as well throughout, it's like yeah, it's very good cinematography.
**Adam:** Go on, man.
**Lee:** I was going to say even the little bits, you know, like the strange stuff that they cut to, you know, the Venus Flytrap and all that stuff.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, yeah.
**Lee:** It's like weird stuff footage, but like.
**Lee:** It's just beautiful.
**Chris:** It's great.
**Lee:** It looks and the the building, that's what I love about this, because it is so old, you see, although obviously it's set earlier than it was made, but you still get that feel of how things were, it's a bit like Vampyr, when you watch Vampyr, it is like like seeing what life was actually like, you know, 100 years ago.
**Lee:** And yeah, and the buildings and everything inside and outside.
**Lee:** I've just got such a rustic old feel to it, I absolutely love the look of this film.
**Chris:** I am going to start cutting my bread the way he does.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, what's wrong with that?
**Chris:** And then there's the slices.
**Adam:** I think I suspect that's where we get the term ham fisted from.
**Adam:** It's because that's that was someone making a a sandwich and yeah, cuz that is.
**Chris:** It's like cutting it with a steak knife or something, wasn't it?
**Adam:** Clair watches a lot of infomercials and they do things like, it'll be like, normal knives will only cut through sawdust and water, but these ones cut through tin cans and dry wall.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, it's in that it's feels that same sort of way, you know.
**Chris:** He's a.
**Lee:** He's what he is.
**Chris:** And then he he sort of scares him towards the fireplace.
**Chris:** And then that's quite a nice seating arrangement there. I sort of thought Lee probably quite likes to have something like that.
**Chris:** I mean, it did look like it was almost right in the fire.
**Chris:** I thought you're going to get warm. But.
**Chris:** Maybe that's the plan.
**Adam:** Well, I think in in that castle, I suspect that it is, I doubt there's central heating, if anything, you know.
**Adam:** But it's and actually you're saying about that, the one, one thing I did find out researching it is a lot of those locations, particularly around the village, are still there.
**Chris:** All right.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Like the the town, you know, when they go like the German town where Hutter comes from.
**Adam:** and yeah, I've especially for you like because I know you're a a travel, well, you're a traveler.
**Adam:** Sorry, that sounds wrong.
**Adam:** But you you know, you're you you but go and yeah, they those locations are still there, like the house and the warehousing and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Yeah, see this would definitely be a destination holiday for me to go to I love Germany anyway, but yeah, to go and spend a few days and see these sets.
**Lee:** In the flesh are just be incredible.
**Adam:** But yeah, so I mean, obviously, like we say, 101 years old, and actually it looks a lot better than some of the talkies that we've watched.
**Adam:** It's there's so much more dynam dynamism to the characters and the to the shots and the composition and everything else like that.
**Adam:** That you probably don't find in later stuff from like the 40s and 50s and things like that.
**Adam:** Because I mean, there's there's like there's all that stuff on the boat.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and that's with a single like hand crank camera, I believe it's a hand crank camera.
**Adam:** So it's, you know, that's, you know, they they shot the whole thing with one camera.
**Adam:** And at one point impounded, which caused a bit of a problem, but.
**Chris:** I suppose.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, when when they were traveling to various locations, they got it caught up in customs, it was like, well, we're slightly fucked here because that's literally the only camera we've got, so yeah, we need to, we need to extricate this and get.
**Chris:** But I suppose that is, like we said before, sometimes having limitations really helps you to.
**Chris:** Improve, accentuate, enhance, you know, the what you have got and and do an amazing job with it.
**Adam:** Well, I think it's that old that old adage about with cinema is it should be show, don't tell.
**Adam:** They can't tell you, so everything is shown, everything.
**Chris:** You have to.
**Adam:** But also the thought that goes into it, you know, in into the composition, like I keep saying composition, but the you know, the the way those.
**Adam:** Every shot, the reason you see so many stills from it is every shot is a portrait.
**Adam:** Every shot is, you know, there's most of it is a it's a moving photograph.
**Adam:** God, I'm really, I'm really bringing out the big guns in here, aren't I, saying moving photograph.
**Lee:** No, but it is.
**Chris:** It's funny how you think of it differently, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah. But it it totally.
**Lee:** And it it's that thing, I suppose it's, as you say, you know, back then, you know, they only had one camera, they had to make every shot perfect.
**Lee:** It's not, you know, I'm guessing film and stuff was so ridiculously expensive, you didn't waste anything.
**Lee:** And that's why this film, you know, full length feature, an hour and 35.
**Lee:** It still goes by very quickly because they've crammed so much, I mean, obviously, we'll get into it, I'm sure in the next couple of minutes, but it is ultimately the story of Dracula, which is a very big book.
**Lee:** And to cram it all in.
**Lee:** Yeah, and and have to show you, as you're saying, there's no dialogue, so you've got to cut away to the cards in between and stuff, so they do fit a lot in.
**Lee:** But it's it's its pacing is excellent.
**Lee:** And the film rushes by, I tell you, when I went and saw it with Dean, in the summer at the Prince Charles, it was the first time I'd seen it on the big screen.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I was surprised, because normally, you know, you watch a film at home, you pause it, you go to the bathroom, you get a beer, you do whatever.
**Lee:** but yeah, to sit and watch it all the way through, yeah, and it flew by.
**Lee:** I mean, we were pretty drunk.
**Lee:** But it it did charge by at a fair old rate.
**Lee:** yeah, and I was surprised how how much I enjoyed it because it had been a few years since I'd seen it really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's one of those, I think because you see so many stills and you see so many bits of it on clips and clip shows and stuff, that you feel you know it inside out and you don't feel you have to regularly return to it, and then when you do, you go, oh shit, yeah, no, I should definitely be doing this on a more frequent basis.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It it lives in it lives in your mind, but you make that assumption that it's actually got, you you make the assumption that you know it, when actually, no, you know all the you know the stills.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And in your head it's like, oh, it's a silent film, you know, I I'm not averse to watching a silent film, but you feel that you've got to gear up to it.
**Adam:** And then actually when you get in there, you're sort of like, oh no, actually, this is a this is a breeze compared to some modern films that I've watched.
**Lee:** Even compared to, as you said, with the 40s and 50s, like when they did all those, you know, like the sci-fi horror invasion that came out at that time, like some of those are a slog.
**Lee:** They're like.
**Lee:** They're like an hour and 10 and you feel every minute of it, whereas this kind of clips by and keeps you entertained and it it's quite, you know, jumping between different moods and it.
**Lee:** Yeah, it it's a really well put together film, which is why, yeah, 101 years later, we're still talking about it.
**Lee:** In the same breath as as stuff that's still being produced today, really.
**Chris:** I would be interested to know like how many films were getting made at that time.
**Chris:** how big. It must have been.
**Adam:** The German film industry at that point was like was leading the world.
**Chris:** Really, yeah.
**Adam:** In film.
**Adam:** Because if you think about it, obviously there was no language barrier.
**Chris:** So. Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** All the countries were it was like a free for all because you could show it anywhere, you changed the title cards for the language.
**Adam:** If you're lucky, you might get like a print that no one bothered with and be.
**Adam:** But essentially, you could work your way through it without the captions.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was like, so internationally Germany was it in the sort of 20s.
**Adam:** 20s and 30s because they were sort of like.
**Adam:** And then when talking pictures came in, that's when Holly Hollywood sort of took over, weirdly, you know.
**Adam:** Because it was then, I think it may have actually been the international audiences, but apart from English speaking ones, suddenly decided, no, I'm not fucking prepared to sit through subtitles.
**Adam:** Maybe there's I don't even know if subtitle technology would have been that doable as a thing.
**Adam:** But basically, yeah, it was, yeah, so but there were sort of dozens of films out at the time like, and.
**Adam:** and this was actually quite, I would say.
**Adam:** I I want to say lavishly budgeted, but also I think poorly budgeted.
**Adam:** Because basically they set up a company, they set up a film production company called Prana Films.
**Adam:** And by the I think by the time sort of like it was showing in cinemas, they were already filing for bankruptcy.
**Adam:** Because they decided, oh, we're going to, but it was founded by a guy called Albin Grau.
**Adam:** who was a like draftsman, architect, artist, but also a cultist, and so he wanted to do films with a with a cult leanings in them.
**Adam:** and he had this big plan with his big production company and Nosferatu was the only one they ever produced because yeah, they went bust.
**Adam:** But so I think there's for the time this was quite.
**Chris:** But so if they went bust, what, so this didn't make.
**Adam:** It's it's a it's a weird story.
**Lee:** I was going to say, I think we should get into that because it is quite an interesting story how we're very lucky that we actually are still able to see this film.
**Adam:** So, so basically, obviously it's it's basically it's Dracula.
**Adam:** the second half of the film is not Dracula.
**Adam:** That's where it changes when Dracula arrives in Germany.
**Adam:** that's when it sort of free wheels away from Dracula essentially.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** But why why why why did it not follow.
**Adam:** basically what happened was is they wanted to do an adaptation of Dracula and it's actually they on their material, they put freely adapted from Dracula by Bram Stoker.
**Adam:** But they didn't ask for the rights or buy the rights to make a film of the book.
**Adam:** And again, films in its infancy, so it's kind of like one of those weird things where there's a bit, you know, just people weren't quite sure what the procedure was.
**Adam:** and also I don't think that lawyers of authors were geared up quite at that point of like.
**Adam:** Oh, well, yeah, you know, stage productions was one thing, but film was like.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Again, it's that usual thing, you know, like with like how can't regulate unable to regulate stuff with the internet and things like that, but it's just like something comes along that's so new and no one's prepared that, oh, actually.
**Adam:** And I mean now they sort of backtrack it where it's like, well, if that's what we did for for theater, that's what we'll do for cinema.
**Chris:** Although we have seen it with with with the AI, people making AI images and yeah, how do you copyright that, who owns it, yeah.
**Adam:** And so it's become a very sort of and that was the similar sort of thing, but basically, so they made this and again, they had an opening night that reportedly cost more than the film.
**Adam:** because they premiered it at the Berlin Zoological Gardens and with a full orchestra concert and master.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, that's a bit different to.
**Chris:** The way it's done now.
**Adam:** And so but then weirdly enough, the flyer for that got to Bram Stoker's widow Florence.
**Adam:** Now, she obviously was the executor of Bram Stoker's estate, he was well, widow would have hint at you possibly that he was dead by this point.
**Adam:** but so she was she owned the rights to Dracula.
**Adam:** And again, in that sort of weird way, authors right, you know, authors copyright didn't create that much money.
**Adam:** So it wasn't like she could live off it even though it was a very successful book and you would imagine, but you know, she was she was getting money from it.
**Adam:** So she sort of like found out like she saw this flyer for this amazing premiere and was like.
**Adam:** What the fuck is this, this is.
**Adam:** You know, so she got her, I think they were like the London Authors Society or something like that, where it was like this group.
**Adam:** And she went to them and they sort of went after Prana Films with a view to pay up, you know, you owe her some copyright or you owe her.
**Adam:** an amount from the box office or you do you know what I mean, you you you obviously owe her because you've done this without any any permission, any rights or anything else like that.
**Adam:** And but like I say, by then, Prana Films, because they were basically a a film company set up by an architect who wanted to make occult films had strangely gone bust.
**Adam:** much in the same way that Jodorowsky's Dune didn't get made, because I think that there was a there was a lot of imagination versus a lot of practicality sort of.
**Adam:** And yeah, so they were already bankrupt and the receiver company basically pissed them around for years about getting like money from it.
**Adam:** Meanwhile, it still was going around and was a really successful film.
**Adam:** And so the receiver company, the people who bought out the debt essentially, when went bankrupt were still making a a fair profit off it.
**Adam:** And because of that, in the end, because Florence couldn't get anywhere with it, she was like, right, her last call order was basically like her last legal action was ruled that they had to destroy all prints of the film.
**Adam:** Because it was basically, well, you know, your, you know, if if I can't have it, no one can.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I get it.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** I think a lot of people have said, oh, she was but no, I understand when like that's a, you know, fucking hell, pay for it.
**Adam:** And like I say, it wasn't anything, none of the filmmakers really, that would be beyond them by the time that Florence getting pissed around by this company.
**Adam:** So she ordered to get them all destroyed and basically they did that quite badly.
**Adam:** But a large majority of them were destroyed, but Prince would turn up here and there, they prints in America, prints in France, because they'd fucking distributed it so many places.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so we still have the film, but it's kind of a composite of all of those prints because some of them might have had damage, some of them might have had bits missing.
**Adam:** And so on and so forth.
**Adam:** But they've managed to sort of cobble it together from these various prints that were located around the world.
**Adam:** So there was a chance and a lot of films from this period from like the silent film period, a lot of those are lost films now.
**Adam:** They're films where they just, you know, no one kept, no one, no again, back to no one understanding what the thing is that's going on, what film is, it wasn't necessarily considered that it was a preservation thing.
**Adam:** Or something like that, you know, you made your film, it went out, it made a bit of money, that was it.
**Adam:** No one was thinking, oh, in a hundred years time you'll be able to stream it, buy it on a blue shiny disc, or, you know, a digital copy of it or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And yeah, so a lot of films go missing from this period or a lot of films are sort of pieced together from existing elements and stuff like that.
**Chris:** So essentially this is the Frankenstein of Dracula movies.
**Adam:** Very much so.
**Adam:** Very much so.
**Adam:** And but yeah, but like I was saying, the and actually weirdly enough FW FW Murnau, the director, had a bit of form with this.
**Adam:** Because he also a few in 1920 he did a film called The Head of Janus, which is basically Jekyll and Hyde, and again, I don't think they asked.
**Adam:** You know, it was just I think it was almost like this thing, it was almost like, I don't know, it was almost like sampling, do you know what I mean, it wasn't necessarily that you were plagiarizing this book, but you didn't know that by adapting it, you were sort of somebody else's.
**Chris:** You know the concept of intellectual property almost probably wasn't like an idea.
**Adam:** It was like it was the this thing was there, but we're doing something new with it and it's, you know, and but again, you can sort of and you can see how everyone ended up feeling about it.
**Adam:** That it is a thing where you buy the rights, you you know, there is a process for this sort of thing and you pay the price if you don't follow that process.
**Adam:** But it's.
**Lee:** Scary to think though, how close we came to not.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, there was never getting to see this film.
**Lee:** If if that had been followed to the letter, that that judicial order.
**Lee:** Like yeah, we would never have seen this and it had just been something you read about in the history books and see the odd still from.
**Adam:** It would be like London After Midnight, which is a famous lost film, Chris, but the with it's a Lon Chaney, film Lon Chaney Senior.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And there's loads of pictures of it and loads of sort of stills from it and publicity shots, but the film itself does not exist.
**Chris:** It does not actually exist.
**Adam:** And actually, in a weird way, I think we talked about it on that episode, but it nearly happened to Bloodbath at the House of Death.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That nearly ended up a lost film because no one had preserved it and no one had kept the negative and they was like, well, no one's got a video of it. And if you think about it, back back then it was literally just did your cinema have a print of this, it's not like someone recorded it off a BBC2 and they could like lend them the video or something like that to make.
**Adam:** It was and pretty much I mean, obviously like England and I think pretty much Germany was it was cleared out of all the copies because that was the two places where it had a sort of, you know, Florence's influence was.
**Adam:** So, like I say, there were once turning up in America, what a print from France and stuff like that, but it was all just these weird little dribs and drabs that they managed to put it back together from.
**Adam:** And obviously, because they were going through for freely adapted, that's why also the names are changed.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** Jonathan Harker is Hutter.
**Adam:** Ellen is Mina/Lucy kind of.
**Adam:** Because that's the interesting thing as well is I think I love the change that they make. Because obviously you get for a start, this is the first Dracula film where they put Renfield in the role of a member of Harker's estate agency, and in the Bela Lugosi one, it's actually Renfield who goes and does follows Harker's path and then comes back as Renfield essentially.
**Adam:** so this was like the first film to do that.
**Adam:** And interestingly enough, the ending, and again, sorry about the spoilers for this 103-year-old film.
**Adam:** oh, 101.
**Adam:** The ending isn't in the novel.
**Adam:** In the novel, Dracula is killed because I think Harker slashes his throat and Quincy Morris stabs him through the heart with a fucking Bowie knife and he crumbles to dust.
**Adam:** But also in the book, Dracula can go around in daylight, it just robs him of any of his powers.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So the thing of one of the things that's kind of not original because they're following a lot of folklore and things like that, but one of the things that's definitely started with Nosferatu is the dissolving in sunlight thing with vampires.
**Adam:** And so yes, so that last section when he turns out and I I also love the fact that there's the plague thing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because the two things you've got to remember is is because funnily enough, Clare said, oh, it's really weird watching it because all the streets are so empty.
**Adam:** And so basically, obviously this is like 1922, so you're only like four years out of the First World War, so yes, it is quite quiet because loads and loads and loads of able-bodied people men died.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** During World War One, so the streets are kind of empty because everywhere is kind of empty, you know.
**Adam:** And on top of that, at the end of World War at the end of World War One, Spanish Flu comes in, and obviously we all heard a lot about Spanish Flu during COVID.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so the fact that Count Orlok turns up and brings plague rats.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Is clearly sort of from that experience that had also gone on.
**Adam:** You know, where they sort of like, right, they when they're examining the body and it's like, right, it's plague and they all just run out.
**Adam:** And it's like, right, we know what, you know, it's almost like, right, we know what to do at this point, right, we isolate and get the fuck out of here because this is dangerous and contagious.
**Adam:** And so it's got sort of like, it's got bits and pieces that still are quite Dracula, like still are part of Dracula, but not actually from the book.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** And but also you've got that sort of you've got the the plague imagery in there as well and you've also got
**Adam:** The sort of fact, weirdly enough, Van Helsing's a bit of a wank in this.
**Adam:** Because Van Helsing's almost going, yeah, let's just just you've got to think about these things reasonably.
**Adam:** You know, he's actually the opposite of how Van Helsing usually is, I mean, it's interesting he's credited as a Paracelsus, now Paracelsus was an alchemist, but also a pioneer of medicine who he basically got people to stop rubbing cow crap into wounds and things like that.
**Adam:** He was one of the first people to be like, oh, maybe maybe there is a benefit to keeping these things clean.
**Adam:** He was also one of the first people to basically go, do you know what, there's probably certain chemicals and compounds that we could give people to make them feel better.
**Adam:** So he was like a sort of pioneer of medicine.
**Adam:** But he was also but he was also an alchemist, so it's like that's sort of interesting thing where it was very much a man of reason but in that same vein that that was that was not a poo pooed thing that it would be, well, this is this is another branch of science that I need to look at.
**Chris:** Right, okay.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But Van Helsing he's sort of shit and it's it's Ellen who bloody solves it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, she reads the book that Hutter brings home.
**Adam:** And even down to that, if you think about it, that's like.
**Adam:** There was probably a lot of people coming back from the war like Hutter.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where, you know, it's like they went off somewhere, something horrible happened and they've come back broken.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they don't sort of, you know, and he doesn't recover the way he does in the book.
**Adam:** Where he sort of like becomes part of the the team of vampire killers and everything else like that.
**Chris:** And then so.
**Chris:** And what about the the having to take the cursed earth around with him?
**Adam:** I think that is actually that was vampire law and that is in Dracula.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Speaking of, we I mean, we need to talk about Max Shreck.
**Adam:** He.
**Lee:** He I mean, it's got to be said, the vampire in this, after this, obviously Universal did it and made it, you know, a much more dapper stylish, but this is much closer to Dracula in the book.
**Lee:** He is really freaky looking.
**Chris:** Yeah, right, yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely terrifying.
**Chris:** He's a serious iconic look.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't know if you remember Lee, but I when I first was like, when I first was like, when I first got Nosferatu would have been like 90s, mid 90s or whatever like that, first time I saw it.
**Adam:** And there was a lot there was a lot of Dracula stuff around because the Bram Stoker's Dracula had come out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so there were lots of things like, oh, here's the history of Dracula in cinema, so Nosferatu was obviously the starting point for that. But a lot of them at the time, they were like, oh, this guy's called Max Shreck, now Shreck means horror or terror in German, and they were kind of like, oh, I remember at the time like seeing things with, you know, proper scholars and stuff like that, and they're going, oh, it's probably a pseudonym for another actor because, you know, it's like it's like the guy's called Max Fear.
**Adam:** but actually Max Shreck was his fucking birth name, and he was a respected stage actor, he was like, you know, he was.
**Adam:** Even down the fact that his wife, Fanny Shreck is a nurse in this.
**Adam:** So there you go, Fanny Fear.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So maximum fear and Fanny fear, lovely couple from up the road.
**Lee:** There is actually Chris, if you've not seen it, there's a a film called Shadow of the Vampire, which is incredible.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I think.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think we need to do that.
**Lee:** Yes, we definitely do.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** We'll save that.
**Lee:** It's it's basically it's just give you a very quick rundown, it's a film, it's a fictional telling of the making of this film, in which Max Shreck is a real genuine vampire who they've hired to come in and play the character.
**Chris:** Yeah. That sounds very.
**Lee:** And it's.
**Lee:** Jon Malkovich is in it and Eddie Izzard.
**Lee:** I haven't seen it in a very long time.
**Lee:** But it is a fantastic movie, really really entertaining.
**Chris:** And that's actually a great idea.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** One thing that I did find out, now like I say, Albin Grau, who's the producer, he's kind of like the visionary of Nosferatu, and he actually left Germany when the Nazis came to power. Because they cracked down on occult groups faster than any other group essentially.
**Lee:** They run a cult group.
**Chris:** I don't think they.
**Adam:** Yeah, but they're.
**Chris:** It's people's front of Judea with a cult.
**Adam:** They're not they're not the proper ones.
**Adam:** You the Judean people.
**Adam:** Fuck off.
**Adam:** You the order Templars, no we got a golden dome.
**Chris:** You.
**Adam:** You.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** So sort of he got the fuck out of dodge pretty quickly.
**Adam:** and but FW Murnau, the director, did lots of other films, he did like Faust and Haunted Castle and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And he went to America.
**Adam:** And was doing like he started doing talking pictures and he actually died quite young, he died at 42 in a car crash.
**Adam:** And that was that was like 1930.
**Adam:** So that was before anything had actually sort of kicked off in terms of like the rise of well, the Nazis still hadn't come to power in Germany and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But he was already in Hollywood at that point.
**Adam:** but I didn't know this until I was reading.
**Adam:** Apparently his grave was broken into in 2015 and his skull has been stolen.
**Adam:** And no one knows where it is.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** Creepy.
**Adam:** And apparently there was well, I mean, this might be goolish sort of entertainment.
**Adam:** News, I don't know.
**Adam:** But apparently there was wax found at the thing so they thought it might have been candles, so it might have been some sort of ceremony or something like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, so somewhere out there is FW Murnau's skull.
**Adam:** Which adds a real sort of touch to touch to the macab to it as well.
**Lee:** Anyone who's looking to offload that for a reasonable price, you can contact us at info@welcometohorror.com and I will be very interested.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Fair price.
**Adam:** Oh dear, I mean, imagine if that after all the things we've said.
**Adam:** The thing that brings us down is important.
**Lee:** I think if someone wants to get me a Christmas present.
**Lee:** It's a bit, you know, I know we're cutting it fine, but that would be the best Christmas present of all time ever.
**Adam:** I've also got to say one one thing to mention with obviously Max Shreck and because as as our next film will attest how much Tim Burton really likes German expressionism.
**Adam:** But Max Shreck is Christopher Walken's character in Batman Returns.
**Adam:** That's why he's called Max Shreck.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** He's named after the the the the star of Nosferatu.
**Adam:** And Nosferatu is apparently just a kind of catch all term for undead in Eastern Europe.
**Adam:** It wasn't really.
**Adam:** It's not necessarily vampire.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Seems to be some obscure ideas about where it's come from.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Mostly it seems to be like if you're, you know, it could could be zombies.
**Adam:** It could be.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Anything.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just a supernatural being type.
**Adam:** Revenant.
**Adam:** Anything that's back, anything undead.
**Chris:** I did want to mention and it seems sort of relevant that I have been watching what we do in the Shadows.
**Chris:** I've been catching up.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And that's it's a lot funnier than this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But that yeah, so the the the master vampire is definitely very much, yes, based upon the Nosferatu type.
**Lee:** And the same with Salem's Lot as well, you know, you've got the the the human looking vampires, but the king of the vampires always looks exactly like Nosferatu.
**Adam:** Well, there's there's there are other versions.
**Adam:** There's Werner Herzog's version of Nosferatu, which I highly recommend, I did watch it earlier in the week.
**Adam:** I might even say we do that at some point because I think that that is such a good thing where you're like.
**Adam:** Oh wow, so that is everything from Nosferatu that I might have not got, I now have.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Sure.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And it's got some amazing fucking performances in it.
**Chris:** But I also I was going to say that I could do with watching this again, really.
**Adam:** I'll.
**Chris:** You know.
**Adam:** Well, remember that Robert Eggers will be remaking Nosferatu.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** So we're we're getting set up now for another good start.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I can't wait.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And also if you can find it, there's a radio adaptation called Midnight Cry of the Deathbird, and it's fucking brilliant, very strange, very weird.
**Adam:** And adapting a silent film for radio, I'm impressed.
**Chris:** That's a pretty great title.
**Lee:** You got it at both ends.
**Lee:** Who,
**Lee:** Right, anyway, on that note, I think it's time to call it a day, so, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, if you haven't, just go and check out Nosferatu.
**Lee:** I know, you know, as Chris said, and Adam and I both agree, it's one of those things that feels like it could be very stodgy and a real struggle to get through.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** It absolutely, it's a it's a lovely film to sit back and enjoy.
**Lee:** it really is fantastically well done, so much more well done than a lot of stuff that's come since.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** Yes, so go and check that out and return in two weeks time or just before, I think, because we're going to drop it just before Christmas.
**Lee:** for.
**Lee:** Our cabinet of Dr. Caligari episode.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 184 Leprechaun 4 in Sapce

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-184-leprechaun-4-in-sapce/
Air date: 3 December 2023
Duration: 00:34:51
Film: Leprechaun 4: In Space · Year: 1997 · Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith

### Description

It’s the second film of our “In Space, No One Can Hear You Jump The Shark” double bill, and for those of you who thought “Jason X” was bad; we present “Leprechaun 4: In Space”. A film in which Lieutenant Gruber turns from Davros into a giant spider (no doubt preventing him from fitting into his little tank); Heidi from “Tool Time” literally makes a man’s penis explode; and Warwick Davis finally gets his own Lightsaber. The fourth entry into the “Leprechaun” franchise jets off into outer space but, ironically, mostly fails to land. With an uneven tone, and not all cast and crew apparently in on the joke; this veers from mild amusement to mild bemusement. With primitive CGI disowned by the director, and some surprisingly good make up, this is a movie that will only improve depending on your level of inebriation, and the good company you view it with. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening for the second of our jump the shark series, where we will be covering 1996's Leprechaun 4 in Space.
**Lee:** Very quick bit of housekeeping before we do.
**Lee:** Anybody in the London area, myself and Lady Jennifer yesterday on the information we'd received from previous guest Dani.
**Lee:** The BFI at the South Bank is holding an exhibit of The Red Shoes.
**Lee:** And it's free, you have to book a slot to because it's it's very small so, you know, you're in and out.
**Lee:** But oh, it's it's excellent, it's really, really good.
**Lee:** It's exactly what I want from an exhibition.
**Lee:** They've got like 50 pieces, there's no filler, it's in three rooms, you get in, you see what you want to see and then you get out, it was excellent.
**Lee:** It was great, like it was all the stuff, it was like handwritten letters, and artwork from the show, and they had a dress that she wore and one of her pairs of The Red Shoes and stuff.
**Lee:** So like, oh and the camera from Peeping Tom.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Adam:** Oh, so there was other like Powell and Pressburger stuff.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes, and all the stuff from Kate Bush when she did her music, I don't know if it was a film or.
**Adam:** She did The Red Shoes.
**Adam:** I think it was an album of Kate Bush, yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, so she did like a music video, so there's letters backwards and forwards and loads of stuff and that.
**Adam:** Oh, that's really good.
**Lee:** But yeah, it was it was yeah, it was great, I say and it was one of those it was perfect, you were in, you saw exactly what you wanted to see and then you were out and it was splendid.
**Lee:** And it's on till the 31st of December, so if anyone is about and wants to go and see it, I heartily recommend it.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Adam:** And and obviously we did an episode on The Red Shoes, so you know, go back and listen to that one.
**Adam:** And definitely do see The Red Shoes, it's fucking great.
**Chris:** Well, I did fucking enjoy that.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yes, yes, with the exception of the ballet, I enjoyed it.
**Lee:** Yes, so.
**Lee:** We are on to a a very tonally different film to our last our last film.
**Adam:** Is it really?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's interesting.
**Lee:** I, well I personally, I I I, all right, I'm going to come right out and say it, I felt that this film had tried to do exactly what that film did, but fucked every single step of it up and got everything completely wrong and it was an absolute travesty of a film.
**Lee:** So there we go, so that's my my tuppence worth right out.
**Lee:** Chris, what did you make of this lunacy?
**Chris:** Well, I I didn't expect that we would be able to rise above Jason X and create even more insanity.
**Chris:** I thought I thought we'd finished at that point really, but you know, I should have expected it from you guys.
**Chris:** So, what I'm going to say, The William Tell Overture has taken on a whole new tone for me, I'll never be able to listen to that the same again, without thinking about exploding penis leprechaun things.
**Chris:** I've taken a few few one-liners away from this, I will shoot anyone who says I'm defensive, and I feel a lot better than I look, I think I could use those two in quite a few conversations.
**Chris:** yeah, I mean what more do you need a film, you've got romance, you've got space Marines, tons of one-liners, you've got some knee-capping with a lightsaber, death by breasts, sort of metaphorically, and a crazy messed up monster.
**Lee:** That's quite a lot the worst excuse for gratuitous nudity in a film.
**Chris:** I I'm assuming, I'm assuming they they knew everything they were doing but.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I I assume so, but.
**Adam:** I looked, I looked into it.
**Adam:** Sorry, that sounds wrong.
**Adam:** Because this is for both me and Chris, this is our first time viewing Leprechaun 4 in Space.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I've because the only other one I've seen is, I've seen the first one Leprechaun on when we did it on here.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And me too, I'm assuming there is a two and three.
**Adam:** And I'm assuming for some reason we we skipped those.
**Adam:** Because I I'll give it its due, the one thing this the one thing that this probably edges over Jason X is not even bothering to tie it up.
**Adam:** It's like sort of not even giving you a reason, it's like, no it's in space now.
**Adam:** You know, that's got fuck all to do with three.
**Adam:** There's not even like a.
**Lee:** I think three was in Las Vegas.
**Adam:** It is, that's what I saw it was like basically yeah, that and then the one after this is Leprechaun in the Hood.
**Lee:** I thought you would definitely have seen that one.
**Adam:** Which I've not seen, no.
**Adam:** I've got to say, it's it's just.
**Chris:** You didn't.
**Lee:** I think he's stayed there, I think they did two in the Hood.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think there's back I think there's like in the Hood and then back in the Hood or whatever it was.
**Adam:** Yeah, back in the Hood.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I I sat and watched these for or maybe three or four years ago now.
**Lee:** yeah, and over the course of a week, I watched them and I got as far as this one and I was like, I'm out, I'm I'm there's two more and I cannot for the life of me do it.
**Lee:** yeah, so this was the film that turned me against the franchise.
**Lee:** I mean, and they're pretty stupid.
**Lee:** but yeah, this was the one where I was just like it can't it can't get any worse than this.
**Lee:** And I I mean that being said, I I still think the scorpion spider scientist looked pretty good, I was genuinely impressed with that.
**Adam:** That looks fucking amazing and can we just for and particularly for British listeners.
**Adam:** obviously Lieutenant Gruber from 'Allo 'Allo.
**Chris:** I I was like I know I know this guy, I just could not place him, I had to look him up.
**Chris:** And yeah, he he was great actually.
**Adam:** Guy Gyna.
**Adam:** Guy Gyna he he's the one person who I felt, yeah, you know exactly what this film is.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You're you're one of the him and Harold actually are weirdly the two pitched just at the right point.
**Lee:** I think that's exactly what it is, I think they seem to be the only.
**Lee:** And Warwick Davis obviously.
**Lee:** but yeah, it felt like everybody else in it had no idea what they were making was again, was the impression I got from it.
**Lee:** Like it didn't oh, yeah, I just I just don't.
**Lee:** It felt like a film that had been knocked up in someone's lunch break for an hour, like they just scribbled down a load of nonsense, not bothered making any sense of it or tying any of it together.
**Lee:** And went, fuck it, it's the fourth one, who who cares.
**Lee:** At this point, who is watching, let's just get it out the door and get on with whatever is going on this afternoon.
**Chris:** Is it actually the lowest IMDB rating film we've seen?
**Chris:** It's got to be close, it's it's 3.5.
**Lee:** I mean that is.
**Adam:** I bet we've seen worse than that, I bet there's ones we've watched that are rated far deservedly or so or not.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** I'm sure there's ones that we've watched that are great that people are like, oh the fucking.
**Lee:** I did want to mention actually one other person saying about him for the guy from 'Allo 'Allo.
**Lee:** Also the Rick Peters who plays Mooch, who was one of the one of the Marines.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He was like the second one to die.
**Adam:** Was it Mooch?
**Lee:** Yes, Mooch, that's it.
**Lee:** He is also from Night of the Demons 2.
**Lee:** Yeah, very similar character.
**Adam:** But that's the the director is the director of Night of the Demons 2, Brian Trenchard-Smith.
**Lee:** Oh, Night of the Demons 2 was so good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's quite when I was looking through it, a lot of the cast were in Night of the Demons 2.
**Adam:** Or quite a few anyway.
**Adam:** So it's not yeah, not just him, there was a few others but yeah, Brian Trenchard-Smith who directed this is an Australian director.
**Adam:** And he's done he's had a wildly prolific and quality uneven career.
**Adam:** but he did Lee, was it you who was saying about Stunt Rock?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Or it might have been Bobby, I think it might have been Bobby actually.
**Adam:** But he but he directed Night of the Demons 2, a film called Tyrannosaurus Axtes, Stunt Rock, Dead End Drive-In which I've got but still haven't watched, The BMX Bandits, Death Cheaters, he did some episodes of Mission Impossible.
**Lee:** Oh, BMX Bandits.
**Adam:** but the film I've seen a film of his called Turkey Shoot which is fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's so good, it's this, you know the most dangerous game where it's like people hunting people.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's basically that but yeah, Turkey Shoot is like three weirdos go off to kill a load of prisoners who are left to run through this jungle area.
**Adam:** And but one of them is a really camp bloke with a beard who who drives a bulldozer and his butler is probably a werewolf, he's like some sort of beast man sort of thing.
**Adam:** But there's no explanation for it whatsoever.
**Adam:** It's like the perfect double bill for Death Race 2000, but it's Australian, so it's just that just that slightly more violent and slightly more fucking sort of give a fuck.
**Adam:** Which is something compared to a Roger Corman film.
**Adam:** So yeah, but yeah he he's yeah, he's the director and but I don't think he was particularly happy with the way it came out.
**Adam:** Certainly I don't think he thought the CGI looked any good.
**Lee:** I've got to say, I think that was one of the turning points for me, yeah, was the CGI looking so ropey.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** Yeah, maybe it's not his fault.
**Lee:** I mean he did the third one.
**Lee:** I think and the third one I remember quite enjoying and it it comes down a lot from so the third one's got a five on IMDB and this has got three and a half.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I don't know if basically the fourth one they slashed the budget and that's why it came out quite as.
**Lee:** Bad as it did, I mean, I don't know.
**Adam:** It's well, I mean, like I say, I I sort of looked into the background of it.
**Adam:** The boobs by the way, the death by boobs, Chris.
**Adam:** apparently the US distributor said right, the film has to have breasts in it, otherwise you can't make it.
**Adam:** So they wrote it into they no, but they wrote it into the script.
**Adam:** They were like, right, can we find the most stupid whys of doing that.
**Lee:** You know, I take back everything I've said to this point, if that's what's if that's the way this film was written for that reason, I am back on board.
**Adam:** Because that's the thing yeah, it does there's a lot of knowingness about it.
**Adam:** Well, like you say, I just don't think done with.
**Adam:** To start saying as much panache as Jason X, I feel like this this podcast has sunk to a new low.
**Lee:** I think this is it, I think we should call it a day at this point.
**Chris:** We have to go down to go back up.
**Chris:** It's it's.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's true.
**Adam:** Oh, I'll be looking at the stars.
**Adam:** But yeah, so that's basically the US distributor was like, yeah, put some put some tits in it and they were like, right, we'll put some tits in it, what's the most stupid fucking reason we can think?
**Lee:** It's because like one, it's a ridiculous idea.
**Lee:** And the second bit is I was discussing it yesterday with Jennifer and I'm trying to tell her about it.
**Lee:** And I said exactly, so she went, okay, so she shows her boobs and therefore that means these people are going to die.
**Lee:** If she's been kidnapped and she's in the middle of space, who's going to do the killing cuz it's not.
**Adam:** It's not.
**Lee:** And I was like, yeah, no, exactly, none of it makes any sense at all.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Lee:** But yeah, I suppose if that was a fuck you to the studio, then I'll I will definitely give it an extra mark out of 10 for that.
**Chris:** That's now the best scene in the film.
**Adam:** I think the weird thing is because I, like I say, I've not seen, I've only seen this in the first one.
**Adam:** But even then, the neplichon, the leprechaun's powers were pretty nebulous.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know, you don't know, it's like how much.
**Chris:** He can pretty much do almost anything.
**Adam:** But in certain circumstances he can't.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's sort of.
**Lee:** I I listened to another podcast where they covered all of the films.
**Lee:** And they were saying they think they are different leprechauns.
**Lee:** Because he has different powers in every movie and he never references anything that's happened in the previous.
**Lee:** So it could just be each film is a different leprechaun and some of them have different powers.
**Chris:** that still doesn't make a lot of sense in that they've just done that without mentioning it or.
**Chris:** But yeah.
**Adam:** I quite like that, that's something the James Bond films should embrace.
**Adam:** They should be no, he's a different bloke.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not the same fucker who was doing it in the 60s but somehow he's younger.
**Adam:** But I mean, yeah, so his powers are all over the shop.
**Adam:** Versus sort of space tech and sci-fi and things like that.
**Adam:** So you're like, what how much of it is.
**Adam:** I mean, like I mean, correct me if I'm incorrect, I'm not a scientist, but I I feel that some of the science in this, particularly the genetics was a bit lacking.
**Lee:** Lukety, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, and again like him bursting out of that bloke's crutch.
**Lee:** Like I mean, like none of it.
**Lee:** I I still don't understand why that happened.
**Lee:** If I'm honest.
**Lee:** I don't I don't get.
**Chris:** Just to put an alien's reference in there for fun.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Kind of.
**Lee:** But then make it a bad silly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's
**Adam:** I also I mean, I'll I'll say one thing, when it's the big leprechaun at the end.
**Adam:** That looks okay because they've because they've got we brilliantly, they've got a that sort of docking area which looks really basic, like there's sort of cargo area.
**Adam:** Actually it's like, oh no, it it's better like this because they can actually do a half decent sort of giant blue screened in.
**Adam:** And and Claire Claire genuinely thought the best bit of the film was the middle finger at the end.
**Chris:** That's what I was going to mention that bit.
**Chris:** It certainly seemed like an appropriate way to finish things.
**Adam:** It's also weird because we did Alien a few weeks back and then I watched Aliens as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, me too.
**Adam:** And it's just that sort of weird thing of you forget what a fucking like imprint that has on anything in this sort of sci-fi thing where it's like.
**Adam:** It's right, Space Marines, right, we're doing it exactly like Aliens.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, and sort of and again, it was like you saw Jason X, you now sort of appreciate, oh, that was that was mid-level of what this can be.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, you're thinking, oh, this is like you've always know of wish and it's like, no, no, actually this was this this lot were giving it a decent go.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah, this one just.
**Lee:** As you say and even like the one-liners and stuff from the leprechaun were awful.
**Lee:** Like I just.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I know now as I say, I now know why I haven't had any inclination to go back and rewatch this again.
**Lee:** Because it's all I might go back and rewatch the third one.
**Lee:** Now I've done this one, but yeah, this one is just utter shit.
**Chris:** Surely you got to do the Hoods.
**Lee:** I am tempted.
**Lee:** But I tell you this is the problem, it sounds like a great concept, but him in space sounded like a great concept and they screwed it up.
**Lee:** So I mean the fact that they did two of them does imply that maybe they did manage to find some decent ground, yeah, and do something.
**Lee:** but yeah, not enough for me to actually pull my finger out and go.
**Chris:** So I've just just looked, so there's Leprechaun 5 in the Hood, Leprechaun 6 Back to the Hood, and then there's Leprechaun Returns 2018.
**Adam:** I think there's also there was also a reboot one that yeah, there was Leprechaun Origins as well, which was like an attempted reboot, I think.
**Lee:** I think I might have seen that, you know.
**Lee:** And I just said that if it was a terrible dirty little secret and I did.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, that was 2014.
**Adam:** Yeah, and yeah, Leprechaun Returns is a direct sequel to the first film ignoring the others in the series featuring the return of the characters Aussie played by the original actor and Tori not played by Jennifer Aniston strangely enough.
**Lee:** Oh, just checking, just so you're all aware on IMDB, yeah, it appears that Leprechaun in the Hood is a 3.7, so pretty much as shit as this one.
**Lee:** But then it does go up to a 3.9, so, you know, it's not a it's not big steps, but they are steps in the right direction.
**Lee:** According to the people who have stuck through the franchise for that many films, who are better people than me, it would appear.
**Chris:** Wait, there's even Vengeance of the Leprechaun 2020 and Amityville Leprechaun 2024.
**Chris:** They are not giving up.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** I don't know if I don't know if Warwick Davis is still doing them, I think he is.
**Adam:** I think he's stuck with the series most of the way through.
**Lee:** I mean, good on him.
**Lee:** And yeah.
**Lee:** And this is the thing, he always gives a good performance, even if the lines he's given are absolute crap, he still sort of you get the impression he's doing his best.
**Adam:** It's it is also it is also a terrible, I mean, by this point he's clearly not even bothering to try to do an Irish accent.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, I noticed that with the princess as well.
**Lee:** Did anybody else notice that?
**Lee:** Half her lines are given with an American accent and half of them are given with a very English accent, like she was like she is one or the other and couldn't couldn't be bothered or didn't remember that she was supposed to be doing.
**Lee:** And it just kept falling in and out depending on what lines she was delivering.
**Chris:** Well, she's from another planet, perhaps they also change their accents.
**Adam:** Well, the also Sticks, the character Sticks is Spider from Return of the Living Dead.
**Lee:** Oh, I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn't work out who it was.
**Adam:** Luines.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** That's why that's the thing, like that's why I do think it could be down to the writing or whatever.
**Lee:** Because there are people in this who I've seen in other stuff and really liked.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Not in this.
**Chris:** I I think we can definitely tell the writing was was perhaps not taken too seriously.
**Adam:** I think I think it's just, I think it's just being able to hit the right note, especially if you're doing something where it's already kind of a spoof.
**Adam:** It's already kind of funny to then try and send up what's already a kind of a send up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Too many layers.
**Adam:** Yeah, it is.
**Adam:** It's too many layers, you're sweating, you know, it's not good.
**Adam:** I mean, I have to say, I think that when Dr. Mittenhand turned into a giant spider, scorpion thing, that actually looked really fucking good.
**Lee:** Yeah, it did very.
**Lee:** I was that was what surprised me, I'd got to the point where I was mentally checked out until that appeared and then I was like, oh actually that does look yeah, surprisingly good.
**Adam:** Well, well Guy was as we said, weirdly enough, I I rewatched Lost Highway, the David Lynch film, he's in that, he hasn't even got a line but I'm just like, hang on, isn't that fucking Lieutenant Gruber.
**Adam:** And yeah, and I looked it up and then it was like, oh shit, and we were going to be doing Leprechaun 4, and I was like, look, hang on, he's in Leprechaun 4 as well, what the fuck?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but he is he was in Genesis of the Daleks, the Doctor Who story was the first one that introduces Davros and I can't help but feel he's giving his Davros here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In the sort of, you know, like half robot chair and life support and everything else like that.
**Adam:** but also really channeling, you know, let's face it, camp German is definitely his forte and he's fucking going for it here.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** And apparently the guy the sergeant, the one with the metal plate in his head, like well a metal head, he is he was the original drill sergeant in oh Full Metal Jacket, the Stanley Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And obviously it was Arlie Ermy who ended up being the drill sergeant in that because he was the technical adviser but and did most of his own improvised most of the dialogue and everything and became like this fucking Hollywood fucking legend sort of thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and yeah, and the guy who plays the sergeant in this, Brian Trenchard-Smith gave him the role.
**Adam:** So he got to play a drill sergeant because it was like he missed out.
**Chris:** He didn't get to.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, there's there's some heart in this.
**Adam:** There is.
**Lee:** I think that's the thing.
**Lee:** I think having discussed it with you guys.
**Lee:** Yeah, I definitely feel there is some redemption.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And like I didn't it wasn't one of those films where I was angry by it, but it was one where I when I first put it on, I was like, oh great, it's only an hour and 35 minutes and then at one point I was like, how is it still 35 minutes going on a bit.
**Adam:** Oh, no mate, there is there is no.
**Adam:** There is no excuse that you know, I think it's it's lovely to hear mitigating circumstances sometimes, but you can still find the defendant guilty.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And I think that that's that's the thing is I just think it's weirdly enough, probably watching Jason X in close.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Close.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I think that may have helped.
**Adam:** I would have equalled it to Jason X if I'd have only remembered Jason X.
**Adam:** But having watched Jason X and it being like, well, accomplished.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's yeah, it's just a bit sort of
**Chris:** I think if someone put it on at a party in the background, I wouldn't be too miserable.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** It it is and again, it is one of those like if you had half a dozen mates over and you were just sitting drinking and you just had it on to just riff on, it is great.
**Lee:** I mean it definitely has an audience.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** But I think and then you can't blame it either because I think, you know, I think we said when we covered the original film.
**Lee:** We were like, it's such a ludicrous concept for a horror movie, the fact that they managed to get to a fourth one and just went, I'll fuck it, just put him on a spaceship for no reason whatsoever.
**Lee:** Like, I I do quite like that that they very, you know.
**Lee:** It took 10 films to get Jason in space, whereas with this, they'd only done four hours of content and they just went, oh bollocks, moved on.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so yeah.
**Adam:** See that.
**Adam:** Is that is that the question as well because obviously that there wasn't that attempt with Jason X where it's like, right, we'll try and revitalize this.
**Adam:** You know, as a concept.
**Adam:** Whereas they'd already had to hit that point by four.
**Adam:** Is it just an accelerated thing of shit, we're still not we're not quite selling this.
**Lee:** Yeah, it does feel like they've tried to make them more and more.
**Lee:** So they did the first so the second one if I remember correctly is in the city, so they've brought him into like more of a metropolitan area.
**Lee:** And then the third one is Vegas, so they totally ramped that up.
**Lee:** yeah, and then just as we say, just send a load of space Marines after him because why not?
**Lee:** You never find out what was going, you never find out who if it was him they were actually looking for or if they just found him by accident.
**Lee:** You don't know who had sent them out there looking for anything.
**Lee:** Nothing is ever explained.
**Lee:** and I didn't understand what was going at any point during it.
**Adam:** Or and like I couldn't help but feel that just at the end of it, like towards the end where it's like, oh, it turns out the sergeant didn't just have like a rebuilt head, he was an android.
**Adam:** And that felt like, well, here's a reference to Alien, did anyone ask for a reference to Alien?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** No, we've got one.
**Adam:** Just have it, it's paid for.
**Lee:** It was never explained either.
**Lee:** It was just, oh fuck, he was a robot, next thing.
**Lee:** What?
**Lee:** It's got.
**Lee:** What?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, it's just absolute lunacy.
**Lee:** Do you know what I I now I do want to go and watch in the Hood.
**Lee:** Because I just can't see how it gets more bad shit than this.
**Adam:** I mean, let's face it, I don't feel the poorer for having seen it.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No, I I wasn't upset that I saw it.
**Adam:** But I mean I doubt I'll see it again.
**Adam:** But you know, it was nice while it was passing.
**Adam:** Nice scenery.
**Lee:** It did just make me want to go back and rewatch ThanksKilling though.
**Lee:** Especially since it is Thanksgiving, it's yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's that same but that again that sold the let's make it totally mental, let's let's get a turkey, cut a man's face off and just hang it on the end of his beak and have the daughter not be able to tell that it isn't really her father and it's a giant turkey wearing a man's severed face.
**Lee:** Like it's that level of total nut bagerry, but not done as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's the it's the trauma thing.
**Adam:** Is every everyone has to be absolutely on the same page that this nothing is too much and anything fucking goes.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** Is it is this is this like The Red Shoe Diaries exhibition, you know, we're in and out.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** We're done but that's all right because we do actually have a little bit of housekeeping we wanted to cover as well, didn't we this evening?
**Lee:** In the run up to Christmas, we're going to do something a bit different to try and get our quota in before the end of the year.
**Lee:** so we are going to be skipping our what we've been watching next week, well, in two weeks time, and we are going to be covering Nosferatu.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's because somehow in 225 episodes, we still haven't covered it.
**Chris:** So we have mentioned it a few times and I hadn't heard of it really until you'd mentioned it at some point years ago now.
**Chris:** but it's quite old, isn't it?
**Adam:** Yeah, this is going to be our so our Christmas season if you like is going to be Silent Nights.
**Adam:** So we shall be doing two classics from the silent era of film.
**Adam:** And so that's why we're doing Nosferatu, it is the first, I mean, I'll look into it again but I believe it's the first adaption of Dracula, but it's.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's F. W. Murnau directed, it's an extremely I mean, obviously it's fucking visual, it's a silent film.
**Chris:** But I imagine the the music must be.
**Adam:** There are weirdly enough, it depends, there is a because you've got.
**Adam:** No, I think there is a score for it that basically when silent movies were out, cinemas still had bands or at least an organist usually and they would play along to the films.
**Adam:** So dependent on whether the you know, the score turned up with the can of film.
**Adam:** Meant that sometimes they'd just improvise or they'd do something else.
**Adam:** Or it might be they'd have like a they'd just go through like a sort of songbook of classical music or something like that just for while the cinema was going, it was just to have something happening.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I believe there was a score to Nosferatu.
**Adam:** Again, that's something I'll look into.
**Adam:** But basically yeah, there's lots of different versions of it.
**Adam:** Because it's one of those ones where because it's such a classic, you've had bands.
**Adam:** Oh it's like artists who've wanted to do a score to it.
**Adam:** So you've got like musicians and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** And.
**Adam:** And at one point me and former guest Wesley.
**Adam:** we did our own score to it because we are a band, I mean we haven't done anything for fucking years but we are a band called The Function.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And we did a score to Nosferatu like our my old VHS of it.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's just one of those things where it's like, this is a lovely playground for various music, you know, like for people who want to sort of like score things.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** So we might get a little sample of that then.
**Adam:** Oh, blimey, I don't know.
**Adam:** I'll have to ask Wesley, he he'll have the recordings if anything.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, it was like basically yeah, we just sat down one day and put it on and recorded us play along to it, just improvising really.
**Adam:** It was just like a keyboards and guitar, so.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** As I say, I went when was it about two months ago, three months ago now, yeah, my brother and former guest on the show Dr. Dean, yeah, had tickets to see this at the Prince Charles in Leicester Square with a live musician doing the music.
**Lee:** yeah, and it was the first time I'd seen it with like a live accompaniment, I'd seen it on the big screen before, I think, but yeah, it was it was it was nice to see it with live music.
**Lee:** It definitely added something.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Did you know what score they were playing to?
**Lee:** No, I think it was his own composition that he was doing.
**Lee:** but yeah, he had loads of different instruments that he was kind of changing between as he went, so, yeah, so it was very entertaining.
**Lee:** And just so that you're all aware and you've got time, the two films we're doing, they're both silent films and they are both public domains, so nobody should have any trouble tracking them down.
**Lee:** so we are doing this and then we will be doing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as the next installment.
**Lee:** yeah, and they'll both be up before Christmas, is that what we said, Adam?
**Adam:** Yeah, I think that will works out, yeah, so.
**Adam:** And then you say you can enjoy, you know, you can get very festive with with silent German expressionism.
**Adam:** horror.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** Because I oddly enough, I think that's quite festive.
**Adam:** But there we go.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, I do, there is something about old black and white horror films that are very winter day appropriate, so.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, thanks ever so much for listening everybody, go and check out Nosferatu.
**Lee:** If you've got a load of drunken friends, go and check out Leprechaun 4, but other than that, I probably wouldn't bother too much.
**Lee:** and if anyone has seen Leprechaun in the Hood, please let us know whether it is worse or better than number four, so we know whether or not to waste our time and money.
**Lee:** And we will see you in a fortnite's time for Nosferatu.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 183 Jason X

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-183-jason-x/
Air date: 19 November 2023
Duration: 00:39:01
Film: Jason X · Year: 2001 · Director: James Isaac

### Description

In space, no one can hear you jump the shark. We turn our attention to a couple of horror franchises that looked to stars for (questionable?) inspiration. First off is 2002’s “Jason X” - a film in which we learn that you’d better enjoy the current season of Ice Hockey as it’s getting banned next year; that those newfangled magnetic nipples are not all they’re cracked up to be; and that David Cronenberg likes them soft. The tenth instalment in the Friday the 13th series sees a complete departure in location, but retains the essential core of a group of extremely stupid and annoying people getting killed in elaborate ways. Whilst this film divided fans, with many considering it the worst of the series, it does at least seem to have been made with a view to rejuvenating a flagging premise, with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, and an awareness of just how ridiculous it all is. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror, I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening to talk about the disputable masterpiece.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I love this film, so we'll see where this goes.
**Lee:** 2001's Jason X, the tenth of the Friday the 13th movies.
**Chris:** And is it the it's the second we've seen?
**Chris:** No, or did we see two?
**Lee:** Did we do Freddy versus?
**Adam:** We saw the original. No, we didn't.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** But I thought we saw the remake.
**Adam:** You saw the remake, but I wasn't on that episode.
**Chris:** that was. No.
**Adam:** Drew was on that episode, but I could I can't remember why I couldn't make it so you guys and Drew who did that one.
**Adam:** So this is the first like this is certainly the first time with me that we've done a Friday the 13th movie on on here, yeah.
**Lee:** Woo!
**Lee:** And what classic episode to start with.
**Lee:** There will be spoilers, but I don't know how much you can spoil of this.
**Lee:** And there will be swearing, I believe.
**Lee:** Yes, so without further ado.
**Lee:** Chris, you made some noises before we started recording that you were you think this is not the smartest of movies, is that correct?
**Chris:** All I'm going to say is Jason X in space, no one can hear you scream because they're too busy laughing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** See, this is what made me like, I think of this as a horror comedy.
**Lee:** But on IMDb, it says it's an action, horror, sci-fi.
**Lee:** And I'm like, it's definitely a comedy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It has it has those in a in a arguably very superficial way.
**Adam:** It it aspires It looks like sci-fi.
**Lee:** It does have nanobots though, actually.
**Adam:** Well, that's one that's one thing I was going to have to ask you to but yeah, before before getting too sidetracked with.
**Chris:** Just too, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** nanobots, Chris.
**Adam:** Where are we, because it seems to be AI is all the rage these days, I haven't been threatened by nanobots.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I'll tell you what, right, the thing that has shown us that.
**Adam:** Have they just given up on them?
**Chris:** Well, no, but no, right, but it's one of those, how long it seems like things are away, they get talked about, probably they always get talked about like 20, maybe 30 years too early and people like it's coming around the corner, right?
**Chris:** But we've had that with AI for ages, but then all of a sudden, it took almost every expert by surprise this year, the fact that we went from being.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** The some AI systems that were amazing, like deep blue, deep mind, Alpha Go, Alpha Zero, all of those were like, wow, that's amazing.
**Chris:** But that's in the hands of professionals, all of a sudden, we've got unbelievable AI in the hands of complete morons like us, you know.
**Chris:** So like who knows where it's going to go.
**Chris:** So nanobots could happen tomorrow as far as I'm concerned.
**Adam:** Fair enough.
**Lee:** Deep Blue and it speaks to you, they should have called it Deep Throat, they were definitely missing the trick there.
**Adam:** I think they would have.
**Adam:** I think they might have highlighted a certain element that would have.
**Lee:** Less people would be Googling it, well they wouldn't be finding what they're looking for anyway.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I'm getting to the point where ChatGPT is replacing almost all other tools that I use for different various jobs and it does them all.
**Chris:** And it does it in such a friendly way.
**Chris:** It's like, oh, if everybody spoke to me like that, I'd come away smiling at the end of every day.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But the other thing where I think that we got to qualify, it reminds you of sci-fi.
**Adam:** What this reminds me of is the Sci-Fi Channel about the sort of around about the 2000 sort of time, late nineties, 2000.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And watching maybe 15 to 20 minutes of something that looks like Jason X.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Waiting for another program to come on on a different channel.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Always.
**Adam:** It definitely feels in that sort of trail of the various 90s Star Treks and sort of Babylon Fives and stuff like that.
**Lee:** There was a show called something scape that was just a a dreadful show.
**Adam:** Farscape.
**Lee:** Farscape, yeah.
**Chris:** But actually watched it.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** I I but no, but like Adam said.
**Adam:** Farscape was genuinely good.
**Chris:** Was it, okay.
**Lee:** I saw it good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I actually did miss several of those, really.
**Adam:** Farscape from what I is pretty much how people sort of thought of as Firefly.
**Chris:** Okay. Yeah, well Firefly was great.
**Lee:** Love Firefly.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I think Farscape was that only with added Muppets.
**Adam:** So it's sort of.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But yeah, this weirdly enough, a big first thing that I hadn't even realized, obviously, this is called Jason X, it's the 10th Friday the 13th movie.
**Adam:** Apparently, at the time they made it, they didn't have the rights to use the name Friday the 13th.
**Adam:** Because this was made by New Line Cinema who were doing all the Friday the 13th.
**Adam:** But Paramount realized they owned the name.
**Adam:** So that's why.
**Adam:** That's why this is Jason X and not Friday the 13th 10, Jason X, or something like that.
**Chris:** It seems kind of strange they can own a name, but not the entire franchise.
**Lee:** Yeah, not the whole.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, but it's like with Evil Dead 2, the reason they do a they refilm a recap of Evil Dead at the start of Evil Dead 2, rather than use clips, because they couldn't afford to get the clips from the first movie.
**Adam:** It's a fucking weird rights nightmare sort of thing.
**Adam:** But also that's why the the ninth film is Jason goes to hell the final Friday, so they'd actually lost the rights to use Friday the 13th at that point.
**Adam:** So the ninth and tenth movie aren't called Friday the 13th.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was just a fascinating factoid.
**Lee:** I was devastated at the fact this has only got a 4.4 on IMDb because I genuinely enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I know.
**Chris:** Is it is it wait wait wait, so here here that's brought me onto my, this could be controversial because.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** You'll find out, right.
**Chris:** I'm going to say this is the Alien Resurrection of Friday the 13th.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** Now, knowing both of you hate Alien Resurrection, and I love it.
**Adam:** I don't hate Alien Resurrection, I just can't be asked.
**Chris:** But but it's got every like this this is Alien Resurrection is like the thinking man's version of this.
**Chris:** And.
**Chris:** Oh, not not not a very big thinking man.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** It's it's when, you know, you want to have some philosophy, some actual sci-fi.
**Chris:** But it like they've even got the the Android head in this.
**Chris:** They've got they're getting sucked out of a little hole in the spaceship.
**Adam:** They do everything, they've got space Marines, yeah, you know, it's aliens.
**Chris:** But with machetes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's a character called Dallas.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's.
**Lee:** Speaking of machetes, that still makes me laugh every time I watch this.
**Lee:** Is how in that very opening scene, he's hanging in a room, a completely empty warehouse with nothing in it.
**Lee:** He somehow manages to kill the guard and walk out with a big rusty machete, like he'd somehow just found it in that room.
**Lee:** It was like, what the fucking hell did you get hold of that from?
**Lee:** I mean, you can't be Jason without it, but.
**Chris:** But so is it is it that the reason it's got 4.4?
**Chris:** Is it that people didn't like the the change from what is more serious generally as far as I know all Friday 13th?
**Chris:** But but they're also you're not too worried about the plot making perfect sense in Friday 13th, are you, generally?
**Adam:** I I I think it's.
**Adam:** Probably I think it is one of those films that probably doesn't have I don't know, but I feel it probably has a bad rap amongst fans.
**Chris:** Yeah, well that's yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** I'm sure there's people out there who are like, you know this like hulking undead hockey mask wearing serial murderer with mother issues.
**Chris:** I mean, that does seem to let it.
**Adam:** It's very unrealistic now we've put him in space.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's.
**Chris:** Exactly.
**Adam:** Seriously, it's the fucking Doctor Who argument a lot of the time.
**Adam:** When people give you the Doctor Who.
**Chris:** Wait, don't forget always mix up Sherlock.
**Adam:** Well that's just a he's a fucking practically immortal person who can change their entire appearance and a fucking phone booth bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
**Chris:** Yeah, how much does it need to.
**Adam:** If that fundamental premise doesn't give you the can't be fucked to mess around.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I but I do think I wonder if it's one of those ones where it's the real hardcore fans were just like, oh, this is stupid, gone too far.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, you you see it in any fan base, you see it, you know what I mean, you see it with Star Wars, you see it with anything.
**Adam:** There are particularly the real hardcore fans, when there's like a big change or something that could, I think there's also an embarrassment factor sometimes with fans.
**Adam:** Where it's almost like, oh, don't show people this, because I've been saying fucking Jason's the best fucking thing since sliced teenagers.
**Chris:** It's actually.
**Lee:** Machete sliced rolls, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And now you've seen him in the space, I'm going to be a laughing stock at the next like meeting of people who watch horror.
**Chris:** Did did right, but did they get through.
**Chris:** To the sleeping bag scene?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I'm so glad.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because.
**Chris:** If if right, it was at that point I was like, no, right, I'm I'm happy with this.
**Chris:** This is this is fine.
**Chris:** I wasn't I may not have been 100% sure before, you've got me now.
**Adam:** It it distinctly knows.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's self-aware.
**Adam:** I think there's a few people involved who were doing their best to make the best they could.
**Adam:** Because like I say, this would look like a competent sci-fi on the Sci-Fi channel from the 90s.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's not great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's up to the standards of say, I don't know, Babylon 5 or one of the Star Treks or something like that just to a greater or lesser extent.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think there are also they were kind of like, this come on, this is fucking daft, we know we've got to put the jokes in.
**Lee:** That comedy timing though of the, you know, he's on the holo deck and it's like, hey, do you want a beer, would you like to smoke some pot, how about premarital sex, we love premarital sex.
**Lee:** And he literally looks straight down the camera, it cuts away and then cuts back to him beating one of them to death with the other one inside a sleeping.
**Lee:** Like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's just genius, it makes me laugh out loud.
**Lee:** Every time and I I love it.
**Lee:** It is a it is a big step from the original, so as you say Adam, I can see why the.
**Lee:** The hardcore.
**Chris:** It's not like it had been going in that direction.
**Chris:** So.
**Lee:** No, it wasn't.
**Adam:** No, it wasn't.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** So we'd had nine of roughly the same you expect this every time and then all of a sudden it was this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, because also basically they brought this out.
**Adam:** Because Freddy versus Jason sort of got stuck in development.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** And so they'd done the last Friday the 13th before this.
**Adam:** It was it was Jason goes to hell and it ends with him in hell and Freddy's glove comes out and grabs the mask.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Like the hockey mask or whatever.
**Adam:** Is that right?
**Lee:** I've got to admit, I've still never seen nine.
**Chris:** right.
**Lee:** I don't know how I've seen all of the others at least half a dozen times each, I've somehow never seen nine.
**Chris:** Is it like you go, I'm going to watch nine, but I'm so close to 10, I'm just going to watch 10?
**Lee:** I'm just going to.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Again.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, so it's kind of set up to be Freddy versus Jason is the next film in the because that's the thing.
**Adam:** This continuity, this is still when it's this comes from a time as well when no one was doing.
**Adam:** Like the Halloween reboot sort of thing.
**Adam:** Where it's like, we've not rebooted it, but we're now saying that all the sequels are invalid, we're doing what is supposedly the first sequel to the original.
**Adam:** Rather than and missing out all the gaps.
**Adam:** So this was distinctly this is still the same Jason from the very end of the very first Friday the 13th movie.
**Adam:** And continuing on.
**Adam:** To his adventures in space.
**Adam:** And yeah, I'd imagine there probably wasn't a problem with that.
**Adam:** But so they wanted to put this out because they just wanted to keep the character, you know, in the public domain, so people wouldn't so Freddy versus Jason would still be like a big deal when it came out.
**Adam:** And they ended up doing it they ended up coming up with if we do it in the future, it doesn't fuck up any continuity.
**Chris:** There is that.
**Chris:** I suppose.
**Adam:** And technically, and this is not hopefully not a spoiler for people, but without too much of a giveaway.
**Adam:** At the end of Freddy versus Jason, Jason is back on Earth, he's not in hell, which is where nine ends.
**Adam:** So technically, it still fits that timeline and everything.
**Chris:** So some thought was put to it.
**Adam:** Yeah, to oh no, I think that was entirely accidental.
**Adam:** But it was but the best bit was, I was reading where is it, they said, these are these are the ideas, basically they were like, right, what are we going to do for the next film?
**Adam:** And they would just do like a checklist of like, and stuff like.
**Adam:** Jason in the hood, Jason in the snow.
**Adam:** Jason on Safari, and my particular favorite, Jason at NASCAR.
**Lee:** He knows the audience.
**Adam:** So, you know, Jason.
**Lee:** They knew the audience.
**Adam:** Jason in space, I suppose is no more on that list, you know.
**Adam:** I think that would be yeah, and obviously it.
**Adam:** Fucking died at the box office and then apparently made three times its money back on DVD.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm not surprised.
**Adam:** Because you've got this isn't something that's going to be a big theatrical release, but fuck me is it going to be watched on video and DVD.
**Chris:** And at many parties you could see yeah, what we're going to put on, yeah, perfect.
**Lee:** I mean it still I'm keen to know Chris what you thought of what I still say I think is the best kill in a movie ever, my favorite, which is when he gets off the table and pushes that woman's head into the into the liquid nitrogen.
**Chris:** Like yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** No, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it freezes solid and then just smashes it off the counter like a watermelon.
**Lee:** It's just beautiful, I love it.
**Chris:** There is that.
**Adam:** That's the thing.
**Adam:** That's the thing is that it's heart, it still has the thing of it's just what variety of interesting ways does Jason killer batch of annoying.
**Chris:** It's absolutely got some stand out scenes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that
**Lee:** And also.
**Adam:** I must confess, the only trouble I have with this film is I do lose interest a bit after David Cronenberg dies.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And admittedly, that's very early in the film, but I cannot I cannot stress enough.
**Adam:** It's got fucking David Cronenberg in it, which immediately just elevates.
**Adam:** Just, you know, from the man who really is the best thing about Night Breed.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Like in terms of characters, you know, and he's just so good and it's just and the director of this film was a special effects guy.
**Adam:** Who worked on loads of Cronenberg films, James Isaac.
**Adam:** And so David Cronenberg did it as a favor, but on the proviso that he would be killed on screen, apparently, he just that's what he wanted.
**Lee:** Who wouldn't want to be killed by Jason, especially when it's played by Kane Hodder, like the real Jason, that's the way you want to go, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah, the score for this as well really stuck out for me watching it back this time, it sounds like Hellraiser.
**Adam:** It does sound like Hellraiser.
**Adam:** There's definitely they've ripped off the like the resurrection the theme when he when Frank comes out of the floorboards.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That is utterly ripped off on any of the Jason coming back from the dead sort of bits, whether it's with the with the nanotech technology or when he gets off the table initially and stuff.
**Adam:** But also, it has to be said, the end the music right, not not the very end, like the end titles.
**Adam:** But the music at the end was just like, and this is the music that I hate in so many sci-fi things.
**Adam:** Like.
**Adam:** Because it's just that big orchestral sound.
**Adam:** I'm just like, oh, piss off.
**Adam:** So like, you know, it's in space, do something do something weird, come on.
**Lee:** It was 2001, I'm just surprised they didn't put Rob Zombie all over it if I'm honest.
**Lee:** I mean, it's got that feel.
**Adam:** Yeah, but was what was was Robert Zombie doing was he doing his Halloweens at that point, I must have been later than that.
**Lee:** oh, yeah, no, I no, I don't think he was.
**Lee:** I think this is pre-Halloween, but definitely obviously post House of 1000 Corpses.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then weirdly enough, the the Friday the 13th films never had that sort of thing.
**Adam:** Of a.
**Adam:** I don't recall them having like none of those films ever were in the, that was much more of a 90s thing where you'd have like, and here's hundreds of fashionable bands on this one soundtrack.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I should fact check that House of 1000 Corpses, I could be wrong, but yeah.
**Adam:** I think they did.
**Lee:** But yeah, I just and it is you're quite right, Chris, it is a very big jump from what we used to for nine movies to suddenly drop into this.
**Lee:** But I think it's I think it needed reinventing because it was getting old.
**Lee:** And it has it did keep for me, as you said Adam, that like, it's just interesting ways to kill a group of idiots.
**Lee:** And and that's what these films have always been.
**Chris:** Really is, yeah.
**Lee:** It maintains that, but it injects a load of comedy into it.
**Lee:** Because that's that's the thing, although the hardcore fans will take these seriously.
**Lee:** They are films to have on in the background when you're drinking with your mates.
**Lee:** So like they're not.
**Adam:** They are a communal they're a communal sort of horror film, definitely.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I don't class them as particularly high, but I and I do laugh when I watch the originals because of the the excite, you know, the the interesting ways they do the kills and stuff.
**Lee:** I do find myself laughing at that.
**Lee:** So to make a jump to making it more of a horror comedy doesn't seem a million miles away to me.
**Lee:** Yeah, and they just handled it really well, I say, I genuinely find myself laughing out there, it's not a groanfest all the way, there are some bits that are pretty much like that, but but it's got enough genuine comedy in it that I can enjoy it as a comedy film, really.
**Adam:** I think yeah, because I I I there's no way you could take this seriously and and fortunately, I think the film is aware of that, so it's added in the lines and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Although the line that gets me the most is just her, are you stoned?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When when he's like, oh, you know, when he's going to do the noble, no sacrifice, no, we're not sacrificing you guys as well.
**Adam:** And it's like, fuck that, I'm going to take.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** It was it was actually it was interesting watching watching it with Claire, because she's not seen any other Friday the 13th stuff.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** Has she seen has she seen many slashers?
**Adam:** only what we've done on here, so Halloween.
**Chris:** Okay, I wasn't sure how many years she's followed.
**Adam:** Scream, you know, it's not really, because I don't really watch a lot of slasher film.
**Chris:** No, yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, so this was kind of her first Jason Voorhees you know, Friday the 13th.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It was interesting to watch someone be like, oh, fucking hell, these characters are fucking idiots.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Everyone's fucking annoying.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** And then, well, I'm on Jason's side.
**Adam:** And it's like, that's the point.
**Lee:** Yes, that's that's always the case.
**Adam:** It's always the case.
**Adam:** You just like that person is so fucking annoying when he's Jason going to kill them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you know, and and how inventively or how cruelly will he do that?
**Adam:** And that's, you know, I think it delivers in that sense.
**Lee:** And it does, I do think it's a good although obviously it's a strange place to start with the character, I do think it's a good introduction to him.
**Lee:** And and it does always make me want to go back and watch my favorite Friday movies again.
**Chris:** So that's interesting.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** Yeah, it.
**Chris:** I would I would happily watch another one now.
**Chris:** It's sort of funny, it must be the comedy aspect, it's like it didn't feel like it was too much, whereas I kind of think if I watch a straightforward slasher, I'm like, yeah, I'm done, I don't need to watch another slasher for a little while.
**Adam:** See again, it starts at the series starts off very much in that serious vibe.
**Adam:** And it's like all of those great 80s franchises, Hellraiser is probably the only one that remained either serious or po-faced depending on the quality of the film.
**Adam:** But the rest of them all sort of like Nightmare Elm Street clearly.
**Adam:** You you already had Freddy as a sort of charismatic figure, but it then becomes his one liners, his sort of playing up as the sort of big figure of the films and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Like that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And similarly with I mean, it's like I mean, by the time you get to like Jason takes Manhattan, which is fucking great.
**Adam:** And I know I know that Bobby of not for everyone is a massive fan of that one.
**Adam:** But you know, it's just the joy of like seeing him kick over a fucking stereo of an annoying bunch of street punks.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Hunter killer is off in a single room.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, God, now I want to go and watch that when we finish.
**Lee:** Fed, but I've got a feeling that's coming out tonight.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, it it is it's a good fun movie.
**Lee:** And that's why when Adam said, oh, should we cover it, I was like, that is perfect.
**Lee:** Because it's.
**Lee:** As you say, we haven't done a lot of slashers because Adam and myself, although we quite enjoy them and don't dislike them as a sub genre.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's not generally.
**Chris:** There's often still something else that would go above.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or or or like in this case, we tend to prefer where it's gone into different areas or something like that.
**Adam:** Where it sort of like like this circumstance where it is literally sort of.
**Adam:** You know, from my point of view, it was like, oh, at least you're doing something, you know, you're trying something new.
**Adam:** With it.
**Adam:** You know, because it does it does come to a point where especially when it's.
**Adam:** You know, a haunted area as in Crystal Lake, just don't go here.
**Adam:** You know, it becomes really obvious what's happening, because there's a fucking trail of bodies.
**Adam:** You know, so at that point, just don't bother.
**Adam:** Because actually I think that's actually, there's it weirdly enough, the one thing I think is missing is that I think there's a fascinating film.
**Adam:** With Dr. Rowan and David Cronenberg of the idea that the military want to capture Jason because, well, he's a fucking undead murder machine that permanently comes back from the dead.
**Adam:** Yeah, the military are oddly interested, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** You know, that really ticks a lot of R&D boxes for them.
**Adam:** And I think that that's quite a good concept to start with.
**Adam:** That, you know, that they've turned it into a research like Crystal Lake research facility because it's like, no, something's going on here.
**Adam:** And really, I think we should step in at this point, but also see how much money or murder we can make out of it.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** In that sense, again, it's got the Aliens thing.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because there is like the professor Professor Lowe in this is basically Burke.
**Adam:** And you know, and the Sarge is basically Apone from Aliens and it's just yeah, there's a lot of similarities and crossover.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But again, in a weird way, Aliens is playing it straight and this isn't, and it probably benefits for that.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's funny, I'd forgotten just how sort of chunky the CGI and stuff in this.
**Lee:** It like the the ships and stuff and that big space station explosion just looks.
**Adam:** Yeah, they're not great.
**Lee:** Off a sci-fi channel.
**Adam:** But that's the thing is it's it's comparable to a lot of stuff that was out at the time because this was all this was all done in Canada.
**Adam:** And all pretty much all sci-fi was filmed in Vancouver at that point anyway, like the X-Files was.
**Adam:** Because it was just cheaper to film.
**Adam:** So you had an effects budget essentially because you weren't, you know, you weren't paying as much in in other ways.
**Chris:** I mean I suppose that it doesn't take away from it because of the style of film it is.
**Adam:** No, no.
**Adam:** Not at all.
**Adam:** I would I would argue when this came out, this looked as comparable to stuff that people were putting out there as you know, as more not not more more serious fair.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** As you.
**Adam:** It wasn't.
**Adam:** Hey, look, because I mean, let's face it, if your concept is Jason in space.
**Adam:** You're probably already, you know, in in a certain sense of humor.
**Chris:** Mindset.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** You're already but you know, I don't think this looks like a lot of this doesn't look different to a lot of far more sort of.
**Adam:** Well, actually, we're going to look at the nature of humanity through sci-fi.
**Adam:** Even though everyone's come for the aliens, don't say that we've come for, honestly, they've come for the talking in rooms.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** No, they haven't, they've come for aliens.
**Lee:** I think you're right, I think it's I think what it is, is this film still feels but I mean it's 22 years old at this point.
**Lee:** But it doesn't feel it with the.
**Lee:** So I think that's why the effects look so ropy.
**Lee:** As you say, like it's probably no better than Event Horizon or whatever to some degree.
**Lee:** But because that feels like an oldish film and this to me still feels fairly recent.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's interesting.
**Lee:** It feels like it should be.
**Lee:** But again, I think it's just because it was like all the films do it now, it's like, oh yeah, we do two or three and then we'll do something completely mental and batshit with it.
**Lee:** Whereas this did it so much longer ago, but it still seems like a fairly new concept to take a massive franchise and totally lose the plot with it, really.
**Adam:** Because what I mean, basically is the end of the franchise.
**Adam:** Because you only had like Freddy versus Jason and the remake or reboot, whichever it is, I'm not sure.
**Adam:** I think I think it's a it's a reboot, isn't it?
**Adam:** The.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, 2013 one, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But yeah, it sort of.
**Adam:** I I yeah, I think it's just it it feels.
**Adam:** It feels weird in that sense, but there's not been much since, so it still remains the latest Friday the 13th movie, technically.
**Adam:** Even though it is over 20 years old now.
**Adam:** And
**Lee:** I mean.
**Adam:** But also when when I was looking it up, most of the cast are pretty much all their stuff is.
**Adam:** Sci-Fi Channel stuff.
**Adam:** Like like Rowan and the woman who plays the KN, the Android.
**Adam:** They were both in Andromeda straight after this, which was like, which ran for like 300 odd episodes on Sci-Fi channel.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And you and and oddly enough, Alexa Doig, who played Rowan, was actually an Android in Andromeda.
**Adam:** So they sort of swapped roles.
**Adam:** Pretty much.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But yeah, there's
**Adam:** Also, apparently at one point they they were going to have Jason's mum turn up in the the VR bit.
**Adam:** but the actress who play plays it didn't just turned it down, I think she probably just like, Jason in space, Christ.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So she so she bowed out.
**Adam:** One thing I got watching this though, because obviously there's a very filthy rich and cat flap.
**Adam:** Element in that Jason is an enormous Derek.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Because it's I've put in a I've put in an action a terrifying killing machine, or to put it another way, I've found a big bastard with no brain.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that's pretty much Jason.
**Adam:** You know, and it did make me think.
**Adam:** You could and they do it in this film, is how easy it would be, do you think you could get away with Bugs Bunny in Jason?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** Like Candy for Mongo.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** Like Jason's a very sort of like, you know, he's a very single-minded guy.
**Adam:** Let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And, you know, I think if you just weirded at him, you know, suddenly you've got him in a barber's chair and doing his hair and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Like Bug's Bunny would.
**Adam:** You know, I think you'd throw him out like fucking completely.
**Adam:** And that's pretty much what they do to him in this.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** With the holo deck thing.
**Lee:** With the holo deck.
**Adam:** Sort of thing.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I did like that as well.
**Adam:** Is that there's just all the stuff about, oh, yeah, obviously we've got a holo deck.
**Adam:** Obviously, we've got nanobots.
**Adam:** And we've got this, that.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Can't you just beam us off?
**Adam:** Beam.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, like you'd totally mental for even to suggest.
**Adam:** What?
**Adam:** You you would be disappointed that you'd got that far into the future and they found out what you haven't got teleports.
**Adam:** Fuck sake.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, James.
**Adam:** yeah, James Isaac who did it.
**Adam:** He died in 2012.
**Lee:** Oh no.
**Adam:** Yeah,
**Adam:** At 51.
**Adam:** But he directed House 3, Skinwalkers.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And a film called Pighunt that I never heard of.
**Adam:** But it's a sci-fi action horror with a minor role for Les Claypool.
**Lee:** I think I have got that on my shelf, I believe I've seen it.
**Adam:** Right, okay.
**Lee:** I think I saw it.
**Lee:** I was going to say, I saw it quite a while ago.
**Lee:** I think again, someone said there's a horror film with Les Claypool in it, so I tracked it down.
**Lee:** But yeah, it was forgettable enough that I can't even remember him being in it.
**Lee:** Or or anything about it, apart from seeing it on the shelf.
**Adam:** When they say minor role, I'm like, well, they didn't even call it a cameo.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And but he also but he did the special effects for Return of the Jedi or worked special effects on Return of the Jedi, Gremlins, House 2, House 3, Deep Star Six, a Rap the Phobia.
**Adam:** Look Who's Talking Too.
**Adam:** And for with David Cronenberg, he did he was part of the effects team on The Fly, Naked Lunch and eXistenZ.
**Adam:** And, you know, and again.
**Adam:** There's a lot of good icky gore in this.
**Adam:** It's the more the CGI that lets it down, the actual sort of gore and stuff like that.
**Adam:** I think actually works particularly well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** The body sliding down that massive coring drill bit that's on the machine.
**Lee:** It looks fantastic, it looks so good.
**Adam:** And again, that's what you know.
**Adam:** That's essentially what you, despite what anyone says, that's what you come to Friday the 13th for, is just the the whackiness of the kills or the not the whacking it, but like the inventiveness of the kills.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Because that is that is almost on a par with when they have to unscrew the guy in Doctor Who Fives.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, that was what it reminded me of, the whole time that scene was on, I was like, this from I've seen this some, this means something.
**Lee:** And that was all it was, it was Doctor Who Fives.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, I just it's just it's a really fun film.
**Lee:** And I know it obviously gets a lot of hate on IMDb.
**Lee:** I mean, it's a 4.4 on IMDb, I was like, oh, maybe nobody has rated it, no, it's got 60,000 runs and it's got 4.4, so people really hate it.
**Lee:** I think it's a great time, I think it's a really good fun and it kills as well, you know, hour and a half, you're in and out and it doesn't overstay its welcome or drag its heels anywhere.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, the pacing is good.
**Adam:** You you get on with it.
**Adam:** You're in the future within 10 minutes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, that's you know.
**Adam:** They don't even have to have Jason smash up another Jason.
**Adam:** And then throws his machete into the air and it transitions to a falling orbital satellite.
**Adam:** And then someone else and so forth.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** I did like that final scare at the end as well, when the ship explodes and he goes, oh, he's coming.
**Lee:** And you see him just flying through space still with his machete over his head, because he doesn't have to breathe, because we know he's a.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Strangely superhuman being and he's just flying through space towards a spaceship carrying a machete.
**Lee:** and then the.
**Lee:** Sarge just takes him out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's like the the the dealer.
**Adam:** Though, that really seedy guy, he's in loads of Cronenberg films as well.
**Adam:** But I I do love him, but equally, I did think it was like.
**Adam:** Voorhees, that's not Voorhees, is it?
**Adam:** I'm like.
**Adam:** It's a bit of a leap after 200 year like 400 years.
**Lee:** I don't even get what that guy was doing in it.
**Lee:** They could have not had that and just been like, oh, we've Googled it and we've found out who this dude is, wow, that could be worth something to someone.
**Lee:** I don't know what that guy was doing making some random bloke up, had anything to do with.
**Chris:** Was he like a friend?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Could have been.
**Chris:** A role.
**Lee:** That's true.
**Adam:** That's true, yeah, because he's like I say, he's a.
**Adam:** He's in a lot of Cronenberg stuff, so it might have just been like.
**Adam:** Oh, do you want to come in and do that?
**Adam:** David, David's doing a day.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** so right.
**Chris:** So have I been completely dim, he got killed.
**Chris:** Before he got resurrected, reconstructed.
**Chris:** Right, but so so why was he dead then?
**Chris:** I mean, he was splattered a bit.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think they just like destroyed him to such a point that there wasn't enough left to come back, but the nanobots managed to adjust him.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But that's it so so, you know, and this is where obviously we may not need to delve into this, but he's supernatural, but we don't we never find out what keeps him alive past that point where he could potentially die.
**Lee:** Well, he was.
**Adam:** With it.
**Lee:** Yeah, he was dead in the fifth one, in the fifth one, and then in the sixth one.
**Lee:** Someone digs up his grave.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Not to spoil it.
**Lee:** Because he tact them, he digs up the grave so that he can stab him through the heart with a spike from the fence post.
**Lee:** It then gets struck by lightning and brings him back to life.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** Frankenstein.
**Lee:** Reference.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because that's the thing is, I I think it's.
**Adam:** I I don't again, I don't really know the rules.
**Adam:** I think it's like it's like a zombie.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, it keeps coming.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I suppose you could just chop a zombie to absolute pieces.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then it doesn't really matter if they're still coming.
**Lee:** They're a liquid at that point, how much damage can they do really?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And but then and so he comes back and he's Uber, which that's relatively unnecessary.
**Chris:** Because he's already pretty Uber.
**Chris:** But I guess that was another.
**Adam:** We know what we're doing.
**Adam:** You know, you can book him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're back to.
**Lee:** Calling a big bastard with no brains again.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, I've just I've just looked, I was looking up House of 1000 Corpses which was 2003.
**Chris:** But I saw this Jason X-mas, which was a series.
**Lee:** I have no idea what that.
**Lee:** I will look it up.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** It was 2014-2017 mini-series.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, I'm definitely going to find out what that is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It doesn't say a lot, but it does have a picture of him on the cover, so yeah, we'll find out.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** right, so for our next episode, we are continuing our Jump the Shark season.
**Lee:** and we will still be in space because we are going for Leprechaun in Space as our next.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Episode,
**Lee:** Yeah, again, I'm quite keen to see after you after seeing the first one, Chris.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** How you get on with jumping to Leprechaun in Space.
**Chris:** No, it was a while ago.
**Chris:** Now, which.
**Chris:** That's seems kind of crazy.
**Chris:** But yeah, I mean that's got to be.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** It'll be the same for me because I've never seen, I've I've only seen Leprechaun when we watched.
**Lee:** Oh, you've only seen Leprechaun.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** Oh wow.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Lee:** Have you not seen Leprechaun in Space?
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, so much.
**Chris:** Exciting stuff.
**Lee:** I to be fair, I think I've only seen it twice, but yeah, I'm quite looking forward to seeing it again.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Tells you everything you need to know.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, go and check out Jason X if you're looking for comedy and not for a hardcore slasher movie.
**Lee:** Go and listen to the not for everyone podcast.
**Lee:** And we will see you all in a fortnight's time for Leprechaun in Space.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 182 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-182-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 5 November 2023
Duration: 00:39:31

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Horror of We Have Been Watching”. Yes, gentle listener, it’s the usual round up of extracurricular viewing by the WTH team. This time around we talk about “Ex Machina”; “The Haunted Mansion” (2023); “Messiah of Evil”; “Children of the Stones”; “Talk to Me”; “Psychoville”; new series “The Fall of the House of Usher” and the book launch for “The Astral Geographic” by Andy Sharp of English Heretic. No prep needed, but listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Chris:** Are you sure?
**Lee:** You can't see this listeners, but Adam is wearing a rather wacky mask for this evening for no reason.
**Lee:** that he wasn't wearing two minutes ago when we all joined.
**Chris:** How how does it look this evil and this manic? It's like perfect blend.
**Adam:** Oh dear.
**Adam:** Well, I I I apologize to the listeners that it's a it's an audio medium that they can't fully appreciate my.
**Adam:** my my mask.
**Chris:** I think I think you'll have to post that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** grab a screenshot of it.
**Lee:** so yes, we are here this evening for another what we've been watching episode.
**Lee:** and as it is the week running up to Halloween, I'm hoping we've all got plenty to discuss.
**Lee:** There's loads of there's been some great new stuff out there as well, I've caught some very old and some very new stuff.
**Lee:** So, yes.
**Lee:** so, let's start with Adam this week. What have you been watching?
**Adam:** Well, I'm gonna start off with, more of a thank you.
**Adam:** and an adventure, to Andy Sharp, aka English Heretic, who invited me to his book launch.
**Adam:** in London.
**Adam:** And Lee, you were very graciously my plus one.
**Lee:** I was indeed.
**Adam:** Oh, I can't I'm gonna have to take the mask off.
**Adam:** It's just impossible.
**Adam:** Yeah, I should.
**Chris:** Who saw that twist?
**Lee:** For the benefit of the audio listeners, Adam has removed the mask, only to show that he is wearing another mask underneath.
**Adam:** That's right.
**Adam:** Again, imagine this on a video, but who can tell?
**Chris:** Have you have you ever done that to a to a fancy dress party?
**Adam:** I've not been feeling the temptation.
**Adam:** I'm I'm even getting in my brain, I'm getting to the point of, oh dear, I'm getting to the point of layers.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Like you could something a costume you could gradually sort of shift and go back to, you know.
**Adam:** I suppose if you went to its logical conclusion it would be like the last costumes just you skinned.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh dear.
**Chris:** Right, yeah, now you're really thinking, I think you have to do this.
**Adam:** Well, I've got over a year to plan it if it were to happen, there we go. but yes, so, yeah, so as I was saying, yeah, English Heretic, Andy Sharp, he invited me to the launch of his book, The Astral Geographic. And Lee came with me, and, yeah, it was just a nice little weird little venue under a church.
**Lee:** It was awesome.
**Adam:** An absolutely bar under a church, basically, a cocktail bar.
**Adam:** And, which was just very fucking cool, unfortunately, prohibitively expensive, so you couldn't get like absolutely wankered because the cocktails were fucking gorgeous.
**Lee:** They were but they were very strong.
**Lee:** I was gonna say that's the other thing as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, we did sort of have two cocktails and I know I've been off the booze quite a lot because I've been watching my weight recently.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I had a beer while I was waiting for Adam, in a pub across the road, yeah, and then we had two cocktails in and by the time we left, I was like, I'm pretty comfortably pissed at this point, so, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, same.
**Adam:** It was yeah, healthy, healthy cocktails, you know.
**Adam:** in the least applicable use of that word thinking about it, but there we go.
**Adam:** but yeah, and the book is, so English Heretics like a a project that Andy Sharp's been doing for years and I've been following that for I've no, I think it was like his third album that I heard and was just sold and yeah, just kept like listening and he's released books.
**Adam:** what he used to do was, that when the albums came out, they would come with like a booklet or a Zene of and it was like sort of writing about the concept of the album, but it was more of that.
**Adam:** and yeah, he has just a really brilliant way of thinking.
**Adam:** And, this new book is basically a travel guide through occult history. Oh, okay.
**Adam:** So it's, yeah, basically it's all the places to visit in terms of, for example, like witchcraft, it charts Crowley's progress through the desert, and when, he did his great working and yeah, just lots of,
**Adam:** really interesting places and annoyingly this is like I've been reading a lot of books lately and seeing a lot of documentaries lately and they've been like, oh, I'll jot that film down, I've got to see that, I've jot that. This is ten times that because it's like, I can't afford to buy these 50 DVDs. I can't But this is I genuinely cannot afford to cross the world and see all these places, but I really want to, but he does it in such a way that I don't feel I have to.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's a very evocative writer.
**Adam:** And I haven't got that, I haven't got to the end of it, but there's also like part of the book is like a sort of grim wall like a sort of how to of basic magic sort of thing, but.
**Adam:** Yeah, but but but just yeah, thank you for inviting me, Andy.
**Adam:** And for inviting us, Andy and, it was yeah, it was a great night.
**Adam:** And I I think there's a certain listenership of this podcast I think would enjoy his stuff anyway.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Lee:** 100%.
**Lee:** I say I obviously I Adam invited me as a plus one, I wasn't aware of Andy's work before this.
**Lee:** Adam very graciously got me a copy of the book, cheeky Christmas present in advance there.
**Lee:** but yeah, I can't wait to get stuck into it.
**Lee:** Because it was like hearing him talk, he was so passionate and so so knowledgeable on everything.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** It was just his way of speaking as well.
**Lee:** So yeah, I can't wait to to get cracking through it.
**Lee:** I've I've got another book, I've got like a chapter left of and that is the next thing on my queue, so, fingers crossed to it soon.
**Lee:** Yeah, next.
**Adam:** I think I I think Andy would also appreciate this.
**Adam:** Because I'd never met Andy before, like spoken to him online and emailed him before and stuff.
**Adam:** But, yeah, so me and Lee also went with the expectation it might be like the opening of Vault of Horror.
**Adam:** that we were just going to a vampire bar where they'd string me upside down and put like a tap in it.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** And, yeah, it turned out to not be that, it was just a very lovely convivial evening.
**Adam:** And it was nice, nice to meet Andy and yeah.
**Adam:** Thank you again, mate.
**Adam:** It was just great talking.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** A fantastic evening and yeah, check out the book and English Heretic in general.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** 100% behind that now I've discovered it as well.
**Lee:** And again, it's that thing of because I've come to it late, there's a whole plethora of stuff for me to go back through now.
**Lee:** So there's music and books and loads of stuff.
**Lee:** So yeah, I can't wait to get stuck in.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Chris:** So I have watched again and I so I'm not sure if I've spoke about it, but I don't think I did.
**Chris:** it's Ex Machina.
**Chris:** Which is Alex Garland and Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Chris:** But I talked about Dev's once and I think I mentioned Ex Machina there.
**Chris:** But so I saw it, it popped up, I thought, I'm going to watch that again.
**Chris:** And I think it's so it's funny, right, we watched, we watched Donnie Darko.
**Chris:** Which I didn't think of as a sci-fi film and I watched this before and didn't think of this as a horror film and yet now I'm going to say that this is in definitely in my top 10 horror films.
**Chris:** Because it absolutely is and I still think they capture something in this about AI and especially with the way that AI is going now.
**Chris:** Because if you if you go and hang out with one camp of people, we're all going to be, you know, wiped out in the next few years.
**Chris:** Going to talk to another group of people.
**Chris:** And it's going to be the best thing that ever happened to us.
**Chris:** Well, who knows, but that sort of sets the stage for quite a potentially horrific situation.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Adam:** The only thing the thing that that that whole argument AI argument is something that I've watched and seen.
**Adam:** Like all sides of a lot of sides of like you say, there does seem to be two distinct camps.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** They're both making good arguments generally.
**Adam:** All I will say is the fact that Elon Musk is doom saying about it, I feel probably positive.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** Well, so yeah, but so here's the thing, so he's doom saying and he got what did he do he's signed the letter to say stop doing it and then very quickly went out and bought a ton of the equipment required to make some of the best AI.
**Chris:** So it's like, yeah, okay, telling others not to do it, but you you're going.
**Adam:** So either it's building monopoly.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Or so, yeah, but no, all my thoughts were it's just like, are the computers going to take a look at this and just go, hang on.
**Adam:** This is bollocks.
**Adam:** You know, what's dead kitties and stuff and he's got like more money than anyone conceivably needs.
**Adam:** And yeah, I think that might be his problem with.
**Lee:** He's just worried they're gonna rumble him.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I is just going to.
**Adam:** Because eventually the whole thing the the utopian vision is that it becomes like this impassioned overseer.
**Adam:** That sort of but yeah, but who's thoughts does it think, you know.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** I mean, especially I was listening to something the other day and they said that it was, the when they first constructed the AI.
**Adam:** sort of model of taking everything from the internet and using that to construct.
**Chris:** Do you mean large language model chat GPT.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the first thing that it did, because it was the internet, the first thing it did was it just churned out loads of porn.
**Adam:** Because it was like, well, what does the internet made of and it's like, yeah, pretty much that's the bricks and of the internet.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** How to create a great civilization.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** right yeah, so, so I will just give a few points as to why I think this is one of the greatest horror sci-fi.
**Adam:** Can you please bear in mind that I've not seen it?
**Chris:** Okay, yeah, all right.
**Chris:** I was trying to think Yeah, I was trying to be careful not to.
**Chris:** All right, so so I'll give you very broad view then.
**Chris:** So I think it's an amazing psychological horror from pretty much from the start all the way through.
**Chris:** I mean Lee, I don't know what you think of it, but I'm assuming you've seen it as you didn't say.
**Lee:** I have seen it.
**Lee:** I do remember enjoying it, but I saw it when it first come out and I haven't seen it again since.
**Lee:** So that was it was a long time ago, but yeah, it was it was it was impressive with it at the time.
**Adam:** Was it 2009 or something like that?
**Adam:** It's quite.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's quite a long time ago now.
**Chris:** I'm going to say I've not got too many of the details, but it has got Oscar Isaacson who I totally did not know at the time and now looking back again seeing him after seeing him in Star Wars.
**Chris:** Like I sort of appreciate him in a different way in this.
**Chris:** But yeah, right, so, so I think it really captures.
**Chris:** This psychological horror throughout, you don't really.
**Lee:** It was 2014.
**Chris:** 2014.
**Chris:** like you don't really know who to trust at all.
**Chris:** None of essentially is yeah, you are left with a bit of a mystery throughout.
**Chris:** And I think the way that unfolds it can kind of keep going either way and so it's yeah, I just think they did that excellently.
**Chris:** Considering there's only three essentially three characters.
**Chris:** The the settings it's very it's like isolation and entrapment, it's, you know, there's essentially in the middle of nowhere.
**Chris:** So that and that made me think of Alien as well.
**Chris:** There's a huge amount of manipulation and deception throughout.
**Chris:** Again, trying to understand what each of their agendas are, it's it's quite fascinating.
**Chris:** And and just overall, I think the whole with the music, the atmosphere, everything about it.
**Chris:** It just it.
**Chris:** For me, it's a great pacing, it's slow enough and it gets technical enough to allow you to really think about the profundity of AI and especially with what's happened over the past year, as we said with Chat GPT.
**Chris:** But yeah, and the the moments of action really help to, yeah, just keep the pacing going.
**Chris:** So it's I absolutely recommend you go and watch it.
**Adam:** Well, I've I've had the soundtrack since it came out and the soundtrack is brilliant.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean, I guess it's mostly kind of soundscapes like eerie, chilling.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It'd be nice to put pictures to those sounds actually now thinking about it there now.
**Chris:** But go on, go on.
**Chris:** So what what has put you off?
**Adam:** Nothing.
**Adam:** Literally, it's just been never the right time or right circumstances or whatever like that.
**Adam:** I haven't it's always like, oh, I'll get that and then I see something else.
**Adam:** I'll get that or whatever.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** Or it'll be on streaming, but then I see something else has popped up and I was like, oh, it's never been.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Well, I'll be very interested to see what you think.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'm going to have to force myself to do it.
**Adam:** I think because it is and because it's Alex Garland as well because it was the.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** So, so I did in fact, between this and last time I watched men as well and I was going to put that on.
**Chris:** But then I think that's what actually made me when I saw Ex Machina.
**Chris:** I was like, oh, I'm going to watch that again.
**Chris:** And so men I'm going to cover at one point, but I know you covered that before.
**Adam:** I think, I mean, yeah, we'll we'll do that on a separate one.
**Adam:** Because yeah, that is a fucking crazy fucking film.
**Chris:** Yeah, it certainly is.
**Chris:** So yeah, so Alex Garland is doing great stuff, I think.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool, yeah, I might have to give that a rewatch myself then and then we can discuss it.
**Lee:** so I have gone back and watched something very old, this was, I believe, this might have been Lou Dall recommended this a while back when we were talking about folk horror.
**Lee:** so I went back and watched 1977's Children of the Stones.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** yeah, I watched the whole thing in over two nights.
**Lee:** it's all on YouTube like in its entirety.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'll tell you what.
**Lee:** That's right, so I think it was Loudow mentioned it before and then I was watching the Call Dudes Walking Club recently.
**Lee:** and yeah, he mentioned, oh, I I watched it during lockdown.
**Lee:** I'd never seen it before, it's really good, it really holds up, you know.
**Lee:** It's a a kids kids piece of kids TV show from the seventies.
**Lee:** It actually it's still quite yeah.
**Lee:** And I watched it and it is it's really creepy and really strange.
**Adam:** Oh, no, it's it's fucking amazing.
**Adam:** It's and it is proper folk horror.
**Lee:** Yeah, 100%.
**Adam:** But it's, yeah, you can it's for kids, but it just it's it's a wonderful example of it's like, yeah, it's for kids, but we're not holding back, we're going to actually make it a good fucking show.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** it's just I know yeah, I loved it.
**Lee:** It's got that very cozy obviously it's before our era, so we wouldn't have seen it at the time.
**Chris:** Yeah, so it is PG, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But so there are there are bits that are.
**Lee:** It it's not.
**Adam:** I think it's it's aimed at a an older kid kid audience that I that I think telly doesn't think is there anymore or possibly isn't there anymore, but it's aimed at like sort of like a sort of 12 to 16 sort of age group, I suppose.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I suppose a lot of them are watching YouTube now.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's what I mean, so I think he's a is a thing that doesn't exist anymore.
**Chris:** Possibly.
**Adam:** in television terms, but that's who it was aimed at.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** yeah, so it is it's it's just a really well done.
**Adam:** really well thought out, horror.
**Adam:** that sort of borders into science fiction.
**Adam:** It's, it's got that isolation thing they basically go off to a
**Adam:** It's a father and son go to a village with a stone circle in it.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And it's sort of like them picking up there he's an astrophysicist, isn't he? and he's like.
**Lee:** He is, yeah, he's there to study the stones because he believes that it's.
**Lee:** some kind of a magnetic field that's created by them.
**Lee:** So he's there.
**Chris:** So this is a bit like Stone Stone Tape.
**Lee:** Yeah, well, that's when I first I think it was when we covered Stone Tape that someone said, oh, you need to watch children and stuff.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** I said it might I think it was Loudow, it might have been Joe Watson otherwise, but yeah, I'm sure one of them said.
**Adam:** I'm sure Loudow spoke about it.
**Adam:** I think I think even I think they even mentioned it at the Astra Geographic which was like on the list of yeah, sort of things that are sort of brought it brought the occult into it.
**Adam:** And it's,
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just it was one of those things I saw it, I don't know, I first saw it about ten years ago or something like that because it was one of those ones you read about a lot.
**Adam:** Especially because like being a Dr Who fan, so you you get a lot more that sort of because again Dr Who's like aimed at kids family sort of age group, like it's meant to be that the family can watch it and similarly children of the stones was sort of like kid friendly.
**Adam:** But only in the sense of well, no one got their face hacked off or say shit, you know, it's.
**Lee:** But it is sinister as all hell.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** it's also shot at Ary.
**Lee:** Do you remember to Ary, Chris, for a weekend?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We did.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's right.
**Lee:** So they've renamed the village, but ultimately it is Ary, so that's the stone circle they use and the pub that we had dinner in that's in the center of the stone circle, that's in there and the little shop across the street.
**Lee:** So they did just take over Ary and filmed this little horrifically sinister folk horror thing.
**Lee:** It was awesome, such a good couple of nights.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** Again, it's one of those.
**Lee:** People have been telling me to watch it.
**Lee:** I you know, friend of our Simon as well, keeps mentioning it now and again, it was him who sent me the link.
**Lee:** When we were discussing it one night.
**Lee:** He just sent me the link and said, look, you need.
**Lee:** And it's been sitting in my email for about 18 months and I was like, right, I'm going to pull the trigger on this.
**Lee:** And I'm going to watch it.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh, I could have been rewatching this by now and I would have been much happier.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** See again, it's it I think it falls into that sort of area that the Box of Delight does.
**Adam:** I know it's like it's 10 years later on or whatever it is.
**Adam:** But it's that same because I know you've got I know you love the Box of Delights which is the sort of 80s.
**Lee:** They do.
**Lee:** And in fact, I'm going to give it a quick plug, Oxford, I believe,
**Lee:** a friend of Lady Jennifer's is working on the production team, there's a stage show of the Box of Delights that we've got tickets to go and see and I think it's in Oxford.
**Chris:** Oh, wow.
**Lee:** but yeah, and I thought they'd make a fantastic stage show.
**Lee:** So yeah, just on a side note, if you're in or around Oxford, I mean, double check my facts because I could be wrong.
**Lee:** But I think it's somewhere around there, but yeah, there is definitely a stage production of the Box of Delights being put on and it looks like it's going to be excellent.
**Lee:** And I'm going.
**Adam:** Very nice.
**Lee:** right.
**Lee:** Back to Adam.
**Adam:** I'm going to stick with, creepy and 70s and I'm going to talk about Messiah of Evil, which has just come out on Blu-ray.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** it's a film that I'd heard a lot about, but never in the sense of, you know, famous scenes or anything, it was just people talking about the atmosphere and everything else about it.
**Adam:** And finally got the chance to, finally got the chance to see it because they've released it on Blu-ray.
**Adam:** And, my God, it is the most Italian film made in America that I've ever seen, it it feels it's got that sort of Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava sort of like I I can't even explain it.
**Adam:** It's just it feels like it it definitely feels like Dario Argento made the film.
**Adam:** But everyone's no one's dubbed, people are actually genuinely speaking English and it was filmed in America and yeah.
**Adam:** It's just but it just feels.
**Chris:** That whole aesthetic has that sort of edge to it.
**Adam:** And it's a very strange film.
**Adam:** It's basically this woman goes to.
**Chris:** It looks like the color is quite significant.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, no.
**Adam:** basically a woman goes looking for her father, it's an artist who's gone missing and she goes, I mean, that's just the most it's not even a big point, but she stays at this house.
**Adam:** But because he's an artist, the house is fucking mental, but it's not actually it's kind of it's an atmospheric point rather than a plot point, but he's got like a a bed suspended on chains that's like a white marble block suspended on chains in the middle of the room.
**Adam:** And he's painted all the walls with huge freezes of like murals of scary people staring at you out of windows and things like that.
**Adam:** And so it's like it's just fucking it just it just looks mental.
**Adam:** And then sort of weird things start happening in the town that are never never explained even to the point that I'm not sure whether they were cannibals, vampires or zombies, I don't know.
**Adam:** but the film didn't tell me.
**Adam:** But with some weird influence like some weird past dark presence that sort of afflicted the town before and this has happened before and.
**Adam:** and also two of the eeriest kills I've seen in something for a while just because there's two of I sort there's watching them that gives you the the full effect, obviously.
**Adam:** But there's one bit where there's a girl who's gone into a cinema.
**Adam:** And gradually behind her, the entire seat gets filled up by people from the town.
**Adam:** Who are all just sort of sitting there staring at her, but she's just unaware because she's watching the film.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** It's like The Birds.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** When she's sitting there at the on the park bench and.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, they just.
**Adam:** It's like that, they keep doing a close-up on her and then he pan out and there's like, there's now 15 people behind her.
**Adam:** And now there's and more people coming in the whole time and it's just like.
**Adam:** Yeah, it just leaves you in a sort of odd space because it's like, oh, that's exactly how I'd react in that situation.
**Adam:** Only that situation has never been presented to my brain before.
**Adam:** But I know exactly how terrifying that is.
**Adam:** Yeah, so I mean it's it's it's not a, you know, I.
**Adam:** It's definitely style over substance, so it's very Italian horror in that like 70s Italian horror in that sense.
**Adam:** But like I say, I enjoyed I enjoyed the the sort of just outright strangeness of it.
**Adam:** Especially because it was quite, no, no, we're not going to explain that.
**Adam:** He just eats mice.
**Adam:** All right.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** yeah, it's a yeah, I I it's definitely something I'm coming back to because I think it's going to sit in my lodged in my brain.
**Adam:** I watched it about four days ago or whatever it was.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's got the right elements.
**Adam:** all the scenes I'm like, I just want to see that again because that just looked great, but yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** definitely definitely a recommend, but it's,
**Adam:** I I don't think slowburn is the term just from the base.
**Chris:** It's a certain taste.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Okay, excellent, cool.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Chris:** Okay, so I've watched, I think it came out recently on Netflix.
**Chris:** it's A24's.
**Chris:** It's directed by the Philippa Brothers, Danny and Michael.
**Chris:** And it is called Talk to Me.
**Chris:** Now, I thought.
**Lee:** It's popped up, I've not watched it.
**Chris:** No, well, so, so I think it.
**Chris:** I think I saw it in a list of A24's best horrors.
**Chris:** So I thought, all right, I'll give it a go.
**Chris:** No, I would say, it's not typically one that I would have rushed to watch.
**Chris:** but it sounds like,
**Chris:** These brothers used to have a YouTube channel and this is their first, horror film.
**Chris:** And yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yes, yeah.
**Chris:** So, so essentially, so it's, you kind of find out pretty quickly, it's all about this ceramic hand that, if you hold on to it and say talk to me, then you see a lost soul essentially.
**Chris:** And it follows mostly follows this girl who is the, I think the second anniversary of her mother's death and she kind of becomes a bit obsessed with it.
**Chris:** I won't say more than that that's, you know, that is sort of the premise.
**Chris:** And, yeah, I like it.
**Chris:** There's a few jump scares.
**Chris:** It's, it's quite interesting, the characters are pretty good.
**Chris:** I enjoyed it, but yeah, I don't tend to rush at these sort of ones.
**Chris:** where it's,
**Chris:** I don't know, I suppose I suppose as it went on it seemed to have there was more depth.
**Chris:** It it kind of talked about the relationships between them all, but yeah, it felt a bit like, I think for the first, I wasn't sure it was going to go anywhere.
**Chris:** So.
**Lee:** It's a slightly odd premise, I've got to say it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** What how why would you ever just talk to a hand?
**Lee:** To discover the first.
**Lee:** But I suppose, yeah.
**Chris:** That that was where I wasn't too sure.
**Chris:** But yeah, you know.
**Chris:** I suppose it's a bit like doing Ouija board or anything like that.
**Chris:** But again, if you said it's a film about that, I would think, okay, how how good are they going to be able to present this?
**Chris:** But it it was it was pretty good.
**Chris:** I mean yeah, I think it it seems like it did well.
**Chris:** Generally, a lot of people seem to like it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, this is the thing, I think it's also it's dependent on the person.
**Adam:** You've got.
**Chris:** If you've never seen a horror film, it might well be.
**Adam:** We we're reasonable men, we've just seen some unreasonable things.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, I think but yeah, for for a main, I mean, something like hereditary.
**Adam:** It's like, no, I can understand why the general public were quite freaked out by that film.
**Chris:** Yeah, in fact, what was it, I was skipping through some things earlier on Netflix.
**Chris:** And I I can't remember what it was, but it came on, it started to play and then Shelly looked up and she was like, is this horror?
**Chris:** And I said, oh yeah, because it says it's, you know, like if you liked hereditary, you probably like this.
**Chris:** Okay, I'll turn this off quick.
**Chris:** Because I don't think she'd survive it.
**Chris:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** So I might have to check that out at some point.
**Lee:** so I I realized something about myself this year and I think it's.
**Lee:** So obviously we watch horror all year round constantly, and yet when we come to Halloween, when most people then go into their I'm going to go and watch loads of horror shit.
**Lee:** I think because I loved it so much as a kid, this is when I go back to more family-friendly type.
**Lee:** I'm going to go back and watch, you know, the Halloween tree and all that kind of stuff.
**Lee:** Like.
**Chris:** Yeah, being anti-anti.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so in that vein and also because it's just been really least, obviously, I watched the new Haunted Mansion film.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Not The Muppets Home with Mansion that I discovered was existence day.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** That came out last year, I did mention it when I watched it.
**Lee:** I quite enjoyed it, but they'd kind of it had been pitched as like a feature length.
**Lee:** So I thought it was going to be the new, you know.
**Lee:** Muppets Christmas Carol.
**Lee:** I think.
**Lee:** I wasn't expecting it to be a 40-minute short, but I I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** Yeah, no.
**Lee:** So this was a new live action one with Owen Wilson is in it and Danny De Vito is in it, Jared Leto.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I really enjoyed it again, it it was,
**Lee:** It was very Disney.
**Lee:** So it was fairly family-friendly, but like we like we were saying a bit with children of the Stones and stuff, it didn't pull its punches.
**Lee:** Like the scary ghosts were scary.
**Lee:** So like the hatbox ghost is is one of the main characters in it and he looks as ludicrous as he does in the Haunted Mansion.
**Lee:** But yeah, a lot of the other ghosts look like a bit like the ghost from Ghostbusters too.
**Lee:** Like they're all pretty pretty grizzly.
**Lee:** but yeah, because it's in such a comedy setting, you don't you hopefully most kids wouldn't get too upset by it.
**Lee:** I was a little bit unsure because it was one of those.
**Lee:** There's a lot of names in it, but the two main characters, one of them I've heard of and one of them I hadn't.
**Lee:** And I was like, well, they've got a lot of bigger names, better known actors.
**Lee:** And then it was it's LaKeith Stanfield, and Rosario Dawson, who I've heard of Dawson, but I've not seen any of her stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I was just a bit like, oh, is this going to be another house of long shadows where the others have all got, you know.
**Lee:** Like a little five minute cameo or whatever.
**Lee:** And it's all going to rest on two relative.
**Lee:** I want to say unknowns, but.
**Lee:** But yeah, no, they were excellent and it was really good.
**Lee:** Everyone gets great screen time in it.
**Lee:** yeah, and I found it really funny, really entertaining, very family-friendly, I say, but still pretty creepy.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it was it was a good tale.
**Lee:** So it's the idea is a woman has moved into the house with her kid picked the house up cheap.
**Lee:** And it's obviously haunted.
**Lee:** So she's brought in Owen Wilson, who's a priest.
**Lee:** LeKeith Stanfield is a photographer.
**Lee:** But he's also a a physicist or something and basically he's built a camera that can take photographs of ghosts.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** So he.
**Adam:** like 13 ghosts.
**Lee:** Yes, exactly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So he comes in to help them and they soon discover that the reason that the ghosts are being so active is because they are scared and they're trying to get attention to get help.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** I won't give away the cameos in it because I don't believe looking at the IMDB, they don't appear to be on it.
**Lee:** There are two cameos in it that are absolutely outstanding.
**Lee:** but yeah, I won't spoil those for you.
**Lee:** I'll wait until you see them.
**Lee:** But yeah, really good, really entertaining, great like Sunday afternoon film.
**Lee:** I'll definitely be going back and watching it again.
**Lee:** Very good.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** right, we've got five minutes left.
**Lee:** So quick fire.
**Adam:** Quick fire.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Adam:** very quick fire, apart from honorable mention for Bottom Terror, which is now Ted's first ever episode of bottom that he's watched.
**Lee:** Yay.
**Adam:** Start me up, we're indoctrinating.
**Adam:** and but me and Claire have rewatched Psychoville.
**Chris:** Oh, excellent.
**Adam:** Reese Sheersmith and Steve Pemberton's series between the League and Inside Number Nine.
**Chris:** And I definitely need to watch that.
**Adam:** mostly because it's got a Halloween episode, but we've been saying about we hadn't watched it for ages and you forget how fucking good that is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's, for anyone who hasn't seen it, it's definitely if you like the if you like the League of Gentlemen, if you like Inside Number Nine, watch it.
**Adam:** Certainly because one episode of Inside Number Nine will probably make a more sense if you do watch Psychoville.
**Adam:** Because we did that as well, we watched the the inside number nine that was there.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Not really a conclusion, but just a sort of actually it was, it tied up the last loose end, I suppose, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** it would have been a tad confusing, I think for some viewers, but
**Adam:** No, all in all, that is just yeah.
**Adam:** Rewatch, definitely.
**Adam:** because it's all good.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** and so many great actors in it, Daniel Kaluuya, Don French.
**Adam:** Just tons, tons of people.
**Lee:** Fantastic, excellent.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Chris:** So I just today watched The Fall of the House of Usher, which is.
**Lee:** Oh, I was going to discuss that.
**Chris:** Okay, well.
**Chris:** So I I don't know the story, you know, amazingly.
**Chris:** I you may well have mentioned it.
**Chris:** apparently it's Edgar Allan Poe's most famous story.
**Lee:** and it's it is an excellent.
**Lee:** It was one of the core Rodger Corman Vincent Price movies.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** Very good.
**Chris:** Good.
**Chris:** Could go back and watch that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** maybe we should do that while that's a thing that's out as well.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** people might go and seek that one out.
**Chris:** Well and and I will have seen some more episodes of this, so I've only seen the first episode so far, but but yeah, so Mike Flanigan adaptation.
**Chris:** a modern day adaptation.
**Chris:** I think it's even set like it was something like 20th of November.
**Chris:** A date came up at some point on there.
**Chris:** So it's like right now, I guess.
**Chris:** and coming up.
**Chris:** but he owns a huge drug empire called Fortunato pharmaceuticals.
**Chris:** and really the only thing I think you know and you find out very early on is that all of his children have died.
**Chris:** And he's got children by five different wives and he's being interviewed by the police chief.
**Chris:** And and it's got a surprise appearance from Mr. Mark Hammill.
**Chris:** Which won't be surprising to anyone that was on there with him, but I didn't expect to see it.
**Lee:** He plays a fantastic, I've seen the whole series now.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He plays a great character.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, cuz you only see him like very briefly in the courtroom.
**Chris:** The first one, like, what's that?
**Chris:** That's my camera.
**Lee:** Yeah, no.
**Lee:** He plays a much bigger role as time goes on and it's excellent.
**Lee:** It's one of those it's got like one long through story, but it is kind of episodic as he says.
**Lee:** So each episode is about the story of one of the kids.
**Lee:** So you get everything else that's going on.
**Lee:** And they are all each episode is named after a story by Graham Poe and kind of uses it as a very loose.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** That's pretty good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It made me think a little bit of Wednesday, it sort of had a a weird dark, but light-hearted thing going on.
**Chris:** Almost the same time, like not quite funny, but.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** At least in this first episode.
**Chris:** It it was, it seemed slightly like, especially with the banter between Rodrick and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and.
**Lee:** Yeah, but it does get.
**Lee:** yeah, it does get way darker, way darker, way faster than you expect.
**Chris:** Okay, okay.
**Chris:** Well, it says it's an 18 in this, I was like, was that an 18 that much craziness in it?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, it kicks off, it is horrific.
**Lee:** It yeah, but it's excellent.
**Lee:** I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** Really creepy, really dark.
**Lee:** Didn't at the end as well, you like you know something's coming at the end, you're waiting for the big final twist.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** so yeah, it's it's well worth the well worth watching.
**Lee:** Stick with it.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool, right.
**Lee:** Don't spoil too much on that as it a lot of people probably still haven't seen it.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** what's our next episode, Adam?
**Adam:** we're now doing in space, no one can hear you jump the shark, which isn't true because I think they both good, well, I know one of them's good, Jason X.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** It's our next film.
**Lee:** Go, right.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** And we will see you in a Fortnite's time for Jason X.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night and listen to not for everyone podcast.

---

## Ep 181 Donnie Darko

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-181-donnie-darko/
Air date: 22 October 2023
Duration: 00:38:02
Film: Donnie Darko · Year: 2001 · Director: Richard Kelly

### Description

Go suck a fuck, it’s our episode on “Donnie Darko” (spoilers AND swearing). A film in which we learn the incorrect place to store a Lifeline exercise card; that there’s nothing more beautiful than Drew Barrymore’s cellar door; and that it’s not just Patrick Swayze’s dancing that’s dirty. This brilliantly cast, Halloween-set fantasy stalled at the US box office, did much better when released in the UK a year later; then DVD and word of mouth cemented it as a modern classic. Audiences may have been left scratching their heads, but most came away with a love of this intelligent and complex film, and that felt like a magnificent fuck you to a film industry convinced cinema goers need a steady diet of lowest common denominator crap. A subsequent “Director’s Cut” made the mechanics of the film’s take on time travel much more explicit, whilst also adding some unnecessary padding, but this film transcends its hard sci-fi premise, and can be viewed in the logic of dream or fantasy, always making narrative and emotional sense to the attentive viewer. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening for the second part of our, what month are we doing? There's a theme to this.
**Chris:** I think This must be Halloween, isn't it?
**Lee:** We're a horror podcast, it's always Halloween.
**Chris:** Well,
**Chris:** but I thought we we did Donnie Darko in between our theme, but did I go, no, I was
**Chris:** maybe it could be, it could be sci-fi still, I guess.
**Adam:** I think it was just we we just We think it was sci-fi.
**Chris:** But yeah, yeah, it's funny, I totally do not think of it as a sci-fi film, but it really is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Which is kind of weird.
**Lee:** Adam clearly did when he thought of putting this together.
**Lee:** But yeah, so we are here for the 2001 movie Donnie Darko.
**Lee:** a film I'm guessing we've all seen multiple times before.
**Lee:** and there will be spoilers, there will be swearing, if you haven't seen this film,
**Lee:** I don't know if we're gonna be able
**Chris:** I was I was gonna say I was gonna say yeah, what happens right, exactly, that's the thing.
**Chris:** Is it possible to spoil?
**Chris:** I'm hoping Adam's gonna fully explain it to us because I feel like I'm just one step behind on this one.
**Chris:** Like, and I love everything about it, there you go, said it straight out.
**Chris:** I don't think I've hidden that before, but, but still, yeah.
**Chris:** I I I still feel like is it 'cause it's time travel, then that that could be a complete spoiler.
**Adam:** Except it kind of tells you that at the start.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's sort of
**Adam:** I I to be honest, I think all the hints you can get going into this, this isn't one where you're like,
**Adam:** you know, it's it's best to go in a bit prepared at least.
**Chris:** That's so I'm trying to remember though, and I think Lee, I totally cut you off probably while you're explaining.
**Lee:** No, no, it's fine.
**Lee:** That was all I was going into really.
**Chris:** But it's is I find this one of the harder films having when you know what happens to remember what I was thinking exactly the first time I watched it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because I almost still feel like, as you said, still trying to figure it out and it's like, well, I know way more about it having watched it quite a few times now.
**Chris:** And yeah, still it it's funny how it's somewhat somewhat difficult to be sure.
**Lee:** I I think I've seen it three times, I think I watched it the first time and I got to the end and thought I had it.
**Lee:** And then when I watched it the second time, I was like, that's nothing like I remember.
**Lee:** Yeah. And then I tried it again the third time,
**Lee:** yeah, and thinking right, well, this time I'm gonna really focus in and I'm really gonna nail it.
**Lee:** yeah, and again I came away thinking, yeah, I I still don't think so.
**Lee:** So I'm gonna be absolutely honest, I have not watched it this time for the podcast.
**Chris:** Oh, no, we boy.
**Lee:** Because I I made a conscious decision because
**Lee:** every time I've watched it the first time and I loved it, and every time I've watched it subsequently, I've liked it a little bit less.
**Lee:** and I know that I'm generally the contrarian on this and you both come in and go, what a great movie that is, and I go, fuck that.
**Lee:** So, I've decided not to watch it and go off of my fairly remembrance.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, that's that's a fair fair idea, I would say.
**Chris:** It'd be interesting to see, yeah, Adam's take on it then and see what we all end up with.
**Chris:** But, so I think this might be my fourth time, I watched it, I'm fairly certain I watched it soon after it came out.
**Chris:** I didn't watch it in the cinema,
**Chris:** But I remember being hooked from the start when
**Chris:** I I I was trying to work out, you know, watching it with trying to be slightly more critical on this viewing and figure out exactly what I think and why.
**Chris:** But it's it's something about it's very mundane and yet really surreal
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** all the way through and that just gripped me from the start, the way you see him wake up and he's like with his his got bite and he's on a sort of large heel mountain and like what's going on.
**Chris:** And then the way the music then transitions and it becomes quite dreamlike and that you don't hear sounds as much and then you just sort of see his dad blowing the the leaf blower, his sister and his mum just reading, reading.
**Lee:** Oh, Pet Sematary.
**Chris:** What do we say, how do we refer to Stephen King now, the author that wrote Pet Sematary.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** and then it's like, oh, that's interesting references and you like I had no idea what it was about, you know, you've heard the name and you're like,
**Chris:** I don't know, and what is going on and why is this all so mundane when something weird has happened, because what's he doing, you know, up the on his bike.
**Chris:** And then you think it's all about his difficulties with mental illness.
**Chris:** So it's like I just yeah, the first time through, no idea really where it was going to go, how horror based it was going to be, or yeah, and I I think that's it, I was just totally,
**Chris:** yeah, this has really got me and and just that whole aesthetic throughout I find fascinating.
**Lee:** Oh it it is an absolutely beautiful movie.
**Lee:** And I I I enjoy so many things about it, I say, which is kind of why I didn't want to mar it for myself.
**Lee:** Yeah, because yeah, it it's just as you say, it's got that really strange, like almost '80s, I know it's based in the '80s, but it's got that almost '80s feel where it's like, oh, we don't have to explain everything, which they don't do anymore.
**Lee:** Everything gets overexplained and, you know,
**Lee:** Whereas with this, it just kind of tells you the story.
**Lee:** Yeah, that was the first time so I didn't see this at the cinema, I hired it on VHS.
**Lee:** Okay. when it first came out.
**Lee:** because it it was before I'd been on the internet, but I had a friend who was getting into the internet, and I spoke to him on the phone, and I was like, oh, what you been doing?
**Lee:** And he said, oh, I watched Donnie Darko, so I've just spent the last two days on the internet trying to find out what the film was about.
**Lee:** I was like, how did you watch a film and not understand it?
**Lee:** And he was like, oh, well, once you've seen it, you'll totally get it.
**Lee:** So I I went and hired it that weekend.
**Lee:** yeah, and totally knew exactly what he was on about.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I I came away thoroughly enjoying it and yeah, and not really feeling that I was missing out by not 100% getting.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, you just take so much from it.
**Chris:** Really like about I guess elements of being a teenager growing up.
**Chris:** The difficulties of kind of trusting different people and authority, like you'll being told this.
**Chris:** But, you know, he's clever and so he's questioning and it's like it's interesting how some of the adults don't like that.
**Chris:** and don't accept it, whereas some others are supporting him.
**Chris:** yeah, but then there's there's this sort of a it's almost a I don't know, like a choir, it's not always quiet, sometimes they scream, but there's a desperation to almost everybody, it's like things are just not quite great for everybody.
**Lee:** Everybody's a breaking point and you don't know why or if it's for the same reason.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it's it's just carries that it is it's that tension, isn't it, all the way through.
**Lee:** Yeah, that constantly puts you off kilter and does leave you just going, I don't know why any of this is happening.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** See, the question I would ask is, 'cause I I I watched the theatrical version.
**Chris:** So I only learned that.
**Chris:** you know, just today in fact.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the director's cut, it's it's a weird thing, 'cause I watched the theatrical version and I was like, have I seen the director's cut, have I not?
**Adam:** but the one of the main things they do in the director's cut is they show you bits of the philosophy of time travel book.
**Adam:** So, so the harder sci-fi end of it comes out more.
**Adam:** And I was convinced, I'm like, maybe I have seen the director's cut.
**Adam:** And then I remembered, it was an extra on the original DVD.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Which they then put into So you saw the scenes in the director's cut.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, that's interesting.
**Chris:** So, so Lee was saying that he didn't actually watch it for for this one I should just say Adam had to go away briefly and might that bit.
**Chris:** but yeah, so and he didn't want to watch it because he almost feels like the more details he gets, the slightly worse it gets every time.
**Lee:** Yeah, the more I watch it, the less I enjoy the film.
**Lee:** And I I when I came away the first time, I loved it, so I never want to get to a point where I don't like it.
**Chris:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Chris:** But that's interesting, seeing those details in trying to explain more about the physics of time travel, I guess, then yeah, that could potentially take away more.
**Adam:** That was something I forgot to do.
**Adam:** That was something I forgot to do is I was going to not in a I think you'll find that he was wearing a wristwatch that would only have been available in 1989 and this is set in 1988.
**Adam:** So not wishing to be one of those people, but I was I was going to look up and I just totally forgot.
**Adam:** I was going to look up the publication date of a brief history of time.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Adam:** The science teachers got that when he's talking to him about time travel.
**Adam:** And it was like and in my head, I was like,
**Adam:** that feels like it was but I presume it was something where the ball rolled and it was more prevalent in the '90s.
**Lee:** Yeah, but it had already been out.
**Adam:** But it was already published, you know, I don't think they'd make an error like that in this anyway.
**Chris:** I could imagine a book like that might have taken a little while to get some traction.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not an instant, it's not an instant obvious bestseller, is it?
**Adam:** But but it was like a sort of pop science phenomenon for a while in the '90s, certainly, a lot of people had read it then.
**Adam:** And well, a lot of people had bought it then.
**Lee:** Yes, I I I I have a copy, I like everybody else who read the first two chapters.
**Adam:** But I think that yeah, but like I sort of got the gist you're saying that because
**Adam:** it is a it is a odd world, well, not it's not an odd world, it's a horrible world.
**Chris:** It's a mad world.
**Adam:** Oh, thank you.
**Adam:** It's but it's a horribly true sort of feeling world.
**Adam:** But like you say, where everyone just seems a bit just on the verge of something.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Everyone's just from the verge collapse or snapping or, you know.
**Adam:** And which which feels oddly prescient, you know, it's
**Lee:** I I think that's one of the things as well that it's the relationships in this that I do find draw me in too much.
**Lee:** You know, his relationship with his sister and with his like it all feels.
**Chris:** Feels very real and yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, really good.
**Chris:** And it was funny, so yeah, the first time I watched it, I had no idea that they were actually brother and sister.
**Chris:** And then when I when I learned that, I was like, oh, did that actually that could have helped.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** You know, because they really do work well together.
**Chris:** But all the cast seem to work really well together.
**Adam:** I I think it's a stroke of fucking genius and fortunate that they're both really good actors.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But equally it's a stroke of genius, 'cause there is just that short hand there, like that bickering at the table.
**Adam:** And it's like, you just made a prick of yourself, smile.
**Adam:** You know, is frighteningly, frighteningly real.
**Chris:** I've gotta say, after watching this again and now having older children, I do see some some similarities with me and the father more than I did the last time I watched this.
**Adam:** I think I think oddly enough, that's kind of a positive thing because I think the dad's all right.
**Chris:** He's he's like he's all right.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Chris:** He doesn't he's breaking in a kind of I'm trying to just let things go a bit and, you know, just not get too caught up all the time.
**Adam:** Yeah, he he he seems sort of all right, but not not a great parent.
**Chris:** No, he's got he's got quite a less a fair, having him as your dad.
**Chris:** Whereas like, oh, he is going to burst out laughing at this point when I, you know.
**Adam:** It's quite quite a dramatic sort of moment to be in a
**Adam:** called in by your head teacher.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** That is that is funny.
**Adam:** So so yeah, don't be too harsh on yourself.
**Chris:** I think.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, his his politics are all over the shop and he does play golf with Nazis, but, you know,
**Chris:** Aside from that, yeah.
**Adam:** Aside from that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that's that's
**Chris:** Oh, sorry.
**Lee:** Oh, sorry.
**Adam:** No, I was going to say because that's something that we'll we may come to because it isn't it's weird because it's not a positive reset that he does entirely.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** In terms of
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The world, you know, yes, he saves Gretchen's life, he saves Frank's life, he probably saves Miss Pomroy's job.
**Adam:** because he doesn't go on a vandalism spree that eventually gets her the push because of the book.
**Lee:** Because she's in a in every single time.
**Adam:** And and she's the reason that we all saw it, because basically she said, she read the script and she was the one who said, my production company will put X amount in this, so it can get a cinema release and be out there.
**Chris:** Nice.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** in return for a role in there.
**Chris:** Fair play, yeah. Well, and it's a good role. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** She does do fantastic, as she always does, I mean.
**Adam:** I think I think the weirdest one was having not seen it for so long and then looking like going through the cast list and like Seth Rogan's in there.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** That is a funny funny role for him after having now seen what he typically does.
**Adam:** I think it's a perfect role for him, it's just I assume that's just him at school.
**Chris:** Yeah, it could.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And say saying about funny casting though, you know, it's the same with Patrick Swayze.
**Chris:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Lee:** Again, he was one of those people, I don't know a lot about him, his films aren't generally the type of thing that I'd watch.
**Lee:** But I very much had this
**Lee:** takes himself extremely seriously.
**Chris:** Likes being a heartthrob kind of.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I think and I think coming to this film not knowing where it was going and his character in this, I was like, oh, it's just a bit of a vanity thing and I kind of
**Lee:** Yeah, and then when you twist, I was like, oh, my respect just went through the roof.
**Chris:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Chris:** I I think that's it, I I respected everyone that was in this film.
**Chris:** And yeah, and particularly that, but it is it is interesting how in a sense, none of them appear as great characters because of the world that they're in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it's like, but they all just play it so well, you just yeah, it's like.
**Chris:** I mean, the way Jake Gyllenhaal, plays a a, you know, teenager with mental illness, like for me, he just captured it so well.
**Chris:** Where it's like he is he's not, you know, he's on the edge and it's like which way is it going.
**Chris:** And yeah, I just thought he really did.
**Lee:** But he never kind of overplays it.
**Lee:** Like he's it's very as you say, it all feels very true to life and very very real.
**Lee:** And I I mean, I'm so glad to see that this film did, you know, launch him into the stratosphere and obviously he went on to do massive stuff and has knocked it out the park every time.
**Lee:** but yeah, I think this was a this was a perfect place for him to start because he he just nailed it really.
**Chris:** Yeah, and I think it's it's funny, in terms like you say, you don't have to fully understand it really.
**Chris:** There's so many gems to take away from it that it's like that's all enough, you don't really need to necessarily feel like you've fully understood.
**Chris:** It's and I and I don't think I don't think it is possible because with a lot of sci-fi, I think like we said last week, you can start picking holes in a lot of it and it's like it doesn't actually make sense because it can't really exist, most sci-fi is not possible.
**Chris:** So you've already kind of decided to make a film that is unlikely to be fully explained if you try to.
**Chris:** so ignoring that, then yeah, there's just there is so much.
**Chris:** I I mean, even something like the what was it? The the language Cador.
**Chris:** Like even just that stuck in my head when I saw that saying, I was like, I so funny, I've never thought of the English language as being not having nice sounding phrases.
**Chris:** And it's like it's kind of funny how that does because you think Cellador sounds rubbish.
**Chris:** He's like, no, actually the sound of it is beautiful.
**Adam:** Oddly enough, it reminded me there's obviously, RIP Michael Gambon, but it reminds me of a bit from The Singing Detective.
**Adam:** And there's a bit because he plays a writer in that, and at one very towards the end of it, he says to someone, do you know what the most beautiful word in the English language is?
**Adam:** Okay. And I think they reply is it rose, and he says, no, it's elbow.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Just because of how it flows, how it looks written down.
**Chris:** But you start off, you know, as soon as you hear that, it's hard to not think of the thing, and so it's like, you know, that's your experience of it.
**Chris:** But yeah, if you just view the phonetics of it, it's it's completely different.
**Adam:** And the actual just physical symbols that make that, you know, it's sort of,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's but no, there's a lot of
**Adam:** because he I'll I'll give you the a brief history of of time travel.
**Adam:** is that basically, 'cause I don't think it comes up, it's all of this is what was explained in the book, so it turns up in the in in the excerpts of the book that they show you.
**Adam:** The book doesn't exist, obviously, the time travel book.
**Adam:** but basically, so Donnie's what's called basically, it all takes place in what's called a tangent universe.
**Adam:** Which is a bit of the universe that's gone awry.
**Adam:** And and until it gets corrected almost like ground hog day.
**Adam:** It can basically bubble and fuck up the real universe.
**Adam:** Because it gets it's like a record getting stuck on a groove or something like that, it just doesn't eventually you just break the universe because you've got this little tangent bubble that's appeared.
**Adam:** And and there's the possibility a lot of people think that there's a lot of people now theorize, like fans on line and stuff, theorize that this isn't Donnie's first loop.
**Adam:** That maybe other characters like her putting seller door on the what on the blackboard, then makes him think of Roberta Sparrow's house and going through the cellar to get into the house.
**Adam:** And it's almost like these characters sort of vaguely remember what's happened.
**Adam:** Because at the end, Gretchen and his mom sort of sing to recognize each other.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, I always.
**Adam:** Even though she's never met him and obviously the universe has been reset, so she never meets Donnie because he's dead.
**Adam:** And you did say spoilers and fucking swearing, didn't you?
**Lee:** I did, yes, yes.
**Adam:** Good, right, fine.
**Adam:** yeah, so it's like it's almost like some characters might be trying to remembering to try and put things in line.
**Adam:** so that Donnie can get the formula right this time and reset the universe or find out.
**Adam:** And Donnie is what's called a living receiver, which is a being chosen to guide the artifact back to the primary universe.
**Adam:** Now, the artifact is something that comes out from that comes out of the primary universe into the diversion universe, is usually made of metal, it's the jet engine.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's his job is to get that back to where it belongs, because obviously it's dropped through time and gone wrong somehow, because it's basically come back from.
**Adam:** it drops off the plane that his mum and sister are coming home on, and yeah.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** he basically, he has to create a wormhole to send that back in time.
**Adam:** and he has those powers, apparently.
**Adam:** Because as a living receiver, you gain supernatural power or like enhanced strength or just basically a bit sort of superpower sort of thing.
**Adam:** so he's able to create a portal to send it back in time and then but be under it this time so that it works.
**Adam:** and then Frank is part of the manipulated dead, who are beings connected to the living receiver who have died within the tangent universe, they can move through time and contact the living receiver with details of future knowledge.
**Adam:** Whereas there's also the the manipulated living, which is people who are connected to him who don't die in the tangent universe, but still have some vague memory of what's happened.
**Adam:** But somehow, dying in that universe enables you to travel through time and warn him shit.
**Lee:** So all of these these, you know, all of these theories have sprung up just from this movie.
**Lee:** This isn't like a a theory that people
**Adam:** No, this is basically this is what was in Richard Kelly's head when he wrote the book when he wrote the film rather.
**Adam:** Yeah. And then the book has those little bits in there.
**Adam:** And I think personally, they were probably just released on the DVD as, well, I had this backstory and maybe it didn't come out clear enough.
**Adam:** Because he's now putting them in the director's cut.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Even though he said there wasn't his director's cut is not technically.
**Adam:** It wasn't because the studio took it off him or something like that.
**Adam:** He Donnie Darko as it appeared as a theatrical release was what he wanted to go out in the cinema.
**Adam:** And I think that, yeah, so the director's cut is like, I wanted to I can put more stuff in and, you know,
**Adam:** explain it better, have a second go almost, it's like a second draft, maybe.
**Lee:** Yeah, but I think that's the thing, I think if you've got all that in your head and you put it all to film, and you know the backstory, you might go, oh, well, it seems obvious to me 'cause I know.
**Lee:** But if you then release it, yeah, the whole world watches your film and go,
**Lee:** it's brilliant.
**Lee:** But I don't know what the fuck happened.
**Lee:** You're like, yeah.
**Lee:** I need to go back and fix it, well, you don't need to, it's done well.
**Lee:** You know.
**Lee:** You've achieved what you wanted.
**Lee:** But yeah, a later date, you've then got that.
**Lee:** that ability to say right, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna re-edit it and rework it and better explain what I was trying to put together.
**Chris:** But it's interesting, even though the film is based on that premise essentially, and you need all of that to make the film, all of that is actually not what makes the film good.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** This sort of a funny paradox almost.
**Adam:** I think the I think the good thing is this film works in a way that I think you get certain science fiction does it really well and it's this thing of if you can make it almost magical or you know, border into the fantastical.
**Adam:** And it makes it makes like dream logic sense as much as it did like sort of fantasy logic sense, in that you don't have to know what the mechanics of it are and what things are called.
**Adam:** And let's face it, the theory of time travel does not actually grant you anything other than an insight into
**Adam:** what happens in a divergent universe and why things happen in that sort of sense.
**Adam:** But it doesn't explain like, oh, and then you summon a portal in this way and this is the physical properties of, you know, it doesn't go ment in that sense.
**Adam:** But, you know, it's kind of like it's you can almost read it like he just wishes hard enough that he goes back in time and so and puts it right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, he wants to choose that Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** He can put right what once went wrong and maybe next time his best leap will be the leap home.
**Chris:** Good, I should
**Adam:** And actually in the director's cut, Donnie's first line is, oh, boy, and the opening music is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, yeah, basically it started out as a it was a quantum leap episode that just got out of hand, because the show would finish and they were like this too good an idea to the room.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** I did love the music in this as well, it was you know, it was yeah, it was great.
**Adam:** That's the point, that's the reason I won't watch, I didn't watch the director's cut.
**Adam:** is because I was like, oh, I don't think I've watched the director's cut, I'll watch the director's cut.
**Adam:** And then I found out that you don't get the killing moon at the start of it and I thought you can fuck off then.
**Adam:** 'Cause that song's fucking amazing, they've replaced it with an excess, and I'm sorry, but a strangle wank versus one of the finest, you know, gothic pop songs that's ever been.
**Adam:** It's yeah.
**Adam:** But also and this this is the weird fucking thing is I didn't realize quite kind of the timeline on this.
**Adam:** Actually time.
**Adam:** This came out in October 2001 in America.
**Adam:** In that America.
**Adam:** and basically, it it's not the same on a lot of the posters, but originally the font that's used at the start of the film was used on all the posters.
**Adam:** It was decided that that font looked somewhat Arabic, so they changed it on all the posters, but they couldn't change it on the film.
**Adam:** And most of the pre-publicity stuff was like posters of crashed jet engines and things falling out the sky.
**Adam:** So obviously October 2001, that don't fucking track very well.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And so in America it it it sort of did poorly at the box office because they basically had to pull half their advertising and fuck around with it and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And just it never got the numbers that it was going to get.
**Chris:** That's crazy.
**Adam:** You know, and it the only way it was going to get noticed was for the wrong reasons of loads of like some red faced prat on Fox News claiming that it was laughing at the victims of 9/11 or whatever, you know.
**Adam:** And so but then it came out over here in 2002.
**Adam:** And did really well in UK cinema and slowly got because of that.
**Adam:** So it slowly got on like taken up on DVD and like more people were discovering it.
**Adam:** So it was actually, it was like Jimmy Hendrix, basically.
**Adam:** As it came over here and became famous and then went back to America to be famous.
**Adam:** but
**Adam:** the weirdest part of it is, is that obviously the cover at the end of it Mad World, the tears for fear cover.
**Adam:** is became the UK Christmas number one, 2003.
**Lee:** Oh, God.
**Adam:** So, it's like just a weird sort of bubbling lifespan that this film has.
**Adam:** through that sort of delay of almost like a year before the pickup on it that happens and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And I have to say that was a good one 'cause that was a good year 'cause it beat.
**Adam:** what it beat the darkness, Bow Selector's Christmas single, and and and the Pop Idol of that year.
**Adam:** Which was the first time that had been like told to fuck off out of the charts.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So you know, it was it was good in that sense, but yeah, that and then the weirdest moment, which is when a guy
**Adam:** go Gary Jules is the guy who sings it and Michael Andrews just plays the piano.
**Adam:** Does all the score for this, which is a fucking brilliant score.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like it's so sort of just right. Yeah. And again, that's the thing that gives it that sort of fantasy fairy tail edge.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Adam:** It sort of dreamy sort of stuff as well as the dread and things like that, but yeah, so a guy went on Stars in their eyes.
**Adam:** as Gary Jules singing Mad World, why?
**Adam:** And then it's like the next time you're on, you have to do a different one of their songs.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And yeah, so he he he went and found an album track and was never seen again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** One last one on the music though.
**Adam:** There's a Pantera song on here, but I didn't know this, Pantera disowned their first four albums.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and so they agreed for the song to be used, but they credited as, what is it, the green mummies or something like that, the screaming green mummies.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Dead Green Mummies, that's it.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're right, yeah. Yeah.
**Lee:** Wow, weird.
**Lee:** Yeah, I didn't know that either.
**Lee:** I I know Pantera, but not terribly well.
**Adam:** So it's definitely a Halloween film, is it a horror film?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, we this is what we said.
**Lee:** I think visually, 100%.
**Lee:** Like all the the weird sky stuff, obviously Frank is freaking.
**Chris:** Yeah, see that's that that became such an icon from it as well.
**Chris:** but I I I would think lots of people would think it was definitely a horror film.
**Chris:** Maybe they wouldn't if they watched it necessarily.
**Chris:** But the impression is absolutely that it is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And then that's what I was saying when I when I remember thinking, I think this is a horror film and then just having no concept about and as I guess most people didn't.
**Chris:** Where's it going to go, how far is it going to go like, is there going to be a lot of Gore?
**Chris:** Is it like it just threw me completely as to.
**Adam:** It's so unnable.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's the thing with it is you just genuinely don't know.
**Chris:** It.
**Chris:** Like you say, you hit the dream and it's like Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** it never sort of stops from there literally till the closing scene.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You still have no idea what could happen in the next 30 seconds, it's fucking mental.
**Lee:** yeah, and that that was what I loved about it, and it did throw so many curve balls in there.
**Lee:** just totally, you know, like we said that with the Patrick Swayze thing, like that didn't for the story to happen.
**Lee:** That that kind of relevant to anything, but it just puts it in there just as another, you know.
**Lee:** You think you know what's happening, but you have no idea really.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And but just going back to I was going to say, so that's the one thing that's not clear if that that appears like that gets undone.
**Chris:** So he doesn't then get caught at that point.
**Lee:** Yeah, possible. I never thought about that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's the thing, you do sort of there are certain things that don't happen for the good.
**Chris:** But is that again, the element of the way this film is trying to be somewhat realistic in its portrayal is, yeah, you can't necessarily fix everything, that's just that's just how life is, maybe.
**Chris:** because there was another one that we didn't mention earlier was the the girl and as usual, I've forgotten her name.
**Chris:** And the one who likes Donnie and he realizes when he sees her book on.
**Adam:** Treeta.
**Chris:** Treeta, yeah.
**Chris:** I've got the list here but there's quite a lot of people.
**Adam:** Yeah, everyone gets a credit in this.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, that's good.
**Chris:** but yeah, and you know, and even her, just her story is like, it's sweet and upsetting.
**Chris:** That he has been kind to her and that's made her kind of fall in love with him, but he had no concept about that.
**Chris:** Until and then it's it's strange, it's another surreal sort of moment where he feels the need to go up to her and say it's all going to be all right.
**Chris:** And I guess what he what he meant there is that she won't then fall in love with him and be upset that they're not together.
**Adam:** I I think at that point, I don't think he even knows other than I'm taking action that that is going to fix something.
**Chris:** Seems right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's very you you get the feeling that it's a very driven thing that he he is not in control of.
**Chris:** Yes, that's it does absolutely call into question, you know, predeterminism and and so on.
**Chris:** And yeah, but how he does feel like he is taking the correct path like morally.
**Chris:** It's when when he laughs at the end, it's, you know, he's like, he's totally accepted and knows what he's chosen is right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's also it's also, I've done it.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I get that sort of almost it's like, I fucking knew I could do this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And again, his performance in this, like, you know, and that is you say, it's it's those bits where he gets so much across without having to say anything.
**Lee:** It's just in mannerisms and facial expressions and he just tells a whole story just through laughing, and it's I yeah, I mean, it's a brilliant thing to see, really.
**Adam:** I I have to say on the Jake Gyllenhaal thing though,
**Adam:** I don't know, have either of you seen Nightcrawler?
**Lee:** Oh, God, yes.
**Lee:** What a fucking good film that.
**Lee:** That's one.
**Lee:** I think with that, I would argue we could do on the podcast.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** I think that is kind of a horror film.
**Lee:** It's dark, it is freaking.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But worth checking out, Chris, because that is because I think that's one of the ones that doesn't get as much love.
**Chris:** I've never heard of it.
**Lee:** No, it doesn't.
**Lee:** It it just kind of went under the radar, I think it might have been Drew who told me about it.
**Lee:** and said, oh, you need to check it out.
**Adam:** He was.
**Adam:** Yeah, he definitely Drew told me, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And like yeah, I was totally blown away by it, absolutely fantastic movie.
**Chris:** We didn't even mention.
**Adam:** He's not blowing it and he doesn't go back.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Not that Nightcrawler.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** We we didn't mention the dangers of being a a a therapist and using hypnotherapy, that's got to be a bit awkward.
**Chris:** You know, yeah, got to stop this now.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So yeah, just I think that's it, like just there's so many scenes where Jake was just like, yeah, you're just playing this really well and it's it's such a it's a weird role in a way as serious as it is kind of ridiculous.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's got cult movie written all like, you can see how this film picked up a cult following.
**Lee:** Like this has got one of those, you know, in the Prince Charles every two months or whatever and it's got people who go to every screening like it it has got that very cult.
**Lee:** Again.
**Lee:** And like you say.
**Lee:** You can do days of research and chatting online and theorizing about it.
**Lee:** And it.
**Chris:** If you want to, but you don't have to.
**Lee:** No, you can come away and enjoy it as soon as the film finishes.
**Lee:** Yeah, or you can mull it over for days on end afterwards.
**Adam:** And the the cinema that they're in in you know, when they're in the cinema that that cinema every Easter screens, it's a real cinema they filmed in and they screen Donnie Darko every Easter.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** God, that'd be great to go to that.
**Lee:** right.
**Lee:** So, yes, so definite recommend from us.
**Lee:** yeah, absolute solid movie.
**Lee:** As I say, I and I that's the reason I didn't go back is because every time I enjoy it a little bit less, but what I love about it, I love so much, I never want to spoil this movie for myself, which that sounds like a very strange place to come from, but that's how I feel about it.
**Chris:** I think that makes a lot of sense.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yes, so thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** go, enjoy your Halloween, we will be recording again the weekend before Halloween and we'll be doing a what we've been watching.
**Lee:** so we will have a ton of stuff, hopefully, I know I've filled up an entire page of shit, so I'm gonna have to be really really picky about what I.
**Chris:** Prioritize well, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, otherwise we're gonna have a minute per movie or something and it's gonna be.
**Lee:** But yes.
**Lee:** So, have a great Halloween, go and watch all your favorite spooky shit and we will see you in a fortnight for what we've been watching.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Lee:** Oh, now I've lost me mouse.

---

## Ep 180 Alien

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-180-alien/
Air date: 8 October 2023
Duration: 01:09:44
Film: Alien · Year: 1979 · Director: Ridley Scott

### Description

In space, no one can hear Lee complain, but we’re back on Earth, so get ready to hear our discussion on Ridley Scott’s “Alien”. A film in which John Hurt rehearses his guest appearance in “Spaceballs”; Tom Skerritt gives a masterclass in poor management (we’ve all worked for a useless prick); and Ian Holm performs cinema’s first self-bukkake. A fantastic, darkly epic film that perfectly straddles science fiction and horror, perhaps its greatest achievement is the thoroughly believable world (or worlds) it builds, allowing both its cast and the viewer to immerse themselves completely. Our discussion touches upon the sequels, which, whilst gradually conforming to the franchise fatigue of diminishing returns, having such a rich starting mythology to build upon, all throw up some real points of interest (particularly those films that continue Ripley’s story). Our conversation also encompasses the film’s creative origins in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s (tragically) aborted attempt to bring “Dune” to the silver screen. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** Hey, I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening for a friend and lovely of the show Claire for her birthday choice.
**Lee:** she is not joining us she's not joining us this evening.
**Lee:** But was very keen to see this film as she has now been welcomed to horror and has been desperate to see this.
**Lee:** And I am I I I've got to admit in spite of what I may feel about this film, I'm surprised we've made it nearly 200 episodes and we haven't covered it yet.
**Lee:** so we are here for 1979's Ridley Scott Alien.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** And.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** It's a shock.
**Adam:** Is a shock, isn't it?
**Chris:** We can it's a shock we can get this far, but also a shock that someone can get this far without having seen Alien.
**Chris:** Growing up in a sci-fi loving household, you know, so.
**Lee:** Well, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, but but again, for someone who was so very anti-horror, this film is like this film sits, I think, perfectly well in either camp sci-fi.
**Adam:** Yes, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, it really.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, really does.
**Lee:** Yeah, it it fits both of them 100% and it's it's not often that you get a a film that isn't just a sci-fi film with some scary elements or a scary movie that is setting space.
**Lee:** But but this I think is a that perfect amalgamation of the two.
**Lee:** before we get into the movie, I would like to share with you a quick story if I may.
**Lee:** linking back to our least haunted, but also linking into this evening's subject.
**Lee:** So, as I was discussing with the guys, off of Mike earlier.
**Lee:** I have just spent pretty much the last 60 hours in bed with the flu slash COVID.
**Lee:** I mean, who knows because nobody tests anymore.
**Lee:** I haven't got any.
**Adam:** Who knows.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Don't make your pain now.
**Lee:** I'm not. No we spoilers and swearing.
**Lee:** Just warn you.
**Lee:** before I fucking forget, start getting into that.
**Lee:** Anyway, so.
**Adam:** After I say can't.
**Lee:** so I have just yeah, slept for 60 hours.
**Lee:** But I woke up at 5:00 this morning, for my obligatory every 8 hours waking up for a Pepsi Max and a piss.
**Lee:** only since I've had the cold.
**Lee:** Like that's not just how I live my general life.
**Lee:** but yeah, so I came back from the bathroom and was admiring the moon because it was behind the clouds.
**Lee:** And then I noticed.
**Lee:** So my the back of my house, we have roads that run off at 90°, so my road runs parallel and it runs horizontal and the others run vertically against it as it were.
**Lee:** And I can see behind my house two houses with two chimneys and between them, I can see a light.
**Lee:** And it looks like it's a few miles away.
**Lee:** And I just kind of noticed it.
**Lee:** And every now and again it keeps blinking like super bright.
**Lee:** And I was like.
**Lee:** That's weird.
**Lee:** So I thought, I'll sit and watch that.
**Lee:** I've slept a lot, I can probably manage 10 minutes.
**Lee:** And this light keeps blinking like so it's quite dull.
**Lee:** And then every now and again it blinks like super brightly.
**Lee:** And then it does a funny little figure of eight movement.
**Lee:** Like super fast.
**Lee:** And then it's just a dull light again.
**Lee:** And then it's.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh my god, this is it.
**Lee:** This is this is the UFO.
**Lee:** I've wanted to see all my life.
**Lee:** And I ran downstairs and I got my phone and I came back up and I videoed it and it looked like dog shit as they always do when you film something like that.
**Lee:** Miles away on your phone in the middle of the.
**Lee:** So I must have watched this thing for about 15, 20 minutes.
**Lee:** And I thought right.
**Lee:** I'm going to go to bed and I'm going to get up in the morning.
**Lee:** And I'm going to get my binoculars and I'm going to get up in the loft and I'm going to look at the skylight and I'm going to work out between those two chimneys roughly the direction I'm looking in.
**Lee:** And I'm going to make sure that there's nothing I can see it's not like a crane or something that's got a light attached to it or whatever.
**Lee:** And for some reason something's moving it or, you know, they're setting up a crane in the middle of the night.
**Lee:** Who knows?
**Chris:** That sounds like some good skeptical thinking you've got going on here.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** But but I was like but none of these things fit what I'm seeing.
**Lee:** This is but I want to be 100.
**Lee:** And I was like then I'll get Google Earth up and I'll look at a Google Maps, plot it out so I can make sure there's nothing in my eyeline.
**Lee:** So I go back to sleep.
**Lee:** And then I wake up this morning.
**Lee:** And I woke up and I was like before you look, just lay there for a good 10 minutes and just allow your mind to remember exactly what you were seeing and exactly what it looked like.
**Lee:** So I did all of that.
**Lee:** And then I sat up and I looked out the window and I went, oh.
**Lee:** It's a street light and the guts have fallen out of it.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** So it was the light hanging on the wire and assuming, I still couldn't see it, I could still only see the street light, but I could see the street light the top of it was exactly where it was.
**Lee:** So obviously the light had fallen out and was pointing the other way, so I could only see the dim back of it and then when the wind blew it and it turned to me, that was when it was flashing and it's funny figure of eight was obviously when the wind blew it and it was blowing at the end of its cable.
**Lee:** But it looked.
**Chris:** I can imagine that probably did look pretty good at night.
**Lee:** Yeah, again, so it's back to the thing we said about, you know, when people say they see stuff and we go, we don't believe it.
**Lee:** So we think they're just fucking liars.
**Lee:** Like it definitely is very easy to be tricked.
**Chris:** Yeah, when how many follow up like you did?
**Lee:** Yeah, we again, it's only because I I looked out and immediately went, where's the fucking lamp post there.
**Lee:** I couldn't see the frame of the lamp post in the dark because it was too dark, so I had no idea that this that the light had been hanging underneath.
**Chris:** And you can do that because it's near your house.
**Chris:** But if it had been, you know, some distance where you'd been somewhere else.
**Lee:** Well, this is the thing.
**Lee:** It looked.
**Chris:** You couldn't necessarily have been able to.
**Lee:** It looked like a massive light that was about two or three miles away.
**Lee:** But it wasn't, it was a street light 300 yards away.
**Chris:** Facing the wrong way.
**Lee:** Just the bulb hanging in the.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was a bulb dangling in the wind.
**Lee:** Bastard.
**Lee:** Anyway.
**Lee:** So yes.
**Adam:** Beautiful song.
**Lee:** So it wasn't thankfully morphs and I'm still not a believer, but anyway, that's my my alien story for the so, Chris, I'm assuming.
**Lee:** Being the massive sci-fi nerd that you are, this is not the first time you've seen Alien.
**Chris:** It's not, but it's 1979 and I didn't see this for a very long time, and I have mentioned this before.
**Chris:** But I saw Aliens and loved that that was like just one of the best teenage films that, you know, that we watched as teenagers, like it was just it was the perfect blend of action, sci-fi.
**Chris:** But not much horror in Aliens as we've said, and then yeah, I I can't remember actually when I first saw Alien.
**Chris:** I I this is this may be the third time now.
**Chris:** and yeah, so so what I did want to check was both of your backgrounds as well.
**Chris:** With regards to did you see Alien first?
**Adam:** I saw.
**Adam:** Actually, I saw it really ass about tech.
**Adam:** I saw Alien, Alien 3 and then finally saw Aliens.
**Chris:** Oh, that's interesting.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** But Aliens was for certainly for me and Leeds sort of generation.
**Adam:** I think was the big one because that was the one that came out in the video shop.
**Adam:** And it was.
**Adam:** Everyone had seen it.
**Adam:** So, I hadn't, but I knew pretty much everyone had seen Aliens.
**Adam:** So, yeah, at that point it was so, yeah, I saw it completely ass about tech.
**Adam:** Because I saw a pirate of Alien 3.
**Adam:** just just before it came out the cinema, so like 92.
**Chris:** What what was the quality like? Because it's quite a dark film.
**Adam:** It.
**Adam:** Believe me it was it was shonky as it was just it looked as.
**Chris:** Is there more to it or?
**Adam:** I I can't remember to be honest all I do remember is my mate showed it to me.
**Adam:** And fast forwarded through the credits so that all the explanation of how the fuck she's on the prison planet didn't actually make any sense.
**Chris:** Yeah, could have.
**Adam:** And then he had to spend the next 10 minutes keep interrupting all the action in the film to tell me what he could have what I could have believed by having seen it.
**Adam:** Could have, yeah.
**Adam:** Just without someone fast forwarding through the fucking opening.
**Lee:** Without knowing who this was, what a pillock.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You do know yes, it was a bloody stupid thing, but but there we go.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** So I saw Alien, Alien 3 then Aliens.
**Adam:** Pretty much.
**Adam:** After I saw basically it was like Alien 3, someone's got it around their house, let's all go and watch it.
**Adam:** And then it's like I seen Aliens yet.
**Adam:** So I then watched Aliens.
**Adam:** But yeah, that was that was the way around I did it.
**Chris:** I don't.
**Chris:** Yeah, I don't think you necessarily needed to, but but yeah.
**Chris:** Like so Lee.
**Chris:** What what was your order of screening?
**Lee:** Now, this is showing my cards early.
**Lee:** so I saw Alien and went.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** And then that was it.
**Chris:** I mean, you did you did give us that.
**Chris:** Hint, which I was I was like, oh, this I'm shocked, but fair enough.
**Chris:** Let's let's get into that when we do.
**Lee:** When I watched it.
**Lee:** I think I saw Aliens.
**Lee:** Once.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Did I?
**Lee:** Yes, I think I did.
**Lee:** And again, went and walked away and never came back.
**Lee:** And then literally about five years ago.
**Lee:** I had this conversation with my brother and we were like, yeah.
**Lee:** I've watched them both once.
**Lee:** like they were fine.
**Lee:** Don't think I ever really need to go back and watch them again.
**Lee:** Because I don't think I could give a shit.
**Chris:** And and what was his response?
**Lee:** His response was right.
**Lee:** For Christmas, he bought me the Blu-ray box set of the anthologynology and he was like, you need to go back and rewatch them.
**Chris:** Nice work Dean, fully on board with that.
**Lee:** I've made a mistake.
**Adam:** I I was fairly certain that that would have been D re action to be honest.
**Chris:** Stop messing around Lee.
**Lee:** And he was like, look, we can all be in a bad head space and make a mistake now and again.
**Lee:** Let's not get caught up in it.
**Lee:** But is the box set.
**Lee:** Don't be a lemon or you liar.
**Chris:** So we may find out some.
**Lee:** So I rewatched all of them and I also wait.
**Chris:** So all I'll go on.
**Chris:** All five.
**Lee:** All four.
**Chris:** Four.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** And then went.
**Lee:** And that was it.
**Lee:** I went to the IMAX and watched Prometheus.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Again, and this is the thing, I just I always yeah.
**Lee:** It's it's not that I would say it's a shit film.
**Lee:** I always go, oh, yeah.
**Lee:** It's fine.
**Lee:** But I never, I never owned it and it I never went, oh, I wish I could watch that now.
**Lee:** And I've had it sitting on my shelf since Dean bought it for me.
**Lee:** And I watched all of them in the space of about a week, pretty much night after night.
**Lee:** And then put the box set away and have never given a shit again.
**Lee:** And that's kind of.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** I I think it's Ridley Scott.
**Lee:** If I'm honest.
**Lee:** I I love like I love like there's so much behind the story.
**Lee:** Sorry, I don't want to get all carried away.
**Lee:** But I I wanna get.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Quickly.
**Lee:** Like all the idea of the different stages of the xenomorph and the look of it and the feel of the spaceships and they're lived in and all of that is phenomenal.
**Lee:** It's beyond question.
**Lee:** The acting is amazing.
**Lee:** The like everything is great.
**Lee:** I can't I just can't stick his pacing.
**Lee:** And you're going to hate me, but I'm the same with Blade Runner.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I will say Blade Runner is amazing.
**Lee:** I've still only seen it three fucking times.
**Lee:** I own it four formats, but I've still only seen it three times.
**Chris:** I do what I just just going to say.
**Chris:** Quick side thing on that, right I heard someone say about Blade Runner, how impressed they were with Harrison Ford because he gave the best scene to.
**Chris:** Rutger Hauer.
**Chris:** And.
**Chris:** I'd never thought of it that way, but it's like that is such an amazing scene.
**Chris:** And yeah, Harrison Ford didn't get it, but yeah.
**Adam:** But I think I think actually I mean, I'm I think it's I'm glad that it's very much it's not that you don't like it.
**Adam:** It's just oh, it's a competently made film that passed the time as it were.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's not like it's not something that has actively aggravated you.
**Adam:** But I know what you mean.
**Adam:** I think because the weird thing is is that because obviously it's Aliens like the horror film.
**Adam:** Then Aliens is action.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Alien 3 is for a very specific depressed goth from the 90s.
**Adam:** Which is me.
**Adam:** and and I'm sorry, but vote Adam on art, but that man is wrong about Alan Alien 3.
**Adam:** So just.
**Chris:** He he yeah, I I remember the discussion.
**Chris:** He he didn't like that.
**Adam:** Didn't he.
**Adam:** Yeah, but watch watch the assembly cut, that's the key with Alien 3.
**Adam:** Watch the one that was kind of David Fincher's version.
**Chris:** I mean, I remember enjoying it.
**Chris:** I've only seen it the once when it came out, but.
**Lee:** I am going to watch it.
**Lee:** Because actually having watched this, I then started watching Aliens today and I've got about 20 minutes left of it.
**Lee:** But I had to break away to come and watch this.
**Lee:** And I've got to say, I I this is the thing, I picked for both of them, I picked the theatrical cut.
**Lee:** And with Alien, I was like, come on mate.
**Lee:** Like and that's the thing, like it's got some such incredibly focal scenes in it that are just, you know, that have just been mimicked on everything and everyone knows them.
**Lee:** And they're they're.
**Chris:** The John Hurt scene.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But he still manages to make that two-hour film drag to holy.
**Lee:** Holy fuck.
**Chris:** That is so funny, I do not find it drags at all.
**Adam:** Give the director's cut a try.
**Adam:** Because the director's cut has more scenes and is shorter.
**Lee:** Oh, if I knew it was short, I'd have fucking watched that.
**Lee:** I was like I I I know the original is two hours, I'm not watching a fucking two hour 45 minute dick Waggle where I have to sit through more dark spaces.
**Adam:** It's about 15 minutes shorter, same as Blade Runner is the weird thing whenever Ridley Scott does a director's cut.
**Adam:** He's almost like he's I think he follows actually your advice.
**Adam:** He's very much, oh, I could have tightened that up a bit.
**Chris:** But yeah, so what does he take out then? I mean, it must it can't be anything that gets in the way of the story, but.
**Chris:** Is it is it just small bits here and there or?
**Adam:** The director's there's some there's some more there's some more interaction between the crew, the main thing and this is this leads into one of the sort of.
**Adam:** Not myths, but sort of things of Alien is towards the end when after when Ripley is going back to the shuttle.
**Adam:** She finds Dallas intomed in the Aliens.
**Adam:** And stuff.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** You know how they find Yeah, you know how they find the the colonists in Aliens it's like that.
**Adam:** And it's meant to be I think Brett's in the corner dead, but he's turning into an egg and Dallas basically says kill me and he's about to have the an alien burst out of his chest.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Now this is another thing that I made a note of, but I only made a note of it, I watched the entire film and made next to no notes and then after it, I went, was there a score in that?
**Lee:** And then suddenly went.
**Lee:** Hang on a minute, apart from the chest burster, nobody fucking dies, you don't see anybody die.
**Lee:** People people see the alien and then you don't hear from them again.
**Lee:** I was like, we never see anybody actually get murdered.
**Lee:** And there's never any blood or anything.
**Lee:** And I was like.
**Lee:** Hang on a fucking.
**Chris:** Do you not.
**Lee:** I don't.
**Chris:** What the Brett scene, in my head, the Brett scene, you see him die.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** Brett, you you see Brett get attacked and dragged up into the ceiling, you definitely see Parker get his head smashed in with the little the inner mouth.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Adam:** It punches through his skull.
**Adam:** so there are a couple and.
**Adam:** It's not the alien who kills him, but you see Ash die.
**Chris:** Well, I was going to say.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean that that that is so that's one of the big things for me is the whole bringing in the Android I and that to me is a big horror aspect of this film as well.
**Chris:** The way he one is meant to be bringing back the Alien and so and then it brings in the idea of the corporation caring about getting a weapon over people.
**Chris:** But then the way Ash messes up as well is quite significant, I think.
**Adam:** It is and it's also a weird thing.
**Adam:** Going through because I was going through and in my head, Ian Holm is quite a sort of.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** He's that cuddly of an uncle.
**Adam:** And I think it's literally because he plays fucking Bilbo Baggins and because of the Fifth Element.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, he he can play quite a dark.
**Adam:** But when you actually go back through his fucking roles before Alien, he played more fucking Nazis than Mr. Bronson.
**Lee:** See now I only from Alien.
**Lee:** And from.
**Lee:** And both of them he's fucking Satan.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He is.
**Adam:** He does play a lot of evil bastards in my head.
**Adam:** I'm like, oh, it's cuddly and home, I sort of bracket him with like Richard Bryers or something.
**Adam:** It's like, actually, no.
**Adam:** When I think about it, he is always a shit and film.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But you're always but you're always playing a surprising shit.
**Lee:** He always plays who's really nice.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, I trust him every time and he's always an asshole.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's.
**Adam:** It's Brazil's the other thing where he's just like like a hapless office manager in Brazil who's kind of like just out of his depth.
**Adam:** But other than that, yeah, he's always bastards.
**Adam:** So it's just a weird thing.
**Adam:** But that's one because obviously like we we were talking about, but that's one of the things that deviated from the original script was because the Ash's role was going to be fulfilled by mother, like the onboard computer.
**Chris:** Oh, even that.
**Chris:** That's what I said like that.
**Chris:** The way when Ripley is communicating with the with mother and the way that Ash is communicating with mother, like that that is such a good element throughout.
**Chris:** I thought.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, sorry.
**Chris:** Go on.
**Adam:** Go on.
**Adam:** And and it's that but it's that plainness as well.
**Adam:** But they kind of the original script had six six members of the crew.
**Adam:** And then they brought in Ash as basically as a sort of double agent sort of figure.
**Adam:** And then while they were this was during rewrites, not Dan O' Bannon's like other people rewrites.
**Adam:** And they made Ash like a sort of double agent figure.
**Adam:** And then actually the twist about him being a robot was literally because.
**Adam:** One of the guys was like, right, so we get to this point where they're confronting him.
**Adam:** And what happens?
**Adam:** And he said, they punch his head off.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And then like, oh, so he's a robot.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I don't think he'd just said they punch his head off, but you know.
**Adam:** He's like.
**Lee:** And they just yes, ended it.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But the problem is this creates the biggest fucking plot holes for me in this entire movie.
**Lee:** Which.
**Chris:** You're going.
**Lee:** Again, it's funny because I saw you getting very frustrated earlier when I said the word Prometheus and it looked like you looked like you were going to try and punch the phone.
**Lee:** And I know a lot of alien like serious fans are the same and they're like, oh, that film's so full of plot holes.
**Lee:** And I'm like, hang on a minute.
**Chris:** They all are.
**Lee:** This film is exactly the same.
**Lee:** So the plan was.
**Lee:** So they sent this entire group out there knowing they were sending this alien, this this alien.
**Lee:** Fucking hell.
**Lee:** This robot as a like as a a mole because the whole thing was to just get this alien thing and bring it back.
**Lee:** Right, one, why did they take the whole ship full of people?
**Lee:** Why don't they just put a robot on a fucking ship and send it to get it and then bring it back.
**Lee:** He could have done that.
**Lee:** Or two, they could have not woken the whole crew up.
**Lee:** They were all in stasis.
**Chris:** And just left.
**Lee:** Just get the robot up, park the ship, put it in a box, put it in a fucking cat carrier, that cat carrier thing that she puts Jones in, stick it somewhere, bring it back to earth and then just hang the over.
**Lee:** Oh, no, I just said to say well, I've never said that on this podcast, I'm going to have to bleep that now.
**Lee:** Anyway, right.
**Lee:** Again, so the whole film is entirely negated, none of those people need to die, they could have just sent a fucking robot like a man with a van.
**Lee:** And none of this needed to have happened.
**Adam:** The point is that you know when they say about do you know anything about about Ash and Dallas says, I've had the same science officer and then on this time they changed him they changed.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's because the company have received the noticed the signal.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so they send him on board as a thing to like basically let's go and check this out because it might be aliens.
**Adam:** But we want we don't know what it is.
**Lee:** Yeah, but this is my point, so just put a robot in a spaceship and send.
**Lee:** You don't have to take all the that that cost all those people and that ship.
**Chris:** What.
**Lee:** Just put a robot in a shuttle and send them there.
**Chris:** I'm wondering, did they need did they need a human to trigger the eggs?
**Lee:** We don't know that.
**Lee:** They don't know.
**Adam:** We don't know.
**Adam:** That's why they literally as an exploratory thing.
**Lee:** And even if they did know that, what they're going to end up with is a Xenomorph.
**Lee:** What they want is a face hugger, so they can learn the whole thing.
**Chris:** So you're viewing this as a plot hole from the corporation's perspective.
**Chris:** As in they could have just done this completely.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** But let's say.
**Adam:** The the the from a from a company point of view, you send someone out and find out.
**Adam:** It's just this is just a random beacon that's been left there, you get them on their way.
**Chris:** That's that's a massive mission for nothing.
**Adam:** You send that's why they're not that's why they don't send Marines.
**Adam:** They send a bunch of space like.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** So if that's the case, so they have sent this this robot with them.
**Lee:** And they've done this massive, they've gone off, they've picked up their hole.
**Lee:** They've come back, they've now woken them all up out of stasis.
**Lee:** You're talking about days, weeks in between.
**Lee:** They wake up within about 20 minutes, Ripley has gone, this isn't an SOS, this is a warning.
**Lee:** So, how come the corporation didn't work this out.
**Lee:** Before they substituted the medical officer for a robot and go, it's a warning.
**Lee:** There's something out there.
**Lee:** This definitely isn't an SOS, we need to investigate this.
**Lee:** More thoroughly.
**Lee:** Before sending loads of people.
**Adam:** You investigate by sending a bunch of pa in and see what happens.
**Adam:** If they don't come back.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** If she'd have finished deciphering the message, if she deciphered half of the message in 20 minutes.
**Lee:** Just put the fucking launch off by an hour and a half and you'd have the full fucking message.
**Lee:** Warning.
**Lee:** Big exploding motherfuckers.
**Lee:** They're going to pop out your chest.
**Lee:** They start off like fucking squids.
**Lee:** Then they're going to pop out your chest.
**Lee:** And then you've got a big skull headed penis thing, right?
**Lee:** Just read the message, it's fine, you can manage that.
**Lee:** Are you not a fan of.
**Chris:** Of Geer's artwork either.
**Lee:** Oh, I fucking love Geer.
**Lee:** And that's the thing.
**Lee:** That's I think that's why I find it.
**Chris:** He does he does have a few more big big penises in his actual artwork, doesn't he?
**Lee:** He does have.
**Adam:** He does a lot of penises.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** It's a lot of penises.
**Adam:** It's it's a a penis what I would describe as a penis jamboree.
**Chris:** But a very twisted.
**Lee:** The other thing.
**Lee:** Again, not to point out a plot point.
**Lee:** But it's.
**Lee:** Fucking lucky that Xenomorph looked exactly like the inside of a shuttle, otherwise that thing would have been fucked if it had tried to come out.
**Adam:** It they do look a lot like pipes on a lot of different planets, it has to be said.
**Adam:** That's.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** If the escape pod had looked like the room that they all sat and had lunch in, it'd have been fucked because there's no way it'd have hidden in that big white Star Wars looking room.
**Lee:** It'd have had it they'd have got him in no time.
**Lee:** But luckily for him, it was a very dark penis shaped.
**Adam:** A very dark penis shape room.
**Adam:** And that's that's.
**Adam:** And that is the that that's what the company wanted.
**Adam:** They were specific.
**Adam:** They were like, right, we want to send truckers to make sure they get fucked up.
**Adam:** Because we want because that's the thing is you don't send anyone important.
**Adam:** You send a group of people who if this lot really fuck up, doesn't matter if they don't come back.
**Adam:** And actually.
**Adam:** That's one of the best I think that's one of the best things about Aliens is the very start where it's basically Ripley has a has a tribunal with a fucking insurance company about.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** You've said about an alien, all we know is that you a big spaceship of ours got lost.
**Adam:** You're like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, which according to you was 60 fucking years ago, if you've not written that off you fucking shit houses, you fucking need to ask yourself some accounting questions.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But that.
**Lee:** It is it's like the.
**Lee:** Red Wolf thing where he's left the light on and they send him the the
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But that's the other thing I kept getting with this, yeah, was Red Wolf like the outside shots and the music is exactly the same.
**Lee:** I was like, is the opening of fucking Red Wolf.
**Lee:** Every time.
**Adam:** Well, even even the bit towards the end after they set off the self-destruct button.
**Adam:** Which again, cars do not have self-destruct buttons.
**Adam:** Ships do not have self-destruct buttons, planes do not have self-destruct buttons.
**Adam:** Why the.
**Adam:** Fucking spaceships always have self-destruct buttons, I can understand military vehicles.
**Adam:** But like, you know, a bloke hauling petrol, well, he doesn't need a self-destruct button, all he needs is a cigarette lighter and a fucking a bit of imagination.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, it's I've always queried self-destruct buttons in science fiction.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** It isn't it isn't the guffin that's just always been there.
**Lee:** And and that's the problem because it's always been there, you never question it and then you just go, oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Why does nothing in real life have a self-destruct?
**Lee:** Because you'd never need it.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Lee:** You wouldn't.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** But it's but when she's running and they've got like those yellow hazard lights on and stuff, that is purely ripped off in Red Dwarf from fucking series.
**Adam:** That's why.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Series 3 onwards.
**Adam:** That that scene is pretty much in every other episode of Red Dwarf.
**Adam:** And if you watch the director's cut.
**Adam:** Of Aliens, it features the captain, Captain Hollister from Red Dwarf.
**Adam:** Is one of the colonists.
**Adam:** MacDonald because he's one of the three Americans who lives in England that always ends up in these things.
**Lee:** Like William Hootkins.
**Lee:** From Star Wars and Batman.
**Lee:** You know, he's just one of those guys is just always in these things.
**Adam:** But actually, speaking of Red Wolf, one of the things that I'm as I'm watching it with Claire is there's the bit where you first see when Brett first sees the alien.
**Adam:** And it's just slobbering and the mouth open.
**Adam:** And Claire did in her best Norman Love it voice, I can see right down your gob.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** For Red Dwarf and that yeah, that that that that got it.
**Adam:** But it was.
**Adam:** But no, I I I think I'll be I'll be honest.
**Adam:** I so I decided I was going to watch it, so I wanted to watch Aliens as well.
**Adam:** Because it turns out Claire had only seen Prometheus.
**Adam:** And at that point, I was like, oh, that explains why you've never bothered to watch any of the others.
**Chris:** So I watched for you.
**Chris:** For this.
**Chris:** And.
**Chris:** Did you?
**Chris:** It I thought it was okay.
**Chris:** I didn't I didn't hate it.
**Chris:** But I had no real expectation at all.
**Chris:** It was like.
**Lee:** I need to rewatch it.
**Chris:** I I just don't know.
**Chris:** It's more Aliens.
**Chris:** It's good.
**Chris:** It's it's a bit like it's a bit like more Star Wars, it could be absolutely rubbish.
**Chris:** I'd still be kind of happy to watch it.
**Adam:** I think that's my problem with it is because I care too much about it.
**Adam:** Although weirdly enough, on this rewatch, Alien, stone cold, fucking love it, can't can't complain about it.
**Adam:** Aliens, good.
**Adam:** Alien 3, I love it, but I have I admit I've got emotional problems, so, you know.
**Adam:** And there's nothing that works for you.
**Adam:** It combines two things I like which is a cruel universe and lots of British character actors.
**Adam:** So I'm very happy.
**Adam:** And I must admit, I got to like Thursday night and then it was like, should I watch Alien Resurrection?
**Adam:** And then I thought, no, fuck it.
**Adam:** I can't be assed and started rewatching Sapphire and Steel because David Mcm was dead.
**Lee:** So, RIP David Mcm.
**Adam:** RIP.
**Adam:** But so I was like, they'll watch Alien 3 and then Alien 4 rather, Alien Resurrection, and then I just thought, nah, because then I'll probably have to watch Prometheus.
**Adam:** And I've still not seen Alien Covenant, I'll be honest.
**Chris:** I I did want to watch that as well after watching for me, but I didn't quite manage it in time.
**Chris:** But I I will do now.
**Chris:** I'm going to do them all.
**Adam:** I'm I'm sort of defining it as the Ripley trilogy now because technically in Alien Resurrection, it's not Ripley.
**Adam:** It's a clone of Ripley half alien and at that point, I was like, it's the first alien film.
**Adam:** I saw at the cinema and in 1998, I was perfectly prepared to think that's a cool idea.
**Adam:** In 2023, I'm like, that is the most clicheed load of old shit, excuse to get Weaver back in after they killed her off.
**Adam:** And yeah, I just can't be.
**Adam:** Asked.
**Adam:** So I'm I'm I'm definitely I'm still Alien.
**Adam:** I'm still very much in.
**Adam:** But for me, I'm now I'm going to do like Terminator.
**Adam:** Where there's only two Terminator films and don't listen to anyone else who tells you that there's anything more.
**Adam:** And much the same as far as I'm concerned, this three alien films and everything else is just.
**Adam:** In the wild imaginings of other people who don't know how reality works.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** I'll I'll I'll give you Claire's notes.
**Adam:** From of so first of all, passes the back test.
**Adam:** and she's put here I think that's how it's spelled, which is the same as checking.
**Adam:** So we she's doing doing sterling work there.
**Adam:** So obviously the beckle test or the beckle Wallace test, which is a tool that is like a critical used in critical studies to see how whether a film passes master in terms of its representation of women.
**Adam:** In that do two women talk about anything other than a man.
**Adam:** Within the.
**Adam:** So this passes because.
**Adam:** obviously you've got Veronica Cartright and Weaver, they talk about the alien.
**Adam:** They talk about the navigation.
**Adam:** They talk.
**Chris:** They play significant critical yeah roles.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, so passes that test in the sense of actually and the next point was no one listens to fucking no one.
**Adam:** And fucking is in the fucking no one is in capital.
**Adam:** which is very true.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Yeah, there is a lot of especially the one thing that is a a running thing.
**Adam:** Through all the alien film, certainly all the three that I watched, which is when you find a weird membrane on the floor, do tell people.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Especially if you're aware there's like Alien and Aliens, definitely you should.
**Adam:** Hey guys, I've just found a like weird skin on the floor.
**Adam:** You know, maybe we want to talk about this.
**Adam:** But no.
**Adam:** the word God damn is used so often, it starts to feel like a made-up word.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Is there a tiny stasis pod for Jonesy?
**Adam:** I'd like to think there is.
**Adam:** it looks amazing.
**Adam:** The models look better than Star Wars in places.
**Lee:** Better than Aliens.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck me.
**Adam:** I I'll give him their due, I think that because this one is all in space, it's got nothing to go against.
**Adam:** But as soon as you start having like through clouds and pass buildings and stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It does start looking shonky in Aliens.
**Adam:** It's it's not great.
**Adam:** where are we.
**Adam:** never would have seen the droid twist coming.
**Adam:** Loved it.
**Adam:** Which is great because again, it was a bit like psycho where the Exorcist for Claire.
**Adam:** Where it's like, oh, I know Alien because I know the chest and it is a it is a big sequence, it is quite a it's a dramatic bit and but it's been parodied so much.
**Adam:** That that element has actually been kind of left out of the sort of.
**Chris:** I completely agree, that's what I was saying earlier, like for me, that really adds a lot to it.
**Chris:** I think that is one of the things that does make me like this film a lot more.
**Adam:** Dan O'Bannon hated it.
**Adam:** He said it was well acted, well directed, but I think he was just.
**Adam:** From what I gather, Dan O'Bannon who wrote the original scripts, which was called Star Beast before it was called Alien, so that could have been slightly shitter.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Then it.
**Adam:** It would have been because then the second film would have been Star Beasts and, you know, it's sort of yeah.
**Adam:** But anyway.
**Adam:** from but from what I gather in the end, I think Dan O'Bannon was like, you don't like literally any changes that were made to your script whatsoever.
**Adam:** Do you?
**Adam:** And, you know, that's kind of I think script writers kind of have to acknowledge that.
**Adam:** You pass it over to someone who will probably either, you know, I can't remember who it was, but someone said, oh.
**Adam:** Writing is great because it's like handing someone your children and they send them back disfigured.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Or mutilate, you know.
**Chris:** I'm going to come back come back to that point later when we discuss.
**Adam:** She also.
**Lee:** I am going to go on record now and this is going to bring a lot of hate down, I'm sure.
**Lee:** There have been some terrible things done in the history of the human race.
**Lee:** Some real terrible atrocities.
**Lee:** I don't think any of them can equal the fact that that film was never made.
**Adam:** Oh, mate, tell me about it.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Lee:** Like.
**Adam:** It's yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Right, so.
**Chris:** So I I completely I mean, I completely agree, like so I'd never heard of this at all until Adam posted it in the WhatsApp group the other day and yeah, like it's amazing to watch the documentary.
**Chris:** Until the bit where he said and then the planet takes on Paul's consciousness.
**Chris:** And flies around the universe.
**Chris:** Converting other planets.
**Chris:** Oh, and and it's all about raping.
**Chris:** I was like, okay.
**Chris:** You lost me.
**Chris:** I'll I'll I'll rewrite that bit of the script because that's mental.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Last bit.
**Adam:** But.
**Lee:** But like the like the whole lead up to that was just.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like could could not be more.
**Lee:** And absolutely the way they show that it was essentially became a gold mine for so many other films and scripts.
**Lee:** Like yeah.
**Lee:** It's fascinating.
**Lee:** But is it is it just that he he all of the things that he put together.
**Lee:** Was and maybe at the time just a bit too much, whereas taking taking parts of it out.
**Lee:** It really works in other films in a in a in a more popular way.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** I think also Chris because I think if they'd have made it.
**Adam:** The one group of people.
**Adam:** Who wouldn't have liked it are Dune fans.
**Adam:** Because he was.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** I don't know the story of June.
**Lee:** I've seen the first movie of the new ones, I couldn't even make it through that fucking David Lynch monstrosity.
**Lee:** And I started reading the book and I loved, I really loved it.
**Lee:** For the first three chapters and then didn't read it for three days and then was like, yeah, I don't think I need to go back to that.
**Lee:** And I don't know why.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Anyway.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think that definitely, I mean, maybe maybe we'll mini episode something about Jed's June in comparison to other Junes or something like that, but you know, it's no, it has to be said it's just a fucking tragedy that it didn't get made.
**Adam:** But also you know why it didn't get made.
**Adam:** Because of the amount of times that you'd clearly went into Hollywood finance and just said.
**Adam:** Fuck you, I am making spiritual warriors and I'm trying to emancipate the Xton that like, you know, changing people's minds and giving them an LSD trip without having to take LSD.
**Adam:** And at that point, I know that a lot of the Hollywood producers maybe just thought we're going to lose some money here, aren't we?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's not just that.
**Lee:** It's we're going to take the man who cooks for the best restaurant in Paris and have him the exclusive chef for Orson Wells for the duration of the filming.
**Adam:** Just to get Orson Wells in.
**Adam:** Or or the fact that it was.
**Adam:** Like the thing with Dolly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where it's like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** You want to.
**Lee:** 100,000.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** But what a fucking clever way of doing it.
**Lee:** So you're going to pay me $100,000 for every minute I'm on on set, yeah.
**Lee:** So what he does is.
**Chris:** So he's happy with that title.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So he has a robot made who replaces him, so we only have to have three minutes of him.
**Lee:** And the rest of him is a robot, which which loads of films.
**Lee:** The fucking Star Wars did it.
**Lee:** Later on with
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** No, it wasn't a robot.
**Adam:** You had many clones of the fucking Emperor.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and technically, I suppose it ends up as being Ash, you know, is that same thing.
**Adam:** Where you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Lee:** Oh, it's just, it's I know Adam was.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, but but coming back to to how it relates to Alien.
**Adam:** So obviously Dan O'Bannon was.
**Adam:** who who'd written this.
**Adam:** Who also wrote Dark Star.
**Lee:** Now we talked.
**Lee:** We talked about.
**Lee:** We talked a lot.
**Lee:** About this on.
**Lee:** On.
**Chris:** I remember yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We did for return of the living dead.
**Chris:** That was the John.
**Adam:** Directed.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But John Carpenter from Dark Star is basically Alien the comedy and it's so it's kind of like when people say about Red Wolf.
**Adam:** They do mention Dark Star because it's that same thing.
**Adam:** Of basically it is Alien.
**Adam:** Because it's a crew of bickering workers who are just more annoyed with the food and their bonuses.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Than about space exploration and they do have an alien on board.
**Adam:** But in Dark Star, it's played by a beach ball and a set of comedy monster hands.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Lee:** You're quite right.
**Lee:** We should have point that the reason Adam told us to watch Dursky's June is because the team who resembled.
**Lee:** For Dursky's June, a lot of them came together a couple of years later and made Alien because Dan O'Bannon was brought in.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Lee:** We should have mentioned that.
**Lee:** Because to anybody who just went, they were talking about alien and then they fucked off and talked about Dursky for 15 minutes for no reason whatsoever.
**Chris:** That's right.
**Chris:** There's no plot holes in this episode.
**Adam:** Is.
**Chris:** No, no, no, no.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** And you know they're not been told for 15 years and then they'll be pissed off at the sequel.
**Lee:** Apparently.
**Lee:** Thanks very much.

---

## Ep 179 We Have Been Watching Must Be Destroyed

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-179-we-have-been-watching-must-be-destroyed/
Air date: 24 September 2023
Duration: 00:38:53

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “We Have Been Watching Must Be Destroyed”. It’s another of our regular round ups of what the team having been shoving into their brain-faces. This time we discuss “Last Night In Soho”;“The Quatermass Experiment at 70”, The “Fear Street” trilogy; “The Babadook”; “47 Ronin”; “On The Silver Globe”; and “Final Destination”. With shout outs to Joe Watson, Nicholas Tomnay, Leadbelt Art and Doomshire Tapes. No prep needed, bur listeners beware, as here be (possible) spoilers and (definite) swearing. Join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we fucking lost Chris.
**Adam:** What's going on?
**Lee:** What's going on?
**Adam:** He's pressed the wrong button.
**Adam:** He hasn't pressed got it, he's pressed fuck it.
**Lee:** We, yes, yes, it's a
**Lee:** Here he is. All right, he's back, he's back.
**Adam:** He's back and he's got the combination.
**Lee:** There he is.
**Chris:** Surely you should tell it to never leave me in, carry on.
**Lee:** Welcome back. What did you do?
**Chris:** I clicked the button that said leave meeting because you'd clicked record instead of the button very close to it that says got it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Just just hit it. There you go.
**Lee:** Yay!
**Lee:** I'm leaving all that in.
**Lee:** Anyway, so,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Spoilers and swearing.
**Lee:** good evening. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam still.
**Lee:** Yay.
**Lee:** And now we are all actually still here for this evening's what we've been watching episode.
**Lee:** I have been a little bit laxed.
**Lee:** I've watched one thing which is technically three things, but we will get into that.
**Lee:** Before I do, Adam, I believe you have some housekeeping you would like to cover.
**Adam:** Yes, we've had quite a few people getting well, a few people getting contact, well, some people got in contact, more than usually happens for us.
**Adam:** So, you know, just wanted to give everyone a quick sort of shout out and let everyone know.
**Adam:** So, Ledbelt Arts been back in contact with us.
**Adam:** Now go and follow Ledbelt Art that is as it sounds on Instagram.
**Adam:** Brilliant artist, and that it was them who recommended Wild Zero to us, which was obviously Chris and Lee was.
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, yeah, so definitely go and give them a follow.
**Adam:** our good lad Joe Watson has been in contact, he was recommending again in search of darkness.
**Adam:** Now, that's the multi-part several hours worth of documentary, this is the 1990 to 1994 set of horror.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** And I really need to get on that, but he's been loving it and says, you know, we've definitely got to get on that and have a watch.
**Adam:** So that's a general recommendation to everyone because Joe has very good tastes.
**Adam:** I mean, he likes us.
**Chris:** He does.

---

## Ep 178 Peeping Tom

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-178-peeping-tom/
Air date: 10 September 2023
Duration: 00:37:27
Film: Peeping Tom · Year: 1960 · Director: Michael Powell

### Description

Last episode we watched “The Red Shoes”, considered by many to be the masterpiece of directors Powell and Pressburger, by contrast we now turn to the film that practically ended Michael Powell’s career, as we discuss 1960’s “Peeping Tom”. A film in which we learn that a surprise lizard is an excellent substitute for a child’s alarm clock; that even a policeman involved in a serious investigation can become a slave to hot jazz rhythms; and that sometimes cold blooded murder is the only way to stop someone dancing around like a tit. A British counterpart to Hitchcock’s “Psycho” from the same year, “Peeping Tom” was released to near universal condemnation, for both its serial killer plot and portrayal of the seedy underbelly of ‘respectable’ England. It gradually experienced a renaissance; becoming an acknowledged early prototype of the slasher film, as well as taking its rightful place alongside the other jewels in Michael Powell’s crown. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Adam:** And we are here for the second part of this directors special month covering 1960s Peeping Tom.
**Lee:** a film that I've not seen before either, so yes.
**Chris:** Yeah, and this none of us have seen this one.
**Adam:** Oh no, I had.
**Chris:** Oh, you had? Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Cuz typically enough it's like, you know, Powell and Pressburger like we discussed on the last episode, considered to be sort of like finest British directors pretty much of all time. But of course the one that I had to see was the sleezy one that ruined Michael Powell's career.
**Chris:** Oh that's that's interesting. Yeah, okay. I I either didn't remember the details you gave us last time, but so yeah, all right, well that will be quite interesting to get into then.
**Chris:** Because, yeah, okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's a weird one.
**Adam:** So well, as I am the only person who had seen it before.
**Lee:** Lee.
**Adam:** Yeah. what's come to you first, what were your thoughts on pooping Tim? Sorry. Peeping Tom.
**Lee:** I really enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to.
**Chris:** Cool.
**Lee:** It's one of those films that's always on clip shows and films you must see and those type of things.
**Lee:** So I was obviously very aware of it.
**Lee:** But yeah, it just never really appealed to me to watch.
**Lee:** And I I'm gutted really because it's just excellent.
**Lee:** I mean the performances alone are absolutely exceptional.
**Lee:** And it's and as you say, I think the problem is I was expecting it because of the uproar it calls to be a lot more graphic and a lot more unpleasant than it actually is.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** Obviously it's because it was way before slash. It's funny, you know that people were in such an uproar and then you're like 20 years later every third movie is going to be like this and they're going to be way loads of, you know, way more gore and really graphic and or tasteless.
**Lee:** Whereas I thought this was quite I thought it was really well handled.
**Lee:** It wasn't gratuitous and yeah, I I I thought it was a fantastic movie.
**Adam:** Oh, fantastic. And and Chris, where where do you sit my dear?
**Chris:** Yeah, so after watching Red Shoes.
**Chris:** Then you can see this there's a lot of, you know, similarities perhaps, but it seems well shot and well directed. And yeah, there's there's a lot in there that I was thinking you know what was it, it was 1960.
**Adam:** It's 1960, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, so it does, you know, again similar to Red Shoes, it seems more modern than I would have expected.
**Chris:** Now I still I'm perhaps not used to the different eras fully.
**Chris:** But yeah, they really did cover a lot like the psychology of it, did seem it was perhaps harder hitting than I would have expected.
**Adam:** Yes, and I think that's part of the I think that was part of its sort of like the reaction it called.
**Chris:** It was so yeah.
**Chris:** So it was funny setting me up it's called Peeping Tom. I would say that's not the best title necessarily, at least for me.
**Adam:** It's an awful name, yeah.
**Chris:** It hasn't quite got the I wouldn't have connected it fully from what I expected. I expected a cheaper film than it is, right?
**Chris:** So and then the start was quite.
**Chris:** So I know Lee you said it's not graphic, but it was still that seemed again quite hard hitting for the time.
**Chris:** To go straight into a like a the footage of the camera you were like we're not messing around this is, you know, Yeah.
**Adam:** POV murder and POV POV I'm going to say POV used correctly, not as in how people think POV works online for some reason.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas it's like POV. No, what you mean is this is you doing this, not.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, but anyway.
**Chris:** So yeah, so so what yeah, you know, there is, I think there was a lot to unpack in this. It like it was quite you know, it was quite intense or quite tense for a lot of it, I'd say.
**Chris:** it may have been my mood, but it I sort of felt like Red Shoes had a few more lighter bits throughout but perhaps I just didn't get them as much.
**Lee:** I think.
**Adam:** Oh no, I think.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Lee:** I put a lot of it down to Mark's the performance of the character Mark. Even when he was doing very normal things, he managed to do it in such a horrendously creepy way.
**Chris:** Could be.
**Lee:** It was amazing.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, that's it. And it's like that is perhaps what they're going for, fair enough.
**Adam:** He really watching it this time round that character it really reminded me he really reminded me of Peter Lorre.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's not just the accent, it was very much that same sort of thing of just off.
**Adam:** You know, although although weirdly enough, I think still in an oddly sympathetic way in so much as at least you sort of get some insight into why he is like.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, no, that was that was interesting, definitely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's and I love the fact, it's interesting that like Helen's mum is blind, but that means that she only she doesn't get taken in by handsome young blonde chat. She just is aware of everything else and kind of has built a picture of know your you're not right. There's something wrong here.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and he is nice, you know, he's not like he's not but but it's also funny how he's I mean he's he's quite introverted, I guess, and but it's funny how people are warm to him and like you say, yeah, he's attractive and seems harmless enough and is relatively pleasant when you speak to him.
**Chris:** Offering you drinks when he doesn't have one, but then he has some milk, you know, it's like.
**Chris:** But he's quite he's quite likeable, you know, once you sort of get past the fact that he's just off being distant and trying to be unapproachable.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's a lot of people take it a lot of people seem to take it that he's either because he's young because he's nervous or he's shy.
**Adam:** Which he is, but it's because there's a far worse secret going on other than I'm introverted or whatever like that, you know, he's.
**Chris:** I I am actually psychologically disturbed.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but interesting enough when I was reading about it.
**Adam:** The the script the script writer, guy called Leo Marx.
**Adam:** he worked he was a cryptographer.
**Adam:** Basically and he was part of what were they called the the Special Operations Executive.
**Adam:** Which is basically the spy the spy group that was set up during World War II.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** whose role was conducting espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in territories occupied by the Axis powers and aiding local resistance movements.
**Adam:** And so something else.
**Chris:** Cool stuff.
**Adam:** Well they called the Baker Street Irregulars which I kind of like they're nickname.
**Adam:** but he was actually there as his role was prepping agents to not reveal codes and security details under torture.
**Adam:** And so he basically basically he was sort of he was into codes and cryptography and stuff like that, but he was also into psychoanalysis, particularly Freud.
**Adam:** And so he there's a quote from him which was all when he was sort of training agents, all I had to do during these exercises was to watch them unobtrusively, to photograph them when they were coding, I became convinced that all cryptographers are basically voyeurs.
**Adam:** Which really sort of speaks to the film and how it sort of developed and everything. but yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's weird because it comes out the same year as Psycho.
**Adam:** And feels and I think there's a lot not just the fact that it's like a a serial killer film or a slasher film, proto slasher film, but the fact you've got like a sympathetic but ultimately evil young man at the at the heart of it.
**Chris:** And what's funny is one was caused by the dad and one was caused by the mom.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But also but but really in a weird way, Michael Powell was probably in a similar sort of way to how Alfred Hitchcock was, was very much like already a known director who was lauded and had done a lot of films.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** But the weird thing is Psycho basically renews Hitchcock's career and leads and is a massive success and leads on to him going on further and everything.
**Adam:** Whereas Michael Powell, it was basically this got pulled out of distribution after about 10 days.
**Chris:** So Yeah, okay, so you said this at the start, so.
**Chris:** So what this was a serious this just like.
**Adam:** Yeah, basically he was he was up and coming or he he had some good hits already.
**Adam:** Well, he he'd done the Red Shoes, he'd done like Matter of Life and Death.
**Adam:** sorry, Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus.
**Adam:** Basically he this was sort of like him a lot of the big stuff that he'd done was him with Emeric Pressburger who was the co-director on the Red Shoes.
**Adam:** And then they sort of went their separate ways and Emeric Pressburger basically went on to be a script writer and Michael Powell continued as a director.
**Adam:** and he did some more films and at this point, because when Powell and Pressburger's stuff was first coming out, the public really liked it and the critics were sort of look warm.
**Adam:** But by this point, they were actually doing retrospectives of their films from like the past 20 years and saying, look at this amazing stuff that these people have done and everything.
**Adam:** And then I think possibly it was like all the critics were like, oh, Michael Powell's doing a new film.
**Adam:** And then this comes out and they're so utterly sort of nonplussed but like completely sort of thrown by it.
**Adam:** And it was I think it was partially the subject matter, partially the fact that it's kind of like actually about the seedier side of cinema and photography and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Because obviously you've got he's a glamour photographer.
**Adam:** and then they've also sort of like the the film in inverted commas that he tells Vivian that he's making out of hours, which could possibly be a skin flick or something like that.
**Adam:** And just the like the bit where I mean, that is a pure that feels very Hitchcock because like you said, there's few and far laughs in there, but there are a few.
**Adam:** And like the bit in the news agents where Miles Malton comes in and have you got views.
**Adam:** And he's just going he's just going through the book like yes. Oh yes.
**Adam:** And I think again that was like a thing where a lot of people were like, no, that's you know, you can't be saying that. That's not respectable people do.
**Adam:** pretty much yes.
**Chris:** So this was kind of showing a truth of society and a lot of people were not too keen on that.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think so.
**Lee:** I commented on that. The fact that they're in a news agent and it's just absolutely covered with photographs of topless women.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That young girl just comes and picks up a, you know, bar of candy or whatever it is.
**Lee:** And I'm just like yeah, that's not on. You can't just no, that's terrible.
**Adam:** But but then weirdly enough, I mean, it's only probably sort of even the 90s onwards was the time when suddenly it was like, oh yeah, we're not going to have nudy pinup calendars in public areas or whatever like that, you know, and sort of.
**Adam:** I think it's you know, it was definitely saying something about the time and obviously this is Britain just pre Swinging 60s really.
**Adam:** So it's still that sort of 50s, well we've won the war and now we're rebuilding and isn't everything jolly and actually no, there's this sort of very dark underbelly to that.
**Adam:** but I I had to I had to print out some of these review quotes because frankly, I'd put them on the fucking poster.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you would you would be it this would sell your film brilliantly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But so the spectator went with the sickest, filthiest film I remember seeing.
**Adam:** the Daily Express leads with more nauseating and depressing than the leper colonies of East Pakistan, the back streets of Bombay and the gutters of Calcutta.
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Lee:** The Evening Standard just went with loathsome.
**Adam:** I mean, Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** essentially vicious, the Sunday Times.
**Adam:** Averted nonsense.
**Adam:** And I love this from its slumbering mildly salacious beginnings to its appallingly masochistic and depraved climax, this film is wholly evil from the Daily Worker.
**Adam:** And apparently Michael Powell's favorite quote was from the Tribune paper, which was the only really satisfactory way to dispose of Peeping Tom would be to shovel it up and flush it swiftly down the nearest sewer. Even then the stench would remain.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, man.
**Adam:** So they went to fucking town on this film.
**Adam:** And Michael Powell basically thinks that a lot because he was well, as he described it, he was kind of troublesome in so much as he was a successful director who would always demand to do new things and try things and stuff like that. And like we said, the Red Shoes went ridiculously over budget and at the time the studio were pissed off with him and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And I think for a lot of it, it was there were a lot of sort of people involved in the movie industry where it was just their opportunity. It's like, right, Powell's pissed on his chips. We don't have to deal with him anymore.
**Adam:** And you know, he did do films after this, but essentially he was never.
**Chris:** Didn't reach that.
**Adam:** Yeah, this was the last film that he released as a star director who was like a respected like you sold it on his name like you would Tarantino or Hitchcock or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And yeah, it really I mean, they pulled it within I think they pulled it out of distribution in about 10 days.
**Chris:** That is insane. What they pulled it in the same year that everyone's screaming about Psycho.
**Lee:** Like if you put them side by side, it's as you say, it's effectively, it's a perfect double bill because they're they've got so much in common and so little difference. How can one be fine and the other be the worst film ever made?
**Lee:** I really don't see it.
**Adam:** I wonder if it's the I wonder if it's the setting and the time though.
**Adam:** Because Psycho comes out and you know, it's a hit in America and then and over here.
**Adam:** Whereas I I don't know what the there was like I it was a bit like Bill Hicks used to say about he could go he could come over here and be a star, but in America he wouldn't get any traction because he spent too long bashing America.
**Adam:** And I wonder if it's a similar thing where it's.
**Chris:** Yeah, Psycho didn't really show seediness of of any.
**Adam:** But it was it was the seediness we expect from America, so we so over here the critics were fine with it. And even though and in America it was rightly seen as a fucking masterpiece. And then Peeping Tom, I don't think came out for another year because of how it was received over here and then it came out to very little fan fair.
**Adam:** And actually the the distributors sold the basically they I think as Michael Powell described it, they sold it to like a black market film distributor to bury it on a shelf somewhere so that it just never be seen again.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough, one of there was a there were a few champions for it. Weirdly enough, one of them's Martin Scorsese, who is a massive fan of Michael Powell and Powell and Pressburger.
**Adam:** And he'd seen Peeping Tom and he actually bought a copy like he tracked down a print of it because he couldn't see it anywhere, so he could take it to a New York film festival and that was like mid 70s, I think.
**Adam:** And that's when it sort of the resurgence started of people going, now actually this is a good film and actually not just a good film, this is a fucking great film and it is as good as stuff like the Red Shoes and things like that.
**Adam:** You know, it's not you know, I think a lot of it over here was portrayed as almost like, well, look at, you know, how can they go from this?
**Adam:** I mean, how can you go from this marvelous film about a woman tormented to the point of suicide, you know, how can you go from that lovely thing to this horrible thing?
**Lee:** You know, See, now I I would agree with that, but only in as much as Moira Shearer's dancing.
**Lee:** So obviously her ballet dancing in the Red Shoes was amazing as she is a ballet dancer.
**Lee:** When he gets her in that closed off studio and she starts dancing around and dicking about with stuff, I was like, I know she's going to go, but I wish she'd hurry up because she's getting on my tits with all this behavior to be honest with you.
**Adam:** I mean the one good thing is at least she is a dancer, so it looks like she's dancing.
**Adam:** Because if you'd have given that to someone who gives someone a clear point of it is just like, yeah, but if someone who couldn't dance just did exactly the same thing, they'd look it would look fucking clownish.
**Adam:** But at least you can see she has a talent there to.
**Adam:** because there are because there's obviously she's like the main person who's in this, who was in the Red Shoes.
**Adam:** but also the the director of the film, you know, that who's probably the only other real bit of comic relief in the film is the director.
**Adam:** And he was the conductor in Red Shoes, it was Livy, who was the conductor, who then the other character comes in and sorts of starts conducting as well.
**Adam:** But he yeah, I mean he was as the director of the film, I mean just that bit where it's a silly bitches faded in the wrong path.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** You know, and again, it's that sort of thing that the Red Shoes had where it's that sort of there are there's a lot of humor in this.
**Adam:** You know, and like the police are sort of mildly you like you've got like Baxter where he's like they put on the music and he starts fucking clapping away and he's just like, you mind.
**Adam:** And it's sort of yeah, there are sort of there's a lot of fun in it or funny moments in it. And again that feels like that feels like Hitchcock as well, but it's also that thing that makes it feel quite modern.
**Adam:** Because without those, it would be probably too overly melodramatic.
**Adam:** But those sort of ground it and take that away and it's like no, you know, we're not we are taking this seriously, but not everything in this is serious.
**Adam:** It's you know, it's relief that you need really in something like this.
**Lee:** Oh, definitely. It's full on tension, isn't it?
**Lee:** Every minute of it is uncomfortable when you're just waiting for him to select his next victim.
**Lee:** I mean, Anna Massey, who I think this is the first time I've I don't think I've seen her in anything probably after this for about 20 years or whatever, so I always remember her as an older actress and I just kind of assumed she'd come to it older.
**Lee:** just cuz I'd not seen her in anything.
**Lee:** But yeah, she was excellent, so I can see why how she became such a a stalwart character in, you know, the in the British film industry really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and obviously we what she's in which anthology is it? It's it's not is it Vault of Horror she's in there where she's in the vampire one, yeah, Vault of Horror, she's in the midnight mess story, you know, the the one where it's the vampire restaurant where they go to the vampire restaurant.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, yes.
**Adam:** and also she was married to Jeremy Brett for a few years.
**Lee:** Oh, I didn't know that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but yeah, I mean I mean she's she's fantastic in it.
**Adam:** And also I don't know if you spotted her, but Brenda Bruce who plays Dora, the the victim at the start like the the sex worker, who is again like you said, she's someone who's much more familiar to me as an older actress because she was in she was Alan B's mum in the new statesman and she's in Jeeves and Woster and Paradise Towers like Dr. Who and stuff like that.
**Adam:** In in which she plays a cannibal granny.
**Adam:** So but but yes, I think that again, she's sort of like someone there's familiar faces in there like like we said there's Miles Malon in there and
**Adam:** But yeah, it's it's a weird sort of it's a weird thing to go back on and look at it and you see and all you see is like, oh this is a good film that feels almost inexplicable.
**Adam:** As to the reaction to it other than it was too much for 1960 for some reason.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know, and and I did think that watching it, I was I was kind of like, yeah, I can see why it was what what people weren't ready for it.
**Lee:** But as you say that was the shocker was when you sort of said, oh yeah, it was the same year as Psycho, you think, oh God, yeah, it was.
**Lee:** And it's so yeah, I mean and Psycho I mean, if you compare anything, as you said Chris, it does come in quite hard from the off.
**Lee:** But compared to like the shower scene, it's it's a lot more there's no blood in it, there's no.
**Lee:** Because it all happens just out of shot of the camera, so you see the face of the person, but there's no gore, there's no.
**Lee:** A bit apart from the body that you see in the in the trunk. But even that, there isn't any blood or anything.
**Adam:** You you never actually see the body though.
**Adam:** That's the clever thing is you never see the bodies.
**Adam:** You she opens the trunk and she feints and you see them looking into it, but I don't think they actually ever show you the body.
**Adam:** And similarly you never see Milli after she gets killed.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, they they report about it and everything else like that, you know, like the news agent's on the phone and telling the police and stuff like that.
**Adam:** and but again, that's and that was another thing that was quite shocking for it.
**Adam:** It was because at one point you Milli is topless.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And apparently she's she's one of the I think they it's probably the first nude female body in a mainstream English film.
**Adam:** I mean obviously they'd been making pornography since they fucking started making celluloid, you know.
**Chris:** But yeah, not in a film that big.
**Adam:** So again, even though it's very, it's extremely brief, but again, that was another thing where it was kind of like a to be quite quite a big deal.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's just all the elements that are just enough to bring it into this.
**Adam:** Another thing that came that seems to have got with a lot of people. Because obviously they've got the videos of Mark as a child with his dad's experiments.
**Adam:** And that kind of is you know, it goes it actually goes deeper than because Psycho weirdly enough.
**Adam:** You just get that weird bit at the end where Kolchak's boss comes out and tells them what's you know, what is wrong with him almost. It's almost like tacked on after the after technically after the film was really finished.
**Chris:** Almost the end, yeah, really, yeah.
**Adam:** And then he comes in and just says, oh, you know, it's because of his domineering mother and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** Whereas this kind of you're immediately again, you're immediately of the murderers essentially and you're almost the first thing you're told is why he is a murderer or a reason why he is or could be a well certainly is a contributing factor to why he is the way he is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You'd think that would probably mess up most most boys.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck me, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, I mean wake me up with a lizard tomorrow and I'll be fucked.
**Chris:** And not only that, not only that, but filming right in your face to get it.
**Adam:** Well filming you coming in to see your dead mother, you know, and sort of it's.
**Adam:** It's a but this was something that the critics picked up on as well because that the person who's playing person who's playing Mark as a child is Michael Powell's own son and the person who plays Luke Luke, person who plays Mark's dad is also Michael Powell.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah, and Michael Powell was not really Michael Powell didn't he wasn't like Hitchcock or sort of, you know, he wasn't like an actor director like Woody Allen or anything else like that. This was a very rare instance of him appearing on camera. And so a lot of people were like, oh, so you obviously identify with this guy who created the sex.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and stuff like that. And actually the the mother in the death bed is Michael Powell's wife and the mother of their child.
**Chris:** I can see how if you started with the idea that this is a sordid awful film and then you add those elements to it, I can kind of see how you'd be like, well, yeah, this is absolute filth.
**Chris:** This is just wrong on so many levels.
**Adam:** Because I think people sort of almost mistook that those like because Michael Powell's son Colombo has basically said, well, yeah, I'm it, but it was fun.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I was filming with dad.
**Chris:** Didn't really need serious acting for those parts.
**Adam:** Well also, it's like as he said, it wasn't like a traumatizing thing or anything else like that.
**Adam:** But I think because of the way it's filmed, the context it's used in the film is almost like, oh Michael Powell tortured his own son to make this fucking film and his son's probably going to grow up and sharpen the end of his tripod and if you the expression.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and actually the weird thing that I always forget with it is because I think because it was a film I'd read about a lot before I actually finally saw it.
**Adam:** so they said about like the murder weapon, but they also used to say all of them would say, but it's kind of like a big reveal in the film that he has that mirror because there's the weird reaction, particularly Vivian's reaction where she's like going, no, not that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's not the knife.
**Adam:** Because the knife comes out and she's like, what are you doing and are you messing about and whatever.
**Adam:** And then he does something else, which is obviously him putting the mirror above the camera and that's when she really freaks out and starts reacting and screaming and is in mortal fear.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually the that's another thing with it is I think everyone in it's everyone in it's so good that you genuinely feel that fear during those sequences, you know, there it's not overly done, it's just pure, it feels like just absolute terror.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's so again but again that was like something where I was aware of that thing whereas actually it's a big reveal in the film that it's like, oh no, he's making them watch themselves die.
**Lee:** Yeah, I thought the big reveal was going to be, you know, that it's the the leg of the tripod, which you see quite early.
**Lee:** And the other bit of misdirection is whenever I've seen exerts from this, most of it is the POV stuff. So I had a feeling it was going to be you weren't going to know who the killer was until the last 10 minutes and it was all just going to be this mysterious figure beyond the character, beyond the camera. Yes, so I was quite shocked when, you know, literally five minutes it especially because you have the POV stuff and then you see him filming the police and his face is very much covered by the camera.
**Lee:** So I thought it was going to be like that all the way through and we'd find out right at the end.
**Lee:** But of course then when the copper comes up to talk to him and he drops the camera, I was like, oh right now we know it is immediately, it's that guy.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz I think that's probably the main difference between that and Psycho is the fact that Psycho has a mystery element.
**Adam:** And again, because Psycho's so well known, we all know that Norman Bates is the killer, but actually when you watch Psycho, that is not the that is misdirected or is intentionally misdirected for most of the film.
**Adam:** Because it's meant to be, oh, the mom's going around killing and he's mopping up for her.
**Adam:** And then you're like, oh, the mom's a corpse. Oh my god, he dresses his mom.
**Adam:** And whereas with this, this is much more just like I think and again, maybe that was the thing because it wasn't a mystery. This is more like a character study. This is basically this is like Mark Lewis portrait of a serial killer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you you're you're from the off, you know what's happening and everyone else is clueless. You're the you're you have more info than anyone else in the film, apart from Mark. So it's sort of yeah.
**Chris:** So all things almost almost too realistic.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I don't know if that was something that sort of worked against or or what got under people's skin, but it certainly did.
**Adam:** I mean that's if anything, that's the point. This is a film that is it's a horror film, it's designed to get under your skin and it did.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it just got under people's skin so much.
**Chris:** Too many people just couldn't handle it.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I think it was yeah, I think far too many people were sort of absolutely.
**Chris:** It's it's funny just how unfair that is really, isn't it?
**Chris:** You know, imagine that that that happened to you, you know, you you really are putting sort of passion into your work and yeah, it's it's just ruined.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's got to be so harsh.
**Adam:** I mean it's like that there's that story about I can't remember who it was, but it was like someone was interviewing David Lynch and he was they were driving along somewhere and they saw a poster for Steven Spielberg's latest movie and David Lynch just went, you know, sometimes I wish my brain worked like Steven Spielberg's. And he just meant in terms of because Steven Spielberg is always kind of in the sort of public consciousness. Whereas obviously David Lynch is drawn to all things that are never going to be drawn to cult repeat.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but equally it's just about how your brain works and I think at this point, this is what Michael Powell wanted to do.
**Adam:** I don't think Michael Powell had ever done in a weird way that was the problem with that a lot of people have with him is I don't think he'd ever sort of done anything other than what he wanted to do.
**Adam:** But this was just seriously out of step with what people wanted from him.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But again, it's that that ironic thing of but this is the film that's lasted, you know, far beyond all his stuff which was highly popular at the time but has aged terribly. This film is the opposite. This film has aged really well and we were all, you know, we just were just blown away by how modern a film it felt.
**Chris:** Yeah, that shows that it was all of society that were wrong.
**Chris:** It turns out lots of people can be wrong.
**Adam:** Oh, I mean and this is this is something that I think really.
**Adam:** I was again when I was reading about this, this was so Carl Bohm, who plays Mark or Carl Heinz Bohm.
**Adam:** in 1981, so he was an actor. This was I think this was the first thing he'd done in Britain and at no point does anyone actually ask, if you've lived in England all your life, why have you got a German accent?
**Adam:** But he in 1991, he appeared on.
**Adam:** Do you remember the TV show you bet? Yeah, so that was based on a German show called Wetten, dass, which was you bet and the same sort of thing. And he went on there and it was like, oh, it's Carl Baum and you know, he's come on, what's your what bet would you like to do?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And his was I'm going to bet that not every third viewer will donate one mark, one Swiss franc or seven Australian sholings for the needy people in the Sahel zone in Africa.
**Adam:** And that night he raised 1.2 million deutsch marks to go to the starving of Africa.
**Adam:** And so that year he formed a charity called Mention for Mention, which is humans for humans, to raise money for the starving in Ethiopia.
**Adam:** And he basically gave up acting to concentrate on doing this charity work.
**Adam:** And by and by this time Mention for Mention still going, they've built 400 schools, 2,000 fountains and benefited around 5 million people and Carlheim was made an honorary citizen of Ethiopia in 2007.
**Adam:** So just out of the blue of this, you sort of like you've got this, you know, you're in Peeping Tom and then totally out of the way just goes off and becomes this incredible charitable sort of like philanthropist and charity worker.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Chris:** Very impressive.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, excellent.
**Lee:** Very impressive.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So our next episode.
**Lee:** is going to be a what we've been watching, so I had better pull my finger out because I've not been watching a lot.
**Lee:** so yeah, the the timer has been set.
**Lee:** I was very pleased actually Adam that you said that your scientific advisor had watched this.
**Lee:** I was thinking just today actually our this this was our goal along, you know, when we started this podcast was to try and reach out to people who were convinced that horror wasn't for them and try and try and show them that it's a much bigger world and it isn't just about having a horrible uncomfortable time.
**Lee:** yeah, and I was very pleased when she had such a positive response to it.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, so for Chris, I don't think I told you but Claire asked for her birthday to watch Theater of Blood with the League of Gentlemen commentary.
**Lee:** Hey.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Adam:** So yeah, so so we've got we've got another convert.
**Chris:** Right.
**Lee:** See, it's working, it's working.
**Adam:** Well, in fair in fairness, the poor cow's been living with me for 10 years, probably Stockholm syndrome.
**Lee:** You can only fight it off for so long.
**Adam:** Well, I mean 10 years you get less for Arson, didn't you?
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** Right, and on that note, thanks ever so much for listening everybody. We'll see you in a Fortnite's time. Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 177 The Red Shoes

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-177-the-red-shoes/
Air date: 27 August 2023
Duration: 00:49:08
Film: The Red Shoes · Year: 1948 · Director: Emeric Pressburger

### Description

It’s Lady Jennifer’s birthday request; and we’re joined by previous guest Dani for “The Red Shoes” (1948). A dazzlingly beautiful film in which we learn that if a prominent figure in the arts ISN’T a plagiarist, they’re a full blown psychopath; that horse drawn shag wagons were commonplace on the continent in the 40s; and that the show must go on, even if the star has got a train on her head. Whilst the genuine terror for Lee is the mere concept of ballet; is “The Red Shoes” really horror? Probably not, but with some phantasmagoric imagery, a basis in a truly horrific fairy tale, and the main character’s disturbing mental breakdown, it certainly visits the ballpark. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here for Lady Jennifer's birthday choice. Hello Lady Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** We're having a party.
**Danny:** Hello.
**Lee:** It is a party. Some of us are drunk.
**Chris:** Some of us are trying to dance.
**Lee:** Well, we'll discuss whether it counts as dancing or not.
**Lee:** But we have to introduce our final guest as well, this is a bit of a party episode, there are five of us this evening.
**Lee:** We're also rejoined by frequent guest and music expert, Danny.
**Danny:** Hello.
**Lee:** Good evening, Danny.
**Danny:** Good evening, thanks for having me.
**Lee:** So we are here at the behest of Jennifer for her birthday, because she went to a ballet with Danny.
**Lee:** A lot of booze were drunk and they decided they would like to cover.
**Jennifer:** We had a couple of beers in the intervals, didn't we? As is appropriate as a ballet.
**Lee:** You went to the ballet, I got wankered. That's right.
**Jennifer:** That's right, okay.
**Lee:** And on the train on the way home, we'd all decided that the best thing to do was to cover this movie, which I'd never seen.
**Jennifer:** You got drunk, we convinced you.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** I can.
**Chris:** Now what did you go and see?
**Lee:** The end of your life.
**Jennifer:** We went to see.
**Danny:** It was Wolfworks which was choreographed by Wayne McGregor and music by Max Richter based on Virginia Woolf.
**Danny:** Really, really good and first time I've seen a laser show in the Royal Opera House as well.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Danny:** Yeah, trying to get the kids in, you know.
**Danny:** So.
**Jennifer:** That was very good.
**Jennifer:** But yes, so we convinced Lee and we shall find out if that convincing was successful or not.
**Lee:** Now, I've got some questions. Now, just I just need clarification.
**Lee:** Because obviously my knowledge of ballet is very limited, and it's pretty much based majoritively on what I've seen this evening.
**Lee:** I'm just going to preempt this by apologizing to anybody who's a fan of ballet, which I know is Jennifer who did ballet, Danny who is a fan and Chris who's I did one lesson of ballet. He did, he did. I can, I can. Just to get the sweets at the end. I wasn't going to fucking out you, I was just gonna say you're a dancer. He wasn't Billy Elliot, it's all right. Yeah, that is that is a bit more recent, she does and she is getting quite obsessed, so I think I may be experiencing quite a bit more ballet in my future. You may. It might not be the end.
**Lee:** Okay, so.
**Lee:** So have I got it right that ballet is basically two and a half hours of music with no vocals?
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** And it's all dancing.
**Lee:** Which basically is ten moves where they just stand on their toes.
**Jennifer:** No, no, okay.
**Lee:** No, I'm right, okay.
**Lee:** And you basically you have to know the story before you go in.
**Jennifer:** But you read the story in the book that you get, yes.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So it's so it's a shit musical with fucking homework.
**Lee:** How is this not, how is this not just fallen out of favor, I know it's not popular, but it should be far out.
**Jennifer:** I feel like it's quite popular and you'll find out why by the end of this episode.
**Lee:** Any middle class wankers who are now listening, please fuck off.
**Lee:** We don't need you and Ellis.
**Adam:** Could it be one of those things?
**Adam:** I'm in.
**Danny:** In the room right now.
**Lee:** I bet he's included in the room right now.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, Tom, let's play your answer.
**Danny:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Tom.
**Jennifer:** Danny, readers out the door.
**Danny:** I'm gonna love this five minutes.
**Adam:** I'll be honest, on the basis of our response for our least haunted call out, we need all the listeners we can get.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Is it after the tenth viewing of a ballet, that's when you appreciate it?
**Danny:** That's a good question.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Adam:** If this is your only one.
**Jennifer:** Okay, Danny, because obviously, I'm assuming you didn't do ballet, which obviously why I love it, having danced, but not you know professionally.
**Danny:** I didn't.
**Adam:** I thought you meant you loved it because Danny didn't do it.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Adam:** That threw me.
**Chris:** I've never seen him dance at all.
**Jennifer:** As someone.
**Danny:** Let's let's have Jennifer. It's got a long list of women who have loved me for things I don't do.
**Jennifer:** Danny, makes you appreciate ballet.
**Danny:** Okay.
**Danny:** So it was, I mean, I supposed like, like most other people, the first kind of exposure to ballet is going to be something like Swan Lake.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, cuz it is, it's just one of those, I guess it's the starting point.
**Danny:** Oh yeah, of course, so I've been studying violin since the age of seven.
**Danny:** And I performed in a lot of what a lot of orchestras and a lot of string ensembles where we played music from ballet.
**Danny:** When I did my A levels in particular, we had to we went to see a lot of ballets and musicals as part of the course.
**Danny:** And like studying and like getting that kind of side of musical history and the orchestration.
**Jennifer:** In general.
**Danny:** No, I loved it.
**Danny:** And what what really happened was you know we're all 17 or 18, being left to our own device, we were given a ticket to go to a ballet, like once every fortnight.
**Danny:** Left to our own devices, it was, you know, there was halcyon days.
**Danny:** Before people used to ID for anything.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Jennifer:** First.
**Danny:** So, you know, we'd essentially go to the pub very, very early doors, been absolutely bladdered by the time we go to see, like, a three and a half hour ballet based on the Jack the Ripper for example.
**Chris:** Brilliant.
**Danny:** That's that's Lulu by Berg, just in case you wants to go and see that next time that's in town.
**Danny:** That's a very dissonant one.
**Danny:** But actually precursor to that was, I I remember seeing this film when I was about eight or nine years old.
**Danny:** And I think it's it's it's just stuck in my memory ever since.
**Danny:** It was, I vividly remember it was a Saturday afternoon, I was really pissed off, I wanted to play FIFA on the SNES.
**Danny:** And and my mom made me stop it to watch this film.
**Danny:** Like, you know, if if nine year old me knew what the fuck sake, man, he would have said out loud.
**Danny:** But I just remember like watching this film and being absolutely in awe of it.
**Danny:** It was it was the first time I was like I'd seen an old film and I hadn't felt like it was an old film.
**Danny:** You know, it was, I think as we were discussing before, before we watched it, Adam, like it, you know, it's just a good film, not a good film for its time.
**Adam:** You're not you're not making any allowances for it, it's it's like Hitchcock, where it's that thing of, oh no, this is just a good film, this is not, oh this is a good old film or this is a good film for its time, this is just a good film.
**Danny:** I do still approach a lot of ballet that I see, I do go quite regularly to the Opera House still.
**Danny:** I I still approach it music first and dance second, I don't really completely, you know, I I can understand like the emotion of the performance or stuff like that.
**Danny:** I can understand the story.
**Danny:** Particularly if I've read it beforehand, but I'm still catching up in that regard.
**Danny:** Which is where I suppose Jenny will take over really.
**Jennifer:** I I mean, you just watch it and you know how painful it is and how hard it is and yet it looks like it's so.
**Adam:** Lee might not fully appreciate that.
**Jennifer:** No, I think that's it, I think that is part of the appreciation for me.
**Lee:** Being punched in the balls and not flinching is really hard to do, I don't want to watch someone doing that.
**Jennifer:** Do you try it out though, should we try it.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** And and I do appreciate the music.
**Lee:** And as you say, the film was fantastic.
**Lee:** So I'm not rubbishing the film.
**Jennifer:** The outfits.
**Jennifer:** The whole set.
**Jennifer:** I mean.
**Lee:** Couldn't give a fuck.
**Jennifer:** The whole couldn't give a fuck.
**Lee:** It's.
**Jennifer:** The shoe shop, how can you not love a shoe shop?
**Lee:** It's just it's just it's the thing.
**Lee:** It's it's a like you said, it's in the program, it's a one paragraph explanation of what it is.
**Lee:** And it takes three hours of people standing on their toes.
**Jennifer:** No, you get a whole.
**Adam:** I mean Adam will tell us the whole red shoe story.
**Adam:** That kind of.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They gloss over that quite dramatically in.
**Jennifer:** You appreciate it more, Adam.
**Adam:** It's, yeah, because so it's Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.
**Adam:** So it actually has a proper, well, exactly, it has a proper lineage and everything.
**Adam:** But it was first published in 1845.
**Adam:** Basically, Karen, an orphaned peasant girl is adopted by a rich old woman.
**Adam:** And she grows up spoiled and it's basically a lesson in don't be a spoil ourself.
**Danny:** So far, so Hans.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** She's Karen.
**Adam:** She has the the old woman who adopts her, she gets her to buy her a pair of expensive tailored red shoes to replace some ones that she had from her previous parents.
**Adam:** That are just sort of you know nackered old rough sort of.
**Lee:** Shoes worn by bracket.
**Adam:** Yeah, basically, yeah.
**Adam:** She wears them to church and that's very considered very improper.
**Adam:** Very improper.
**Adam:** But she that doesn't deter her and then on one church visit a mysterious red-bearded man.
**Adam:** Compliments her shoes.
**Jennifer:** The devil.
**Adam:** Very possibly, he taps them one by one.
**Adam:** With his hand and says, never come off when you dance.
**Adam:** Which admittedly sounds like don't spaff when you dance.
**Adam:** But I think he's talking to the shoes.
**Adam:** On leaving church, she tries a few dance steps and then finds that the shoes are actually controlling her.
**Adam:** And she manages to bring them under control but not before they've sort of exerted a certain level of power over her.
**Adam:** Then the adoptive mother dies.
**Adam:** And she goes to a dance rather than the funeral.
**Adam:** Which again, I would imagine is considered fairly improper.
**Jennifer:** Improper.
**Adam:** And an angel appears who curses her to dance forever.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** Double cursings.
**Jennifer:** The shoes and her.
**Adam:** And well, she's cursed to dance even after she's dead.
**Adam:** The shoes take control again, she is trapped dancing, she as they say in the film.
**Adam:** She travels all around the place just dancing permanently.
**Adam:** Eventually, absolutely exhausted, she asks an executioner to chop her feet off.
**Jennifer:** That's what I remember, the feet chopping off.
**Adam:** He does that and then she has a set of wooden feet and crutches.
**Adam:** And tries to go to church to sort of redeem herself.
**Adam:** But every time she tries to go in, the shoes dance in front of her with her severed feet still in them.
**Adam:** And this continues, you know.
**Jennifer:** That would improve the ballet, wouldn't it, honey?
**Lee:** I don't think they could do those effects enough in.
**Lee:** And this is the problem, I don't think I would get this story.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Eventually she prays to God for help and then the angel reappears and she is forgiven.
**Adam:** And she is saved.
**Adam:** By having her.
**Adam:** Her far.
**Adam:** Her heart filled with so much joy, it explodes and she dies.
**Jennifer:** Whoa.
**Adam:** And that is the redemption that she is given by God.
**Jennifer:** Exploding heart.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Although apparently they did put in there something like and then she goes to heaven and no one mentions the red shoes.
**Adam:** Like it's like some taboo subject.
**Adam:** Like don't mention his wife, you know.
**Danny:** So this is Old Testament God, right.
**Adam:** Yeah, this is this is this is a cruel bastard, so.
**Lee:** So they're they're telling all of this story without any words and purely through very, very boring dance.
**Lee:** I don't get how I would sit in.
**Adam:** Interpretive dance.
**Lee:** No.
**Jennifer:** You would have read the story first.
**Lee:** Interpretive dance is very, very boring.
**Jennifer:** And you would know the story and then you go to the ballet and then you'd.
**Lee:** So it's homework.
**Jennifer:** No, you read it at the ballet, you get it there, you get these, you know, the program.
**Danny:** And more often than not, you know, as, as Hans Christian Anderson fairytale or, you know, Brother's Grimms fairytales have been adapted to make it more palatable for children.
**Danny:** Then the same thing would have happened for the ballet of the red shoes as well, like, you know, just to make sure there weren't too many severed feet flying around.
**Danny:** Which for us would have been a great children's.
**Jennifer:** Maybe they'll remake it.
**Lee:** I was going to say, we CGI now, maybe Marvel.
**Adam:** I believe there is a there is another red shoes from about 2005, I think it's Korean.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** I mean they would have played some drums.
**Adam:** And I'm assuming on that basis, yeah, they've probably got severed feet dancing in it, you know.
**Jennifer:** I mean I feel we might need to hunt that down then for, you know.
**Lee:** I mean again, I don't want to shit on this film because it was a very good film.
**Chris:** Just take out the ballet.
**Jennifer:** Come on, what was good about it, Lee, come on, help yourself out here.
**Lee:** I mean I mean.
**Lee:** It was a beautiful looking film.
**Lee:** And the thing is, the music is fantastic.
**Lee:** And I think.
**Chris:** So as a musician, that's an interesting question.
**Chris:** I guess, do you tend to listen to that sort of music?
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I wouldn't listen to that sort of music at all.
**Chris:** But you can still appreciate.
**Lee:** But like orchestral music.
**Lee:** Is I mean, again, having been in a band with four or five people.
**Lee:** I know how difficult it is to keep.
**Lee:** Everyone.
**Lee:** Yes, Adam, we were in that band together.
**Lee:** I know how tight it is.
**Lee:** To keep people in a band.
**Lee:** So keeping an entire orchestra for a whole two and a half hours of one massive on some day.
**Jennifer:** That's why bloke at the front with his stick.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, Danny obviously is more the expert in this than I am.
**Lee:** But I mean, it's it's.
**Lee:** It sounds fantastic and it's amazing to see it in person is phenomenal.
**Lee:** And I've been and seen that type of.
**Lee:** You know, like, you know, I've been to see Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, just seeing a full orchestra is an incredible thing.
**Lee:** And to feel it in person is awesome.
**Lee:** So I get that.
**Jennifer:** I assume this was written for the film.
**Jennifer:** The score.
**Danny:** Yeah, the score was so the red shoes score, well, for the actual ballet itself.
**Danny:** And a lot of the incidental music wasn't something like you know, Copellia or Swan Lake.
**Jennifer:** Not ballet there.
**Danny:** That was written by Brian Easter and I believe it won best original score at the Academy Awards as well.
**Jennifer:** Oh, wow.
**Lee:** It's no wonder he's surprised.
**Danny:** No, it's a stunning piece of music, it really is.
**Adam:** And actually this was one of the few films that had best Oscar nominations except for actors. And I think it was the sniffiness was because the majority of the, well, certainly anyone who's dancing in it is a ballet dancer.
**Jennifer:** Not an actor.
**Adam:** Which was then we were saying before, I think that Powell and Pressburger's take on it was that they were we want to find dancers who can act, not actors who can dance.
**Adam:** So they know that that side of it was absolutely sorted.
**Jennifer:** Well, the majority of this is dance, isn't it?
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah.
**Lee:** None of those performances let you down though.
**Adam:** No, absolutely.
**Lee:** None of those people.
**Adam:** I mean, the guy, the guy who's playing the choreographer, he's fantastic.
**Adam:** Brilliant, but I do suspect that he is playing himself.
**Adam:** Literally, I I think he's, I don't know if that's, you know.
**Adam:** But yeah, so I mean he most of them don't have many sort of credits outside of the red shoes other than other performances or other filmed ballets.
**Adam:** In fact, one of the weirdest things is that the principal, the principal male dancer.
**Adam:** Is is the child catcher.
**Lee:** You know what?
**Adam:** From Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
**Lee:** I almost said, he really reminds me of the child catcher.
**Lee:** And I was like, he's just cuz he's dancing.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Ballet.
**Adam:** Robert Helpmann, but he was a ballet dancer and that's why he got the.
**Jennifer:** Which was first, this was first.
**Jennifer:** I assume, yeah.
**Adam:** This was long before Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
**Adam:** But also if you look through his credits, the amount of ballets in which he plays the devil.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's really sort of.
**Jennifer:** It's his eyebrows.
**Adam:** I think it must be, but something cemented that career.
**Jennifer:** It's typecast.
**Lee:** I mean, he's fantastic.
**Lee:** And everybody in it is like the the.
**Lee:** And that's that's the thing, it was like that, I I didn't dislike the film.
**Lee:** Just to be absolutely clear.
**Lee:** I know I said it.
**Jennifer:** But it hasn't made you love ballet.
**Lee:** No, no, it's made me hate ballet even more.
**Jennifer:** Let's see what Chris thinks after being introduced to horror and welcome to ballet.
**Chris:** What made the film good was that you potentially could enjoy it without seeing too much ballet.
**Chris:** Because they did keep it relatively low, there was just the large section in the middle throughout the rest there wasn't a huge amount, there was snippets.
**Adam:** It reminded me, it reminded me of like a sports movie almost because the.
**Chris:** You're done. You know, you have to help teams around the subject, but it's not necessarily.
**Jennifer:** The mighty ducks.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I was thinking Raging Bull mostly, but you know.
**Jennifer:** What's that one, we'll build it, they all come.
**Adam:** Field of dreams.
**Danny:** Although I suppose you know like most sports films the centerpieces are in it, it's in the center, it's in the middle rather than at the beginning.
**Adam:** They want to put those bits in.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, I think it's yeah, I don't think you need to be, you certainly.
**Adam:** I mean it's made Lee ballet averse, but much in the same way that the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man gave me vertigo.
**Adam:** You know, it's just it's just going to be.
**Jennifer:** I don't like yours.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So the other film that I've seen that is ballet is Black Swan.
**Chris:** Which I did really like that and I was expecting this to be.
**Jennifer:** More like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** I feel like it was.
**Jennifer:** Chris, that was probably.
**Chris:** It was very.
**Jennifer:** You could.
**Jennifer:** Although.
**Chris:** Although there was.
**Chris:** Although there was a lot more comedy in this, which I thought they they did really well.
**Chris:** So Danny, what you said earlier about it not seeming like an old film.
**Chris:** As we were watching, I was thinking this does feel kind of modern in a way.
**Jennifer:** It feels.
**Chris:** And I don't know, yeah, many other old films that I've seen that I would have thought that about.
**Chris:** But yeah, I I did think the acting, comedy and the way it was shot all seemed to lend itself to.
**Chris:** I think as well that the kind of meta story to it that it's happening to her in real life.
**Chris:** He's trying to push her to become this, you know, ultimate dancer.
**Chris:** And that's what the Red Shoes ballet is about.
**Danny:** And I guess it is very meta.
**Danny:** I mean there's it literally highlights the Checkoff's gun in the first that's what happens there at the end, well she dies, of course.
**Danny:** Sorry, it's quite a.
**Adam:** And that.
**Adam:** Also, I think the fact.
**Danny:** For a 75 year old film.
**Danny:** That's on you, fuck it, yeah, if you're out that point, yeah.
**Chris:** I'm I'm going to say most of the people listening may not.
**Jennifer:** Is it 75 years old?
**Danny:** It celebrates its 75th anniversary this year was made in 1948.
**Jennifer:** That's ridiculous.
**Danny:** the BFI are going to be putting on a Powell and Pressburger season in October with a 4K restoration of this as the center piece of that.
**Jennifer:** Oh, wow, I feel we should go.
**Lee:** That'll look fantastic.
**Lee:** Because it was a beautiful looking film.
**Danny:** I mean, well, I mean.
**Jennifer:** Will it be ballet there, darling?
**Jennifer:** You have to wear your earphones.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** No, I'm not going.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But also, I love the fact that it goes out of.
**Adam:** It's it's a you know, it does it as a pure experience of the ballet, it doesn't stick to right, factually, they're on stage doing this ballet.
**Adam:** They go out into the fantasia, you know, fantasmagorical levels of what it's projecting rather than the actual, you know.
**Adam:** It's not we're just going to film them performing this on stage or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Because there there are certain parts of it that clearly could not take place on stage.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But they the effects look great as well.
**Lee:** I mean, for the time, I I thought they looked really good.
**Danny:** I mean everyone celebrates the, you know, the match cut at the beginning of 2001, but the bone becomes the space.
**Danny:** I would say that there are about five or six match cuts in this film that piss all over that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Danny:** Absolutely incredible.
**Danny:** Yeah.
**Danny:** And like, the technically.
**Danny:** It's a brilliant film.
**Danny:** The editing's incredible, like especially when she's performing in the small theater in the Saturday Matinee and you see the camera spinning as she's doing all of those.
**Danny:** It's just stunning.
**Chris:** I also I went ice skating the other day and keep seeing all of the bigger skaters and did manage to spin.
**Jennifer:** Oh, good.
**Chris:** She was very excited about that and I guess that does come from.
**Chris:** ballet.
**Chris:** And so I thought I'll give it a go.
**Chris:** And I practiced and practiced and practiced.
**Chris:** And then eventually I did get it and I got dizzy so quickly.
**Chris:** I was like, yeah, I don't know, this must be my age.
**Chris:** Yeah, I don't know.
**Jennifer:** It's.
**Chris:** It's just.
**Jennifer:** You have to find a spot where you can handle this.
**Adam:** I called Bert, just looked at your dinner.
**Adam:** I said Bert, that was made yesterday.
**Adam:** It's like, Ted, will you sit down cuz you make me dizzy?
**Adam:** If I'm making you dizzy, just look at your dinner.
**Lee:** Yeah, I.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean it it was, it like you say, the camera work and everything was so.
**Jennifer:** What was of its time just to put it in perspective, like what else was out?
**Chris:** The smoking everywhere.
**Jennifer:** Oh yeah, they.
**Jennifer:** I mean what other films were doing.
**Adam:** I'm thinking 1948.
**Jennifer:** I mean it was after Gone with the Wind.
**Chris:** Yeah, it reminded me of Scarlet O'Hara.
**Chris:** Like you felt like that was a you know.
**Lee:** Her outfits were outstanding that massive green ball gown that she wore, the purple thing underneath just looked fantastic.
**Jennifer:** Even her hairstyle was very Scarlet.
**Adam:** The the crown had an element of Man's Ash tray, though.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's like this is a far too elaborate ash tray for, you know, for for normal for 10 10 PH.
**Jennifer:** But what about as in an opera queen, I mean, did she have an ash tray like that?
**Adam:** I there was a lot of items like that, a lot of a lot of colored glass.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Danny:** I just had a quick Google.
**Danny:** Of course in 1948.
**Danny:** The only two I actually recognized are Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** You've done that one.
**Danny:** You have.
**Danny:** And Rope.
**Adam:** Oh wow.
**Danny:** So that's how far back in Hitchcock's career we are at this point as well.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Adam:** But then actually we need to do Rope as well.
**Adam:** That's that's the one.
**Lee:** We need to cover.
**Lee:** No spoilers.
**Adam:** That's something to come out of this.
**Adam:** But then I think that's, but then that's probably the the whole fact is that those are the three films that are like that you recognize on that list.
**Jennifer:** At that time.
**Adam:** Because they're the ones that have stood up.
**Jennifer:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Jennifer:** But where was Rope in Hitchcock's sort of career?
**Jennifer:** That was how many in or roughly.
**Adam:** I mean he was working from the silent era.
**Jennifer:** Okay, right.
**Adam:** But I mean it's before we hit that, that, you know, that run of like North by Northwest into Vertigo, into Psycho, into Birds.
**Adam:** Yeah, very early.
**Adam:** Rear Window obviously.
**Adam:** But still, yeah, I mean it's not very.
**Adam:** Just.
**Adam:** Because so Powell and Pressburger were a team and they did everything, they were writers, producers, directors and everything else like that.
**Adam:** They did, I think they made about they they made about 16 films together and they called them they called the production company The Archers.
**Adam:** So that's what the bows I think at the start.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** It's like The Archers, where's the.
**Adam:** Because it is slightly confusing because yeah, because the first first time I ever saw a film that started with that, I was like, is this as in The Archers?
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's quite confused. Is it a farm show?
**Jennifer:** Or peaches and cream.
**Adam:** But yeah, they so and they sort of and unusually for this sort of thing.
**Adam:** Even when they went off and did their own stuff, like they sort of basically producing throughout the sort of 40s and 50s.
**Adam:** Went off and did their own stuff, but actually were still friends.
**Adam:** And it was an they just decided they wanted to move on and.
**Adam:** It wasn't one of those things where it's like I've now decided that this man needs to never darken my door again.
**Jennifer:** It was the film that they had to leave completely and go start another.
**Danny:** So their their run of films was, yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Did they work for a company, as it were, or that was their company?
**Adam:** The Archers was their company.
**Adam:** I mean this was this was with Rank.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Who apparently Jay Arthur Rank, like the head of the Rank organization walked out of the screening of this.
**Lee:** Really?
**Adam:** And basically.
**Jennifer:** Is he like Lee?
**Adam:** I think it, yeah, I think you like the ballet.
**Adam:** But no, basically Rank like it went over budget and you can see it probably went over budget.
**Jennifer:** I mean, but not a ballet shoes, massive.
**Lee:** Massive outfits.
**Lee:** You spent a lot of extra.
**Adam:** You've got like basically a whole ballet company in there, you know.
**Adam:** But yeah, so it went over budget and Rank, the Rank organization was basically just like we've been saddled with this, so they didn't release it for a year.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And like apparently they even, like as the ultimate slide, they left it on the the like.
**Adam:** What's it like the cargo loading bay.
**Jennifer:** Oh, they didn't even store it away.
**Adam:** Didn't even bother putting it away, they were like, nah, fucking leave it there and so the cans were just left there on the thing.
**Lee:** Oh my god.
**Adam:** So it's lucky it's even around.
**Lee:** That'd been a loss.
**Adam:** And then they put it out in London Art House Cinemas.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Fortunately, it just got brilliant word of mouth.
**Adam:** And then they were like, oh, maybe we have got something, so they started doing it more and then I think it was like another year before it was out in the States.
**Adam:** But I think in the end.
**Adam:** Where is it?
**Adam:** Like yeah, they.
**Jennifer:** It was American made though, but then to come over here and.
**Adam:** Yeah, but I mean Rank was, so but the Archers were, well, Michael Powell's British and Emre Pressburger's Hungarian.
**Jennifer:** So was it filmed over here?
**Adam:** So it was filmed over here.
**Adam:** And it's like like the the most majority of the ballet cast were the Sadlers Wells Ballet and like, but yeah, it actually they.
**Adam:** The San Francisco Fine Arts Theater screamed it four times a day solidly for two years.
**Jennifer:** Oh, wow.
**Jennifer:** That's popular.
**Adam:** So, you know, they.
**Adam:** Really did not realize what they had.
**Adam:** But then when I was looking into it, apparently like Powell and Pressburger stuff at the time was kind of mixed.
**Adam:** It wasn't an immediate success, everything all their films were kind of like they gradually got more sort of prestige.
**Jennifer:** Do you think it was like lack of money?
**Jennifer:** Lack of, you know.
**Adam:** No, no.
**Jennifer:** It was at the time.
**Adam:** It was just I think it was just literally like the critics were.
**Adam:** To be honest.
**Adam:** I think it was probably just too fucking new.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was too fresh that they were like people like, well, I don't understand this because this isn't people.
**Adam:** This isn't two people.
**Adam:** This isn't two people in a room talking.
**Danny:** So cameras can move then.
**Adam:** Ten minutes and then we go outside for ten and then come back in for another. Cans can move this, color, super in position and things like that.
**Adam:** You know, and and cutting, you know.
**Adam:** And yeah, so I think they, but gradually they sort of built up a name for themselves.
**Adam:** And then by the 60s, they were very much a that's when they really were appreciated.
**Adam:** That actually we.
**Adam:** Had these people making these really good films, because the the only other.
**Adam:** The only other Powell and Pressburger film I've seen is A Matter of Life and Death.
**Adam:** Which is really worth seeing.
**Adam:** It's basically a RAF pilot.
**Adam:** David Niven plays an RAF pilot who dies, goes to heaven.
**Adam:** But wants to come back.
**Adam:** But the curious thing they do is that heaven is in black and white.
**Adam:** And reality is in color.
**Adam:** Now, usually you sort of do like the Wizard of Oz sort of thing where you go to the the fantasy world is the one you do.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's very austere sort of like black and white photography when they're in heaven and there's this beautiful image of holes in the sky with people looking down through them.
**Adam:** As like windows onto people in heaven observing things on Earth.
**Adam:** And again, it's one of those things that's like, this is from the 40s, this this is really, you know.
**Adam:** It it looks good, it would look good now, you would compliment it now.
**Adam:** And much in the sort of saying way that like the whole red shoe sequence in this is so extraordinary, you know.
**Adam:** But but no, they they've definitely, you know, they've definitely worth and then we will be doing Peeping Tom.
**Adam:** Which essentially ended Michael Powell's career because by then.
**Adam:** They've got to the point of like, hey, these are these guys who did all these prestigious films.
**Adam:** And then it's like, he's done a mucky slasher film, what did he do that for?
**Adam:** Much much like Hitchcock and Psycho, where it was like everyone was like, what's this dirty little weird movie that he's made?
**Adam:** And actually, yeah.
**Danny:** Although then again, I mean, you know, one of the other Powell and Pressburger films was Black Narcissus, which was you know, pre as much as you could get away with with the Hays Code.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Danny:** Peeping Tom was obviously when people were just kind of like, Hays Code, I've got that.
**Danny:** Maybe it was just a again, like everything else they did, everyone was playing catch up to it.
**Danny:** Because it was it was just so frequently ahead of its time.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, in terms of in terms of pure horror.
**Adam:** Obviously we've got the fairy tale.
**Adam:** I mean, basically someone is driven to suicide, so that's already, you know, that's pretty much on the cards.
**Lee:** And that was my thought watching it.
**Lee:** The whole time I was like, this isn't horror, it's the horror of this that they've made me watch two hours of that.
**Jennifer:** Yes, Lee.
**Lee:** But then the last ten minutes I was like, nope, now it's all kicked in.
**Lee:** And yeah, it totally is.
**Jennifer:** I wrote down earlier, slow burn, like slow burn.
**Jennifer:** But it gets there.
**Lee:** And I thought you were burning me.
**Lee:** But no.
**Lee:** It definitely did, I mean, it definitely falls into our wheelhouse.
**Danny:** I would say that, you know, while you were being bored shitless by the dancer, a lot of that imagery would really comfortably fall into.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Danny:** You know, into the realm of horror as well.
**Danny:** Especially like the I think I don't think it was the newspaper person.
**Danny:** Which I still can't believe they managed to.
**Jennifer:** How do they do that?
**Adam:** Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it?
**Danny:** No idea.
**Danny:** No idea.
**Adam:** Literally from what I can gather.
**Jennifer:** Got some newspaper on.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, that is really impressive.
**Jennifer:** Very clever.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean that whole bit.
**Adam:** With the cellophane imagery.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, that was cool as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Danny:** Where the camera's like a group of people have become like a gelatinous blob.
**Danny:** And they're advancing towards her.
**Danny:** That is just like.
**Lee:** It's almost.
**Adam:** That's quite Lynchian.
**Lee:** I say Roger Corman, he's got that very like psychedelic.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's it.
**Lee:** Hallucinogenic colors.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was really it was a beautiful film.
**Lee:** I'm definitely not knocking it.
**Danny:** I do have to disagree with the whole, you know, ballet doesn't tell a story.
**Danny:** Just but specifically with this, I would say.
**Danny:** Because throughout that story and throughout like the, so there's there's the scene where she's dancing on the stage and then Craster's in the conducting.
**Danny:** Then he comes up and then it match cuts to him as a dancer and then he's still.
**Danny:** It's all kind of like it's it's it's not just about what it's not just foreshadowing what's going to happen in the film, it's also her mental state, her emotional state while she's doing it.
**Danny:** And and that power struggle between what she wants, you know, in terms of career.
**Jennifer:** That's why women at the time again.
**Jennifer:** It's a kind of, you know, that whole thing of saying, well, actually, you can have one or the other.
**Chris:** Yeah, shoes.
**Jennifer:** I mean it's.
**Danny:** Even the choice that women have to make.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** And I do agree with that.
**Lee:** But as ballet dancers on a stage.
**Jennifer:** No kicking feet.
**Lee:** That wouldn't have happened like that was all film effects.
**Lee:** Rather than something you could have portrayed on the ballet stage.
**Lee:** That would have been I don't know how that.
**Jennifer:** I was thinking you know the whole mirror with her in the shop.
**Jennifer:** That could have been Pepper's Ghost.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** They could have done that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it could have been Pepper's Ghost, but then it would have had to have.
**Jennifer:** Well, similar to her, just a ballet dancer underneath.
**Chris:** I would say, I don't know if you agree as well, but I got that from her performance very much so and more of a Sheer's, well, first and foremost, she was.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Danny:** Yeah.
**Danny:** You know, repe ballet dancer.
**Danny:** It was her first ever film role and she didn't do very much else other than that.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Because I mean, she left, basically, when ballet, because obviously ballet dancers, it's always a horrendous fucking toll physically.
**Adam:** Probably more so than like even athletes and things like that.
**Adam:** You know, it's just it does.
**Jennifer:** It gives you tied by.
**Adam:** 25, 30.
**Adam:** I think it was 27 and she and she was going to move into acting.
**Adam:** But yeah, she didn't do much.
**Adam:** But watching this, because this is the only I mean, she's in Peeping Tom as well, but this is this is the only film I've seen her in like properly watching.
**Adam:** And I'm like, you're a fucking good actress.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Danny:** And her first role, 22 years old.
**Danny:** Stunning.
**Adam:** And and it but like you say, because she's a good actress and it comes, it does come out in the fucking dancing, there is the it's definitely there.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just think it's sort of I mean it's just the weirdest thing that you were like.
**Adam:** Right, we'll go out and find these people who can do who can do the physical demand of actually doing the ballet.
**Adam:** But actually they can act as well.
**Jennifer:** So how did they find her?
**Jennifer:** I mean she was obviously famous already.
**Adam:** She was in the basically a lot of them came from the Sadlers Wells Ballet.
**Adam:** She was the Prima ballerina there.
**Adam:** I think apparently at the time in she was ranked, I don't know if ranked is the right word.
**Adam:** But basically it was Margot Fonteyn and then her.
**Jennifer:** All right, oh, wow.
**Adam:** So she was.
**Jennifer:** Everyone knows Margot Fonteyn.
**Adam:** Yeah, so she and similarly Robert Helpmann was the was the primary male dancer at Sadler's Wells as well.
**Adam:** So a lot of it was they may have swept in.
**Lee:** And went, hey, we need some dancers.
**Adam:** Yeah, and just so happened that they actually found people who can act as well, do do the role properly and everything.
**Adam:** And she was I mean that was the thing she was noted as well because you know the hair is natural, the eyes and that.
**Jennifer:** Well I know, I kept looking at her hair going, that's not natural.
**Lee:** But no, she dyed that, she's got very stunning look.
**Jennifer:** Normally ballerinas have it all up in a bun.
**Jennifer:** But again for this, you've got the red hair, like it's quite, I suppose symbolic perhaps of that whole, you know, red shoes and everything else.
**Adam:** She she ended up married to the journalist Ludovic Kennedy, who apparently saw the film.
**Adam:** And went, I want her.
**Jennifer:** I want her.
**Jennifer:** I'll marry her.
**Adam:** And then he basically pestered her for about a year.
**Jennifer:** Wow.
**Lee:** And then.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You think coming down the film.
**Jennifer:** She might have learned, you know what, that's true.
**Adam:** Days in the misogyny where you could just it's it's Yeah, I mean the warning signs should have been there, he's sitting there doing his magisterial take on 10 Rillington Place.
**Adam:** I'm not really sure if this is going to be for me, but but yeah, it's but Marius Goring who plays, oh, I can't remember what his name is.
**Lee:** I'm not really sure if this is going to be for me, but but yeah, it's but Marius Goring who plays, oh, I can't remember what his name is.
**Adam:** Julian Craster, yeah.
**Adam:** He basically was, I mean he he is an actor.
**Adam:** He is an actor.
**Lee:** He is an actor.
**Adam:** An actor, actor, but he ended up.
**Danny:** Yeah, first role, 22 years old.
**Adam:** Well, not ended up, but he basically he was a big movie actor and then he moved more into telly, so during the 60s and 70s, he's in like Hammer House of Horror.
**Adam:** Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, Tales of the Unexpected, he's in Evil of the Daleks.
**Adam:** He's in just he basically that's what he moved into.
**Adam:** But I actually had to double check it because he looks so much like the lead actor from Peeping Tom, that because he looks quite.
**Adam:** He's tall, you know, he looks quite dramatic and yeah, so I just I think he's good.
**Adam:** Is he good?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean, it's also Marius Goring is just one of the most spectacular names.
**Adam:** As it is.
**Adam:** You know, Julian Craster suddenly is like, well, that's John Smith.
**Danny:** I was I was keeping an eye out, I mean, obviously, I've seen this film a few times before.
**Danny:** But so when he's performing for Lementov when he comes in and, you know, and he's playing the piano.
**Adam:** I was going to ask you actually, yeah.
**Danny:** Yeah, cuz one of my pet peeves is when.
**Danny:** They're clearly not playing an instrument that they're supposed to be.
**Danny:** I I no word of a lie, I've only seen 12 Years a Slave once because why the fuck would you ever want to watch it more than once.
**Danny:** It's, you know, great film, horrific subject.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Danny:** But there was a scene where so the lead character in that is a fiddle player, he's not playing it.
**Danny:** Took me out of the scene and something really horrific happens in it as well.
**Danny:** And he's not playing.
**Lee:** Fucking violin.
**Danny:** No.
**Adam:** I've reserved it.
**Danny:** But in this, he was playing it, he he had to have been there was like the octave movements with what was happening with the left hand as well, it's definitely.
**Adam:** Fun enough when when that bit came up.
**Adam:** I was like, I must remember I was start actually, cuz it must be, you know, really great when you.
**Jennifer:** We hope they got the ballerina, why would they not get someone that could actually play.
**Danny:** This is why I respect Pixar and Disney so much when they make like, so something like Coco.
**Danny:** Every single hand movement in the left hand of the guitar is absolutely perfect, they really do their homework for it.
**Lee:** Never watched crossroads.
**Danny:** Or the British kids ones.
**Lee:** No, the movie with the kid from the Karate Kid, they did it like, yes.
**Lee:** So they did a film about Robert Johnson with Ralph Macho playing it.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Oh, right, I see.
**Lee:** All right, I see.
**Lee:** Robert Johnson.
**Lee:** Takes him under his wing, and it ends up he becomes better than Robert Johnson.
**Lee:** And then he ends up playing against Satan's own guitarist.
**Jennifer:** But can the not playing guitar.
**Lee:** That's the problem.
**Lee:** I mean it was one of those films that came out not long after Karate Kid, so as a 10 year old kid I've probably seen it two dozen times and loved it.
**Lee:** But yeah, my father always sat and watched me and went, fuck off, every time he picked up the guitar.
**Adam:** I had a weird moment there where you said crossroads, in my head I heard trespass.
**Adam:** You know that film where Ice Cube, where they're like two firemen go to find treasure in a building.
**Adam:** I was like, I'm not sure what the relevance is here.
**Lee:** Ice Cube.
**Adam:** I don't remember that scene at all where they're playing the fugal horn.
**Lee:** He's not playing the fugal horn.
**Adam:** He's not playing that fugal horn.
**Lee:** He's not playing that fugal horn.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean this is a film I've always wanted to see.
**Jennifer:** Oh, good.
**Adam:** And now I'm very glad that I have.
**Jennifer:** Oh, good.
**Adam:** That was, yeah.
**Chris:** So Chris, as you brought up Black Swan.
**Chris:** Did you find a lot of similarities or differences between it, because I I was there was another character that I was meaning to talk to you about, I don't know if you picked up on?
**Chris:** Okay, so what it what it set me thinking was, because in Black Swan they they're sort of pushing her to a breaking point.
**Chris:** And in this, I was wondering how, what they're going to show, what's what's the purpose, and when she left it wasn't entirely clear what is she going to do now.
**Chris:** She kind of suggested she might work elsewhere.
**Jennifer:** She's married.
**Chris:** But then she did, Yeah, and so then when she comes back because she still does really want to work for him, knowing that that is who's going to push her to become the best she could be.
**Chris:** And then yeah, how much does.
**Chris:** To become the best have to have some level of pain, like Adam said, you know, just how grueling it can be to be a ballerina and to be the best.
**Chris:** And so yeah, like do you have to be pushed right to that edge and then getting pushed over it as both of them do.
**Chris:** But yeah.
**Chris:** I don't know who's who else was it.
**Chris:** So the character that Moira Riley plays.
**Chris:** In Black Swan is very, very clearly modeled, I I think anyway.
**Chris:** On the Primo Ballerina in the Red Shoes.
**Jennifer:** Before.
**Chris:** I was thinking that.
**Chris:** That's why.
**Chris:** And as.
**Chris:** Well, those close-up shots of her in the makeup is it's got to be a direct from there.
**Chris:** That was.
**Chris:** I was thinking that.
**Chris:** I mean he must be a fan.
**Chris:** He don't just pull Black Swan out of nowhere.
**Jennifer:** I was thinking I'm doing that makeup for the next time I'm dressing up.
**Jennifer:** Why not?
**Chris:** Black Swan, but it's anything like it's brilliant, isn't it?
**Chris:** It just adds to the look.
**Chris:** Surely, if you were going to do a ballet film, what would you go to and watch.
**Lee:** They're the only two I know.
**Chris:** I was going to say, how many others are there that may have some similarities?
**Chris:** I can literally name these two.
**Chris:** This film about ballet, full stop, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I mean it's not watch it, but I know it's vaguely setting the ballet world.
**Chris:** But yeah, but again, even like the whole, you know, how how far do you have to be, can you be pushed to a certain point where how far do you have to go to achieve greatness.
**Chris:** Where I love that scene where as you noted, they're sleeping in separate beds.
**Chris:** But he gets up because he's woken up with this melody and he goes straight to the piano.
**Chris:** Meanwhile, she's looking at her drawer of her shoes and realizing what she's lost.
**Chris:** And it just it just completely shows in that moment, like what you have to give up in order to pursue something.
**Chris:** Or what you have to leave behind.
**Chris:** Which you may or may not agree with.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** Well, I thought it was interesting that she came out and supported him because I was trying to imagine.
**Jennifer:** That's what women do.
**Adam:** Well, yeah, no, that's showing that that is the role she's taken now.
**Adam:** She still misses that, but she's trying to be there for him.
**Adam:** You know, in the middle of the night, two in the morning when he's playing this new melody.
**Chris:** But I think that's one of the reasons this film still feels so modern as well, because it's even having that discussion.
**Chris:** Even though it's set in 1948.
**Chris:** Which as well was thinking like that's yeah, three years post the end of World War two.
**Chris:** They're just looking all right.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But he was the one who left his musical to come to her when it was her opening night.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's power.
**Jennifer:** What about.
**Lee:** That's power, that's control, that's text, but gaslight.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, what about, is that just me going?
**Chris:** He looks like a fucking SS officer.
**Adam:** He looks the weirdest bit.
**Adam:** He comes in in like a wet look like in a star po com.
**Lee:** I said that, but he wasn't, well, I'm not waiting two hours for the fucking to go in there.
**Lee:** Exactly, I'm not waiting two hours for her to start.
**Lee:** No, you've gone all that way.
**Lee:** What difference does an opening night make.
**Adam:** I I had to look it up, though.
**Adam:** Because the weirdest fucking thing happened there, cuz I was like, I fucking know that voice on the radio.
**Adam:** Patrick Troughton.
**Adam:** Was the bloke apologizing to him.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** I mean this suggests that I might have spent far too much time watching.
**Adam:** I know that voice, what is it?
**Lee:** Well you say that.
**Lee:** The the one of the very opening scenes when they're all running up the stairs.
**Lee:** Which again, I think ages.
**Lee:** This film more than anything.
**Lee:** Everyone's dashing into the ballet.
**Lee:** I was like, nobody gives a fuck.
**Chris:** I love the fact.
**Jennifer:** Danny clarified that for us.
**Jennifer:** Actually, I think you're fine.
**Lee:** He did.
**Lee:** He did.
**Lee:** He clarified.
**Lee:** When they're running up the stairs, the guy who is standing there who clearly works in the theater, who's trying to sort of slow them all down.
**Lee:** Yeah, that is the guy from the Ghoul, I'm fairly certain, who's the family solicitor.
**Lee:** I think it is, who says, come in or go out.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm fairly certain it's Matt Lee.
**Adam:** I'm pretty sure it is.
**Lee:** But that, I mean, even down to that.
**Lee:** I love that that I think gave you the the scope.
**Lee:** Of ballet in a weird way.
**Lee:** Where it was like half of them are there for the dancers, half of them are there for the music.
**Lee:** So you've got that immediate dynamic going on anyway.
**Lee:** Which is the essence of the film.
**Lee:** And they really they're against each other as well, like the people who are there for the music and the people who are there for the dancing.
**Lee:** Are almost like when you go and see a sports game and you're two separate teams. But even he in the start, he is saying, no, this is how I'm playing it.
**Lee:** And she's going, no, this is how I'm dancing it.
**Lee:** And again, you've got that until he suddenly goes to, oh, it's all right, I'll do it in your tempo.
**Lee:** You know.
**Lee:** So against.
**Lee:** As long as you put out in the back and come.
**Lee:** So he's like, no, he just married me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's married me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, no, it's interesting.
**Lee:** That difference between the two.
**Lee:** Oh, definitely, you know, in an orchestra, you've got hierarchy between the sections.
**Lee:** Let alone anyone else.
**Lee:** On stage.
**Lee:** I mean it's a lot of egos and a lot of people.
**Lee:** I mean the people who are there are, you know, the greatest that they can be at the top of their game.
**Lee:** So yeah, you can totally see how you've got a lot of ego there and a lot of people who have got something to prove.
**Lee:** All battling against each other.
**Lee:** In a very small space.
**Lee:** And people are going to start niggling and being.
**Lee:** But also you get that's where you get the point where you can have the the leader of the company.
**Lee:** Becomes Luke God almighty.
**Lee:** I thought this earlier, like that guy, he doesn't do fuck all.
**Lee:** He he pays.
**Lee:** He pays the people, but ultimately he doesn't.
**Lee:** He's not a dancer and he's not a music.
**Lee:** Like he's there.
**Lee:** And everyone prays to him, but he doesn't do anything.
**Lee:** It's like Tony Wilson and Factory Records.
**Lee:** He said that he couldn't he couldn't sing, couldn't play an instrument.
**Lee:** But the privilege of paying for pressing Joy Division's first album, he's like, that's my contribution to the cultural heritage of England.
**Lee:** And I suppose it's the same thing if you can't do that, at least you can.
**Lee:** facilitate it.
**Lee:** Yeah, bring the right people in and everything.
**Lee:** You know what?
**Lee:** Fuck Barbie, Red Shoes and Oppenheimer would be a great double bill.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I hereby declare Red Shoes the new.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No, Redheimer sounds terrifying.
**Lee:** I've Redheimer.
**Lee:** Give me some cream.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We should watch first.
**Lee:** I don't know, I'd have to toss the coin.
**Lee:** And hope he explodes and kills me.
**Lee:** I'm sure he'll have his big opening night a lot earlier.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** On that note.
**Lee:** I guess.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm sure.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Okay.
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**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Okay.

---

## Ep 176 Least Haunted 2: Electric Loup-Garou

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-176-least-haunted-2-electric-loup-garou/
Air date: 13 August 2023
Duration: 01:02:38

### Description

It’s sequel time, as we present “Least Haunted 2: Electric Loup-Garou”. It’s another glimpse into all things weird and spooky with three judgemental pricks. We have a strange tale from a listener (big thanks Joe!); to shoehorn in our incredible episode title, Adam recounts his childhood fascination and dread of the Southend Werewolf; and Lee explains why he could believe Richard Herring is breaking into his house to steal wineglasses. We enjoy these chats so much we’ll probably do some more, so please send in your own real-life unusual occurrences [either DM on Instagram or send to Info@welcometohorror.com]. WE’RE READY TO DISBELIEVE YOU. No prep needed on this, just tune in and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here again, there will be no spoilers this week because we aren't covering a film.
**Lee:** There will be swearing and I would like to start state from the beginning of the episode that I believe this is the best title for an episode we've ever had.
**Lee:** and I can take
**Chris:** We've had some pretty good titles.
**Chris:** Yeah. Adam Adam comes out with some very good.
**Lee:** So this evening, this is Lee's Haunted 2: Electric Loup-Garou.
**Lee:** Yes, get in.
**Adam:** You champion.
**Lee:** so we did an episode a couple of months back where we discussed our quote unquote true ghost stories.
**Lee:** and we got a lot of good feedback from people and we thought, oh, lots of people are interested and saying that they've got stories of their own.
**Lee:** And and so we were like, yeah, chuck it out there, and people can tell us send us their true ghost stories and we can discuss them.
**Lee:** But it would appear that all of our listeners like us don't fucking believe in them.
**Lee:** Because we had one email from a good friend of ours, who did say this isn't supernatural, but it's just really weird.
**Lee:** And it is a great story so we will be reading Joe's story in a little bit.
**Lee:** but in the meantime, in the absence of any supernatural stories, we are going to discuss and also, so we can sho horn that name in.
**Lee:** we are going to discuss the South End Werewolf.
**Lee:** Adam, I believe you know more about this than the rest of us.
**Adam:** Well, this this was just a thing that I kind of felt was something something real that kind of doesn't have an explanation.
**Adam:** And ever since I was a kid, scared the shit out of me.
**Adam:** Because
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** It made the front page of The Sun on Friday, July 24th, 1987.
**Adam:** Before my wife was born.
**Adam:** So she was not there to protect me.
**Adam:** So she was not there to protect me from such things.
**Adam:** But yeah, front page of The Sun, and I'm I'm going to call my dad out here, only cunts by the sun.
**Adam:** But yeah, along with the.
**Lee:** We out is, is that what's going on here.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, it was the, it was the page three Banchy.
**Adam:** That's what The Sun just went crypted mad on a Friday back in the eighties, people don't remember that.
**Adam:** They Nessie had her own like agony aunt column.
**Adam:** and yeah, it was top notch stuff.
**Adam:** But yeah, front page, Werewolf seized in South End.
**Adam:** So, I'm nine and I'm thinking, South End, that's fucking near.
**Adam:** And they've got werewolf.
**Adam:** Shit.
**Adam:** And I had a read of the story, didn't didn't disabused me of any fear apart from the fact that the guy's not actually technically a werewolf.
**Adam:** In so much as he doesn't turn into a wolf.

---

## Ep 175 House

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-175-house/
Air date: 30 July 2023
Duration: 00:39:14
Film: House · Year: 1985 · Director: Steve Miner

### Description

It’s time for more spooky real estate, as we turn our attention to “House” (that’s the film from the 80’s, not that TV series where floppy haired fop Hugh Laurie pretended he was tough and grumpy). A film in which we learn that attractive neighbours may roll up and dump their mullet-headed sprog on you without a moment’s notice; that the kookaburra is native to Vietnam; and that Norm Peterson may have been driven to drink by his experiences inside next-door’s closet. A bizarre horror comedy from the team that created the “Friday the 13th” franchise, this manages to be a practical effect rich knockabout romp that, somehow, also encompasses PTSD and child abduction. It went on to begat a variable series of unhinged sequels. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Hey! And we are here for the second part of our Haunted House month where we are covering 1985's House.
**Lee:** Also, I have a suspicion that I'm not the only one who hasn't only watched the original film, is that right Adam from your message in the group?
**Adam:** Yes, I.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** I bought the rather brilliant Blu-ray set off of Arrow years and years ago.
**Adam:** And this has been my excuse to actually finally sit down and watch the sequels because I've only ever I'd only seen House previously.
**Lee:** Yes, so we'll be covering House, I watched House 2 and House 4.
**Lee:** So we'll be doing what I also like to think of as Cheers, the horror years.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** I'm so sorry.
**Lee:** But we'll get to that in due course.
**Adam:** They could have got Ted Danson or Carla in.
**Lee:** Oh, that would have been so good.
**Adam:** Three and four. They should have done.
**Lee:** So, before we get carried away ourselves, let's ask for the first opinion of the first movie before we get carried away with the sequels.
**Lee:** Chris, what did you make of House?
**Chris:** Yeah, well, so I do need to mention the sequels because I don't think we might have covered this, you know, briefly before.
**Chris:** But I knew I'd seen House 3 and I was pretty young.
**Chris:** And it was one of those that we watched during a friend's birthday party.
**Chris:** There was maybe, you know, nine of us, something like that.
**Chris:** But we were pretty young.
**Chris:** I kind of think around 11, which seems weird now.
**Chris:** But that might just be the changing times.
**Chris:** But so I knew that and I remembered the bit I remembered from House 3 was turn up the voltage.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Yeah because that yeah.
**Adam:** House 3, which is they kind of tried to do a serious film.
**Chris:** Yes, right, so that's that's what I was going to get onto.
**Chris:** So in my head, this is this is my memory of it, it's that scene which is quite a powerful scene, and when you're pretty young and you haven't seen something like that before.
**Chris:** It's it's like I was like, what surely he's meant to die anyway and he's just not dying and you know.
**Chris:** It's like it's and then it really goes over the top.
**Chris:** But it's quite scary.
**Chris:** And so so I was expecting that watching House 1 thinking it's going to be similar sort of level.
**Chris:** And and of course it's not, it is a comedy.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** I would say predominantly it's a comedy.
**Lee:** I forget that every time. I don't watch the film very often, it's probably the third or fourth time I've seen it.
**Lee:** And every time, yeah, I sit down for a bulls to the wall horror movie and then go, oh yeah, no, it's not, this is ridiculous.
**Chris:** Yeah, really quite lighthearted throughout.
**Lee:** Well, I think it's the we can't, you know, miss the fact that it is one of the most iconic covers of the 1980s.
**Lee:** Like what a fantastic cover to a movie.
**Adam:** Absolutely, that that hand.
**Chris:** Yeah, like the skeleton hand pressing the doorbell.
**Adam:** That is the reason that I I knew House is because you'd go in the video shop and that was like for some reason that was just one of the posters that or the covers that really stood out.
**Adam:** And again, doesn't give too much away.
**Adam:** Insomuch as you just assume from I always assumed from that cover that House was a serious film until I saw it.
**Chris:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Adam:** 10, 15 years ago, whatever it was.
**Adam:** And and was very pleasantly surprised by how fucking bizarre it is.
**Adam:** And funny.
**Chris:** So so I was going to say it it kind of reminds me of Evil Dead.
**Chris:** Probably the most out of anything else we've watched.
**Chris:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, because would would this I'm trying to place it in my head, would this have this would have been after Evil Dead 2?
**Adam:** I think, wouldn't it?
**Chris:** okay.
**Lee:** I am checking.
**Chris:** I was going to check that.
**Chris:** I was going to check that with our.
**Adam:** Because this was in 85, actually released in 86, but it's an 85 it was made.
**Lee:** Oh Evil Dead 2 is 87.
**Adam:** there we go, so yeah, it does precede that.
**Adam:** But it's definitely that and you've got stuff like Brain Dead and things, it's that sort of it's basically, I suppose it's the logical extension of cartoons.
**Adam:** That you get, you know, if you live action, cartoon, there's going to be blood and bits getting lopped off and stuff like that.
**Adam:** That obviously doesn't happen to Bugs or Daffy, you know, they just miraculously regrow.
**Adam:** But if you much in the same way as Rick Mayo and Ade Edmonson's Bottom is a Looney Tunes cartoon.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So much as there's yeah, there's a lot of but this is just such a.
**Adam:** I mean, and genuinely good effects.
**Adam:** There's no.
**Chris:** They are, they're definitely decent enough for the style they're going for, it all works.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** The zombie soldier at the end looks absolutely phenomenal, even on like high def, it's still looks brilliant after all these years.
**Lee:** Which is why I find it a bit tonally strange, so in my mind, that's what I always remember is him.
**Chris:** Yeah, the look of him.
**Lee:** And then of course the point when the wife comes in and she's just like big blue bloated weird thing that any copper and it's like, and I'm just like.
**Chris:** And then she's shooting him with a shotgun.
**Adam:** And giggling.
**Adam:** And then the dog runs off with her severed hand.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** Oh and then and then we get after that we get to the worst scene of the entire film for nowadays viewing, which is the man taking the little boy to the toilet, which is kind of a weird thing to have now.
**Chris:** It's like, oh, he's just met just met you.
**Chris:** Like, you know, and you're just going to drop your boy off.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's the weirdest fucking sequence in it just because you were like, you know, fortunately, he's fine.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But, you know, if you report if you told someone that's what what you'd done before you came out.
**Adam:** I was having trouble having a babysitter, so this bloke who'd flirted with me once, I've I've dropped the kid off at his.
**Adam:** But it's all right, he offered him to have a person and took him for a bath.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's what.
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** I'm not a parent, so I don't know, but I think that would be weird if I put some, said to someone, can you just look after my kid for a couple of hours and less they'd had an accident and they went, oh yeah, they had a lovely time in the bath.
**Lee:** It's like, why are you taking him, put him in the bath?
**Lee:** That's not right, I'd like you on a record?
**Lee:** What's going on?
**Adam:** It's very it's very much of a much in the same way as the amount of 80s things where you're like, oh no, what we're actually demonstrating here is that being a borderline sex offender is what gets you the girl.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Much in the same way that how things have sort of altered that at this point there was nothing there would have been nothing sinister about the idea of just leaving your kid with the neighbour.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** That's not what he's going to get arrested for, he's going to get arrested by the fashion police for that jumper with the V-neck that comes halfway down to his navel, what the fuck was that all about?
**Lee:** I mean, I know it's the 80s but shit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think that might be the that might be the early onset of medallion.
**Adam:** In in so much as I can't remember it was might have been someone bloody awful to be honest, might have been like Johnny Rotten or something like that.
**Adam:** But said that if you notice that sort of V on a man's chest is the one place they don't gain weight.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So you you sort of you you expose that area to show that you're still manly even if you've got, you know, huge boobs and of course he had one.
**Adam:** But that's the area that's exposed because it still looks like, hey, look, I've got I'm pretty live and.
**Lee:** I can see that.
**Lee:** I can see that, I might have started busting that look out myself actually.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** When the weather turned.
**Lee:** Yeah, so this is such a fun movie and the music well, like gives it that really.
**Chris:** It is.
**Lee:** Like you're saying, sort of almost.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Chris:** It is.
**Chris:** Yeah that that does move it along the sound effects are good.
**Adam:** And then you got and you've got George Went in there, which is another immediate indication that you are watching.
**Chris:** George he must he must be the neighbor then.
**Adam:** Yeah, the guy who's normally Cheers.
**Chris:** Harold.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** But he yeah, so he was he is one of I think only him, Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman are the only people who've been in every who were in every episode of Cheers.
**Adam:** But yeah, so by that point he was already well known in a very successful comedy show.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** But and he did bring comedic lines to it, what was one of them? Cujo the Racoon.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's the opening bit where he's bitching about the arm.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And she was my aunt, yeah, heart of gold though.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Curiously attractive for her age, you know.
**Lee:** I want to know how long she was in that loft.
**Lee:** Because when he when somebody when that kid walked in and found her at the beginning, she turned green, but she was still swinging.
**Lee:** And I was like, how high did she jump from that she's still swinging days later once her skin's gone off?
**Adam:** She's a very drunk.
**Chris:** She might have been green already.
**Lee:** This is this is a possibility.
**Chris:** Quite attractive still.
**Adam:** Oh, for her age.
**Lee:** That house is stunning.
**Lee:** Again, it's another one of those where I just spent the whole time thinking, oh, I wish my house.
**Chris:** I want that house, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's fantastic.
**Adam:** And I I don't care that there's Vietnam in the cupboard.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I I will put up with that for this house.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I will just nail that covered shut and never have to worry about.
**Lee:** This is the problem.
**Lee:** He does poke the bear, apart from seeing his, you know, seeing his aunt hang herself vaguely.
**Lee:** Like if he just left that cupboard shot, but he just keeps going and dicking with it for no reason whatsoever.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** But also, I tell you what, one of my the that's the thing.
**Adam:** I think the first time I watched House, the thing that absolutely sold me on it as a movie was the and again, it's just a lovely bit of comedy is he sees his aunt's like a hanging spirit.
**Adam:** And then it just cuts to outside the house, I'm switching all the fucking lights on.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Because there is no way I'm standing there is no dark rooms in this house after I've seen that.
**Adam:** No, I'm.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's just it's again it's one of those things where maybe not to maybe not to a total extent, but there are there's a lot of realistic reactions.
**Adam:** To events and the things.
**Adam:** Like you would you would want to film that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, if anything just as proof that I'm not going off my fucking jump.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there's weird beasties in the cupboard, so.
**Chris:** I did I did quite like it when he twisted it around on Harold and said it's now a raccoon because it's like then it sort of flips instead of him being crazy.
**Chris:** It's like Harold going, yeah, like definitely want to be involved in trying to chase this big raccoon, whereas before that he's like obviously you'd been mad.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And to be fair, I I watched it this time back, I was like, that's a crazy idea, so he nearly gets shot with that harpoon that very afternoon or the day before.
**Lee:** He then invites his neighbor over at midnight who turns up with a six-pack, so you know he's drunk at least the six-pack before he turns up.
**Lee:** And the second he walks through the door, you give him a loaded harpoon gun.
**Lee:** I was like, you are asking to get shot in the face, like.
**Chris:** He's he's looking for for writing material, isn't he, really?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, I've heard some extreme reactions to writer's block.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** May may maybe it is much the same, I don't know.
**Adam:** The thing I tell you what, and I this is a weird thing.
**Adam:** When I when I was watching it though this time, I just felt it was very Jordan Peele.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So along the lines of like nope.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where there's the the sort of thing about proving that it's there through like filming it, but also just the fact that there's the comedy is a lot of the comedy is derived from.
**Adam:** Oh, there's someone reacting how you would fucking react in this situation.
**Adam:** You don't react in a movie way or indeed in a sort of ironic Buffy Scream sort of way.
**Adam:** It's just people like, no, no, no, I'm not fucking with that, that's just.
**Adam:** And you know, and I but yeah, so I kind of got that feeling and I know that obviously Jordan Peele's like a massive fan of 80s horror.
**Adam:** So, you know, I'm not suggesting that it's a copy, but I think definitely that tone is there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's weird, I hadn't realized that this was the because it's basically the same.
**Adam:** production team who did Friday the 13th.
**Chris:** Oh, that's interesting.
**Adam:** Same producer, writer.
**Adam:** Like Sean Cunningham producing it and everything.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, Fred Decker showed on the titles as the writer.
**Adam:** But yeah, Fred Decker is the writer because obviously, so he wrote and directed Monster Squad.
**Adam:** Night of the Creeps, RoboCop 3 and he wrote The Predator, not Predator, The Predator.
**Adam:** And but apparently he wrote it, basically they they started writing it as a thing for for me, writing it as a segment for an anthology film.
**Adam:** They were going to do like a horror like that was their sort of next project, they wanted to do like a horror anthology movie.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** and when the anthology didn't happen, they decided to take the segment that was house and expand it into the full film.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, okay.
**Adam:** And then, another writer, so Fred Decker did the did the script first off, but it was a straight horror film and then Ethan Wiley came in and rewrote it and that's when it became a comedy.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** And and he and then Ethan Wiley went on to write and direct House 2, the second story.
**Chris:** Yeah, well so so I so I don't think I've seen House 2, so so I started to watch House 3 after seeing this just to remind myself and then I was like, oh no, this is this is serious, you know, in comparison, like there's no no comedy in this at all.
**Chris:** So, but yeah, so what is the case with House 2 then and House 4?
**Adam:** I'll tell right, I'm going to start let's do it in order of crap, I would say.
**Chris:** Yeah, go on.
**Adam:** So House 3 we've dealt with.
**Adam:** For some reason, I don't know why, it's a film with Lance Henriksen in it, but it's not great.
**Adam:** It's basically Shocker, the Wes Craven film.
**Lee:** Oh, I was going to say.
**Lee:** I've only seen the trailer, but it looks exactly like a rip-off of Shocker.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's basically, yeah, basically, I think it came out the same year as Shocker.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, and it's got I can't think of his name, but Leon from Blade Runner.
**Adam:** Turtle, what's a turtle?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As as the villain.
**Chris:** And Genki.
**Adam:** Gink, yeah, that's it, yeah, Genki.
**Adam:** And, and it's like a very 90s, you know, it's a serial killer, slash, yeah, with a supernatural element on top.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then House 4 is very much a sort of return to the horror comedy thing, you've got and weirdly enough William Catt comes back.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** As as Roger Cobb.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** So, so the main character in the first film, he comes back and but he's obviously been so moved by the fact that he's.
**Adam:** child has been returned to him and it looks like he's going to reconcile with his wife.
**Adam:** That he's divorced her and met someone else and had a kid with them and you never hear about the other family.
**Adam:** And then he's dead within about 15 minutes of the start of the film.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And it's the wife and daughter who are being sort of like subjected to the house.
**Adam:** Which may or not be evil and may or may not be possessed by the ghost of Roger.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** It's not very clear and it's not very good.
**Lee:** Like it hasn't got the same level of comedy, it's got a few bits in it, but other than that, it's just an absolute snoozefest.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And then House 2.
**Lee:** House 2.
**Adam:** Is a film that I wish I'd seen when I was a fucking child because.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** Man that is good.
**Adam:** But it is off its fucking face.
**Adam:** It is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** House House is weird.
**Adam:** House 2 is fucking bizarre.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** If you liked House, Chris, you definitely need to see House 2.
**Lee:** I.
**Lee:** I think Bill is one of my favorite characters in a movie ever, just because he's just mental.
**Lee:** played by John Ratzenberger again from Cheers.
**Adam:** Yes, so again, it's like the two is the partnership from Cheers of like Norman Cliff.
**Adam:** So Cliff's in the second one as an electrician and adventurer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and.
**Lee:** I just love the lot when he's looking at the electricity and he goes, oh, yeah, no, I yeah.
**Lee:** You've you've got a dimensional issue.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what you're dealing with there is you got a portal into another dimension.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's just.
**Adam:** And but and you've got crystal skulls, you've got an undead, undead distant grandfather, cowboy zombie who lives in the basement.
**Adam:** There's a pet baby pterodactyl, there's a caterpillar dog puppy thing that comes from the prehistoric past.
**Adam:** And it's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's just utterly fucking mad and lovely.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Just lovely.
**Lee:** It's so much fun.
**Lee:** I had insomnia last night, so I was going to watch it this evening but I couldn't sleep.
**Lee:** So I sat up until about quarter past two watching it this morning and just had a lovely time.
**Lee:** I was like, oh, I'm normally.
**Chris:** That sounds like the right kind of time to yeah, to watch it.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's perfect, yeah.
**Lee:** I am fighting off a cold at the moment as you can probably hear in my voice.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** That adds another layer.
**Lee:** Couple of brandies and set up and watch that, I had a fantastic time.
**Adam:** So I mean, talking of its time, the director Steve Miner.
**Adam:** Also did quite a few of the Friday the 13ths, he did part two, part three, did Warlock, Lake Placid, Halloween H2O, the remake of Day of the Dead.
**Adam:** But I think two films that sort of again, summing up the 80s and the 90s in this sort of way, is he did a film called My Father the Hero, in which a girl who fancies someone persuades her dad to pretend to be her boyfriend while they're on holiday, the boyfriend is played by Gerard Depardieu.
**Adam:** And yeah, so already just a weird.
**Adam:** but he's but he also directed Soul Man, which is about a white kid blacking up to get free college scholarship.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** And again, that's a comedy.
**Adam:** But I don't think they're really sort of yeah.
**Adam:** I think it just highlights how a lot of opinions may have changed.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, so like I said, there'd been a lot of it's the guys who had to do with like Friday the 13th and various little bits and pieces on there.
**Adam:** But also this has got Kane Hodder doing the stunts in this, who obviously went on to be Jason.
**Adam:** over, I think it's I think it's over five films, I think he stopped when they did Freddy versus Jason, he's not in he's not Jason from then on, I think.
**Lee:** It's funny, I didn't see him in the first film, but I did see him in the second.
**Lee:** Because he gets thrown over the bannister by the guy who comes from yeah, like a barbarian who comes through one of the portals, isn't there?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, from prehistoric times, yeah, and just picks him up and lobs him over a balcony, but.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's also he's also the pizza monster in number four.
**Lee:** Oh, Kane Hodder?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, but yeah.
**Adam:** And I I had to I had to drop the quote down.
**Adam:** Just because it really amused me.
**Adam:** When he was asked why he wasn't playing Jason in in Freddy versus Jason, he said, I guess they just wanted Jason to look like a skinny little bitch this time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I love Kane Hodder.
**Lee:** I've seen him in something recently and I thought, oh, what was I it was something weird.
**Lee:** I think it was like urban urban legends or something.
**Adam:** Oh right, okay.
**Lee:** And he's in the beginning, but literally he's just kind of pushing a mop.
**Lee:** He might get pushed over, but yeah, I was just like, sure that's Kane Hodder.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** So he does turn up quite often and a lot of the time he isn't credited either.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** No, no.
**Lee:** If you don't recognize his face, you wouldn't know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and he's obviously like just done stunts on and acting in so many like genre films and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Also juggler, I believe.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** It doesn't surprise me.
**Adam:** That's why he did the Hatchet films, obviously.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Should have should have put two and two together there.
**Adam:** I I love.
**Adam:** That the opening in the bookshop as well, I think that's a brilliant collection of fans of a of a writer. You got, you know, like a couple of goths, a lot of nerds, a few hysterics, most of them without any social skills.
**Adam:** It just seemed like the right sort of collection.
**Adam:** Rather than just, you know.
**Adam:** It's the same.
**Adam:** Because you you don't find that it's the same people at something like that, you know, there's you know, there's no identic group of people.
**Adam:** It's you know, various ages, various.
**Adam:** I don't know, levels of bloody mentalness.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, like a man who's been to a lot of book signings.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, that's true.
**Adam:** But I think that.
**Adam:** Because the the lady who's like who's shouting to him about his wife, that's Mindy Sterling, she's Frau Farbissina in the Austin Powers films.
**Adam:** And in terms of other did you spot that the real estate agent is the owner of the hotel manager from Ghostbusters?
**Lee:** No, I didn't.
**Adam:** You know, you know, like the initial one where they go and catch Slimer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's the same guy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The guy who fires the harpoon accidentally fires the harpoon at him.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** The only other person I recognized obviously was Stephen Williams, who is, like, talk about typecasting, I don't think I've ever seen him in anything when he wasn't a policeman.
**Adam:** I tell you what.
**Adam:** I hadn't realized though, because, obviously we have to mention what a fucking performance in The Blues Brothers.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He, you know, he is you know, I mean that is just every fucking line is just done with perfection in that film.
**Adam:** But I I hadn't realized he's he's he was Mr. X in the X-Files, you know, the guy who replaced Deep Throat after he gets bumped off in series one or whatever like that.
**Lee:** Vaguely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I hadn't realized I've never I've never made the connection, but then I'm I haven't really watched much beyond series 3 of the X-Files.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** I always remember him as he was in the the original 21 Jump Street, he was the Depth's boss in that.
**Lee:** again.
**Lee:** undercover cop.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was.
**Adam:** Well, that's I suppose X-Files it would have been FBI so again, it's yeah, it's pretty much it's pretty much law enforcement.
**Adam:** Maybe he's got his own badge.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think he's just got that air about him.
**Lee:** Hasn't he, he's just like and he just does always do so well.
**Lee:** So yeah, if you need a cop to come in and just do a few lines, he's going to be your go-to every time, isn't he, really?
**Adam:** Definitely, yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** I I mean I'm definitely going to say that it's the the funniest film that also features child abduction and Vietnam PTSD.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I think it could well win.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And just to just to annoy all the right people, I will declare now, this is my favourite Vietnam movie.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, a long time ago it was Apocalypse Now, but I don't need to look cool at parties anymore.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, yeah, it's House, it's got to be.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Lee:** It was one of those when I watched the second one last night, I was like, I love House and we definitely needed to show it to Chris, but having watched House 2, I was like, we could have just jumped straight to this and I just it's that just that mental.
**Lee:** Like Charlie is just off his chuff.
**Lee:** And it's one of those character characters again.
**Lee:** Excuse me.
**Lee:** I still find off this cop.
**Lee:** Who I spent the whole film trying to remember what I knew him from and it was too late at night to turn my phone back on.
**Lee:** Sorry, but of course he played the familiar in Fright Night.
**Adam:** Which goes to prove, I mean, sorry Chris, we're talking about the film you haven't watched.
**Adam:** But he goes to prove what a terrific actor that guy is because he is nothing but.
**Adam:** sort of odiously sinister in in Fright Night.
**Adam:** And then in that he is.
**Adam:** He's the he's the comic relief.
**Adam:** He you know.
**Lee:** He's the comic animal.
**Adam:** Yeah, in what's already a comedy film.
**Chris:** But do you think if we'd gone straight to House 2, it would have been too much of a jump?
**Adam:** I'm not sure, to be honest.
**Adam:** Because I think the good thing I would say is that House as a film series has no connections.
**Adam:** Even the fact that Roger is in the first and the fourth film, you would not need to see the first one to even.
**Adam:** In fact, seeing the first one confuses you more about House 4.
**Adam:** Because you're like, well, didn't he have a son and that's not his wife.
**Adam:** And oh, oh and he's dead.
**Adam:** Okay, right, so.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't I think I think this is the
**Adam:** I think it was also an unfortunate thing that.
**Adam:** It was not of its time sounds wrong because of its times used more as a sort of like an excusing term.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas I think that this is just such an example of the 80s that when they started doing the movies further into the 90s.
**Adam:** Because I think House I think House 3's like 90 or something like that and then House 4's like 92 or something like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think by then it it there just wasn't that same.
**Chris:** They'd lost something.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Something just wasn't right.
**Adam:** And I mean.
**Adam:** Maybe maybe we'll curb our spoilers there and do House 2 at some point.
**Adam:** Because there's no way I'm never fucking re-watching that again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** I am seriously at the point where I'm like, I kind of want to show it to Ted, he likes Ghostbusters and I don't think there's anything better or, you know, I don't think there's anything scarier in House 2 than anything that takes place in Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** And more to the point, God, it's just such a kid friendly in it's a it's a family movie, it's like it's like an action adventure film with portals into hellish dimensions via.
**Lee:** It is, and it's got all the sort of Ray Harryhausen style stop motion animation stuff in it, it's just, it's such a lovely film.
**Lee:** But you're right Adam, there's apart from possibly the cowboy ghost who comes after him at the end.
**Lee:** It's funny, I've got a mental picture of that, my dad clearly watched that when I was too young to see it, and it was one of those I'd gone down for a drink and he was like, right, go through the living room, don't look at the TV, don't look at the TV, and I took a quick glance, yeah, and it was the image of that cowboy standing at the end, and that's stuck with me ever since.
**Lee:** Like not in a bad way.
**Lee:** But I was always like, God, I love that.
**Lee:** And I only watched this film for the first time, possibly three years ago.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And recognized.
**Lee:** I was like, oh my God, that's what that's from, I remember it so vividly.
**Lee:** but yeah, this film is definitely one, definitely one I'll be going back to.
**Lee:** I think I'll go back to two more than one.
**Adam:** I think so now now that I've watched them, as I say, I mean one.
**Adam:** I just it's just brilliant entertainment.
**Adam:** You know, it's that is that's an example of party horror.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but in the serious way where it's party horror where even if you watch it on your own, you're having a party.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Just classic.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's yeah, so much fun.
**Lee:** And then the fourth one was awful.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It's just I think but like I said to Chris, I mean it's.
**Adam:** It's rare that you can get a franchise where you can.
**Adam:** Just walk into any of them and you don't you don't need any, you literally don't need to have seen any of them for them to work.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because apparently, I mean House 3 was wasn't even marketed in America as a House film.
**Adam:** It was only abroad that it got.
**Chris:** Oh actually connected.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Connected.
**Adam:** It was because I think it was developed, it was developed as House 3 and then they were like, well, this is so different.
**Adam:** We'll just we'll just release it as I think it's called just a horror show, but everywhere abroad is House 3 the horror show.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** Cuz it doesn't even look like it's linked to a house.
**Adam:** It's it's not really.
**Chris:** Yeah, I was like.
**Chris:** I didn't get that far I didn't get that far through it, but yeah, I was thinking like they didn't seem to be.
**Lee:** That was kind of the funny thing about the fourth one is the fact that so he inherited a house in the first one that was haunted.
**Lee:** And then in the fourth one he inherits a house, which is also potentially haunted.
**Lee:** Like oh.
**Lee:** He's inherited two beautiful houses and they're both fucked him over.
**Lee:** And the the funny thing is the story of his brother.
**Lee:** The thing I kept coming back to watching it.
**Lee:** His brother is desperate to get the house off of him because he wants to build on the land.
**Lee:** It is a single house in the middle of a fucking dust bowl.
**Lee:** It's like there's nothing for five miles in any direction, just build just up the road.
**Lee:** Like why are you so intent on get.
**Adam:** Build on the opposite side of the lake.
**Adam:** Mind you, is it is it because you can't have people noticing that you're using, I mean this is this is how complicated it gets Chris.
**Adam:** Because his brother wants it because he's got mob connections and they're gonna pump nuclear waste into like toxic waste into the lake as a disposal thing.
**Adam:** Again, pointing out that this was made in the 90s, not the 80s.
**Adam:** A more care for a more carefree age.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas the two the two 90s entries are very much like, right, so what have we got here?
**Adam:** Oh, we've got we've got a toxic waste conspiracy.
**Adam:** And what else have we got, we've got a serial murderers back from the dead.
**Lee:** We.
**Lee:** Yeah, this series goes so off the rails so fast.
**Lee:** yeah, it kind of I mean even the name house, as we said, by the third one they're just given up on that idea.
**Lee:** Really and there's no as he say, it is nice that you can come into any movie and watch them standalone.
**Lee:** But they're so tonally different, it's crazy.
**Adam:** I mean, they're practically they're practically an they're practically an anthology series.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know like how Halloween was like where they tried to do it with Halloween 3.
**Adam:** Where they're just like, well, we'll just call a movie Halloween.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** But it's yeah, it's just a shame that it does off after the first two.
**Adam:** Because the the first one just is because the second one as I say, it's kind of family horror almost.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's got it's got a swashbuckling adventure vibe to it.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Cowboys and dinosaurs and comedy pterodactyls.
**Adam:** You know, so it's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, just crazy.
**Lee:** But yeah, such a fun film.
**Lee:** I'm so glad you suggested this Adam because as I say, I've not I've only seen the original a few times.
**Lee:** I've not watched it in a while.
**Lee:** yeah, and it gave me an excuse to finally rewatch the second one again because it was only my second viewing of it.
**Lee:** And I I was a little bit worried because I had such fun memories of it and I was like, well, I'll watch it the second time because I know what's coming.
**Lee:** and I going to be disappointed.
**Lee:** And I wasn't, I I just sat there thinking, you're an idiot because you watched this three years ago and you haven't watched it in between then and now, what have you been doing with your life really?
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** so on that note, for our next episode, ladies and gentlemen, we will be doing least Haunted part 2.
**Lee:** which was going to be us discussing ghost stories that listeners have sent in after lots of people said, oh, we've had interesting things happen to us.
**Lee:** However, we have had next to no feedback from that.
**Lee:** so.
**Lee:** We will well basically I'm just happy, we've had a couple of interesting stories and I will be happy to just slag off the most haunted most haunted type TV shows for another half hour.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** We definitely won't be short of content.
**Lee:** Oh and I I and I haven't shared my other two strange stories with you.
**Lee:** Which I will be looking forward to doing.
**Adam:** And I I shall attempt to have something happen to me in between now and that recording.
**Adam:** So I can bait it.
**Adam:** though although warning if it's things like, do you know what, there was a hole in my pocket and by thunder a pound coin disappeared.
**Adam:** Don't know where.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** I've seen I was going to say, I've seen less spooky things than that on the most haunted type shows that I foist myself to watch just as a.
**Lee:** It's one of those things.
**Lee:** It's like therapy, it's like I I managed to spend most of my days at work.
**Lee:** Not losing my rag with people and staying quite calm, so it's nice in a controlled environment.
**Lee:** Which is normally at 11 o'clock at night on my own in front of the TV when I just let it all hang out and scream and shout and swear.
**Lee:** I apologize if I have coughed or sneezed or made a horrible sniffing noise or anything through this.
**Lee:** I do apologize.
**Lee:** I tried very hard not to.
**Lee:** But I am.
**Chris:** You did well to make it tonight.
**Lee:** I'm text.
**Adam:** And I I don't apologize for anything that might have done.
**Lee:** I just don't I can't say I can't do it because I've got a bit of a sniffly cold.
**Lee:** Like what a.
**Lee:** But then equally, I was like nobody wants to hear me, you know, running out of breath while sitting down talking for 40 minutes, but it's been pretty close to it at times, but.
**Adam:** I don't know, you might not rate how sexy that could sound.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It might be some people.
**Adam:** That's their favorite episode.
**Lee:** They well.
**Lee:** You know what, stranger things have happened.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Anyway, so.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening everybody, go and check out House.
**Lee:** Go and check out House 2.
**Adam:** Don't bother with 2 with 3 and 4.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, definitely skip that.
**Chris:** Just just watch two two more times.
**Lee:** In fact, I've got to admit, I was watching four this afternoon, about an hour before we started recording.
**Lee:** So I wasn't sure on time, I paused it 10 minutes from the end and went, you know what, I don't fucking need to know.
**Chris:** You don't care.
**Lee:** I I've sat through an hour and 20 minutes and couldn't give a shit to this point, I don't think anything's going to change.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 174 The Haunting

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-174-the-haunting/
Air date: 16 July 2023
Duration: 00:46:49
Film: The Haunting · Year: 1963 · Director: Robert Wise

### Description

With housing a seeming perennial nightmare, we’re going to look at some nightmare houses, kicking off with an absolute, stone cold classic - Robert Wise’s “The Haunting” (that’s the 1963 one, not the abomination that is the 1999 version with Qui-Gon Jinn). Adapted from the novel by Shirley Jackson “The Haunting of Hill House” (again, not to be confused with the TV series that bears its name, which, whilst loved by many, can, frankly, suck a fat one compared to the book, or the 1963 film). It’s a film in which we discover that Dr Jacoby is the bastard child of Dean Stockwell and Andy Serkis; that Miss Moneypenny didn’t need to hook up with James Bond when she had the dashing moustache of Dr Markway to come home to; and that the guy who brought us “The Sound of Music” can also scare the living shit out of you, simply by banging on a door. A cinematic masterpiece based on a literary masterpiece, “The Haunting” is still an effectively tense and scary film 60 years after its release, and remains an excellent lesson to filmmakers of how to successfully adapt a book to screen. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Evening everybody, Lee here. regular listeners will know that we recently did a supernatural stories episode, or not, depending on your beliefs.
**Lee:** but it seems to have gone down quite well and we've spoken to a few people who said they've got interesting stories of their own. So, as we tempted the idea at the end of our last episode, we're going to do a follow-up at some point.
**Lee:** So if any of you have stories of your own that you think would be interesting that you wouldn't mind us sharing with the listeners, feel free to either record them and email them over to us at info@welcometohorror.com.
**Lee:** or otherwise, you can type them out and send them to us and we will read them out on the show. if you'd rather not use your name, we will use your first name, otherwise, but if you'd rather go under an alias, include that in the message and we'll be sure to use that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, and enjoy the show.
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I am Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening full of spoilers and swearing to cover the amazing film, spoiler alert, 1963's The Haunting.
**Lee:** we've we've.
**Adam:** Not to be confused with 1999's The Haunting.
**Chris:** No. Lucky you mentioned that.
**Lee:** God, yes.
**Chris:** Gash.
**Lee:** I did, I was discussing earlier today actually with Dani what we were covering this evening and I said we were covering the.
**Adam:** She said.
**Lee:** He said, hope you're gonna bring up that from 1999 at some point.
**Lee:** I said, 'Oh, don't worry.
**Lee:** It'll it'll come up, it'll we're covering it at some point.
**Lee:** yes, so we are here for this movie, it's it's it's a film, I feel we've talked about a lot in the last 170 episodes, because it's such a solid classic.
**Lee:** and thank you very much to Claire actually for bringing us back on track and reminding us that we are a horror podcast and we haven't done any truly scary shit in a while. I feel we've definitely rectified that with this movie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, Chris, what did you make on your first viewing of The Haunting?
**Chris:** All right, well first I'm gonna say, I don't recommend eating something that may or may not be chalk that's appeared on the wall during the night.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Just, you know.
**Adam:** Cuz they they they never tell you what that is, are they?
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** So, it is chalk, but it might not be.
**Chris:** So yeah, there there is that.
**Chris:** but yeah, like this is really well shot, I mean the house looks amazing inside and out, the setting's are fantastic.
**Lee:** I want that Jenifer said to me, I'm almost gutted it's not in color because I want to see all that beautiful beauty, but.
**Adam:** You know it's, you know it's over here, don't you?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** This, this is something that's sort of is a weird thing. Basically this is a British film.
**Adam:** so it's an American director, two American actors, everyone else is British and the house is Ettington Park in Warwickshire.
**Adam:** And it's a hotel, you can go and stay.
**Lee:** You can go, oh I want, I'm going there.
**Chris:** That that that is good to say because I at the year the best haunted house available in the world, and this would classifiers as I think.
**Adam:** Well, apparently, as you'd imagine, it's a hotel that's also a former manor house. They also reckon it is haunted.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** They've got they've got a grey lady, they've got a monk, they've got a soldier, they've just got loads of supposed ghosts.
**Adam:** But yeah, so it's.
**Chris:** I'm going to say though, I don't think I will see any of them.
**Lee:** I'm pretty sure.
**Chris:** I'm fairly certain that but.
**Chris:** But it I think it would still be great and and it's funny, I've never really had the thought that I wanted to do something like before, but it's like, no actually, I think that would be good fun.
**Adam:** Cuz this is the weird thing, it's Robert Wise who directed it, who did like the Sound of Music, he did.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** first Star Trek movie, so yeah, Star Trek Motion Picture, Day the Earth Stood Still, West Side Story.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** The Andromeda Strain which I watched the other night, it's fucking brilliant.
**Chris:** But that that he's definitely skillful.
**Chris:** I mean.
**Adam:** He was.
**Chris:** Really, yeah.
**Chris:** It like some some of the shots.
**Adam:** Yeah, but he's one of those.
**Adam:** Well, he's one of those directors who just seems to have done everything.
**Adam:** You know, usually now it's especially you get people tend to sit in a specific genre or specific whereas yeah, Robert Wise just was a filmmaker.
**Chris:** Genre.
**Adam:** So he wanted to do, and I think this was what he did, he did this after West Side Story.
**Adam:** So it was like, right, I've done a musical, I want to scare the shit out of people, and
**Chris:** I was trying to think what it like kind of reminded me of, I mean, I guess I would say Alfred Hitchcock, I don't know if that's because it's we haven't seen that many black and white, but yeah, it had that kind of a feel.
**Chris:** It, you know, it's like you're watching something, yeah, serious piece of of film.
**Adam:** Well, it's it's it's it's quite nice is that it feels modern because am I gonna have to make allowances for how this is shot?
**Adam:** Because you tend to get stuff like the, like Universal Dracula is very stagey.
**Adam:** It feels like someone's filming a play.
**Chris:** Okay, yeah, yeah, I think we've said that before.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it really.
**Adam:** This is mobile, the camera's every fucking where.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, it really helps.
**Lee:** I love that changing shots as well, so they did obviously the kind of locked camera shots for the, for the dialogue and stuff.
**Lee:** But yeah, whenever the ghostly stuff was happening, it was hands-free camera, you can just say it was all weird angles and weird things it was.
**Lee:** Focusing on and it just looked like it just puts you on edge because it's so weird, it's fantastic.
**Adam:** Well, the set the set was all built so it would have all those weird sort of angles.
**Adam:** And actually the thing Claire watched it with me and the thing she pointed out is how.
**Adam:** Cluttered the sets are.
**Adam:** In that everyone in it is in that set, there's always stuff in front of them, to the side of them.
**Adam:** It's it's not.
**Adam:** It kind of suits the house.
**Adam:** Because it is an old Victorian house like old knick-knacks and bric-a-brac and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But literally there's barely there's barely a scene where someone is shot without something in the foreground.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So there, you know, it's so oppressive.
**Adam:** But at the same time, it's mostly silent.
**Adam:** There's very little in the way of music and unless there's actual ghost activity, it's really quiet.
**Adam:** But you've got this really oppressive visual, though you're sort of, you are trapped in there and it makes you uncomfortable and the longer it goes quiet, the more likely you are to be like, is something gonna happen, is something gonna happen, is something.
**Lee:** It's a it's a masterpiece of like I know we're we've said it before, but it is a masterpiece of minimal filmmaking.
**Lee:** I know that was why kind of we wanted to cover it, because it's one of the few films that's like genuinely got a, as you say, like a scary atmosphere and it's genuinely a scary film.
**Lee:** But not apart from the bending door and the writing on the wall, you see absolutely nothing, but it is so good.
**Lee:** It's so well-built with the suspense, it it's.
**Lee:** It's just an absolute masterclass in in a haunted house film.
**Lee:** It's gone.
**Chris:** Building tension.
**Chris:** And it progresses throughout and as Eleanor, you know, starts to change and kind of lose herself.
**Chris:** Like she's falling in love with the house, but also losing her mind and and yeah, as that sort of builds towards the end.
**Chris:** It's yeah, it really builds intensity.
**Chris:** Cuz it's kind of like, it is like a breakdown.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, which was interesting that they sort of covered that so well, I wasn't really expecting that so much for the.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean I know 1963 isn't really that long ago, but.
**Adam:** 60 years.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, a 60-year-old film that can still, you know, make you uncomfortable and make you sort of can.
**Adam:** Build tension and be scary.
**Chris:** Yeah. Well, I was wondering whether it was like, was it just psychological that they were thinking it, but then of course there are.
**Chris:** Parts that happen where it's like, no, it is meant to be actual there is something ghostly happening.
**Adam:** Well, apparently apparently when the script writer, what's his name? Robert Gidding, I think.
**Adam:** he was, he basically at one point said, 'Oh, so she's having a breakdown, so the house is the hospital that she's in.
**Adam:** And all the other characters are staff and patients and that was kind of gonna be a reveal that he was going to put in.
**Adam:** And he spoke to Shirley Jackson, who wrote the book that it's based on, The Haunting of Hill House.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** and she basically said, 'No, it's a really haunted house.'
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** It's not symbolism or anything, it's a haunted house.
**Chris:** So they just went, yeah.
**Adam:** Fair enough.
**Adam:** We'll just, and apparently The Haunting was her title, it was the other title that she had for the book.
**Adam:** Cuz they were like The Haunting of Hill House, that's a bit too long for a film. Okay, yeah, you know, and so on, so.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay, that's interesting.
**Lee:** I think that's why it draws you in, it is it's like a real haunting in the to the people who are there who are experiencing it.
**Lee:** It's totally real.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But it's but it's very easy to just go, all right, so there was some banging and there was a space where you felt a bit cold, and it's very easy.
**Lee:** Which is, you know, which I think is why it's so compelling because it does show that how if you're in that, if you're in that situation, you could be totally convinced by something.
**Lee:** But when you try and explain it to someone, it doesn't come across.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Which you know, I know we've mentioned in our last Haunting and when we re-re-evaluate that and come back to it again in a couple of weeks, we'll kind of say the same thing.
**Lee:** But and this whole film totally hinges on their react, the actors' reactions to things that we can't see or feel.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But they sell it to such a fantastic degree.
**Adam:** It was.
**Adam:** I mean, the key the key example of that is that one bit where where it's I mean, that that is one of the most compelling bits of film is where they're in the bedroom and there's the banging.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Approaches, comes back and approachess and already, for a start, I am pleading with them not to open the door.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again, this film is 60 fucking years old and I'm still going, 'No, don't open that, I don't want to know.
**Adam:** I'll die in ignorance, I'm quite happy.
**Adam:** No, cuz usually especially, especially sort of like monster films and things like that, you're like, 'Oh no, show us the fucker!
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I want to see the demon, I want to see the ghost.' In this, I'm like, 'No, I'm perfectly happy to die in ignorance, I don't want to see it, it's fucking terrifying.'
**Adam:** But when they say, 'It's above the door,' and there's nothing there.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** No, but it's.
**Adam:** But it's.
**Adam:** Put it there.
**Lee:** But it's the building of the sound and the way the camera zooms in that gives you the impression that there's something there that you you you can't see and but it's still, as you say, fills you with dread and gives you that don't do it, don't open the door.
**Lee:** Like go and hold the door shut if anything.
**Lee:** Like, just.
**Lee:** Yeah, but but it does it with nothing.
**Lee:** And this, this had worked perfectly for an independent, this is what independent filmmakers need to be watching.
**Lee:** Because this can be made, you could make this on your fucking phone and then just edit in a bit of.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's interesting.
**Lee:** Because you don't need anything.
**Lee:** But it wasn't written that way because it was written as a book, so it was never made in a like we can't we can't show it and we can't do the special effects.
**Lee:** It was written purely as a book, but it it's an absolutely perfect example of just build the tension, you don't need anything else apart from the people's reactions to things that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Having, so I've read The Haunting of Hill House and actually I will pop down to the vault.
**Adam:** At some point and give you a breakdown on Shirley Jackson and the house.
**Adam:** Hello, this is Adam down in the vault and I've got some information for all you lovely people about Shirley Jackson.
**Adam:** An American author who is credited as the pioneer of modern Gothic.
**Adam:** she was unable to satisfactorily complete a biography of herself for her first novel, so her husband wrote one, and this is the original draft, which I think gives you a flavor of Shirley Jackson.
**Adam:** She plays the guitar and sings 500 folk songs, as well as playing the piano and the zither.
**Adam:** She also paints, draws, embroiders, makes things out of seashells, plays chess, and takes care of the house and children, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.
**Adam:** She believes no artist was ever ruined by housework, or helped by it either.
**Adam:** She is an authority on witchcraft and magic, has a remarkable private library of works in English on the subject, and is perhaps the only contemporary writer who is a practicing amateur witch.
**Adam:** Specializing in small-scale black magic and fortune-telling with a tarot deck. She is passionately addicted to cats, and at the moment has six, all coal black.
**Adam:** So, yes, very few people who are credited as a, practicing amateur witch in their biography within their, certainly back in, back in those days.
**Adam:** she gained notoriety and acclaim in equal measure for her incredible short story The Lottery, which was first published in The New Yorker in 1948.
**Adam:** On first publication, both Jackson and The New Yorker received over 300 letters, mostly addressed to The Lottery Lady, ranging from the baffled to the abusive, such was the shock that it caused.
**Adam:** The New Yorker also suddenly had a number of subscription cancellations from outraged readers. The same year she published her first novel. She went on to write five more novels, over 200 short stories, two memoirs and four books for children, including an account of the Salem witch trials.
**Adam:** She met her husband, critic Stanley Hyman, while they were both at Syracuse University in New York. Hyman had read a short story Jackson had printed in the university magazine and exclaimed, 'Who is Shirley Jackson? Because I am going to marry her.'
**Adam:** But don't be too fooled by this romantic story. He was also a serial adulterer who forced her into agree to an open marriage and generally seemed like a bit of a prick.
**Adam:** she, they had four children, and if you can find it, there is a lovely segment on the series Clive Barker's A to Z of Horror. S is for Sorceress in episode two, where her four children speak about growing up with her and some of her more witchy practices.
**Adam:** Shirley was the primary breadwinner in the household, although Hyman maintained control of the finances and would portion out her earnings to her as he saw fit.
**Adam:** As well as her writing, she was raising the children and running the household.
**Adam:** Apparently Hyman's modern ideas may have encompassed open marriage, but didn't seem to encompass hands-on parenting or the sharing of household chores.
**Adam:** As I say, a bit of a prick.
**Adam:** The family settled into the small village of North Bennington, Vermont, where Hyman took an instructor's job at Bennington College.
**Adam:** The family were treated with suspicion by the conservative townspeople and Shirley, a perennial outsider, found she was not taken seriously as an author in local academia because she was also a mother and ran a household, but had too much of a career to be part of the 'wives of faculty' group, even though she wouldn't have wanted to join that anyway.
**Adam:** In later years she became dogged by ill health, with her heavy smoking contributing to chronic asthma, as well as fainting, dizziness, and joint pain attributed to arterial sclerosis and heart issues.
**Adam:** She also suffered from anxiety, for which she was prescribed barbiturates, and has also diagnosed with colitis.
**Adam:** Her anxiety began to manifest as agoraphobia, although this began to respond to psychiatric treatment.
**Adam:** Sadly she died in her sleep at home, most likely of cardiac arrest, at the age of 48.
**Adam:** In 2007, the Shirley Jackson Awards were established, which recognize outstanding achievement in suspense, horror, and dark fantasy literature.
**Adam:** Previous winners include Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Jeff VanderMeer, Priya Sharma, and Rob Shearman.
**Adam:** All of Shirley Jackson's, short stories and novels are definitely worth looking into, she's an incredible writer.
**Adam:** I have also read We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which is just fantastic.
**Adam:** As for The Haunting of Hill House, there are certain changes, in its adaption into The Haunting. mostly this is that the events take place over 11 days rather than the three that we see in the film, so there are certain number of supernatural events that change or are left out of the, of the film, but it does mean that it has a greater impact, although it works so much better in the book to give you that constant build of dread.
**Adam:** there's much more, takes place in the grounds of Hill House, including a brook that, Eleanor and Theo find, which has a lot of ghost activity and, so on and so forth.
**Adam:** The, there are a lot of character names are changed.
**Adam:** one of the main differences is that, Grace Montague, or Grace Markway as she is in the film, that's Dr. Markway's wife, rather than the skeptic that she is in The Haunting, is actually as obsessed with the supernatural as her husband, but goes about her research into it in a less scientific and much more traditional sort of way, automatic writing, that kind of thing.
**Adam:** Anyway, this is, a brief enough moment of me in the vault, and I will now hand back to us in the future.
**Adam:** Good luck with it, gentlemen, love the show.
**Adam:** Bo, there we go. but, this is an absolute, this should be like a fucking case study for filmmakers of how to adapt a book.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because they both work on equally the same level. There are differences, but it's so right to the feel of the book.
**Adam:** That you get from the book, but it's done as a film. The book works on a literary level, whereas the film works on a cinematic level.
**Adam:** And, you know, they are practically perfect, you know, it's sort of.
**Adam:** But again this is like, this is how you should do it, basically.
**Adam:** In so many ways.
**Lee:** It's funny because I think the perfect companion piece to this is The Legend of Hell House, because there are effectively the same story, instead of people from a medium background it's scientists, but effectively it's exactly the same story.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's the one we watched.
**Lee:** Yes, that, yeah, yeah. And that's the same. The book and the because Adam bought me the book, thank you Adam, which I'd never read. And the book and the film, yeah, are close enough.
**Lee:** They definitely have their variance, like they know what works in one and doesn't work in the other and they kind of.
**Lee:** And and it does exactly the same. It it takes the story and just makes it so perfectly realistic, yeah, and just anything that it knows won't convert from the written page into showing you, it just drops out and swaps for something else.
**Lee:** And and it's it it's absolutely, it's a brilliant piece of screenwriting.
**Lee:** taking a book and saying, right, this won't work, so let's not try and push it or make it hokey, let's just swap it out for something else and work for something that works in this medium but doesn't in that one.
**Lee:** And and I think that's got to be a really difficult thing to do, especially with a book that you love enough to have turned into.
**Lee:** A film to let things go that you really care about, but go, 'No what, it's it's going to screw the movie and it's going to make it hokey and it's not going to work.'
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** So what happened was is Robert Wise was coming off of like I say, coming off of West Side Story, so he's won two Oscars at this point.
**Adam:** And frankly, the fact that he doesn't get an Oscar for this is a stain on humanity.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, it's technically a war crime as far as I'm concerned.
**Adam:** But, and then MGM, he had like one, one movie left with them.
**Adam:** And he said, 'Well, I want to do this adaption of The Haunting of Hill House.'
**Adam:** And they offered him like a million to do it.
**Adam:** And then he found out that if he went to MGM England, because they had like a subsidiary over here.
**Adam:** They offered him slightly more money.
**Adam:** And there's a thing and at the time there was a thing called the Eady Levy, which is, basically it was like a box office tax.
**Adam:** That went back into British film.
**Adam:** It was to try and keep British filmmaking going.
**Adam:** And so if you filmed it using, if you basically you qualified as a British film as long as you filmed it over here and there were only two.
**Adam:** I think it's like two or three non-UK resident wages going out in it.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** So, so basically, yeah, so they got a bit of extra money to do it over here, but that's why it's packed full of British actors.
**Adam:** it's only, it's only Julie Harris who plays Eleanor and Russ Tamblyn who plays Luke, who are American.
**Adam:** by the way, you know, you do know that's Dr. Jacoby, don't you?
**Lee:** What?
**Adam:** Luke in this, that's Russ Tamblyn, that's Dr. Jacoby from Twin Peaks.
**Lee:** Fuck off.
**Adam:** Yeah, you just thought, you just thought that Dean Stockwell had fucked Andy Serkis and produced this boy.
**Adam:** But no, that is Dr. Jacoby from fucking Twin Peaks.
**Lee:** I didn't spot that, but I did spot that, John, John Markway.
**Lee:** I'd be very surprised if that's not, Pinball Bobby's dad.
**Lee:** Because he looks exactly like Pinball Bobby the whole way through this movie.
**Lee:** I thought that was.
**Adam:** Well, the only thing that may remove that is that actor is called Richard Johnson. I literally watched an episode of Thriller last night with him in it.
**Lee:** Oh no, you didn't.
**Adam:** And he is, and he is still just so suave.
**Adam:** And, but he is, and this is a word you don't often hear with a man born in Upminster.
**Lee:** Upminster?
**Adam:** So yeah, he's Upminster born and bred is Richard Johnson, but also he's the dad in The Monster Club, you know, the the bit with, oh fuck, Donald Pleasence, where they're the vampire hunters.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's the dad. You know the dad who's the, spoiler alert, the dad who's a vampire.
**Adam:** That's him.
**Adam:** he's also in, Zombie Flesheaters, he's in loads of like really good horror films.
**Lee:** That's fucking blown my mind. I did not realize that it was him at all.
**Adam:** Yeah, but like I say, yeah.
**Adam:** So it's only Russ Tamblyn and like so it's only Luke and Eleanor who, so Claire Bloom's English.
**Adam:** and.
**Adam:** Rosalie Crutchley who plays the housekeeper, she's like, she's, I think she only died fairly recently.
**Adam:** She's been in stuff right up until like up until now.
**Adam:** But like loads of British telly and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And the groundskeeper, who we only ever seem to see, Valentine Dyall not doing his real voice.
**Lee:** Valentine Dyall?
**Adam:** Yeah, Valentine Dyall was the the the you know the the groundskeeper when they get there, but we only ever see Valentine Dyall doing an American accent.
**Adam:** Because the only other time he's appeared on the podcast was when we did City of the Dead.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Horror Hotel.
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Holy.
**Lee:** Shit.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is.
**Adam:** So, so yeah, pretty much so technically, The Haunting is a British film.
**Adam:** He's an American director, but it's all English, he's a pretty much English, pretty much English cast, pretty much English crew, filmed all over here.
**Adam:** I mean, the bit where she's coming out of the parking garage, that's near the Barbican.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's really weird that you've got London doubling up for like Boston.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But it's what they do now with Canada because they give so as you say, the same thing, so many tax breaks, everything is Canadian made and shot in Canada.
**Lee:** But yeah, funded by Hollywood, but it's all fucking shot in Canada.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's, not only that, but also I just love the, because I wonder how that would be done nowadays.
**Adam:** In so much as would Luke actually be hopeful that it's going to be haunted.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, cuz that would probably.
**Adam:** The amount of money you get from having the first documented, scientifically proven haunting.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, you know, back in those days it's probably a lot easier to pass it on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, let's face it, he wasn't going to go and live there or anything else like that.
**Adam:** This is clearly like how how quickly can I punt this fucking useless lump of real estate out as fast as I can and get leathered.
**Lee:** I did love that line in it actually, yeah, where it all starts kicking off and he turns around to Markway and says, 'You want to buy this house? You can have this, you can have it cheap.'
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** The other thing that with it as well is that obviously you've got the character of Theo who is clearly a lesbian, which was quite a unusual thing for for the time certainly for the time.
**Adam:** But also the fact that that's it's not it's not a key part of the character, it doesn't sort of, but it is, if you see what I mean.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but it's done with a great deal of awareness, so the audience would be able to pick up on it without having to make it plain.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** So obviously, yeah.
**Adam:** Probably a number of people who saw it at the time who never picked up on it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But apparently there that was the one deleted scene I heard about is that they, you see her having an argument with her girlfriend, like basically splitting up because she mentions that she's just left someone, I think at one point.
**Adam:** and.
**Adam:** But again, yeah, that was like Robert Wise was like, well, we'll cut it out because it's everything else in this is quite subtle, so let's leave that to subtlety.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think it also works so well.
**Adam:** That you just then you keep Eleanor as your focus.
**Adam:** Cuz I don't think anything occurs.
**Adam:** Pretty much without Eleanor being there.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Other characters go off and do stuff, but Eleanor is always the focal point, yeah.
**Chris:** The focal point, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that's another thing that was terribly in your face and all about the the the 91 remake.
**Lee:** Yeah, is that literally Eleanor comes in and meets Catherine Zeta Jones who plays the Theo character. Yeah, and one of the first things she said is, 'Oh, my boyfriend says this, but my girlfriend says that.'
**Lee:** Like they just make it everything is so like dumbed down and just overplayed and just, yeah, it was really fucking difficult to.
**Adam:** Do you feel it's like that quote from the second series of Sean Show where it's like we want thick people to get it this time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So you know, The Haunting's good, but there's far too much subtlety for people, you know.
**Adam:** And then and then of course they did The Haunting of Hill House the TV series which is pretty much nothing to do with the book, but I think that that was a, oh it's a franchiseable name, so we'll use it.
**Adam:** Because it's an easier sell than it is, but again, I don't want that to, I don't want either of those to supersede.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** The Haunting from 1963, because I think it's it's very, it's still so fucking good and also still functions as a horror movie.
**Adam:** We watch a lot of stuff, you know, I love Hammer, but I acknowledge that Hammer is not scary for a modern audience or anything like that, you know.
**Adam:** I mean, funnily enough, I was actually thinking the other day, I probably shot Ted Dracula, you know, because it's got all the bits of Dracula that he liked.
**Adam:** Without getting too sort of scary or whatever like that, whereas whereas this, this is still genuinely worrisome.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** 100%.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** also, obviously, Adam, you mentioned before, Shirley Jackson's, The Lottery.
**Lee:** So you sent us the the short film of that.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Lee:** What did you make of that? I think you quite liked it, didn't you?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So, you know, I didn't know anything about it aside from it's called The Lottery, and you're watching it.
**Chris:** It's like, okay, what's going on here? It's just a little town.
**Chris:** They're collecting stones, a bit weird, all right, what's going to happen? And then, yeah, they all congregate and then they're doing a lottery.
**Chris:** Okay, and you kind of like, well, something bad is going to happen, and yeah, I did think the stones are probably going to be involved, but it, you know, it's sort of playing out.
**Chris:** And and then, the old guy, he's complaining about all these, you know, new young ideas, like ruining everything.
**Chris:** It's like, okay, this is, he's getting kind of interesting, and then of course, yeah, it it turns at the end, and you're like, yeah, it's completely, you know, it's showing something about how insane some of how rituals and traditions have been.
**Chris:** And when it's put in that context, it's like so obviously, well, that would be horrific if if that was done, and yet we are still doing some things that are, you know, probably should be changed.
**Chris:** But once they become ingrained.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** In the psyche of the group, it's like, well, if one person did that to someone, they'd be awful, lock them up, straight away, hate them, you know.
**Chris:** But if the group do it, the majority, and they're all in on it, it's like, well, okay, that's what we do.
**Chris:** So don't don't try and turn away from this.
**Adam:** It's it's also the sort of banality of it that it feels like it's like a fucking car boot sale.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's a matter of fact. They're just going through these motions.
**Adam:** A swap me if I knew what one of those was, I don't know.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Lee:** I've got to say, I I made some notes and yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town. Like and that was, it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you, and then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** I'd never watched.
**Chris:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there they mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just this is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper.
**Lee:** but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched. No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it.
**Lee:** They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town, like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys.
**Lee:** Because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you and then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you're quite right, Chris, I'm sure the message is far deeper, but I did just write down that it was the most boring episode of Tales of the Unexpected I'd ever watched.
**Lee:** No, I think only because they could have cut five minutes out of it. They didn't need to mention the surname of everybody in the town.
**Lee:** Like and that was it got to the point where I I was texting you guys because I was like, I'd gotten so bored, I was thinking of the show, then I was thinking of things I should message you.
**Lee:** And then I was texting you, and they still hadn't finished reading out names and I was like, this too is fucking long.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can definitely see.
**Lee:** Watching it again.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** I was like.
**Adam:** I can.
**Lee:** No, I think it's just really fucking long. I can definitely see like watching it again, because they have in there.
**Lee:** They mentioned every single one of their full names and you're just like, why are you doing this, it's just.
**Lee:** This is just a quick film about people who pick out the name in the lottery and then get stone to death, you don't need to know everybody's full name, it's not that deep, but it's like, no, it's very deep.

---

## Ep 173 The Evil of We Have Been Watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-173-the-evil-of-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 2 July 2023
Duration: 00:40:14

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Evil of We Have Been Watching”. The team discuss what they’ve been sticking in their stupid flappy faces with our regular round up of what We Have Been Watching. This episode features chat about “Unbreakable” and “Glass” (following on from our episode on “Split”), “Evil Dead Rise”, “King of the Castle”, “Knock at the Cabin” (again), Hammer’s late flourish of Vampire classics and the excellent crime solving game “Cryptic Killers”. Listeners beware, as here be spoilers and swearing, and join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening everybody, Lee here.
**Lee:** Our regular listeners will know that we recently did a supernatural stories episode, or not, depending on your beliefs.
**Lee:** But it seems to have gone down quite well and we've spoken to a few people who said they've got interesting stories of their own.
**Lee:** So as we tempted the idea at the end of our last episode, we're going to do a follow-up at some point.
**Lee:** So if any of you have stories of your own that you think could be interesting that you wouldn't mind us sharing with the listeners.
**Lee:** Feel free to either record them and email them over to us at info@welcometohorror.com.
**Lee:** Or otherwise, you can type them out and send them to us and we will read them out on the show.
**Lee:** If you'd rather not use your name, we will use your first name otherwise, but if you'd rather go under an alias, include that in the message and we'll be sure to use that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, and enjoy the show.
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Hey, and we are here this evening for another roundup of shit that we've been watching.
**Lee:** Not all of it will be shit, hopefully.
**Lee:** But I I do have to tell you, at the end of last episode, I lied to you and the listeners, guys, and I apologize.
**Chris:** What?
**Lee:** The reason for it is, when I watch a film, I make quite a few notes, like half a pages worth.
**Lee:** And when I do what we've been watching, I just write down the titles.
**Lee:** And when I looked at my paper, I had loads of stuff written down, so I thought, oh, I've written, I've watched loads of things, so I said, oh, I've got loads to cover.
**Lee:** I then realized having at the end of the recording, actually I'd watched one thing and it had annoyed me so much I'd written a massive amount of notes on it.
**Chris:** Well, that's very valuable too.
**Lee:** Just to warn you, something's getting its ass torn out this evening.
**Lee:** there will be.
**Adam:** Or to or to entice.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** You know, that's that's it, Pete Lagon.
**Adam:** Right, I'm pausing this, cup of tea and a fag.
**Adam:** Get myself, give myself comfy, I'm in for this.
**Lee:** there will be spoilers, there will be swearing.
**Chris:** There's already been swearing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and yeah.
**Lee:** So let us kick off this week with Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** Hello.
**Adam:** This is not so much we have been watching, this is we have been playing.
**Adam:** But I think it's sort of, I think it's relevant and it's certainly just a fucking good time, frankly.
**Adam:** Yeah, so me and Claire got a thing from Amazon called Cryptic Killers, Murder of a Millionaire.
**Adam:** And what it is is you get this folder and it's done exactly like an evidence folder.
**Adam:** You open it up, you've got like photographs, you've got copies of receipts, copies of newspapers, bits, you know, just general bits and pieces and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And the autopsy report, etc.
**Adam:** Nothing grizzly, you know, it's all sort of like what what I would say was in accepted levels of someone who wanted to do like a crime thing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's not like, you know, it's not a full-blown like close-up of the huge ricochet bullet, it's just a a drawing and some photographs tastefully done, you know.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** but, yeah, and you are then, you're given the note a note from the investigating officer, basically saying this is where I am with it, but I've got to go, I've got, go on holiday, can you, you know, here's the crime solve it.
**Adam:** And then you have to go through and piece it together.
**Adam:** And it was fucking great.
**Adam:** It was really awesome.
**Adam:** I I had a it's something as a game, I would imagine that it's something that works with a whole load of you, it would work someone on their own could do it.
**Adam:** It's do you know what I mean, it's just a really intriguing little mystery.
**Adam:** And basically you're given all these bits and pieces and for example, the person the person who's given you the case, like the investigating officer who has handed over, says, oh, you can log into my inbox as well.
**Adam:** So you've got access to their all their emails, some of which may be relevant to the case and some of which may not be, because obviously they're doing other cases.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but it's it's really I mean, I there's I kind of want to avoid giving any of the things away because it was just so satisfying doing it.
**Adam:** But it was like to have some answers, you would have to go, right, well, this report with this newspaper says this happened, this list here proves that person was there, so we're counting them out for the moment, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** You're like, right, they've got they've got what we think is a good alibi.
**Adam:** And so you basically are given this selection of people, sorry, that's it, yeah, so someone's been murdered, they give you the storyline and.
**Adam:** should have said that at the start, really.
**Adam:** and basically, yeah, they've, someone's been killed, you're given a list of a list of people and contacts, some of whom are suspects, and yeah, you sort of work it out from there.
**Adam:** And I think we probably, I think the the game sort of list that is roughly about two and a half hours, I think we were about two hours when we did it.
**Chris:** That's pretty good then.
**Adam:** And and and again, no spoilers, but we fucking solved it.
**Adam:** So, you know, it's it's not going to be one of the it's it doesn't feel like.
**Adam:** I had that worry, you know, when you play a computer game, but you haven't played computer games for fucking years.
**Chris:** And you just get stuck completely.
**Adam:** Well, for me it's like roughly around the time of the Mega Drive was the last time I was gaming on a regular basis, probably or no, PS2, probably.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Well done, I'm holding up my Mega Drive for the camera.
**Adam:** The benefit of the tape, he is holding up his Mega Drive.
**Adam:** But but yeah, it's just such a, it was like a fun little thing.
**Adam:** And I think there is a crossover of like horror and crime like as genres, I think that you tend to find people who like horror will also watch crime or there's a lot of crime in horror.
**Adam:** Silence of the Lambs is probably the best example where it's like shot like a horror film, but it's a police procedural essentially.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That sounds excellent, I think I might have to look that up myself.
**Lee:** It's
**Adam:** Well, me and Claire are definitely going to do another one.
**Adam:** And just to put it out there, there is one called, I believe it's, yes, the one we did was called Murder of a Millionaire.
**Adam:** And there's one called Murder at the Movie Theater, which is, which takes place during like a Halloween film festival.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** I'll make that down.
**Adam:** And the one, I mean, the one that we the one we did was set in the UK, but I think the Murder at the Movie Theater one's set in America, so there's like it's not all the same scenarios.
**Adam:** And possibly not even the same, you know, process of, evidence gathering and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's it's really good and you just really get into it.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Like I said, I mean, we were like fucking smug as assholes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When we it was like we were we were fucking right, we were right and the right people went down.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We didn't have we didn't have to fit anyone up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Good job.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** So there, so highly recommended, it's called, yeah, like I say, it's called Crypted Killer, Cryptic Killers, not crypted killers, that's something completely different.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Cryptic Killers, and yeah, I think they've got like about I think they've got about five different cases that you can get so far.
**Adam:** And, yeah, there it's really, yeah, just really worth worth a guy.
**Chris:** That would be a bit weird being a crypted killer because they don't exist.
**Adam:** Well, exactly, yeah, being a non-existent.
**Adam:** Or or do you just sit back on your laurels and claim you've done a very good job of it?
**Chris:** You don't see any, do you?
**Adam:** No, that's that's me, mate, that is.
**Adam:** That's why you don't see them big feet no more.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** Or I have been on a pretty full-on M Night Shyamalan.
**Lee:** Oh, hey.
**Chris:** Adventure.
**Chris:** so I I thought I have to watch unbreakable, and then really I have to watch glass.
**Chris:** So it's kind of a toofer, maybe this one.
**Chris:** Now, so so unbreakable, which as you said, I think 2001, maybe.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it is, yeah.
**Chris:** For me, it still held up really good.
**Chris:** I don't know whether whether it was better or worse to have seen split first, I don't it didn't really seem to impact it obviously one way or the other.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** But like unbreakable certainly, yeah, so much going for it whether you've watched split afterwards or not.
**Chris:** But yeah, so and I combined them all, though.
**Chris:** But then I did like after having seen all three, the fact that they've all got similarities, they're all related, but they all feel different enough as well.
**Chris:** That you're not watching the same kind of thing each time.
**Chris:** Yeah, and and it was it was really fascinating to see Bruce Willis, who I haven't watched a film of his probably since he was diagnosed.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** So there was a bit of a, you know, sort of hoping it was going to be a good one.
**Chris:** And really, I guess, it was a slightly different role than he would tend to have played.
**Chris:** You know, normally more straightforward action.
**Chris:** but yeah, in this certainly, yeah, very subtle performance, but still very powerful.
**Chris:** Yeah, really enjoyable, and each of the characters plays well.
**Chris:** And it is a.
**Chris:** It's funny, when I I kept seeing all three of these films, you know, you see the covers pop up in different places and just having no idea what they're about.
**Chris:** And then after seeing Split, it's like that that is a bit more.
**Chris:** Yeah, I suppose it's more horror really than unbreakable is.
**Chris:** And and just yeah, interesting how, you know, unbreakable is the superhero side of it.
**Chris:** But I think it could potentially could have been underwhelming, but it for me, it really was interesting to see, yeah, how would you write a story about kind of a realistic superhero?
**Chris:** But that that is a yeah, very unusual idea.
**Chris:** So I yeah, I mean, I think he he managed that very well.
**Chris:** And and then leading into glass, I do think he he did tie them together reasonably well.
**Chris:** I'd.
**Chris:** I'd probably have to watch glass again, it started to be, I suppose, as more elements come into it.
**Chris:** and I get the impression that he's there's quite a lot of references throughout.
**Chris:** to each of them.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** potentially with like the law of how superheroes and villains come about.
**Chris:** Yeah, and and again, there was was good to see Samuel Jackson in this as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's it's it's a different kind of role to what you expect from Samuel L Jackson as well.
**Adam:** It's not same same as with Bruce Willis.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Definitely, but it's interesting, I hadn't thought about that, but what you said there, Chris, I think is it's it's interesting because both unbreakable and split are films that work utterly on their own.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** They don't connect apart from that tiny bit at the end.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And other than that, they are films that just could be watched by someone and they never have to see the other or vice versa.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And glass, you do need to.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's that's where it's like, oh no, this is now become a a focus thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I but I do think that, yeah, there's a weird thing with.
**Adam:** Watching it like you say after sort of, Bruce Willis, had his, like becoming ill.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's a weird thing to see it when it's like sort of like, you know, him as David Dunn, but he's David Dunn and it is he is 20 years older.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it's sort of, yeah, just he sort of he kind of is it's odd because his character kind of becomes retains that fragility.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** You know, which and again, it's part of the thing it's unbreakable.
**Adam:** But actually physically he is unbreakable, but not, not mentally, you know, he's not he's a fairly fragile.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But you don't normally get with superheroes, you know, if you look at the Marvel universe or whatever, they are, you know, apart from Iron Man, obviously having his panic attacks, like they're pretty much unshakable for everything they go through.
**Lee:** Yeah, whereas he is as you say, it's far more grounded in reality.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It and it's far more realistic, I think we that we did a great job of writing it.
**Chris:** Yeah, like cuz that that is I would think that's a pretty hard thing to take on and I think it could have failed miserably potentially.
**Chris:** It could have just been, this is, you know, really just awful.
**Chris:** But yeah, no, there was enough facets to the whole thing and especially bringing in the psychologist, and in this one where, you know, there's a twist with her, her intentions, which comes out at the end.
**Chris:** I sort of didn't want to give away necessarily too much, but
**Adam:** I mean, to be honest, Sarah Paulson walked in, I was like, you're up to something.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** American horror story to know not a woman to be trusted.
**Chris:** and then and so and what I was wondering was how are they how is this going to end really because normally in a superhero movie, it is going to be a full-on battle at some point.
**Chris:** And and they were heading towards that and it's like, okay, yeah, but but then that that wouldn't have fit really.
**Chris:** So I actually did like the way it became then just a very subdued ending, like they both got killed, you know, in un-spectacular ways really compared to what a superhero villain would normally.
**Adam:** And I think that's why cuz a lot of people didn't like glass, or a lot of the fans didn't like glass.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Right, okay.
**Adam:** I think it's because they didn't get that, but it's almost the point because like you say, them fighting on top of a building that would be ridiculous, surely for a superhero movie, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Adam:** Not a Barney in a car park.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** You know, which is.
**Adam:** But again, that feels to me that worked really, yeah.
**Chris:** Like.
**Chris:** Like and because it was.
**Chris:** So much about the character and that is something I think M Night Shyamalan really gets well.
**Chris:** And I'll go into that with the next film that I watched of his.
**Chris:** He has such great character interactions, like they're intense, but also subtle and and deep.
**Chris:** And there's like, it's it's people, they seem to really they're trying to work out what is your intention, who are you and what what is happening here.
**Chris:** And it's so yeah, I don't I think I'm really starting to like the way he writes his characters.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm definitely finding it fascinating to watch them all.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** I think it's actually the weirdest thing is is that he has made the in terms of just pure like how they work mechanically, if you like, he's made the perfect superhero franchise, because you can watch two of them without having to know any knowledge of the other and they are entertaining and good, you know, films within their own right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then you've got a match up, but that match up and you make sure that there is no way you get another film afterwards.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like, you know, it's like, right, so we've revealed to you that these two stories are intertwined, right, but we are stopping here.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again, that's kind of like almost what you'd need with a superhero thing, it's like, no, we're doing it stop and stop.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You come back to us in 10 years.
**Chris:** We're not going for another 10 years.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Don't turn it into a TV series, don't milk it, just let it be good.
**Chris:** This is, yeah, I think we've said that about a few other ones that it makes sense to do it.
**Chris:** Yeah, so so no, I really enjoyed it and I'm I'm definitely glad I've seen all three.
**Chris:** And that we covered split.
**Chris:** So yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Now, So.
**Lee:** I twice have tried now to watch Evil Dead Rise.
**Lee:** Now, obviously massive fan of the originals.
**Lee:** loved the Ash versus Evil Dead series.
**Lee:** I didn't mind the reboot they did a few years ago, I'd I saw it at the cinema, I was entertained with it and a half.
**Lee:** It it did what a reboot needed to do, which was.
**Lee:** Bring it more up to date and set it for a new audience, but without without changing too much, it it just gave it a modern feel for effectively the similar story.
**Lee:** So I went into this with medium expectations, and I'd heard loads of people whose opinions I generally trust saying good things, I think we got about half an hour into it the first time, at which point Jennifer said to me, I don't know about you, but I don't give a shit about this, can we stop it and watch something else?
**Lee:** Which we did, and my plan was to go back after she went to bed and finish watching it.
**Lee:** But I just found I had no inclination whatsoever and I was the you know, I was so vanilla to it, it was just kind of happening.
**Lee:** But I thought, no, no, I'm going to give it another go, so I'm going to watch it one day on my own, shut myself away in the screening room and just have a go at it.
**Lee:** and I carried on from where I left off, I think I got another 15 minutes or so in from where I'd stopped it the first time, yeah, and I just could not go on any further, it is so absolute shit.
**Chris:** So that's funny, so what yeah, what have they got so wrong?
**Lee:** Oh, there's so the characters are.
**Lee:** It's see the problem is, again, it's so the pre-credit sequence was really good.
**Lee:** So the first five minutes of the film before you get the title sequence was really good and really strong, I was like, oh, I like this, it's, you know, it's going to do something new with it, but everything just felt so contrive and terrible.
**Lee:** Like the characters are completely unrealistic, there's no real development to any of them.
**Lee:** The film's only an hour and a half.
**Lee:** And as I say, it's probably 10 minutes before the title sequence comes up, so the rest of the film feels quite squashed, like everything's happening one thing on top of the other.
**Lee:** there was no lighting in it, the entire thing is in the dark.
**Lee:** I watched it at night in the dark and couldn't tell half of what was going on.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I didn't think any of the performances were any good, so I couldn't even get drawn into that.
**Lee:** they then the the thing I finally turned off at is.
**Lee:** They tried to do that thing where a good film it feels great, but in a bad film, it really does suffer from trying to put scenes from the previous version in it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So it was a bit like they'd tried to so it's it's all set in a tower block, but they're but the staircase collapsed so they're stuck in it, so they've made it in like an urban environment, but they're all trapped together, but yeah, they they tried to it it felt like the, oh, you know, the scene where someone's eye pops out and it flies into someone else's mouth, well you liked that in the original, so we're going to redo that, but it feels entirely out of context, and this is this is not a horror comedy movie.
**Lee:** So that worked in the originals because it was it was 50% comedy and 50% horror and in this it just didn't.
**Chris:** So it's really weird that it's not a comedy.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I know.
**Lee:** And it really, yeah, and I I think that's what it is.
**Lee:** It.
**Chris:** Cuz you'd go in expecting that, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so the first Evil Dead was a horror movie and then it was comedy it had comedy in it, but it was definitely horror.
**Lee:** And then it was the next two were comedy horror.
**Adam:** Evil Dead 2 is essentially a comedy comedy remake of one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then Army of Darkness is its own mad fucking thing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, so you do kind of go, okay, so they made the first film and then they settled into this comedy horror.
**Lee:** So I again.
**Lee:** But after the reboot wasn't comedy at all, I was kind of set up for that.
**Lee:** oh, yeah, it was just so terribly done and I just couldn't could not get on board with anything about it.
**Lee:** I don't know what other people saw in it that I didn't.
**Lee:** I was so disappointed with it.
**Chris:** What as what has been the general reaction then?
**Chris:** Some people really like it.
**Adam:** Seems to be fairly positive.
**Adam:** I I haven't seen anyone, I haven't seen anyone sling down the gauntlet of it's the best one in the series or anything, but.
**Adam:** Yeah, a lot of people just seem to seem to have enjoyed it.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** I mean, to be honest, everything even even those reviews that were positive, what I read from them, I was like, nah, probably won't bother.
**Adam:** And now I now I certainly won't, so.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely don't, cuz it's, you know, it's just.
**Lee:** And again, it hasn't come down in price either, so, you know, you you pay full price for it and you can't even make it to the end.
**Lee:** You're like, well, that's 20 quid that I have just pissed away cuz like I yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz you're you're loyal to watch it.
**Lee:** Well, yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** And I feel I'm fairly forgiving, so I was like, do you know what, even if I don't enjoy the film generally, I can enjoy the performances or the sets or the Yeah, you get something from it.
**Lee:** But everything about this was absolute dog tot, I just couldn't couldn't enjoy it, I am very tempted to watch it now, just just got to see, yeah, you you, if you do, Chris, you can report back, yeah, oh, it's not, right, yeah, so that's all I have to say on that absolute fucking monstrosity.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Chris:** Lee hated everything about it.
**Lee:** Adam, back to you.
**Adam:** back to me.
**Adam:** Right, I'm going back to the 1977.
**Chris:** It's a good year.
**Chris:** It's a good year, vintage that one.
**Adam:** It's a vintage.
**Adam:** I watched, with the sad demise of Network.
**Adam:** I've been looking to make sure that I I'm sort of.
**Adam:** Anything in their back catalog, I'm sort of looking towards us like.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, I did I quite fancy that.
**Adam:** And I just get the feeling that some of it will just disappear.
**Adam:** So, so I investigated King of the Castle.
**Adam:** Which is a kids TV show from 1977.
**Adam:** It is fucking mad as shit.
**Adam:** It is fucking great.
**Adam:** It is pissing insane.
**Adam:** Someone put someone put online, a review online and it said Franz Kafka rewrites Alice in Wonderland.
**Adam:** And it is it's just barking, it's great.
**Adam:** Basically it's this kid who lives on a council estate, but has also won like a music scholarship, to the sort of local posh school, so all the kids on the rest of the estate hate his guts.
**Adam:** and he gets bullied by a very young Jamie Foreman and like the kids who hang around on the stairs, his dad's a jazz musician who seems about as useless as a wet wanking Raygate.
**Adam:** And his stepmom cares, but yeah, just that's it really.
**Adam:** and, yeah, in the middle of like being chased by these kids, he gets in a lift and it falls falls down the shaft cuz they it's out of order.
**Adam:** Falls to the bottom of the shaft and then he wakes up in a weird other reality that's a castle that is kind of based on the tower block and all the people he meets in the castle world are played by the same people he meets in the real world.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** So like the Master of Keys in the castle is the caretaker of his block of flats.
**Lee:** That's.
**Adam:** And like his teachers turn up and the police who are looking and the police who have been called because there's an accident and like so and like his mom and dad and yeah.
**Adam:** And it's just so fucking strange.
**Adam:** It's got all the real world stuff is filmed on location on film and all the weird stuff is in the studio on video.
**Adam:** So it immediately just creates an utter shift.
**Adam:** And the weird thing is, they've got such a good bunch of actors, I'm not extending that to the child actors as much, but they've got, but you've got like Fulton Mackay in it and, Milton Johns and, Katherine Thomas.
**Adam:** Katherine Thomas.
**Adam:** The Welshman was in Dad's Army, he's he's in it and he's like a real major character.
**Adam:** He's fucking great in it.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** All the people in real life, it's all the adults and that he's encountered really, in the real world, it's done very realistically and sort of almost documentary fly on the wall sort of looking 70s kitchen sink drama.
**Adam:** But in the other reality, they're all pant up, so they're all heightened and weird and like grotesque and stuff like that, and it's a really weird thing because you sort of watching it's like, no, I know this is a choice because I can see you in the real in the bits in the real world playing really straight and playing really for real.
**Adam:** So it's like, I know that this is a a choice that's been made that everyone sort of gets bigger and more caricatured in the other reality.
**Adam:** And yeah, he gets mixed up with bureaucracy,
**Adam:** At one point, he becomes King of the Castle and basically.
**Adam:** Within half an hour is a fucking tyrant and and.
**Adam:** Like it's just it's it's fucking it's fucking great.
**Adam:** It just is.
**Adam:** And.
**Unknown:** Can you please mention my favorite line about this orange squash?
**Adam:** Oh yeah, the bit where he's he's sitting at home and his stepmom comes in and she says, oh I've got this, I've got a new drink, it's Satsuma flavor, that'll be a change from orange, won't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, and it's written by it's written by two guys called Bob Baker and Dave Martin who did loads of 70s Doctor Who stories, a lot of the weirder ones.
**Adam:** And also and one of them went on to write the Wallace and Gromit stuff, Bob Baker went on to write Wallace and Gromit.
**Adam:** And it's produced by a guy with an amazing name, Patrick Drumgool, and he, he also did Children of the Stones and Robin of Sherwood.
**Adam:** So he's got like lineage with weird ITV, you know.
**Lee:** I've got Children of the Stones all queued up, I think I've never seen it, I think I'm going to try and watch it all on Friday.
**Adam:** It's a belter, mate, it really is fucking good.
**Lee:** Yeah, I've heard very good things about it and as I mentioned off Mike just now, I've been I've just gone down rabbit holes, turn off hours of watching, Cold dudes to Cold Dudes Walking Club, yeah, and they went to Avery and he kept referring back to our good Children of the Stones, so I think I'm finally going to get off my ass on Friday and watch all of that.
**Adam:** Yeah, go for it, it's a fucking treat, it really is, but I think I'm then going to add King of the Castle to that as well, because that sounds.
**Adam:** Seriously, it's it's so fucking mad, it really is, cuz like his teachers,
**Adam:** So there's two teachers in the castle world, one of them is a mad scientist who was built the other one like Frankenstein and then Frankenstein the Frankenstein creature chases the kid around to steal his voice.
**Lee:** Oh my.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's really weird and macab, but also just yeah, yeah, watch it, it's fucking magical.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Chris:** All right, so I was going to put in a Black Mirror episode, but as soon as we got 10 minutes left.
**Chris:** Instead of talking much about it, I'm just going to say, I don't think it was horror.
**Chris:** So it doesn't matter anyway.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** What episode?
**Adam:** What episode?
**Chris:** Season 6 episode 1, Joan is Awful.
**Lee:** It was an excellent episode, if you seen the first two.
**Lee:** The next episode is horror.
**Lee:** Believe me.
**Chris:** Okay, right.
**Chris:** I will.
**Chris:** I will continue on then.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Wait.
**Chris:** What episode?
**Chris:** Episode 2 or episode 3?
**Lee:** Episode 2.
**Chris:** Right, okay.
**Chris:** But no, yeah.
**Chris:** Joan was awful was pretty good though.
**Chris:** It was very meta and it made me think of Rick and Morty.
**Chris:** Which also not.
**Chris:** Really.
**Chris:** Really horror mostly, but yeah.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Good stuff.
**Chris:** but yeah, so instead, I will talk about my other one.
**Chris:** Which was the other M Night Shyamalan recommended, well, I think.
**Chris:** I'm pretty sure it was recommended by Lee.
**Chris:** I'm fairly certain you said you liked knock knock at the cabin.
**Lee:** Yes, I did.
**Lee:** Very much so.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Now it was funny.
**Chris:** Right, so I I was trying to work out what I didn't like about it because everything seemed great.
**Chris:** And I don't know if it was just the fact that it was based on a religious idea.
**Chris:** That set me up for just being a little bit like, I sort of, I found it harder to believe this than obviously all the other millions of things that we watch that are clearly not real in any way whatsoever, but you happily watch.
**Chris:** But by the end, I was completely like, yeah, don't even care about that in the slightest, like it was just that was a great setup for creating such an intense and unfolding.
**Chris:** And it's one of those where, like I said earlier about, the the trilogy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like it's real people in in a sort of extraordinary supernatural kind of situation.
**Chris:** How what you do there and and that is what M Night, I think, did fantastically.
**Chris:** Was how do real people interact in these sort of situations, like how do you know who you can trust out of any of them, what are they going to do next.
**Chris:** And it's like it's that sort of there's a subtlety to it that becomes very intense and it actually and it totally drew me in as well because you know, as you say at the beginning when they first arrive.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You're like.
**Lee:** What is going on here?
**Lee:** Free.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I was very well they're just nutters.
**Lee:** They're just, yeah, and then the more you get drawn into it, you're like, maybe it's not imaginary, and then you yeah, and then you start and then you're you're on that ride with them absolutely, and it just that was what I loved about it.
**Lee:** It was the fact that you start off 100% on one side of the fence.
**Lee:** And you can't imagine anything changing your mind.
**Lee:** Yeah and it slowly starts worming its way they all played it fantastically.
**Chris:** Like the roles that they had.
**Chris:** And and there was nice to see Rupert Grint.
**Chris:** Who fairly different role to to.
**Lee:** What I've seen him in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** What I've seen him in.
**Chris:** What was he in?
**Lee:** What was he in?
**Adam:** What was he in?
**Lee:** He was.
**Adam:** That face.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He he did a fantastic job in it.
**Lee:** He really really did.
**Chris:** Yeah, cuz he's someone who you totally will be like, yeah, I don't trust you in the slightest.
**Chris:** But.
**Lee:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's I absolutely recommend it.
**Chris:** It.
**Chris:** Hooked me all the way through to the end.
**Chris:** And and David Batista again.
**Chris:** Slightly unusual role from what I've seen him in, mainly Gardens of the Galaxy and June.
**Chris:** I think that's all I've seen him in.
**Chris:** Possibly.
**Adam:** He's fucking great.
**Adam:** He's in Blade Runner.
**Lee:** Yeah, he is.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Chris:** I don't think he was then when I saw Blade Runner.
**Chris:** That's weird.
**Adam:** He's the replicant.
**Adam:** Right at the start.
**Adam:** He retired.
**Adam:** He goes to.
**Chris:** I'm going to have to watch that again.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** He totally stole that.
**Lee:** Because that was the thing.
**Lee:** I was like you Chris.
**Lee:** I was like, oh yeah, Gardens of the Galaxy.
**Lee:** He'll do like a comedy role.
**Lee:** I can't see him in anything serious.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And when he comes in at the beginning of the Blade Runner, he just fucking smashed it.
**Lee:** It was.
**Lee:** He was.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Chris:** But that's that's definitely.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Again, I I bought them all on DVD, I watched them all once, maybe, yeah, and they went on the shelf and I kind of forgot about them, but oh yeah, what awesome three nights that was sitting and watching all of those, so yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** What awesome three nights that was sitting and watching all of those, so yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, he was fantastic in this, King of the Castle, but it's during the time that a series of the Hammer films were coming out so I went back and re-watched them because I realized I didn't remember them that well, so I to to put three into one, over three nights, I watched Countess Dracula, the Vampire Lovers and Twins of Evil, yes, and oh and I I forgotten how classic these are, like these are always kind of second tier, but they're not at all, they're every bit as good as any of the other classic bits, yeah, totally blown away.

---

## Ep 172 Split

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-172-split/
Air date: 18 June 2023
Duration: 00:39:45

### Description

It’s time to make like a banana (who enjoys the work of M. Night Shyamalan) and watch “Split”. A film in which learn that a Varvatos shirt will excuse 90s cargo pants; that security guards are utterly useless, especially if they’ve still got your orange headphones; and that Kanye is my main man, et cetera. By being a “stealth sequel” to “Unbreakable”, and becoming the middle leg of a trilogy concluded with “Glass”; “Split” runs the risk of being absorbed into that wider context; but as a film on it’s own, it’s a tense, pared down thriller with Hitchcockian vibes and two incredible lead performances, that rightly rejuvenated Shyamalan’s reputation as a film maker. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us. And if you are having difficulties with your mental health, seek help - whether that’s with your Doctor or even just talking with friends and family. Stay safe.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, everybody. Lee here. our regular listeners will know that we recently did a supernatural stories episode, or not, depending on your beliefs.
**Lee:** but it seems to have gone down quite well and we've spoken to a few people who said they've got interesting stories of their own. So, as we tempted the idea at the end of our last episode, we're going to do a follow-up at some point.
**Lee:** So if any of you have stories of your own that you think would be interesting that you wouldn't mind us sharing with the listeners,
**Lee:** feel free to either record them and email them over to us at info@welcometohorror.com.
**Lee:** or otherwise, you can type them out and send them to us and we will read them out on the show.
**Lee:** if you'd rather not use your name, we will use your first name, otherwise, but if you would rather go under an alias, include that in the message and we'll be sure to use that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much and enjoy the show.
**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here, as promised, this evening to discuss the 2016 M. Night Shyamalan movie Split.
**Lee:** we there will be spoilers, there will be swearing, and just to warn you, obviously, as this is part of a trilogy, we will be discussing the other movies later on and there will be spoilers for those as well.
**Adam:** Unbreakable and Glass that we might be spoiling as well.
**Lee:** so, Chris, as this was your first viewing, I'm guessing of Split, what did you make of it?
**Chris:** Is is it gonna be predictable, my answer, do you think? At this point?
**Chris:** So, it's got Anya Taylor-Joy. I didn't know she was in it. That was a lovely pleasant surprise, you know.
**Chris:** fantastic, she was.
**Chris:** And now, I've heard you mention him several times, James McAvoy.
**Chris:** I totally recognized him when I saw him.
**Chris:** I don't know where else I've seen him.
**Adam:** He's young Charles Xavier in the you know when they in X-Men when they started doing First Class, like they went back and he was younger.
**Chris:** It's been a long time, but that is sounding okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, so he's
**Chris:** That could be it then.
**Lee:** that role as well.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Chris:** Was he in it?
**Lee:** Like I say, did he cameo in Deadpool as that character as well? There was a point where he past the door and he sort it's him and he sort of pushes the door shut so you can't see which X-Men are in the room.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's Deadpool 2 he's in like but he yeah, so he's in First Class, Days of Future Past and Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** he's there's a really good film with him The Last King of Scotland, which is absolutely
**Adam:** fucking amazing, which is about
**Chris:** Not a horror.
**Adam:** Not not a horror, well, to not a horror to a certain extent, it's basically it's about a guy who ended up as Idi Amin's official physician and Idi Amin, interesting fella.
**Adam:** But yeah, he's in it, he's apparently he's Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
**Adam:** I don't know which version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that is.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because there's been about a hundred.
**Adam:** he's he's UPS guy in Muppets Most Wanted.
**Adam:** but also he was in he sort of made his name in Shameless.
**Adam:** he's in his
**Chris:** I never saw that actually.
**Adam:** The serials.
**Chris:** Oh okay. And I that that I meant to watch.
**Adam:** You never see him?
**Adam:** yeah, early doors, State of Play.
**Chris:** Okay, so so what we haven't watched?
**Lee:** No, I don't think we've we've discussed films he's been in because there's that he was in the the It remake, but yeah.
**Chris:** But he's very memorable and I I mean this, like surely he won an award for this.
**Lee:** I know.
**Adam:** Surprisingly enough, no.
**Chris:** I mean seriously, like this this must have been such a fascinating character characters to to play. Like when you're shown the script as an actor, I wonder how
**Chris:** like to just be able to change so much.
**Chris:** And the expression like it's mad.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's put so much into the tiny mannerisms and every character and to be able to switch from one to the other almost instantly is phenomenal.
**Adam:** And they do credit in the credits they credit him with all the personalities.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So he's credited as Dennis, Patricia, Hedwig, the Beast, Kevin Wendell Crumb, Barry, Orwell and Jade because they're the ones that we see in it.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** I wonder what that does to you. I wonder if it did actually affect him in some way.
**Adam:** I think it's one of those things though, when for for for actors, I think it's one of those one it's like when every sort of long-running TV show, especially like sci-fi and things like that, they always have to do evil doppelgangers because I think it's like it the actors like it because it's like now I get to do something else.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I do suspect that this is this is one of those things where it's like actors are really sort of like would be champing at the bit to give it a whirl and sort of like because it's because it's a challenge, but it's also quite
**Adam:** because I mean, to be fair, it's quite a showy performance, but there's it's the only way you can do it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You can't it's it's the wrong sort of film to for it to be subtle and I don't know how subtle you could do it.
**Adam:** If you see if you see what I mean.
**Adam:** Not to I think it's it's an amazing set of fucking performances.
**Adam:** and the the curious thing is, is that he does, I mean, you you kind you like Hedwig?
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean? but there so some of the you sort of do get the
**Chris:** Just reminded me of the dubstep dancing bit.
**Adam:** You develop
**Adam:** well, Kanye Kanye's Kanye's.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Kanye boy.
**Adam:** But also, and this is just just as a a reflex back to Mos Eisley Happy Hour. I did notice that Patricia sounds an awful lot like Obi-Wan Kenobi as played by Ewan McGregor.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I can only assume that it's Hollywood Scots playing people.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's the voice.
**Chris:** That's how it comes out.
**Adam:** She didn't say hello there, but I was hearing it.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But but then I think weirdly enough, I think you also get the the absolute contrast with Anya Anya Taylor-Joy where it's you know, it's a really quiet performance.
**Adam:** It's a very still.
**Chris:** She she does that really well.
**Adam:** But it but it's such a good contrast, but she never gets she's never overwhelmed by acting against someone doing like nine different people, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, and it seem to work so well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, I I'd forgotten watching it, I'd forgotten that it's like it's basically a two-hour film.
**Adam:** But it doesn't feel like two hours and if someone said, oh, it's essentially five people in two locations for two hours. That sounds like that's that's got to have dead time and it doesn't.
**Lee:** It sounds grueling and this doesn't have any any drop beats in it at all. It's just, yeah, it's just all go all the time. Even the even the more subdued scenes, that's when your brain's going, so it doesn't feel like you're bored or you've got any down time in it, like you you're constantly thinking ahead.
**Lee:** And again, with the characters as well, you know, the the way that he speaks to Karen the doctor, she knows that some of his personalities pretend to be other personalities.
**Chris:** Yeah, that was so good, all of that side of it, yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** Actually, I mean, that's that's that's Betty Buckley, is she's really good in it.
**Adam:** I didn't realize she's the you know, the nice teacher in Carrie.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** You know there's the one teacher who's not a cunt to Carrie in Carrie. That's her.
**Lee:** I said, Oh, wow.
**Adam:** But yeah,
**Adam:** and she's also in The Happening, one of another M. Night Shyamalan's.
**Lee:** Oh, M. Night, totally skipped that.
**Adam:** fair enough.
**Lee:** To be fair, I skipped this for ages. I didn't see this for a couple of years after it came out.
**Lee:** Because everyone was talking about it, and it was one of those films where I thought I knew what was going to happen.
**Lee:** To the point, I was like, oh, it's just a deranged killer and he's got multiple personalities.
**Lee:** And it's going to be really like, not quite torture porn, but that type of.
**Lee:** So I I was like, yeah, it doesn't it doesn't do anything for me and it I didn't watch it for such a long time.
**Chris:** I can understand that. Like I really liked the fact that they didn't take that potential side of it too far.
**Chris:** Because early on it's like, yeah, where's this going to go?
**Lee:** That opening abduction is horrific.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and actually, I mean, I think they again, it's something we've talked about before.
**Adam:** You are in no doubt about particularly like the flashback stuff.
**Adam:** You're you know, of Casey's life with her abusive uncle.
**Adam:** You are not
**Adam:** you're not in any doubt as to what's going on there.
**Adam:** But it's not it's presented in a way that gives you enough information and makes it horrible without actually
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Needing to go there.
**Lee:** Yeah, just in your face.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that similarly there is a level of restraint within the film for what it you know, for what it is, which is basically it's on the on the
**Adam:** basically it's an exploit it's an exploitation sort of like, you know, oh, mental case kidnaps girls film.
**Adam:** You know, for want of a sort of better term for it.
**Adam:** And I think and actually like a lot of films of this, you know, this nature nowadays, it does get a lot of flack from the point of view of presenting mental illness in that way.
**Chris:** Yeah, I was wondering about that. It's something I mean it's like especially after us talking about the voices.
**Chris:** I was you know, I was sort of conscious of that watching it.
**Chris:** I was thinking, like I've loved the the interactions between the therapist and Kevin.
**Chris:** And but yeah, I was sort of
**Chris:** you know, as you're going through you're thinking again, how accurate is this?
**Chris:** You know, I I'm assuming it's dramatized. I'm assuming it is more extreme than often would be portrayed.
**Chris:** And of course, it certainly is with the Beast.
**Chris:** And in a way I sort of I wasn't sure if I'd like that element because it's like, I kind of think they have presented a lot that is perhaps somewhat accurate.
**Adam:** Well, for I mean, from what I gather and obviously, shock shock horror for listeners, we're not mental health experts, but from what I sort of from what I understand of D.I.D.
**Adam:** like
**Adam:** disassociative identity disorder, which is the the term now for what used to be called split personality and multiple personality disorder and
**Adam:** in an absolute fucking sort of horror show of also termed schizophrenia, even though it's a completely different condition whatsoever.
**Chris:** Different.
**Adam:** But somehow that got linked up that schizoid meant split personality or dual personality or something like that.
**Adam:** but from I mean, from sort of like reading about it, there is a lot of it seems to be that for as many people who are advocating for it as an existence, there are also those that don't feel it's an actual condition.
**Adam:** And actually, there's a lot of there seems to be a lot of people who are referring to it essentially they're saying a bit like oh, what's it called, a bit like repressed memory syndrome.
**Adam:** They say a lot of people are saying it's like iatrogenic, like it's a a doctor.
**Adam:** It's like it's produced by
**Chris:** creating false memories.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's basically the doctor sort of imposing the diagnosis who then exhibits the behaviors.
**Adam:** but I mean, regardless of whether that is the whether it's something that doctors are forcing onto patients or whether it's actually does happen.
**Chris:** the phenomenon can still happen.
**Adam:** If you're suffering from it, it's
**Chris:** Yeah, you're still suffering from it.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's not a
**Adam:** And there does seem to be at least anecdotal evidence of as they describe in the film like physiological changes.
**Chris:** Yeah, well that yeah, that is an interesting aspect to it.
**Adam:** But apparently, the inspiration for it, M. Night Shyamalan's inspiration was,
**Adam:** I don't know if you're aware of it, there's a guy there was a case, it was a guy called Billy Milligan.
**Adam:** And he was basically, I I've jotted down some bits on him.
**Adam:** and it was kind of like a fate, it was like the first famous case of D.I.D.
**Adam:** he was a convicted armed robber and rapist in Ohio.
**Adam:** And he was arrested in 1977 as the campus rapist after he committed a series of kidnapping and rapes of female students attending Ohio State University while he was on parole.
**Adam:** So he'd already been he'd already been arrested for armed robbery and rape and stuff.
**Adam:** and then while they were preparing his defense case, he was diagnosed essentially he was diagnosed with D.I.D.
**Adam:** And that so he was so he had a plea of not guilty due to reason of insanity.
**Adam:** And he and Billy himself was maintaining that the crimes had been committed by his alters.
**Adam:** So he was not guilty, it was other personalities that had committed those crimes.
**Adam:** and actually the defense worked.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's funny isn't it because that
**Chris:** I don't know about you, it makes you feel like that seems like an excuse somehow, doesn't it?
**Lee:** It seems like the system has failed, because why all the other.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Lee:** That person shouldn't be out in public.
**Chris:** Yeah, well there is that.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, he was found not guilty, but he was committed to the mental health system.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** So he wasn't out, you know.
**Adam:** But it was committed to mental health facilities until such time as he regained sanity as it was in 1977.
**Adam:** he had initially they identified 10 personalities, that expanded to 24, as he was going through the sort of hospital.
**Adam:** Like the psychiatric system.
**Adam:** and again it was because he allegedly had a shockingly abusive childhood.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and which seems to be in cases of D.I.D. that does seem to be very much the
**Chris:** The factor that the factor.
**Adam:** That plays in is basically
**Chris:** I mean you can imagine that would mess your brain.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** it's
**Adam:** and it's basically it's as it's it's a protection, it's a safety gap if you you generate something so that you are not
**Adam:** that is not being experienced by you, the other step in the way to take that on your behalf almost.
**Adam:** but so then Daniel Keys, who wrote the science fiction novel Flowers for Algernon, published a book in 1980 called The Minds of Billy Milligan, which is kind of also what brought the case to the public.
**Adam:** But that meant that he became what can only be described as a celebrity patient.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So he got a lot more privileges than a lot of people.
**Adam:** He got a lot more leeway than a lot of patients who were in there.
**Adam:** And at one point, I believe they moved him to a different hospital because he was probably responsible for some sexual assaults that had taken place offsite.
**Adam:** Near to the hospital.
**Adam:** So they kind of I think they were like, right, we'll we'll shift him along, it's someone else's problem, we can't prove anything, but also we don't want to highlight the fact that this guy who should be
**Adam:** under lock and key, regardless of whether it's within the mental institution, is actually having a lot.
**Adam:** I mean, at one point apparently he got arrested because the passenger of his car fired a shotgun at someone.
**Adam:** And it's like, he's driving the fucking car with passengers.
**Adam:** What the fuck?
**Adam:** You know, this is not.
**Lee:** gun.
**Adam:** Yeah, this doesn't feel so, you know.
**Adam:** and then in 1986, he escaped and lived under the name Christopher Carr.
**Adam:** And probably murdered his roommate of the time.
**Adam:** So I mean, it seems like a lot of and basically he was only recaptured after authorities were investigating this guy's disappearance.
**Adam:** And found Billy Milligan, or as he was calling himself Christopher Carr, had sold this guy's car and was cashing his war checks and pension and disability allowance and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And that's what got him brought back in.
**Adam:** And then in 1988, he was diagnosed as in inverted commas solid.
**Adam:** And was discharged.
**Adam:** And then, oh, lovely, someone's written flaps and an erect cock on the bottom of my notes here.
**Adam:** I can only assume that that's my good lady wife.
**Lee:** Oh, scientific advisor.
**Adam:** and then he
**Lee:** Yeah, my scientific advisor's drawing a cock and flaps down here, that's nice.
**Lee:** They seem to be emanating from the crown.
**Lee:** The guy's got talent.
**Adam:** and then he lived with his sister and was trying to get a film made of his life on the basis of the book.
**Adam:** eventually died in
**Adam:** 2014.
**Adam:** so,
**Adam:** but that was the case that kind of inspired like the thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and it was one of those things where I believe there's actually there's a series called The Crowded Room that's I think it's on Apple or something like that, which I think is the adaption of the case.
**Adam:** Like so it's
**Adam:** so it's still quite a sort of big sort of thing you know, like it was but that was like the famous thing that brought it to the public's awareness.
**Adam:** but it's
**Adam:** as I say, I mean, clearly for sufferers of it, and I can you know, you understand, you don't from the point of point of view of mental health practitioners, you know,
**Adam:** making someone the villain and claiming that it's because of mental health issues.
**Adam:** You know, it's a dodgy area.
**Adam:** But equally, you know, I think within the this film is looking at something slightly different, this film is actually interested in the condition.
**Adam:** And the way, and okay.
**Adam:** you know, it's done, but it's for me, it feels a bit like psycho.
**Adam:** It's like, you know, it's a thriller.
**Adam:** But it's it's not necessarily saying that, you know, there's an army of D.I.D. sufferers out there who are kidnapping girls and sacrifice them to one of their alters.
**Adam:** it's but, you know, but it is and it is a fascinating
**Adam:** subject morbidly fascinating or not, you know, you know, whether it's whether it's casual interest or actually you're taking an interest.
**Adam:** You know, it's still something that is quite a fascinating and resonant thing and within the wider context, it really is quite a important part of the trilogy.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, so.
**Adam:** But as as a stand alone film, I think it is a really good thriller.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** So is it because you don't so you only get a hint that there's something else at the end?
**Lee:** Yeah, so the Unbreakable came out first, which is the film with Bruce Willis.
**Chris:** The whole rest of the film could be absolutely stand alone.
**Lee:** Where they first introduce him, again, he he's a kind of regular guy.
**Lee:** He survives a train crash that he shouldn't have survived.
**Lee:** That nobody else survived.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** And then he gets it in his head that he's some kind of superhero.
**Lee:** Well, he starts.
**Lee:** testing himself.
**Adam:** He gets someone contacts him who is a comic book fan and it's Samuel L. Jackson's character and he basically is someone, he's got brittle bone disease.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And he's of the opinion that if he exists, there's some there's probably someone who's at the opposite end of the spectrum of someone who is unbreakable.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** So he but he sort of filters it through how comic books are done and so in a weird way Unbreakable is like an origin story for Bruce Willis's character as he discovers that he is a superhero, essentially.
**Adam:** and it's not and it's not just that he is tough, it's like they work out that he's never been ill and he's never you know, and and actually they also realize because he's the character in it is a security guard.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he they sort of realize that he has essentially a sixth sense.
**Chris:** Oh, that yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, that just reminded me, so that is actually the other M. Night film, isn't it? Six sense?
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Adam:** So so he did basically M. Night did
**Adam:** I think he did like two romantic comedies and then did The Sixth Sense.
**Adam:** Yeah. And then Unbreakable came out.
**Adam:** Now the weird thing is, is Unbreakable is essentially a superhero movie, but it was it came out in 2000.
**Adam:** And at the time, the studio were like, no, we're going to market this as a supernatural thriller.
**Adam:** Because superhero movies are shit and no one watches them.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** Because studios really can predict things so well.
**Chris:** Why is it not? So when when did the superhero thing kick off? It was like a year after that.
**Adam:** Bearing in mind, it's Warner Vesta, so that's fucking Disney.
**Adam:** So it's Disney who are like, nah, superhero movies aren't worth jack shit.
**Lee:** It's like, well, that explains why you paid through the nose for fucking Marvel then, didn't it, mate?
**Adam:** But
**Lee:** Yeah, it doesn't doesn't.
**Adam:** it's so but yeah, other time, but it doesn't feel like a superhero movie to be fair, like it's very it is like a guy who's discovering that he's got these kind of abilities.
**Lee:** But as you say, not like in a Spider-Man type, oh my God, look at that type, like it's very grounded and realistic, which is why I like it so much.
**Adam:** It's very watchman.
**Adam:** It's that thing like Watchman is of what happens if there's superheroes in the world, but this is much more on the mundane level of what if you discover you're a superhero?
**Adam:** And what does that mean because the world doesn't have superheroes, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like Watchman's the extrapolation of where would you be in the 80s if the superheroes of the 30s etc had been around and built up this whole situation.
**Adam:** Whereas Unbreakable is basically, oh, it's the year 2000 and by the way, you might be a superhero.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's very sort of domestic, it's very low-key.
**Adam:** and the weird thing was is because I I wanted to see Split and then the internet obviously was not going to let that go that this turned out to be a a 16 year later stealth sequel to Unbreakable.
**Adam:** By the fact that Bruce Willis's character David Dunn turns up at the end of it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so it was so
**Adam:** when I wanted to see Glass because I really wanted to see sorry, when I wanted to see Split.
**Adam:** I then watched Unbreakable because Unbreakable had been a film that was on my radar and then I just forgot about it because it was like, like I said, I didn't see The Sixth Sense because I worked out the twist.
**Adam:** And then when I
**Chris:** But when you said that the other day, I was thinking, is it worth watching again? Like I'm so tempted to watch it.
**Chris:** Because I I've only seen it once.
**Chris:** It does sort of seem like totally not worth it.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** I've never had the motivation.
**Adam:** But but then curiously enough with
**Adam:** with Unbreakable when I read about I remember reading reviews of it at the time and actually it didn't do as well because it wasn't another Sixth Sense.
**Adam:** It was something different.
**Adam:** because how dare people do that.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Because you'd rather
**Adam:** because basically what I'd rather is someone took a shit in my hands and then did it three times a day for the rest of my fucking life.
**Adam:** And it's exactly the same with the same bit of sweetcorn in there, you know.
**Adam:** Right, but anyway, that's me having a rant.
**Adam:** But I think that so I wanted to what I thought, oh, I'll definitely check out Unbreakable when I get the chance.
**Adam:** Hadn't.
**Adam:** And then I was like, well, I don't want to go into Split because I didn't know quite how.
**Adam:** And literally, it's that sort of
**Adam:** the film ends, the words Split comes up and then you get that little sequence.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's not post-credits or anything.
**Lee:** It's right there.
**Adam:** It's right there, but it's but also that's literally the connection from the rest of the film you don't sort of there's not like
**Adam:** actually.
**Adam:** There is one thing.
**Adam:** M. Night Shyamalan is in Split.
**Adam:** He's the guy who who's who's going through the comic books.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's got the food from it.
**Adam:** But here's the best bit.
**Adam:** He does turn up in Glass and he's in Unbreakable.
**Adam:** And in Unbreakable, he plays a guy that Bruce Willis nearly busts at the football stadium.
**Adam:** Where he works security as a drug as a drug dealer.
**Lee:** Oh, which he then mentions in Glass.
**Adam:** He mentions it in Glass that he is, oh, yeah, I, I remember you, yeah, I turned over a new leaf, I was having a bad.
**Adam:** And it's basically that he nearly got busted and so he
**Adam:** decided to get out of the game and then he ends up as the security guard at Dr. Fletcher's apartment building.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** So so technically there are there are some links.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** and
**Adam:** and in actual fact, as I say, Unbreakable, there's bits where Bruce Willis works out that as he if he comes into physical contact with people, he can sometimes tell if they've committed a criminal act, or they're going to commit a criminal act, or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And at one point, there's a sequence where he just touches loads of people and he gets loads of flashes of what evil shit people have done.
**Adam:** One of them is a woman who is knocking her kid about.
**Chris:** Right, seems plausible.
**Adam:** Fan theory has gone that it's meant to be.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Kevin's mum.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** But I mean, but there's there's nothing to I don't think it's the same actress, I don't think it's there's anything to suggest that other than it sort of would fit in.
**Adam:** And there are other linking sort of areas and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but I think that.
**Lee:** I just
**Lee:** I just I yeah, I I know you'd mentioned earlier about the fact that it's so so few actors in this film.
**Lee:** I was the same as you, Chris, like anything that Anya Taylor-Joy's in is always because I know she's always despite her age and the fact she hasn't really been doing stuff for that long.
**Lee:** I say that, I'm an old man, she probably has been for a decade now and it feels like she's been around for ages.
**Chris:** Well, but it's crazy how young she is in The Witch, now.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, always give such a stellar performance.
**Lee:** Like, yeah, and I thought she was so well cast in this.
**Chris:** They see it.
**Chris:** I think she's like the the type of performance she does just seems to fit the films perfectly.
**Chris:** She does seem to get cast, you know, just right.
**Adam:** Well, also the really good thing is she's playing have you heard that they're doing a a prequel to Mad Max Thunder Road?
**Adam:** And it's
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** the story of Furiosa, like Charlie's
**Adam:** theron's character and Anya Taylor-Joy is playing Furiosa.
**Lee:** That is amazing. I can't wait for that.
**Adam:** But also, I think that what I love as well is you've got that contrast in this of survival from childhood trauma.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Trauma.
**Adam:** Where Casey has gone a different route.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but Casey knows how to survive the situation.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually at first you're kind of like not on you're not with her.
**Adam:** Because the other girls are like, well, if we hit him with a chair or whatever like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas she's got like, look, I've been here and we are,
**Adam:** you know, it doesn't it's not going to go as you think it's going to go.
**Adam:** I think she actually says that at one point.
**Lee:** Yeah, she does.
**Lee:** And and that's that's what got me was so so the first 20 minutes of the film.
**Lee:** I was convinced that she'd had an experience with this guy before and he'd targeted her because she seemed so knowing.
**Lee:** Yeah, so then seeing that development of how actually it's not, she just she's been in horrible situations.
**Lee:** She knows what to do.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Especially that point when he when he first tries to take that girl out and she says just pee on yourself.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh, she obviously knows something.
**Lee:** It's like, oh, no, she she does in the wider sense of the thing, but she doesn't she doesn't know him specifically. yeah, so that's again that's from.
**Lee:** Despite the fact I've seen it, it's still again.
**Adam:** That also, I think it's very interesting that there's the bit when there's the thing from when she's a kid, when she pulls a gun on her uncle.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And obviously, there's a part of you that's like, yeah, blow that fucking non's head off.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's kind of like where does leave a little kid.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I exactly.
**Adam:** in terms of
**Lee:** I had exactly the same thought. I was like, oh, she should have just blasted him and it was like,
**Chris:** That is, that is the first thought.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But then she then she.
**Chris:** But then you realize.
**Lee:** Yeah, because then she loses her dad, so if he wasn't there, despite the fact he's abusive, she would have just ended up in the system and you're like.
**Adam:** She probably end up in the system if she had killed him anyway because it would have been like, you know, that's the thing.
**Adam:** She would not have been with her dad, you know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But also, it's interesting that she doesn't fucking hesitate to shoot Kevin.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's like you're in that position and it's like, right, okay, no, I've got to take advantage of this opportunity.
**Chris:** This is what I gotta do.
**Adam:** As it turns out, you can't kill the Beast.
**Chris:** Can't kill it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because the Beast has because the Beast is fucking super strong.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, actually, because because the thing is it's meant to be that he's like an amalgam of all the creatures in the zoo.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** I didn't because I don't know there's the term for like elephants and rhinos where it's that very thick skin.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** I didn't realize that that's actually it it translates to strong wall.
**Adam:** That's where the origin of that word comes from.
**Adam:** But again, he develops that sort of so he's he's essentially armored.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And because his physical changes. I know we've said about James McAvoy and how absolutely astonishing his performance is, but even his like his physical appearance.
**Lee:** Yeah, when he goes from, you know, his his other characters basically to being.
**Lee:** They must have literally just given him a load of weights and he just got a massive pump on and then they just.
**Lee:** Because like he's he looks massive, but then when you see him as the other characters, he doesn't and I don't think it's CGI, I think they've literally just, I'm assuming they shot them so that the the shots where he's playing Patricia and stuff are earlier on.
**Lee:** And then they probably got him to bulk up as the film's gone.
**Adam:** Because it must it must be said that by the time for I think for Glass, he's really gone for it.
**Adam:** Because he's going to be portraying the
**Adam:** again, spoiler, but he he plays the Beast more.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** in in Glass, that that personality comes out more.
**Adam:** So I think that for that he has really bulked up and it's noticeable that he is a lot heavier set than he is in this.
**Adam:** but I think that that is just because it's like, no, you you've got to be able to sort of especially because it's like broad daylight and stuff like that.
**Adam:** There's nothing that can be suggested or whatever like that.
**Adam:** You're either a big bastard or you're not.
**Adam:** And it's and interestingly enough, this was something one thing that I did see about, you know, like what might have been or whatever like that with it.
**Adam:** is Joaquin Phoenix was offered the part and as they could it they couldn't reach a contractual agreement.
**Adam:** Which is I assume means he was asking for too much money.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I'll be honest, Joaquin Phoenix, I can see it from the point of view of he's a fucking amazing actor and obviously, he's done his own villain origin story now.
**Adam:** Because he's done Joker.
**Adam:** And, you know, I think he would be able to do, but I I'll be honest, I don't know that he is going to look that imposing.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Because he is not I don't think he's got the frame to build on, if you see what I mean.
**Adam:** That he would look like that.
**Lee:** Again, none of the apart from the Beast, obviously, none of the personalities turn into kind of caricatures.
**Lee:** He just gets that balance right, so like Patricia isn't kind of over the top.
**Lee:** And like he keeps it fairly grounded, yeah, and I think someone like Joaquin Phoenix, fantastic as he is.
**Lee:** I think I might have gone more over the top with yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** And then it loses all of its not believability.
**Chris:** But there is something about it.
**Chris:** Being feeling realistic.
**Chris:** To some degree.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, I mean, originally, Kevin Wendell Crumb was in was going to be in Unbreakable.
**Lee:** Yeah, I agree with that. I think he made the right call, making them two completely different movies. Yeah.
**Lee:** And just dropping that little 10 seconds at the end that just makes you go, oh, shit, they exist in the same universe.
**Adam:** I'll tell you what.
**Adam:** That is the one thing I would have loved I'd love to know how that felt.
**Adam:** For people who, you know, have sort of people fans of Unbreakable films of, because this was kind of like his comeback film, wasn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** M. Night Shyamalan, this was the one where everyone was like, oh, no, he's done this is a a really effective thriller and it's, you know, it's not and then kind of there is a twist ending.
**Adam:** But the twist ending is oh, by the way, this is a sequel to a film that you possibly didn't watch 16 years ago.
**Lee:** Yeah, because I'd seen Unbreakable a few times and I didn't realize that that scene was in there. So when I saw it the first time, I was one of those lucky people who was like,
**Lee:** Because he got to the end and I was like, oh, man, there was no twist and then they did that. And I was like, yep, no, got me, totally got me.
**Adam:** That's how it twist.
**Adam:** And and that is playing the long fucking game as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But but no, I mean, I think that it I enjoy it as part of its whole thing.
**Adam:** But as as a stand alone film, I think it fucking works as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is, yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent. Right.
**Lee:** So that definite recommend from all of us.
**Lee:** I I'd say the whole trilogy is a recommend to be honest.
**Lee:** Yes, this is my favorite of them, but yeah, I I I think I need to possibly watch them all again in a in a proper order at some point as a bit of a marathon, so.
**Adam:** I'll definitely watch it.
**Adam:** Motivated me to finish it off and watch Glass finally and I'm I'm pleased I did.
**Chris:** And I want to watch some more some other M. Night Shya Malan.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Now what was it it was Kevin in the woods?
**Chris:** Shyamalan.
**Adam:** Shyamalan, yeah.
**Chris:** was it not Kevin in the woods?
**Lee:** No, not Kevin in the woods.
**Lee:** you're thinking of.
**Chris:** The one that you mentioned.
**Lee:** Oh, horror film that was awful.
**Adam:** The visit.
**Lee:** The one I don't want to give it away.
**Chris:** Knock at the cabin.
**Lee:** Oh, God, yes!
**Lee:** That's the one.
**Lee:** I wasn't even thinking of that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But you also got signs, The Village, Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Visit.
**Adam:** Old.
**Lee:** Three of those are good films, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's it. You said it sort of 50/50.
**Lee:** It is, but again, when he gets it right, he really gets it right.
**Lee:** He gets it so right.
**Lee:** You're like, I might have watched two.
**Lee:** I might have watched.
**Chris:** But that's to be fair, like you gotta take risks, you gotta try things.
**Chris:** It doesn't always work, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, 100%. I would rather someone like did this and did loads of stuff that didn't work and then when they get it, they get it right.
**Lee:** Rather than just playing it safe all the time.
**Chris:** Try and do exactly the same.
**Lee:** And like Adam said, yeah.
**Lee:** You just end up with this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You end up with you end up with a Sixth Sense part seven.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** At which point no one gives a fuck.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent. Right. Thanks very much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** go and check out those movies. We're doing what we've been watching for our next episode, so
**Lee:** I I've been I've been a busy little boy and we're still got two weeks to go, so
**Lee:** Yeah, plenty to look forward to.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 171 The Voices

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-171-the-voices/
Air date: 4 June 2023
Duration: 00:40:37
Film: The Voices · Year: 2014 · Director: Marjane Satrapi

### Description

There’s a lot of films called “The Voices”; but we’re covering the best - the Marjane Satrapi directed 2014 one, starring Ryan Reynolds. A film that teaches you the value of covering cold meat, even in the fridge; that if someone shifty doesn’t want you to go inside their house, take the hint and walk away; and, in the words of Dr Peter Venkman, cats and dogs living together IS mass hysteria. A strange and compelling film, mixing humour and some very troubling drama, often to queasy effect; “The Voices” just proceeded Ryan Reynolds’ renaissance as Deadpool; and, hopefully, is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us. And if you are having difficulties with your mental health, seek help - whether that’s with your Doctor or even just talking with friends and family. Stay safe.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Evening everybody, Lee here. A regular listeners will know that we recently did a supernatural stories episode, or not, depending on your beliefs.
**Lee:** But it seems to have gone down quite well, and we've spoken to a few people who said they've got interesting stories of their own.
**Lee:** So, as we tempted the idea at the end of our last episode, we're going to do a follow-up at some point.
**Lee:** So, if any of you have stories of your own that you think could be interesting, that you wouldn't mind us sharing with the listeners,
**Lee:** feel free to either record them and email them over to us at info@welcometohorror.com, or otherwise, you can type them out and send them to us, and we will read them out on the show.
**Lee:** If you'd rather not use your name, we will use your first name otherwise, but if you'd rather go under an alias, include that in the message and we'll be sure to use that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, and enjoy the show.
**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Unknown:** And tonight I will be.
**Unknown:** Jennifer. Lady Jennifer.
**Unknown:** Singing live.
**Unknown:** Less of the singing.
**Unknown:** So not Matthew, I will be Wayne Sleeps.
**Lee:** they don't answer, right, anyway, I'm getting off before we can started.
**Lee:** Yes, there will be spoilers, there will be swearing.
**Lee:** We are covering a great film. We are joined by Lady Jennifer because she is both a professional in the field and a mahoosive fan of this movie.
**Lee:** So, as Chris has seen this film before, which we will discuss very shortly, and Adam hadn't, we are going to kick off this evening, what were your first impressions of The Voices. Oh yeah, we're discussing The Voices, ladies and gentlemen. The Ryan Reynolds movie from..
**Adam:** 2014.
**Adam:** I think we'd better make that clear because it wasn't until I was on IMDb that I realized quite how many films called The Voices there are.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And at least three others are horror films.
**Unknown:** Oh, wow.
**Chris:** Are any of them worth watching? Are any of them anywhere near as possibly good as this one might be?
**Adam:** I've no idea. I really have no idea.
**Adam:** I just noticed it and I was like, right, can't be like those ones because they haven't got Deadpool in them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I wait, so I I do want to know why you didn't watch it for so long.
**Chris:** And because I would have thought you'd really like this, Adam, so it would be interesting to know, to find out the truth.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, it's I I it wasn't a avoidance thing if anything, I just didn't know anything about it.
**Adam:** And presumably it was just not one that Leo or Jennifer showed me.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** You know,
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** it was just hadn't come up on one of our film nights or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So, I think that's the I didn't know if you were anti Ryan Reynolds.
**Adam:** No, not at all.
**Adam:** No. I mean, and though there is that's something that I found interesting reading it, it was like looking into it was the fact that most the stuff talking about this contemporaneously only has oh yeah, he's the guy he's Van Wilder party on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like, oh yeah, this is just pre that real sort of well, Deadpool basically, but he's real sort of like stratospheric stardom sort of thing.
**Adam:** so yeah, so I don't certainly wasn't that.
**Adam:** I do have to ask Lee the question, do you only watch comedies about mentally ill people and conga dancing?
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** yes, I yeah, I can see this would have also worked very well with with a perfect toast.
**Adam:** And also I also would have to ask, do I only ever see Gemma Arterton in things about mentally ill people divorce from reality?
**Adam:** Because going into it, I was like, I don't know that name and then I was like, oh no, she's in Tom and Jerry and Inside number nine.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, but again, it's one of those things where just I've I think pretty much everyone in this apart from Ryan Reynolds, all the names, I was like, I know the name. I don't think I've ever seen them in anything.
**Adam:** like Anna Kendrick, I was like, well, I know that name. I hear that name a lot, but I don't think I've consciously seen anything.
**Adam:** But I mean, I'm I don't know how I feel about The Voices.
**Adam:** It's I think it's a lot sadder than I thought it was going to be.
**Adam:** Yeah. Or, do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's a lot bleaker. I think I was too hooked up on horror comedy, which I it's got funny bits, but I don't think it's a comedy.
**Unknown:** That makes sense, Adam, as Chris will explain later, I'm sure.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You do the dance number at the end, so you leave on such a high, you go, oh, that was great fun.
**Lee:** And it is and then you watch it again and go, oh yeah, but it's really there are some details. Yeah.
**Adam:** I saw someone, I saw someone call it a karaoke version of Red Dragon.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And I get that where it's the sort of versus the reality of it.
**Adam:** And but yeah, it's it's a just it's a very strange beast of a film.
**Adam:** It's sort of it's neither fish nor fowl.
**Adam:** It sort of, yeah, I couldn't I don't know, I certainly it's left me thinking, which is always good.
**Adam:** And there were bits of it that I really enjoyed.
**Adam:** And there were performances and everything that I really enjoyed.
**Adam:** But I just can't quite I still haven't skewed it in my head.
**Chris:** And I wonder if us talking about it will have any change.
**Adam:** Well, that's the thing is because I haven't had that opportunity, usually a lot of the films are sort of ones that we've
**Chris:** Gone through.
**Adam:** either excitably because we've just seen it or it's ones that have been around for a while.
**Adam:** You know, like for example, the last one we did Session 9 is a film that I knew and really enjoyed that one time that I'd watched it and it was sort of there and I'd got a grip on it.
**Adam:** But I think with this, it's it's too new for what it is for me to even say what I liked about it or yeah, it's just a a very odd beast.
**Adam:** But I think also I would like to rewatch it just on the point of view that I now know where it's pitched.
**Unknown:** Oh, as well. I think there's bits that you don't notice the first time, but by the fourth or fifth time, you kind of appreciate, you know,
**Chris:** I think you're expecting my my difficulty having just watched the brand new film of when it has especially when it is a comedy horror and it's like how funny is that necessarily. Because you yeah, it's knowing how am I meant to feel about this? Like is it actually something that's being funny but really is dark and potentially sad.
**Chris:** Which this certainly does have a strong element of.
**Adam:** Because I because I think it was like when we watched when we watched my Bloody Banjo and as we said, there was very much you know, the first half of it is actually quite a kind of a difficult watch, but everything is so heightened and so obviously in a daft world.
**Adam:** Which I don't think this is, even though it's essentially basically, it's really weird because it's the serial killer a serial killer film told from the point of view of the idealized delusional reality of that serial killer.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's why I loved. It's just which should hit so many fucking buttons for me.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, but it's sort of like I'm still sort of like processing in a way. I think.
**Unknown:** Is it because it's Ryan Reynolds and you're like, oh, but he's sexy and cute and he dances and it's like, whoa.
**Adam:** I don't know if it's that because curiously enough, I didn't really like Jerry.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** Well, you're not meant to, I suppose, are you?
**Adam:** I mean, quite quite worryingly, I really like Mr. Whiskers.
**Unknown:** Oh, cool.
**Unknown:** Who doesn't?
**Adam:** Although absolute absolutely negative points, he should have been called Frank.
**Adam:** That's all.
**Adam:** It shouldn't have a comedy name.
**Unknown:** Oh, no, it should.
**Unknown:** I like that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But although obviously friend and friend of the podcast and sometime guest and Mosly Happy Hour alumnus Mr. Wesley Smith does always say that cats should have a prefix.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They should be Mr. or Miss, you know, that and then they're nine.
**Adam:** So, you know, it follows the Wesley Standard, which is always good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, I just sort of yeah. It's just bizarre. So.
**Lee:** and got you thinking. I think that's definitely a
**Adam:** That without a shadow of doubt, that means I'm I'm not dismissing this film whatsoever.
**Adam:** That is it's not I don't like this film. This is like, I need to pour over this. I need to process and think about this.
**Adam:** And like I say, it probably is like if I rewatch it, I think I'll find it because I've watched it the once for the show.
**Adam:** like the other night, but that you know, I need to sort of
**Unknown:** now how Chris for the second time.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, yeah, so Chris as as your second viewing, please tell me where you are.
**Chris:** Yeah, and it was a few years ago now that we watched it first.
**Chris:** And I I don't remember being told much about it.
**Chris:** So, I don't know that I knew exactly what to expect. And it it's it is quite an experience. especially if you haven't seen many others, you know, of of similar genre.
**Chris:** but I got to say, I I definitely remember liking Ryan Reynolds, I'm fairly certain it was the first time I'd seen him.
**Chris:** And I thought when we first watched it and this time again, I do think he plays the character well.
**Chris:** he he's a like he's very awkward, you know, he doesn't have any friends and he doesn't really know how to socialize with people and yet there is something still charming about him.
**Chris:** while also very creepy. And he he does get all of that across in different ways at different times.
**Chris:** And I think that is effective.
**Chris:** And I suppose it's it's hard for me not to like a film that is potentially trying to.
**Chris:** Or this is a debate I have with some people occasionally about.
**Unknown:** When the voices.
**Chris:** Well, possibly that, yeah. No, when when comedies appear to be being very offensive potentially and laughing at something. I think sometimes the comedians are doing it in a way to potentially get the people who otherwise wouldn't care whatsoever about that particular topic to first laugh but then maybe get across something a bit extra where they're like, okay, you know, I kind of see something there.
**Chris:** so so in this, it's like, are we just laughing at someone with a mental illness.
**Unknown:** No,
**Unknown:** I'm laughing. I feel sorry for him.
**Chris:** Or or the purpose is to to perhaps capture an audience that wouldn't necessarily always think I'm going to be interested in watching a documentary about mental illness. But I'll watch this film, oh, and actually it's going to be a few things to think about where yeah, you know, I never really thought somebody growing up who has inherited a genetic mental illness.
**Unknown:** Later and later.
**Chris:** It would appear and also traumatized by
**Chris:** having to kill their mother, probably going to have some impact on them. We'll yeah, and so and so, you know, what like I'm sure there may be somebody like that. And yeah, what sort of things they go through. I mean, he he's he is essentially trying to get on in life.
**Chris:** And and then things happen.
**Unknown:** Well, I like you feel sorry for him.
**Chris:** And you probably do, yeah.
**Unknown:** And he's almost stark.
**Unknown:** But I also think if he wasn't as attractive, if like it wasn't Ryan Reynolds playing him, you probably wouldn't feel quite as much pity and
**Chris:** eventually. Well, he's he's got a very boyish.
**Unknown:** Yeah, and that kind of and charm.
**Unknown:** It's like he hasn't grown up.
**Adam:** Maybe maybe when they have those snatches where he goes back to when he stops when he starts taking the medication and sees the world for as it is.
**Chris:** The way it really is.
**Adam:** Yeah. Nothing talks, he's got a rot in the fridge, the place is covered in pet shit and bleak. Everything is like, maybe he shouldn't have looked maybe he shouldn't have been played by Ryan Reynolds.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, change a different actor.
**Adam:** It's almost like Ryan Reynolds is his idealized expression of it's like, yeah, I'm a bit goofy, but you know, I'm I'm attractive.
**Chris:** And then actually it's It turns out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** If he were to play him, Adam, which actor would be suitably.
**Adam:** I I don't know. I think I I've
**Lee:** I've got this.
**Chris:** I think I could give it a good go.
**Unknown:** Well, I'm gone, Chris.
**Chris:** you can personally.
**Chris:** I could pull it off.
**Unknown:** Fair enough.
**Chris:** A miserable version of Ryan Reynolds.
**Lee:** All right.
**Lee:** Lee's going to find someone, are you?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Unknown:** Oh, dear.
**Unknown:** We'll wait.
**Chris:** Well, while we're, well, yeah, while while Lee's processing.
**Adam:** Cuz because that was the other thing as well is that kind of there's I think there's a obviously, I think in terms of it being about mental health.
**Adam:** I think that there is basically, I found Jerry selfish.
**Adam:** In so much as it's like, yes, I know that everything's shit.
**Adam:** But you haven't taken your pills and now people are dead.
**Adam:** And it's not like you're not receiving help. You've gone to a psychiatrist to a medical professional to seek help for it. She has told you to take your medicine and you're not doing it because it's better if the cat's if the dog's talk to you.
**Chris:** Wait, wait, was he did he choose to go to? I thought that was part of his president.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, it's part of his president.
**Adam:** But that's the thing is that you can't argue the case.
**Adam:** A lot of the time when especially when you read about like not so much now but sort of older cases with serial killers and things like that, is it's clear that the world just did not have any form of infrastructure to try and help mentally ill people.
**Chris:** But it's this is one now.
**Chris:** Well, so I thought the point of this was that yeah, there is some infrastructure but it's still not working.
**Chris:** And then the scene where he tried to jump to the film.
**Adam:** But but she chooses not taking them.
**Chris:** No, yeah, but.
**Lee:** I think this is the discussion I had with Jennifer.
**Lee:** And what she said quite rightly, as an expert in the field, yeah, is that unfortunately, the side effects of the meds, they make people feel unwell, etcetera.
**Lee:** So as soon as you start feeling better, your immediate thing is, well, I'm fine now, so I can just stop saying.
**Chris:** I think there would actually be a lot of people that would do that.
**Adam:** Oh, there's a lot of it's a very difficult thing because basically you're asking people who have a unstructured mind to do something structured.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's not a it's not a good system.
**Adam:** But I just found that it was because even down to that where it's like, he basically spends an afternoon cult to well, cult turkey of his illness essentially.
**Adam:** Or no, hot turkey because he's on the drugs. So he spends an afternoon hot turkey, then just chucks him away and makes himself sick because it's.
**Chris:** But but the but it's like you said though, the meds are not what you would call perfect.
**Chris:** So, and especially some people I think respond really badly to them, others not so badly, so that's really hard to say everyone gets exactly the same result.
**Chris:** So, if they really do make you feel awful.
**Chris:** And plus he has no support network, there is got no friends, no family.
**Adam:** But but the only thing that they show you in there the side effects of the drug for him are is that he sees the world as it truly is.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, but I think, I think.
**Adam:** They show it that way. They don't spend too long on it, but I'm sure that inside he's still going to be feeling a lot of pain.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** But it's And I agree. I completely agree.
**Chris:** Yeah. I agree. Ideally, he should. But I I still think if he felt but then yeah,
**Chris:** Jennifer said as soon as your as soon as you feel better, it would be tempting to go, I'm fine now, so I don't have to.
**Chris:** I must be cured.
**Chris:** Well, it could you. pink jump suits and you know, the sun's shining, or yeah, you got to see the doll grayness, you can see why. But I mean, even just thinking of people. But but if people if people end up dead because of that.
**Unknown:** No, I'm laughing. I feel sorry for him.
**Unknown:** Or or the purpose is to to perhaps capture an audience that wouldn't necessarily always think I'm going to be interested in watching a documentary about mental illness. But I'll watch this film, oh, and actually it's going to be a few things to think about where yeah, you know, I never really thought somebody growing up who has inherited a genetic mental illness.
**Chris:** Yeah, but he's on his own though.
**Chris:** I think, I think if he had.
**Unknown:** In his mind. None of it.
**Adam:** Just just so you can watch, you know, forklift ballet.
**Unknown:** Yeah, well, exactly. I think that's a fair trade off.
**Lee:** Sorry. Just to cut in and cheer this off. The person I was thinking of and couldn't think of his name is Eddie Marsan.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck yeah, he'd have been perfect.
**Lee:** Because he plays like uncomfortable and socially awkward, perfectly.
**Lee:** Like if you dropped him in in the points when he actually took the meds, that would be perfect and then you say to go, oh yeah, no, he's nothing like that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That charisma and like he'd be amazing.
**Adam:** But also would that then also skew the movie in the way that we've been talking where it's like, yeah, do you want to be Eddie Marsan or do you want to be do you want to be Ryan Reynolds, you know, and the obvious answer.
**Adam:** But it's no offense to Mr. Marsan, I'm sure he's a fine man and a fucking incredible actor.
**Lee:** That's why he came straight to mind. I've seen him in three films in the last two weeks.
**Lee:** And both times I've been like, he gives such a stellar performance, like, an awkward performances.
**Lee:** Yeah, where he played he played someone who was kind of not in their comfort zone and and was kind of in a really awkward position. Yeah, and that was why it just lept to mind. I was like, he would just be absolutely perfect for this.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think and I
**Adam:** I have someone close who has a skizoid I don't know what the term is but it's basically a skizoid
**Adam:** It's not schizophrenia because schizophrenia is permanent.
**Adam:** Now, the interesting thing was is a lot of the stuff I'm seeing, people saying schizophrenia, which they obviously never say in the film.
**Unknown:** No.
**Adam:** And I think that's very key because I think a lot of people have got hooked up on that sort of side of it.
**Adam:** But it's so Claire has schizo effective disorder, which is essentially periodic schizophrenic sort of moments.
**Adam:** Now, she takes her meds and it's touch wood is being kept in check and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And it's not a permanent state, it is a state that you can go into.
**Adam:** But so I sort of like if anything, I've used her as a scientific advisor on it as well.
**Unknown:** So you signed off on it then? You'll say goodbye, so what happens?
**Adam:** I thought we've got we've got both sides. We've got we've got both the medical side and the experience side of of the the sort of thing.
**Adam:** And but she said that the the stuff like the forklift ballet is accurate because it's that pastel effect and that sort of everything's vivid.
**Unknown:** Yeah, and you say it.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's and she said that those bits or like when he goes and finds Fiona's body, and there's no blood and it's very beautifully sort of laid out. It's still he's still a dead body, but it's kind of sanitized, if you like, and sort of snow white sort of feeling.
**Adam:** and also but also the bit where the voices in the fridge were arguing and the the sing song music, like the Jerry and Fiona, Jerry and Fiona.
**Adam:** sort of she said that those were the bits that most reflected those states.
**Adam:** the one thing that I think she found was the thing with it though is that the dog and cat good versus evil hallucination.
**Adam:** kind of doesn't gel with the rest of it because the rest of it feels right because it's kind of messy, whereas that is that feels too much like a conceit, if you see what I mean.
**Chris:** Yeah, very contrived.
**Adam:** That's it. That is some of the best dog and cat acting I've seen.
**Unknown:** That's it. Dog and cat.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I knew that you'd love and like, yeah, just the way both of those are.
**Lee:** that the and it's funny because I I genuinely forget about the dog and like, how can you forget a film in which you've got a talking dog and a talking cat and the dog is encouraging and loving and the cat is an absolute shit ass, how can you forget that it's part of this film.
**Lee:** But you easily can because there's just
**Chris:** is is that is that dog and cat stereotyping though. Yeah. So you so you don't think that the the issue here is its representation of mental illness but its representation of stereotypes of feline and canine behavior.
**Unknown:** Definitely. Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I do.
**Unknown:** I do.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I do.
**Unknown:** I do.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I do.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I do.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I do.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I do.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** No, I feel like the mental health issue, yeah, it's not supposed to be a perfect example of a specific disorder, because I think there isn't one, is there? That's sort of the point. Everyone experiences it very differently, so I guess for some people that element of the devil and the angel is really big in their mental illness. Other people obviously have hallucinations, other people might hear the voices or so I guess I sort of took it as a, you know, yeah, broad rush strokes of mental illness and how it might affect someone.
**Adam:** Well, it's also a perfect conceit for describing someone like for describing a murderer.
**Unknown:** Yes, yeah.
**Adam:** That's it. Because, you know, he's and you know, I think apparently like they said that they were going to do it, they wanted to get actors in to do the voices.
**Adam:** And then Ryan Reynolds sent the director him doing the voices like as a voice message or something like that.
**Unknown:** Brilliant.
**Adam:** And then, but but yeah, then the director, she said that it then made perfect sense because obviously everything's coming from within his mind.
**Adam:** So it makes sense that the voices are him apart from people who have a voice, as it were.
**Unknown:** And then I didn't realize it was him, so tell me that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, like they don't sound like him.
**Lee:** I'm sure most of my first watch to suddenly it's not until the point where you see him doing the dog's voice, that's what Oh shit. No, like that is him doing those voices. And that was when I finally realized because he just,
**Lee:** yeah, they sound so different.
**Lee:** I don't know why, in my mind, doing different accents or whatever is so difficult.
**Lee:** So for him to do like the Scottish accent that well, I was like, no, they've obviously dubbed that over the cap.
**Unknown:** He's an actor, didn't you know that?
**Lee:** Well,
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** There's people that didn't know that.
**Unknown:** They paid a lot.
**Adam:** Yeah, but yeah, but there's also there's also I would refer you to the actor Sean Connery.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, accents or something not Scottish accents, he's very good at them, but others are a bit of a.
**Lee:** I mean, we could have a whole there.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** And talking about the performances here, you mentioned Anna Hendry.
**Lee:** I'm the same. I I always think, I've definitely recognized her.
**Lee:** So she's the second girl he kills, who actually fancies him and goes on the date with.
**Unknown:** Actually fancies him.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Lee:** The first one didn't. No, it's all right.
**Adam:** Lisa.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** But I I like she's the same, I sort of recognized her face and I'm like, I've definitely seen her in stuff, but she was so good in this.
**Chris:** Like, I thought. Yeah, when she turns, when she starts to realize.
**Adam:** Although although that did watching it with Claire, that did make me laugh is when he was just outside and he's going, no, I'll get in through the skylight and everything. Claire just went, look, just fucking read the room and go, mate. They don't want you.
**Unknown:** Yeah, but she should have as well.
**Unknown:** Run away, love.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz actually and that was that was something that did that I thought was very true.
**Adam:** And another thing Claire pointed out and she said, imagine it gender swaps though of a woman shows a vulnerable moment and then a bloke picks her up and then goes to HR and asks for her address.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just it'd come over a lot worse in a very different film.
**Adam:** In this it's kind of a cookie comedy sort of, you know.
**Adam:** But it's
**Adam:** But no, I think I yeah, I think all the fucking performances in it.
**Adam:** I mean and even the two like the two guys who like the two workmates who just go around there and it's like when he says, well, I'll wait here.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're a hero. You're a real hero. Thanks, man.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's but yeah, and apparently the the cat voice is a friend of Ryan Reynolds. It's like an impression he's been doing of him for 20 odd years.
**Adam:** And obviously was the first thing you thought of when it's like, I really need someone quite insulting.
**Chris:** Yeah, does he say similar thing. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** See, I actually quite I like I liked the bits of the sort of typical dog cat stuff as well.
**Adam:** Where it's just like, where have you been, you fucker? I'm hungry.
**Adam:** And you know, sort of And just the sort of the the general. And like when the dog, when the doorbell goes and the dog's just like, it's an intruder, I'll take a bullet for him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Don't you worry.
**Lee:** And I think that's the thing. I think this, I know we, you know, we've we've said about it like it's quite a hard film to handle. I was discussing it this weekend with former former guest, Danny.
**Lee:** yeah, and he's he, you know, I sort of said to him, yeah, it's one of those films because he'd used the the phrase earlier in the day, it was an amazing film. I can't work out who the fuck they made it for.
**Lee:** And I was like, that's exactly how I feel about The Voices. And he said the same thing. He was like, it works on every level, but I can't understand how they knew it was going to work for so many people.
**Lee:** Because it's such a difficult it's a very difficult concept to do, and it is extremely dark, it's extremely funny. yeah, it's just a lot to squeeze in.
**Lee:** I don't get how they got an elevator pitch together and got this film made, but they did.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** apparently, the script was going around Hollywood for ages.
**Adam:** And there's a thing called The Blacklist, which gets published every year and it's all industry insiders like producers and directors and stuff like that and they basically list the best unmade scripts of that year.
**Adam:** And this was in the list for 2009, I think it was.
**Adam:** So it was knocking around a lot before it actually got picked up and at one point the guy directed one hour photo was going to do it and it was going to be Ben Stiller instead of Ryan Reynolds.
**Unknown:** Oh, dear.
**Unknown:** Which.
**Adam:** Which I think would have been like, I think that would have potentially made this Ben Stiller's cable guy if it had have stuck to its guns of just one of those ones where it puts people off them for ages.
**Adam:** Because all the Ben Stiller fans going to see it, probably interesting enough because Ryan Reynolds wasn't a you know, he was famous but he wasn't like a draw in the do you know what I mean in that it's oh it's a Ben Stiller film. It's a Will Farrell film or something like that.
**Adam:** So, I think yeah, I think it would have been yeah, we we could have suffered.
**Unknown:** And especially with the audience that he normally has, you know, like the whole romantic comedy, can you imagine, you know, his 20 something female fans who are all massive fans of all his all his romcoms coming and seeing this and just being like, what the shit.
**Unknown:** Because it starts, as you said, it starts off because it's all from his point of view and it's all his delusions.
**Unknown:** It starts off so nice. So that point where he actually murders Jennifer Arterton, again, like that still gets me.
**Unknown:** Like the fact that it's an accident to begin with is bad, but then when he just keeps stabbing her, that is really bad.
**Adam:** That was one other thing that occurred to me when I was watching it though. Is I was like, everything is from his point of view and everything is sanitized by his point of view. Are they accidents?
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah. Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean? It's like I when I when I went down there, I was like, fuck this is taking it down a fucking dark path.
**Adam:** Yeah. Because then it was like, especially when it's like, you know, it's a mercy killing but as said by Jeffrey Damer. It's like, you know, oh, I slit I I had to slit his throat after I I strangled him because he hadn't really reacted well to me drilling a hole in his head and putting acid in his brain.
**Adam:** It's sort of.
**Lee:** Well, I count with the deer, like when deer comes through and the deer's going, please kill me, please kill me.
**Lee:** I was like, drag it off the bonnet, to the side of the road and cut his throat. Don't cut its throat in your car across her lap, like that's definitely going to freak her out.
**Adam:** Yeah, but he's he's not very good at social cues.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's See, that's the thing is that that that makes actually quite a lot of sense.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's like that's probably not going to occur at that point.
**Adam:** But it did sort of, you know.
**Adam:** And I think there's because actually, I mean, the bit where where he kills Lisa, I think has.
**Chris:** Well, I'm thinking that that's much that feels like Frankenstein or something like that.
**Adam:** You know, where it's like, you you have you have you may have a sympathy for the monster, but it's a monster and an entirely innocent person's coming and he's going to get and he's going to die.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, it's just a weird sort of.
**Adam:** So I think that one comes over a lot darker.
**Adam:** Whereas the
**Chris:** But would he have killed her only if she hadn't gone in and seen it all.
**Adam:** Oh, no.
**Chris:** That one is.
**Chris:** That was
**Adam:** just a reading I took of it where it was like, well, if I did
**Adam:** heightened
**Chris:** or
**Chris:** fan.
**Adam:** It's just
**Adam:** like,
**Adam:** shit,
**Adam:** is that yeah,
**Adam:** does it kind of
**Adam:** change that tone
**Adam:** as well?
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** it's very
**Adam:** sort of.
**Lee:** That's what I love about this.
**Lee:** This is why it holds up so well to to rewatch it.
**Chris:** As you say, because every time you watch it,
**Chris:** you you look at it.
**Chris:** But I mean the whole thing is about perception.
**Chris:** I mean, whether he is
**Chris:** mentally or not, everyone perceives things sometimes wildly differently, you know, certainly some of the things in here, I think we would all perceive equally the same. But it it like to think of that life is about perception and mistaking things.
**Chris:** You'd hopefully just don't end up stabbing a lot of people from it.
**Adam:** But to be honest,
**Adam:** I think I think Lee Lee pairing this with split and obviously we won't get into it now, but when we get to split, the interesting thing is is that again split is
**Adam:** about you view it from the point of view of everyone where it's like, oh this is the explanation for what is going on here.
**Adam:** And actually there's more to it and the world is wrong, like the normal in inverted commas, the normal the real world is wrong about what's happening here.
**Adam:** But the real world has interpreted this way. Whereas this is the opposite where it's his has interpreted it wrong.
**Chris:** His interpreted it wrong.
**Adam:** Yeah. And sort of how and it's yeah, so it's going to be an interesting I think it's an interesting pairing in that sense.
**Adam:** but all in all, I mean, actually, and one thing I was going to say is did you spot the bloke from Ador?
**Adam:** because because the director Marshall Saraki, I saw an interview with her and she just said that she really wanted to do like films in England. So a lot of so obviously you've got Jenner Artton in there. but you've got quite a few sort of like English or sort of British actors in here and stuff like that. But yeah, the guy played the sheriff is a guy called Stanley Towns but he was in Ador recently as he was the fat commandant that robbed the money reserve off of.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I knew I recognized.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And and he's also the really rich Middle Eastern guy in toast of London who makes toast appear in a
**Lee:** toast of London.
**Adam:** film about hanging Prince Phillip.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** For his walk.
**Adam:** So, but I was just like, wow, he's really good.
**Adam:** Because I because I was like, I know you from something, but he's just very convincingly an American sheriff in this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he's got that look, hasn't he?
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** Yeah, he has.
**Adam:** He's got the right
**Lee:** sort of
**Adam:** feeling
**Adam:** for
**Adam:** it.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** it
**Adam:** was
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** yeah,
**Adam:** I
**Adam:** think
**Adam:** the.
**Adam:** And I'm I want to put it out there
**Adam:** because I think it's an important thing
**Adam:** because it's mental health
**Adam:** and stuff like that.
**Adam:** That obviously.
**Adam:** If you've experienced if you're experiencing any difficulties or
**Adam:** any of the
**Adam:** anything that's heard in this film
**Adam:** has affected you in any way.
**Adam:** yeah, go and fucking seek help
**Adam:** because I think that's that that was.
**Adam:** I I've written it down here as my Springer's final thought.
**Adam:** If this film, films don't need to have a message, this film doesn't need to have a message.
**Adam:** But if it does have a message, it's don't be a selfish fuck,
**Adam:** seek help and take your meds.
**Lee:** That's right.
**Lee:** I think that's what I was discussing this with someone recently actually.
**Lee:** Like I do think it's good that in the last few years, maybe in the last 10 years, that going and seeing someone if you're not feeling like it's perfectly normal.
**Lee:** And you know, a large majority of people, like it used to be very friend.
**Lee:** I remember yeah, when we were young,
**Lee:** like it was just not wouldn't.
**Adam:** Presumably when Jerry was young.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah. And I think that may have a point to it as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, if you catch it tough early,
**Lee:** like, you know, with any any illness, whether it's physical or mental, catch it early enough.
**Lee:** got time to you've got more time to with it.
**Chris:** Like I remember Adam was laughing about, you know, psychotherapy and therapy as if it was some sort of a silly made up, you know, rubbish for like, yeah, it's not a real science and yeah, it may not be physics or chemistry, but it's clearly very important. And needs a lot more research.
**Lee:** Yeah. Possibly.
**Adam:** Well, it's health and the trouble is is that it's not health that's obvious if you break your leg.
**Adam:** You can see it.
**Adam:** If you cut if you have a graze, you can see it, but you can't see those on a.
**Adam:** on the inside.
**Chris:** Although I bet the same people that would laugh about it might still take cancer seriously.
**Chris:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** The thing is again, it's the difficulty as well, isn't it? You know, we all say, we're all very British. People say, how are you? Yeah, I'm great. You might be having the worst day you've had in the last two months, but someone says, how are you? You go, yeah, I'm great.
**Lee:** But you just said you were really sad.
**Lee:** And I think that's why it goes under the radar. Yeah, because he's like and he thinks he's right and thinks his view, everything he says is like sane and yes.
**Lee:** And you're taking the medication, he sort of says, oh, I'm taking the medication and we know he's not,
**Lee:** he's not quit.
**Adam:** I have to say, that bit got me though.
**Adam:** When it was just like, well, you know,
**Adam:** But when I'm not on my meds, I can see the universe what it is and there's huge long speech about seeing through the sort of areas of reality to find a true meaning.
**Adam:** So you have stopped taking your meds.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yes,
**Lee:** so we better wrap up here, ladies and gentlemen.
**Lee:** so this is definitely a recommend from myself and from Lady Jennifer.
**Chris:** Chris?
**Chris:** Yeah, from me, definitely.
**Lee:** Adam?
**Adam:** It's a recommend from me because I think I'm
**Adam:** I'm curious and funnily enough, Claire Claire said it as well, which is don't know who this is for.
**Adam:** And I want to find out I might be unhappy with the answer.
**Adam:** But I want to find out, you know, there's yeah, there's something about it.
**Lee:** I think it's one of those I don't know who it's.
**Lee:** equally, I would show it to almost anybody
**Lee:** because I think it's got things in it.
**Unknown:** I recommended it to A-level students.
**Unknown:** After I watched it the first time, when I had a sort of rose tinted view of it, and I was like, oh brilliant, teaching schizophrenia.
**Unknown:** It's really good because it does show that sort of, you know, opposing views.
**Unknown:** And then of course, I to Chris and Shelley and they were horrified.
**Unknown:** I haven't mentioned it to students since just in case.
**Unknown:** I had one student blessing, he came back in like, you know, a few weeks later and I'm miss, I watched that. It was really interesting.
**Adam:** So, you know, yay.
**Adam:** I I think that's the thing is the good thing is is that all of us do say we found it sad.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that's that's probably the point in a in a way is that it at least it got that across.
**Adam:** It is I'm not going to go to the point of tragedy because I think that's when someone loses or whatever, but yeah, it's like yeah, it's just a bit, yeah.
**Lee:** But again, like you say, it calls conversations that we had. I hadn't seen it half a dozen times,
**Lee:** but we still discussed it again after this watch because it still every time makes me think about it in a slightly different way.
**Chris:** Do these things help to make mental wellness less taboo and easier to talk about.
**Chris:** Possibly.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** so in a in a very stark difference to this.
**Lee:** As Adam said, we'll be watching Split in a Fortnite's time.
**Lee:** I don't think there'll be much being on the side of that character there,
**Lee:** but we'll see how it goes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I can't wait. I haven't watched it for a while, so.
**Lee:** No, we saw it when it first come out
**Lee:** and I haven't watched it again since.
**Lee:** But yeah, I just was blown away by it, so while I'm night is still at the top of the tree at the moment.
**Lee:** We'll we'll
**Lee:** Before he has another one of his trophs, we'll we'll be watching Split in a Fortnite's time.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep170 The Revenge of We Have Been Watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep170-the-revenge-of-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 21 May 2023
Duration: 00:38:57

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Revenge of We Have Been Watching”. Time, once again, to discuss all the different audio/visual media that we have shoved up our brains, via our lugs and peepers, over the last few weeks. This episode features talk on “Get Out”; anthology series “Tales of Unease”; “Renfield”; Charlie Brooker’s “Dead Set”, “Enys Men”; “Knock At The Cabin”; “Cube 2: Hypercube”; “The Dunwich Horror” and “Freaky”. Beware of spoilers and swearing and join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Evening everybody, Lee here. regular listeners will know that we recently did a supernatural stories episode, or not, depending on your beliefs.
**Lee:** but it seems to have gone down quite well and we've spoken to a few people who said they've got interesting stories of their own.
**Lee:** So, as we tempted the idea at the end of our last episode, we're going to do a follow-up at some point.
**Lee:** So if any of you have stories of your own that you think would be interesting that you wouldn't mind us sharing with the listeners.
**Lee:** feel free to either record them and email them over to us at info@welcometohorror.com.
**Lee:** or otherwise, you can type them out and send them to us and we will read them out on the show.
**Lee:** if you'd rather not use your name, we will use your first name, otherwise, but if you'd rather go under an alias, include that in the message and we'll be sure to use that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much and enjoy the show.
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** My name's Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I identify as Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here again for our general monthly wrap-up of what we've been watching in the world of horror.
**Lee:** there will be spoilers, there will be swearing.
**Lee:** we've got a lot to get through so we're going to do them in sort of short-ish chunks.
**Lee:** hopefully, but we say that and then we just waffle on.
**Lee:** so, let's start with Chris.
**Chris:** Hey.
**Chris:** I, I decided I would look back through and see what were the recommendations that I haven't watched yet.
**Chris:** And there's been a lot, but I decided now is the time, I'm going to watch Get Out.
**Chris:** Because I saw that it's going to be off Netflix in a few days.
**Chris:** So I was like, that's it, I'm on that one, right?
**Chris:** And, yeah, like.
**Chris:** I, I'm pretty sure you both said it was amazing, but I'll hear what you say afterwards.
**Chris:** I know Lee didn't like Us, I remember.
**Chris:** Because of the end.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** But, but yeah, Get Out, I'm pretty certain you did.
**Chris:** But yeah, like seriously, he, Jordan Peele and all of the actors and the writing, what a great way to just make it so eerie from the start.
**Chris:** Like where is this going? This is just on edge about, like there's something strange, I know, but who is it that's going to be strange?
**Chris:** Like, and you know, like even when the the cop pulls them over, just yeah, just everything about it is just so like who, who do you trust here?
**Chris:** The sound fantastic, music fantastic.
**Chris:** And, yeah, the chemistry through the cast.
**Chris:** I mean, his friend Rod, the the comedic relief.
**Lee:** Oh, from the the TSA.
**Chris:** TSA.
**Adam:** TSA.
**Chris:** Yeah, TSA, yeah, I just, yeah, amazing all the way through, really.
**Chris:** I, I, I was trying to work out, you know, you're trying to figure out what is going to be happening, and I know we said spoilers, I'm still in the mindset of not spoiling things.
**Chris:** But so, so yeah, when he's saying you should, you should essentially be getting out there.
**Chris:** And it's like, yeah, there's seriously something weird going on with his family, you know that, and and you're starting to think, okay, how far is this going to go?
**Chris:** And obviously it does go into a, I mean, I guess it's it's unrealistic, but probably not forever, you know, at some point.
**Adam:** You could potentially deal somebody's body.
**Adam:** I, yeah, but I think it's also it's sci-fi.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, there's, there's an element where you sort of think it could be, is it like a possession thing or something occult or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Whereas actually, yeah, it's essentially sci-fi.
**Chris:** Neuro science fiction.
**Adam:** Yeah, there was a film, I think when we talked about Get Out, me and Lee both mentioned it, there's a film called The Sorcerers with Boris Karloff and Ian Ogilvy.
**Adam:** that Us reminded me of.
**Adam:** which has a sort of similar thing of people, people using other's bodies to go out and do as they want.
**Chris:** Well, so I'd been expecting it to be supernatural, I think when you'd when we talked about it before.
**Chris:** So that's where I started off from, but but yeah, no.
**Chris:** It like they they all just played it so well all the way through.
**Adam:** What's the first, it's the first time that he worked with Daniel Kaluuya and obviously that's just something that's gone from strength to strength.
**Lee:** I was going to say it's a match made in heaven, isn't it?
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** That's his Kurt Russell.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, so after we'd watched Nope, which that was great.
**Chris:** I enjoyed Us.
**Chris:** so yeah, again, I'm looking forward to what he does next.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent, cool.
**Lee:** Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** first one I'm going to I'm going to take you to 1970.
**Adam:** For for Tales of Unease, you're seriously, Lee, you are going to like this, I reckon.
**Adam:** Tales of Unease is an LWT anthology series from 1970.
**Adam:** And it's come out on Network.
**Adam:** And it is fucking great.
**Adam:** There's only it's like seven episodes, first episode kind of a bit sort of of an obvious sort of supernatural story.
**Adam:** But then after that, it really start it it's a proper number nine, you sort of like there's there's ones where you're like, I, not necessarily I didn't see that coming, but just where the fuck did this idea come from in the first place?
**Lee:** That sounds awesome.
**Adam:** It's really, really good.
**Adam:** Apparently there's it was there's a writer, funnily enough, it's the writer of The Sorcerers.
**Adam:** a guy called John Burke who did lots of he did loads of adaptations, so he did like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Hammer films and stuff like that.
**Adam:** He did loads of novelizations of films, but he also did three anthology like short stories book books called Tales of Unease.
**Adam:** And so the the TV show is adaptations of those, like the the sort of pick of those stories like over these three volumes.
**Adam:** And you've got some real some interesting casting in there as well, people you'll recognize like Michael Culver, who's Captain Needa in Empire Strikes Back and Roy DeTrease, Susan George, Neil McCarthy, Terence Rigby, Kathrin Thomas, there's people you'll sort of recognize.
**Adam:** But seriously, this is one Lee, definitely from your point of view.
**Adam:** Chris, I think you'd like it as well, but Lee, I know you like sort of Tales of the Unexpected and stuff like that.
**Adam:** It's definitely in that sort of wheelhouse, but my God, it's fucking quality stuff.
**Adam:** It really is.
**Lee:** There's so many of those types of shows that have just gone completely forgotten.
**Lee:** And it's funny because Adam always like for Christmas and stuff, I always get a DVD and it'll be something like that and I'm like, how have I never heard of this?
**Lee:** It's always something spectacular that was on TV and just nobody saw it.
**Lee:** Or, you know, nobody's remembered it 40 years on, but they're always amazing.
**Adam:** I think he's I think it's just because it's from a period where no one was typing from the telly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, these sort of things they were loved at the time, but the sort of they're more of a memory or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, so you've got of the seven episodes, there's three absolute belters.
**Adam:** There's Calculated Nightmare in which, as I've put in my notes, two business pricks get locked in their state of the art office by a disgruntled employee.
**Adam:** there's Bad Bad JoJo, where a comic strip author who has created this sort of like weird thug character who wanders around killing people with his mum.
**Adam:** who super fans of his turn up like fans of the comic, but are a bit deranged and sort of, yeah, that's just really good.
**Adam:** And then the last the last one is just the old banger.
**Adam:** Which was is about this couple trying to ditch their old car.
**Adam:** And it follows a a theme, you know, the car basically keeps gradually returning to them.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But fuck me, does he get out of hand by the final shot?
**Adam:** It's like, okay, now we've we've gone out of any rational explanation for what is happening.
**Chris:** Ha.
**Adam:** but yeah, it's it's just a really good show.
**Adam:** And also you get this there's a one weird effect with it though is that they seem to make like alternate episodes they seem to either do location on film, or they do it in the studio on video.
**Adam:** So there's none of that, you know, usually with the old dramas where they go outside, so you get that sort of quality shift between film and video.
**Adam:** With this it's weird because it's it's just the episodes.
**Adam:** So you watch one that feels like a film and then one that feels more like a TV drama and then yeah, so.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** All in all, yeah, Tales of the Tales of Unease.
**Adam:** Recommended, it's fucking great.
**Lee:** Awesome. I'll definitely be looking that up. That sounds amazing.
**Lee:** so I have been pretty good and I've seen two new films, I've finally gotten off my ass and gone and actually seen some new films. so first off, I watched Renfield. the new one with Nicholas Cage and Nicholas Hoult. Yep. I really enjoyed it.
**Chris:** True to Nicholas Cage quality.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's I mean, that's like Nicholas Cage goes absolutely over the top bat shit in every role you give him.
**Lee:** If you tell him he's Dracula, he's going to go fucking mental and he doesn't disappoint.
**Lee:** It's yeah.
**Lee:** It but it's it's also it's really well written, it's really funny.
**Lee:** the gore is spectacular. It's so over the top.
**Lee:** It's yeah, really good.
**Lee:** but the the show was actually stolen by Aquafina, who plays a cop who's basically looking into the body count that's left behind.
**Lee:** So in this one, Renfield is basically getting he's got semi-vampire powers.
**Lee:** In order for him to go out and collect people effectively to take back to feed to Dracula.
**Adam:** Yeah, because he's his familiar, isn't he?
**Lee:** so he obviously leaves a body count or missing persons or whatever in his wake and she has spotted a connection between a few of these and he's on the case to try and catch up with him.
**Lee:** But she absolutely stole the show. She was so, so good.
**Lee:** Like the whole thing was, it was it was so over the top and tongue in cheek and yeah.
**Lee:** It was fantastic but she absolutely won it for me.
**Lee:** so I shall be looking out to find more stuff that she's in going forward.
**Lee:** I think.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's it's really it does some really good stuff as well that you'll like, Adam.
**Lee:** It takes it takes clips from the original Dracula, the 1929 Dracula.
**Chris:** Oh that's interesting.
**Adam:** Oh, the Lugosi.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it puts Nicholas Cage's face on Lugosi and puts Nicholas Hoult's face on on the guy who played Renfield, Dwight Frye, isn't it?
**Lee:** That's it, Dwight Frye.
**Lee:** Yeah. yeah, but they do such a good job of it.
**Lee:** It looks really, really good.
**Lee:** yeah, it just over the top and like proper action as well, which was wasn't expecting.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Adam:** I was hearing half and half about it, but now.
**Adam:** You're part of the growing list of people I genuinely trust saying that it's.
**Chris:** That's interesting. Yeah, I wonder what put some others off.
**Lee:** I don't. I I think again, it's one of those things, I think it's I think it's too mad for some.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** And I think that's the thing. I think proper horror fans will find it too silly and slapstick, but for people like me who love horror and love the Nicholas Cage movies.
**Chris:** I suppose you can feel like sometimes it takes away from the authentic original if you feel like that, it's perhaps hard to just let go and appreciate it.
**Lee:** Yeah, whereas this definitely doesn't try to be.
**Lee:** No, yeah, I mean this isn't trying to rewrite anything. This is like it's just a comedy film, it's just a bit of fun.
**Lee:** And it yeah.
**Lee:** Smashed it out of the park. Loved it.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Chris, you again.
**Chris:** Yeah, so following on, my, I need to watch some things that have been recommended over the years.
**Chris:** I decided to go for Dead Set.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We talking about that earlier.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, so I I did sort of wonder. I mean, I know you'd both raved about it.
**Chris:** And it's Charlie Brooker and Andy Nyman, who is excellent in it, horribly excellent.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He's one of the most horrible elements and it's a zombie movie, but yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and so I I sort of I was, I guess it was still hard not to be a little bit skeptical that it was going to be as good as it perhaps was when it first came out because it's Big Brother.
**Chris:** But actually, I was like, it sort of took me right back to Big Brother.
**Chris:** Because I I didn't know how much they were going to actually use Big Brother in it.
**Chris:** I in my head it was like, is it just based on the idea of people in a house?
**Chris:** But no, it was like, basically this is Big Brother.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, completely.
**Adam:** Cuz it was like.
**Chris:** So Davina McCall.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I was like, what is going on? This is not what I'd expected.
**Chris:** So yeah, it totally took me back.
**Adam:** It all stems from Charlie Brooker saying that it was the ideal place to, you know, with that conversation about where do you survive a zombie apocalypse?
**Adam:** He's like, well, the Big Brother house because it's secure, there's ways and means of getting in and out of it, like secret ways of getting in and out of it, and you've got like supply fresh supplies and food and everything.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But no, so but yeah, it's fantastic.
**Chris:** It still, it's made me, it reminded me of what was the other thing we watched with Andy Nyman? Ghost Stories again, like that that was so that was excellent.
**Chris:** But so yeah, but it looks like he's not done anything much since.
**Lee:** He did a great film that we are going to cover at some point, called Severance.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** All right.
**Chris:** And yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and again, it's the it's him he plays a prick so well.
**Adam:** Okay, yeah.
**Chris:** You got a role and you do it well.
**Lee:** If you need someone to be an obnoxious asshole, he's always the one.
**Chris:** He's your man.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean that's not on our list since the beginning.
**Chris:** Well, I say we we try and bump that up then.
**Lee:** Yeah, him and Danny Dyer, it's just so much funnier than it has any right to be.
**Chris:** That's what I said.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Adam, what's your next pick?
**Adam:** right, just a quick one. I'm taking you back to 1970.
**Adam:** The Summer of Gloves.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** I watched The Dunwich Horror because it's just come out on Arrow.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** you know, the so obviously it's Roger Corman's AIP, they've done Edgar Allan Poe, so they thought we'll do some HP Lovecraft.
**Adam:** And actually it's not a bad HP Lovecraft adaptation, because usually there's always the thing where it's like, well, here's the two seconds of HP Lovecraft from the short story and then here's an hour and a half of stuff that has fuck all to do with it.
**Adam:** Regardless of how entertaining that may or may not be.
**Adam:** But this is actually quite faithful.
**Chris:** That's good.
**Adam:** and yeah, and you've got Dean Stockwell as the as the main villain, looking just like he's just about to be brained with a piece of ice in an episode of Columbo.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's it's early Dean Stockwell where the perm was king.
**Adam:** Rather than sort of, you know, punching a calculator in front of Sam Beckett.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** And and actually does a nice job of Lovecraft sort of like, well, I can't tell you what it looked like because it'd drive you mad, so they just do a lot of very sort of like that posterized solarized effect on something that you only see in flashes and that works really well as a as a Lovecraftian monster.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** It was one that I'd is one I'd not seen before, but I'd always been on the list.
**Adam:** But then it was like, well, Arrow's releasing it, so at least it'll look good and yeah.
**Chris:** It's time.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I've watched that a couple of times.
**Lee:** It's it's a solid movie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Really good.
**Lee:** so for my last full review, I went back and rewatched Freaky again from 2020.
**Lee:** which is basically it's a new take on Freaky Friday, you know, the film that they did and then remade where the mother swaps place with the child and they get to understand each other and it's all very lovely. yeah, it's not that.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** So it's Vince Vaughn is a slasher and he basically steals a dagger from someone's house while he's breaking in there, uses it and stabs a teenage girl and then when they both woke up the next morning, they've swapped bodies.
**Adam:** Right, okay.
**Lee:** Now, this serial killer is in the body of a teenage girl, which obviously sets him up amp opportunities for slashing.
**Lee:** and it puts this poor young teenage girl in Vince Vaughn's body, who everyone now because he didn't quite kill her, everybody is looking for him because they know he's a serial killer.
**Lee:** and it's just it's really like I I don't know why people have got such a problem with Vince Vaughn.
**Lee:** I don't know if it I like I don't keep up with the whole thing, so I don't know if it's a thing that it's him as a person.
**Lee:** But like loads of people have such a downer on him.
**Chris:** I don't know this.
**Lee:** And I think he's great.
**Adam:** I I think it's just I think it's mainly because unlike a lot of actors in comedy films that he's appeared with, he also does serious roles.
**Adam:** And I think a lot of people don't sort of go into a film not knowing what to expect because but also I think a lot of people are like, well no, you you do funny films, you can't do serious. Yeah, and you know, or.
**Chris:** I haven't seen any serious films with women.
**Lee:** But I I've enjoyed all the films I've seen.
**Adam:** What's series two of True Detective? He takes someone's teeth out with a pair of pliers.
**Adam:** He is not a nice man in that.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, that is interesting.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's he's very good in True Detective.
**Lee:** But he's really good in this like seeing Vince Vaughn act like a teenage girl, he does it so brilliantly.
**Lee:** And there's there's a fantastic scene where it's the teenage girl fancy's the boy in school. He's a bit of a jerk and she's never got round to telling him and they end up basically having the conversation but while she's in Vince Vaughn's body.
**Lee:** So it's Vince Vaughn and this young teenage boy having this first. I didn't know you liked me. I didn't know you liked me. Oh, I wish I had and they had this and it's just so, so good.
**Lee:** Like it's just it's it's.
**Chris:** Sounds like it should be horrible and awkward and eerie, but.
**Lee:** But it's not they just do it so well. And it's yeah.
**Lee:** Like obviously it is a comedy slasher film.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** It's just I watched it the first time and I really enjoyed it and I was like, I don't remember a lot about that apart from coming away thinking, I need to watch it again.
**Lee:** So it's been a couple of years, so I went back and rewatched it. Oh, and I had a fantastic Sunday night with that one.
**Chris:** Interesting.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** So definitely.
**Lee:** If you've not it's on Netflix. So just I think that's why I rewatched it.
**Lee:** So I bought it when it came out, but then it turned up on Netflix. I was like, oh, I haven't even got to go upstairs, I can just click it on Netflix.
**Lee:** Save me step down, I'm having some of that.
**Lee:** yeah, but excellent.
**Lee:** Right, Adam, we've got four minutes left.
**Lee:** I know you had one more you wanted to cover very quickly.
**Adam:** No, I'm pretty much good, sir.
**Lee:** So you're all done.
**Adam:** Cool, excellent.
**Chris:** I'm I'm just going to fire out then.
**Chris:** I I did watch the first episode of Utopia.
**Chris:** Which you both said you've both said, you know, amazing things about, right?
**Chris:** After the first episode, I have no idea.
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** It carries on like that for the first season, mate.
**Chris:** Does it?
**Chris:** It's fascinating, but just I do not know what is going on, where this is going.
**Adam:** Well, welcome to new levels of intrigue.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fucking mental.
**Lee:** But it's like it's so good and when you get the pay off, it is so it's such a solid pay off.
**Lee:** It's not one of those where you get to the end and go, oh, that's daft.
**Lee:** Like it's terrific.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Where's.
**Adam:** Just the height.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, he's so good.
**Lee:** right, yes.
**Lee:** So, our next month.
**Lee:** for next month.
**Lee:** we are going to be covering now this sounds a bit like the month that we did not long ago, so we thought about not doing it, but these two films are both far too good to miss.
**Lee:** and this week actually next week's film is one that Chris has seen but Adam hasn't, so that's a cool thing, I think.
**Adam:** I should be being welcomed to the horror.
**Lee:** So shit eating grin.
**Chris:** I like that look.
**Lee:** So we are doing delusional killers.
**Lee:** for next month.
**Lee:** so our first movie is going to be The Voices with Ryan Reynolds.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** And then our second film, as mentioned earlier and hinted at, we are going to be covering M Night Shyamalan's Split.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** both of which actually go very well with an independent film we got to see recently. I'm not sure if the I think it's going up before this, so you would have heard about it, but if not, yeah, we will be discussing a film called Casting Kills and it very nearly made. Kill. Casting Kill, sorry. Yeah, very nearly made it as the second part of this but we couldn't miss split, so.
**Chris:** Interesting.
**Lee:** You know, we had to do what we had to do.
**Lee:** but yes, so thanks very much for listening, go and check out all of those films because we're all recommend.
**Lee:** I don't think any of us watched anything shit this month, which is good.
**Lee:** and we will be back in a fortnight's time with The Voices.
**Lee:** Thanks very much.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Lee:** And I get to watch Ryan Reynolds again.
**Chris:** Yeah, this was my first introduction to Ryan Reynolds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** I'm fairly certain.
**Lee:** Oh.

---

## Bonus Ep Casting Kill

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-ep-casting-kill/
Air date: 14 May 2023
Duration: 00:15:21

### Description

Well looky here! It’s another Welcome To Horror bonus episode! A spoiler free review of “Casting Kill” from Director James Smith and Raya Films. Currently available for streaming via Amazon and Tubi, having made waves at various festivals - this is a inventive, low budget, thriller set in the world of the audition circuit, which develops moments of macabre tension, whilst also being wickedly funny. A massive thank you to Producer and Scriptwriter Caroline Spence for reaching out, and giving us the opportunity to watch and review this marvellous film. Catch this smart, darkly funny thriller where you can!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Evening everybody, Lee here.
**Lee:** Regular listeners will know that we recently did a supernatural stories episode, or not, depending on your beliefs.
**Lee:** But it seems to have gone down quite well and we've spoken to a few people who said they've got interesting stories of their own.
**Lee:** So, as we tempted the idea at the end of our last episode, we're going to do a follow-up at some point.
**Lee:** So, if any of you have stories of your own that you think would be interesting that you wouldn't mind us sharing with the listeners,
**Lee:** feel free to either record them and email them over to us at info@welcometohorror.com.
**Lee:** Or otherwise, you can type them out and send them to us and we will read them out on the show.
**Lee:** If you'd rather not use your name, we will use your first name otherwise, but if you'd rather go under an alias, include that in the message and we'll be sure to use that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, and enjoy the show.
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here for another cheeky bonus review episode.
**Lee:** This evening, we've been lucky enough to get the opportunity to watch Casting Kills from 2023.
**Lee:** This is a new movie out, it is available on Amazon, etcetera.
**Lee:** So we're going to keep it fairly spoiler-free as we're guessing a lot of you haven't seen it yet.
**Lee:** So we're going to try and keep it spoiler-free, but there might still be swearing, so the usual warnings do apply.
**Lee:** So before we kick off,
**Lee:** thank you very much Caroline Spence for giving us the opportunity to see this movie.
**Chris:** Yeah, Caroline is the writer and producer.
**Chris:** And the writer, the director and cinematographer is James Smith.
**Chris:** But yeah, big, big thanks to Caroline for reaching out, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, excellent.
**Lee:** Thank you, we, so we heard about the film and we're given the opportunity to review it and we said we would.
**Lee:** I then went and watched the trailer and immediately thought, I don't think I'm going to enjoy this.
**Lee:** It didn't look, the trailer just didn't sort of grab me.
**Chris:** So that's funny, I didn't mind the trailer, it didn't affect me too much.
**Chris:** How about you, Adam?
**Adam:** I, I just went in with, I didn't watch a trailer, I literally knew a title and a tagline.
**Adam:** I wanted to keep it as, pure would seem ridiculous, but I just.
**Adam:** I was like, I'll just go in with no preconceived ideas or anything.
**Adam:** So, yeah, just wanted to just.
**Chris:** Sometimes that is best.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But the reason I bring it up is that I was completely wrong.
**Lee:** And when I watched the film I loved it.
**Lee:** So I just wanted to put it out there for anyone who listens to this and then goes and watches a trailer, yeah, the.
**Lee:** yeah, so no harsh, you know, not throwing shade at whoever made the trailer.
**Chris:** It's got to be tricky to decide exactly what you should put in to not give away but also to tempt.
**Lee:** there's a lot going on, you don't want to spoil anything but you want to give people enough.
**Lee:** And I think that's what it is, because this film did have a lot of twists and turns, a bit like we said with The Perfect Host, it's a difficult one to make a trailer to entice people in without giving anything away.
**Lee:** So yeah, so definitely, I say, just putting my cards on the table straight away, definitely watch this movie because I loved it.
**Lee:** But yeah, I, I watched the trailer and thought, oh, this is going to be a slog, I'm going to be honest.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I'm very pleased that I couldn't have been more wrong.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I mean, the film is, I mean, like I say, I went in without any idea or whatever like that, but just to give, give an idea of the plot is, it's.
**Adam:** set in the sort of the world of film auditions, like casting.
**Adam:** And basically follows Arthur Capston, who is ostensibly a big shot Hollywood producer and basically the people who come and audition for him, some of whom discover some very odd things.
**Chris:** He, he certainly is a character.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** And he does have some skills.
**Chris:** Really, he, he, he's quite fun to watch.
**Lee:** I thought Rob Lad was fantastic, he was, yeah, he was absolutely captivating.
**Lee:** And especially the changes in his personality, yeah, I thought he delivered those really, really well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because, because I wasn't sure, but I sort of, obviously, like I say, looking, looking into the film afterwards, I didn't realize, because I wasn't sure whether he had, because obviously it was clearly a British production and filmed in London, so I was like, oh, I'm not sure if he is actually American, but he's not.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** I'm, I'm going to say top work on the accent because I was like.
**Adam:** but no, I mean, he was, yeah, it's, it's a very difficult role to.
**Adam:** Pull off well and he did.
**Chris:** It says on IMDB, it's creepy, vicious and brilliant.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Perfect.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I can sum that up.
**Lee:** He.
**Lee:** Again, it's, it is definitely a lower budget movie as, you know, as we know.
**Lee:** But yeah, the, the acting in it was so good, that really stood out to me, the score.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's it.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Lee:** It was such a higher level than you're used to at this kind of with these budgetary constraints.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, they did a great job on the low budget.
**Adam:** Well, it's, it's working to what you've got.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the fact that it is essentially a single location.
**Adam:** I mean, it's, well, a single area, a very small, sort of single location is sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** And a relatively small cast.
**Adam:** I mean, we're not even relatively small, a fairly small cast.
**Adam:** I mean, you've got auditionees who sort of appear and disappear, but you sort of, you are talking like a main group of sort of four or five characters who are the sort of the driving forces in this.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** I did love the interaction, the dynamic between Arthur Capstone and Dominic.
**Adam:** Yeah, because that was.
**Lee:** Yeah, and Dominic and Ruby as well.
**Lee:** Like I thought they, like they, you know, like they sold being not quite friends but acquaintances really, really well.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** Which, yeah, which is normally quite difficult, especially at these, you know, sort of entry levels when people are first getting into acting to sort of having that, picking up that dynamic and really making it feel lived in.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I was on board all the way.
**Lee:** This film flew by, I know it's only an hour and 19 minutes.
**Lee:** But it was one of those excellent films where I put it on, I thought it had been on for half an hour and I paused it to go and get myself a drink, I went, oh my God, there's only 15 minutes left, like it just flew by.
**Adam:** And because it, it's, I think probably, actually thinking about it, Lee, I can sort of see where you might have been put off with the trailer.
**Adam:** Because I think it obviously evokes the sort of investigation into sort of.
**Adam:** Goings on with producers in Hollywood and the sort of exposure of that whole CD side of, acting and Hollywood and showbiz or whatever.
**Adam:** so it, but the thing is.
**Adam:** It evokes that, but it's not about that, it's.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** It's a wholly unique set of circumstances.
**Adam:** It's not sort of like a a retelling of a horrible story as it were.
**Adam:** Even though, you know, it.
**Lee:** It's definitely horror.
**Adam:** It's got horror.
**Lee:** It's got horror.
**Lee:** But that was the thing, I think you're quite right, I think I watched the trailer and was like, well, this isn't horror as you say.
**Lee:** This is going to be about a CD pervo who's using his position to, you know, to abuse women or whatever and, and I was like, well, although that is horrible, I don't think it's horror.
**Lee:** So yeah, so I was very pleased that it wasn't that and it it definitely was horror.
**Lee:** and it had those comedy elements exactly, yeah.
**Chris:** They really managed to get that balance right because especially with the sub text of what it's about.
**Chris:** It's you could, you could certainly get that wrong and make it very distasteful.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** By trying to make it comedy, but somehow, yeah, they really really got that good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I've also got to share, give a shout out to Andrew Elias, who's the caretaker.
**Adam:** Because, my God, I spent the whole time thinking, is he someone in a band?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because he, do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** There was just something about him, I think it was the glasses admittedly.
**Adam:** Or and the sort of delivery, but I did feel that he was like.
**Adam:** If I find out that this is like the second saxophonist from Madness or he was in the Blockheads.
**Adam:** Like Ian Dury's band.
**Adam:** I would feel that it was that, that just seemed correct.
**Adam:** But he was just great.
**Adam:** I just thought he was a fantastic character.
**Adam:** and there was also.
**Adam:** Because that's the other thing as well, is there sort of.
**Adam:** There is more to it and I quite like the fact that it's not not every plot strand is fully sort of wrapped up as it were.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** or.
**Adam:** Whatever.
**Adam:** But, the character like Ian Renshaw, his character Xander was just, so fucking menacing.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** There was.
**Adam:** It was, it was like, I really want to see him being a sort of charmingly menacing in a lot of other things.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He just.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, but it was, but yeah, I just think the,
**Adam:** The fact that in the press pack they talk about sort of, Hitchcock and stuff like that, it is definitely that thing where Hitchcock's.
**Adam:** All of his, all of his films, all of his thrillers, whatever, are funny.
**Adam:** To greater or lesser extent, I mean, there's certain things.
**Adam:** I mean, North by Northwest is essentially a comedy.
**Adam:** But it's sort of.
**Adam:** But I think, yeah, so I could see that element to it.
**Adam:** But also you mentioned it earlier, Lee, the score by Sean Finnegan was just.
**Lee:** Oh, that's so massive.
**Lee:** So good.
**Adam:** Fucking incredible, I loved it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I just, I, I don't know if it's available, but I hope it becomes available because, yeah, I'll be first in line.
**Adam:** Because I thought that was just really magnificent score.
**Lee:** It was one of the first things that grabbed me, you know, even in that opening scene.
**Lee:** Where it's kind of almost silent, you know, like there's no, nobody speaking.
**Lee:** And it's just setting the scene.
**Lee:** And the characters.
**Lee:** yeah, and that sound just comes in and it's huge and it's just, it just sounds magnificent and it just kind of filled all the space and just, oh yeah, it was amazing, so good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I do think yeah, for the low budget, they definitely created a really good style.
**Chris:** With that, and and even the cover of it, just yeah, they certainly captured something menacing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's that sort of thing, it's, it's menace but funny and macab.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But yeah, that's definitely.
**Adam:** It's very darkly funny.
**Adam:** There are sort of like, I mean, it's like, you know, what people keep in their fridge.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's a, that's a moment, so.
**Chris:** So does this lead us on to another Hitchcock then, you mentioning him?
**Chris:** Because so we only watched Psycho, I think.
**Adam:** We, we, we should do plenty of Hitchcock, I think it's something that I really feel, fuck it, I don't care if they're even the horror ones.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** What, what's the one about the body where they find the body in the wood and nobody wants to take responsibility for it?
**Lee:** I can't remember what he's called.
**Adam:** Trouble with Harry?
**Lee:** Yes, I think it is, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, see, now that was just, sorry, slightly off topic.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Like, that was one I'd never even heard of, it was in the box set and I just chucked it on one Sunday afternoon.
**Lee:** And I was like, this is amazing.
**Lee:** Like, why is nobody raving about this in the top three of his movies?
**Lee:** It was so much fun.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But definitely I think that, yeah, without shadow of a doubt, I recommend Casting Kill.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I'll be interested to see what, because I know, I know that,
**Adam:** James Smith and Caroline Spence sort of have worked together on a few other films.
**Adam:** So I'll be quite interested to maybe go back and check out some of that.
**Adam:** But also to see what comes next.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely, and they've got such a great click, and it obviously works so well together.
**Lee:** It'd be great if if they can kind of keep that.
**Lee:** That team working together.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, definitely, yeah.
**Adam:** I'd like to see, I'd like to see more of everyone who was in it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, without a doubt.
**Lee:** It was.
**Chris:** So, yeah.
**Chris:** So it's Raya Films.
**Chris:** I don't know if I mentioned that earlier.
**Adam:** I don't think we did.
**Adam:** No, so, yes.
**Adam:** Raya films and it's streaming on Amazon.
**Adam:** And Tubi, I believe.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So we'll be definitely checking out.
**Adam:** I don't know if you pronounce it.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** I hope it's not Tubby, I don't want to carry for life looking at it going Tubby.
**Adam:** I know I am, I don't need you mocking me.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Thanks again very much Caroline.
**Lee:** For sending this our way and giving us the opportunity to see this movie.
**Lee:** Everybody else get out there and watch this, it's it's a, it's a nice, tight, compact movie.
**Lee:** You'll have a great time with it, yeah.
**Lee:** We were all totally blown away by it.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And keep up the good work and we'll keep an eye out for what you've got next.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Unknown:** My family saw the mouse now.

---

## Ep 169 Session 9

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-169-session-9/
Air date: 7 May 2023
Duration: 00:40:00
Film: Session 9 · Year: 2001 · Director: Brad Anderson

### Description

We conclude our Haunted April season (in May) with Brad Anderson’s atmospheric chiller “Session 9”. A film in which we learn that health and safety at work is one thing, but health safety in the kitchen can save lives; crematorium walls that pay out like slot machines are best left alone; and maybe if you took less tea breaks and stop pissing off to listen to old tapes, we could get this job finished in a week! Filmed within the actual abandoned Danvers State Hospital, a location that would be a gift to any horror filmmaker. This haunting locale, combined with a brilliant cast, Anderson’s compelling story and incredible visuals - shot on the then cutting edge 24P HD Digital Video - forms an intense, dark puzzle to be pored over. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Evening everybody, Lee here. our regular listeners will know that we recently did a supernatural stories episode or not, depending on your beliefs.
**Lee:** but it seems to have gone down quite well and we've spoken to a few people who said they've got interesting stories of their own. So as we tempted the idea at the end of our last episode, we're going to do a follow-up at some point.
**Lee:** So if any of you have stories of your own that you think would be interesting that you wouldn't mind us sharing with the listeners, feel free to either record them and email them over to us at info@welcometohorror.com.
**Lee:** or otherwise you can type them out and send them to us and we will read them out on the show.
**Lee:** if you'd rather not use your name, we will use your first name otherwise, but if you'd rather go under an alias, include that in the message and we'll be sure to use that. Thanks very much and enjoy the show.
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here yet again for another movie that we've been far too long since I last watched it, to be honest.
**Lee:** there will be spoilers, there will be swearing, we'll keep the spoilers until later, I think probably, because this is one that I don't think so many people have watched and I think some people might be tempted after they've heard us discuss it.
**Adam:** Yeah, good point.
**Lee:** but yeah, obviously we will need to discuss where the film goes, but we'll try not to get into that too early on.
**Lee:** so Chris, what did you make on your first viewing of Session 9?
**Chris:** Yeah, so I didn't remember either of you talking about this. I've never heard of it before.
**Chris:** I saw the the one line synopsis which said, a job clearing asbestos at a mental asylum.
**Chris:** I thought it doesn't sound amazing.
**Adam:** From that.
**Adam:** Quite frankly, that is possibly the worst synopsis I've heard.
**Chris:** It could it could be.
**Chris:** But I thought fair enough, you know, I'd give it a go. And I got to say actually, I was pretty quickly drawn in by the characters.
**Chris:** And then I was almost massively put off when I when it was when you start hearing about what's happened and it's like, oh, that is pretty brutal. How much is it going to show us? How much is it going to cover? And it's like, no, actually they did it in a very, very good way where, yeah, you get a sense that it's going to be really hard hitting and then it just isn't quite as bad the way they do it. And I was like, no, that's working for me. That's pretty good.
**Chris:** And then the mystery starts to kick in and you're like, oh, now who who is doing what here? What's going on? They've all got a little bit of a motive, they've all got they're all up to something in in a different sort of way and yeah, who is it really focusing on? Who's going to be the the victim, you know, who's is there a ghost going to come out? It's like, yeah, there's quite a lot going on here and it's sort of yeah, as it unfolded, it got more and more complex, I would say.
**Chris:** This might be me being a bit dim, but I thought, I'm following this easily. And I was like, not not entirely sure if I am perfectly and it's I'm fascinated now to see how it's going to end. And I got to say, didn't didn't quite expect the ending.
**Chris:** Don't know if everybody expects that to happen on their first viewing or not.
**Chris:** But yeah, it it it definitely concluded in a both satisfying and horrible way.
**Adam:** Laughs.
**Lee:** I think that perfectly encapsulates the ending pretty much.
**Chris:** Yeah. Definitely.
**Chris:** Yeah, so it stepped right up but didn't didn't hit that point that I thought it was going to hit earlier on in the, oh that would be awful if we see some of this stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, so even things that later transpires do happen, not going into spoilers, you don't actually see anything. You know it happens and that is bad enough, like it doesn't have to rub your face in it to have the impact of it.
**Chris:** Yeah, they absolutely get that right, I think.
**Adam:** It's it's like we were saying it was like we were saying about with sort of the darker side of Inside Number Nine.
**Adam:** Of it's like they set it up well enough and give you enough information that you're like that horrible fucking thing has happened. They don't need to show it to you.
**Chris:** No. Because they could be all the intensity, all the edge without going over the top.
**Adam:** And a lot of the time when you when you actually show something, the the imagination tends to enhance it or lose.
**Chris:** It loses something.
**Adam:** And it's already pretty bad.
**Adam:** So it's of yeah.
**Lee:** especially as well, because I'd forgotten, so when this film first came out, I think I watched it once with Adam and I watched it once with Lady Jennifer and I don't think I've seen it again since and that was probably 13 years ago, so it's been a long time.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** didn't remember.
**Chris:** It's it's reasonably old, isn't it?
**Adam:** 2001.
**Chris:** The the mobile phone gave gave something away. It's like there's no smartphones going on here.
**Chris:** So it had to be at least before kind of 2008.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** And I which would have been I saw it roughly when it came out.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think we did. So we yeah, so it's even even longer ago than I realized. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, could be like 20 odd years back or something like that now.
**Adam:** And I think I've only seen it, it just it's stayed with me.
**Adam:** But I I only saw it that once, but I was what the for this I was watching the rather marvelous second sight Blu-ray version. And the one thing that's gone there and again this is something that would need to be covered more on the spoiler end is.
**Adam:** There is a whole extra sort of element to this that was cut out.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** in terms of in terms of like there was another element to this to the story and.
**Adam:** It doesn't change anything, but it creates a whole new take on sort of certain parts of it. But apparently they they just and they cut it out because it it worked oddly with test audiences, but again.
**Adam:** I don't want to say too much before we head into it.
**Chris:** Oh, man.
**Chris:** I'm very eager to hear about that.
**Lee:** Yeah. But yeah, so what I was I was about to say was I'd forgotten how low budget this film is, which again, as you were saying, we've not showing too much, might have been part of the reason they sort of opted to do it that way and describe stuff and show you less.
**Lee:** Yeah, because this although the acting's great and things great.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's.
**Lee:** It's literally just a kind of film stock, it looks too real to be a hor to be a Hollywood movie. I think it's.
**Chris:** Yeah, it does.
**Adam:** It it's the very early, it's the very early HD digital video.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So similar to like 28 Days Later.
**Adam:** Which gives it that oddly, which gives it a double weird thing because it it partly gives it a documentary feeling.
**Adam:** But also oddly gives it a feeling like you're watching something that someone made themselves, like like a home video sort of thing, because that was the last time that that that was the last days that technology got to before we all just had phones and we could just film anything we liked at any time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because that was the last time that that that was the last days that technology got to before we all just had phones and we could just film anything we fucking liked at any time.
**Adam:** Yeah. So it had to be at least before kind of 2008. Yeah, it's 2001. And I which would have been I saw it roughly when it came out.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's 2001.

---

## Bonus Ep Saudade & Wastelands

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-ep-saudade-wastelands/
Air date: 1 May 2023
Duration: 00:31:52

### Description

It’s another cheeky Welcome To Horror bonus episode, you lucky people! Here’s Chris and Adam’s spoiler free review of 2 more works from writer/director/producer/actor (and all round top man) Kemal Yildirim; his 2021 feature “Wastelands” and its companion piece, the 2017 short “Saudade”. A haunting drama of an isolated woman, estranged from her family and conducting an on/off dysfunctional relationship, shot with Yildirim’s stunning combination of dream-like imagery with very real (and sometimes shocking) domestic moments and a strong streak of folk-horror. Massive thanks to Kemal for giving us the opportunity to see more of his work after “The Haunting of the Lady Jane”. Catch these films where you can.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening everybody. Lee here. regular listeners will know that we recently did a supernatural stories episode or not, depending on your beliefs.
**Lee:** but it seems to have gone down quite well and we've spoken to a few people who said they've got interesting stories of their own.
**Lee:** So as we tempted the idea at the end of our last episode, we're going to do a follow-up at some point.
**Lee:** So if any of you have stories of your own that you think would be interesting that you wouldn't mind us sharing with the listeners.
**Lee:** feel free to either record them and email them over to us at info@welcometohorror.com.
**Lee:** or otherwise you can type them out and send them to us and we will read them out on the show.
**Lee:** if you'd rather not use your name, we will use your first name otherwise, but if you'd rather go under an alias, include that in the message and we'll be sure to use that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much and enjoy the show.
**Adam:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And we're here. We're we'll be noticing that Lee is not here.
**Adam:** He is currently.
**Chris:** In his absence, yeah.
**Chris:** Where is he? Where is he off to?
**Adam:** We don't know. He is out and about. The last I saw on the Interpol website was he was spotted somewhere around Berlin, so.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah, so who knows, who knows where he may crop up next.
**Adam:** He's very much like the oh I can't remember that now. I was trying to think of it. What was the computer game that where in the world is Carmen.
**Chris:** Carmen Sandiego.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, so he is the Carmen Sandiego of welcome to horror, so you know.
**Adam:** We don't know. We don't know.
**Adam:** He may be, dear listener, look behind you. He will be in the room.
**Chris:** If you see him.
**Adam:** and yes, we're here. we're we're keeping the keeping the the the show running in in in Lee's absence.
**Adam:** And we're here to discuss well, actually to discuss a couple of couple of films from Kamal Yildrim who we did a bonus episode on his current film The Haunting of the Lady Jane.
**Adam:** And he was very generous enough to let us see a an earlier feature of his as well as a short film that kind of kind of links or kind of is a sort of proof of concept for.
**Chris:** Prequel, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Or something along those lines. Yeah.
**Chris:** Same ideas.
**Adam:** Yeah. and so again, we'll we're going to urge we're going to on the side of spoiler-free because these are films that are not necessarily available to get at the moment or what they're, you know, they're they're available, but yeah, they're not I don't believe either's on general like release not on streaming or anything at the moment, so.
**Adam:** which to be honest, is a bit of a shame because I think that he is a really good strong filmmaker.
**Adam:** And I think, you know, hopefully these will as he's building as he's building his sort of portfolio.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So so so do we know so Wastelands, the one we're covering tonight, this was 2020, 2021?
**Adam:** 2021, I believe, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah. Okay.
**Chris:** And Sal Sal Dad, Sal Dad.
**Adam:** Sal Dad, yeah.
**Adam:** That was that was 2017.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So so they're so one's pre and one's post-pandemic.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** In terms of release. Although I believe I believe Wastelands was sort of filmed over quite a period of time.
**Adam:** I think it was as, you know, and with like with a lot of independent filming, it's sort of like, you know, you don't necessarily have a schedule that you can keep to you have to sort of film as you can.
**Chris:** You do what you can, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, you know.
**Adam:** So but yeah.
**Adam:** So to start with the the short film Sal Dad, which is a Portuguese word which means an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent something or someone.
**Adam:** And I think that sums up the the main sort of feel of the film in its own way.
**Adam:** Also apparently in Brazil, there is a day of Sal Dad which is officially celebrated on the 30th of January, yeah.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, although interesting enough that's in that's in Brazil, but not in Portugal.
**Adam:** So it's just yeah.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** you've got, I mean, basically, Sal Dad is a three-hander.
**Adam:** You've got the main character of Alice played here by Holly Rose Durham, and Wilhelm her father played by Sean Botha.
**Chris:** Yeah, who we saw previously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In The Haunting of the Lady Jane.
**Adam:** And Kamal himself plays the character of Triss who is Alice's ex-boyfriend as it as it's shown in Sal Dad.
**Adam:** and yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, basically it's I mean both both of these films are, they have a very thematically as well as the fact that characters are apparently sort of in both of them as I say, you know.
**Adam:** So Sean Botha is the father will help us.
**Chris:** Yeah, so we've got some of the same actors.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Some of the same actors and Kamal is playing the the character and the same character again in Wastelands.
**Adam:** and
**Adam:** yeah, I mean, I think.
**Adam:** It's, I think to discuss Sal Dad before discussing.
**Adam:** It's it's a bit of a tricky one because we're trying to obviously remain fairly spoiler-free.
**Adam:** But essentially it's, the the main character it's her sort of going through stages of grief for a relationship that is ended.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So and pretty much a not particularly healthy relationship.
**Chris:** So that's it, yeah, essentially the whole thing is her grappling with this difficulty and the dysfunction.
**Chris:** and I suppose it's like yeah, it certainly appears to be mental illness, but it's it's caused by the life events or like, you know, it's yeah, it is just a sort of very dark view through her her psychology.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's yeah, it's her mental state which is not in a good place, longing for a relationship that was not in a good place.
**Adam:** And actually has been has clearly been ended by by by Triss the boyfriend because it's not healthy.
**Adam:** which is basically and to not sort of take any power away from either film, but it's very much a sort of like let's rail until we shag.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Very dysfunctional, very unhealthy, really.
**Adam:** Very unhealthy.
**Chris:** And and but how how do you you know, it's yeah breaking the kind of cycle is very difficult.
**Chris:** Because the yeah, the emotional attachment, it's like you're the only happiness you're getting is from some of those actions and really they end up just causing you more pain.
**Adam:** Well, it's it's like any form of codependent relationship, I suppose is always sort of like, well, the good the good times are good, but they are literally in the moment sensation rather than any sort of yeah. It's not it's not a sustained good time or you know.
**Chris:** Long-term elation.
**Adam:** It's clearly falling apart.
**Chris:** Yeah, you're only really heading towards some kind of destruction ultimately.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's sort of at one point she's sort of meets up with Alice's character meets up with her father, and they have an argument, basically to do with the fact that he is with his like with his new wife and new family and that's obviously a sort of sort of resentment.
**Adam:** and then it ends sort of yeah, again, ends on a severely dark note.
**Adam:** And I would say prob probably again, it's it's definitely worth a worth a watch as part of the package.
**Adam:** But I don't think it's something that it's it's not it's not like a pre it's not like a prequel or anything else like that. It's not something you'd need to watch to understand the Wastelands.
**Adam:** I think the Wastelands stands on its own and you know, you kind of get from Sal Dad the sort of it's almost like a compressed shot of.
**Chris:** Yeah, it it gives you a clear taste of what you're going to get.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's like it's like a sort of it's like a pure hit of the emotional state that is sort of shown through the Wastelands.
**Adam:** but I mean all in all, I think it's I think it's like 20 it's basically about 20 minutes.
**Adam:** and but I mean as we said with The Haunting of the Lady Jane, you I can't fault his.
**Adam:** Either like basically his his language of cinema.
**Chris:** So yes, yeah, the overall effect like is is very good.
**Chris:** It it seems to deliver you know, all of the elements seem to work well together to give you that that very dark you know, almost subtly brutal effect sometimes.
**Adam:** Yes, actually that's very true because it's because the weird thing is is it obviously it sort of it's that thing of sort of memory bleeding into the present.
**Adam:** It, you know, it can be quite dreamlike, it can be quite sort of impressionistic and, you know, he I mean from this the lady The Haunting of Lady Jane and everything.
**Adam:** You know, his cinematography is you know.
**Chris:** It's excellent.
**Adam:** Lovely.
**Adam:** You know, I mean probably the wrong I don't know whether I was like.
**Chris:** Well, it is.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, this is I guess these are both somewhat relentless.
**Chris:** whereas that was interesting the difference with The Haunting of Lady Jane, he has added a lot more elements of humor and some light entertainment, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so I think I think if we move on if we move on to the Wastelands because a lot of a lot of what we'd talk about with Sal Dad.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** more so with the Wastelands and you just get an expanded story.
**Adam:** but basically this in this iteration of the story, Alice is now played by Natasha Linton who was also in The Haunting of the Lady Jane.
**Adam:** And she really is the focus of, you know, without a shadow of a doubt, she is the focus of the movie and the movie would not work without her.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's her and it's her mind and what she's going through that is, yeah, like you're seeing it as close to her as possible, really.
**Chris:** And she she absolutely does play a very impressively tortured soul.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** And really. I mean, so I mean the plot of the plot wrong sort of why I put it but but the Wastelands is essentially similar sort of story so you've got Alice who is again clearly extremely unhappy, extremely, you know, depressed, clearly isolated and not connecting with anyone, she's thinking about her, she's thinking about her relationship with previous relationship with her ex, which again, a very destructive, clearly not healthy relationship.
**Adam:** And that's literally all she's got, the present the present means nothing to her.
**Chris:** But that is the only yeah.
**Adam:** She's just sort of stuck in this cycle of you know, sort of.
**Adam:** But the interesting element which is brought in with the Wastelands is that she also is performing rituals.
**Adam:** And it's sort of it's not really I mean, the thing I thing I really love loved about the start of this is that there's probably what is it like about 15 or 20 minutes before you get any dialogue.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which which sounds like it's sounds like it's not going to work, but you get, you know what's happening.
**Chris:** It's it's yeah, it's getting the experience, you still get a sense of what's going on.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's show don't tell, so it's essentially, you know, it's essentially the right way to make a film.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's done through image and impression and you know, the sequences rather than.
**Chris:** Yeah, I suppose it's it's like arthouse.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Very Yeah.
**Adam:** Very much so.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's abstract is yeah, again very good, but.
**Adam:** I think that yeah, so she's sort of like in this cycle of depression and clear unhappy.
**Chris:** Dysfunction, yeah, not things are not going well.
**Chris:** And and yeah, and the only positive really is this relationship with her father.
**Chris:** And and then so so her father comes back into this one and he he has a a fatal.
**Adam:** Yeah, like he has Huntington's.
**Chris:** So it's like a degenerative disease that basically.
**Adam:** Attacks you so that you are unable to look after yourself because it basically destroys your ability to physically act and then eventually kills you.
**Chris:** But and I don't think it's spoiling to say that she essentially has hated him for many years.
**Adam:** It's very yeah, it's very clear because it's clearly. And that's the interesting bit is you get so in this one again, William has Wilhelm has remarried, he's married a a character called Dolores who basically comes to Alice and says.
**Chris:** Clearly, yeah.
**Adam:** Your father's got this disease, we're not together anymore, you're going to have to look after him.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So immediately there's clearly she has not seen him, she's not seen her father for some time, they're clearly very like they're clearly estranged and then he is literally sort of for want of better expression, or certainly how Alice would see it, he is literally dumped on her doorstep as look after this person because no one else is going to.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's sort of and it certainly exacerbates her you know, her mental deterioration.
**Chris:** Well, I mean, which makes her mental deterioration.
**Chris:** Like to to think if you were actually in this situation like so yeah, I mean just having to look after someone in that state is difficult. I mean that's somewhat traumatic anyway, then it's also it's your father who you have had a very difficult relationship with.
**Chris:** Because you think certain things you've, you know, interpreting or understanding what they were to you, yeah, and trying to deal with that and and the dysfunctional relationship she's got with her ex.
**Adam:** It's the.
**Adam:** Who then who then she basically in in a sort of attempt to deal with the fact that she's now looking after her father, she gets back in a relationship with him.
**Adam:** And it's still absolutely all kinds of up.
**Chris:** At least.
**Adam:** you know.
**Adam:** And much as I should have said at the start of this that there won't be spoilers, but there probably will be swearing.
**Adam:** I mean, Kamal was very kind in sort of like when he sent over, he was like, I'm going to make this, you know, I'll give you a trigger warning.
**Chris:** This is not for everyone.
**Adam:** There is. This is not for everyone, there is a lot of there's, you know, there's a lot of nudity, there's a lot of sex in it, but it's not it's not titillating.
**Chris:** So that's what I was going to say that.
**Chris:** He he really I think filmed that really well in that there's something like it's it's got almost I don't know if it's like elegance, but it's it's filmed well, but yeah, in no way is it sort of erotic or as you said titillating.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** It's it's quite.
**Chris:** It's clearly yeah, like and they have absolutely captured that just right. We're like yeah, no, that's not, you know, there's nothing feels good about that.
**Adam:** Yeah, this doesn't look like, you know, you're well, you shouldn't be looking at it anyway in that sort of and it definitely definitely doesn't. You wouldn't be looking at it going, oh, that looks like everyone's having a good time.
**Chris:** Yeah, no.
**Chris:** And and yet it's still still it doesn't look trashy, like I was trying to imagine like how difficult that might be to film scenes like that and and get it across the correct way.
**Adam:** Everything everything about it it has a desperation in it.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** Which is, you know.
**Adam:** There's there's nothing, there's nothing to sort of suggest that this is, you know, this is anything that's really you know, this is this is not healthy, this is not good.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, he he manages to film it. It it reminded me a bit of actually reminded me a bit of Antichrist, the Lars von Trier film.
**Adam:** I don't know if you've seen that.
**Adam:** But that's like has a similar sort of thing where there's like a lot of there's a lot of sex, but it's all very sort of cold and brutal and as part of a downward spiral that is clearly no one's, you know, no one's coming out of it with anything good, you know, it's.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yes, so and so essentially it's yeah, the the sort of it's the story, it's that that's the the sort of story of it and then that as it sort of progresses resolves into an ending that is ambivalent and the one thing that I would say is that.
**Adam:** because I know when Kamal said about like suggested that we view it, he said, oh he said, oh it's not horror, but it is horror adjacent.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's there's distinctly there's an ambivalence to it that could be Alice's mental deterioration or there could actually be something more to it.
**Chris:** Yeah, there's scope there to interpret.
**Adam:** There is definitely.
**Chris:** How you prefer, yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** And it has so it has a, I I think someone someone I saw like a someone talking about it and they said that it was they wasn't they weren't sure whether it was social realism dressed up as folk horror or folk horror dressed up as social realism.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** You know, where it's not sort of.
**Adam:** And it's and again, I think that was something that The Haunting of Lady Jane sort of earlier in its shows its hand earlier by definitely being something of a supernatural.
**Adam:** Whereas this you could read it absolutely that this is just someone's mental health.
**Adam:** And you're you're definitely viewing it from Alice's mind.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And so, you know, with with all the unreliableness that that could entail.
**Adam:** And actually, I mean that's something that I really love something again that I like with The Haunting of the Lady Jane and I like with this.
**Adam:** Is that no one has a you don't have any side, you know, no one is everyone you know, Alice who is your main character is not, you know, she is not necessarily always likeable or always sympathetic.
**Chris:** I suppose that's it yeah, that's the true showing like she is what she is.
**Adam:** And I think like sort of like certainly her relationship with her father is kind of the thing that brings that out where you're like, you know, because she is clearly not, you know, she I mean, it's not a situation that is in any way good, but she is clearly absolutely fighting against it and does not want to sort of she doesn't want to be in this position and she certainly doesn't want to be involved with her father again.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually and but similarly you sort of you don't you as as it goes on you're sort of everyone's motivations do seem, you're not like for example, when the stepmother sort of says, oh, it.
**Adam:** That feels like oh, it's a cruelty of because the way Alice reads it is.
**Adam:** Oh, now he's ill, you don't want to know, but you were perfectly happy to go off with him when it was fine.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But there's no sort of there's no sense that, you know, the stepmother, they've not been together for like some time.
**Adam:** So it's not, do you know what I mean, it's not quite as cut and dried as she's left him.
**Chris:** I suppose that's yeah, but that's yeah, it is I guess the whole thing really is it's possible to interpret things from your perspective and not necessarily be getting it right.
**Adam:** But exactly.
**Chris:** But it's how it feels and and yeah.
**Chris:** And especially if you are very emotional, it's it's difficult to to perhaps see the or be more reasonable and understanding.
**Chris:** I I guess that, you know, like so many things are complicated and it's sort of, yeah.
**Chris:** How what can you do about them?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but as a filmmaker, I don't think he shies away from that sort of thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So so this is actually based on on I think some of his real experiences.
**Adam:** Yes, he said he I've he said that it was a certainly he described it as his most personal film.
**Adam:** So I don't.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** I don't know quite what the what the circumstances are of that, whether it was circumstantial or mental state or what how it sort of. But I mean obviously him being in it, because that's the thing that we didn't obviously he's not in The Lady Jane, but you know, and it's not just his own stuff, Kamal Kamal has appeared in other has appeared in other films, he is an actor as well as a director and producer, etcetera, and writer.
**Adam:** and but yeah, I think but there's no sort of I mean, certainly there's no sense that he's like brought himself in as a you know, hasn't brought himself in to make himself look good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you know, all all as I say, there's a lot of flawed characters.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think that the, you also there and also there is one character who again sort of I'm I don't want to give too much away, but would appear to be almost like a sort of like a guide or something not of reality.
**Chris:** But again, Guardian Angel type.
**Adam:** Yeah, but you don't know whether that's actually because Alice is losing it or because that, you know, there is a supernatural slant to the story.
**Adam:** And, you know, I think again, I don't think this is going to be for everyone.
**Chris:** Well.
**Adam:** I don't think this would have the massive appeal that the Lady Jane would.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But I so I think, I was trying to imagine who else really would want to watch it, and I I do think it falls under horror, most of the people who watch horror would be the ones that would be able to say handle such a relentless dark experience.
**Chris:** So yeah, even if it's not strictly what you imagine as horror, so I would absolutely categorize it around that.
**Adam:** Again, it remind it reminded me of something like because I can I can imagine I can imagine not rewatching this for maybe a couple of years or a few and then just suddenly like, I really want to watch that again.
**Chris:** Yeah, potentially. I mean, I was thinking of I could see it similar to The Haunting of Lady Jane, I think there is quite a bit in here to process and get from it. It's just that it is hard going because it's so real, I'd say.
**Adam:** Yeah. I mean there is I mean, I would say again, like we said with the Lady Jane, I think there's there's a relentless repetition in the middle of it to but that kind of needs to be there to reinforce that mindset of where you are stuck.
**Chris:** Just how really would be.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it could but it could that could go on longer than some people would tolerate.
**Adam:** But funnily enough the stuff it reminded me of is something like say, for example, David Cronenberg's Spider or or even like Possum or something like that.
**Adam:** Where it's very much.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** It's very much the sort of horror of it's the real horror of the dream psychological state in a way.
**Adam:** It's yeah.
**Adam:** I mean I hope we've intrigued people with this.
**Chris:** I think I think that's yeah, some people would get a lot out of watching it. Absolutely.
**Adam:** But I but much like spider, I can see this is a film that I'd be like, I could imagine sort of 10 years down the line going, oh, fuck yeah, that's on.
**Adam:** I've got to watch it because I remember, you know.
**Adam:** So so yeah.
**Chris:** It's definitely intense.
**Adam:** I think.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, oh, absolutely. This is the sort of thing where yeah, this this is not for the, this is not some light-hearted, this is definitely not one you stick on at a party.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** you know, or but then.
**Adam:** You and and as I say, I mean it just looks amazing, I mean there's certain sequences, you've got like for example, when she's talking to her stepmother.
**Adam:** There's a fantastic moment where they're having this very tense, but very sort of tight-lipped sort of conversation and just at the point it explodes into a rail, it cuts outside and it's done through the mirror and you can just see people silently bellowing at each other.
**Chris:** Yeah, that was so.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And that is so effective.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and gives you so much more than actually hearing what the dialogue is, because you don't need it, you just know that that is the breaking point of this sort of relationship.
**Chris:** Yeah, so that's that's a good example of yeah, his skill in filming.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Adam:** Yeah. And I could I could see and certainly I think for people who dug the Lady Jane, this is definitely if if you if you can if you can handle that darkness, that is definitely this is definitely another one to watch.
**Adam:** And not just because you've got Natasha Linton, she and yeah, I mean she really knocks this out of the park because she is yeah.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, she's great, but but yeah.
**Adam:** Because it.
**Adam:** It is just focused on her and she yeah, really really does it well.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** To the point where I'm sitting there actually, is everything all right at home?
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but yes, so obviously, yeah.
**Chris:** Me and Chris both give them.
**Adam:** We give it a thumbs up.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Adam:** And we would say go go seek it out.
**Adam:** If you've not seen Lady Jane, definitely watch the the haunting of the Lady Jane.
**Adam:** And if you like that, if you like what you see there and certainly if you like the way the film is composed.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** The dark, yeah.
**Chris:** The overall aesthetic.
**Adam:** Definitely definitely go for the Wastelands. Yeah, definitely seek it out.
**Adam:** So, just a big thanks to big thanks to Kamal for just let me see it and yeah, well done mate.
**Chris:** And we look forward to the next one.
**Adam:** Yes, very much so, very much so.
**Adam:** So, well, hopefully Lee will be back with us by whichever episode is coming up next.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** We shall see you then.
**Adam:** So it's a good night from me.
**Chris:** And good night from.
**Adam:** Me.
**Adam:** Oh dear. See, I don't think we're going to I don't think the two Ronnies have got a lot to worry about.
**Adam:** Mostly because they're dead.
**Chris:** They are. Yeah, they could come back.
**Adam:** Well, there's a film.
**Adam:** Right, well, thanks very much for listening everyone.
**Adam:** And good night.
**Chris:** Good night.

---

## Ep 168 The Fog

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-168-the-fog/
Air date: 23 April 2023
Duration: 00:38:40
Film: The Fog · Year: 1980 · Director: John Carpenter

### Description

We return, once more to the work of the one and only Mr John Carpenter (the only J.C. we worship round here). It’s time for 1980’s “The Fog”, a film which proves that 2 generations of scream queens are better than one; that a regular series of pissed-up night-fishing boat-trips will eventually end badly; and Tom Atkins, even without his trademark moustache, is still an absolute shagger. John Carpenter’s follow up theatrical film to the eternal classic “Halloween”, “The Fog” didn’t do well at the box office, but found its true audience on VHS, and grew in appreciation. A good old fashioned ghost story in the tradition of MR James with an American slant, and a cloud of chilly nautical gothic. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Evening everybody, Lee here. Our regular listeners will know that we recently did a supernatural stories episode, or not, depending on your beliefs.
**Lee:** but it seems to have gone down quite well and we've spoken to a few people who said they've got interesting stories of their own.
**Lee:** So, as we tempted the idea at the end of our last episode, we're going to do a follow-up at some point.
**Lee:** So if any of you have stories of your own that you think would be interesting that you wouldn't mind us sharing with the listeners.
**Lee:** feel free to either record them and email them over to us at info@welcometohorror.com.
**Lee:** or otherwise, you can type them out and send them to us and we will read them out on the show.
**Lee:** if you'd rather not use your name, we will use your first name otherwise, but if you'd rather go under an alias, include that in the message and we'll be sure to use that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much and enjoy the show.
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here recording on the 21st of April.
**Lee:** which is poignant.
**Adam:** 21st of April.
**Chris:** Five minutes to midnight.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We're too old for that.
**Chris:** Incidentally, I take it you saw the clip that I put up on Instagram.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** oh, yeah, I actually said this is the things I do for this podcast, I set an alarm because, well, I'm an old cunt so I wasn't going to be up then.
**Chris:** Not a school night.
**Adam:** Yeah. Oh, yes. That's for sure. I think we've made that pretty clear.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Chris:** yeah, but I set an alarm so I would I did actually post that at five minutes to 12 last night.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** Very good.
**Chris:** And the best bit was is it was five minutes to 12, "Right, I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm half asleep, but I'm ready. I'm ready." Post. Okay.
**Chris:** Right, check that's gone up, yeah.
**Adam:** Just lay me down on the sofa for a second.
**Chris:** Oh, it's 2 in the morning.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** so we are covering this evening The Fog, as Adam, I believe, watched it recently and realised that it was set on the 21st of April and we were approaching that date so I thought it would be good to get the episode out this weekend.
**Lee:** And as I was away last week, this is the first opportunity we've had to record, so it's on the day in question, which is very exciting.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** See, weirdly enough, maybe something that will come up in a future Lee's Haunted episode, but I do have a thing for asynchronicity.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, we do get them a lot.
**Chris:** I do like it.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Lee:** covered a random film and then someone has messaged us and said, "Do you realise it's on in two days on BBC 4 or whatever?"
**Lee:** So yeah, it's happened more than you'd expect.
**Chris:** Or or we suddenly suddenly there's loads of posts. Oh, yeah, it's the 60th anniversary of this. Oh, right, okay.
**Adam:** Which has recorded it.
**Lee:** so, yes, so we are here to cover 1980s John Carpenter masterpiece, I'm going to say.
**Adam:** Hey!
**Lee:** I love the crap out of this film.
**Lee:** The Fog.
**Lee:** so in typical traditional styley, Chris, have you seen this film before and what did you think of it?
**Chris:** I haven't, and I was just saying, "Ahoy, mateys, this is Chris, and I'd just like to ask you something: Are you weird?"
**Chris:** Weird and unlucky.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Chris:** So, yeah, I quite liked that the very start, it says, "Is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream."
**Lee:** Edgar Allan Poe.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Poe. Edgar Allan Poe for you.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** Apparently.
**Adam:** Apparently that was Debra Hill's idea. Debra Hill the producer and co-writer with John Carpenter.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Who was also producer for like Halloween and Escape from New York and stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, she came up with that.
**Lee:** It worked well.
**Adam:** But from what, from what I gather, the film had a lot of basically John Carpenter, when he put it together, it was about 10 minutes too short.
**Adam:** And the music didn't work and the story didn't really work, and the producer said it needs to be scarier.
**Adam:** And John Carpenter was like, yeah, and so they gave him a bit of money and they in a month they knocked up loads of new bits.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Like and added to bits and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But the stuff that they put in was it's I did write I noted them down, but it was the ghost story at the start.
**Chris:** Oh, I was going to say that's interesting. So yeah, because that that was a great intro, right? But it does tell you it tells you the whole film.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's interesting. Okay.
**Lee:** It's a really good way, though, like, rather than having like a dreadful scroll or like a shoehorn in.
**Adam:** In times of oldness.
**Lee:** Yes, so, Chris, sorry, you were saying, yes, your first thoughts.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, so excellent start.
**Chris:** and it, yeah, like I said, it gives you the ghost story. That's that's wonderful. Interesting that that was added on later.
**Chris:** the the music, fantastic. I I think we've now seen enough John Carpenter that I'm getting well familiar with his his nice synth and sound effects that go really well together.
**Chris:** It's it's certainly got like its own style or character, I suppose, and, yeah.
**Adam:** As the podcast soundtrack obsessive, I think this might actually be my favourite John Carpenter soundtrack.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** It certainly stood out to me.
**Chris:** Yeah, that.
**Chris:** Oh, that's interesting. So I really will one day have to have like a proper John Carpenter marathon session and just compare all of the soundtracks and, yeah, see.
**Chris:** Cuz it each one sounds great and it's like, are they getting better or is it me getting more used to them or I don't know.
**Chris:** But yeah, no, it's fantastic.
**Chris:** and really, yeah, so, so this is a ghost a ghost story.
**Chris:** And it's I thought, I don't know what you think, it seemed to have an element of social commentary, so it seems to be themes of revenge and a, you know, repressed sort of corruption to do with the founding of the the town and and, you know, no one knows about it and then a hundred years later back come the those who have been done wrong to seek their revenge.
**Chris:** On on on six.
**Chris:** Maybe five.
**Lee:** Maybe.
**Chris:** It's six, it's definitely six.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think that's a great intro.
**Adam:** I think the like you're saying, Chris, there, that that theme is actually weirdly something that feels quite relevant at the moment.
**Adam:** Because it is a real ongoing conversation in general about.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Well, certainly about America, but also in general our country as well.
**Chris:** There's definitely.
**Adam:** Definitely, yeah, that seems to come up every year or or.
**Chris:** So where it's like how do we deal with these historical events?
**Chris:** Yeah, that some people haven't know nothing about and don't feel like they're part of, but somehow, you know, you do have to figure out what's what's reasonable.
**Adam:** But it's also.
**Adam:** It's also it's like the people who have that knowledge but can't do anything about it.
**Chris:** We're having a party.
**Adam:** You know, keep it light, you know, we don't we don't want to dwell on the fact that.
**Chris:** To enjoy ourselves, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, we've done this, you know, not had to do this, but that, you know.
**Adam:** Don't don't talk about the shit we've done, not at the moment because we're having a knees up, all right?
**Lee:** You know.
**Adam:** It's very sort of almost like Jaws like amity with the again, like the the head of the town is like sort of like, yeah.
**Adam:** This is it's also the episode of The Simpsons with what's his name, Jebediah Springfield where Lisa discovers the scroll that proves that Rick.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** There's definitely that vibe.
**Adam:** I'm talking to the great historical documents about like historical hypocrisy here, obviously like The Simpsons.
**Chris:** But it's it's funny though, watching this, you know, you you're sort of you're not against those seeking revenge.
**Chris:** And yet if it's applied to us as a country, we're a bit a little bit more against those seeking revenge, like they're the they're definitely the bad guys then.
**Chris:** But in this, you know, you're like, they did get done wrong, even if it's a hundred years ago and it was none of these people, like you're not.
**Adam:** See again, classic ghost story is that idea of things from the past that have like.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's like righting a wrong or because of, you know, something that's it's something bad that happened and that the sort of repercussion of it later.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think the the fact that they've focused on that whole thing of the town being founded on, you know, this murderous.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because that whole cuz
**Adam:** I know there was John Carpenter said that there were like the the influences that went into The Fog was stuff.
**Adam:** He went when he was promoting Assault on Precinct 13, him and Debra Hill visited Stonehenge while they were in England.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And there was like a a fog bank and basically, yeah, she was like Debra.
**Chris:** But does it.
**Chris:** Does that mean the Assault on Precinct 13 is English?
**Adam:** No, I think it was just during the promotional side of it so he was presumably being released over here so was sort of on the sort of press tour as it were.
**Chris:** Fair enough.
**Adam:** And but yeah, so they they were over here and they visited Stonehenge and sort of at sort of twilight and there was a huge fog bank and John Carpenter, what if something comes out of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, what if something came out of that?
**Chris:** I can see you you could think that at Stonehenge, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, definitely, yeah. I think and also he said there's a.
**Adam:** There's a film called The Trollenberg Terror, which has creatures hitting in clouds which he sort of mentioned as well.
**Adam:** but the whole thing about there's a ship called John Carpenter says about a ship called The Frolic, which was wrecked off the coast of California in 1850.
**Adam:** and he said that was carrying gold, but apparently it was porcelain and opium.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** Probably still worth quite a lot.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, but
**Adam:** So and there was but also this whole thing of wreckers sort of appears in tales and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Which is people deliberately luring boats to wreck them for usually to wreck them for salvaging and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** and once again in that way that the world just reveals itself to be a much duller place than it than it much duller place than you think it is, apparently there's not much evidence of people doing that.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It's it's it's more like a story rather like a legend rather than a criminal practice that was actually being done.
**Lee:** I mean, it's good to see that.
**Adam:** But I think if it's a legend it's much more interesting if people did do that.
**Chris:** What a.
**Lee:** It's.
**Chris:** But I I wonder how much evidence would be left behind though to be able to work out one way or the other.
**Adam:** Exactly. I mean, but then that's, you know, the age-old question, there's no proof either way, so.
**Chris:** No. I tend to think if it can be done, humans might well be doing it somewhere.
**Adam:** Yeah, if the internet tells us anything, it's certainly, you know, yeah.
**Adam:** but and there's there's also a Rhode Island.
**Adam:** Rhode Island legend called The Palatine Light which is like a ghost ship story as well, which it sort of kind of seems to be from, I think.
**Lee:** I'm keen to know, Chris, did you spot John Carpenter's cameo?
**Adam:** But you've got.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** So I'm trying to think where I've actually seen him before.
**Chris:** Did he he he presented an anthology that we watched in the.
**Chris:** Was he in the the morgue?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He looks he looks a bit healthier in this.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Not not a great degree, but he looks.
**Lee:** Wait, does that mean he's one of the ghosts?
**Chris:** Oh, no.
**Chris:** Although the ghosts are sort of a lot of associates like John Carpenter like sort of crew and stuff like that who always worked with John Carpenter like Tommy Tommy Lee Wallace is one of them.
**Chris:** Rob Bottin, who did the special effects, is also Blake like the body of the Blake.
**Chris:** in it.
**Chris:** which apparently was because he's quite tall.
**Chris:** Cuz literally literally to hide he's like, well, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, sorry if I speak over you guys. My internet is been a real dick, so.
**Chris:** Yeah, it it doesn't seem too happy.
**Adam:** well, we we should persevere because if the film teaches anything it's the voice that's important.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because it's weird when you think about it because like Adrian Barbeau's character Stevey Wayne is I think she interacts with her son and then everything else is over the radio, over the tele.
**Lee:** Especially with Dan.
**Chris:** And yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, Dan, the the weatherman.
**Chris:** The smooth I don't know why she wasn't rushing over to him instantly as soon as he opened his mouth.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, no, he's he's a he's a seductive fellow.
**Lee:** Although, although obviously Tom Atkins, even without his mustache, yeah, he's still just a right shag machine.
**Lee:** It's like pick up a hitchhiker. Next thing, they're in bed. Right, okay.
**Lee:** What's he age?
**Lee:** It's weird though, Tommy Lee Wallace without mustache, sorry Tom Atkins without a mustache.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it doesn't look right.
**Lee:** It just feels it's just like every time you look you're just like that's just a bit missing.
**Lee:** It's just just not quite right.
**Lee:** I don't know why.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** It's funny. I always forget as well that obviously Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother.
**Lee:** Janet Leigh are both in this film together and I forget it every time and then when I don't know why Janet Lee's character, I kind of forget that part of the story and then every time she says that I go, oh yeah, and it surprises me every time I see it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But it's actually, I mean, that's the thing is I always kind of that that and Father Malone are the although they're like key to the sort of the story of what is going what is actually going on.
**Chris:** yeah, they're the bits I tend to sort of like I don't always remember those bits.
**Chris:** But actually when you watch it, it's, you know, there is a there's a larger cast of people like it is the town being laid siege to. It's not just like one group one group's experience.
**Chris:** It's everyone cuz obviously you've got like Stevey abandoned in the well not like trapped in the lighthouse, and then you've got sort of like Tom Atkins and Jamie Lee Curtis sort of like actually out actively doing stuff.
**Chris:** And then you've got the procession going on, but with people trying to close up.
**Chris:** The other thing I always forget is that the the the one of the guys on the Seagra is Janet Lee's husband.
**Lee:** Oh, I didn't know that.
**Chris:** because they're sort yeah, cuz there's the bit you know when they're in the bar and it's like the the sorry the character. Sorry, yeah, not not not actually the actor, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh yes, yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** but yeah the character like it's her husband. I always forget that bit because.
**Lee:** Cuz it doesn't seem to affect her.
**Chris:** Well, it that's the thing is it does but then she just sort of like, "No, we're and it's kind of like you realise in a way that isn't necessarily, well, it's questionable, but I don't think it comes from a bad morality where she's like, right, we're not talking about this. We're just going to have the celebration."
**Chris:** And then it's like, she is literally the show must go on or business as usual, even though it's like now, well, we don't know where your husband is, but one of the blokes who was with him has turned up and he's had his eyes stabbed out. So, you know.
**Chris:** So so.
**Lee:** No, I got nothing for you.
**Chris:** I was just going to ask about Jamie Lee Curtis.
**Chris:** So she's pretty young in this, I'm assuming she's done Halloween or has been done.
**Adam:** Yeah, Halloween 78 and this is 80.
**Chris:** Oh, okay, yeah, so not a huge difference then.
**Chris:** Oh, that's interesting. So what what else was this the second film or?
**Adam:** This is this is John Carpenter's second.
**Adam:** Well, it's John Carpenter's second theatrical film, she did Halloween.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** He does a film called he does Elvis.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** With Kurt Russell like the the story of Elvis, which is like a TV movie.
**Adam:** excuse me.
**Chris:** Wait, and Kurt Russell playing Elvis?
**Adam:** And he does a TV movie.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** So I should probably watch that.
**Lee:** Yeah, me too.
**Adam:** We'll we'll have to do it as a we'll have to do it as a sidebar or something like that, you know.
**Adam:** What are the horror connections, a director and the star?
**Adam:** No, we're just doing the Elvis story. Don't worry.
**Adam:** but yeah, and he did a like a TV movie thriller called Someone's Watching Me.
**Adam:** And that was where he met Adrian Barbeau, who plays Stevie Wayne, and they ended up getting married.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** So she's married to John Carpenter when she does The Fog.
**Adam:** And he wrote the part for her.
**Adam:** I didn't realise she's Cody Carpenter's mother, though, which is John Carpenter's son who he now composes with.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** and but yeah, so they met on the set that and interesting thing.
**Adam:** thing.
**Adam:** I didn't know if this was a film called there are worse things I could do.
**Adam:** Adrian Barbeau's written three horror comedy novels about vampires in Hollywood.
**Lee:** Oh, I'd read that.
**Adam:** Yeah, Vampires of Hollywood, Love Bites and Make Me Dead.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** And before before she was before she got into acting, she was a go-go dancer in a mob run club in New York.
**Adam:** There you go.
**Adam:** The fascinating facts you can glean from IMDb. I don't know.
**Adam:** But but obviously this but then she.
**Adam:** She turns she's in Creepshow with Hal Holbrook playing her husband, so the guy who's Father Malone in this in the first Creepshow, they play husband and wife in one of the segments.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** And she's in.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Yeah, Cannonball Run, Swamp Thing, two Evil Eyes.
**Adam:** Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death.
**Adam:** Which I kind of feel might be one you've seen, Lee.
**Lee:** I've not, but only because.
**Lee:** of the amount of times I've seen Cannonball Run probably didn't leave much time to watch anything else.
**Adam:** That's true, that's true.
**Adam:** watched that watched that recently and yeah, I quite really enjoyed that.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's like yeah, I feel passed on a video a VHS classic there.
**Adam:** but I always forget she was in Carnivale, wouldn't she, that but it was only one series, wasn't it, Carnivale? Or two? I can't remember.
**Adam:** But and she's also the voice of Catwoman in the animated series of Batman.
**Adam:** And for John Carpenter, she's in Escape from New York and she's the computer voice in The Thing.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** So yeah, she's the.
**Chris:** Oh my gosh.
**Adam:** is playing Kurt Russell at the start of it, so.
**Lee:** I've got to say that that like the the visuals of this, the the ghosts, you know, that like their appearance as they come out of the fog with the glowing eyes, it's so iconic, like it's just one of my absolute favourite looks, it's so so good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it because from what I gather, it's quite a low-budget film.
**Chris:** Oh, relatively low budget.
**Adam:** But it just looks fucking great.
**Chris:** Yeah, I wonder how much of that is fortunate that fog gives that effect.
**Chris:** Yeah, I don't know if anyone's been to know.
**Adam:** But this, like this, cuz it's like at the coast, but it reminds me it's really like the M.R. James ghost stories for Christmas, like the BBC ones, it has that sort of, "Whistle and I'll come to you," or I can't think what it's called now.
**Adam:** The one with Peter Vaughn and it's completely escaped me.
**Adam:** But, "No digging here." Whatever one that is.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, Warning to the Curious.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's it, thank you.
**Adam:** Yeah, Warning to the Curious.
**Adam:** And it's that sort of but you know, everything that's shot in this, it feels, it still clearly America, but obviously it's a, it's sort of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, at the coast, it's not, it's not the height of summer or anything else like that, but it just has a real, just amazing look to it, and, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** And the fog effects, the ghost effects.
**Adam:** It's really fucking good. There's not any.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's nothing that feels even like the the basics of like rattling bottles and stuff like that at the start of it doesn't look bad.
**Adam:** Again, that was stuff that was added.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like the whole sequence of the town going nuts where it's like just the cars start beeping and the like the petrol garage lights up and everything else like that.
**Adam:** That's all, that was all additional stuff.
**Adam:** And Debra Hill shot most of that.
**Adam:** And apparently some of it was shot using her car's headlights for lighting.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** That's how sort of like quick and they were having to do all this stuff when they were sort of putting putting it back to like trying to add all this stuff to make it work.
**Lee:** I mean, that does add to it, though, because that's the thing otherwise, if you just see the rock fall out and he gets to find the book and the gold.
**Lee:** Like, it doesn't give the same impression as the whole town suffering from that earthquake.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** it was I when I watched it, Claire came up with an interesting thing which she she said about all the clocks breaking because the ghosts are trying to stop.
**Chris:** They can only.
**Adam:** Because obviously they on the first night they can only last within the hour.
**Chris:** Yeah, which then on the second night is just fuck it, forget it. It's it's.
**Adam:** It's ghost time. So.
**Adam:** But there's oddly enough, there are so many fucking references in this.
**Adam:** That like are now they're references, but back then they were basically in-jokes from John Carpenter because it was all just related to people he knew. But all those people are now iconic.
**Adam:** So if you put these names in your film now, people are just going to be like, well, that was fucking hack and I they just, you know, hack need sort of thing they just put in, like they were calling them after directors or whatever like that.
**Lee:** Yeah, I noticed. I didn't know that until now.
**Adam:** So Tom Atkins, I could say, I didn't know that until I just opened IMDb, saw what we started recording and realised that the character's name of the the the weatherman is Dan O'Bannon.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So he's Dan O'Bannon. Tom Atkins's character is called Nick Castle, which is the guy who played Michael Myers in Halloween.
**Adam:** And did and directed the last half Halloween as well.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** and there's also Buck Flower, who's one of the guys on the Seagra is his character is called Tommy Wallace, as in Tommy Lee Wallace, and and he's one and he's one of the ghosts in this.
**Adam:** apparently Mrs. Kobrits is named after Richard Kobrits, who was John Carpenter's producer on Someone's Watching Me, which is the TV movie he did with Adrian Barbeau.
**Adam:** And he plays a character called Bennett, whose name is actually he's named after someone John Carpenter knew at college called Ben Tremer, but but it's Ben Tremer, who is mentioned in Halloween, like Jamie Lee Curtis.
**Adam:** I think like Laurie, it's someone that Laurie fancies.
**Adam:** I think he just gets mentioned.
**Adam:** I don't think he's actually in it.
**Adam:** and then you've got the the pathologist is called Dr. Fobes, which, you know, I think which I'm pretty sure only appears in the credit.
**Adam:** So it's yeah you say you've got that reference.
**Chris:** I would have thought I would have noticed that, but yeah.
**Adam:** John Houseman, who's who is the guy at the start doing the ghost story, his character's called Mr. Machen, which is probably after Arthur Machen, who was like a weird fiction author.
**Adam:** and one, when Stevie's like playing records on the radio, she mentions The Coup de Villes, and that is John Carpenter's band with, Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle, who did the end song from Big Trouble in Little China.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** So, but like I say.
**Adam:** All this stuff now would feel like the most, but back then it was an in-jokes with him and his mates, you know, no one was picking up.
**Chris:** Would have known.
**Adam:** He's called Nick Castle, that's the name of the guy who played the shape in the Halloween in the 78. Come on.
**Adam:** the Elizabeth Dane is apparently an old girlfriend of John Carpenter's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Bodega Bay is mentioned, which is where The Birds is set like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
**Adam:** when they're talking about when there's the the report about the seagra, like the of the missing seagra and they mention Whitley Bay and Arkham Rift, which are Lovecraft references.
**Adam:** Then you've got, you know, you've got the Edgar Allan Poe at the start.
**Adam:** When Blake's voice bleeds through the radio, he talks about an albatross around the neck, which is from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which I think we talked about on Triangle, like the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
**Chris:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Coleridge, Samuel T.
**Adam:** And and there's even.
**Adam:** Apparently there's a brick with H Hawks written on it, for Howard Hawks.
**Adam:** the director.
**Adam:** And I do think that the end bit where she the end speech with The Fog, where she's saying look to the look look across the sea, watch for The Fog, really feels like the Watch the Skies bit from the end of the original like Thing from Another World, which obviously he did as The Thing.
**Adam:** So, yeah, it's just absolutely fucking rammed.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And still manages to.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** That's not the point of the film.
**Adam:** You know, it's they weren't there for you to spot.
**Adam:** I think maybe it was just he was having a bad week and I just fucking character name so I'm just going to just go through my phonebook.
**Adam:** Tommy Lee Wallace, yeah, Tom Wallace that'll do, right, okay.
**Adam:** Chris Kurt Russell was apparently offered a part. I'm assuming that Tom Atkins would have had in it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Sorry to say this, Lee, but Father Malone, the part was offered to Christopher Lee but he just couldn't do it.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Cuz of scheduling.
**Adam:** And we could have had a fucking Christopher Lee extended cameo in a John Carpenter movie.
**Lee:** See, I would've loved that.
**Lee:** But this guy plays it so well. I think he's perfect.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** I was thinking that watching it was like, I don't know if Christopher Lee would do like vulnerable, you know what I mean, it's like, you know, he is just actually, I love the bit where she can't where they turn up and she just goes, "Well, I hope he's not in his cart." Cuz I just love that tone for drunkenness.
**Adam:** I just think it's such a.
**Chris:** That's such a good.
**Lee:** That's such a.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, saying about how good it looks.
**Lee:** The the bit with the ghost ship as well, I thought it looks incredible and it's creepy as all hell.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's such a sustained atmosphere that they get with this.
**Adam:** And it's everything, it's the music, it's the cinematography.
**Adam:** I think.
**Chris:** And it doesn't doesn't drag you down, though.
**Chris:** It's still.
**Chris:** No, holds action and it's like, yeah.
**Adam:** See, I was I was a bit worried. I wasn't sure if this was still on Lee's classic list because we did an all-nighter at the Prince Charles of Carpenter movies and I think The Fog was like, I think they put it on fifth, which was just so wrong for that time in the morning.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz it's too quiet, too sedate compared to when you've just been watching they live or Big Trouble in Little China or Halloween or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not that same.
**Lee:** Yeah, pace and speed.
**Lee:** But I honestly, I think after Big Trouble, I think this is my favourite Carpenter movie. I thoroughly enjoyed this every time and it's funny because I don't think about it a lot, and then every time I watch it, I'm like, why don't I watch this at least once a year.
**Lee:** It's so good.
**Adam:** Well, well, we now know the date to be watching it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** That was actually just because I was listening to the soundtrack and they've put the the speech from the beginning at the start of the soundtrack and it was like, oh, hang on.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** See, that beginning was great.
**Lee:** But that closing shot as well, I love when you think it's all over and then it just comes back for one last bite, it just phenomenal.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, not that but also I think that's the point where it's like it's still it's still going, "No, we're we're still a horror film." Because that you know what I mean, it's like the the thing's over, but you've got to do the pay off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's always always the way with like certainly with eighties horror and I think it's sort of, yeah, you you couldn't just leave leave it where it was.
**Adam:** It's just that right it's just the right little sort of and I think it's such an effective because all you've got to do is pump smoke under a door.
**Adam:** To give the presence of the of the ghosts and everything.
**Adam:** And and boat hooks are just really fucking visceral, just looking at them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, you don't have to actually go that far with them.
**Adam:** although they did put in more chopping and stuff as part of the like reshoots and stuff like that because I think they were because like they said they weren't some of the producers were saying we didn't feel scary enough and it's like, all right, well.
**Adam:** So, oh, so you get bits like apparently I think in the the attack on the Seagra, you saw the ship go past and then that was it and then they were found dead.
**Adam:** So they added like the confrontation with the ghost coming on board and everything, which is, you know.
**Chris:** Do you think he was originally thinking to make it like a ghost story sort of more in your mind?
**Adam:** And then somehow that just didn't quite work. I think so, and I think also cuz I remember I can't find any proper thing on it.
**Adam:** So I think it might have just been someone was, you know, a thought that someone had had rather than actual factual basis or anything else like that.
**Adam:** Is I had heard that originally it was meant to be a kids' film at one point.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Like I'm sure I've heard that somewhere, so I couldn't find any similar anything in like notes and.
**Chris:** Or, you know, something creepy and yeah, that could have worked.
**Adam:** But I think it was still kind of a bit too much for, you know, it's like, it's not a kids' film, even if we cut the eye gouging out.
**Adam:** It's not a kids' film.
**Lee:** I'm trying to find it on my shelf. There's they did a a Disney film about a a pirate ghost.
**Lee:** And I'm pretty sure Blackbeard was in that.
**Adam:** Bound to be.
**Lee:** Was it wasn't there one like Blackbeard rides again or something like that.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's called something like that.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, and I bought it last year and saw it.
**Lee:** I can't find it on my shelf now. I think it was one of those annoying things where I heard about it and bought it there and then and then the next day I was like, oh, it's suggesting it to me on Disney Plus.
**Lee:** You bastards.
**Adam:** Yeah, they do seem to have the link up the shit. The also that lighthouse.
**Adam:** I could fucking live there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I could never watch The Fog again.
**Adam:** But I could live there.
**Adam:** I think it just looks amazing, but that's where is it? It's Point I'm assuming it's Point Reese or Reese Lighthouse in in California.
**Adam:** and that staircase is 313 steps long. That's right, folks.
**Adam:** You only get the best best facts on this show.
**Chris:** God.
**Adam:** that's it.
**Adam:** But it's like.
**Lee:** I can't lug in all that gear up there every day.
**Adam:** It's like 900 feet.
**Lee:** God.
**Adam:** They reckon it's like it's the equivalent of 20 stories high.
**Adam:** And you like you can go and visit that.
**Adam:** You can go and visit as a historical museum, the lighthouse.
**Adam:** Unless the winds exceed 40 miles per hour and then they have to close the stairs because they're fucking dangerous.
**Chris:** Oh my gosh.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's such a weird, yeah, just a lovely sort of weird little location.
**Adam:** also I will say one thing that happened once, people could pause films.
**Adam:** in the journal and I clocked it.
**Adam:** You can do it.
**Adam:** when Father Malone first opens the journal, you can't can't sort of make all of it out, but basically on the first page that gets flipped over really quickly, it says, sort of starting from somewhere, "My college education to work right in dumb shit in this fucking movie prop."
**Adam:** It's time to bring in the new girls with big tits, tattoos and shaved beavers.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Adam:** And obviously, no one is ever going to see that.
**Adam:** It's on screen for less than a second.
**Chris:** And and.
**Lee:** I'll be looking out for that next time.
**Lee:** Oh, and there will be next time.
**Adam:** Seriously, it was it's just so cuz it's still it's still written lovely, but you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, so yes, I think this is definitely a recommend from all of us.
**Lee:** Is that fair to say?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh yes.
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, so thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out The Fog.
**Lee:** If you've not seen it before.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, am I breaking up?
**Chris:** Shouldn't have listened this far.
**Lee:** yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And so our next episode is going to be Session 9.
**Lee:** and we'll be back in a fortnight's time with that.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 167 Least Haunted

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-167-least-haunted/
Air date: 9 April 2023
Duration: 00:39:24

### Description

In a break to our usual format, and to continue our “Haunted April” episodes we present “Least Haunted”. A discussion on our general thoughts and feelings towards the uncanny, the supernatural and the unexplained. The boys recount their own brushes against reality’s veil: Thrill as you hear of the Brentwood Manta Ray UFO, shiver at the tale of the Norfolk Farmhouse Apparition, and prepare to be shocked to your very core when lakeside rituals in The Manor at Harold Hill result in nothing at all. We enjoyed this chat so much we’ll probably do some more, let us know if that’s something you’d like to hear in the future. No one prep needed on this, just tune in and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Dr. Adam Thomas.
**Unknown:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening for something totally new and different, not to celebrate anything specific, but just because we thought it would be something a bit different and a bit fun.
**Lee:** obviously we cover horror movies endlessly and discuss ghosts and the supernatural and.
**Lee:** And I don't know if we've ever actually addressed on the podcast, our beliefs or lack of or interest in the supernatural.
**Lee:** so I thought it might just be nice to have a bit of a, an open, you know, a bit of a, an open chat about it.
**Lee:** yeah, and discuss any interesting supernatural experiences we've had or generally, I say, just what our opinions are of the supernatural in general.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I thought it was a really good idea because yeah, it is something we don't really, yeah, we don't really have time for in a weird way with, we're so busy talking about the films or whatever, so.
**Adam:** just to assure all listeners, I have got with me, official PKE meter.
**Chris:** We are not messing around.
**Adam:** Looks like we're clear for ghosts.
**Lee:** Excellent, good, thank you for checking.
**Lee:** That is probably about as accurate as the shit I was watching a mute the other day on Most Haunted or whatever the fuck I was watching.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** there won't be any spoilers because we're not discussing a film, there will be swearing.
**Lee:** I'm warning you now, it's going to happen.
**Lee:** So, Adam, let's start with you, are you a believer, are you skeptic, how do you feel?
**Adam:** I am, I think my, I'll give you my background on it, basically, basically, I'm a skeptic.
**Adam:** Because, you know, I live in a world that or certainly I perceive the world mostly through things that are factual or provable or so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And there doesn't say, there's never been anything scientifically proven.
**Adam:** to put but to quote Alan Moore, it's sort of yeah, but the whole point of sort of, you know, realism.
**Adam:** Is that it does have boundaries.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Any system has boundaries and there probably is room.
**Adam:** Even if it's just in terms of intellectual thought to go outside those boundaries.
**Adam:** But in essence, I'm skeptical because I don't think.
**Adam:** I think there's something happening that people are experiencing that we don't have an explanation for.
**Adam:** And whether we will, we don't know and you would think that, you know, I by now, like we're so fucking advanced, you know.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just, I sort of sit in the camp of, no you didn't, you know, yes you, yes I think you've, yes I think you saw that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't know if I would see that.
**Chris:** Yeah, there's so much information about, you know, the brain now.
**Chris:** And you know, yeah.
**Chris:** Cognition and how we perceive vision and sounds and.
**Lee:** So is that, is that I'll imagine you're in the same camp then Chris?
**Chris:** I am.
**Chris:** Well, so, growing up, I absolutely believed, I was like, yeah, I love it, ghosts are amazing, you know, monsters, it's all, yeah, and I was terrified of everything.
**Chris:** And then, and then, as my story will tell, I became a non-believer.
**Chris:** But I still, I still love the idea of, you know, magical realism.
**Chris:** Like, there, there are, there's sort of levels of perception where if you just focus on exactly what appears to be real.
**Chris:** You probably miss something that's, that's of value in the world, so it's not, it's not paranormal, but it's sort of an appreciation of, something that gives a sense of magic, perhaps, to experience.
**Adam:** Yeah, there's definitely that element to it.
**Adam:** I think the way I look at it, when I, like, like you, when I was a kid, it fascinated me, it still fascinates me.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** But it's in a weird way, I almost see it as linked to my state of mind or, you know, depression or whatever like that.
**Adam:** In as much as it's like, yeah, I've gone on and I've, I've thought there, you know, I thought there were ghosts, I thought there was magic.
**Adam:** And it turns out that the only things that are real are, you know, tax.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** You know, weaponized mass murder.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Illness and disease and.
**Adam:** Yeah, you know.
**Adam:** It's the the things that are real are are either sort of very unromantic or very tedious.
**Adam:** And you know, so I think there's that sort of element there where you want something because you just feel it would be, you know.
**Lee:** I think.
**Chris:** Hallucinations are definitely real.
**Adam:** You know, against a very sort of tawdry reality really, you know.
**Lee:** I think that's where I come from as well.
**Lee:** So I am an absolute 100% non-believer.
**Lee:** but yeah, I mean, I do still sit here all day, every day, listening to podcasts about.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Holly Rectory and yeah, like.
**Lee:** And I don't believe any of it, but I do love the idea, and I would love for it to, to, to get me.
**Lee:** now, saying I'm an absolute 100% non-believer.
**Lee:** I think it is, I think it is an important thing to point out that when people say, as you guys said, oh, I've seen something, I've heard something, or I live in a haunted house.
**Lee:** I don't think those people are intentionally lying or after attention.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** I just believe, and and I'll I'll tell you my closest I came to a supernatural story.
**Lee:** And hopefully it'll help to, to, to point what I mean.
**Lee:** If you believe in the supernatural, when something slightly odd happens, you immediately go, well, it was a ghost.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That was a poltergeist.
**Lee:** That noise downstairs, that was a poltergeist.
**Lee:** It's only if you don't believe that and you go, I need to go deeper.
**Lee:** So, so the closest we came, I, I've not told this.
**Lee:** I think both of you have heard this story, but I've never told it on the podcast.
**Lee:** So about 10 years ago, Lady Jennifer and I were house sitting.
**Lee:** At a converted farm in Norfolk for some relatives.
**Chris:** Oh, dangerous.
**Lee:** And we were staying in a a lovely room that we've stayed in before, and I woke up.
**Lee:** We, we watched Salem's Lot, I remember it perfectly clearly, we watched Salem's Lot, we had a couple of bottles of wine and we.
**Chris:** Wait, wait, you have to tell us, I haven't seen Salem's Lot.
**Lee:** It's a vampire movie, so it's just the fact it was a horror movie, rather than Salem's Lot specifically.
**Adam:** Does also mean we're adding it to the list, Chris.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** and we went to bed, fell asleep.
**Lee:** And I woke up in the early hours of the morning, and when I opened my eyes, above the bed, was floating.
**Lee:** A white cloud and it was moving and undulating, and it was 100% there.
**Lee:** And I thought.
**Lee:** It isn't, it isn't real, my eyes are obviously still half asleep.
**Lee:** If I lie here for a bit longer and wake up, it'll dissipate or I'll see what's causing it.
**Lee:** And I laid there for about five minutes and it was still there.
**Lee:** So in the end I thought, do you know what?
**Lee:** I'm going to risk certain death and wake my wife up.
**Lee:** And say.
**Lee:** to her, you need to see this.
**Lee:** And I turned over to see her laying there, wide awake, eyes open, watching it as well.
**Lee:** And I went.
**Lee:** You're seeing this, aren't you?
**Lee:** And she said, if I say I'm not, can we pretend it isn't happening and go to sleep?
**Lee:** No, I went yeah.
**Lee:** And that was it, and that.
**Lee:** Now, if we were believers, that would have been it, we there'd have been no further investigation, we'd have said, like we saw a ghost that night and we'd tell everybody that room is haunted, we definitely saw it, it was definitely there.
**Lee:** Because neither of us will, unless literally a ghost comes in here and slaps me in the face, I will never believe it.
**Lee:** So the next night, we were like, we definitely didn't see a ghost, we need to go and work out what happened.
**Lee:** So we went back upstairs, once it got dark, but before we were tired or had drunk any wine.
**Lee:** And lay down in the bed.
**Lee:** And found that what it was, because it's an old farm, rather than the wall and the ceiling being at right angles.
**Lee:** The wall sort of curved round into the ceiling.
**Lee:** and it was art text and although the curtains were shut, there was a bit of light.
**Lee:** In the flower bed below the window, they had solar lights.
**Lee:** And growing up the wall, there was like Ivy, so what we were seeing was the light from solar lights coming over the top of the curtains and bending around the curved ceiling.
**Lee:** And because the wind was blowing the Ivy, it was creating a, it creating shadows in the light that came up.
**Lee:** And it created this.
**Lee:** weird movement and because we were half asleep, you your eyes couldn't quite work out how far away it was.
**Lee:** So it looked closer.
**Lee:** And it was.
**Lee:** Yeah, so that was what it was.
**Lee:** But and that's.
**Lee:** That's what I feel, I think people who believe in ghosts.
**Lee:** And believe in the supernatural, as soon as something strange happens, will go, well, of course it was a ghost because they're real, so it was definitely that.
**Lee:** Whereas those of us who don't go, yeah, I'm not, I'm not buying that.
**Chris:** You're tempted to try and work it out.
**Adam:** they've they've stopped at that explanation, they're not going to look further to see what the solution is.
**Lee:** Yeah, precisely.
**Adam:** It reminds me, it reminds me a bit of in Red Dwarf when they're talking about Rimmer with aliens.
**Adam:** And Lister says to him, you think everything's aliens?
**Adam:** The picture falls off the wall, that's aliens.
**Lee:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** Can't find your keys, that's aliens.
**Adam:** That time we used a whole bog roll in a day, you said that was aliens.
**Lee:** Ha ha.
**Unknown:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** And I think it is, you know, you you're not going to like you say, you don't if you're, if that is, if that's something you believe in, you won't necessarily explore beyond that.
**Adam:** I think the interesting thing that comes up a lot of the time is when you hear people who you would.
**Adam:** For want of a better phrase, describe as rational, because I'm not saying people who believe in ghosts are irrational because if there's no proof.
**Adam:** You can't prove a negative anymore than you can prove a positive.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** So it's not irrational or sort of, you know, it's not delusional or anything like that.
**Adam:** It's just someone who has different thoughts, you know, a different reality.
**Lee:** Someone who you assume will think the same way you do, and then when they don't, you go, oh, that's interesting.
**Adam:** And I think yeah, and it's, it's very interesting when it's people who are like, I don't believe in ghosts, here's the ghost I, here's the experience I had.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because usually they have gone through, well, I know there was no one else in the house, I went and checked and, you know, I've definitely you, you know, whatever the sort of they've looked into it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And not found a, you know, not found an explanation that satisfies them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And I think that's a really interesting sort of area.
**Adam:** I also think.
**Chris:** Sorry mate.
**Lee:** No, no, go on.
**Adam:** No, no, I think I was just rambling to be honest.
**Lee:** Because I was just about to say on that note of you guys had anything happened to you.
**Lee:** That feel that that someone that when you tell people, they go, well that's supernatural.
**Lee:** And you go, well no, I don't believe it is, but I've not yet found an explanation for it.
**Lee:** Have either of you ever had anything like that?
**Adam:** I've, I've, well, for a start, I'm going to say this, I've seen a couple of UFOs.
**Adam:** In the most strict sense.
**Adam:** In that I've seen things in the sky that I don't know what they are.
**Chris:** Very hard to explain.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But that's not.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, that that that's just.
**Adam:** It's fucking high up in the sky and I don't know.
**Chris:** Well, we've even happened recently in in America where they were shooting down things and who knows what they were, but they were almost certainly some sort of weather or scientific device.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I mean, I'll I mean, I'll I'll say this one.
**Adam:** Now, I won't say who I was with because I haven't had a chance to ask them.
**Adam:** Whether they want it broadcast, I won't name the person.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** basically we would, on a reasonably regular basis.
**Adam:** Go and get lost in my car because it was kind of like.
**Adam:** We're bored, so.
**Lee:** Good fun.
**Lee:** Those of us in the back could take a six-pack of road sodas and we'd just let Adam get us lost in the countryside, it was great.
**Adam:** It was brilliant.
**Adam:** And yeah, and I remember it was, it was just us two, and
**Adam:** I was and Lee can attest to this that I spent probably far too long quite straight edge.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Not intentionally, like as in, you know, not not X's on my hands and listening to minor threat, I was just.
**Adam:** I just.
**Adam:** I just didn't sort of, you know, mostly because I like driving and it was like, well, I can't drive if I'm out my fucking face, so I'll have to, you know, I'll rein it in.
**Adam:** I won't.
**Adam:** and so I was stone cold sober, the person who was with me was stoned.
**Adam:** I know that.
**Adam:** because fuck me, he was awake.
**Adam:** So, yeah, he probably was.
**Lee:** I know this is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And as we were driving through it was Brentwood, I think.
**Adam:** And we were driving through.
**Adam:** And I can only say we saw a manta ray fly across the sort of above the car.
**Adam:** From one side of the, so you're going down a road with lines of trees either side and it basically flew from, I think from the left over the car and and it looked like a manta ray.
**Adam:** But it was going really fucking fast.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And, but both of us saw it as a manta ray and it wasn't, we didn't seem to.
**Adam:** Do you know it wasn't one person suggested it and then the other, you know.
**Lee:** And then the other one, a little bit like that, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that is the funny thing when it is just both at the same time.
**Adam:** So we both think, absolutely no idea what it was.
**Adam:** Probably just, I don't know, could have been a bat trapped in a fucking carrier bag.
**Adam:** A really thick owl.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It was.
**Chris:** Something that just looked like a manta ray.
**Adam:** Somehow it looked like a manta ray.
**Adam:** And it felt I don't know, it was probably it felt a bit like sort of it, now I look back at it, it's kind of like numb.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But it's funny but it being a manta ray, almost, like, you can't easily tell that and people believe it, because it sounds a bit too silly, but it's like that is actually, that is truthfully what you thought it was, it's not like you decided, let's let's change that to make it sound somehow more like.
**Adam:** No, this was this was the nearest the nearest thing to what we saw and unless face it at that point, not not in a position you would usually see it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's like, it's like finding a fucking elephant on Marlon Chew.
**Lee:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's sort of like, I only saw it briefly, but I'm sure it was an elephant.
**Chris:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** That incidentally, that is not a story, I haven't seen an at mile end.
**Adam:** Just putting that out there.
**Adam:** and then.
**Adam:** The only other story that I have would be, and I don't, I don't know if you remember this Lee, but I was with you.
**Adam:** And we were with, someone who I would imagine is probably okay with us mentioning.
**Lee:** He will be fine, I'm sure.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so and actually big, big shout out to Wes.
**Adam:** He's not, he's not very well at the moment, so.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Wishing you well, brother.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's so so it was Wesley who does.
**Adam:** Mos Eisley Happy Hour with us and has guested on the show.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** As his own.
**Lee:** And did our logo.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And has his own.
**Adam:** podcast.
**Lee:** Unexplained.
**Adam:** Unexplained.
**Lee:** Yeah, love it.
**Adam:** Interestingly enough, you know, deals with a lot of these sort of things.
**Adam:** And where's, where's I think comes from I, I would like to think that I follow a sort of Foran thing with unusual events.
**Adam:** Of, well, I like hearing about them and speculate you know, over them.
**Adam:** But the Foran thing is like, right, we're just going to present you with the bare bones, here's what happened, you know, it rained fish in Kent last Wednesday or whatever it is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, like what caused it and what, yeah.
**Adam:** That genuinely did happen and then yeah, the rest of it's up to you if you want to.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Explain that.
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, so it was.
**Adam:** me and you and Wes and we were over,
**Adam:** The church, Hornchurch.
**Lee:** The Hornchurch, yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So this is in Hornchurch and Hornchurch gets its name from the horned church.
**Chris:** It's got horns on it.
**Adam:** Because it's got horns on it, it's got a like a bull head, isn't it, on the one of the one of the sides.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** We were we were over there at night, obviously.
**Adam:** Because we were sort of, you know, Goths and Metallers.
**Adam:** And you know, the cider flowed for, I don't know.
**Adam:** But actually again, I would have been sober because I was driving.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** but we were over, I remember we were over there.
**Adam:** And I can't quite remember the the sort of chronology of events.
**Adam:** But basically we sort of got a bit spooked by hanging around in a graveyard after dark, you know, I mean, that's that's.
**Adam:** And again, this is half the factor, it's again, where you expect to see things.
**Adam:** So if you're in a graveyard at night, are you more likely to go that was something supernatural or something.
**Chris:** You think, you think your mind is primed for such an experience in that situation.
**Adam:** Oh, it's yeah.
**Adam:** It's you expect rationality to kick in, but rationality's got fuck all to do with.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, the experience in that moment is whatever it is.
**Adam:** And so we were over the graveyard, we got a bit spooked.
**Adam:** And so we made our way across the graveyard and there was like a a long drive.
**Adam:** Down the side of it that led to the car park, so we thought right, we'll go over to that.
**Adam:** And then just make our way down it's it's got lights and everything, you know.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** As we were doing that, we kind of started feeling we kept hearing stuff going on behind us, like we were being followed.
**Adam:** you know, sort of but it would stop as we stopped.
**Adam:** So we finally got to this path and the path has quite a thick.
**Adam:** Or did then, I haven't been there for years, had like quite a thick hedge like down running that sort of separated it from the graveyard.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** As we were walking along.
**Adam:** We were sort of going and then there was, and admittedly.
**Adam:** Could have been any one of us, but there was a sudden smell of shit.
**Adam:** Because and, you know, there's always the thing where it's the devil is marked by the smell of poo.
**Adam:** But yeah, we were sort of walking around it was like, Jesus.
**Adam:** And we we it was so strong we stopped.
**Adam:** And then something started coming through the bush towards us.
**Adam:** Like through the hedge.
**Adam:** And it was fucking loud and it sounded like it was fucking big.
**Adam:** So we broke into a run.
**Adam:** And sort of, went a bit further.
**Adam:** We were heading down the path.
**Adam:** But then about the midway point from where we'd run from to our destination, the end of the path and the car park.
**Adam:** Suddenly we just were lit from above like a strobe light.
**Adam:** For about, I don't know, two or three seconds.
**Adam:** It wasn't long.
**Adam:** But it was enough that we sort of stopped, stared up and just into this blinking light.
**Adam:** And then it stopped again and everything was quiet.
**Adam:** And we fucking kept running.
**Adam:** But it was enough of a weird moment that we actually stopped running to sort of be like, what the fuck?
**Adam:** And yeah, and genuinely, that's that's the story.
**Adam:** I have no fucking idea.
**Adam:** what what was there, so, you know.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** See now I remember it slightly differently, but I can tell you the reason we were in that graveyard was my fault because.
**Unknown:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** I had been encouraged by some friends at school and we stayed over there on Halloween night.
**Unknown:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** And again, a bit like the incident when I was with you, my memory of it is different to what theirs was.
**Lee:** So they came away and were like, oh my god, this and I was like, it's not quite how I remember it.
**Lee:** But okay.
**Lee:** So, and especially when I went back with you guys.
**Lee:** And I think I worked out what had happened.
**Lee:** So we spent the night in the graveyard.
**Lee:** Very little had happened, we just sat around as you mentioned, drunk a lot of cider and talked shit for a while.
**Lee:** At some point in the night, we went for a walk.
**Lee:** Now the story.
**Lee:** That everyone had the same story.
**Lee:** Was that at one point, we walked, we decided to get up and go for a walk to keep ourselves awake because we wanted to stay awake all night in case we saw something.
**Lee:** We walked through a clearing and it was suddenly as if it was broad daylight.
**Lee:** And there was a noise and when we turned around.
**Lee:** There was a dead bird that we were convinced had just fallen out of the tree.
**Lee:** And we all ran and we got out the graveyard and we didn't go back.
**Lee:** Now.
**Lee:** My recollection is that we were walking around to try and stay awake, we went into a clearing that was slightly better lit.
**Lee:** Which allowed us to see something on the floor that could have been a dead bird.
**Lee:** Somebody shouted run and we all ran and that's all I remember.
**Lee:** And then.
**Lee:** When.
**Lee:** When I went back with Adam and Wes, what I realized is the walk that we'd taken to try and keep ourselves away.
**Lee:** Had taken us close to that path that we were just talking about.
**Lee:** Which had street lights over it.
**Lee:** So all that had happened is, we'd walked, we'd been sitting for six hours in the pitch black and we'd gone somewhere a bit lighter.
**Lee:** And spotted a dead bird and somebody shit themselves, so therefore we all ran away.
**Lee:** So what had happened is, we'd gone back because I wanted to show you where it was and we'd walked the same walk.
**Lee:** Except we'd walked right to the end of the graveyard, joined that path and walked back down.
**Lee:** But the only bit of any of that I remember was us walking along and then Wes going, did you hear that?
**Lee:** You saying yes, and then him shouting run, and then we ran.
**Lee:** And I don't remember.
**Lee:** Anything other than that.
**Lee:** But it was a long time ago, so.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** It was well, it was a long time ago and also in in fairness, you probably had a drink.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Probably had, yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Equally, yeah, that is something I have no explanation for and probably there are thousand and one people, billions of people who can give me any, you know, a number of rationalizations.
**Adam:** And please, please do, because yeah, I still don't know what the fuck happened.
**Adam:** And I sort of, and it's weird, it's not, it's never been something that's driven me to curiosity in a weird way.
**Adam:** I think there's a part of it that's like, I, if that is something dodgy that you've touched in terms of, you know, super weirdness or supernatural or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's like, I'll just leave it there.
**Adam:** I've I've had a brush with it.
**Adam:** If it is real, but it's that sort of real, fuck that.
**Lee:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** You know, it's sort of, I don't know.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** What about you, Chris?
**Adam:** Have you.
**Adam:** Experienced the strange.
**Chris:** Oh, well, I just experienced a very strange thing of the internet going unstable.
**Chris:** Just at, just at the point.
**Chris:** It's where the true ghosts are.
**Lee:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** All those accounts written by people who are no longer with us.
**Lee:** yeah, so Chris, anything ever happen to you?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I guess we lost him.
**Adam:** I think we might have done.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's right, well we'll give him five minutes.
**Lee:** in in the meantime.
**Lee:** I will use this as my opportunity, now although I say I'm not a believer and I do have my love of ghost stories, et cetera.
**Lee:** I do have that thing, you know it's like when you do something and it hurts.
**Lee:** So you know not to do it, but you keep doing it.
**Adam:** Like your scalp.
**Lee:** My one of those is watching Most Haunted and those type shows.
**Lee:** Because.
**Lee:** I know they are going to send me into a spiral of rage.
**Lee:** But I can't fucking help watching them.
**Lee:** But they drive me mental.
**Lee:** and the one I watched recently that did it most of all.
**Lee:** And literally, I think about three times, I had to go, because it was about 1:00 in the morning.
**Lee:** I was.
**Lee:** watching it in the bedroom, I thought I'll just watch it quietly, so I don't wake you up.
**Lee:** And then I kept going, oh, fuck off now, come on.
**Adam:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** And it was 28 Days Haunted.
**Adam:** Right.
**Lee:** Which is a Netflix original show.
**Lee:** It was basically.
**Lee:** So they claimed, alarm bell started from the very off, so the intro is the Warrens.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck yeah.
**Lee:** I was like, right, that's a fucking alarm.
**Adam:** Hell.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Claimed.
**Lee:** Claimed that, they had decided that after 28 days being alone, locked in a house that is haunted, that was the optimum time for you.
**Lee:** The 28th day was when the ghosts would reveal themselves and blah, blah, blah.
**Lee:** Now, they then said.
**Lee:** They tested this on the 4,000 hauntings that they investigated.
**Lee:** So just to give you an idea, I've done the math.
**Lee:** If they did, I know they're not saying they did it on everyone.
**Lee:** But just to give you a rough idea, had they done 28 days investigation on 4,000 huntings.
**Lee:** They would have had to have been investigating for 333 years.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Now I know they look pretty fucking ropy.
**Lee:** But they didn't look that bad.
**Lee:** So that was the premise of the show.
**Lee:** What actually, so they got these groups of ghost hunters.
**Lee:** Dropped them off, so they blindfold them, drove them somewhere that is supposedly super haunted but not famous enough that they would know anything about it and dropped them off.
**Lee:** To see what would happen.
**Lee:** And a lot of them didn't know each other.
**Lee:** So they were like, one of them was a medium and one of them was a tech.
**Adam:** Astral.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and they'd basically isolate them in this house.
**Lee:** What inevitably happened in all of them was within the first 24 hours, they had miraculously by various types of nonsense bullshit.
**Lee:** Worked out what the ghost was, who it was, who where it had died, what its name was, the relationship to the like basically everything in the first 24 hours.
**Lee:** And what then subsequently happened in the next 27 days is they got to fucking hate each other's guts.
**Lee:** And that was it, that was all the show was.
**Lee:** And it was so much bullshit.
**Lee:** So much like.
**Lee:** the spirits must be draining him because all he's doing is sleeping.
**Lee:** No, there's him and a woman in the house, he hates her, there's no distraction, no internet, no TV, no outside world, of course he's sleeping the whole time because he's got no options but to sleep, or fucking talking to that mad old trout.
**Lee:** Of course he's going to spend the whole time in bed, nothing draining him.
**Adam:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** yes, so it ended up rather a lot of me screaming, oh, fuck off now.
**Adam:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** Go on.
**Adam:** See, I think that, I think that's another thing.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough, I don't know whether it connects to the magic sort of side of things.
**Adam:** You know, like, like I was saying about the like the loss of magic and the sort of loss of wonder.
**Adam:** Is, I think that when people exploit it and you can see them exploiting it, you know, and they're exploiting other people's beliefs.
**Adam:** Like, sort of, you know, when it's you get like spiritualist cold reading audiences.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And stuff like that, I just think that's fucking despicable.
**Adam:** Especially when it especially when ghosts and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Because you generally are intruding on grief.
**Lee:** It is, and I think that's the other thing with me as well.
**Lee:** Is because like I was, you know, we were saying, you know, if it was scientifically provable, it definitely would have been by now.
**Lee:** So why do so many people still believe?
**Lee:** And I think it's shows like this, I think if you took all this nonsense propaganda away.
**Lee:** Like people just go, yeah, we used to believe that, but we didn't know any better.
**Lee:** And it was just, and I mean, I I I'd never want the idea of the supernatural to disappear.
**Lee:** Because I find it so utterly fascinating.
**Lee:** So I would be gutted if there was suddenly categorical proof.
**Lee:** 100% there are no ghosts.
**Lee:** I am 100% convinced there are none.
**Lee:** But the fact that it isn't prove, it can't be proved is what still gives me that little tingle.
**Lee:** Although I would never believe it.
**Lee:** It's still that.
**Chris:** Yeah, there's some excitement to it.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that probably is what bears into the horror thing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's why we enjoy horror.
**Lee:** It makes it possible for a while, even if it isn't real, it gives you.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** This is a world in which it happens.
**Lee:** And you go, oh.
**Lee:** I really wish that was real.
**Chris:** Well, I'm hoping, I'm hoping I've killed the Gremlins now.
**Chris:** And I can tell you all about my horror experience.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** so I, I did absolutely believe when I was very young, like I said.
**Chris:** And throughout school, there was this, this tale of the White Lady, you know, whispers and and and people saying they'd definitely seen her.
**Chris:** And it's like, wow, and it's just this built up in in a lot of our minds.
**Chris:** And and I'd never seen anything else, you know, I'd read lots of books about all sorts of different hauntings around.
**Chris:** And it's like, I've never seen anything, okay, right.
**Chris:** And then this, this came to a point where it's like, no, we've got to see, I've got to find out the truth of this.
**Chris:** So it was over in Had Hill over the manor.
**Chris:** in in Duckwood and it was meant to be around a lake.
**Chris:** Now, it's a small pond, or is it, it's a small lake?
**Chris:** I don't know, maybe I got the wrong one, but it was a, it was a dark night.
**Chris:** I was that's it, I'm heading out on my own on my bike.
**Chris:** And I was getting scared because I was at the age where you get very scared and it it's dark in there and there's no one around.
**Chris:** And you come up and the the lake's like it's covered in green algae.
**Chris:** It looks, it looks like the right sort of place.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So, so as you come up to it, you know, your heart starts beating and you're thinking nothing's going to happen, nothing's going to happen.
**Chris:** But you're terrified.
**Chris:** And get to the lake.
**Chris:** Riding around.
**Chris:** And.
**Chris:** Of course, nothing happens.
**Chris:** And so all these people that had promised it, it definitely will.
**Chris:** It definitely will.
**Chris:** And I think that was one of the times where that's it, my brain went, this doesn't exist.
**Chris:** This is definitely people making it up, people seeing things and they believe it.
**Chris:** Because this was, this was it, this was the one time that I was definitely going to see something.
**Chris:** Now, I, I do have friends who still say they did see it.
**Chris:** They have since tried to explain it as deer, probably missed, you know, again.
**Chris:** Like at night, tired, possibly drunk.
**Lee:** These misty deers hanging around.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** But, but it was funny right, so, so actually it built up more in my mind because I pictured this white lady as being the white ghost at the start of Ghostbusters in the library.
**Chris:** And so that just kept coming to my mind as I'm, I'm getting there.
**Chris:** But, yeah.
**Chris:** So, but it's funny, I looked it up online just to see, did, did was this a wider phenomenon?
**Chris:** Known about.
**Chris:** And, and I found this.
**Chris:** It said, the Golden Lion is on the site of Britain's oldest operating public house, at the end of the century, the church brought it to, brought it to replace with a coaching tavern for pilgrims and travelers, and in 1402, the lion, as it was then known, first opened its doors, there were about 23 ghosts that have manifested themselves, including a female ghost named the White Lady, she was murdered in nearby Haled Hill in the 1890s, who celebrated her wedding reception in the pub.
**Chris:** Several people have seen her over the years, and a psychic recently claimed she could feel her presence and said she's here in the picture, and sure enough a photograph was found of the ghost lady standing in the nearby marketplace.
**Chris:** Never has an exorcism been required, the Golden Lion ghosts are nice ghosts, said a local historian.
**Lee:** I have been for a ghost walk.
**Lee:** Around the Golden Lion.
**Lee:** I've been for a ghost walk pretty much anywhere I've traveled.
**Lee:** Not just I've done, I mean, Salem.
**Lee:** If I go anywhere and there's a ghost walk available.
**Lee:** I'm on that shit every time.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Again.
**Adam:** It's that that's
**Adam:** You know, again, it's one of those things where you just want to hear about that.
**Adam:** Because I think there's there's something the other thing is that the ghost is almost like keeping the history alive.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know, it's sort of, in a weird, odd way it commemorates things and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Because it's like, it's the ghost of blah, blah, blah.
**Adam:** Because of blah, blah, blah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** And and on the point of aliens, I've never been abducted.
**Chris:** Although some people think I possibly have been at points in my life.
**Chris:** And I'm still waiting for the probe, but that's not come yet either.
**Adam:** It's just, it's just the vibe you give off.
**Lee:** You know what, I've got two very interesting stories about strange memories I have that I cannot explain.
**Lee:** But there isn't time to do it tonight.
**Adam:** Oh, that.
**Chris:** That could be a follow-up.
**Lee:** We'll bring it up at some point.
**Lee:** It one of them is a is a 100% a dream but there was something about it that was very unnerving.
**Lee:** The other one is an experience that happened, and it's strange because my memory absolutely remembers it clear as day, but my thought process at the time was so wrong for what I should have been thinking that I've never quite managed to justify it.
**Lee:** So it clearly is one of those strange brain anomalies.
**Lee:** You know, the same way that people who have sleep paralysis hallucinate the same thing.
**Chris:** I do get that.
**Chris:** I get, I get the Grim Reaper standing above me with sleep paralysis.
**Adam:** Fucking hell.
**Lee:** Fucking hell.
**Adam:** No wonder people think you've been abducted by aliens.
**Lee:** But yeah, the the sleep paralysis.
**Lee:** Documentary that used to be on Netflix, I think it was, called Nightmare.
**Lee:** That was one of the most fascinating things I've ever watched, it was so strange.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Go on.
**Lee:** yeah, I was going to say, we should probably wrap it up here.
**Lee:** As, as exciting as it is.
**Lee:** but we will definitely be back for another chat like this at some point, and I think we should, we should bring on some people who have genuinely got.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** I'd be.
**Lee:** I'd be very keen to, yeah.
**Lee:** If someone can.
**Chris:** You'll be accused of what the BBC is accused of soon.
**Unknown:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** Being files.
**Adam:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** I was going to say.
**Adam:** We haven't hidden like systemic pedophilia.
**Lee:** Ha ha.
**Chris:** Yeah, I wasn't going quite that far, just being a little bit one-sided.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** I see you.
**Adam:** I thought for that.
**Lee:** I didn't know how.
**Lee:** I mean, I had a suspicion, but yeah, because we'd never really discussed it, and that was what struck me, the fact that we're such good friends, and we discuss films and all the rest of it in such detail.
**Lee:** And I was like, you know what, I don't think we've ever actually sat down and said, do you believe or not?
**Lee:** So I thought it, you know, get the mics on and we'll.
**Chris:** I believe in amazing films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** Well, if if people, if listeners like this, let us know and we'll definitely do more.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** I know.
**Lee:** I know.
**Adam:** It's it's a nice little chat and we didn't have to watch a film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I'll be like my close stories.
**Lee:** Right, thanks very much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Bonus Episode - The Haunting of the Lady Jane

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-episode-the-haunting-of-the-lady-jane/
Air date: 3 April 2023
Duration: 00:19:21

### Description

Surprise! It’s a cheeky Welcome To Horror bonus episode. Here’s a spoiler free review of “The Haunting Of The Lady-Jane” from writer/director/producer Kemal Yildirim. Currently building a reputation at film festivals; we first saw this film at Horror-on-sea, but wanted to say a bit more about it than we had chance to in our own HOS episode. A slow burn, folk horror journey across the haunted waterways of England; equally tense and dream like, this film is the perfect kick off to our “Haunted April” episodes. Catch this movie when you can. A big shout out to Bethan from the Eerie Essex and Spectre of the Sea podcasts for connecting us with Kemal so we had the opportunity to rewatch the film before recording, and massive thanks to Kemal for reaching out to us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we just wanted to jump on very quickly and give you a little cheeky bonus for 10-15 minutes discussing The Haunting of Lady Jane.
**Lee:** We did discuss it briefly when we covered our Horror on Sea outing this year.
**Lee:** But as it's coming out, Adam has given it another watch and felt he'd like to, yeah, have another discussion about it.
**Lee:** I think Chris, you watched it as well, again, didn't you?
**Chris:** Yeah, I did. Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'd quite like to go through it again. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Adam:** Well, I must say a big, a big thank you to Kimal Yildirim, who wrote, directed, I believe edited, was the cinematographer for the Haunting of the Lady Jane. He, he contacted me via thanks to Bethan from Erie Essex, Bethan Briggs Miller. So, big shout out to her. And I think actually as a film, I think it's something that she would probably dig because it's she does a secondary podcast to Erie Essex, it's called Spectres of the Sea. Yeah, I've heard it, it's very good.
**Lee:** Yeah, I've heard, it's very good.
**Adam:** It's really, really good, and yeah, I can imagine it would share a lot of sort of overlap there.
**Adam:** But.
**Lee:** It was very folk horror, wasn't it? It was that kind of folk horror on a barge, which is something I'd never seen before, which was nice and interesting.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's just the,
**Adam:** Oh, by the way, we may swear.
**Adam:** And we're trying to remain, we're going to try not to, we're going to be trying to remain spoiler free on this one, just because it's sort of, it's a film that's just out, it's doing the festival, so very much like the like Eating Miss Campbell, I think it was because we saw them both at Horror on Sea, and I believe they've been at the Romford Horror Festival this year as well.
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**Lee:** Which I missed again.
**Adam:** I know, it just creeps up.
**Lee:** I seem to miss the announcements about it every time and then it's just the thanks for, you know, Romford Horror Festival for showing us this weekend.
**Lee:** I'm like, oh, bollocks, I've done it again, every year.
**Adam:** When it's literally in walking distance.
**Lee:** I know, exactly.
**Lee:** If anyone who works there is listening to this or anyone who goes to it, please message us a couple of weeks before when the tickets go on sale, because I'm a nob and I miss it every year.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's definitely one I think we'd like to go to, so.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** So Chris, you said you re-watched it again as well.
**Chris:** I did, yeah, so, so I think I, I definitely enjoyed it the first time we watched it.
**Chris:** But I think I didn't get as good an experience because it was what was it, like 10am, felt fairly early in the morning, the first film we're watching at that point.
**Chris:** and in a way, there, there are some twists in it. I actually kind of enjoyed knowing a little bit about some of the characters.
**Chris:** Just because you then, you know, on the second watch, I think we've said this enough times about films, you, you almost get a different view, so you have the appreciation of learning about it the first time.
**Chris:** But then really enjoying how the characters unfold the second time already knowing what you know.
**Chris:** So it's like.
**Adam:** Well, it's that thing where you, you suddenly understand people's motivations or their reactions a lot better.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, it does, yeah, I, I've found it a richer on a second watch, I think.
**Chris:** And, you know, I love a film that explores those sort of themes of redemption, sin, morality, and consequences and and who is, who is the evil one, I suppose, because you are called to question what you think about each of the characters throughout and and you learn at the end who, who perhaps really is the sinners, really are the sinners.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think, well, I think it's, it's quite, it's quite nice that the themes are both modern, because you, you like you say, you've got sin, you've got redemption, you've got but also you've got a lot of stuff in there about like, female empowerment and like identity politics as well.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** And and it's interesting that you've got, I mean, for example, I mean, I completely forgotten that the main character is hearing impaired.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I totally forgot because it's it's not fundamental to the film, but it is fundamental to the character, if you see what I mean.
**Adam:** It's like it's it's another effect her experience of everything, yeah, definitely.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's going to affect her experience of everything, yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I think it's, it's one of those, it's one of those films that's certainly, I think like, the lead two characters, Lily and Zara.
**Adam:** Feel very real, they they weren't really as friendly as they could have been, but they were both pretending to be to get what they wanted out of the relationship.
**Chris:** Yeah, I was going to say that.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, they were very realistic, yeah.
**Lee:** So they weren't really as friendly as they could have been, but they were both pretending to be to get what they wanted out of it.
**Lee:** Yeah, I thought it was really, there was a lot more depth to it than you'd expect from a, you know, from two main characters in a low budget horror movie, really.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, and like you said, Adam, about female empowerment, essentially, they should both get on, they both are trying to figure out and and essentially are empowered females and yet still there's some friction between them at certain points, and it it shows it it's, yeah, it's definitely a complex relationship.
**Adam:** Well, I think also it's that, it's that lovely thing where it's like, you know, when, because essentially so that people get what we're talking about, just to run through it very briefly, so you've got the main two characters, you've got Lily who is a writer who has become estranged from her, clearly very religious family.
**Chris:** Yeah, they show that very powerfully at the start. Christ, you know exactly what's, yeah, happened to her.
**Adam:** And so, but she has gone on from that to become a successful writer, she's writing from what they talk about in it, she writes a lot about she writes from a about female female journeys and so on.
**Adam:** And so she hooks up with Zara who's a internet sort of sensation as it were, but it's Lily has imposed a view of her that when she meets her is disappointed.
**Adam:** You know, but equally, there's nothing wrong with what Zara, Zara is on her own journey.
**Adam:** It's not.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It's weird because it's kind of like, you know, it's this thing of, well, I want to be able to celebrate you, but I'm judging you and I just still don't actually like it.
**Chris:** I just still don't actually like it.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's sort of, yeah, so that I really love because I think that both of them are very believable because there's strengths and flaws.
**Adam:** And you sort of think, oh, yeah, I can, you, I could spend a good time with this person, or at other points, what the fuck are they doing?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, or who the fuck do you think you, do you know what I mean, they feel very real, and they basically they meet up and they decide they see an advert for a canal boat trip to Birmingham for free, so they sign up to that, and they get on the boat, which is The Lady Jane.
**Adam:** where the the captain of the boat Willard, is a very strange man.
**Adam:** Who is.
**Chris:** I suppose he's he's extremely religious and that is where you think, okay, perhaps his strangeness is coming from that along with being on the water on his own a lot, so again, you know, it's believable, a believable character, but you don't know exactly what's going on.
**Adam:** You can't get a handle on him and you can understand.
**Adam:** Because interestingly enough, the thing I got as well is because obviously, like I say, Lily's basically a journalist or a writer of about people's lives and everything, and she ends up oddly, I think at first, is actually more invested in Willard when they meet him, because she's like, right, Zara's a right off because she's not she's not conforming to what my image of an empowered modern Muslim woman is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, she's, she's.
**Chris:** She probably sees her as quite childish, I think.
**Adam:** She sees her as quite, yeah, as like immature and.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like, but I've put all these deep meanings.
**Adam:** It's like, you know, it's like, you shouldn't meet heroes.
**Adam:** But, you know, it's sort of like, I don't know, it turns out that, you know, someone's quite, they're not as you've imagined them, whereas Willard is a question that she wants to try and answer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And especially when it's, there's, and I, one thing I really like because it doesn't really fall down on anyone's side at any point.
**Adam:** I mean, it's very clear, you know, at the end of it, it's very clear how we feel about Willard.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, I mean, I suppose we, we get that when he meets some of his friends, that's when you really start to doubt him and he gets murkier as to what's happening.
**Chris:** But it's still, it's still I liked the twists, you know, there,
**Chris:** Yeah, it was it was again, it was kind of believable, it wasn't, it wasn't over the top.
**Chris:** It seemed to fit with the way the characters had unfolded and yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** In many ways, I think that's the thing is you've got the central drama of it, of the people reacting with each other, and then you combine on top of that a supernatural occurrence and unusual occurrences.
**Adam:** But probably, you know, there's, I would imagine there's probably a pretty critically acclaimed film if they stripped out the supernatural element.
**Adam:** Because you can imagine it's like, because it basically it would be a picturesque journey, which everyone has a fucking miserable time on a boat, which feels like a real critics choice.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Sort of feeling, but it's like, they'll be like, oh, no, then they had to go silly, they put ghosts in it, it's like, that's the fucking point.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, these things, it's all intermingled because there is, you know, you've got the supernatural, but you've also got a very real a lot of very real human menace and evil and you know, bad juju.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** which kind of is where the supernatural should be born in a way.
**Adam:** So because they, yeah, they start, because obviously they as they go further on the journey, they start talking ghost stories and stuff like that, and they talk about Ran or Ran, the spirit that haunts the water.
**Adam:** Which I think is probably because of, there's, there's a, there's a Norse goddess who's the personification of water, called Ran, so I think it's kind of to do with that.
**Adam:** but I mean, overall, I think, listening, listening back to what we said about it before, I would agree with you, Liz, I think the only thing is, is maybe it's a bit a bit long.
**Adam:** But only in the sense that I don't think anything needs, I don't think anything needs to be cut entirely, I think there's just stuff that could be nibbled back, maybe it holds on something a bit too long or something like that.
**Adam:** And, but all in all, it's part of that slow build as well.
**Adam:** This is a real slow burner.
**Chris:** It's definitely about the character development.
**Lee:** And I think those slow burn films do work better at home than they do in a, you know, in a cinema, like some films are so much better with an audience.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, but I think with a slow burn, I think they do work better at home, so that, yeah, the runtime will feel different if you watch it at home to if you, as you say, 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, I did, it really did seem faster.
**Adam:** It wasn't the best positioning.
**Adam:** I would say if this, if I was scheduling a film festival, I'd say this is, this is a sort of post-lunch sort of 5 o'clock movie.
**Adam:** Where, you know, you're, you're just need, you're going to veg with it, but not veg out, if you see what I mean, it's, you know, it will hold you, it will sort of work for you.
**Chris:** But I thought the acting was good, it suited all of it.
**Chris:** And, and, I mean, the production as well, I thought it was good, and I, I imagine it must have been quite difficult to spend the amount of time they probably needed to spend on the actual canal itself, trying to film in enclosed.
**Lee:** Yeah, that must have been a very difficult shoot, I'd have thought, to try and catch, you know, trying to film on a narrowboat.
**Chris:** There was a fair few scenes actually, you know, on the boat, I mean, I thought it was interesting, one scene where it starts to get a little bit crazy, and that's where you sort of, you're starting to see the paranormal aspect and you don't know if that's in their minds or not because of what's been going on.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I think, well, because I, I really like the score.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, that did seem to fit really well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you've got, you've got some quiet, you got, and there's some good sound design in it.
**Adam:** I don't know if it was, I don't know because I was watching this, I was re-watching this on a laptop, so I don't know whether it's the laptop that was doing it or not, but there were parts of the sound design that went a bit over the dialogue.
**Adam:** But again, that kind of felt in keeping with it because it was usually at points of stress or drama, where you sort of feel, it's almost like the blood rushing in your ears.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, but, no, I thought the, the sound design and the sort of, yeah, just was, and it's shot beautifully.
**Adam:** I mean, it really, you know.
**Adam:** I mean, it's, from what I understand, filming on water is one of the hardest fucking things to do with a film because, apparently, things are so changeable that you could shoot one way, and then you try and shoot the other and it'll look utterly different or it'll be, you know, it'll have turned on a dime in terms of weather or something like that.
**Adam:** So, you know, the fact that it, you know, that all the stuff on the boats is coherent, like, you know, it, it feels right.
**Adam:** It doesn't.
**Adam:** There's nothing sort of disjointed looking or anything like that, even though it must be a bugger to actually film.
**Adam:** And like you say, I mean, a narrowboat on a canal boat, there's not really that much room.
**Adam:** And it's it's a weird thing, it's the, it's like on John Carpenter said on Horror Cafe about isolation.
**Adam:** Where he said, you're not you're being in a car full of people, but if you're in the desert and there's nothing else for miles, you're trapped in that car.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And this kind of has that sort of same feeling where it's like, you you really get the claustrophobia of the boat is is really exacerbating the sort of situation and the tensions that are going on as well.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** One, one last thing I want to be the first person as far as I'm aware, because I've been reading bits and pieces online and things like that, I want to be the first person that's noticed that hello below there, I'm assuming that's a reference to The Second Woman.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Got to be.
**Adam:** And and that's kind of the area that this sort of sits in, it's like those 70s ghost story for Christmas, it's that very folk sort of cold British landscapes, you know, where it's sort of beautiful and bleak all at once.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I, I would like to check out because command's done quite a, he's done quite a few features and stuff like that and he's acted in things as well.
**Chris:** That's good.
**Chris:** Perhaps we should check out another one.
**Adam:** Yeah, there's a lot of his, there's like shorts and, yeah, I'll definitely, I'm definitely going to go back and check those out.
**Adam:** and we've got, I've got to say Natasha Linton, Briany Harvey and Shawn Bather, who your main cast are really great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and also Sean Bather, is rather a good folk singer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Go.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So, thanks ever so much for listening everybody, we'll see you shortly for our next episode, which again is one where we're mixing it up.
**Lee:** We are going to be covering our discussing the real supernatural, quote unquote.
**Lee:** and we will be back with that shortly.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 166 My Bloody Banjo

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-166-my-bloody-banjo/
Air date: 26 March 2023
Duration: 00:38:20

### Description

More Troma goodness for you with 2015’s “My Bloody Banjo”. A film in which we learn that a vape just doesn’t cut it next to a real cigarette in basic torture; judiciously applied piano wire can liven up even the most tedious of corporate events; and that if you believe in paper; say it with your balls! The debut feature from Liam Regan, whose latest film “Eating Miss Campbell” is currently wowing horror festivals. Both films are available for pre-order on limited edition Blu Ray at https://refusefilms.bigcartel.com/ Get in quick! Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Hey! And we're here yet again for the second part of trauma month when we are covering 2015's My Bloody Banjo.
**Lee:** so right off the bat, we'd like to say thank you very much to Liam Reagan for for the chance to see this movie.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** We after eating Miss Campbell, we were very excited all of us to to find out that there was a a prequel to it as it were.
**Lee:** so yeah.
**Lee:** It's yeah, it's very good. And and he got he heard us talking about it on the episode and got in contact, so yeah, and and just just to be clear, Liam Reagan is the writer and director of My Bloody Banjo and Eating Miss Campbell.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Not just a helpful chap who pointed us in direction.
**Lee:** So yeah, thanks very much for that.
**Adam:** I I'm going to go further and say he's a gentleman.
**Lee:** He is a gentleman, I would definitely say.
**Lee:** And he's very good to follow on Instagram, I've got to say, he puts up loads of like funny stuff, trauma stuff and yeah.
**Adam:** And and a lot of Rick and Ade as well, which is beautiful.
**Lee:** Which obviously makes us hugely happy.
**Lee:** I see you're wearing a bottom T-shirt today, Adam.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's purely by accident, but there we go.
**Lee:** so warning as ever, there will be spoilers and there will be swearing.
**Lee:** but we were just discussing whether to do this spoiler-free, so this movie has been released previously, but heavily edited.
**Lee:** the director's.
**Adam:** The director's cut is available.
**Lee:** directly.
**Adam:** Directly.
**Lee:** From the website.
**Lee:** So if you go to Refuse Films.com, you can pre-order a copy of this. There's only a thousand copies, so it's a get out there and get yourself a copy.
**Adam:** Refuse Films.
**Lee:** Eating Miss Campbell is also coming out a limited edition of a thousand copies, which I will certainly be gonna gonna be tracking down.
**Lee:** And although we will be telling the story, those of you who listen every week know, we don't go through the the full film blow by blow, so don't feel that if you've not managed to get hold of it yet and you hear us discussing it, we're not going to have spoiled anything because.
**Lee:** We were saying, these trauma films are very much in the execution, it's about the performances and the over-the-top gore and the the overall fun of it.
**Lee:** So don't think just because you've heard this, you go, fuck it, I don't need to see that now.
**Lee:** You do, you really do, trust me.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's all in the experience.
**Chris:** I'll just I'll just say get in there, get a director's cut, not too hard if you want to keep your banjo intact.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I had no idea that this was a thing. I did not know what a banjo was before seeing this.
**Lee:** I didn't know going in, I was expecting something to do with an instrument.
**Lee:** So I loved the fact they put it at the beginning.
**Chris:** Yes, I was like, I was like, why are they telling us? Oh, the second one, okay, I've got some idea now.
**Lee:** Oh, you'd have known by the end anyway.
**Lee:** So those like myself naive idiots unaware.
**Chris:** Yes, you would certainly.
**Lee:** The banjo is the piece of skin which attaches the foreskin to the helmet.
**Lee:** and it plays a large part of this.
**Lee:** Don't laugh at me, Adam, what's it saying the fucking film?
**Adam:** Well, it's because you started you started I thought you were going to go scientific.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And helmet.
**Chris:** But I think you're right, I think that was the actual.
**Lee:** That was the description, I thought I'll go with the description.
**Chris:** The exact one.
**Adam:** It is the, yeah.
**Adam:** Which which probably gives you a fair indication of the the tone of the piece, if nothing else.
**Adam:** I did find out it's called the actual proper term is a frenulum.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** Okay. Yeah.
**Adam:** And you've got and you've got one not only on your penis, but also it's the bit of skin that attaches your tongue.
**Lee:** that's why I've heard it before, not about that.
**Adam:** So, yeah, there we go.
**Lee:** so, yes, let's go in our traditional style.
**Lee:** So, Chris, what did you make of this film?
**Chris:** So, we've now watched Miss Campbell, that was my first trauma.
**Chris:** Then we watched New Class of Newcomb High.
**Chris:** So, watching this one, I was sort of I wasn't sure exactly I knew it was connected with Miss Campbell, but I didn't I knew it was older, so I just didn't quite know what to expect.
**Chris:** This was almost harder hitting than eating Miss Campbell, I think, there there's something there's something very raw and gritty about it.
**Chris:** So it did.
**Chris:** I say, it grew on me.
**Chris:** So it was it was, it felt like a bit much.
**Adam:** I know what you mean.
**Chris:** To to begin with and then as it went on, I was getting more and more involved and yeah.
**Chris:** And as the characters developed, I I really started to to sort of.
**Chris:** It's like it's it's where you, you know, you start to get used to the character and then you sort of feel for them more and their their arc and their progression and so yeah.
**Chris:** It it felt very kind of satisfying at the end and there there is what I was trying to work out is, do I need to be very drunk to fully get appreciate some of the scenes in this because.
**Chris:** They're they're they don't hold back, that's that's what I can say.
**Lee:** That's what I love about independent cinema and and trauma specifically, yeah.
**Lee:** Is that, no, let's not hold back, let's just go full on, bolts to the wall.
**Lee:** And yeah, like and this, as you say, this does like right in the first.
**Lee:** What, sort of 15 minutes, it goes, well.
**Lee:** Even before that, in the first two minutes, the scene where she empties the condom all over his face.
**Lee:** It's just hilarious and awesome.
**Adam:** Can I also say that Pelt are a buckle is an extremely fluid man?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because that is a hell of a load.
**Lee:** I thought that, I was like, oh my God.
**Lee:** Is that a week's worth she's got there?
**Lee:** Like.
**Chris:** We both that and and the amount of blood he's got.
**Adam:** That was the thing.
**Adam:** The amount of blood that came.
**Chris:** He can shoot quite impressively.
**Adam:** I was like, yeah, that's probably.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's got to be a trip to A&E.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, it's yeah, it does.
**Lee:** And that's what I loved, as you say, is the fact that it doesn't.
**Lee:** Like it kicks straight in this film.
**Lee:** Like you get that, this is what the film is right from the.
**Chris:** Does it So if you're prepared for that, but yeah, and and so but the comedy is also kind of gritty.
**Chris:** As well, it's like it's a certain type of style of comedy that's not necessarily you're not necessarily laughing out loud as much as you are when we talk about it.
**Chris:** It's like, oh, yeah, it's a bit harsh.
**Chris:** But and and oh, and and then who's the guy that he gets to he gets him to shoot himself after essentially killing his mom on the phone.
**Chris:** So again, there's some really dark kind of bits.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** But yeah, but that's I think as it goes on, it's sort of got more and more entertaining.
**Chris:** It's it's well.
**Chris:** Especially when when Ronnie turns up really, I guess that's where it it starts to really change and become.
**Chris:** It's I guess it's like a horror film of kind of Drop Dead Fred.
**Adam:** Which apparently was one of the kind of influences on on the character of Ronnie, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Because because basically it's based on a short film called Confessions of Peltzer that Liam Regan did as the sort of proof of concept for the film, and Ronnie in that is basically he's Ronald Reagan.
**Adam:** He's like the former American president and living person, Ronald Reagan.
**Adam:** and
**Adam:** But there was, do you remember a film called The Tripper?
**Adam:** That was out.
**Adam:** It was like, 2006.
**Adam:** And basically it was a load of people go out and take a load of mushrooms, but then a guy dressed as Ronald Reagan.
**Adam:** Kills them.
**Lee:** I've never.
**Adam:** It was like a weird slasher movie.
**Adam:** I don't I don't know if it was much cop to be honest.
**Adam:** I don't think I haven't seen it.
**Adam:** But there was sort of like people, I think when the short came out, people were sort of drawing comparisons between that.
**Adam:** But in interviews I've read with Mr. Reagan, I haven't met him, I'm going to say Mr. Reagan.
**Adam:** It sort of like the character kind of developed outside of that anyway, so it didn't make sense for him to remain as Ronald Reagan.
**Adam:** And actually his inspirations were obviously Freddy Krueger, because you do not create a wise cracking horror monster without being influenced by Freddy Krueger.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's just fucking impossible. and but also, interestingly enough, he mentioned Funny Man.
**Chris:** nice.
**Adam:** Which which obviously we covered back in episode 20. So going back some time now.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** And again, this is the level of ass-backwardness that poor Chris's horror education has come in.
**Adam:** Is that we showed him Funny Man on episode 20 and then, you know, we didn't actually get round to trauma films until 156.
**Chris:** Who's in charge of this vessel? What is going on here?
**Lee:** It's almost as if we just drink beer and make it up as we go along, isn't it?
**Adam:** I think there's also a case of it's also like we go, you know what, I haven't seen in ages, let's put it out.
**Chris:** Yeah, it does seem to be a little bit of that occasion.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Talking of the character Ronnie, I've got to put my hands up.
**Lee:** And say I was so convinced that actor his mouth, his eyes.
**Lee:** And his hair and even the prosthetics, I was like.
**Lee:** If someone told me that was Christian Bale, I would be in no way surprised.
**Lee:** It looked exactly like Christian Bale.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's like Christian Bale's spitting image puppet.
**Lee:** I was going to, I was going to say like the end of a peer sketch of Christian Bale.
**Adam:** Oh, but yeah.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** Well, that the the guy who plays Ronnie, Damien Mortar, is a director in his own right.
**Adam:** He did a film called Book of the Dead, the Eschertrilogy.
**Adam:** Which is apparently an anthology zombie film.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** which could be worth checking out.
**Adam:** But also he's the director of photography and the editor of My Bloody Banjo.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Adam:** But again, I think the because I I'm I kind of know what you mean, Chris.
**Adam:** Because I think when when I watch this, certainly the first 25 minutes, I was kind of like.
**Adam:** Is this, you know, is this funny?
**Adam:** Or is this just a relentless?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's it, I was yeah, I was like, should they have given me a hint on this one, but but it really does start to either you get used to it and it's like, yeah, no, I see see it now.
**Adam:** I I think it's just it's that it again, it's you have to follow that absurdity of trauma.
**Adam:** Where it's like.
**Adam:** Literally this, you know, there's so much laid on with a trail.
**Adam:** It's like literally every person that he interacts with is a fucking asshole.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it and to be fair, that's the one thing I did find with the film is that there is that one question that will haunt you all the way through.
**Adam:** It is, why haven't you just left?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because he's clearly got money.
**Adam:** Because they're after his money for like when they do the and and so, do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** So it's not like he's desperately needs to keep the job.
**Adam:** And you think, yeah, that's a rather toxic working environment, I don't think I'd sort of stay there necessarily.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, so we should mention so obviously James Hammond Morton and Danny Thompson.
**Lee:** actually, as as well as Vigo Trego, were in.
**Adam:** Vigo Trego, yeah.
**Lee:** We're in Eating Miss Campbell.
**Lee:** actually.
**Adam:** As was as was Lawrence Harvey.
**Lee:** Yes, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Yes, you're right.
**Adam:** Because.
**Lee:** I definitely need to buy it because it's yeah, it's already disappearing from my memory.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I saw Trego and Clay Von Carlowitz last week, in fact.
**Lee:** Again, because I after we did Class of Nukem High, I watched Return to Nukem High, they were both in that.
**Lee:** So yeah, it took me a little while, I was like, because you know, it's it's ten years old now, I think.
**Lee:** So they look slightly different and I was like, yeah, they definitely look familiar and then I was like, oh yeah, of course it is, it's them, but yeah.
**Adam:** Well, well, I mean, like, I'll give you.
**Adam:** I'll give you the background on it, Liam Reagan has always been a trauma fan.
**Adam:** He said from the age of 11, when he got an X-Rental copy of Toxic Avenger 2 from Blockbuster.
**Adam:** Apparently his favorite trauma film is Tromio and Juliet.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Did we did we talk about that one?
**Adam:** We did, I think we briefly mentioned it as along with all the others that we listed, yeah.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because Romeo and Juliet was kind of like the nineties, was came out in the nineties.
**Adam:** And that was kind of like a resurgence of it for trauma because, you know, it people people were.
**Chris:** Oh, was that.
**Chris:** That was the one that was co-written with James Gunn, who obviously now is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I think running he's now running the DC universe, isn't he? Like movie universe.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** And so in 2002, Liam Reagan went to a Trauma Convention in the UK.
**Adam:** Dressed as Sergeant Kabuki Man, and he met Lloyd Kaufman, and basically sort of like they sort of stayed in contact.
**Adam:** And he sent back like they would sort of email back and forth and stuff like that, and when he heard that Kaufman was making Return to Nukem High.
**Adam:** He flew himself out to Buffalo to offer to work as a production assistant on the film.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And apparently slept on the floor of a disused funeral home with most of the rest of the cast as well.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You, you know, huge sort of trauma, you know, level of luxury, I would say.
**Adam:** And that's where he met Vigo Trigo and Clevon Karlowitz.
**Adam:** On that film and that's why they're in this.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** It does all sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** And apparently he he did he came back for return to Return to Nukem High, and also he's in.
**Adam:** He's in Shakespeare's Sh*tstorm, but I think he's just like a crowd like in in a crowd character sort of thing.
**Adam:** Like a background character.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But yeah, it's so that's the sort of.
**Adam:** That's the pedigree behind it and and obviously Lawrence Harvey is probably the biggest horror name.
**Adam:** Known here mostly for the human Centipede 2.
**Adam:** But also we what was it called, psychopath?
**Adam:** Do you remember we again this he seems to be in a lot of
**Adam:** Horror on seas.
**Adam:** stuff.
**Adam:** Because he was in I've got it written down, I can't remember it, it's.
**Adam:** Eagermaniac.
**Adam:** Which was, do you remember the one it was about the film director?
**Lee:** Yes, that's right.
**Adam:** and she was doing eventually she was doing snuff movies.
**Adam:** But he was in that and again.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** The thing is, obviously Human Centipede 2, like one of the sort of harshest things out there.
**Adam:** but just proves.
**Chris:** Wait, more more than Human Centipede 1?
**Adam:** Pretty much.
**Adam:** Because basically it's because obviously you got Human Centipede 1, excuse me.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Then Human Centipede 2, but the story of Human Centipede 2 is that there is a bloke who works in a car park in England who's obsessed with the human Centipede and dreams of making his own human Centipede.
**Adam:** And he's played by.
**Adam:** Lawrence Harvey, who's Clive Too Long in this.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** And basically, yeah, he.
**Adam:** there's.
**Adam:** People getting raped with barbed wire, he builds a human Centipede, include and it's but it's kind of a a meta thing whereby it's meant to be that he's been he's seen the film and been influenced by it and he's like a.
**Adam:** And so.
**Adam:** But it's done kind of like black and white seventies gritty sort of looking thing, so it kind of in a weird way is meant to be like the true life thing that was inspired by the movie.
**Adam:** It's an interesting.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Interesting.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Interesting thing.
**Chris:** I'm assuming Lee hasn't seen this.
**Lee:** I've not seen either of them.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** I would.
**Lee:** and they're definitely both on my list, I just haven't ever quite been in.
**Chris:** There's always something else that might just.
**Adam:** The little bit.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I I think I think the trouble is is that I think it's one of those things where the longer that.
**Adam:** Tom Six, the director goes on, the more you feel that it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, you are just trying to shock, aren't you?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Because I think you can because I because I remember when we first heard about the human Centipede when we went to Fright Fest, and I was just fucking mortified that we had watched it.
**Adam:** Because I was looking through the like the prospectus or the the brochure, what's the word you were trying to program that we'd got.
**Lee:** That's it.
**Adam:** And it was like.
**Adam:** Have you seen this? Human Centipede, a man stitches three people together, asked to mouth and like to make them his pet Centipede.
**Adam:** And I was like, that sounds fucking amazing. It was all right.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And but also, if you haven't seen the human Centipede, just watch the human Cent iPad, the South Park episode.
**Adam:** And you pretty much get you get all the beats and all the jokes that you will make about watching the film.
**Adam:** But yeah, so number two's kind of like, but Tom.
**Adam:** Because then they did a third one, in which a whole prison is stitched arse to mouth.
**Adam:** And apparently and Lawrence Harvey's in that playing a different character.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** but his latest film, which I I still think has not been ba has still not come out.
**Adam:** And it's basically a club of middle-aged white women who masturbate over videos of 9/11.
**Adam:** And at that point it's like, he's just trying to be a hard mate.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that's what I that's what I like about this.
**Lee:** And and trauma in general, is it it never it never feels like it's trying too hard.
**Lee:** It's like.
**Lee:** We've got these wacky ideas and we're going to make them as over the top as humanly possible.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** It never feels like they're just trying to shock you for the sake of trying to shock you.
**Lee:** It's always.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Isn't it.
**Adam:** It's almost like it's a byproduct of it rather than.
**Adam:** As a sort of the the whole reason for it.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Lee:** And and mentioning him and again.
**Lee:** And James Hammer Morton and stuff, like the I I just love the performances in this.
**Lee:** It they were they were that perfect level of over the top, but without becoming annoying, which sometimes characters can do when they when they try too hard.
**Lee:** With stuff like Die Zombie Bastards and stuff where they try and act wacky and it goes so over the top.
**Lee:** That it kind of grates on you and it's quite difficult to get into, whereas this, everyone's felt like they hit a balance of being.
**Lee:** Over the top or an annoying dickhead, but not to the point where you're like, oh, this is annoying me, I don't want to watch it, like it was just right.
**Adam:** Everyone's everyone's in the right.
**Adam:** Sort of frame of like, you know, it's it's cartoonish.
**Adam:** Yeah, so all the ways in which people are vile to Pelt are ludicrously over the top and, you know, cartoonish and everything.
**Adam:** And I have to say.
**Adam:** Clayvon Karlowitz, fucking magnificent bastard.
**Adam:** You know, because you know, he he's so bo-hish.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, he really is, you know.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** I did I did get a little little Tom Cruise from him.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I got a Tom Cruise sense from him, apart from the fact that he never at any point seem to be standing on a box.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'm also, you know, you know the old, you know, actually I think we need to institute this as a thing, by the way.
**Adam:** Because obviously you've heard the, you know, when people was like, like I I will hopefully I'm not overstepping the mark, but by saying, you know, friend of the podcast, Liam Reagan.
**Adam:** You know, or friend of the podcast, who, whomsoever.
**Adam:** I think we should also institute enemy of the podcast, Tom Cruise.
**Adam:** Was lost.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, if anyone's in any doubt, listen to our Room 101 episode.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Where Tom Cruise is mentioned once or twice.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Lee:** and that was the other thing with this.
**Lee:** There was so much going on, which I love, like there's there's so much story in it.
**Lee:** Crammed in but but without again, you know, like we've said before.
**Lee:** It felt really well paced.
**Lee:** It was although you, as you mentioned, Adam Chris, it's kind of it's kind of all the gritty unpleasantness is front loaded.
**Lee:** So you get all of that.
**Lee:** And then then the the second two thirds of the film is just the absolute lunacy once Ronnie steps into the really.
**Lee:** And it just goes absolutely ape shit.
**Adam:** And actually and actually the film kind of does go ape shit with Ronnie, it feels like a psychotic break because Pelt's has pretty much wandering through.
**Adam:** Like the bit where he goes in and they're going, oh, you've got dates pregnant.
**Adam:** Right, you're going to have to get married.
**Adam:** And then they're in the church getting married.
**Lee:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This this this is this is quick.
**Adam:** You know, but it does feel almost like that sort of fugue state of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, or or dreamlike sort of thing where it's like, you know, have you just completely lost it at this point?
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But I think yeah, because at first I yeah, at first I think I was the same as Chris.
**Adam:** As I think it was a because at that point.
**Adam:** You like, oh, just, you know.
**Adam:** You're going to be much more.
**Adam:** And I think it.
**Adam:** I think it also doesn't help how sort of adorable Lawrence Harvey is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In that it's like, how can you be doing this to this poor man?
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Look at him.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's.
**Adam:** Sort of.
**Adam:** And actually.
**Adam:** I mean, that's the thing is I would say, I think that Eating Miss Campbell has improved the formula.
**Adam:** Because I think there.
**Adam:** I think there's harsher things done said in Eating Miss Campbell.
**Chris:** Yeah, I was trying to remember.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** To various characters, including the main character.
**Adam:** But I think they managed to you're already on board with the absurdity of it from the start and it's sort of works that way.
**Adam:** Also.
**Adam:** I think the thing is by having it in school, you again that you don't have that thing of, well, why don't they just leave.
**Adam:** And it's like, well, because you're stuck there, it's fucking school.
**Adam:** You all got to go.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But that's it, I mean, because I watched this with Lady Jennifer.
**Lee:** And yeah, I sort of said to her the same as you guys, I was like, well, they keep saying, you know, he's got this lovely house and stuff, why is he keep going to this job?
**Lee:** They can't possibly pay him a decent wage, why does he keep going?
**Lee:** And she was like, yeah, just because you got a nice house.
**Lee:** Doesn't mean you got loads of money in the bank and a nice house always costs you an absolute fucking fortune.
**Chris:** That's true.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, she's got a point, yeah.
**Chris:** I suppose he's he's pretty broken as well, he probably doesn't have any confidence in going doing anything else.
**Chris:** So he's just that's it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And Danny's waiting for him at home.
**Lee:** So like.
**Lee:** We've all been in that relationship where you take a massive amount of abuse because you're like, well, yeah, but they're hot, aren't they?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We've done it.
**Adam:** You will be.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Still doing it, mate, you know, not that not that.
**Adam:** She'd knock the fuck out of me.
**Lee:** yeah, I loved the the end of this film as well.
**Lee:** The whole time I was just like, where is this.
**Lee:** I couldn't work out how it was going to end up wrapping up.
**Lee:** yeah, so the the final scene that when it goes down.
**Lee:** With but because you start to get an idea of where it's going with the kitchen scene with Ronnie, but then that turns into what looks like the best night out ever.
**Lee:** And you kind of forget about it.
**Chris:** Forget what's yeah, what the plan is, yeah.
**Lee:** Which is which is great, it kind of misdirects you away from it.
**Lee:** When they just go out on this lunatic drunken night of just getting on it and getting tattooed and juggling eggs and God knows.
**Lee:** And it yeah.
**Lee:** It was just.
**Lee:** It was such a such a great montage of like a night out and I was like, yeah, that's I've had nights out that feel like a five minute montage.
**Lee:** Like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I I think also you've got because.
**Adam:** I I like the thing as well because it was it reminded me a bit of American Werewolf, where.
**Adam:** He starts also hallucinating the victims like, you know, we say victims, he starts hallucinating the people who get killed because they're fucking asking for it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Let's just put that out there.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** But yeah, and but obviously because he's already got Ronnie's his is acknowledged all the way through.
**Adam:** Ronnie is his imagination, Ronnie is that, you know.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** So, yeah, I liked that when they started bringing them in as well, because it just sort of like.
**Adam:** Again, and like I say, just a vote.
**Adam:** American Werewolf for me as well.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Oh, it's good.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But I have to say.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** And also like Vigo Trego or Trego, fucking hell, you know.
**Adam:** I can see.
**Adam:** I can see why they wanted to bring back Mr. Sawyer and they wanted to bring back Deeds for Eating Miss Campbell, and even even though he's still called Clive Too Long.
**Adam:** It was a much.
**Adam:** It was a much different relationship in Eating Miss Campbell, because.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, reading about it whether it was a sequel or not, or you know, whether this because that was the other thing that threw me as well.
**Adam:** Because I was like, I thought to myself, oh.
**Adam:** Well, I know these characters in my head, I was like, oh, well, these characters will all go on to be in the next film.
**Adam:** But it's not really a sequel, it's a sort of I think he described it as how like.
**Adam:** He said Mallrats to Clerks.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** You know where it's like, you've got same characters in there, but it's a different feel.
**Adam:** It's a different sort of way of doing it.
**Adam:** So, yeah, so when Clyde dies, I was sort of, oh, so maybe we're not.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It doesn't link that way then or anything else like that.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And also.
**Adam:** The I mean, that was just if you want a sort of incapsulated trauma moment, it's definitely got to be the face melting.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Face melting at the end with the eye popping out and everything, that was just.
**Adam:** That was, you know, that's your trailer moment and everything.
**Adam:** But it's
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Also, just a couple of references, Han and Lotta is the reference to Frank Han and Lotta.
**Adam:** The guy who did Frankenhooker, Basket Case trilogy, Bad Biology and Brain Damage.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So and that's where that comes from.
**Adam:** And the stuck on you T-shirt that he's wearing through a lot of it, that's a that's one of Troma's early films.
**Adam:** Like one of their sex comedies from about 82, I think it is.
**Adam:** So that's like that technically vintage.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Actually you're saying about references.
**Lee:** I did keep thinking that with Clive Too Long, I was like, is that a reference to Too Long from Puppet Master?
**Adam:** It is.
**Lee:** Oh it is.
**Adam:** It is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I did I did see that as well, yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** That's it.
**Lee:** Oh, that's serious.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Again, you can see that you can see that sort of crossover as well, that world, again, it's it's it's a different type of.
**Lee:** Crazy idea, but yeah, it's it could almost like the the full moon and.
**Lee:** Trauma of almost got a crossover.
**Lee:** Not quite, they're they're very different.
**Lee:** But you can see how the two of them are quite similar in their production style.
**Lee:** And.
**Adam:** And obviously you've got Lloyd Kaufman's cameo in this, he's the doctor.
**Adam:** which apparently was he, you know.
**Adam:** Liam Reagan said, oh, you know, do you want to appear in it.
**Adam:** And he just came over.
**Adam:** Did it in a day, went on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, that's great.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Great to see him.
**Adam:** But I think you know, that's always good to see.
**Adam:** But also I just yeah, and taking them as sort of two together.
**Adam:** you know, like the two films together, I just want to see the continuing adventures of Deeds Montgomery and Mr. Sawyer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I think.
**Chris:** Yeah, they are some couple of characters certainly.
**Lee:** Oh, man.
**Lee:** Yeah, I definitely watch a third one of them without a shadow of a doubt.
**Lee:** So, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just, yeah.
**Lee:** There was.
**Lee:** So you mentioned earlier as well, Chris, about the music being quite upbeat and getting you.
**Lee:** Yeah, I loved that.
**Lee:** I thought that really.
**Adam:** But again, it's that it's that trauma thing of just sort of like.
**Adam:** Everything's sort of everything's energy and it doesn't stop.
**Adam:** Because if there's one, there's one thing.
**Adam:** I think actually that might be probably why to the effect at the start.
**Adam:** Is that it doesn't give you any breathing space.
**Adam:** So you just go from bullying to bullying, to bullying, to bullying.
**Chris:** To to some serious Gore, to a bit more bullying.
**Adam:** Also, you know, top marks, this is clearly
**Adam:** Clearly prosthetic penises are.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Part of Mr. Reagan's uvre.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So I'll be looking forward to whichever prosthetic penis appears in the third film that he does.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, just to go back to something you said earlier.
**Lee:** Chris, as well, you were like, oh, maybe I should have a few beers.
**Lee:** and you know, I'd enjoy it even more.
**Lee:** And I think that's, you know, I know I know we mentioned.
**Lee:** It a bit with the the Class of Nukem High.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But but as Adam just said, like the music and everything is such high energy and that's why these films are great, for getting a load of people and sitting around, drinking and chatting and having a laugh.
**Lee:** Because they are high energy.
**Lee:** So you don't get that like, you know, three or four beers in, you start getting that lethargic slump, like with something like this running in the background.
**Lee:** That you will keep training your attention back to.
**Lee:** It just keeps goosing you and waking you back up.
**Chris:** Well, that's what yeah, I definitely thought this built really well.
**Chris:** It yeah.
**Chris:** It just kept getting better all the way through to the end.
**Lee:** Yeah, we should definitely do that one night actually, is get a film like this on and get the three of us together.
**Lee:** Maybe turn the mic on and have it running and just.
**Lee:** See what happens.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Well, if if any if people out there would be interested in hearing that.
**Adam:** Just let us know at Instagram and places.
**Lee:** And all the other stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah, the other the other places where we will ignore you.
**Adam:** And I'm sorry about that.
**Lee:** yes.
**Lee:** So I mean.
**Lee:** This is definitely a recommend from me.
**Lee:** As I said before, you can go and pick it up at refusefilms.com.
**Lee:** You can pre-order your.
**Adam:** Copy.
**Lee:** There's only.
**Lee:** There's only a thousand.
**Lee:** So don't hang around, get stuck in.
**Adam:** It's it's Blu-ray, it's it's any region and loads of extras on both of them, Eating Miss Campbell and My Bloody Banjo.
**Lee:** Yeah, you'll definitely get your money's worth.
**Lee:** And again, as we said before, these films have got such a rewatchability because there's so much going on and then it is a film you'd watch with one group of friends.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And then you can watch it six months later with a different group of friends.
**Lee:** So you'll you'll keep pulling it off the shelf, I think.
**Lee:** So yeah, definitely a recommend from us.
**Lee:** thanks again to Liam Reagan for allowing us to see this.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Also.
**Lee:** We would like to give a massive thanks as well to Nicholas Tomnay.
**Lee:** Who we mentioned, he's the writer and director of The Perfect Host.
**Lee:** The film we covered a few weeks back.
**Lee:** he got in contact with us randomly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And gave me the buzz of the weekend.
**Lee:** It was awesome.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he's got he's got a new film coming out.
**Adam:** Well, he's currently sort of I believe he's submitting it to festivals and everything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'll be absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah, really excited to.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I really.
**Adam:** I really, really would like to.
**Chris:** It still seems mad that that the perfect host was his debut film.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I I to be honest, it's still fucking mad.
**Adam:** That no bugger's seen it.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Make sure to change that.
**Adam:** We've had some we've had some lovely feedback from a few listeners who have.
**Adam:** checked it out now, and yeah.
**Adam:** Again, pretty much the same universal thing.
**Adam:** It's like, that's fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** Why I've never heard of it.
**Lee:** funnily enough, just last night, Lady Jennifer and myself went to visit previous guest show on the guest on the show, Chris.
**Lee:** yes.
**Lee:** To show him the perfect host, he'd never seen it and we discussed it, yeah.
**Lee:** And without spoilers, and he was already sold on it.
**Lee:** So
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Lee:** So very excited for that.
**Lee:** What You Wish For is the new film that Nicholas Tomnay is working on.
**Lee:** So yeah, keep an eye out for that and if you get the opportunity, I'm sure it'll be great to see.
**Adam:** I believe I believe that there is I believe there's an Instagram account for that, certainly that we are following.
**Lee:** I'll be jumping on that as soon as we get on.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** just very quickly, to wrap up.
**Lee:** Next week we are going to be doing something completely different.
**Lee:** we thought we'd mix it up a bit, so next week instead of what we've been watching and not just because I've got into It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia for the first time and have not watched anything apart from that for the last month.
**Lee:** we are going to be doing in the horror theme, we are going to be covering our own brushes with things that could be considered supernatural, so the three of us will be bringing our own stories of the super, not not stories of.
**Lee:** Yeah, not stories of supernatural, but stories of yeah.
**Chris:** The paranormal and the weird.
**Lee:** the unexplained, yes, and we've never really addressed our opinions on this particularly.
**Lee:** Obviously, the supernatural and the unexplained is a massive part of a lot of the films that we cover.
**Lee:** So we thought it had just be nice to kind of have a an open roundtable discussion of the three of us about the subject in general.
**Lee:** And yeah, our brushes with it and how convincing or not they've been.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** So that's something a bit different.
**Lee:** So spooky stories ready for you next time.
**Lee:** go and check out My Bloody Banjo.
**Lee:** Go and check out Eating Miss Campbell.
**Chris:** Prepare yourself.
**Lee:** Prepare yourself.
**Lee:** Go and watch the perfect host again.
**Chris:** Again.
**Lee:** and we will see you all in a fortnight's time with some spooky shit.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, ladies and gentlemen.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 165 Class of Nuke 'Em High

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-165-class-of-nuke-em-high/
Air date: 12 March 2023
Duration: 00:40:08
Film: Class of Nuke 'Em High · Year: 1986 · Director: Lloyd Kaufman

### Description

It’s Troma time! Yes folks, we’re finally introducing Chris to the unique world of Lloyd Kaufman as we kick off with “Class of Nuke ‘Em High”. A film which highlights the usual struggles of American youth: being peer pressured into smoking (radioactive) weed; teenage pregnancy (that results in a giant mutated beast prowling the hallways); the inability to pronounce “cretin” properly; and nuclear power plant bosses who don’t give a wet fart about public safety. A fine example of the good-naturedly offensive Troma style; with B-movie bizarreness, surprisingly good gore effects and tongue firmly in cheek. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here again for something that we should have possibly watched at an earlier date, but we didn't want to scare Chris away.
**Lee:** So we've waited 160 plus episodes,
**Lee:** to finally delve into the exciting world of Troma, came to hear what Chris made of this absolute onslaught of a movie.
**Lee:** so for those who are unaware,
**Lee:** Troma is basically Troma is very divisive. They are it's not a movie you'd sit on your own and watch generally. It's a group of drunken teenagers who've had a bit too much to drink or a bit too much to smoke and you've ordered a pizza and you want something dumb as dog shit to watch that's going to be entertaining. Yeah. And this is it. There will be spoilers, there will be swearing.
**Chris:** Fuck you.
**Lee:** you can't cover this and not really. so, let's get straight into it.
**Chris:** There might even be some mutants turn up.
**Lee:** So Chris, what did you make of Troma?
**Lee:** in your first showing?
**Chris:** So let me let me think, what's the best way to put this?
**Chris:** I think I was possibly enjoying it more than I think I should have.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Troma makes you happy but feel dirty about it.
**Chris:** That is it, that should be their tag line.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I I thought I was thinking like after I'd got it, after I mean, didn't take long, you know, a few minutes in and you're like, no, yeah, fine, this is this is it, right?
**Adam:** This is where we're going.
**Chris:** Yeah, I was thinking, if I'd if I'd just flicked this on one night when I was like 15, 16, I'd be like, yes, I've hit the jackpot.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just like, what is going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** There's there's just too many good scenes, too many good characters, like and and it shouldn't work, I'm sure it shouldn't, it it should have been absolute rubbish, but it was great fun.
**Chris:** It was just like they were I mean Gonzo.
**Lee:** Oh, love Gonzo.
**Lee:** I mean, what a ridiculous.
**Lee:** But that's what I love about these, like they kind of and I'm sure Adam agrees as well.
**Lee:** Troma kind of takes things that are going on at the time and then just s- s- like, oh, they were worried about, you know, gang culture and violence in schools.
**Lee:** So they were just like, well, let's just make it ludicrous and just go absolutely over the top.
**Lee:** Oh, and let's have nuclear waste as well.
**Lee:** Let's just they like Troma always throws absolutely everything at it.
**Lee:** yeah, so the story is incredibly difficult.
**Lee:** Have you ever tried to tell someone explain a Troma movie to someone Adam?
**Adam:** It's it's a fucker.
**Adam:** I mean, weirdly enough, I suspect that might be why Toxic Avenger remains their most successful film.
**Chris:** So that was it, right, as I was, I was like, okay, this totally now I can see what Lee was saying about Toxic Avenger if it's at all similar to this.
**Adam:** Watching it, I was like, oh, actually, it's kind of basically the same plot, just back to front.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah and you you get a guy who goes into toxic waste and becomes a superhero and beats up the bullies who've been tormenting him at high school.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, because Warren does do that.
**Adam:** Yeah, at some point quite impressively.
**Adam:** Yeah, but also it's the the bullies have been affected by the toxic waste first anyway, so.
**Lee:** Again because again, that's another thing, I, you know, I've watched this film probably half a dozen times.
**Lee:** But it's always like I say, a late night with other people generally.
**Chris:** It it absolutely fits that, yeah.
**Lee:** And you do miss little things like that, like where they were saying that the cretens used to be the debating team and they one day just snapped in the middle of debate of a debate just started beating people to death.
**Lee:** Like I just I'd never picked up on that before, or I I certainly didn't remember it.
**Chris:** It didn't seem yeah, it didn't seem necessarily the most important aspect when so much was going on.
**Chris:** But it is, I mean, they have they did fit a lot into it, yeah, a lot of fantastic scenes.
**Chris:** and yeah, and and the story of of the baby alien mutant toxic monster thing, that was quite good that that sort of threaded through to the end.
**Chris:** I kind of you almost forget that that's even a thing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then you get the impression so does the film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** There's a lot going on here.
**Adam:** Eccentric is probably Yes, far too polite for it, but yeah.
**Adam:** And actually on the subject, I'll it's like on the subject of the monster, I was watching it and it was like,
**Adam:** Troma monster's not half bad.
**Adam:** because actually the effects like the gore effects.
**Chris:** Yes, they're over the top.
**Chris:** But they're pretty good still and it's 1986, I saw.
**Adam:** It's pretty impressive.
**Adam:** 86, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think I think correct me if I'm wrong Adam, but I think Troma came out in that straight to video era where people were just, you know, if you had a flashy cover, people were just buying anything.
**Adam:** Well, I think I think they got a lot of majority of their stuff got theatrical releases, but then,
**Adam:** I mean, do you remember Funny Man, we covered way back that got theatrical release.
**Adam:** So it's, do you know what I mean, it's not it was just the way movies worked, you had to have been out in the cinema and then you went to video, but that's where you made your money.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and definitely because I I think of like Troma and Lloyd Kaufman Kaufman I tend to think of them like a sort of extreme Roger Corman. In that sort of Roger Corman made the sort of a lot of exploitation films, but he also did like Vincent Price, Edgar Allen Poe films and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And also he acted as a kind of launch pad for a lot of people's careers and Lloyd Kaufman's done the same really. He's and also very much like Roger Corman, he ends up being cameo-ing in a lot of stuff.
**Adam:** He's very much the public face of Troma.
**Adam:** And he's he's that sort of William Castle, John Waters-y sort of direct where the director is as much as star and a recognizable figure as their movies.
**Lee:** Yeah, he's kind of the hype man for his own video studio, which is.
**Lee:** Yeah, it it which is hilarious and he I mean he is quite charismatic and amusing, so.
**Adam:** He's not fully off.
**Adam:** Well, he's he's like a sort of he he reminds me not also to look at, but he reminds me a bit of Mel Brooks.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** but I think he's just but then weirdly enough because it's like a two basically it's a Troma's two a two-man company.
**Adam:** And the other guy Michael Hertz, who they both directed, but I think Lloyd Kaufman continues to direct and he the Michael Hertz concentrated more on the business end of the business, if you see what I mean.
**Lee:** Yeah, I assumed that was the case.
**Adam:** And he, he's in Class of Nuke 'Em High, but it's the only time he appeared on screen apparently.
**Adam:** and he is one of the people who runs up when Jury goes out the window.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's I think he's like the first guy who runs up.
**Adam:** And that's literally his sort of career on screen.
**Adam:** To the point where they've actually got.
**Chris:** They they did have a lot of extras in this, didn't they?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because during the school periods like there, there's quite a few, but then in the the party, which looked like it was kind of in a night club, but then they went upstairs to a a bedroom, I was like, what is going on, but yeah, whatever, that's fine.
**Chris:** yeah, yeah, there was tons of people.
**Chris:** They and even the band was kind of good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I was going to say, I'm sure it's easy for them to get lots of extras because I imagine being on set for a Troma movie would be absolutely awesome, so yeah.
**Adam:** I think it's it's like it's like a lot of low budget stuff is like Joel Romero always got zombies because it's like I get to be in a zombie film.
**Adam:** It's very much and similarly with this, it would be like I'll get to be in a Troma movie.
**Adam:** You know, which means that it's going to be you know, it's going to be seen and loved in spite of itself.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** but the interesting thing with Michael Hertz is there's a guy called Joe Flishaker or Flacheker, I can't remember.
**Adam:** But he is a he's about 35 stone and he portrays Michael Hertz at like press conferences.
**Adam:** So again, but I mean and actually like you're saying about like Lloyd Kaufman being like the hype man, Carnival Barker is definitely the term, I think.
**Adam:** He's got that roll up and come and see the.
**Adam:** Come and see the mutated man.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Women is pressed of all descriptions.
**Lee:** Yeah, you get loads of that again as well, it's like going for that teenage audience of like over gore, there's got to be excessive boobs in it for no reason whatsoever, just because.
**Lee:** I mean, they know their audience, don't they?
**Lee:** That's that's the thing and I I don't know how I'd feel watching one for the first time now.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's you know, said before we started recording.
**Lee:** Chris said, oh yeah, if I'd been 15 years old and I'd found this on late night channel hopping, I'd be like, I've just found the best film ever.
**Lee:** And yeah, yeah, like it totally was for for me at that age, it was just.
**Adam:** I think I think Claire said, she was like, I feel that this was written by like a 13-year-old.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, of like all the best bits they could they could think of.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's why I've definitely I've got a little bit of me that's like, just don't know if I should enjoy it, I clearly do still, I'll just have to accept that.
**Adam:** I I think the weirdest thing is is Troma is it's literally working to lowest common denominator.
**Adam:** But so but puts so much more time, effort, silliness and everything into it that you're like, you you know, to do something that is.
**Chris:** You can still appreciate it.
**Adam:** Yeah, you don't just like it's just like, right, what do you want, you want Gore, you want tits, you want drugs, violence.
**Adam:** And you know, in a weird way it bypassed the cynicism of it by the fact that they're just like, yeah, but we know this is fucking.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's that's I think that's it, yeah.
**Lee:** And I think that's the thing, you're either you're on board with Troma or you're not, people who don't like it really don't like it.
**Lee:** but if you do like.
**Adam:** I can understand it as well because they're.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I can I mean the acting in some of it is so like just over the top and ludicrous.
**Chris:** But it still fits the whole thing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But none of I think that's also it's one of those things that is it is not troubling any like best movies lists.
**Adam:** Only in the sense of, you know what I mean, I mean what plot.
**Chris:** You know, it did it did have the what was it, you know, the the CEO of the nuclear power plant, and I was like, oh, they're sort of pushing that, the idea that, you know, he's a nefarious corporate we just want to get our new.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Chris:** And I was trying to think actually how did that fit in 1986 because probably at the time, I mean even now people are still worried about nuclear, but it must have been kind of a serious more serious point then.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, what was what is going on currently in the states?
**Adam:** They've had that massive like explosion and chemical spill and everything and it's just like,
**Adam:** But again, everyone seems to be like.
**Chris:** Wait, was this was this the train?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Like the the derailment or whatever.
**Adam:** But again,
**Adam:** look.
**Adam:** I'm clearly not that involved about it.
**Adam:** Because there's so little of it bleeding through because they're too busy saying, you know, we shot down a fucking weather balloon.
**Adam:** And they keep.
**Adam:** people like last podcast on the left and stuff like that, they're all sort of like.
**Adam:** Okay, we like UFOs, but for fuck sake, you clearly why is this not priority news that there is basically an environmental fucking disaster taking place.
**Adam:** And it's because the the guy in charge is essentially the guy who's in charge of the nuclear plant in this.
**Adam:** And that I I couldn't give a wet fart.
**Adam:** What you think.
**Adam:** Just immediately, it's like, I mean, that comes out the gate.
**Adam:** That's like best line of the movie in the first two minutes or whatever, you know, it's just.
**Chris:** And he was trying to he was trying to push microwaves being the the evil.
**Adam:** That was beautiful, that really felt like that that was a real clear understanding of.
**Chris:** You know, we know what corporate BS yeah, that's that's people will suck that up because they're sort of scared about microwaves, they don't fully understand it, yeah, so it's it's like, let's compare us to them. They're the bad guys, even though we kind of look the same, but yeah.
**Adam:** And that's the thing is there is there is more going on in it.
**Adam:** And certainly from a humor point of view.
**Adam:** And but also weirdly, and I think again this was like a very it was a very 80s thing was America being obsessed with the 50s.
**Adam:** So you've got stuff like, we're not Happy Days, that's the 70s.
**Adam:** But you've got a lot of music starts going back to that sort of sound and you've got Back to the Future where he returned, you know, it's all about the 50s and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And it was a real sort of thing in the 80s to be looking back at the 50s.
**Adam:** But what they did was they looked back at like them and the wasp woman and mole people and stuff like that, all the right proper classic like ludicrous B movies.
**Adam:** Which are filled with stilted performances and, you know, insane fucking sci-fi plots that, you know, would not pass muster in an A-level chemistry class, let alone.
**Lee:** That did make me laugh with this as well, the fact that in the end they were just like, we've got a giant laser.
**Lee:** And I was like, yeah, people in 1986 didn't know what a laser was clearly because.
**Chris:** It doesn't do.
**Lee:** It's just a light, really.
**Chris:** Like it doesn't it'll probably probably blind you if you hold it at your eyes.
**Chris:** for a minute or two, but.
**Adam:** Well, Claire Claire was saying earlier about she'd seen a vacuum cleaner which has a laser on the front of it.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, I've seen this, yeah, to highlight the dirt in the carpet.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And all I can say is lasers, you really let me down.
**Adam:** Lasers, you're a fucking disappointment.
**Adam:** Yes, you're pretty cool on SWAT teams, scopes and for cut price snipers in films and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But essentially, I wanted to be able to fucking melt glass, cut through bank vaults and essentially it's cat startling.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're absolutely right.
**Adam:** But in the 80s, a laser would chop you in half.
**Adam:** That's what it was there for, you know.
**Lee:** But again, nobody can ever say that Troma let science get in the way of an entertaining plot point.
**Chris:** Oh, no.
**Chris:** I'm sure sure they don't.
**Adam:** I I think that's the good thing as well is they have at least they have a level of energy.
**Adam:** So you don't have, cuz oddly enough the one thing you do get with a lot of 50s B movies is, you know, you get oh, here we go, we've got 10 minutes of dialogue before we get an iguana the size of whales coming over the fucking horizon or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But with this at least it's like, no, every every bit of it is silly or entertaining and has something going for it at each point.
**Adam:** So it never really lags, it doesn't drop.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And I think it's only an hour and 20 minutes anyway.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it's worth mentioning as well, so this is one of the five Nuke 'Em High movies.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** I have seen Class of Nuke 'Em High 2, I haven't seen 3, but I will definitely be looking it up.
**Lee:** and I did try the reboot Class of Nuke 'Em High Volume 1, which I found streaming somewhere a while back and watched and and quite enjoyed.
**Lee:** but I haven't seen the second one of those yet, so.
**Lee:** I still got a couple more of these.
**Adam:** Cuz I think they're both Lloyd Kaufman
**Adam:** directed, but he didn't do the other possibly I'm wrong, I can't remember, but I don't think he did the other the two and three, I don't think he did.
**Lee:** Two and two is fantastic, it's that great thing where it just if you love the first one,
**Lee:** the second one doesn't drop off, it's just more of the same if not even more mental.
**Chris:** Set it up even more.
**Lee:** That's the one with the mouth in their stomach for no reason whatsoever. yeah, it's just absolutely ludicrous and it's fantastic fun.
**Adam:** See see again, this is something that very much goes against the grain of film fans or or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But it's very true that something like Class of Nuke 'Em High, you do not want a franchise that progresses,
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** that changes in any way, shape or form.
**Adam:** If you like Class of Nuke 'Em High, you just want more of Class of Nuke 'Em High.
**Chris:** You want more of that.
**Adam:** So the best example I would say is something like Anchorman.
**Adam:** Where it's like, no, all we want is more Anchorman, so thank you, you didn't you didn't have to sort of like go out of your way to try and make it more high brow or developed this in any way, shape or form, we just want this again please.
**Chris:** Yeah, we do.
**Lee:** yeah, and again, you know, as we said, Chris, if if you liked this.
**Lee:** Yeah, Troma movies are not interchangeable.
**Lee:** But they're all very much if you like this, you'll like Toxic Avenger, Sergeant Kabuki Man, like any of those.
**Chris:** They've figured out their style and formula and they deliver that, yeah.
**Lee:** It's funny cuz I was I was thinking today there was a movie that a friend of mine obsessed over when we were in junior school, and I remember thinking as I was watching Class of Nuke 'Em High, it came to me for the first time in decades and I was like, oh god, yeah, he used to rave about this movie.
**Lee:** And just now when I was waiting for you guys to login, I had a look and it is on the Troma list with a slightly different name, so he had it as The Children of Ravensbeck, but it's just called The Children.
**Lee:** But yeah, I remember going round there and what like, you know, in a lunchtime and him showing me the worst scenes on the VHS with the curtains closed.
**Lee:** Like so I need to track that movie down as well.
**Lee:** But yeah, that's what it was, it was kids doing the, look, let me just show you the best bits.
**Lee:** But it is just the best bits.
**Lee:** They're just all the best bits.
**Lee:** Like I say, there's no long dialogue scenes, there's no overcomplicated story, it's just an absolute.
**Lee:** And that's why they're great late night movies.
**Adam:** The party films.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We've said this a lot, you get that's one of the things, horror, which is something that a lot of other genres have, but horror have party films.
**Adam:** Yeah, you can literally stick on.
**Adam:** It's it's not a conversation killer.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, you don't have you don't have to sit there and go, hang on, what's going on, you're not going to get two-thirds of the way in and someone goes, what is this?
**Adam:** You know, why were they doing that again? Oh, didn't you miss it, they had the Camel cigarettes case at the start.
**Chris:** Right, okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, you can't you can't watch the Usual Suspects as a party.
**Adam:** Or, you know.
**Lee:** I'm pretty sure the first time I saw Class of Nuke 'Em High was at a party, a friend was having a it was one of those, I did my mates mates were having a party, he wanted to drop in and we were out so we just turned up.
**Lee:** I knew nobody, I went in and they there was about eight of them just sitting around watching this on VHS in absolute fits.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And we just and I didn't know anyone and I didn't need to, we just sat down, drank beer and just had a fantastic time watching this film.
**Lee:** It's just there's so much fun.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So I I would definitely watch, you know, another I think two or three, I'm wondering how many until I'm like, all right, I might have to give that a break now.
**Adam:** Definitely cuz funnily enough, I mean even if I think maybe at a later point.
**Adam:** You know, cuz we're looking to do a trauma month.
**Adam:** But obviously we're doing sort of Troma sort of OG Troma as it were and modern day.
**Adam:** and but you know, I think certainly Toxic Avenger would be worth sticking on the list.
**Lee:** 100%.
**Adam:** Just because cuz that was the only thing I got while watching this is I was like, is Toxic Avenger probably.
**Adam:** Because I mean Toxic Avenger Toxy himself is Troma's logo.
**Adam:** And it really is.
**Adam:** It really is the basis of everything that comes after it.
**Adam:** Because I think they did they did a few they basically before they did Toxic Avenger, they sort of did a few films, but they were like kind of sort of teen sex comedies, you know, like Porky's type sort of stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I've seen that.
**Adam:** Which you can see in this, obviously, you know, it's still there.
**Adam:** But but it doesn't have the horror element or, you know, or the gore or anything else like that.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** It's funny you saying about Toxy, didn't they make a kids cartoon of Toxic Avenger at one point?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** In a sort of real Ghostbusters type, you know, style.
**Adam:** He even had a whole, I think in that he even had a whole crew of similarly mutated like friends who were, you know, they were a whole crime fighting team.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, it was called Toxic Crusaders, you're right.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Adam:** Yeah,
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** But again, that's and really that was a lot of their that was their calling card really, that was where that's where Troma really sprang from of what they were going to do pretty much.
**Adam:** From henceforth like from that point on.
**Adam:** they are the longest running independent film production and distribution company.
**Chris:** Oh, wow.
**Adam:** now so like I said, they were formed in 74.
**Adam:** Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Hertz met at Yale University and Lloyd Kaufman said they only hang around because Hertz had a pinball machine and he had a TV.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** So they were like, yeah, that's that.
**Adam:** and then they sort of started yeah, the I think.
**Adam:** yeah, so they started they were working in the film industry anyway and then they sort of met up on the set of a film and decided to sort of like set up Troma.
**Adam:** the name supposedly was literally them just trying to make an ugly word.
**Adam:** Like I I don't think it doesn't have any sort of meaning or anything.
**Adam:** I don't think, you know, because it it sounds a bit like trauma other than that, it doesn't.
**Adam:** But yeah, they were just trying to come up with like a basically I think what was it again, there's Lloyd Kaufman is always worth reading interviews and watching interviews with him because he's just naturally such an entertaining person.
**Adam:** but yeah, he was like, oh no, the trouble is is when you look in when you check it with companies house, there's already like, there's already five companies called, I'll shit on your corpse and fuck you up your ass productions or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So it was almost like a matter of, well, we've got to come up with something because every time they were trying to put a name, it got rejected because someone already had it.
**Adam:** And it was like, well, we're just going to make up a word.
**Lee:** That that's so them.
**Adam:** It is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the Class of Nuke 'Em High was their biggest selling type, like VHS.
**Adam:** so yeah, they they've also developed everything's in Tromaville or the majority of their stuff's in Tromaville.
**Adam:** And so.
**Adam:** Which is Tromaville, New Jersey, the toxic capital of the world.
**Adam:** and yeah, it's sort of they.
**Adam:** because they reuse actors and props and stuff like that, it's kind of an extended universe, but it's not because I mean it's much more, let's just say it's much more like the DC universe in that no one is fucking concentrating or actually trying to make this shit marry up.
**Adam:** So, but but with Troma quite rightly, they just know it doesn't matter.
**Adam:** With DC, it just seems to be a rudderless ship that slowly slowly killing all its fucking goodwill.
**Adam:** And actually probably because like I say, because they not they would also although they produced films, they also distributed a lot of films, so there's stuff that they didn't that is a Troma film, but it's Troma for distribution only like
**Adam:** They did.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Cannibal the Musical, which is Matt Stone and Trey Parker's thing they did just before they did South Park.
**Lee:** Still not seen it, I really, really need to, especially having seen Book of Mormon now, I really need to get involved.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, it's it's actually it's it's basically it's I think it's based on a real case, a guy called Packer, like who was it's basically the I think it was something along the lines of the Donner party where it was basically this guy who just you know.
**Adam:** But that was the original title was like, I think it's Albert Packer and it was like Albert Packer the musical and basically the Troma signing was, yeah, but change it to Cannibal the Musical, so you sell more.
**Adam:** And yeah,
**Adam:** you know,
**Adam:** that's.
**Adam:** It's a fucking fair point, I think.
**Adam:** You know, because that's and also again, knowing your audience because you know that Cannibal the Musical.
**Adam:** There's certain people that I saw all your eyes light up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's.
**Lee:** you say about their distribution as well, another one of their films that I've got that I've got to mention because if I don't do it now I'll forget.
**Lee:** And this is still one of the funniest things ever and it was the reason I had to buy it.
**Lee:** so they released a film called Maniac Nurses find Ecstasy, which was a Hungarian.
**Lee:** porn movie like a softcore porn movie.
**Lee:** and they shot the whole thing in that kind of 70s, 80s, it's got a through line story.
**Lee:** And it got shot and it was all in the can and nothing was ever done with it.
**Lee:** Troma bought it, removed the sex scenes and just put out the ridiculous story in between.
**Lee:** And I was like, I need to own that because that's awesome.
**Chris:** That's pretty good.
**Adam:** He's he's also just such a it's it's like it's that's almost like anti that's like that's like anti-exploitation.
**Adam:** Because it's usually you know when they make Caligula with like Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell and then the producers like let's stick some hardcore in it as well.
**Adam:** whereas you know they've they've taken all the sex and they've taken all the sex I was like, that is such a brilliant idea.
**Adam:** But also, does that not mean that they preempted Tommy Wiseau because that's essentially the room as far as I'm concerned, it feels like a pawn film with the with the sex cut out because just everything else about it is so meaningless and bad that it's.
**Adam:** But yeah, they also released Combat Shark, Death by Temptation, you know, the horror film.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Mad Dog Morgan, Rabbit Grannies, which I remember seeing a trailer for on the Clive James show when I was a kid and it terrified the fuck out of me.
**Adam:** But Rabbit Grannies still stays in my head. Surf Nazis Must Die, Nightbeast and Shock the John Landis movie.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, I mean, the they did their current sort of what's the word I'm looking for.
**Adam:** Like probably the most famous Troma alumnus at the moment is James Gunn because he scripted Troma and Juliet, which was kind of one of their weird successes in the 90s.
**Lee:** I'm such a fan of that.
**Lee:** It has a massive cult following.
**Adam:** It does, but I think cuz weirdly enough, I think that was one of those moments where Troma did sort of break away a bit from what they normally do.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And suddenly a a few more people were into it, but it wasn't really you know what I mean, it was like it was like, I don't know, it was like everything must go by the Manic Street Preachers.
**Adam:** It sort of managed to alienate all the fans of the first three albums, but had a lot more success.
**Adam:** I mean, there's still people who like Troma and Juliet who also like Troma, but I think there's also quite a number of people who are like, no, it's not.
**Adam:** but yeah, he did that and he also co-wrote Lloyd Kaufman's autobiography.
**Adam:** which is all I need to know about filmmaking I learned from Toxic Avenger.
**Lee:** I need to read that.
**Adam:** Even better than that, they also turned that into a film called Terra Firma.
**Adam:** And it's and it's basically like a slasher film based on Lloyd Kaufman's autobiography.
**Adam:** Which presumably does not feature a maniac I don't fucking know, but.
**Lee:** This is what I love, like you were like Claire said, these are all just.
**Lee:** Ideas a 13-year-old has had on his first beer and they just run with them every time.
**Lee:** And they just managed to land it when every time.
**Lee:** It just shouldn't work.
**Lee:** Like on paper, it's lunacy.
**Lee:** I don't know how they managed to keep and they are they like they're bangers some of them. They're really, really good.
**Adam:** The the trouble is is that they like Toxic Avenger and Nuke 'Em High were really successful and then they did a film called Troma's War which flopped.
**Adam:** And that was kind of the start of the decline.
**Adam:** So now they concentrate on producing and acquiring.
**Adam:** So they're putting money up to other film makers or they're buying stuff to distribute.
**Adam:** So they're not really a they're not a production company anymore.
**Adam:** They're a distribution and they're sorry.
**Adam:** They're not they're not making the films themselves, but they are investing and so on.
**Adam:** at one point they did put.
**Adam:** where is it 2012, they put a hundred films on YouTube, most for free, and it was the channel was shut down for not meeting community standards.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** Yeah, two fucking right from.
**Adam:** Like especially especially when it's like now it's like YouTube where it's like, oh don't swear because we get demonetized.
**Adam:** Everything.
**Adam:** Don't fucking swear.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The fucking Troma movie.
**Adam:** The swearing was the only bits you could show your mom.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I just have such a love of Troma and it.
**Lee:** And like I say, as I as we were saying, you know, I totally get how people don't necessarily like it.
**Lee:** And how it doesn't work for everyone, but I just I I just find them so much fun.
**Lee:** And I find them, although they're quite over the top and in your face, it's it's normally quite an innocent, you know, it's all.
**Adam:** It's honest, isn't it?
**Adam:** Yeah, it is like a fucking 13, 15 year old, you know what I mean, where it's like never been kissed but like you still got all this just got this sort of like filth.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** pouring out.
**Adam:** But it's like, you know, it doesn't actually.
**Adam:** Yeah,
**Adam:** it's.
**Chris:** A strange sort of charm.
**Adam:** Yeah,
**Adam:** it is.
**Adam:** It's that well, I mean, I think taking a porn film cutting all the porn out.
**Adam:** Yeah, to make the movie, you know, that kind of says it all, almost, like I said, it's like anti-exploitation almost.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, obviously not many people a huge number of people on like the cast list of this, this is their only film.
**Adam:** if a lot of obviously there's a few people who turn up in other Troma movies, there's quite a few people who do like Toxic Avenger and this have quite a crossover.
**Adam:** But Chrissy their actress Janelle Brady.
**Adam:** she she was also in Teen Wolf 2.
**Lee:** Oh, is she really?
**Lee:** Oh, it's funny, I just bought Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf 2 on a double pack and I've only watched the first one, so.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Adam:** I I think she's credited as history student, so I don't think she's going to have too much of a of a role in it to be honest.
**Adam:** But she sort of she did some other acting and she also modeled for Playboy.
**Adam:** But excuse me, the but the weird thing that I when I was looking into this, in February 2012, she went missing in Las Vegas and no one knows what happened to her.
**Lee:** Really.
**Lee:** She's not been found.
**Adam:** She's not been found, she was meant to be meeting her husband and just never showed up and yeah, there's never been any.
**Lee:** That's awful.
**Adam:** It's weird.
**Adam:** And it's on like on the Troma websites, they update on Lloyd Kaufman's website.
**Adam:** Before I do this next week, I'm going to check whether it's Kaufman or Kaufman.
**Lee:** I say Kaufman.
**Adam:** Oh fair enough,
**Adam:** Kaufman.
**Adam:** So, but he yeah, he's on his website and on Troma websites and everything, they sort of regularly update and there's rewards for information and stuff like that, but yeah, no one knows what became of her.
**Adam:** apparently I mean apparently she did have some chronic like health issues, like both medical and mental.
**Adam:** Poor thing.
**Adam:** But but yeah, there's just been no nothing since she just has gone, vanished.
**Lee:** That's awful.
**Lee:** I I got I was going to say, I've got to give props to her, her image on IMDB is her with the blown up belly before the monster.
**Lee:** I was like, I love that.
**Lee:** That like, you know, you'd put something so.
**Lee:** Yeah, like not going for like a head shot, you know, just this.
**Lee:** That was great fun.
**Lee:** I'm going to go with that.
**Adam:** And and actually as I was saying about with the monster, and I'm sitting there going, that's actually a pretty good monster.
**Adam:** they actually only got as far as making its hands and its tail and its head.
**Adam:** which is why you never see it the whole thing, you never see it doing things or whatever like that.
**Lee:** The whole thing.
**Chris:** The whole thing.
**Adam:** But they.
**Chris:** They did it.
**Adam:** It worked perfectly.
**Adam:** And actually probably takes away from the shit shot of a guy in a.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** 100%.
**Lee:** And they do manage their budgets well and make them look pretty solid on these always which is something.
**Lee:** but I am keen to know, we're down to our last minute of run time.
**Lee:** I'm keen to know, because as soon as we came out of watching Eating Miss Campbell, I immediately said, well, that was just Troma through and through.
**Lee:** So Chris, do you now see what Adam and I were saying when we came out and we went, yep.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, this this this it sets it completely, yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** So on that note, we're going to be back in a fortnight's time and we're going to be covering the modern Troma movie, My Bloody Banjo, which is the prequel to well, not the prequel, it was the original to, yeah, it is a prequel, but it wasn't made later.
**Adam:** Can't wait.
**Lee:** to eating Miss Campbell, so.
**Lee:** It should be out on Blu-ray, if it isn't out quite yet, we'll try and do it a little bit spoiler-free, but if you can, go and track down My Bloody Banjo, and we will see you in a fortnight's time for that. Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 164 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-164-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 26 February 2023
Duration: 00:37:34

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Curse of We Have Been Watching”. It’s time once more, gentle listener, for a quick run through of the audio/visual stimuli that we have posted into our cerebral cortexes via our ocular globes and sound flaps. This episode we discuss “Bedazzled” (1967), “Scream” (2022), “Superstition” (1982), “Cannibal Holocaust”, Tim Burton’s “Wednesday”, “Brotherhood of the Wolf”, “Tomorrow I Shall Wake Up and Scald Myself With Tea”, “Barbarian” and “The Pale Blue Eye”. Beware of spoilers and swearing and join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And I don't know why I'm shouting but I am so it's fine.
**Lee:** We're here again for what we've been watching episode, it's been two months we were just discussing since the last one I think.
**Lee:** So we've watched a lot of stuff.
**Chris:** Oh, we've been busy.
**Lee:** So if we try and keep it short so we can get through stuff.
**Lee:** There will be possible spoilers, we'll try and stay away from them as much as possible.
**Lee:** there will be swearing, we won't be avoiding that because we like it and we're grownups we can do what we fucking well like.
**Lee:** and.
**Adam:** He's bad.
**Lee:** Oh, I know, I'm just in one of them moods, mischievous.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Let's begin with Adam this time.
**Adam:** Right, well, you've just reminded me of what I watched last night, which was due to, well, partly it's spurred, that sounds wrong.
**Adam:** obviously, Raquel Welch died in the in the week and yeah, hammer goddess and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** but yeah, I watched Bedazzled, mostly because Claire had never seen it.
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Adam:** this is the this is obviously the sixties Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Bedazzled, not the remake from I think the nineties.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** With Brendan Fraser and Liz Hurley, which I've never seen, I'll admit.
**Adam:** But.
**Lee:** I saw that on a very early date with Jennifer, I think it was the first time she ever invited me around to cook me dinner and she'd hired it from the video shop.
**Lee:** So, I have seen it, but.
**Lee:** It was a long time ago and it's extremely forgettable.
**Lee:** Unlike the Peton Dudley one.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, I'm assuming Chris that this is not one you've seen.
**Adam:** basically, so.
**Adam:** Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, as in Hound of the Baskervilles that we watched on our Sherlock Holmes month many moons ago now.
**Adam:** and basically Dudley Moore is a short order chef who can't pull the waitress at the restaurant he works at, he's leading a miserable little life, so goes off to kill himself and then Peter Cook turns up and he's the devil and he offers him seven wishes in return for his mortal soul, and Dud agrees after he proves that he's the devil by melting his froger and Gleeson's ice lolly.
**Adam:** Here, my ice lolly is melted.
**Adam:** You really must be the devil incarnate.
**Adam:** And basically it's every time basically Dud comes up with a scenario where he is able to get with this girl that he fancys.
**Adam:** And every time there's a twist in the tail that the devil has put in there, so in one of them he specifies right, I want us to be married.
**Adam:** And deeply in love, and then they go there and they are married and deeply in love.
**Adam:** But they're deeply in love with each other, but they're not married to each other so they're conducting an affair.
**Adam:** And they can't conduct the affair because of how nice the husband is that they're cheating on and he's just a saint and.
**Adam:** So every time it gets sort of and they do there's a one of the best bits is they
**Adam:** Dudley's character Stanley wants to be a pop star because he knows that you know, women are going to go crazy if he's a pop star.
**Adam:** And he comes on and does this song called Love me and it's all about oh, won't you please come me and love me.
**Adam:** And all the girls are screaming.
**Adam:** And then Peter Cook's band comes on Drimble Wedge and the Vegetations.
**Adam:** And they do a song in which Peter Cook just says how bored he is with the person.
**Adam:** So it's the very opposite of the sort of love me, it's absolute indifference and like please leave me alone.
**Adam:** And you know, just a perfect real sort of grasp of the the psychology of pop music where where all the women are going for the guy from the effective position of I don't care.
**Adam:** And but yeah, I mean overall it's just written it's written by Peter Dad.
**Adam:** Dad did all the music and yeah.
**Adam:** It's just really funny and helping the devil.
**Adam:** Are the seven deadly sins and Raquel Welch is lust.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** and also Barry Humphries like Dame Edna as envy is oily, brilliant.
**Adam:** And just horrible and catty and sort of yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** So this is a good callback to our previous episode.
**Chris:** It also included some sins.
**Adam:** Yes, yes, exactly.
**Adam:** Oh, actually yeah, I hadn't even thought about it.
**Adam:** I've been on the sort of.
**Chris:** Subconsciously looking for more.
**Adam:** A lot of a lot of this does relate.
**Adam:** I will say.
**Adam:** It has sort of done that.
**Adam:** But yeah, so that's Bedazzled and people who've never seen it.
**Adam:** Really fucking should.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely, fantastic film.
**Lee:** Brilliant.
**Adam:** Yeah, and pure sixties as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it really is.
**Adam:** but not in a shit way.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Oh, just before we move on very quickly.
**Lee:** Did you enjoy it as well?
**Adam:** Did you enjoy it?
**Lee:** Yeah, it was brilliant.
**Chris:** There we go.
**Lee:** Yeah, I thought it was much.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been checking out?
**Chris:** So, I have watched the now I've got to figure out how to actually call it correctly, right Scream, but it's just called Scream, it's the Scream 2022 remake.
**Chris:** But it's taught me what it is while watching it, it's not a remake, it's a recal.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Right, now you, whether either of you mentioned this word before, I don't know, but I learned that term and I also learned elevated horror, which maybe you've said these things and I've forgotten them or you thought they're not terms that are worth mentioning.
**Chris:** I'm not sure but it was fascinating.
**Chris:** Right, so as far as I can tell, I've not seen Scream two, three, four, and then I think this makes this the fifth one.
**Chris:** Essentially.
**Chris:** But I'm assuming that this being a recall is and anyway, so if you seen this.
**Lee:** Yes, I did.
**Adam:** I I've not now.
**Chris:** You haven't.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** So I'm hopefully not setting real spoilers yet and won't, but it as far as I can tell, it may be the closest to the original out of all of them.
**Chris:** Is that is that.
**Lee:** Right.
**Chris:** Right, that's that's got to be the purpose of it, I think.
**Chris:** And it is, right, so after we watched Scream and I thought that still was held up really well from when I saw it previously, I still really enjoyed the meta aspect of it.
**Chris:** The fact that it can talk about itself and other films like it and still make a good film, I think it's pretty impressive.
**Chris:** And then this has done it again, but with the next layer.
**Chris:** And tons of references, which I guess now after having seen a lot of the films and heard a lot of the names that is still quite exciting to me.
**Chris:** I don't know if that works for lots of horror fans.
**Chris:** But it really was quite fun just to watch it from a hearing all the different references.
**Chris:** So, you know, they mentioned The Witch at the beginning, and and a few other of these elevated horror films.
**Chris:** And I was like, oh that's interesting.
**Chris:** So I seem like I like that type where there is perhaps other aspects that you wouldn't necessarily have used to have got in horror films as much.
**Chris:** so yeah, so from that perspective, like it was really enjoyable and I do think they did, I I enjoyed it as a film in itself without all of that as well.
**Chris:** it was funny how you're trying to work out who is who it is because you know, it has to be some of the people that you can see.
**Chris:** Because it's not going to be no one.
**Chris:** You can't see.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** But so who could it be and then they really do set it up where it to me felt like.
**Chris:** Yeah, I don't know it really could be any of them.
**Lee:** I can't even remember now, I saw it when it came out but I don't remember.
**Chris:** Pretty much.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Well I quite liked the fact that Courteney Cox was in it and David Campbell and
**Chris:** Oh, here's the other thing, right, so having watched Scary Movie, when I saw Dewey, I was like, is he, is he the one who does it, because he is in Scary Movie.
**Chris:** And then that reminded me of it wasn't that from Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey, isn't that they show it at the end of Scary Movie.
**Adam:** Yeah, they, whatever his name.
**Adam:** Do they, he turns into a.
**Chris:** So yeah, so no, I was I was trying to think am I just getting mixed up with the whole Scream Scary Movie situation.
**Chris:** But I did, yeah, I enjoyed it.
**Adam:** Even even when we watched Scream, I could not take fucking David Arquette's character seriously because I just saw him as Dewey from.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** Scary Movie.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He did a very good job.
**Chris:** Good.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** From what I from what I gather.
**Adam:** Lee, you you would be able to tell me more.
**Adam:** Because I've I've only seen Scream.
**Adam:** But I understand that the the sequels all of them are that sort of thing of right so if this was a movie, this is the sequel.
**Adam:** So it's not going to be as good or they're going to make a mistake.
**Lee:** That's exactly what it is and it does it for the whole the whole way through.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It sounds like.
**Lee:** And the third, when they're like, oh it's become a trilogy so now it's got to be someone from further back in the backstory and then, yeah, so they they do play up to that a lot.
**Lee:** And they do in the new one as well.
**Lee:** It's the oh, well, this is.
**Lee:** Oh, well, it's the same it's the same killer but it's now attacking a new generation.
**Lee:** So this is clearly a reboot, so if it was a reboot, this is what it would be happening.
**Lee:** And yeah, and it worked just as well.
**Lee:** Oh, the gore in it though.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** There's one scene in it that I was honestly, I was like, that is one of the most graphic things I've ever seen.
**Lee:** But because the film is so like you say, sort of playful and enjoyable.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** It really, really nailed me, it came so so far out of left field.
**Lee:** It yeah, it was fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, so so I would say I absolutely enjoyed it.
**Chris:** And would recommend it.
**Chris:** And if you do watch it, I'd be interested to see what you think.
**Chris:** And I'm tempted to watch the others as well.
**Chris:** Just to see.
**Lee:** I I enjoyed all of them.
**Adam:** It's interesting because they're actually now covering a more modern phenomena.
**Adam:** As in the the recall.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which which back to your earlier question, I probably wouldn't use recall.
**Adam:** But I I've used elevated horror but only in the sense of that seems to have become a given term for a certain type of thing.
**Adam:** Personally, I'd just call it arty.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And if I'm feeling really arrogant, good.
**Chris:** Yeah, well that's it that seems quite arty.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's just a good film really.
**Adam:** Because you've had stuff like Halloween 2018.
**Adam:** Which I'm going to have to call it just because they only called it Halloween.
**Adam:** Much in the same way as they've only called this Scream.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they're already sort of feeding on that, oh, this is a new thing that's happening in slasher films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like they did it with the Netflix Texas Chainsaw was kind of that as well.
**Adam:** And that whole thing of slightly bad thing of removing all the bits in between and saying, no, they didn't exist, they're they're shit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so on, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
**Lee:** so I took Tony's recommendation from.
**Lee:** When I sat and had a chat with Tony Wash and we discussed remakes, funnily enough.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** and I think I said to him, you know, we were discussing about how films that have got great concepts are the ones you should be remaking, which I know we've said on the show.
**Lee:** Rather than the ones that work perfectly.
**Lee:** and ask him what asked him what he would like to remake and he said he'd like to make remake Superstition from 1982.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, that sounded really fucking good.
**Adam:** When he described that.
**Adam:** But go on.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Yes, so.
**Lee:** He's absolutely right, it is a perfect candidate for that.
**Lee:** It's got some amazing elements, it's it's an incredible story.
**Lee:** it's got some real pacing issues.
**Lee:** it was made on the cheap so it looks pretty naff in places.
**Lee:** but it has got a lot going for it.
**Lee:** So I I watched it and thoroughly enjoyed it, Jennifer made it about 10 minutes in and checked out.
**Lee:** She was like, no, I'm not doing this.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** It's it's only an hour and 25 minutes long.
**Lee:** The first 10 minutes, no exaggeration.
**Lee:** Two blokes in the house in which the haunting later takes place.
**Lee:** And one of them just walks from room to room shouting his mate's name for about five minutes.
**Lee:** Then he disappears off the scene.
**Lee:** The mate he was looking for turns up and does exactly the same thing, so you have a full 10 minutes of just someone going.
**Lee:** Jerry.
**Lee:** Jerry.
**Lee:** Are you in here, Jerry?
**Lee:** Jerry.
**Chris:** This sounds like they could have just done one minute and put it in slow motion.
**Lee:** Oh, it was just, I mean, but like some of the special effects are fantastic in it.
**Lee:** and it's yeah, so it as he said it's it was all set because a witch was supposed to be burned and they didn't, they threw her in the lake with this big cross.
**Lee:** and.
**Lee:** So you get quite a lot of that sort of back story.
**Lee:** So you'll shown to you.
**Lee:** and all of that flashback stuff is excellent, it's really good.
**Lee:** and the kills are good.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's just the pacing of it.
**Lee:** It's just it's one of those films a bit like that first scene.
**Lee:** Where you sit through it for five minutes and then you're like, oh, thank God that's over and then they just replay it.
**Lee:** It does that quite a lot, there's quite a lot of scenes of somebody doing something for far too long and then five minutes later, you have to sit for another five minutes watching somebody else and it just.
**Lee:** So yeah, I I think it's it's a good.
**Chris:** Like that in it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, it it was enjoyable, I I'd definitely watch it again.
**Lee:** But yeah, I think it would be one that'd make an amazing remake.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I would say do watch it, especially if you're a big fan of low budget 80s horror.
**Lee:** It is really good.
**Lee:** and it is it is suspenseful.
**Lee:** But yeah, you will find yourself getting bored with it to the point of finding it amusing just how bad the pacing is at parts.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Generally good.
**Chris:** Cool.
**Lee:** back to you Adam.
**Adam:** Back to me, right.
**Adam:** Well, I'm going to I'm going to obviously bring the mood down, that just because I think it's a film that I would not.
**Adam:** I don't expect either of you to sit through.
**Adam:** So I would not say that it was one that we would put on, we would do necessarily.
**Adam:** But also just it's an iconic horror but probably just one we'll never do as an episode or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** I woke up on my birthday, there was no one around, so I got up and I watched Cannibal Holocaust.
**Adam:** 1980s yeah, 1980s action comedy Romcom catalog.
**Lee:** You had lunch.
**Adam:** Yes, I did eat lunch, through it, all right.
**Adam:** But no, it was actually that was that was sort of elevensies.
**Adam:** You know, it wasn't really lunch.
**Adam:** You know, it's quite early.
**Adam:** but yes, and directed by Roguero Diadato, who again, I think would have been a couple of months back now died.
**Adam:** But it's one of those things that comes with such baggage as a name that I think it doesn't get the credit for what it does well.
**Adam:** I'm going to start I'm going to state straight off, yes, it does feature animal cruelty.
**Adam:** And I'm not happy about that.
**Adam:** I it's not pleasant to watch but equally I was like, I want to watch the film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, it's happened.
**Adam:** There's nothing I'm going to do to stop that.
**Adam:** It exists.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you know, and but it's still fucking hell, it's still fucking horrendous to watch.
**Adam:** So that is a provides that immediately for anyone who would go to see it's like if that's going to put you off.
**Chris:** It.
**Chris:** It's it's funny, it's funny that would put me off from the start and I I wonder how would be yeah, if if because I I totally understand the idea.
**Chris:** Of watching it and it's similar to like say Kevin Spacey and other people that we've covered before it's like what point do you say, well, I'm now going to cut out the whole thing because of these bad parts.
**Chris:** It's it's difficult to figure out where the line should or feels like it needs to be.
**Chris:** So yeah, I get.
**Adam:** And that's the thing, it's kind of like, you know, he's an acknowledged classic, but in terms of it's cannibal films.
**Adam:** So you, you know, they they're a pretty grim bunch all together, you know.
**Adam:** and it's but it's got a very weird thing, obviously, first of all, it's basically found footage.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** So, basically this guy you they document him as he goes to find out what happened to a previous film crew.
**Adam:** he meets with through various sort of missvention and everything, he finds the remains of the previous crew who've been cannibalized by this
**Adam:** sort of undiscovered South American tribe or untouched South American tribe.
**Adam:** And yeah, basically he takes the footage back and then reviews it and the people who have made.
**Adam:** You know, the people have sponsored the first lot and his lot were like, oh, well, we're still going to release the footage because you know, it's of scientific interest and blah, blah, blah.
**Adam:** And then he says, no, I want to show you the footage in full and you basically see the original film crew.
**Adam:** Are absolute fucking scum.
**Adam:** They are just animals who just go out and live it up and do what they fucking want in this lawless land.
**Adam:** And stir trouble up and butcher and attack the villagers to try and get reactions so that they can say here's us being attacked by.
**Adam:** And basically, you know, but so for a film that has a lot of horrible elements in it, it still has quite the message of no, the problem here is the West coming in.
**Adam:** You know, or or.
**Adam:** Or sort of or civilization in inverted commas coming in is what the problem is here.
**Adam:** And they are they're the evil in this, regardless of what else is happening or whatever.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** And it's, you know, I mean it's a striking film, it's fucking grueling in places.
**Adam:** And particularly obviously, you know, like I say, animal cruelty and things.
**Adam:** And famously, you know, some of the imagery in it, they ended up having to bring an actress along to prove she hadn't been killed.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** They had to bring an actress.
**Adam:** a court case because basically the filmmakers were like, we're not showing that, it's a snuff film, you know, this woman's clearly been murdered.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, here she is.
**Adam:** She's not.
**Adam:** It's very good special effects, that's all.
**Chris:** There's a callback to to one of the other things we watched over Christmas.
**Chris:** Inside number nine.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, very, very much.
**Adam:** And it's.
**Adam:** but no, I mean it's it's it's I'm, you know, powerful film, it is a good film.
**Adam:** Enjoy is you have to say in the way, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, I say.
**Adam:** Enjoy.
**Adam:** But it's, you know, it's a good film and sort of and has the weirdest fucking theme tune as well.
**Adam:** Because the theme tune it sounds like love music from a 80s American soap opera.
**Adam:** It's just like, yeah, just totally at odds with what actually happens in it.
**Adam:** But yeah, and no, I mean it's it's it's great but also yeah.
**Adam:** In the words of John Waters' father, you know, it's like well, it's good, but I'm glad I don't have to watch it again.
**Adam:** And I think I, you know, I think I may watch it again but it's going to be another 20 odd years before sheer curiosity's like, oh, yeah, now I've got to review that in my head to remind myself that it's actually a good film, you know.
**Adam:** And not just this sort of ogy man sort of.
**Adam:** Shock fest for no good reason as it were.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** I know how to get a party started.
**Lee:** I might get around to it one day, but yeah.
**Adam:** well, there is just in just as a thing, there is a there is a version now that the director supervised which cuts out a lot of the actual animal cruelty.
**Adam:** which was available as an option on it, but I was kind of like, I can't remember what this film's like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You need to.
**Adam:** I need to see what I saw the first time round.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because otherwise I won't know what's what if you see what I mean.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** I was wondering that about options.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I mean.
**Chris:** Because what happened rolled recently and they're rewriting his one of his books.
**Chris:** I didn't read the full article, I just saw headlines.
**Chris:** Some elements that are causing offense.
**Chris:** And it's it's like, yeah, I wonder.
**Chris:** Certainly with films like that, perhaps it is better if you get both options.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You know, as long as it's not something that's illegal, then perhaps it is, yeah, up to the person to choose.
**Adam:** It's back it's frankly it's back to Star Wars and that's nothing to do with censorship or anyone's sensitivities or anything like that.
**Chris:** It's just good and bad.
**Adam:** But it's not.
**Adam:** It it's it's nice to have the option to watch both.
**Chris:** Do you want to watch the better version or the slightly more rubbish version?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, if I want to watch it with where I can see the curly cold coming up.
**Adam:** Gynesis' wrist.
**Adam:** Yes, I want to see that version.
**Adam:** I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm being a pain.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** Chris, what did you watch next?
**Chris:** So, I watched something that I'm sure both of you must have seen.
**Chris:** And this is something that actually was instigated by Shirley because it was such a big release and it was Wednesday.
**Lee:** I also watched Wednesday.
**Chris:** You have and Adam.
**Adam:** I have not now.
**Chris:** You haven't.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Well that's interesting.
**Chris:** So, so as it started, I did say to her because I really didn't know anything about it.
**Chris:** Aside from having seen it show up on Netflix.
**Chris:** and and I said to her, this does look a bit like if this was a film, I was about to try and show you, you would say, no, turn this off.
**Chris:** And she said, yeah, no, it does actually.
**Chris:** Right, so it's there's an element of when something's so big.
**Chris:** It's slightly less scary than it really is just because of that.
**Chris:** Because everyone's watching it.
**Chris:** It can't really be that bad.
**Chris:** But actually there were some.
**Adam:** A lot of people are watching it.
**Chris:** Yeah, exactly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and I think this like that phenomenon happened with 50 Shades of Grey as well.
**Chris:** I'm pretty sure most of the people that read that would not go out and read anything else at all similar to it, but just because it was a social phenomenon.
**Chris:** It kind of makes it like.
**Adam:** Here's an interesting and popular fact.
**Adam:** Do you know that 50 Shades of Grey started off as Twilight fan fiction?
**Chris:** Well, I heard.
**Chris:** This.
**Chris:** I've no idea the, you know, the veracity, but it actually is, yeah.
**Adam:** It actually.
**Chris:** Which that does seem really weird.
**Chris:** I've never seen Twilight so only heard yeah, some negative things about it.
**Lee:** Nor have I.
**Chris:** But yeah, no, it's funny.
**Chris:** but yeah, so so we did, we watched all, I think it was eight episodes.
**Chris:** And I got to say, I really liked it.
**Chris:** And then, I must have seen at the start of one of them that it was actually Tim Burton was director or producer.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** And then that it certainly looks like his style.
**Chris:** yeah, so so really, yeah.
**Chris:** I was I was really impressed.
**Chris:** And the the actress Jenna Ortega, who funnily enough was in the Scream.
**Chris:** Scream remake as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, she's in the next one as well that's coming out this year.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** And so yeah.
**Chris:** She's she's really great.
**Chris:** I thought she was fantastic as Wednesday.
**Chris:** And and then so I don't remember that much about the Adam's family, which I know you may look slightly disapprovingly, but
**Adam:** Yeah, in fairness, I mean, the.
**Adam:** The films but I mean the TV hasn't been repeated for fucking years, you know.
**Chris:** They weren't.
**Lee:** I had to buy them all on DVD, all of the in a box set so I could have them all.
**Chris:** I I definitely remember them being on, you know, on the TV at points when I was younger, we watched some of them and remember enjoying them.
**Chris:** I have to say, probably the biggest thing I remember from them is Thing and and and you know, it's nice to see.
**Chris:** Him in there in there.
**Chris:** Yeah, so so I I thought they did a really good job with it.
**Chris:** What did you think, Lee?
**Lee:** Yeah, it it really reminded me of the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, it was a very like, it was it was quite tiny and quite.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** It was fantasy enough to not feel too horror for people, as you say, who who wouldn't generally go to horror.
**Lee:** But it definitely had one foot planted in that.
**Lee:** I mean the big the big again, not to spoil it.
**Lee:** But the big monster.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It like, but I I got the impression it was badly CGI on purpose so that you couldn't be too scared of it because it looked slightly ridiculous.
**Chris:** Yeah, I sort of took that to be somewhat of the cartoonish aspect, so yeah, the whole thing felt a little bit surreal.
**Chris:** And almost not trying to be too real in that sense.
**Chris:** yeah, a little bit over the top.
**Chris:** But yeah, you know, there's comedy in there, there's drama in there, some horror.
**Lee:** Oh, the end got full on horror.
**Lee:** Like again in a teen friendly way.
**Lee:** but yeah, like yeah, I I really enjoyed it, so we got through it in like a week or so.
**Lee:** I tell you the only reason I started watching it is because I saw so many memes of people doing her dance.
**Lee:** Which is absolutely amazing and I love that.
**Chris:** It is, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** that I was like, yeah, got to check this out.
**Lee:** I was like, I need to watch this because it if you know, if there's going to be memes and stuff coming out at this rate, something's going to get spoil or whatever.
**Lee:** So I figured, right, I'm going to knuckle down and watch it.
**Lee:** yeah, and I I as you say, same as you, I I enjoyed it, I thought it was entertaining, yeah, plenty of twists and turns, it was funny, yeah, and it was just good, easy, easy watching, really.
**Chris:** It did.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** my next choice, came from so I I as I've said before, I never normally listen back to any of our episodes, but I was in the car listening to another podcast and it rolled into a random one of our episodes and it was our Goth episode.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** and one of the questions that we had was on the film Brotherhood of the Wolf.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** so I purchased it was about November, I re-heard that episode.
**Lee:** So I bought it for Lady Jennifer for Christmas.
**Lee:** and we we rewatched it the other day.
**Lee:** well we didn't rewatch it, so we watched it for the first time.
**Lee:** yeah, I didn't realize it was French.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, sorry.
**Adam:** I should have mentioned that.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** It didn't spoil it at all.
**Lee:** It was just watching and I was like, oh, it's all dubbed.
**Lee:** yeah, what a good film.
**Lee:** It was it was a a big.
**Lee:** The twist in it was good and there were a few of them.
**Lee:** Yeah, and again, really solid performances.
**Lee:** I really had a really good time with it.
**Lee:** I mean when we first put it on and it came up 2 hours and 22 minutes, I was like, oh God, this is going to be.
**Adam:** Subtitled film.
**Adam:** From 2001.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, no, that one was dubbed.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** The one I had was dubbed.
**Lee:** which is why it took me a while to realize that it wasn't in English because of course they've got them coats up over their face.
**Lee:** So you can't see the mouths moving.
**Lee:** So I took about 10 minutes and then I was like, oh, hang on a minute, they're not talking English, this is all in French.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** But oh, yeah, what a a fun film, loads of action in it.
**Lee:** The the action and stuff was really, really good.
**Lee:** yeah, I love the premise of it, the way that it's it's sort of every time it opened up a bit more.
**Lee:** There there was more more people involved and there were more secrets and it was all a much bigger thing than anyone realized.
**Lee:** yeah, and I I had a really good time watching it.
**Lee:** I thoroughly enjoyed it as did Lady Jennifer.
**Lee:** So yeah, so I'm glad that question came up and I'm glad that Adam knew the film.
**Lee:** And managed to sell us on it.
**Lee:** Because it was a really entertaining couple of hours.
**Adam:** It is really, really cool.
**Adam:** Great, great film, I'd forgotten how I'd forgotten it was that long.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's such a lovely looking film as well, like it looks so nice.
**Lee:** I know it shot in old France, so it's lots of powdered wigs and many makeup and stuff.
**Lee:** but like the sets and everything just look really nice, it really reminded me of the the bit from Hellraiser Bloodline.
**Lee:** You know when they go back to Old France with the make of the box.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it really reminded me of that.
**Lee:** It was very good.
**Lee:** right, our timer is ticking away.
**Lee:** We have seven minutes.
**Lee:** So we're going to do one each and we're going to do them for two minutes.
**Lee:** Adam, go.
**Adam:** This is going to be hard because it's called Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Score Myself with Tea.
**Adam:** It's a sci-fi comedy in which actually that is going to be far too fucking involved.
**Adam:** it's a sci-fi comedy in which time travel is available as a commercial thing.
**Adam:** And a group of Nazis decide to go back in time and give Hitler a nuclear bomb.
**Adam:** But it's funny.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's funny.
**Adam:** And but also but also has a weird sort of light swap comedy because basically it's the one the one bloke who's going to take them has got a twin brother.
**Adam:** And then he chokes and then the twin brother decides to assume his identity because he has a much better life than him.
**Adam:** And then has to help a group of Nazis go back in time.
**Adam:** And give Hitler a nuclear bomb.
**Adam:** and yeah.
**Adam:** And apparently there was a fart at the start and I was fucking sold at that point.
**Adam:** Because I just thought this is hilarious.
**Adam:** Much better than this is Czechoslovakia by the way before someone fucking goes and does a brother.
**Adam:** Of the Wolf.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's brilliant.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** That does sound like fun.
**Lee:** Chris, you next.
**Chris:** Mine's not as funny as that.
**Chris:** Or as crazy as that.
**Chris:** But I was really impressed with it.
**Chris:** It was a bit random, I was suggested it from someone.
**Chris:** It's called Barbarian and I'll give the quick summary.
**Chris:** In a town for a job interview, a young woman arrives at her Airbnb rental late at night, only to find that the house has been mistakenly double booked and a strange man is already staying there.
**Chris:** Against her better judgment, she decides to stay the night anyway.
**Chris:** But soon discovers that there is much more to be afraid of in the house than the other house guests.
**Chris:** And that does sum it up pretty good without giving too much away, the actors, Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgard, and Justin Long.
**Lee:** Oh, that's a good cast.
**Chris:** I.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I liked the acting.
**Chris:** I liked the story.
**Chris:** It was uncomfortable.
**Chris:** It was good dialogue.
**Chris:** It set me up for the twists that I didn't expect.
**Chris:** And it was also hard hitting.
**Chris:** And there was some social commentary, which I thought was fine.
**Chris:** You could potentially ignore it.
**Chris:** and there's still, you know, potentially great horror film there.
**Chris:** So, yeah, overall, I really enjoyed it.
**Adam:** I've seen a lot of people really rate that.
**Chris:** And.
**Adam:** My my favorite quote from someone was.
**Adam:** This is a film that has no right being as good as it is.
**Chris:** Yes, well.
**Chris:** Shit.
**Lee:** Which we haven't said anything about since anything like that about since Tag's killing, so there you go.
**Lee:** That's how good it is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Put it on a good peg in.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Lee:** I caught up, my last one, I caught up with the Pale Blue Eye on Netflix.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** the Christian Bale movie, it's set sort of turn it was no, it's set earlier than that.
**Lee:** it it's basically old sort of colonial.
**Lee:** US it's set in 1830, there we go.
**Lee:** and he is a detective who's been brought in to look into some possibly occult murders at a military Academy.
**Lee:** And one of the boys at the Academy is Edgar Allan Poe.
**Lee:** So he brings him in to help him.
**Lee:** and Edgar Allan Poe is played by the annoying fat cousin from Harry Potter.
**Lee:** He has lost a shit ton of weight and he now looks like Edgar Allan Poe.
**Lee:** It's really weird.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Yeah, I thought it was really good.
**Lee:** It's also it's got oh, it's got loads of people you'd know as well Adam from it let me just find him, Simon McBurney is in it, Timothy Spall is in it, Toby Jones is in it.
**Adam:** Oh, nice, yeah.
**Lee:** So it's got a very British cast.
**Adam:** I'm I'm getting a feel for what sort of a film it is with that car.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is.
**Lee:** Yeah, so Harry Melling is the guy who was in Harry Potter.
**Lee:** I'm fairly certain that is him, I am going to check it now that I've said it.
**Lee:** Just in case it isn't.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** I thought it was really good, I yeah, it is him, yeah, definitely, excellent.
**Lee:** Yeah, I had a really good time with it.
**Lee:** It was a it was quite dark.
**Lee:** It felt a bit like if I had to liken it to something, I'd say it's like Sleepy Hollow without the comedy.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** It's that sort of feel.
**Chris:** That's potentially very good.
**Chris:** Still.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** It's yeah, it was fairy taley sort of.
**Adam:** Fairy taley sort of atmosphere.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly that, but it's got that kind of Sherlock Holmesy type feel.
**Lee:** As well from the work he's doing.
**Lee:** yeah, couple of really big twists.
**Lee:** And yeah, just a really enjoyable watch.
**Lee:** It kept coming up and I was like, I've not heard anything about it.
**Lee:** Nobody's talked about it.
**Lee:** It's been out since the 6th of January.
**Lee:** So it might be a turd, but it wasn't, it was good, so excellent.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, that's what we've been watching.
**Lee:** Well, that's what we've been watching, but the rest you shall have to wait for.
**Lee:** and we will be back in a fortnight's time for Class of Nukem High.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Ye.
**Lee:** But beginning of trauma month, I cannot wait.
**Lee:** I've already watched.
**Lee:** My Bloody Banjo and I cannot wait for you guys to watch it.
**Lee:** So we can discuss it.
**Lee:** Sha't give away any more than that.
**Chris:** Keep watching.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** Go and check out all of our friends.
**Lee:** so not for everyone podcast, and, as you unexplained.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** And all of those lovely people, Eerie Essex, still going strong, loving that.
**Lee:** yeah, thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** And good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Go watch trauma.

---

## Ep 163 Seven

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-163-seven/
Air date: 12 February 2023
Duration: 01:13:57
Film: Seven · Year: 1995 · Director: David Fincher

### Description

“What’s in the box?” It’s Adam’s Birthday choice, and he’s opted for wacky screwball rom-com “Se7en” from Hollywood fun-meister David Fincher. “Se7en”, a bleak glimpse into a world spiralling into hell (a bit like the news, but featuring good-looking people you care about). We learn that a man sitting in his own excrement will usually move out of it if he can; we confirm that serial murderers never use their bath for washing; and someone stops Gwyneth Paltrow before she has a chance to make candles that smell like her fanny. The gold standard of art-y serial killer films, Se7en spawned hundreds of lesser imitators, but none of those have taken away the disturbing power of the original. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here for Adam's birthday choice and and the concluding part of Crazy Bastard month.
**Lee:** we are here covering Seven.
**Chris:** What a celebration we're having.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** It's it's all for you, Chris. He was like, I'm gonna make my wife's birthday really fucking miserable.
**Chris:** To be fair.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think he might have had that in mind.
**Lee:** There will be spoilers and there will be swearing, a little bit late for that, but you you know the score.
**Lee:** You've been here before, it's fine. so, yeah, for a very very dark morose sort of film, as you just showed us, Adam, there's some pretty good quotes in here.
**Adam:** So, yeah, for a very, very dark, morose sort of film, as you just showed us, Adam, there's some pretty good quotes in here.
**Adam:** Oh, but the thing I forgot is cuz this is, I mean, I was obsessed with Seven when it first came out. I think I saw it at the cinema at least three times. Then I had then I had it on video, I had it on DVD, then the DVD, yeah, so so what what year was you?
**Chris:** Really?
**Chris:** It's like 9456.
**Adam:** It's it's an interesting one, it's it's 95 but it was released over here in January 96.
**Chris:** Okay, but so that was probably a fairly early DVD, wasn't it? When did DVDs come out?
**Adam:** Yeah, it was, well, because that was the thing, so I got it on video, the DVD was probably about 98.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** Around the it was DVDs really took off with The Matrix.
**Adam:** So around yeah, 98, 99, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** and yeah, so I bought I I'd got it on video, I bought it on DVD, but it was like an original DVD where it's like interactive menus apparently count as a fucking special feature. And then the fuckers about three years later released like a double disc with commentaries and fuck it, pretty much the interesting thing is I've got it I I've I've accidentally inherited it on Blu-ray somehow, which is weird, it just turned up on Blu-ray, and I'm like, oh, well, I'm definitely it was like a batch of Blu-rays and they were like, oh, if you want anything out of them just take it. And I was like, well, I'll keep Seven.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Deluxe.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, that definitely I'll because I'll watch it again.
**Adam:** And yeah, there's not the that double disc is pretty much what's on the Blu-ray, there's no they really fucking did a massive job on it when they sort of released it on the special edition DVD.
**Lee:** But
**Lee:** but you're saying that I actually watched it again, because it was when it came out on the special deluxe double DVD, it was one of the first DVDs that Jennifer ever bought, and that was what I watched it on for this evening, and I can tell you, it looks like Dog Todd, it's fucking awful. Yeah, and it sounds terrible as well. It's such a and it's almost VHS quality. It's like they've just put the VHS on a disc. It's absolutely diabolical.
**Chris:** Does it?
**Adam:** Oh, well, well, I mean, I I'll be I'll have to say the fucking Blu-ray, yes, they've really it it's definitely the best I've ever seen it.
**Adam:** I mean, it's not quite when you we bought the DVD of Withnail & I after watching my shitty video and you actually realized that the opening sequence is in daylight and he's wearing a light blue jumper, not a dark fucking green one.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, it was but yeah, the the Blu-ray looks really fucking nice. And and actually that was one of the things that that came up that I and like I say, I was obsessed with the film, so a lot of sort of stuff notes and things that I took about it were actually me remembering stuff I'd read at the time when I was sort of obsessed over it and everything.
**Adam:** And for example, you're saying about like the trouble is with the colors is that David Fincher want basically, I think he's he described it as one of the make a black and white film in color.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's interesting.
**Adam:** And and obviously it's very like sort of film noir, sort of 40s detective, almost German expressionism sort of There's a lot of really dark contrast in it and so.
**Chris:** I guess he's he's kind of done a good job of turning that into something that is accessible still to I would imagine a lot of people.
**Adam:** Oh, definitely. I don't think he hasn't done it to the detriment of it being an entertainment entertaining film, it doesn't there's not enough to take you out of it.
**Adam:** But even when they were processing the film, they did a thing that was like called bleach bypass or silver retention or something like that. And basically celluloid film when you develop it, the blacks sort of wash out because they don't keep silver nitrate in the chemical composition of it, it gets like washed out.
**Adam:** But they actually had copies of it done with this silver retention thing, so if you saw that version, and I think that's what they've mastered like the latest versions of.
**Adam:** Is yeah, everything's like like it's none more black is you know, there are there are sort of parts of that where it's like it's like looking into an abyss, you know, it's not even sort of yeah.
**Chris:** Not not just metaphorically.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's it's literal absence.
**Adam:** It's really fucking sort of odd.
**Adam:** But yeah, that and so there was also stuff like that, he obviously had that sort of clear vision for it.
**Adam:** the one thing I got watching it, probably more than anything was
**Adam:** Holy shit, they really ripped this off for The Dark Knight.
**Adam:** Particularly the ends where it's a lot more all the action bits really feel like later Batman films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think much in the same way that Heat is definitely an influence on Christopher Nolan Batman films.
**Adam:** but yeah, definitely, I think Seven's and also so much of it is just, oh yeah, I remember the 90s because this film basically meant that every serial serial killer film or crime film afterwards for the next five years had wobbly, scribbled credit sequences and those little sort of things like that.
**Lee:** It's funny, watching it I was like, oh, this does remind me of my favorite music video of all time.
**Lee:** And then I looked and I was like, oh, yeah, David Fincher had made that music video around this time.
**Lee:** So that explains exactly why.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, Judas.
**Lee:** The video for Judith by A Perfect Circle, which is just phenomenal and looks exactly like this movie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It really does.
**Lee:** And it's got to be said, although I said it looks like absolute shit on DVD, it works for this film, because it's grainy and it's horrible. This film is just so miserable.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, and it it's funny, the other thing is I mean, this is 100% a horror movie through and through, but it is a it is a a police procedural effectively.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** So that's that's what I was surprised about how much it is about and also their relationship.
**Chris:** So them them as the the veteran detective
**Chris:** and the rookie, and how they play off each other, which I thought Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman worked, and it it's funny, I mean, my head, I I was trying to imagine how it would work before watching it.
**Chris:** And I really did like the way they both were, but yeah, just it it definitely is so much about detective side of it, which I wasn't really expecting that.
**Lee:** Well, they're two such completely different actors, which I think is why it works perfectly, because when you put them in as two people who work together, it doesn't doesn't quite work, as you know, as it doesn't when you just chucked in with somebody and you have to work with them all day every day.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** How they yeah.
**Lee:** and of course, because they're both Titans, they they just make it not work, but work at the same time.
**Lee:** Like it's
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It especially stood out when they have the scene where his wife, Mill's wife, which I forgotten her name, she invites.
**Adam:** Tracy.
**Chris:** Tracy, yeah, and she invites Somerset round, and it's like then the change and how it's that yeah, just really made it stand out.
**Adam:** See, that's the weird thing.
**Adam:** I mean, it's it starts grim, it starts on a fucking body.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And admittedly not one of the murders, but it starts on a body, so you're already there.
**Adam:** And you but that you you do get that feeling of it sort of softens you up a bit because you do get engaged by other aspects.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like I say, you've got like the the there's a certain thing, the the people who don't give a shit are funny because of not giving a shit, like the cops who it's just a job and they're not bothered.
**Adam:** And like when he's saying to why why don't you ask why are you asking whether the kid saw it, who cares?
**Adam:** You know what I mean? And there's it's almost humorously apathetic and sort of but actually it sort of comes to the heart of it of being
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I think.
**Adam:** neglect and negligence.
**Chris:** Yeah, is that yeah.
**Chris:** It does, that really does come across.
**Chris:** Like the whole city is just this horrible place.
**Adam:** Well, it's that that's the other thing as well.
**Adam:** It's basically Gotham without Batman.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** It's got a Joker and this is what happens if Batman's not around because there's no one
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** fucking enough to work against it in a way.
**Lee:** But it is it's that constant rain as well, which is exactly just makes it just it makes everything feel grimy and unpleasant and just horrible to be in.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that
**Adam:** And the weirdest thing is with that, the rain, that was all because they only had Brad Pitt for I think a week.
**Adam:** And they thought if the weather turns, we're fucked.
**Adam:** So they just had it raining all the time in case of bad weather.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Because it was like, right, if if if we film in brilliant sunshine and we make it rain, fine, but if we're filming if if we want it brilliant sunshine and it starts raining, we're fucked.
**Adam:** So, yeah, they just decided that that was.
**Adam:** I mean, it it definitely helps with the I don't think it's just purely that.
**Adam:** It definitely does help with the sort of.
**Chris:** I'm trying to figure.
**Chris:** Is there only time when it changes the end scene when they're driving out?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That sort of adds something.
**Adam:** Curiously.
**Adam:** Someone pointed out the first time you see the sun in the film is when John Doe turns up.
**Adam:** And and I suddenly I was suddenly struck by that because it was like something I hadn't seen online, but obviously all the stuff in there like paradise lost, like John Milton and the bit where it says, oh, if we meet him.
**Adam:** And he is actually the devil himself, then we might be, you know, that sort of line.
**Adam:** But then the devil turns up and Lucifer, the bringer of light.
**Adam:** So it's almost like he turns up and then it's sunlit.
**Adam:** But that's not actually a good thing in this circumstance, you know.
**Adam:** But it's interesting, because the the the one thing I I always found is that they do like the second half, the last third rather, like when John Doe turns up, that's the only time they really get on is when a they both real they both agree he's up to something.
**Adam:** And but also when they're sitting there when they're like shaving their chests for the to put the wire taps on.
**Adam:** And just yeah, that's the only time you see them really sort of like just knock about and.
**Lee:** Yeah, they really connect for the first time after an hour and a half of just being vaguely horrible, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I was like it's I was saying it is believable because this is quite a case for both of them to be on as a retiring and as his first case.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's that's another thing, I always I always forget that R Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket
**Adam:** is the police chief in this.
**Adam:** And he's just fucking again, there's another fantastically funny bit where he's like, when he answers the phone, this is not even my desk.
**Adam:** And then he just slams the phone down.
**Adam:** And they pull these things in and then roughly around the time of lust, because that is fucking vile.
**Adam:** Like the whole concept of that killing is so horrible.
**Adam:** That's kind of the turn into, oh, this is actually quite fucking
**Adam:** nasty.
**Adam:** You know, that's the point where it's like, oh no, this is, well, as they say, it isn't going to end well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it doesn't.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's
**Adam:** Yeah, just and like you say.
**Adam:** The the thing I've always, this is the story I heard like years ago.
**Adam:** Basically what happened was is that obviously there's I'll have to Andrew Kevin Walker, who's the scriptwriter who also
**Adam:** I think he did like a few, I think he did Sleepy Hollow.
**Adam:** but he's he's oh and he definitely did the Wolfman, the Benicio Del Toro version.
**Lee:** Do you know what? I don't think I've watched that again since we saw it at Leicester Square on its opening weekend.
**Adam:** But yeah, and he basically he'd written the script and it was as the ending was as you see.
**Adam:** Like in the film, or pretty much as you see in the film.
**Adam:** And basically he was touting the script around and lots of people were like, well, it's a really good script, but we're not going to be able to sell it with that ending.
**Adam:** So he revised the script as he was going and there were different versions flying around.
**Adam:** Brad Pitt got sent it to like, you know, to see if he was interested.
**Adam:** Accidentally got sent the original version.
**Adam:** And basically put his foot down and said, right, like it got on bold, then they said, oh, well, there's been a cock up, we've got and basically the ending was going to be they rescue like they get to his flat just as John Doe's breaking in and they rescue Tracy.
**Adam:** And, you know, and it's an an uplifting version of it, obviously.
**Adam:** And yeah, Brad Pitt basically said, well, I ain't doing the film unless we do the script I read.
**Adam:** Because that's the fucking good film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's
**Lee:** absolutely right.
**Lee:** Like if she'd got rescued at the end, I don't think it would have been the massive kicking the stomach that everyone gets when they first see it.
**Lee:** And in my mind, you see her head in this box, when I watched it back, and I was like, oh, no, you just see a cardboard box and they tell you what's in it, you never in my mind, I was convinced we'd seen it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I can't believe.
**Adam:** There is a weird.
**Adam:** There is a weird little thing though, is and it's weird because of obviously David Fincher going on to do Fight Club.
**Adam:** I there's a just at the end, just before, I think it's actually seven minutes before the end of the film is the timing of it.
**Adam:** But basically, there is a subliminal cut of Gwyneth Paltrow's face.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's not
**Adam:** it's not her beheaded or anything else like that, it's literally just a close-up of her face.
**Adam:** And they flash it just at the point where Mills works out what's in when he says her lovely head.
**Adam:** And he's like trying to control himself.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they flash it in at that point.
**Adam:** So kind of you do see it.
**Chris:** You do.
**Adam:** But it's on on a pretty subconscious level, as it were.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Lee:** I've got to say, like I I went through a phase of being as I I think I said it on the interview with the vampire episode of being like Brad Pitt is not a great actor.
**Lee:** And I don't know why, like he's a pretty boy and that's why he gets all these roles.
**Lee:** And I think the reason is, he did about three films in a short period where he played effectively the same kind of character, and it was this and Fight Club, and 12 Monkeys.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** And like he's got very similar mannerisms in all of them, and I think that's kind of why I wrote him off to some degree.
**Lee:** but yeah, obviously like when you look at his whole broad sheet of work now,
**Lee:** it's incredible when you can see how diverse he is, the film he did last year, Bullet Train.
**Adam:** Oh yes.
**Lee:** Oh, that was just absolutely spectacular, I can't wait to rewatch that, it was fantastic.
**Lee:** but yeah, I think that's what it was, like he did a few films in a short period where he he acted too similarly, like he didn't show his full range, which we we now know he's got.
**Lee:** And if you look back at his previous films, but I think a lot of the stuff he did before wasn't things I'd have watched.
**Lee:** So the start that he did within my field of interest was all a bit similar.
**Lee:** And I was like, he's just another person who like he's all right, but he just always plays the same.
**Chris:** It's just a Tom Cruise.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Basically, and then but yeah, but now going back to I was like, but it but it nails it.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** It does.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** In this character.
**Lee:** He's exactly right.
**Lee:** Like that.
**Chris:** I I was trying to decide which films it was going to be that you'd say the three.
**Chris:** But I I loved him in 12 Monkeys and Fight Club and.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, 12 Monkeys he did immediately after this, that's what he had to that's why they only had him for seven days because he was going to be filming in 12 Monkeys.
**Adam:** And yeah, and obviously Fight Club, I think like three years afterwards, because you've got because they because obviously that's David Fincher as well and you've got the game with Michael Douglas in the middle of it.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because they.
**Chris:** So I I had a long.
**Adam:** That is good.
**Adam:** Although it used to be, there used to be that thing where people said that David Fincher was like Star Trek movies, all the even numbered ones were good.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** Which sort of worked up until the point where it was like, so Benjamin Button counted as a crap one, and yeah, and then the next film was The Social Network and it was like, I'd rather cut my genitals off with a rusty knife than watch anything to do with fucking.
**Chris:** Was like.
**Adam:** I was like, this cannot be fascinating.
**Chris:** Although I haven't haven't watched it yet.
**Adam:** You got the man who punished the world through seven deadly.
**Adam:** And now it's this is the bloke who invented Facebook.
**Adam:** Fuck me, actually have sequences in this.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** I'm I'm assuming he doesn't show him in a good light.
**Adam:** I don't know, I genuinely do not know.
**Adam:** I could not bring myself to watch it.
**Lee:** No, nor me.
**Lee:** Mind you, saying that, I've not seen Benjamin Button either, so.
**Adam:** Benjamin Button was just a bit sort of.
**Adam:** It was like, imagine if I think the best it reminded me a bit of like if Guillermo Del Toro was a bit too sentimental.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Sort of like like a rich box of chocolates, you know.
**Adam:** So I feel a bit sick now.
**Adam:** But but actually in thinking but this was something I hadn't realized as well, but now all four principal cast members are Oscar winners.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And Kevin Spacey's won twice.
**Adam:** He won for Usual Suspects and American Beauty.
**Adam:** So he won like best actor and best.
**Adam:** And actually Brad Pitt was the last of them to get an Oscar, he got it for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
**Chris:** Which is another film that you really liked.
**Lee:** That that is an amazing.
**Adam:** That helped to cement Brad Pitt as as a good actor too.
**Lee:** Holy kick ass.
**Adam:** The weirdest thing is Brad Pitt really plays an idiot well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like Mills is not Mills is well meaning but not the smartest guy.
**Adam:** And like Burn After Reading.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** He is you know, he is just a total goon in that.
**Adam:** You know, he's just.
**Lee:** He is hilarious in that.
**Lee:** Like he is one of the crowning things in that film.
**Lee:** He just absolutely.
**Adam:** But he does he does it's weird that you can that because it's not because it's never a a sort of like you say, you what's the what was the term, Claire? Distractingly handsome which was and yeah, and so but it's never a really good to look an idiot, but he's he's
**Unknown:** Distractingly handsome.
**Lee:** That was.
**Lee:** That was why.
**Adam:** he can do it and channel it well.
**Adam:** And you know, it's.
**Adam:** You know, he's not there thinking I'm gonna look I'm gonna look bad.
**Adam:** You know, he's he's acting.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Absolutely, and Claire's absolutely right, because that was the reason he didn't get his break in the Elvira movie, wasn't it?
**Lee:** He turned up for the audition as one of the teenagers in the Elvira movie.
**Lee:** and yeah, Cassandra Patterson said, look, you can't have this kid here, and then I go for the other guy, because there's no way you wouldn't go for Brad Pitt, so you'll have to cast somebody else, because.
**Adam:** Yeah, because then it gets faintly as well, because he's a high school.
**Lee:** that as well.
**Lee:** you're talking about supporting cast.
**Lee:** I'd never noticed before, I say, I've not watched this film in probably 15 years, John C. McGinley in this as the head of the SWAT team.
**Adam:** Yeah, California.
**Lee:** Yeah, well, he's I was like, hang on a fucking minute, I definitely I didn't even see his face.
**Lee:** I just knew the voice straight away, and I was like, that's definitely him.
**Lee:** And I went and Googled it, and I was like, shit, yeah, it is.
**Lee:** And he's in it a few times, you know.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'd completely I I totally forgot that it was him, I'd never noticed it was him before, and I think weirdly enough, it was probably the connections that I would have made were after my Seven obsession or whatever like that.
**Adam:** but yeah, he's fucking great in it.
**Adam:** Again.
**Adam:** Not afraid to look an idiot.
**Adam:** Because, you know, this is the thing, you do realize that the police are fairly inept.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In that I mean, basically because their best detective just has given up.
**Adam:** And yeah, everyone else is a fucking tithead, is.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, and Morgan Freeman obviously is such an outstanding actor.
**Lee:** but he does, he plays the character in this as someone, as you say, who's given up.
**Lee:** And he's just like.
**Lee:** I I I can't do this, like I I can't make enough of a difference to ruin my life to not have enough of an effect.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** And it's really he just plays it so solidly, it's Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** absolutely incredible.
**Chris:** So what I was trying to work out, it's and it'd be kind of good to go through.
**Chris:** The seven sins again, just to remember them.
**Chris:** But so so the purpose of John Doe, like he cuz it was fascinating when they're talking in the car.
**Chris:** And and he is explaining it, and because you start off and you sort of like, you know, you hate him.
**Chris:** But then he's talking and he's like, there's some sense to it, there's no point would I say this is the way that you should try and bring around change.
**Chris:** But his idea of it needs to be hard hitting.
**Chris:** And then at the very end, the detective Somerset says something like it's a fine world and I'm gonna fight for it.
**Chris:** And I.
**Adam:** It's a fine world.
**Adam:** And worth fighting for.
**Chris:** Worth fighting for.
**Chris:** And I'm gonna I believe the second part of it.
**Chris:** So like what what's he mean there?
**Chris:** Like is he's not gonna retire?
**Adam:** I don't.
**Adam:** Well, because there's the thing where he says where have you been, he just goes around.
**Adam:** And you're like, oh, so you're probably not going to retire.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because in a weird way, John Doe has shaken him out of his apathy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, that's it.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** Because he's like, well, I've got to I've got to do something if this is the result.
**Adam:** If this is like the final of where this goes, perhaps I do need to step in.
**Adam:** And because it's interesting because you I love there's a lot of sort of stuff that's unwritten in it.
**Adam:** That really works well like when the police chief comes in and talks to him.
**Adam:** And he's like saying, oh, well, look, yeah, he'll go off and do this, like after the greed and gluttony killings.
**Adam:** And then he says, oh, yeah, the lab sent this down, yeah, it was fed to him.
**Adam:** And it's just the way he says it as he's like, you're gonna.
**Adam:** I know that you cannot leave this.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** The way he picks it up.
**Chris:** So so what was it?
**Chris:** It was bits of plastic.
**Adam:** It's shavings from under the fridge.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Where he's dragged the fridge out, and it rips bits of the Lino, he feeds him the Lino so that he knows it'll be found, and then they'll drag the fridge, because he's worried that they won't see that he's hidden it behind the fridge.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And like you say, it is it's that bating game, it's like in the other film, with that you won't you could walk away at this point.
**Lee:** But if I just give you enough to keep you mentally challenged, you'll stick to it.
**Chris:** And that's that's when realizing the apathy.
**Chris:** To some degree as well, he knows that the cops won't necessarily spend the amount of time they really need to.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think, well, I think also, because I was reassured in a weird way, watching it back this time, of how little I just how how not much, but how to an extent I disagreed with John Doe.
**Adam:** Or certainly certainly in his choice of victims.
**Adam:** You know, when he says, well, they're they're, you know, when he's like arguing that they're not innocent and it's like, well, yeah, and Sloth and possibly the lawyer.
**Chris:** But this.
**Adam:** You know, actually the bit with the lawyer where it's like and you were both secretly thanking me for that one.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Again.
**Chris:** That's why that that was a good dialogue.
**Chris:** Like oh, yeah, because it was it was funny and horrible, like it was a good mixture, you know, pretty short time.
**Adam:** And brilliantly delivered as well.
**Lee:** It's quite a lot of what I'm sure all of us think of big face.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Lee:** He's.
**Chris:** I was shocked when I saw him here, I did not know he was in it at all.
**Chris:** I was like, what, okay, that's.
**Adam:** Again, part of his deal with coming on board was that he didn't want his name on any posters or pre-publicity.
**Adam:** Because as he because as he said, right, you're looking for a killer, I haven't turned up for an hour, it's pretty obvious at this point, I'm the killer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that that makes a lot of sense.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, so he's credited twice.
**Adam:** Because when the credits roll, it's it just says Kevin Spacey as John Doe.
**Adam:** like a continuation of the opening credits almost.
**Adam:** And then you get the cast list and he is he's cast in order of appearance, so he's credited for at the point where he appears as the photographer.
**Chris:** As the photographer, yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** But yeah, so I think I'd said like I definitely had we started to watch it, it was very late and I must have fallen asleep.
**Chris:** And that's probably like because it is, like you say, dark, rainy, it's not massive action.
**Adam:** It slides in.
**Adam:** It's only.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Like so watching it this time really like it was really hard hitting and
**Chris:** Yeah, but and the the deaths are gruesome.
**Chris:** Like.
**Chris:** They I I guess I don't know, I mean, what else would it have compared to at the time that was this big.
**Chris:** that and still this horrible.
**Adam:** Not even that, I was gonna say that because a lot of people drew parallels because of obviously Silence of the Lambs.
**Adam:** Because that was the.
**Chris:** They they mentioned that.
**Chris:** Is it and they they said something about Jodie Foster.
**Chris:** In fact, again, there's some of the quotes that they said what was it.
**Adam:** The Jodie Foster quote is actually a taxi driver reference.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** Because basically she was in the film Taxi Driver, and a guy called John Hinckley Jr. believed that he needed to save her and somehow that led to him attempting to kill Ronald Reagan when he was President of the United States.
**Adam:** He shot Ronald Reagan.
**Adam:** Obviously didn't kill him.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** And that was so yeah, Jodie Foster made me do it is because of him.
**Adam:** And my dog made me do it is obviously Son of Sam Berkowitz, yeah.
**Adam:** So but yeah, there's.
**Adam:** I think that's what I mean, I think that and I think all the way through, weirdly enough, we sort of, you know, when we've had a lot of films where it's like, for example, Scream, where people know they're in a horror movie and things like that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas with this, it's actually quite a nice throwback of someone who he thinks he's in a Bruce Willis movie.
**Adam:** He thinks he's in Die Hard.
**Adam:** And it's like he keeps like at the start, Ladies and gentlemen, we got ourselves a homicide and Somerset and the pathologist just look at him like, you prick.
**Adam:** Because he's sort of like trying to do, I don't know, James Bond Jack Burton one liners.
**Adam:** And but and you know, it's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's never a really good to look an idiot, but he's he's but they also wanted to do a different opening titles.
**Adam:** And originally it was gonna be there's a there is a deleted scene of right at the start was gonna be Somerset viewing a cottage he's gonna retire to, like a place in the country.
**Adam:** And then the titles were gonna run over his train journey back to the city, and they ran out of budget, so they couldn't film that.
**Adam:** So instead, they were like, well, we've got these fucking mad bastards books, you know, and and then you get that title sequence that is really fucking iconic and really and you've got obviously you've got like Nine Inch Nails remixed by Coil over the credits of that.
**Adam:** And it's just sort of like, yeah, just out of.
**Adam:** The fact that you ran out of budget to do a what I would argue, a fucking more boring title sequence, get that.
**Chris:** I was thinking it back to that, yeah, the constraints sometimes work very well.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Adam:** And but yeah, there was so.
**Adam:** Yeah, they mentioned Divine Comedy.
**Adam:** History of Catholicism and murderers and murderers and madmen, I couldn't find either of those as like a specific book, frankly, modern homicide investigation, which is a subtitle of practical information for coroners, police officers and other investigators, cult in cold blood, the Truman Capote book, which is Marcus Park's favorite true crime book, I believe.
**Adam:** Noth for us.
**Adam:** Yeah, of human bondage, Marquis de Sade.
**Adam:** And let's face it.
**Adam:** Everyone's favorite perv, the mark there he is.
**Adam:** Dirty bastard.
**Adam:** Oh, I'm assuming that that was going to be 120 Days of Sodom.
**Adam:** AKA 101 recipes for the unwilling coprophage.
**Adam:** Yeah, that that is definitely would be appeal to John Doe.
**Adam:** It's like so it's like here's this book about people, you know, doing the most horrendous fucking things to prove how shit society is.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** But one I found really interesting though is because they mentioned Saint Thomas Aquinas, and I was like, right, I've got to look this up.
**Adam:** And he was a he was a monk, he was a 13th century philosopher, and he's actually the patron saint of teachers.
**Chris:** Was he a philosopher?
**Adam:** And basically eventually his his philosophy was adopted as the philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. Now bearing in mind this was he was around around in the 1200s, they adopted it in 1917.
**Adam:** So that's how forward moving, you know, these these things are.
**Adam:** but basically he he was the first person who tried to reconcile science with religion and like reason with faith.
**Adam:** and he made the argument that reason, as given to humanity by God, was universal, and so intelligence isn't just for those who are of the Christian faith.
**Adam:** God will bestow this upon all of humanity, and so you can still learn and you can still take concepts and ideas from other cultures.
**Adam:** that aren't necessarily and obviously in those points, we're not just talking Christian, we're just talking about nations that are under various religions.
**Adam:** That's really the ruling sort of system.
**Adam:** And so his example was because do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
**Adam:** Which obviously.
**Adam:** was one of Christ's teachings.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But as he pointed out, that also is pretty much the foundation of most working civilizations or working relationships or working groups.
**Adam:** And so he proposed that there were two there were two laws that govern the universe.
**Adam:** It was natural law, which is basically everything you can understand, everything you can that has an explanation or has a reason behind it.
**Adam:** So for example, that was natural law.
**Adam:** So do unto others as you would do as you would have done unto you is natural law because that works.
**Adam:** And it is a philosophy, it's a science, it's got, you know.
**Adam:** Whereas eternal law is basically all the weird shit God does, like angels appearing to people and prophecy.
**Adam:** Because remember, obviously he is.
**Adam:** He's the 13th century.
**Adam:** So he split it apart and basically said, well, they both are part of the same thing and it was a real oddly enough, it's it's it was a real leap forward in the idea that oh no, we can go to these people who we don't have the same belief as.
**Adam:** But that doesn't mean that their belief in how to make glass or how to make Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, is it's not wrong just because they're they're religious in our religion.
**Adam:** And yeah, so and like I say.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously it took a few fucking centuries for them to sort of think that might have been a nice thing to put out there.
**Adam:** But the thing that struck me is because I was I read all this and I was quite.
**Adam:** And then John Doe says God moves in mysterious ways, and he is almost saying that he is eternal law.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So there's so where they're saying what's the reason behind it?
**Adam:** Why were you doing it, John?
**Adam:** And he's like, well, you know, God moves in mysterious ways, he believes that because he's on God's mission, he is eternal law.
**Adam:** And he is not bound by reason, and it's a really fucking fascinating sort of concept.
**Adam:** And again, it's that whole thing of going.
**Adam:** Go and do the reading, because you get a real richness out of the film.
**Adam:** But also not one that you need to fucking do.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's funny, now you say that.
**Lee:** It makes me wonder if the last words that Morgan Freeman delivers actually, although it's his realization of, you know, the world's a shitty place, but I will into fight for it, does that also does that therefore apply to him and to John Doe, because John Doe feels the same, the world is a shit place, and he is also willing to fight for it, but from the from the opposite direction.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I didn't.
**Lee:** I didn't think about that.
**Lee:** It just.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It's all sort of things.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's just it's almost like and actually one thing that came up because you've got he does mention about the seven.
**Adam:** cardinal virtues, which are in opposition to the seven deadly sins.
**Adam:** But also some I can't remember.
**Adam:** It is but it's a branch of Orthodox Christianity that has eight deadly sins and despair is the eighth deadly sin, which could be, you know, which could be argued that is what he is.
**Adam:** He's exhibiting, he is the eighth sin is Somerset.
**Adam:** And but yeah, there's I mean.
**Adam:** I will tell you this, because this is gonna make you vomit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, again, fantastic moment.
**Adam:** Oh, fucking vomit and it's like.
**Adam:** Was there any blood in it?
**Adam:** I didn't see.
**Adam:** No, I'm just telling yourself out, you know.
**Adam:** But so obviously, the film did really well, and it one of those weird moments.
**Adam:** You know when it's like, that was a really good song.
**Adam:** That got to number one.
**Adam:** How the fuck did that happen?
**Adam:** How did you fuckers get this?
**Adam:** After all this time.
**Adam:** but yeah, so New Line Cinema, the distributor wanted to to and again, let's face it, they're not afraid of the fucking sequel, are they?
**Adam:** So they wanted to do a sequel called eight.
**Adam:** This was 2002.
**Adam:** So we're talking like seven years after the fucking first time round.
**Adam:** But they.
**Adam:** They'd got a spec script called Solice.
**Adam:** And they adapted it to be eight, the sequel to seven, in which where are we?
**Adam:** Somerset has developed psychic powers and is pursuing a similarly psychic killer.
**Adam:** And basically it fell through when everyone involved with seven just said, fuck off.
**Adam:** I'm not doing that, that sounds like bullshit.
**Adam:** In fact, the direct quote from David Fincher was.
**Adam:** I would be less interested in that than I would in having cigarettes put out in my eyes.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But Solice was eventually filmed as Solice with Anthony Hopkins as the psychic detective.
**Adam:** And Colin Farrell as the killer, and none of us have seen it or heard of it.
**Lee:** I'm writing it down.
**Lee:** When you were saying it, I was like, that is an absolute travesty, would I watch it?
**Lee:** 100%.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, that's the thing, that's what sickens me about is I know I would have been watching it.
**Lee:** I'd be watching that.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** It's gonna be dreadful.
**Adam:** But it's it's the sheer interest of that point, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** Look at Troll.
**Lee:** Troll and Troll 2.
**Adam:** That's very good.
**Adam:** That's good.
**Lee:** Nothing whatsoever to do with it, second one's so much better than the first, I mean, I don't think it's gonna be better than seven.
**Lee:** Let's not.
**Adam:** If it is, please tell me, because then I can get a whole new obsession.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** obviously.
**Adam:** I've got to mention the end music, Hearts Filthy Lesson by David Bowie.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Fuck me, that was that was a pure boner pop when that hit at the fucking end of that.
**Adam:** I've just watched this amazing film, there's a bloke in it and he was and it was like fucking miserable.
**Adam:** And it's.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's right.
**Adam:** That's what life is like, it's fucking shit, didn't Morgan, and then Bowie kicked him with fucking up, the lesson.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh my God.
**Adam:** This is the greatest cinematic experience of all time.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But the weird thing is is it was that comes from Bowie's Outside album, and the concept of Outside is an art murderer.
**Adam:** It's a guy who makes works of art by.
**Adam:** mutilating and murdering people and displaying the a bit like Hannibal, like the TV series of Hannibal where it gets into all those sort of designs and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So even that's on point with the you know, thematically.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Adam:** And but yeah, there was so.
**Adam:** Yeah, they mentioned Divine Comedy, History of Catholicism, and murderers and murderers and madmen.
**Adam:** I couldn't find either of those as like a specific book, frankly.
**Adam:** like I said, modern homicide investigation, which is a subtitle of practical information for coroners, police officers and other investigators, cult in cold blood, the Truman Capote book, which is Marcus Park's favorite true crime book, I believe.
**Adam:** Noth for us.
**Adam:** Yeah, of human bondage, Marquis de Sade.
**Adam:** And let's face it, everyone's favorite perv, the mark there he is.
**Adam:** Dirty bastard.
**Adam:** Oh, I'm assuming that that was going to be 120 Days of Sodom.
**Adam:** AKA 101 recipes for the unwilling coprophage.
**Adam:** Cuz yeah, that that is that that definitely would be appeal to John Doe.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** So it's like.
**Adam:** Here's this book about people, you know, doing the most horrendous fucking things to prove how shit society is.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** But one I found really interesting though is because they mentioned Saint Thomas Aquinas.
**Adam:** And I was like, right.
**Adam:** I've got to look this up, and he was a he was a monk, he was a 13th century philosopher, and he's actually the patron saint of teachers.
**Adam:** And basically eventually his his philosophy was adopted as the philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. Now bearing in mind this was he was around around in the 1200s, they adopted it in 1917.
**Adam:** So that's how forward moving, you know, these these things are.
**Adam:** but basically he he was the first person who tried to reconcile science with religion and like reason with faith.
**Adam:** And he made the argument that reason, as given to humanity by God, was universal, and so intelligence isn't just for those who are of the Christian faith.
**Adam:** God will bestow this upon all of humanity, and so you can still learn and you can still take concepts and ideas from other cultures.
**Adam:** that aren't necessarily and obviously in those points, we're not just talking Christian, we're just talking about nations that are under various religions, that's really the ruling sort of system.
**Adam:** And so for his example was because do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
**Adam:** Which obviously was one of Christ's teachings.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But as he pointed out, that also is pretty much the foundation of most working civilizations or working relationships or working groups.
**Adam:** And so he proposed that there were two there were two laws that govern the universe.
**Adam:** It was natural law, which is basically everything you can understand, everything you can that has an explanation or has a reason behind it.
**Adam:** So for example, that was natural law.
**Adam:** So do unto others as you would do as you would have done unto you is natural law because that works.
**Adam:** And it is a philosophy, it's a science, it's got, you know.
**Adam:** Whereas eternal law is basically all the weird shit God does, like angels appearing to people and prophecy.
**Adam:** Because remember, obviously he is.
**Adam:** He's the 13th century.
**Adam:** So he split it apart and basically said, well, they both are part of the same thing and it was a real oddly enough, it's it's it was a real leap forward in the idea that oh no, we can go to these people who we don't have the same belief as.
**Adam:** But that doesn't mean that their belief in how to make glass or how to make Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, is it's not wrong just because they're they're religious in our religion.
**Adam:** And yeah, so and like I say, I mean, obviously it took a few fucking centuries for them to sort of think that might have been a nice thing to put out there.
**Adam:** But the thing that struck me is because I was I read all this and I was quite.
**Adam:** And then John Doe says God moves in mysterious ways, and he is almost saying that he is eternal law.
**Adam:** So there's so where they're saying what's the reason behind it, why were you doing it, John?
**Adam:** And he's like, well, you know, God moves in mysterious ways, he believes that because he's on God's mission, he is eternal law.
**Adam:** And he is not bound by reason, and it's a really fucking fascinating sort of concept.
**Adam:** And again, it's that whole thing of.
**Adam:** Go and do the reading, because you get a real richness out of the film.
**Adam:** But also not one that you need to fucking do.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** This is when it's done well, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly, this is one of those films where the deeper you delve into it, the better it becomes almost.
**Lee:** Because there's so much that are almost throw away lines that you would just accept.
**Lee:** But when you actually, you know, as you say, do the research and look into it, or just take the time to think about it.
**Lee:** You know, like you were saying, you know, a lot of what John Doe is saying to some degree, although you obviously don't agree with the way he's going about it.
**Lee:** A lot of the things he's saying, you're like, well, I can kind of see why someone who is unhinged would would latch onto these things and see it that way.
**Lee:** And it's so well.
**Lee:** It's so well thought out, it's such a fantastic script.
**Adam:** It's it's a presentation of how ideas are dangerous.
**Adam:** Yeah, really.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** And I actually I don't think I appreciate it at the time.
**Lee:** And I'm so glad that you chose it, Adam, because I'd like I, as I say.
**Lee:** It's been so many years since I've seen it, and yeah, Lady Jennifer and I watched it again in the week.
**Lee:** And we're just like, holy shit, that's so much darker, so much deeper and so much better than I'd ever remembered it being.
**Lee:** Even on a ship print, so yeah, good call, and happy birthday.
**Adam:** Thank you.
**Chris:** Happy birthday.
**Lee:** Thank you.
**Lee:** An amazing choice.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm absolutely blown away with that.
**Lee:** yeah, and I was just absolutely blown away by it, and it's gonna be a regular rewatch for me.
**Lee:** I think I'm definitely gonna become a film I watch far more regularly because it's just got so much to it.
**Lee:** And it's just such a beautiful film to look at.
**Adam:** Oh, that's fucking.
**Adam:** Yeah, brilliant, man.
**Adam:** I was like.
**Chris:** I think also we should all read the books.
**Chris:** Eventually.
**Adam:** Well, I've I've read Paradise Lost, but I admit I was on speed.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So I I I sort of knew I sort of knew what I mean.
**Adam:** I've I've Well, I was gonna say I've read The Divine Comedy, no, I haven't.
**Adam:** I've listened to the radio adaptation with John.
**Adam:** So that counts.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** so for our next episode, are we gonna be doing what we've been watching?
**Lee:** do we wanna give people a chance, because our next episode after that is a Blu-ray which is coming out on pre-release.
**Lee:** It well, it's it's on pre-release now.
**Lee:** But it's not coming out.
**Lee:** So do we wanna give people the heads up so they get the opportunity to go and pre-order it if they like to follow us?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So, following our trip to Horror on Sea and seeing eating Miss Campbell, which very much enjoyed.
**Lee:** we are going to be covering after what we've been watching.
**Lee:** So in one month's time, we are going to be covering my Bloody Banjo.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, which we said was the prequel to Eating Miss Campbell.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's it's out on pre-release on Blu-ray.
**Lee:** So go and get it and yeah.
**Lee:** It it's it's the next film we're gonna cover, and I'm guessing a bit like eating Miss Campbell.
**Lee:** It's gonna be really fun and really exciting and really gory and fucking ludicrous.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** So go and get it because I think it's gonna be one of those films that you you're gonna want to have seen it before we discuss it.
**Adam:** Yeah, you could be.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So we'll do it that.
**Lee:** So we'll do Class of Nuke 'Em High, then we'll do my Bloody Banjo, just so that you've got time to pre-order, get your Blu-ray and watch it before we cover it.
**Lee:** So get out there and get that.
**Lee:** get Class of Nuke 'Em High because That's I believe streaming on Shutter.
**Adam:** Oh, is it really?
**Adam:** At the moment, yes.
**Lee:** Oh, excellent.
**Lee:** Right, then I won't have to watch my again my terrible DVD version, which I bought for three quid about 20 years ago.
**Adam:** That is probably worth about like 100 quid now.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah, to get.
**Adam:** A lot of the stuff is now.
**Lee:** Oh, I've got I I say I've got.
**Lee:** It doesn't belong to me, but in the I have got Toxic Avenger 2 on VHS that belongs to Dr. Dean, my brother.
**Adam:** He's not a real doctor.
**Lee:** He's.
**Lee:** Yeah, so.
**Lee:** He's.
**Lee:** Don't ask him for advice.
**Adam:** He's unsolicited, but he will give it.
**Lee:** But don't.
**Lee:** Don't fucking listen.
**Lee:** Anyway, thanks ever so much for listening, happy birthday to Adam.
**Lee:** Cheers.
**Adam:** Cheers.
**Lee:** An amazing choice.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely blown away with that.
**Lee:** yeah, and we will see you all.
**Lee:** In a fortnight's time to let you know what we've been watching.
**Lee:** Thanks very much.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 162 The Perfect Host

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-162-the-perfect-host/
Air date: 29 January 2023
Duration: 00:45:07
Film: The Perfect Host · Year: 2010 · Director: Nick Tomnay

### Description

We kick off the new year with “The Perfect Host”; a film in which… no, that would be telling… We here at WTH are very much of the opinion that this particular film, like revenge, is best served cold. Avoid spoilers, articles and even the trailer in case you miss the opportunity to watch “The Perfect Host” completely fresh, with no idea what’s to come. This episode is packed with spoilers, and we don’t want you to miss that initial experience of seeing it without any idea of where it’s going, so please watch it before listening. We assure you that you will be entertained, amused, baffled, surprised and a lot more besides watching this film, and, like us, come away thinking “why the hell isn’t this film better known?” The only spoiler here is that all at WTH genuinely love this film; and if you like other films we have raved over, you will too. It just remains to shout “Conga!” and hope you enjoy. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we're here for a film that we should definitely have covered before now, but somehow it slipped our minds.
**Lee:** Before we go into this, we were just talking off off mic, saying that this is definitely a film, if you like the same stuff as us and you share our sense of humor,
**Lee:** we're gonna try and do the first 10 or 15 minutes spoiler-free, but you have to spoil this film and it is twist after twist after twist.
**Lee:** So, if you like the stuff we like and you haven't heard of or seen this movie,
**Lee:** do yourself a favor, track it down, track it down, watch it, don't watch a trailer, don't look at anything about it, go in blind and it will be an absolute blast of a time.
**Lee:** I think it's fair to say that.
**Chris:** I'd be even tempted to say try and avoid looking at the cover, but that's that could be difficult.
**Adam:** It it depends on the cover, the cover.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** That's that's an interesting point, yeah.
**Adam:** He's just David Hyde Pierce holding a glass of wine.
**Chris:** Oh, I'd see that's oh.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** You know, it's not as.
**Chris:** That says a lot by the end of the film.
**Lee:** See.
**Adam:** But then.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's well it's the same with the trailer, so if you watch the trailer, it tells you bits of the story more than it's good to know going in.
**Lee:** But once you then go back and watch it again and it makes more then you like, there's so much in there that couldn't have given it away.
**Lee:** But at the time when you don't know.
**Chris:** You just want to Yeah, you're like, What?
**Lee:** What?
**Chris:** What?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'm I'm gonna put this, and this is again something that we I don't do lightly and I don't think the rest of the podcast do lightly.
**Adam:** I would put this in the same bracket as Inside Number 9, in the sense of please watch it before we spoil it.
**Chris:** But I'd still be tempted to say you you'll still get a lot out of it even if it's spoiled, as there is so much to like.
**Adam:** The journey of the film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** He's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** There's something subtle.
**Chris:** like, so I think I said.
**Chris:** last episode, or the episode before, David Hyde Pierce, I only know him from Frasier.
**Chris:** I know you said he's in Simpsons, that doesn't add much to this necessarily.
**Chris:** Or perhaps it maybe it does, but and but it's yeah.
**Chris:** Like, just he I mean, I think.
**Chris:** I'm gonna have to watch more films with him in.
**Chris:** I don't know how many there are, but really, I was so impressed.
**Adam:** I was I will I was going through like just obviously, like you say, he's Niles Crane, Fraser's brother in Frasier.
**Chris:** And he does play a if this could potentially be Niles.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Could.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But and and it worked unbelievably well.
**Adam:** Well, also, and apparently, he's also as Niles Crane in the TV show Caroline in the City.
**Adam:** Which apparently is a shared universe with Frasier and.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Friends and other there's a lot of that in American American TV, there's the the program and elsewhere links to about six other shows, including like the X-Files and NYPD Blue and stuff like that.
**Chris:** Sounds impressive.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's worth.
**Adam:** It's worth looking into.
**Adam:** But but yeah, in terms of other stuff he's done, I always forget he's in Wolf, you know, the Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer werewolf film.
**Lee:** Do you know what? I don't think I've seen that.
**Adam:** Have you not?
**Adam:** I've seen it for for years, I couldn't even I can't recall.
**Chris:** I've never heard of it.
**Adam:** Particularly well.
**Adam:** Maybe again, should we stick it on the list?
**Chris:** Because it sounds like it's worth.
**Adam:** It's well, it's it's one of those things where it's like, I remember I I had it on video.
**Adam:** I've never upgraded on that.
**Adam:** but I didn't.
**Chris:** It's Jack Nicholson as a werewolf.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I mean that that seems like a suitable role for him to play.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, undoubtedly.
**Adam:** I think the trouble is though, is is that if I recall rightly, obviously, it's the whole thing is a bit much in the same way as Claire said when she watched the shining.
**Adam:** There is an element of I'm just waiting for Jack to go full Jack.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And you know that that's what's gonna happen.
**Adam:** When he become when he becomes a werewolf.
**Adam:** Is you gonna get.
**Adam:** full mad fucking Jack.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, so he's in that, he's in the Fisher King, the Terry Gilliam film.
**Adam:** Sleepless in Seattle, Adam's Family Values.
**Adam:** Little man Tate, which I'm only gonna mention because of the amount of times I use the insult, Little Man Tate.
**Adam:** he's in Vampire's Kiss.
**Adam:** He was in episodes of The Outer Limits, he is Krusty's brother, Cecil Terwilliger.
**Adam:** Yeah, not Krusty, Sideshow Bob's brother in The Simpsons, Cecil Terwilliger.
**Adam:** In Brother from Another Show.
**Adam:** And that kind of does work towards this, because it turns out in The Simpsons, it turns out he's the villain and not Sideshow Bob.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** So I guess I guess we've actually gone straight.
**Chris:** We've just given a bit of a spoiler at that point.
**Adam:** I don't know, what's more for The Simpsons than anything.
**Adam:** he's the voice of Abe Sapien in the first Hellraiser The Hellraiser, Hellboy movie.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
**Adam:** but he is not credited, because he he said most of the performance was Doug Jones.
**Adam:** who's obviously portraying the physical Abe Sapien, and Doug Jones actually plays him in Hellraiser, in fucking Hellraiser.
**Chris:** But that's funny.
**Adam:** Hellboy too.
**Chris:** But that's funny though, do you not recognize his voice pretty clearly? So it seems a bit odd to still somehow.
**Adam:** Oh, it's very clear.
**Adam:** It's him.
**Adam:** and yeah, he's the Emperor Zombie in the amazing screw-on head, and he's in A Bug's Life, and Osmosis Jones, so he does a lot of voiceover.
**Chris:** He does a lot of voiceover, yeah.
**Adam:** But I think it is from that point of view, like you say, Chris, where he's a very distinctive.
**Adam:** actor, and he brings a very distinctive idea of what sort of character he's going to play.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But and that's why when we get more into this, it's fascinating to see what he does in this film.
**Chris:** Because it is Niles, but it's not Niles.
**Chris:** And it's like there's a subtle almost too subtle changes that actually are quite powerful, but still him, and yet a totally different role, really.
**Chris:** It's it's yeah, it's quite amazing.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean that's the thing, this this is one of those films where the entire film hinges on his performance.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** but but so I was thinking absolutely, right.
**Chris:** But the I did actually think they John did match him well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** They almost both had a bit of that
**Chris:** Yeah, it was sort of the both their performances, because they're well, they're acting within acting.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** at many points, and it's like yeah, I I was really pleased how well he did.
**Chris:** alongside.
**Adam:** Yeah, Clayne Crawford, who is apparently Martin Riggs in the TV version of Lethal Weapon.
**Lee:** Oh, right, there was one.
**Adam:** There was one.
**Lee:** I didn't.
**Adam:** I can see it.
**Adam:** he's been in.
**Adam:** He's been in 24 and Buffy, various CSI's.
**Adam:** Burn Notice, and he's in a film called Risk Cutters a Love Story, which is a very weird film.
**Adam:** which I've still not seen, but I have been recommended, mostly by Dean.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** So I kinda feel that it's gonna be a good one.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah.
**Adam:** No, the pair of them really.
**Chris:** Cuz they can both play seriously charming.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** polite, you know, just like everything a decent man should be, essentially, and then they can both play something very other than that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think we are now safely into spoiler territory.
**Lee:** So if we've.
**Adam:** Does that mean we can fucking swear as well?
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I forgot.
**Lee:** Yeah, and we're gonna swear as well.
**Lee:** yeah, so Chris, I've been waiting an entire month to hear.
**Lee:** Cause as soon as I thought about it, I was I was sitting on the sofa the other night and it just popped into my head for no apparent reason.
**Lee:** And I messaged Adam and went, Oh my God, we haven't shown Chris The Perfect Host and he was like, right, it's it's gotta be the next film.
**Lee:** It's gotta be.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I've spent a month hanging to hear what you would think of this, so you've gotta let us know.
**Chris:** Well, it's pretty yeah.
**Chris:** I mean, you know, I think we've given that away, really.
**Chris:** Like, so so I I had no idea what to expect.
**Chris:** So it's called A Perfect Host.
**Chris:** The the perfect host, sorry, we did mix that up when we were discussing it before.
**Chris:** But yeah, so the perfect host and and yeah, and that's why it's such a such a good role for Niles.
**Chris:** David Hyde Pierce because this is as you could imagine him giving a dinner party in Frasier.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like basically, it's it's everything that and then it's totally not that at all.
**Chris:** And like it just takes you on that journey.
**Chris:** So well.
**Adam:** Well, the director Nicholas Tomnay, who hasn't who did a short version of The Perfect Host, I think it's just called The Host, which is pretty much where this was then developed from.
**Adam:** he's done one episode of an Australian anthology horror series called Two Twisted, and that's about it.
**Adam:** And he's, you know, done a few shorts.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** But really, this should this should be this should have been an amazing fucking career start.
**Chris:** This should have locked him into, yeah, serious.
**Lee:** This should be on every one of those top 100 films lists in my opinion, because it's just, as I say, I I saw it five or six times when it first came out.
**Lee:** Cause I showed it to everybody.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's just and and I still when I watched it again now, because there's so many twists.
**Lee:** I still didn't remember all of them.
**Chris:** Yeah, I could imagine that, yeah.
**Lee:** And I just laughed out loud and Jennifer were just in absolute stitches watching this again.
**Lee:** It's such a pleasurable watch and it's just brilliant on so many levels.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** It's such a small cast,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Most of them play by David Hyde Pierce.
**Lee:** What?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, it's it's the little bit.
**Lee:** It's it's like when he.
**Lee:** He lays the food out and then she's walking around the table, he's grabbing fistfuls of food off people's plates and stuffing it in his mouth.
**Lee:** So that the plates are half empty and he can have a chat with a person who is.
**Lee:** It's just absolutely phenomenal.
**Adam:** It's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, back to what we were saying though, cause I think, but basically the director said.
**Adam:** What he was looking for was someone who brought an expectation to a role.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** And it's a perfect match.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, David Hyde Pierce as a you just immediately, right, he's gonna be very fastidious.
**Adam:** Quite weak.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Quite sort of, you know, neat, but also possibly a bit snobby or a bit sort of, you know.
**Adam:** He's gonna be Niles Crane.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that is like we were saying with the voice work, that's pretty much the expectation that they're bringing to those roles.
**Adam:** Where it's like, you know, it's like, oh, well, we need this character who's kind of like that.
**Chris:** It sets up that expectation so much that to not do it.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** When.
**Chris:** But but then that's how they've they've they've done so well with this when it isn't him and it still is him, and it's like, whoa, that's it's like it could be uncanny.
**Chris:** And it could potentially not work, and yet somehow, it's so powerful.
**Adam:** And and actually.
**Adam:** Despite the fact that this is an extremely fucking funny film.
**Adam:** Like genuinely funny film.
**Chris:** I mean, I'm gonna join some conga lines after this and see them in a whole new way.
**Adam:** You You have not seen, cause obviously we have the welcome to horror WhatsApp group.
**Adam:** But I've just been messaging Lee Congo, pretty much since we decided to film this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Just, yeah, because it's that is that sums up the whole fucking movie from me.
**Adam:** It's just that moment.
**Adam:** But but also, I do think that David Hyde Pierce plays disturbed very well.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's it.
**Chris:** That's why it's it's almost disturbing how well he does it.
**Chris:** Cause you that's the bit you don't expect.
**Chris:** It's like, no, I get I get why he's in it for the first bit.
**Chris:** And then when he changes, it's like, and or starts to change, and then really does by the end.
**Chris:** It's like, whoa.
**Chris:** Okay, no, I did not see that coming from him.
**Chris:** And that and he still does it really like he becomes a cold, just loses all of the.
**Chris:** Yeah, all of the warmth that he normally has with Niles.
**Chris:** And it's like, no, okay, you're.
**Chris:** sort of quite worrying now.
**Adam:** Now it's a powerful really, you know, person who has you trapped.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** When he brings the book out and you see the photographs and you're like, oh shit, he's done this before.
**Lee:** Like and it's just so.
**Lee:** And the way he draws the the imaginary people onto the Polaroids and stuff, it's just sinister and yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, cause cause this is the thing, is obviously watching it back, I know where I am with that.
**Adam:** I know what that actually leads up to or how that is explained in the film.
**Adam:** Whereas that first time you watch it, Chris, you must have gone and Claire got it.
**Adam:** Especially the bits where he's like he's filmed himself.
**Adam:** Apparently self-mutilating on the toilet.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that that looks purely like that would be in like a lector film of like whoever the murderer was in that.
**Adam:** You know, so.
**Adam:** It just is it's really it's quite Dennis Nilsen as well, it's very sort of like disturbing and very real to it.
**Adam:** And and even then you get the I did my own hair and makeup.
**Adam:** And you know, there's still sort of payoffs and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But at that point, you are just like, oh no, you because.
**Adam:** I was I was like trying to work it out, and there's John's bit.
**Adam:** is essentially like that sort of wave of heist movies that followed the sort of Tarantino explosion of the sort of early to mid 90s.
**Adam:** And then you got a lot of films like like Oceans 11 and stuff like that, you know, a lot of George Clooney, possibly with Brad Pitt.
**Adam:** Where it's like it's groovy or sort of, you know, sort of indie crime movies.
**Adam:** So you've got that in there.
**Adam:** And then obviously, it's then the comedy of manners of an episode of Frasier.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But with a darker twist because it's like, oh God.
**Adam:** This guy's invited this man in, he doesn't know.
**Chris:** Well.
**Chris:** And and you don't know you don't know who is who is what, yeah.
**Chris:** Like.
**Chris:** So so you're still trying to figure out who John is, essentially, because he does have a deeper story too that unfolds.
**Chris:** But it's like.
**Chris:** Well, he's not a good guy, but how far what is he gonna be doing?
**Chris:** So you're trying to figure out who is, yeah, what their role.
**Adam:** And he at first he gets brutal.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, he slaps him around, he fucking, you know, he beats him up and basically is sort of like, and that's after he's been helpful to the point of irritating.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is which is pure Niles thing.
**Adam:** Of like.
**Chris:** It is.
**Chris:** But you can see the way John is thinking about that, oh no, I can't get through to you.
**Chris:** It's that.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** And John's obviously like, don't fucking phone me because this is all a ruse that I've taken your mail.
**Chris:** And how long can he stand for that until he just has to release and.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But also that lovely moment where you think because you're sort of still, again, I tried to watch it through the eyes of someone watching it the first time from that first time I watched it.
**Adam:** And there's that lovely bit where it's, you know, John's sat there, he's just smoking and there's just that that bit is beautiful.
**Adam:** Where it's just the look on his face of rather you didn't smoke.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But he knows that he's got to bite his fucking or he's acting that he's got to bite his lip at this point.
**Adam:** And it's sort of, you know, John's sort of sitting there and has taken control of the situation.
**Adam:** And then it's like, oh my God, your foot.
**Adam:** Oh no, I've got to do something about that.
**Adam:** And it's like, oh, he's gonna help him, he's that nice a person.
**Adam:** Is it gonna be a Stockholm syndrome sort of thing?
**Adam:** You know, are they gonna end up buddies at the end of it, and it's like, no, you're bleeding on my floor.
**Chris:** And that's that's obviously the first point where you're like, okay, I have a sense where this now are potentially going.
**Chris:** Like.
**Adam:** Really.
**Adam:** And then it goes into like like a film like Hard Candy or something like that, where it's that bit off more than you can chew shit.
**Adam:** You know, it's like, right, here's a bad guy, but we've put them in with a real fucking bad guy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and like I say, it's sort of breaks off and you get all this, sort of there's horror moments.
**Adam:** that then get completely underplayed when John wakes up dead as it were.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Adam:** And realizes that I mean, got to remember, the foot thing is real.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** He does cauterize his foot with a fucking iron.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, he is a dangerous person.
**Lee:** I.
**Adam:** He's just apparently not a murderer.
**Lee:** And I'd forgotten as well, like how they do the reveal of David Hyde Pierce's jaw, So when I see you've got the cops looking for them,
**Lee:** And then the cop is at the front door on the thing and you're like, this is it, he's going to get caught, how's he gonna get away?
**Lee:** And then it's like, oh no, that's his boss.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Mornin', Lieutenant.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's such a another good twist.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then and then it goes off into like The Usual Suspects.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like a neo-noir like it goes back to the heist movie bit but takes it off in a completely odd fucking direction.
**Chris:** Well, and that's where David Hyde Pierce then plays this new role, which is again him, but not him.
**Lee:** His voice changes, he has an American accent, which he was he was doing a very.
**Chris:** He's.
**Chris:** And he's in charge, but in another way.
**Chris:** It's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, he's he is the boss now, before he was the psychopath, you know, schizophrenic psychopath having fun in charge.
**Chris:** But like now it's he means business.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's his job.
**Adam:** And I love the fact that obviously, I mean, this is again, you know, in terms of spoilers, but the fact the fact that obviously you see the the the party that it takes place.
**Adam:** You see it from both sides, you so you see it from reality.
**Adam:** John's side of it of him hallucinating hundreds of guests in his house and having this amazing fucking party.
**Adam:** And then they swing it back, so you see it from his point of view, where he is at an amazing fucking party.
**Adam:** But something that Claire said that really struck with me, was she was like, but which is more disturbing?
**Adam:** Is it more disturbing to see someone clearly hallucinating who has the power of life and death over you?
**Adam:** Or.
**Adam:** Is it that you're having this amazing fabulous party and you've got a guy in the corner that you're all enjoying torturing? You know what I mean?
**Lee:** That's true. Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a party of nice people.
**Adam:** You know, because it's all aspects of him.
**Adam:** And I love the fact that there are the sort of bits where it's like, I, you know, I strongly believe that you should take both your tablets.
**Adam:** You've got to be able to function at work.
**Adam:** And the fact that and there's bits where the like the characters start going, oh well, the police are gonna catch up with you now, shut up, shut up!
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When he's.
**Adam:** losing it.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, you.
**Adam:** But oh man, it's.
**Adam:** It's so fucking good.
**Lee:** I had completely forgotten as well, I don't know how, but yeah, I'd completely forgotten about John waking up in the trash.
**Lee:** I I I remember him being lain on the street with his throat cut, I didn't remember him then waking up and finding out he's been covered in makeup.
**Lee:** And the bit's real.
**Lee:** So even that this time, like as I say, I was like six for seven watch, I was like, oh my God.
**Lee:** Like even that caught me off guard.
**Chris:** Yeah, still got something out of.
**Lee:** Oh, it's just fantastic.
**Adam:** And here's the thing as well.
**Adam:** You get this rapid succession, it's like the last half hour of the film is like, here's the perfect ending.
**Adam:** But we'll give you a bit more.
**Chris:** And then you're like.
**Adam:** So you get like John kills Warwick with the salt.
**Adam:** That would be an ending to a film, it'll be a fucking bleak ending, but you know, you kills him, gets away.
**Adam:** And then that turns out to be a false thing and John dies, and that again, just him waking up in the trash, him sat there on by the pool with his hallucinations.
**Adam:** That would be the ending, roll credits at that point.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then like you say, John, and then John wakes up and start taking the makeup off.
**Adam:** Roll credits, there's your ending.
**Adam:** Because it's like, oh fucking hell, he was just fucking with him.
**Adam:** And you know, he's not dead or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And then you like you say, and then the cops show up and reveal that Warwick is a cop, and that would be your ending.
**Adam:** Because the irony is he's had the chief suspect in his case in his house and essentially letting go.
**Adam:** Having fucked with him for an evening.
**Adam:** And then him walking off with the cash would be an ending.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, when he just goes off down the street like Keyser Söze at the end, it's just sort of like, yeah, just walking away.
**Adam:** And then and then you still get more.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's really, really good.
**Lee:** Is that swaggering.
**Lee:** walk he's got, he does it when he gets the wine from the kitchen as well.
**Lee:** And he's just got that very, it just.
**Lee:** Oh, it's just such a brilliant characterization.
**Lee:** And and as you say, the way he flips it from that to then his very straight laced up tight policeman.
**Lee:** But yeah, then as soon as he steals the money, he's back to swaggering again.
**Lee:** And he's having a great time and living his best life.
**Lee:** running off with this money.
**Lee:** It's oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Nathaniel Parker as well, who plays Detective Morton.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's just brilliant, he's such a solid.
**Lee:** such a serious, solid performance in all of this absolute craziness.
**Lee:** But it just works brilliantly.
**Adam:** But also wonderfully is more obsessed with football guy than what is going on.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know, there's that sort of where you sort of get the idea.
**Adam:** That's kind of how he gets away with this shit is no one's really looking.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And in a way, there's and there's that lovely bit where he where he's talking.
**Adam:** And the other two cops are like, when Warwick is basically going full gamut and just talking about like, well.
**Adam:** That's what I want to do, they just want to round him up and shoot him and all this really sort of like heavy big sort of stuff.
**Adam:** And then it's like, you know what I mean, like it's like, oh, this is just we have to put up with this shit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, which again just is.
**Adam:** But Nathaniel Parker, he's.
**Adam:** English.
**Adam:** He's an English actor.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he is he's the brother of Oliver Parker, who is the removal man who appears in both the first two Hellraisers.
**Adam:** And he's Peliquin in Nightbreed.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, yes.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Nathaniel Parker, I I don't know why it always stuck in my mind, but he was Fireman in The Palace of Righteous Justice on Harry Enfield's television program.
**Adam:** Where they had Iceman, Fireman and she woman cap type thing.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, I don't know why.
**Adam:** But that was the and he was in.
**Adam:** Rick Mal presents Dancing Queen, Touch of Frost, Inspector Morse, and then he's gone to America, he's been in Beverly Hills Ninja, The Bodyguard, Chronicles of Narnia, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
**Adam:** And so, yeah, he's that's where he but yeah, he's and does a, well, we're saying that as English people.
**Adam:** But I think he does a perfectly fine American, you know, you wouldn't tell, I don't think.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, I was surprised when you said it because it it seemed so so well done.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think that the I mean, actually, and that's you're saying about that swaggering walk.
**Adam:** the bit right at the end, where he walks off and then gets flanked by imaginary people dressed as cops.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Imagined, yeah.
**Adam:** Imaginary people.
**Adam:** All I could think was is.
**Adam:** that meme that goes around of people other people, don't come around here with your bullshit.
**Adam:** Me.
**Adam:** Coming back here with my bullshit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's all I could think of, but it's such a wonderful image.
**Adam:** because like reading, because I'll be honest, again, there's not much online about this film.
**Adam:** There's a few interviews with the director, there's a few interviews with David Hyde Pierce.
**Adam:** But that's do you know what I mean, there's not a lot of study that's gone into this or a lot of stuff that's come out.
**Chris:** That seems surprising.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's it's one of those, you know, like we were saying, anyone you talk to, they'll always tell you they've never heard of it.
**Lee:** And you're like, it's one of the best films I've ever seen.
**Lee:** Like, it's just astonishing.
**Lee:** And I do I do wonder if it's because David Hyde Pierce maybe was a hard sell to.
**Lee:** to this type of, you know, if you go from comedy to kind of crime, drama, horror.
**Lee:** maybe he was a hard sell in that way, and therefore it didn't it didn't get picked up.
**Lee:** But I mean, I'm pretty sure anyone who's ever seen this will be just as obsessed with it as me and Adam.
**Adam:** Seriously, I mean, I I this was a film I recommended to someone at work.
**Adam:** And literally, and we we fire we fired films back and forth between each other, like really good films, really odd films and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Like weirder and stranger stuff, same as I did.
**Adam:** But he always says, the trouble is, you hit fucking gold when you told me about The Perfect Host.
**Adam:** Anything you've told me about afterwards has been good, but that was incredible, and I knew nothing about it.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And like I say, I mean, this was what?
**Adam:** 2010?
**Adam:** Is it 2010?
**Adam:** Yeah, 2010.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** You sort of think, maybe it was a timing thing, maybe it was five years earlier, five years later, maybe it would have done better.
**Adam:** I think the other trouble is, is it's a very difficult film.
**Adam:** to even categorize to someone without spell without spelling it out.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, I'm I'm gonna watch the trailer when we finish tonight.
**Chris:** Because I'll be fascinated to see what they can put in a trailer that gives you the right idea and doesn't ruin any of it.
**Chris:** And like you said, don't watch a trailer because it.
**Chris:** It probably so yeah, perhaps it is just too difficult to do as a film.
**Adam:** I I think, well, because I think the best the best sum up I saw of it would would be to put it out as a black comedy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I don't know A whether that sells well.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, is that a harder sell than just, oh, it's a comedy for all the family.
**Adam:** You know, a black comedy, but also like a black comedy starring David Hyde Pierce.
**Adam:** You probably lost a lot of interest where people like, oh, it'll be like Frasier.
**Adam:** And I don't like Frasier.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, like there were they are they thinking black comedy, because there are elements of black comedy in Frasier.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I mean, not to this extent.
**Chris:** Well, I've just decided to start watching Frasier again.
**Chris:** Off to watching this.
**Chris:** Cause I was like, I've got to watch a bit more, a bit more Niles.
**Adam:** You need to do that.
**Adam:** Yeah, there are sort of.
**Adam:** Because it works on a sort of real-life basis.
**Adam:** They put in things that are sort of.
**Adam:** Not I mean, no nothing like this.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** So maybe that was what the the problem was, I don't know.
**Lee:** I think you could be, I think it could be one of those, you know, where like we have, you know.
**Lee:** You you if you have seen it and you want to tell people about it, you don't want to give anything away, so you just say to them, just watch it.
**Lee:** I'm not gonna tell you anything about it.
**Lee:** And that can be a bit of a hard sell, can't it?
**Lee:** Like, well.
**Adam:** Well, it's a bit dumb.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** To go into especially because it's like, especially because you have to find it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I wish this was on fucking I I don't I didn't look into it particularly.
**Adam:** I think you can pay for it on Amazon maybe, but I don't know where it is streaming.
**Adam:** I'm pretty sure someone's put it up in about eight chunks on YouTube.
**Adam:** But you know.
**Adam:** I think it's.
**Adam:** again.
**Adam:** it's that access to it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas this would have been this again, should have if they'd have pressed harder in 2010.
**Adam:** This should have been one of those things that just turned up on cable.
**Adam:** that loads of people watched and could catch up with him and so, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So yeah, so if it hasn't, if it didn't get that sort of initial jump, yeah, then maybe people just.
**Lee:** yeah, have not had the opportunity and not seen it anywhere to to to pick it up.
**Lee:** But it it's such a travesty because it's.
**Lee:** just a work of art.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** you know, like we were saying, the tension at the beginning, because obviously you don't see Niles's other side until almost half an hour in.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** the tension of, as you say, him being in the house and he keeps making phone calls, and any one of those phone calls can trip him up.
**Lee:** Because he phones the airport.
**Lee:** about baggage.
**Lee:** And that could give it all away.
**Lee:** And then he phones Julia.
**Lee:** Which obviously he doesn't phone Julia, because there's no Julia.
**Lee:** The fact that you once once you realize that he writes those postcards, you knew from the beginning that this guy had never spoken to Julia.
**Lee:** Because he couldn't have possibly spoken to Julia.
**Lee:** So he so he was playing along the whole time, but was absolutely aware of the situation from the get-go.
**Lee:** Which.
**Adam:** And actually winding it up by doing the calls.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** You know, it's sort of like just almost trying to get him to reveal himself.
**Adam:** Cause there's a lovely bit where the neighbor.
**Adam:** calls him a wolf.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The woman he goes to first.
**Chris:** She calls John, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And she just says, she just says, go away, Wolf.
**Chris:** And you're not really a you were making it up, yeah.
**Chris:** Because they wouldn't have crosses and yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that that is a a brilliant term for the character because of, you know, he is.
**Adam:** at that point, I mean, you obviously see.
**Adam:** a somewhat sympathetic side to it, and you do see him battered and fucked up and everything, and you and at one point you think killed.
**Adam:** And it's sort of.
**Lee:** And the fact that he's been played.
**Lee:** the whole time by the girlfriend.
**Lee:** I'd forgot.
**Chris:** Well that was another nice.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That was.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So this film just.
**Lee:** And that's what I mean.
**Lee:** It's just it's really nicely paced, it go it flies by really quickly, but yeah, you never go more than 10 or after that first half an hour, you never go more than 10 or 15 minutes.
**Lee:** Without a whole new twist being popped in that just turns everything on its head.
**Chris:** Yeah, none of the characters.
**Chris:** Yeah, none of the characters are exactly what they seemed to begin with.
**Chris:** John isn't in sort of three ways, and then yeah, Warwick isn't.
**Chris:** And then even Detective Morton because he starts investigating Warwick.
**Adam:** He gets his shit together and actually like he's like, I can't ignore this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that is a that's a lovely moment as well.
**Adam:** Because you know, you're seeing how Warwick's playing this off.
**Adam:** When he's like, well, yeah, get it analyzed, because I want to know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And sort of having to front it out, but also the mind's working.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it is, it's that brilliant thing of it is how you can kind of imagine it being when he says, you're gonna bring a load of policemen to my house.
**Lee:** I don't have to be civil about this, but I'm choosing to be, so why don't you come over for dinner?
**Lee:** And you just don't, don't go for dinner, it's not gonna go.
**Chris:** Don't choose the red wine.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Fantastic.
**Adam:** But no, I mean, it's.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just.
**Adam:** one of the, yeah, I think it's just one of the.
**Adam:** It's one of the best films I've seen and it is a real hidden gem.
**Adam:** that people should be singing from the rooftops.
**Adam:** This should have the cult following of like something like Withnail or something like that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** People there should be it should be mean to fuck.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There should be gifts of content and everything.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** It's just the dance number on the table when they're all doing the together and then it just keeps cutting back to just him on his own dancing like a lunatic.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** It's just such a good film, it's such a such a fun, considering how dark it is, it's such a brilliantly fun movie.
**Adam:** And that's the thing is I think every point lightens the pace in a weird way.
**Adam:** It takes you to a really fucking dark area.
**Adam:** And you're still going with it because it's still an entertaining film.
**Adam:** But then it sort of usurps that but in a way that you're like, oh, more intriguingly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, than a film where it's like a guy goes somewhere, finds out he's in the hands of a nutter who kills him.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** film.
**Chris:** Yeah, it'd be a good film, it would not be a great film.
**Adam:** Cause that bit, there's a bit in it which really made me think proper.
**Adam:** 90s serial murderer sort of movie was the bit where he's going where he's talking to him and he's just going, where is she now?
**Adam:** When he's writing out the postcard from Julia.
**Adam:** And that bit where he's going.
**Adam:** It's this, you're Julia, aren't you?
**Adam:** And it's just and the music of it, the way it's lit, because it's like 3:00 AM in the morning and everyone's fucking shattered.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, it's that is just is perfect.
**Adam:** to then have that rug pulled and it's like, oh no, I didn't kill him, no, he he has a makeup kit and he fucks with people.
**Lee:** Oh, that's That was the other bit I forgot.
**Lee:** He almost lets John go, doesn't he, and John gets to the door.
**Lee:** And then he says to him, you're nothing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And he cannot, he could have just walked away at that point, but he's like, no, I'm not doing this, this has gone too far, I'm gonna kill this bloke.
**Lee:** and just drops himself straight in the shit.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cause.
**Adam:** at that point, he could have walked out that door, I mean, probably at that point, he'd have probably got as far as the front step.
**Adam:** And then Warwick comes out with the fucking cattle prod or something.
**Adam:** But ostensibly that seems to be the point where, you know, he and and the fact that Warwick's not concentrating on the chess match.
**Adam:** Cause it's like obviously I'm gonna beat him because he's he's scum and I've had him trapped here and I'm a genius.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then he's not even.
**Adam:** He's not even concentrating because he's too busy trying to work out what he gets if he wins.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then it's like, oh, I've got a good one.
**Adam:** Checkmate.
**Lee:** What?
**Lee:** And he immediately says, you cheated.
**Lee:** It's like, he's got his hands tied behind his back.
**Lee:** How can he possibly have cheated?
**Adam:** I mean, the the musically, I love this film.
**Adam:** I think that the score for it is really, really good.
**Adam:** John Swihart, he did Napoleon Dynamite and.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Odd Thomas, so he's done but I think in this he puts in.
**Adam:** a lot of, he puts it's very much like an Inside Number 9 score, he puts in a lot of work of this is what suits this bit.
**Adam:** Some of it's like a fucking urban crime film.
**Adam:** Some of it's like beautiful, some of it's mania.
**Lee:** There was I was gonna say, yeah, there was a mania bit earlier before Warwick has turned.
**Lee:** And yeah, it was like a little musical cue that almost just tipped you off that, you know, everything seems calm, but the music's telling you there's something mental going on.
**Lee:** And it kind of it's just fantastic.
**Lee:** It's just so well done.
**Lee:** And if you don't know what the twist is that's coming, it seemed really odd and out of place.
**Lee:** But then when it happened, it all just comes together and makes perfect sense.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** it's so well crafted.
**Adam:** But obviously, yeah, so the the opening credits are equals of death metal, wanna be in LA.
**Adam:** And then of course, you've got Rose Royce with Carwash.
**Adam:** And I am generally against people using music that's been used in other films before.
**Adam:** I'm particularly averse to people taking themes or things that were specifically written for other films and putting them in other films.
**Adam:** at this point, I have to stand corrected because fuck off, Carwash belongs to this movie, not the film Carwash.
**Adam:** Even though Carwash is a great film.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** This owns Carwash.
**Adam:** It's fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just I I I would be hard pressed to find anything about this film that I would.
**Lee:** like to have seen done differently or thought could be improved upon, it it's just an absolute masterpiece.
**Lee:** I say, yeah, I don't know if it was possibly marketing or whatever that obviously could have done better, but it's kind of nice to have a film like this.
**Lee:** Like you say, Adam, where when you're talking to someone and you're like, oh yeah, can you recommend anything, and you can pull this one out of the bag, you're pretty much sure, you know, 90% of people you show it to would get something out of it and be totally blown away, so it's quite nice to have it as a little secret thing that we've all got.
**Adam:** See, the the best way I can describe it in a weird way is I think that this is a film that I could, I well, I still show my mom, but I could have shown my dad.
**Adam:** Both of them would have loved it, and that is a fucking rarity, because my mum likes my mum likes completely different films to the films my dad likes in the main.
**Adam:** But this would have been one that they'd have both fucking loved.
**Adam:** And very much for the same reasons.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, it wasn't isn't like one like this or one like that.
**Adam:** I think it was just it's just a fucking entertaining film.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh, just fantastic.
**Lee:** Right, so we are gonna wrap it up there.
**Lee:** so our next film we're going to be covering is gonna be Adam's birthday choice and we didn't give away what the theme of the month was, because we wanted to keep it under wraps that it is crazy bastards month.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so Adam.
**Lee:** What is your birthday choice?
**Adam:** Well, obviously, I am, as everyone knows, I'm an avuncular man who doesn't have clinical depression, and, you know, I'm optimistic, sunny side sort of of the street kind of guy.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Where's this going?
**Adam:** So my birthday choice, we're gonna watch The Party movie that is Seven.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Seven.
**Adam:** Which, yeah, if if anything, I suppose The Perfect Host is.
**Adam:** artist pretending to be murderer, and Seven is murderer thinking he's an artist.
**Adam:** So, you know, there we go.
**Chris:** No, I haven't seen that for a long time.
**Chris:** So yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
**Adam:** I funnily enough, it was because I I started I've started a rewatch of White Chapel, which is a very highly recommended series that was on mid about 2009 for about four series.
**Adam:** and it kind of put me in that sort of.
**Adam:** What other things are about people proving a point through serial murder.
**Adam:** And then it was like, oh yeah, well there's Seven, obviously.
**Adam:** And yeah, so happy birthday to me.
**Adam:** And and interestingly enough, I will be Seven this year.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I think it's a really good call.
**Lee:** Same as Chris said, I mean, I saw this when it first came out.
**Chris:** Oh, it was big.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** And I've done.
**Chris:** Oh, it was big.
**Lee:** Oh, it was big.
**Lee:** It was one of the biggest.
**Chris:** It was one of the biggest of this type of movies that I saw.
**Lee:** Right.
**Chris:** Remembered at the time.
**Adam:** It's it's Brad Pitt.
**Lee:** Well.
**Adam:** Morgan Freeman.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** I did not even.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And there's and I think the thing is as well, because it's
**Adam:** oh, bollocks, I can't remember his name.
**Adam:** The director is, shit.
**Adam:** What is his name, but he's done loads of stuff since.
**Chris:** Oh, that was it's gonna be very interesting to go through and see.
**Adam:** But stuff that's got bigger.
**Adam:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** Fisher.
**Adam:** David Fisher.
**Adam:** No, I think he wrote the legend of Hyde.
**Lee:** It is David Fincher.
**Adam:** David Fincher, that's it, thank you.
**Adam:** but obviously he's now gone on to most of his films have been massive fucking deals, to the point where I feel that Seven has been forgotten.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As because it came right at the start, really.
**Lee:** Oh, and Zodiac as well.
**Lee:** Ugh.
**Adam:** He did.
**Adam:** He did Zodiac, he did Mind Hunt, the TV series Mind Hunter, which was good while it lasted.
**Adam:** And Panic Room, The Game, Fight Club, Social Network, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake.
**Lee:** You know.
**Adam:** He's done.
**Adam:** lots and lots.
**Adam:** And and Alien 3, and I'm sorry, Bobby and Adam, but yeah, it's still fucking good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Director's cut.
**Lee:** Just to clarify.
**Lee:** When I said about Zodiac, it was a fantastic film.
**Lee:** But it was so bleak, I'll never watch it again.
**Lee:** And it was so brutal as well.
**Lee:** Like.
**Adam:** It's it's a great film, but the trouble is is that it's that horrible thing of watching it and going, oh no, this is all shit that already happened.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think that's why I was like, I I enjoyed, enjoyed is the wrong word.
**Lee:** In the words of Garf Maringi.
**Lee:** I like, I yeah, I watched it and enjoyed the journey, but I was like, I don't think I'd put myself through it again, it's really brutal, it's so horrible.
**Adam:** Yeah, it don't fuck about.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Certainly doesn't.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So, thanks ever so much for listening, everyone.
**Lee:** if you haven't already, definitely hunt out The Perfect Host, because even though we've told you about it,
**Lee:** seeing it is a very different thing, so you definitely need to experience it.
**Adam:** And we've pretty and we've pretty much stayed clear of jokes and one-liners and stuff like that, so you'll still have there's a lot, yeah.
**Adam:** plenty to see.
**Lee:** Excellent, right, so thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Go and check out Seven again.
**Lee:** If like us, you haven't watched it in 20-odd years.
**Lee:** and we will see you back for Adam's birthday in a fortnight.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Horror on Sea 2023

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/horror-on-sea-2023/
Air date: 27 January 2023
Duration: 00:37:01

### Description

It’s another cheeky bonus episode from Welcome To Horror! Horror-On-Sea Film Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, and we were lucky enough to attend 2 of it’s 6 day run. Here the team talk about what they watched in a (hopefully) spoiler free way that should give you a flavour of these films coming your way soon. FEATURES DISCUSSED: “The Haunting of the Lady Jane”, “End of Term”, “Eating Miss Campbell”, “The Last Twitch” and “Powertool Cheerleaders Vs The Boy Band of the Screeching Dead”. SHORTS DISCUSSED: “Behind You”, “Gone”, “Malevolent”, “Karen’s Room”, “Room 4”, “Toffee Apples” and “Beep Beep”. A massive congratulations to the Horror-On-Sea team for their continued success, and, as always, fantastic atmosphere. Roll on next year!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Jennifer:** And I'm Lee Jennifer, I believe.
**Lee:** You are.
**Jennifer:** It's been a while since I've been on.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's people have commented.
**Lee:** and we're here as always for our yearly round-up of our fantastic day and a bit spent at Horror on Sea this year.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** 10-year anniversary, congratulations to Horror on Sea.
**Chris:** Excellent, well done.
**Adam:** They were on BBC East on the local news.
**Lee:** Yeah, I saw I didn't see the I saw them saying they were going to be there, so I'm definitely going to go and find that and watch it because yeah.
**Adam:** What was they described them as the the they're sort of becoming the cans of horror.
**Chris:** Nice.
**Adam:** And I think it's like, you know, because by by the seaside, although I can't imagine that, you know, being able to grate cheese on your scrotum because it's January.
**Adam:** It's not as attractive a seaside venue at that point, but yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, true.
**Chris:** But it is we we said it's funny how we forget the weather.
**Chris:** You you think back to it and you just remember the great films and and.
**Lee:** And then every year we get out the car, what has happened?
**Chris:** And then you get nearly blown, you know, halfway across the beach.
**Lee:** just to let everyone know, there will be spoil there will be swearing, there will be mild spoilers, but as most of these films were only premiered or only just been released and aren't out for wide distribution yet.
**Lee:** We're going to try and keep it pretty spoiler-free because yeah, a lot of them are worth seeing and we wouldn't want to but I think with a lot of these, as a lot of them were comedy horror, again, it's about the journey rather than the story a lot of the time, so.
**Adam:** Yeah, very.
**Lee:** Don't panic if we tell you the story, if we say go and see it, go and see it because yeah, it's still going to keep you entertained and amused.
**Lee:** so kicking off on Saturday the 14th at 10:00 AM.
**Lee:** we started the day with The Haunting of Lady Jane.
**Lee:** Does anyone like to pick up the baton on this one?
**Chris:** I won't be visiting canals in any time soon.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, I'm glad I had my canal holiday last year because it was a little bit eerie.
**Jennifer:** So I won't be going back.
**Chris:** No wait, so so are we going to mention the shorts afterwards or are we leaving those?
**Jennifer:** I've made some notes on the shorts that I particularly liked rather than all of them per se, so I guess.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So the shorts before this were Gone and Behind You.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So so it's kind of funny that Gone, and did we we debated this briefly, but and so talking about it without a spoiler, it appeared like there was something dark happened in this which kind of really set, you know, set the scene for what was to come after.
**Chris:** yeah, I thought both the shorts were were pretty good, they they got to the point quickly.
**Jennifer:** Think for a three-minute short, you kind of got to get straight in and yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Gone was very much a mood piece.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like a fever dream of from lockdown.
**Chris:** Yeah, I wonder how much of it was based on his experiences that he was going through or or hers.
**Adam:** Well, well, hopefully not.
**Chris:** Yeah, not not not literally, hopefully.
**Jennifer:** Or he wasn't singing about it at the start, so he's not arrested at least, he's not in prison.
**Adam:** I mean, it'd be a bold fucking move, wouldn't it?
**Adam:** Not only have I done this, I have made a film on it and presented it at a horror festival.
**Chris:** yeah, so they were both good fun.
**Lee:** and then The Haunting of Lady Jane.
**Lee:** Now you like this one as well, didn't you, Jen?
**Jennifer:** Oh, I I think I came out of it absolutely like, oh, you know, first one on the day, I thought it started on on a high, I mean, I think later on actually they got better, but you know, for the first film.
**Adam:** Oh, definitely, yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, I thought, I mean, I I quite liked the kind of slow burn, which I think Lee when we came out, you're a bit like, oh, that took forever to get going.
**Lee:** I I like the thing is, there was a lot of stuff about it I did like, but yeah, I just felt that it could have been like 45 minutes to an hour long.
**Chris:** And you would still get all of the positives.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it would have been punchier.
**Lee:** So yeah, I didn't dislike it, but yeah, it's to be fair, it was 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning as well, so I was still kind of waking up.
**Chris:** I there were a few like it was dramatic and dark, you know, definitely darker points, but there were a few lighthearted moments throughout which which kept it, you know.
**Adam:** To give listeners an idea, basically it's a a writer, journalist hooks up with this Instagram or TikTok influ like online influencer.
**Chris:** She's becoming sort of a, you know, more prominent influencer, yeah, but still kind of at the early stages it it seemed.
**Adam:** And at a loss for anything to do, they see a a notice in Camden about someone who's taking a canal boat to Birmingham and there's two free spaces on the boat.
**Adam:** so they go to the boat, which is the Lady Jane, and meet the captain of the boat or owner of the boat.
**Adam:** And yeah, from there it's sort of just a kind of like a a bit like a sort of Heart of Darkness journey up river as you go into the minds of people, but also the thing I quite liked about it is it was basically folk horror for the waterways.
**Adam:** So rather than being the lore of a particular region or whatever like that, it was all the superstitions and stories and ghost stories associated with like British waterways and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And yeah, from that from that perspective, I really enjoyed it.
**Adam:** and yeah, I I liked the slow burn, I think it need it it it sort of required it, but probably could have been a touch shorter, I think it was I mean, it was an hour and 40, so I mean, it wasn't it wasn't a a big, you know, it wasn't a real dragger.
**Adam:** But yeah, possibly could have been just slightly slightly truncated.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I thought the end was fantastic though, like it it went like when it finally kicked off at the end, it really kicked off and I I did like that.
**Lee:** so yeah, I was definitely pleased I saw it, but yeah, I just felt it would have yeah, possibly done better from some more heavy editing.
**Lee:** But yeah, I I did enjoy it.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, but then they'd have had to get the runtime up, lots of slow motion, as we know currently at the moment, just to get a lot of slow-mo in there.
**Adam:** In fact, any any sequence without dialogue was proposed to have slow motion.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** so after that, we we then had some lovely lunch and then we returned at 3:00 for End of Term.
**Adam:** Which which was preceded by the short film Malevolent, and I, for the life of me, cannot remember what Malevolent was.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, I didn't write that one down, so I'm guessing when we've just looked at them, that didn't jump out particularly.
**Chris:** Well, there's a woman who'd finished a day of work, she seemed a bit not necessarily the best place, and a husband sort of follows her a bit through the.
**Lee:** Oh, yes!
**Jennifer:** Scary underpass, isn't it?
**Lee:** Scary blanket.
**Jennifer:** Yes, you're right.
**Adam:** Yeah, had a sort of yeah, just a nice sort of spooky touch, but.
**Chris:** Clearly I think it may need a better a different title.
**Adam:** Because I clearly don't remember you've had to remind me, I couldn't remember just looking at Malevolent, I was like, I don't know what that was.
**Lee:** But then you said, oh, yeah, no, it's that one.
**Jennifer:** Much better title, I'll just recommend that.
**Chris:** Yeah, one of those where you're not entirely sure how supernatural it is or exactly what's happening. seemed like some twists at the very end you see something, but.
**Chris:** It's still perhaps, yeah, left up to the viewer to decide exactly what they think.
**Adam:** Well, it was it was interesting actually, Lee, you did and obviously do go and listen to it, but Lee recently interviewed Tommy Wash for for the podcast of Scotchworthy and bloody disgusting.
**Adam:** And it's bloody disgusting, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It is bloody disgusting.
**Chris:** Sorry, I was just like.
**Lee:** Not not the interview, the interview was was bloody excellent.
**Chris:** I just assume.
**Adam:** I didn't mean the interview, the interview was very very nice.
**Adam:** but yeah, and and one of the things he was talking about was when he looks at short films, it was about production design, set design and things like that.
**Adam:** And now I think back to it, Malevolent, the one thing was is it was like, this doesn't feel like this is this woman's house.
**Adam:** Because it was like, there's a spooky blanket.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's a PlayStation.
**Chris:** That so that did throw me, like design blanket.
**Chris:** I didn't quite get that, I mean, she had a daughter, but it still.
**Adam:** Oh, she did have a daughter, right, okay.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, so her daughter turned up sort of at the end, creepily, but.
**Jennifer:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, I I guess there were a few bits that it's it's hard to be sure if you've if it's deliberate or just a slightly odd choice or.
**Adam:** It was just what was available.
**Chris:** Yeah, well that it did look like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yes, so then the main feature after that was End of Term.
**Lee:** I was I I I think I watched the trailer for this, but I didn't realize the people who were going to be in it.
**Lee:** So Peter Davison was in it, David Bamber was in it, Julie Graham was in it.
**Lee:** It was like everybody you came on set, I was like, I know them, I know them, I know.
**Adam:** A lot of picked up it was, yeah, there was quite a few big names involved, definitely.
**Adam:** Or like proper.
**Adam:** You know, proper acting actors who you've seen in on Telly.
**Chris:** Definitely, yeah, they I mean, there was decent acting throughout, yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, I quite enjoyed this, again, it was a bit of a slow burn, you didn't you couldn't quite get a handle on where it was going.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Lee:** yeah, good twist at the end.
**Lee:** Yeah, I enjoyed it, it it went quite it moved quite quickly as well considering.
**Adam:** Yeah, I do I do remember finding it confusing in places, and I don't know whether that was me or.
**Chris:** There was quite a lot happening, and I think we were we were sort of saying potentially some of the actors looking a bit similar and necessarily you haven't necessarily spent enough time with each of them to really get used to them before it starts to kick off, but.
**Chris:** I I for me, that didn't detract from it, I sort of felt like I was following enough to appreciate sort of the arc and the end.
**Chris:** So it's yeah, I guess it could have been done slightly differently, but yeah, overall.
**Chris:** I still found it really quite clever finish, yeah, it's.
**Jennifer:** It made you want to know what was going on, didn't it?
**Jennifer:** Because of course, the way they're interviewing the girl and you just you know something was a really good way, yeah exactly, and that draws you in, I think, because you're kind of waiting for it.
**Jennifer:** And maybe because it had lots going on, you weren't exactly sure where it was going to finish up, but as you say, equally, there was a lot going on and you're like, who, what, when?
**Chris:** That's got to be really difficult though where you don't you want there to be a twist and so you are trying to throw people off the scent, so it's like how much do you do that you want to confuse people but not so much that they really feel like you've just done it badly, yeah, that is such a hot hard balance to get, I think.
**Adam:** Because I think there was there were certain points where people were saying, you know, there was a whole group of people together and they were missing, you know, people were missing or they're trying to like, but they weren't necessarily mentioning everyone who was missing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it was almost like, you know, from from a from our point of view, we knew that characters had been killed by that point.
**Chris:** But they're still piecing things together.
**Adam:** Exactly, yeah, so it was sort of there's just little touches like that.
**Adam:** And like you say, I think it's the difficulty is trying to lay a breadcrumb trail.
**Adam:** That works, but also throws you off, you know, it's the sort of what Agatha Christie excelled at of, you know, you you you build this you build this thing, but you've also got to have the points in there where, oh, so it's this that's going on or or maybe that isn't what I thought.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** Yeah, and he did that, but as you say, it was quite a large cast, so it was a lot of people to remember, yeah, and some of them did look very similar.
**Lee:** So you were like, is that actually her or is that the other girl who looks a bit like her and yeah, but yeah.
**Lee:** Not much you can do, I'm sure it's
**Chris:** Overall I I did really enjoy it.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** then so the next movie before we get onto the next movie, what were the oh, we haven't written the shorts for this.
**Adam:** The shorts.
**Adam:** The shorts were Room 4 and Karen's Room.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** They well, Room 4 was very funny.
**Adam:** I loved I loved both of them.
**Chris:** Yeah, both excellent.
**Jennifer:** Oh, for the
**Lee:** Yeah, for the sound.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** as as the director of both, because it was the same director across both.
**Adam:** and as he said, Room 4 is basically based on a dirty joke he was told as a child.
**Adam:** And Karen's Room, a woman wakes up to find a mysterious man sitting at the end of her bed.
**Adam:** At first she thinks he's robbing the place and then it goes even weirder than that.
**Adam:** And I just like, I liked how that played out.
**Adam:** I think that was just a nice little sequence and yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, they were good.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** And again, Room 4 was the same sort of thing, it had a nice you enjoyed the cast and you enjoyed the journey to the the payoff.
**Chris:** The, yeah.
**Adam:** Nicely done.
**Chris:** It was.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it seemed like they they really got the timing just so perfect for those, they told enough story, it didn't drag on at all, it was like, yeah, perfect.
**Chris:** So really well done.
**Lee:** and then the main feature for the third one was eating Miss Campbell.
**Lee:** so this was a this was a true trauma film through and through, but British.
**Chris:** Have we seen another Troma?
**Adam:** We haven't.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** We really need we need to correct this.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, oh yeah, we have there.
**Adam:** Because Lloyd Kaufman is likes the sort of missing link between Roger Corman and John Waters.
**Adam:** Of like this a a like powerhouse of low-budget independent filmmaking, but with a deliberate trash element rather than just, you know, a budgetary trash element as it were.
**Lee:** And to be fair, we have put Class of Nuke 'Em High on our list of stuff about three times and then it's fallen off the bottom of the list.
**Jennifer:** I was just going to ask what some classic trauma films for people out there that might not know.
**Lee:** Toxic Avenger, Sergeant Kabuki Man.
**Chris:** I think I've mentioned Toxic Avenger before.
**Adam:** You've seen Toxic Avenger?
**Chris:** No, but I'm I'm sure I remember Lee talking about it.
**Lee:** I know Toxic Avenger.
**Adam:** I mean, that that again, I mean, pretty much any Troma film kind of works on this show.
**Adam:** Frankly.
**Adam:** They're always in that sort of they're always in that area of intersection to horror, even if it's not quite.
**Adam:** I mean, Toxic Avenger's basically a superhero movie, but yeah, just a very fucking trash one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** as is Sergeant Kabuki Man.
**Adam:** And Tromio and Juliet.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** That was the one, wasn't it?
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But yeah, they've.
**Adam:** But Lloyd Kaufman actually obviously had to make an appearance in the film.
**Adam:** and in this, again, slight spoiler, but it's literally his only moment, is he appears with a gun shoved up his nostril and shouts Alec Baldwin at the screen, which is kind of the pitch level of taste for this film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's.
**Chris:** So I'd I'd love to hear him talk about the film or or perhaps some of the actors even explaining more of it.
**Chris:** Because it's it was so hard for me to know if I felt like they'd crossed any lines because they were clearly trying to be edgy about some stuff.
**Chris:** And and like the presentation was fantastic, like the style so good.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's just a beautiful looking film as well.
**Lee:** Like it really was absolutely pristine.
**Chris:** and the acting I really liked.
**Chris:** Yeah, really good.
**Chris:** So so much about it was great, it's just it was hard to know exactly what their target or their aim.
**Chris:** Because there was clearly some, I mean, she was a human cannibal vegan.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So I mean, already it's like, well, what what is their aim there, it's just fascinating to know.
**Jennifer:** Like, eating cannibals or vegans, I mean?
**Chris:** No, but there's it's not just silliness, is it? There there must they've got some thought to what they're trying to get across.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** There's distinctly a point.
**Adam:** I mean, it's like you've got in this, the head of the it's like because it's although it's it was a British production and obviously filmed over here, but it had a lot of American actors in it and and followed much more the tropes of a high US high school movie than like a college film here or something like that.
**Adam:** But the fact that like the main like the big jock heartthrob that all the girls love is basically called the Chief rapist and worships the Weinstein brothers.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Sort of gives you it's like, yeah, we're going to rub your nose in it, but this is the fucking point.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That these horrible pricks do exist and they just get away with shit.
**Adam:** you know, when when he when he is murdered and then all the women are mourning the fact that they won't be touched up or date raped again, you know, it's Yeah, it's
**Chris:** Yeah, it's it's it's very distasteful, but the target is aimed at the horrible people in the world.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** It's distasteful, shouldn't we, really.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Adam:** But strangely enough, and I because the the director Liam Reagan, I was looking up on just looking up online sort of other stuff, I get the impression that this is a semi-sequel to another film he's done because you've got it's some of the same characters follow over, like the headmaster, you know, the ridiculous fucking guy with the beard who's probably my favorite character.
**Chris:** He was he was really good.
**Adam:** Because he was it was that pure sort of it was that rich culture Henry Zabrawski sort of energy of like this fucking shaman loon.
**Adam:** but yeah, so he's done a film before and it also had, you know, the the wrestler who turned up at the end to judge the all you can eat school massacre probably.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Adam:** I mean, there's there's another point as well is that they were having a competition for who gets to have a gun so they can have a high school massacre.
**Adam:** You know, and again, yes, that would be to most, but you understood where they were coming from with the film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was but yeah, this this other film and I can't think what it's called, but if someone IMD B's it, but yeah, it's yeah, it looks like there is a kind of a prequel to it or kind of original film that some of these characters have transferred across from.
**Adam:** I don't think it it wasn't like the main character, I don't think like Miss Campbell was in that or.
**Chris:** So he's produced Eating Miss Campbell, Kevin Walters, Troma behind the making of Banjo, My Bloody Banjo, Dan got to The Way of the Union.
**Lee:** My Bloody Banjo.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** My Bloody Banjo, that's the one.
**Lee:** And it's got like the rest the guy who turns up at the end, the wrestler, he's in that, and yeah, the headmaster guy and some of the sort of head of the schools and stuff like that.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I think I'm going to have to look this up.
**Jennifer:** I mean five films it's not bad, is it for a, you know?
**Lee:** I think I'm going to have to track it down.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I really like the cast as well, I thought it had a really strong a really strong cast.
**Lee:** So yeah, it it yeah, this is this one was definitely a recommend for me, I really enjoyed it.
**Adam:** Everyone was bang on, everyone knew where where it was pitched.
**Adam:** You know, it's fucking up to 11.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** But you know, but you don't get no one was no one was letting the side down or doing a wrong note for it, I think everyone was it was the right energy, the right level, they knew what they were doing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely, it was and I was really excited, so oh, I forgot to tell you because you guys weren't there the following weekend, so the couple, so basically, Beth's mum and dad, the two who just kept launching at each other constantly for now pound raise, they were also in the film that Jennifer and I went back for on the Sunday and they were standing outside the door handing people flyers as we were going in.
**Lee:** And I was like, I'm sure that was the two from eating his camp.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** So that was nice to see them.
**Adam:** And obviously Daniel Thompson was there who was in Eating Miss Campbell as well.
**Adam:** So yeah, I think she was there for like the whole like six days.
**Lee:** Yeah, and she was in the one the following day as well, so yeah.
**Lee:** That was good.
**Lee:** So that was fantastic.
**Lee:** And then the last film of the day, which I won't be able to speak about because unfortunately, I didn't make it into this film.
**Chris:** And that this is a treat that you've still got to come.
**Lee:** I am.
**Lee:** I was so gutted that I missed it that I came home on Sunday night and watched The Snarling again.
**Chris:** Oh, that's that's a good call.
**Adam:** I watched The Snarling the next day, to be honest.
**Lee:** I also bought a coffee for Dave because he loved this film and hadn't seen it.
**Lee:** So I was like, I've got to send him home a copy of that, otherwise he might not get around to it.
**Lee:** So yes, The Last Twitch.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** It was indeed.
**Jennifer:** It was, yeah.
**Adam:** So as as you say, Pablo Raible's follow-up to his werewolf movie The Snarling.
**Adam:** That we I think we saw that the first time we went to Horror on Sea, didn't we?
**Jennifer:** I think it was probably years ago now, wasn't it?
**Adam:** I think it was 2018.
**Jennifer:** No, it could have been, yeah.
**Lee:** God, yeah.
**Adam:** yeah, that was
**Adam:** Yeah, so it's the follow-up to that, and you've got basically the trio of guys from the pub come back.
**Adam:** and magnificently, the detective inspector and Haskins come back because they are, one big name star, you did have Mark Williams in this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** For upwards of 30 seconds.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I quite like the idea that if they keep doing sort of follow-ons to The Snarling, is that they could be a bit like police squad and have like, this week, this film's special guest victim, you know, just get just get the biggest name in and kill them off, so, you know.
**Chris:** But it is, I mean, they essentially have got a formula that really works well with this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They basically just keep doing silly jokes until you crack.
**Chris:** It keeps getting almost gets better and better throughout the whole film.
**Chris:** You just, yeah, really so good.
**Adam:** I actually have to say, having rewatched The Snarling, I think The Last Twitch actually is probably funnier.
**Chris:** Oh, that's interesting.
**Jennifer:** Really?
**Adam:** Actually, yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think they've maybe it's just because I'm obviously I'm familiar with the characters.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, when I saw The Last Twitch, so.
**Adam:** You've already got that established idea of who everyone is.
**Chris:** That's why for the first for the first, you know, 10, 20 minutes I was like, oh, is it just going to be a bit too much, just too similar.
**Chris:** And yeah, it's like, no, you're still getting this right, like you are building on it and it's working and it's still so funny.
**Chris:** Even though you kind of know what to expect.
**Chris:** Even to yeah, till the end of the film, it really was those characters just worked so well together.
**Adam:** Well, I think I think because they said that they're they said that it was basically they finished editing it like a couple of days before.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Jennifer:** Oh, wow.
**Adam:** And I think, I don't know, because it was two hours, now The Snarling was an hour and a half, and I wonder if there's going to be some further editing, I think they've put together like their final sort of with everything in there.
**Adam:** Cut and maybe they'll sort of trim that down, I don't know, because that was.
**Jennifer:** Oh, well, they cut it out, I don't know.
**Adam:** I don't know, I think there's a few bits and pieces where they could maybe shorten things or just, you know, there are a few scenes that were maybe a bit long, but I think it's it's that thing as well that because obviously there's a improvisation element to it.
**Adam:** I'm assuming as well.
**Adam:** I wonder if it's that thing where you're like, right, every every line is fucking funny.
**Adam:** So we don't want to lose anything.
**Adam:** But I was reading sort of interviews back with the director from The Snarling, and he was talking about stuff that did get cut out of The Snarling that was sort of like gags or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So maybe.
**Adam:** Maybe they'll shorten it down just because I think two hours versus an hour and a half is a bit of a.
**Chris:** I can imagine that could put people off.
**Lee:** I hope they don't.
**Chris:** But it didn't feel long at all.
**Lee:** That'd be terrible.
**Lee:** If I'd have seen it on the night and then I get to.
**Jennifer:** But we could make the most of that for the next, you know, several years.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, you can see the good version.
**Jennifer:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** So you're all referencing back to Joking, and oh, you didn't see it, you're like, that did you.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Jennifer:** I liked they did the you know, Maximum Overdrive bit as well.
**Jennifer:** At that where they put the name of the film into the.
**Lee:** Oh, of course.
**Jennifer:** Yes, that always makes me laugh, so that was great.
**Adam:** On a completely unrelated note, I have now shown Claire Maximum Overdrive.
**Lee:** Great.
**Jennifer:** Great.
**Lee:** What was the
**Lee:** Yeah, was she impressed?
**Adam:** What did you think?
**Lee:** Crazy what it was.
**Adam:** It's the one with Emilio Estevez and living trucks.
**Jennifer:** Big green faces on trucks.
**Lee:** She said, it was good.
**Chris:** She goes.
**Adam:** Fucking mad, it was good.
**Adam:** I liked it.
**Jennifer:** It's great.
**Adam:** It's also great because the DVD I've got has got the Stephen King trailer where you're like Steve have a sit down.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Have a sit down and a drink.
**Adam:** Not that.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Drink no, water.
**Adam:** That's what you need.
**Adam:** He's not a calm man at that point.
**Adam:** So.
**Jennifer:** Nice.
**Lee:** yes, and then Lady Jennifer and I and Dave returned on the Sunday, as we said for power tool cheerleaders versus the boy band of the screeching dead.
**Jennifer:** Perfect time for the weekend.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's good.
**Lee:** I I've got to say when it first started, so we saw the actors who we'd seen from the previous day's films, and I was like, oh, excellent, they're in it, that's that's a good sign already, I'm definitely down for this.
**Lee:** and then it was like the Troma logo as well, so I was like, yep, right, that's it, I'm dialed in, this is where I want to be.
**Lee:** And then I discovered it's a musical.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** But I I've got to say, I I yeah, despite the fact I cringe so badly at musicals, I can't be in the same room as them normally, I did stay all the way to the end and thoroughly enjoyed it.
**Chris:** Oh, well done.
**Lee:** Yeah, it they were good, they were funny songs.
**Lee:** and it was played up like intentionally over the top.
**Lee:** but yeah, I mean this film would have been a perfect double header with Eating Miss Campbell, I think.
**Jennifer:** See, I preferred this one, I don't know if it's because it was not quite as over the top, I mean obviously it was, but yeah, I don't know, I like this one, I like the story of this one as well, I suppose, it made a bit more sense perhaps to me, a bit more coherent, but still with all the craziness in it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, so as we say, so it was the couple from Eating Miss Campbell, so it's James and Malton and Charlie Bond.
**Lee:** were the who were the main characters.
**Lee:** yeah, and I I yeah, I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** It was really funny, it was over the top, gory and ludicrous.
**Jennifer:** And of course, filmed in South End.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Jennifer:** Oh, so on the way home, Dave said, oh, do you want to have a little detour and we'll drive past the sort of American style diner where the the the the film opens.
**Lee:** And they do their first singing number.
**Lee:** So we stopped outside there on the way back and we're definitely going to go back and have a meal in there.
**Lee:** Just to soak up the atmosphere from the film.
**Chris:** Yeah, excellent.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, it was again, it was just an absolute laugh riot, it was really good, it was really well paced and hilarious.
**Lee:** there weren't too many songs and as I say, a lot of the time they were kind of in there intentionally hammy and stuff.
**Jennifer:** I think they just actually they moved the narrative on as well, which so in a way, it wasn't like they were stuck in and you felt it was slowing it down.
**Jennifer:** It was like, right, this is covered this bit now, yeah, and then.
**Lee:** Okay, yeah.
**Jennifer:** Which I think, you know, worked well, really.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was like an exposition tool rather than let's just stick a random song in here for three minutes for no reason whatsoever, which is what pisses me off with musicals.
**Lee:** So yeah, I think when it works as part of the story.
**Lee:** It yeah, it it works.
**Lee:** So yeah, I totally enjoyed this and it was another definite recommend for me.
**Chris:** Great.
**Lee:** Definitely go.
**Lee:** I actually there was another actor in there as well who was in the first film, oh, Annabella Rich as well, who was in the first one who played the over the top, over excitable American
**Jennifer:** Teacher, wasn't she?
**Lee:** No, she wasn't a teacher.
**Lee:** She was like the PA or something.
**Jennifer:** Oh, yes, that's right, they were sleeping with the head.
**Lee:** That's right, yeah.
**Lee:** And ended up in a body bag.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** So she was in this as well.
**Lee:** yeah, I just absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, and of course this was Pat Higgins, who every year at Horror on Sea.
**Jennifer:** there's always Pat Higgins' masterclass, which we never go to because we don't want to learn how to make horror films, but I feel like, you know, finally seen.
**Lee:** What he can do.
**Jennifer:** I'd been more tempted to go to the class just because he was hilarious.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** In himself.
**Lee:** Oh and he the final scene of the show of the movie, he is wearing a horror on C t-shirt as well.
**Lee:** So I really like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, more of that please next year.
**Jennifer:** More free things.
**Adam:** We are not above bribery.
**Jennifer:** Absolutely, definitely.
**Lee:** Anyway, right, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, and we'll see you next week.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Thank you.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Jennifer:** Bye.
**Adam:** Bye.

---

## Bonus Episode - Chatting With Tony Wash

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-episode-chatting-with-tony-wash/
Air date: 20 January 2023
Duration: 01:27:15

### Description

Merry belated Christmas! Here at WTH we know its always nice to get a belated gift when life has gone back to the dreary drudge of dull January so here you are! Scotchworthy president Tony Wash has very kindly made some time in his busy schedule to sit down and have a chat with Lee about the upcoming release of the 15th anniversary edition of “Its my party and I’ll die if I want to” and working with Bloody Disgusting on their latest short collection “bloody Bites”, as well as his recent work curating shorts for Bloody Disgusting TV and generally all things horror. We encourage you all to help with this project by ordering a copy to help fund this release as well as all of Tony’s other films! To pre-order your copy or pickup any of Tony’s other work mentioned please head over to: https://www.scotchworthy.com/store-1/

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is a cheeky bonus episode as promised, another interview with our good friend Tony Wash over at Scotchworthy Productions.
**Lee:** Just to let you know, later in the interview, we're discussing the new comic book, which will be coming out alongside the anniversary edition of It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To, and we discuss the difference between the black and white and the colour.
**Lee:** You can see those if you go over to our Instagram. We're going to post up the pictures of the two side by side as a repost from Tony so that you can see exactly what we were talking about.
**Lee:** And hopefully, if he gets enough people on the pre-order, when the comic book comes out, it will in fact be in colour.
**Lee:** So, thanks very much, and enjoy the show.
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee, and as promised last week, I'm here with something extra special with a little late Christmas present for you all.
**Lee:** I'm here with the amazing Tony Wash, president of Scotchworthy Productions.
**Lee:** He's been doing some great stuff since we last spoke, so we were chatting, and he's offered to come on and tell everyone what he's been up to.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for coming on, Tony.
**Tony Wash:** Oh, yeah. Back with my brother from across the pond after all these years.
**Tony Wash:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** It's, yeah, it's it's it's great to have you back and I really appreciate you taking the time to to speak to me and our listeners.
**Lee:** Yeah, and let us know what you've been up to.
**Tony Wash:** For sure. No, it's it's always great to have people such as you and your position where, you know, you're you're not just helping me promote my stuff, but you're doing it enthusiastically because you're legitimately a fan, and you in particular Lee have been a fan of of my stuff since it's my party and I'll die if I want to, which is you know, as you know since you pre-ordered one of the the the edition the new DVDs.
**Tony Wash:** We're on our 15-year anniversary of the release of it's my party.
**Tony Wash:** So, you know, we shot that from 2005 to 2007, and I just I think that I think back and I'm like, that was a lifetime ago at this point, you know, it's just crazy.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is and the stuff you've wrecked up between now and then is fantastic and so that's why we're, you know, we're still sitting here chatting now.
**Lee:** Is it's it's always consistently amazing and it's been great to see you on your journey from sort of where you started, self-funding and sort of early on just doing everything yourself sort of in house.
**Lee:** Yeah, to the stuff you're doing now and curating other people's work and yeah, it's it's just been fantastic.
**Lee:** And it's it's nice to have a cornerstone of something you can go to who's putting stuff out regularly and yeah, and it's always consistently good.
**Tony Wash:** Wow, I appreciate that.
**Tony Wash:** And and you know, you your fan your fandom of of our work is is a testament to the fact that my friends and I really take pride in what we create and, you know,
**Tony Wash:** and and that at least those of us that are influencing the creative side of it are legitimate fans of the horror genre.
**Tony Wash:** Which I think is important when you're making independent horror movies, you know, it's not about making a buck, it's about showing people the heart that you have for for something.
**Tony Wash:** The passion and, I've always believed that, you know, they they tell you do what you do what you know or do what you love.
**Tony Wash:** You know, and and to me that's especially important when you're an artist or a storyteller.
**Tony Wash:** and so, you know, I I'm not going to go out and and start making romantic comedies, even though I would.
**Tony Wash:** I don't I'm not funny and and I don't think that, that that I would do as good of a job translating my style to that genre versus horror, which is something I've grown up with and always loved.
**Tony Wash:** As you can see from my collection of posters behind me and such.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh, is a beautiful collection.
**Lee:** Actually, it does bring me to a point. I was going to say your, films a lot of the time have got that really nice '80s feel to them.
**Lee:** like just the the color palette and the player and everything is so not necessarily, it doesn't feel like you're going for nostalgia, but it feels like you're doing what you love, which is that.

---

## Ep 161 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-161-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 15 January 2023
Duration: 00:52:37

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “House of We Have Been Watching”. Yes folks, back for 2023 and we’re discussing what film/TV we’ve been enjoying over the festive period. Well, I say “enjoy…” In this episode we talk about “Inside No.9: The Bones of St Nicholas”, “Count Magnus”, Disney’s “Z-O-M-B-I-E-S” trilogy, “She Will”, “The Menu”, “Possum”, “Torture Garden”, “Flux Gourmet”, and Somerset House’s “The Horror Show” Exhibition. Beware of spoilers and swearing and join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Happy New Year.
**Chris:** Happy New Year.
**Adam:** Happy New Year.
**Unknown:** Yay!
**Chris:** It was until I watched some of these films.
**Unknown:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** we are going to, be mildly spoiling, the things we've covered this week. But we are going to swear, so be aware, swear is a plenty. and, yeah, we will we will be a little bit spoilery but not too heavy if if at all possible.
**Adam:** We should mention names and dates.

---

## Ep 160 Inside No.9 pt3

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-160-inside-no-9-pt3/
Air date: 23 December 2022
Duration: 01:11:27

### Description

And we open the “Inside No.9 Christmas Selection Box” one last time, but unlike a normal selection box, we’re not left with a few toffee pennies and that horrible coconut one. No, we’ve got a hazelnut whirl and a caramel barrel! (SNAP! There goes that metaphor.) First off we have season 1’s horror foray “The Harrowing”, where we learn what rhymes with “Moloch”. And then we finish with “The Devil of Christmas”, an outstanding evocation of television of yore, with a mention of eating an onion as if ‘twere an apple. SPOILERS AHOY SO PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE WATCH THESE FANTASTIC EPISODES BEFORE WE RUIN THE MANY TWISTS AND TURNS SO MASTERFULLY CRAFTED BY SHEARSMITH AND PEMBERTON. Watch (or re-watch), join us and have a Merry Messy Christmas

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here for our Christmas party. Woohoo!
**Adam:** Hey!
**Lee:** Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do. I've got a bottle opener in one hand and a bottle in the other.
**Chris:** It's not working.
**Lee:** I've been drinking for about 30 years. You think I'd know how to open a pissing bottle.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Is this a joke bottle Jennifer's given you?
**Lee:** Oh, there we go. Yay. Noiseless. Anyway.
**Lee:** Yes, there will be spoilers, there will be swearing. Definitely go and watch this, as we've said, with all of the inside number nines, because yeah, although they're fantastic to watch.
**Lee:** They work so much better the first time around, so don't let us ruin it for you because.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Because it's amazing.
**Lee:** so this evening we are going to be covering the harrowing and the Devil of Christmas.
**Lee:** so first up, let's cover the harrowing, shall we?
**Lee:** yeah, I, I remember when this one first aired being really super excited.
**Lee:** I think I mentioned before, like obviously I know the guys are all really into their horror.
**Lee:** So I was watching the whole of the first series going, is it gonna be a horror one? Is it gonna be a horror one?
**Lee:** And then waiting until the last episode, oh, yeah, and this just cherry on the cake season one, isn't it?
**Adam:** I, I think that they,
**Adam:** I think they probably deliberately held back because it was like, right, we can do a ball out horror.
**Adam:** We're not putting that one first because it'd put.
**Lee:** No, because it'd put people off.
**Adam:** Oh, 100%.
**Adam:** If people watch this one, I think like sardine starting series one was probably
**Adam:** the best because it gives you, you know, that it basically gives you the proper setup of, right.
**Adam:** What you're about to get is about 20 minutes roughly of comedy, 10 minutes of horrible unease.
**Adam:** And a twist and a payoff.
**Adam:** So, but I think the harrowing would have been as I, I mean, we would have been sold.
**Adam:** But I think, you know, there is a that the League's fan base isn't just purely people who also have watched The Devil rides out.
**Adam:** 100 times.
**Adam:** So,
**Chris:** Well, it's funny, Lee, that you actually said it works better the first time.
**Chris:** It, it, you know, that makes sense.
**Chris:** Because you don't know the twist, but actually for some reason I so enjoyed watching this the second time.
**Chris:** And I was, I was thinking, you know, yeah, maybe I won't.
**Chris:** But for some reason, in a way, almost the comedy works more because I'm not on edge as much thinking, wait, where's this gonna go?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like, and trying to guess it, it's just like, no, I kind of, you know, I forgot a little bit, a few of the details.
**Chris:** But then yeah, some of the jokes, it's just like you're more relaxed and you're just enjoying the way that they have constructed so many like little details.
**Chris:** You just think, yeah, you've just got that so well.
**Chris:** And it was, yeah, it was making me laugh so much more this time around.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Lee:** Hang on.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Go on, man.
**Lee:** I was just going to say.
**Adam:** I was going to say, go on, Lee, Lee, go on.
**Lee:** Adam, go.
**Lee:** Right, yeah, I, I think the cast for this one.
**Lee:** Is just, like, I, I loved, as we said before, you know, the way they do people in just the once and let them do one.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, the cast in this one is just phenomenal.
**Lee:** I remember at the time, as soon as I realized it was gonna be a horror one, I was excited.
**Lee:** And then of course Helen McCory comes in, and Amy, who plays Katy, who I've seen in other stuff as well, she was in Luther.
**Adam:** Yeah, she was around, yeah, around the same time she was in Luther, again, playing up to the fact that she looks so much younger than she actually is.
**Lee:** Exactly, yeah.
**Lee:** And she does a good job of that as well, like even her speech and everything, she comes across as quite a young girl.
**Chris:** Really convincingly.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, I just, yeah, I, I just loved that whole, I mean, it's very much, the story of this is pretty very much the same as,
**Lee:** House of the Devil.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Effectively.
**Adam:** which we do need to cover on the show because you do need to see it, Chris.
**Chris:** Sounds like we do, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, you might have an inkling as to what happens in it.
**Adam:** But that, that, that was one of the influences that they talked about or said that, you know, it's.
**Adam:** Because yeah, when I was watching it, it was House of the Devil with the score from Suspiria.
**Adam:** It was pretty much how I was watching it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then in, in the sort of, I'm gonna say again.
**Adam:** Because it's a great thing, The Insider's Guide to Inside Number Nine by Mark Salisbury is where I've got most of my notes and sort of additional info and stuff like that from.
**Adam:** And yeah, they mentioned House they mentioned House of the Devil, they like David Kerr, the director.
**Adam:** Mentions because the score was going in that sort of goblin, but also that sort of electronic.
**Adam:** Cause apparently, he like the composer dug out a load of, yeah, Christian Henson dug out a load of his old analog synths and stuff like that to go for this one.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's really one of their best ones because this is almost like they've not got to they're not having to sell you.
**Adam:** Say for example, like we had with Seance Time, which sells you that you're gonna be watching a very scary.
**Adam:** Sort of, you know, almost to the point of cliche horror thing.
**Adam:** And then that actually gets then subverted and actually know you're watching an in-camera show and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Whereas this is dread and unease from the start.
**Adam:** And it stays there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because this is, yeah, this is the horror one, as it were.
**Lee:** But as we, you know, as we say, although it does have a lot of similarities to House of the Devil, what I love about House of the Devil.
**Lee:** Is that it keeps that tension going for such a long time, but this has just as much tension.
**Lee:** And somehow manages to cram it into a third of the runtime.
**Lee:** And just keep it.
**Lee:** You know, like it doesn't feel rushed.
**Lee:** Everything's allowed to take as long as it needs to take to build that discomfort and unease.
**Lee:** But they do it in such a short period of time.
**Lee:** It's absolutely insane.
**Adam:** While still being funny.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly, you know, because that's, that's, that's the cleverest thing is because and it's, I'm not gonna claim that it's an easy sell to sell dread because so many films fail to do it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they're the ones that really do it are exceptionally good.
**Adam:** But yeah, they are rarely humorous as well.
**Chris:** I was trying to think, the humor in this, it is kind of deadpan.
**Chris:** Isn't it, throughout, it's they're making the jokes, but it's, it's not, you know, they're not setting you up really, it's,
**Chris:** Yeah, like just some of the little comments that each of them make.
**Chris:** Like, what is it? Do you know Po? Oh yeah, teletubbies.
**Adam:** They got Teletubbies.
**Chris:** Yeah, and they're just talking, but then, what was her name? Mcroy, like it's just the way she's looking and then she adjusts to sort of move past that.
**Chris:** Which, in, in reality, you know, that'd be very awkward.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and she moves on and it's funnier again.
**Lee:** Well, even in the even at the super tense part at the end, you know, where he pulls out a taser and she goes, right, so you haven't got the internet, but you've got a fucking taser.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like, but it doesn't take the tension away. I don't know how they just manage to keep everything.
**Lee:** It's so many balls in the air at once.
**Lee:** And there's just there's never a misstep. I honestly don't know how they manage it, it's phenomenal.
**Adam:** The beauty of the humor of it as well.
**Adam:** Is that feels an I, I don't know whether this is like my brain or sort of a lot of people.
**Adam:** But the comedic bits actually also sell the reality.
**Adam:** To me.
**Adam:** In as much as it's like they go through the whole thing of you've been chosen and he will enter your body.
**Adam:** And she just.
**Adam:** Fuck off!
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's funny.
**Adam:** But how is that not your reaction if someone starts doing that?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like these two extraordinary dressed and weird people start telling you that they're going to be the vessel for a mischief demon.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, the first, the way you say, yeah, the way you say that.
**Chris:** Yeah, they say.
**Adam:** Over and over.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** And those cloven feet as well.
**Lee:** Like it's, oh, it's just, it's so beautifully done.
**Adam:** Well, originally they were, they were gonna have Andreas more obviously a demon.
**Adam:** But from a budgetary point of view, they couldn't have like a full winged prosthetic made up demon.
**Adam:** So they sort of set about going back on it and that's when they brought in the sort of elements of.
**Adam:** Oh, is this actually, as, Katy thinks, oh, no, this is just abuse.
**Adam:** This is just.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, this is just, and again, it's that lovely thing of your brain.
**Adam:** that I think that she is an extremely rational and clever character. I mean, obviously she's just caught in a fucking awful circumstance.
**Adam:** But her reactions.
**Adam:** Like it's like, she's not gonna go in there.
**Adam:** And it's like, right, this is why they're being creepy is because they've got this poor bastard locked up in here.
**Adam:** Let's get him out. Let's help him.
**Adam:** And even when they go through that, she doesn't follow the demonology supernatural element of it.
**Adam:** She is just like, no.
**Adam:** You're just treating him like shit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** My mum's got hard feet at like.
**Lee:** Hard feet.
**Adam:** Hard feet.
**Adam:** And all those sort of bits, but yeah, so they.
**Adam:** Again, working within the restrictions they've got, I think it's probably added to it.
**Adam:** Rather than having something that is clearly a supernatural entity.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, quite possibly.
**Adam:** Sitting in the bed, you've just got this possibly disabled old man, you know, or sort of.
**Adam:** Or just maltreated figure.
**Adam:** they said that they, what was it, the, the, the things they said for him were.
**Adam:** obviously the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth was an inspiration on that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and Sloth in Seven.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, when they break in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and also they wanted him to move like the Jadda Man from the Meff advert.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which is, which again, is one of those weird ones that does seem to have just stuck with a lot of people.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Of and.
**Adam:** And certainly a lot of sort of younger watchers who were like sort of, you know, that's genuinely one of those sort of childhood creepy moments of just.
**Adam:** What the fuck is this?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But, oh, and to, so obviously, like I said, we're talking series one, we're talking episode six, which was the was the the last one.
**Adam:** First broadcast on the 12th of March, 2014.
**Adam:** and the director is David Kerr.
**Adam:** Who directed all of series one.
**Lee:** Oh, I didn't realize that.
**Adam:** That, that whole thing cause I assumed sort of when I was looking back through it, I was like, oh, they must have always used multiple directors.
**Adam:** But no, the first series is just David Kerr who did every single one.
**Adam:** So the fact that they are so varied and everything else like that is a real testament to him as much as them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** What else?
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** So, so series one is Sardines, a Quiet Night In, which is the silent one, Tom and Jerry, Last Gasp, and The Understudy.
**Adam:** and then obviously this.
**Adam:** And then he also did Zanzibar and To Have and To Hold.
**Adam:** in series four.
**Adam:** So, he's, he also directed Johnny English Strikes Again.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** That seems a bit.
**Adam:** But he also.
**Adam:** He also directed Monkey Trousers, That Mitchell and Webb Look, That Mitchell and Webb Situation, Whites, No Offense and Fresh Meat.
**Adam:** So, you know, he's there.
**Chris:** There's some, I would say some similarities with the Mitchell and Webb, they get kind of eerie.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, they have some sinister characters in that as well, which is always nice.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he talked about, he talked about The Innocents, The Haunting, The Orphanage and The Others.
**Adam:** and I know that definitely like The Haunting and The Others have come up on previous ones we've looked at.
**Adam:** So I think they're pretty sort of key works when they're sort of going for this sort of thing.
**Lee:** I think I'd go say, I think this is the first one as well that didn't have Steve Pemberton in, and I remember the first time watching it through.
**Lee:** Just waiting to see Andress and being like, it's clearly gonna be Steve, it's got to be.
**Lee:** And then when it wasn't, I was like, oh, yeah, no, that's totally thrown me.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, because there's because it's weird, they never got, they've never gone back and done that, but, the.
**Adam:** Excuse me.
**Adam:** The first series, I, I think it's the last breath, Reece is not in it.
**Adam:** And I think that that's, Last Gasp, sorry.
**Adam:** yeah, Reece isn't in that one, so I think possibly there was gonna be a plan that they wouldn't always.
**Adam:** Appear.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I think that's that's because obviously when they were doing the league with Mark Gati, they were pretty much the entire cast.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then they did Psychoville and I know they played multiple characters in Psychoville.
**Adam:** You've also got actors playing other characters.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And major characters, it's not just like.
**Adam:** A waiter or someone, you know, you've got Dawn French in there and so on and Daniel Kaluuya.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So there's a lot of so I wonder if they were almost going for that where it's like, well, eventually would we just cast this.
**Adam:** and just let it run.
**Adam:** Cause, yeah, I think it was only I think yeah, I was, I was in the same thing when I when I first watched it.
**Adam:** It was like, oh, Andrew's is clearly gonna be Steve.
**Adam:** you know.
**Adam:** Which certainly would not have been as effective as the guy they've got, Shaun Dooley.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Who is just, he's a movement artist, he worked with like Steven Berkov and stuff like that, so he's like a performance artist.
**Adam:** So he can, but he's in, he's in The Fifth Element, he's a scientist in The Fifth Element.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's in, I mean, clearly he's in fucking Game of Thrones, cause you do not have to do anything to him to make him terrifying.
**Adam:** Peaky Blinders,
**Lee:** Oh, we had Helen McCroy again.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** And, Amy Fion Edwards, she was in Peaky Blinders as well.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, she was. Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** She was another Shelby.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** but I think that yeah, his, he was in.
**Adam:** The Wedding of River Song, like a Doctor Who thing.
**Adam:** But the thing that I thought of was he's Albert in Toast of London, the Moose Trap.
**Adam:** Which is where he's going and doing this awful play and he's like the stage hand, but he only ever appears in like a sort of Lynchian blaze of electricity.
**Adam:** And just stands there looking fucking terrifying.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that and that is literally it, that is literally what he does.
**Adam:** But it's, yeah.
**Adam:** But no, he's a really, you know, and again, it's that thing of you've got.
**Adam:** You know, someone might have sat there and said, oh, well, you've just got some bloke lying in a bed, but they've gone and got someone who can really.
**Lee:** Yes, sell that character on multiple levels.
**Lee:** I mean, it's.
**Lee:** It, it, and it, that's the thing with this, again, I know we've said it before with previous episodes of Inside Number Nine, when it's such a small cast, every performance counts.
**Lee:** Like everyone has to be selling it 100% or it just doesn't work.
**Lee:** yeah, which is why it's lovely to see all these fantastic actors who you know so well from other stuff.
**Lee:** yeah, to just see him come on and just absolutely sell the shit out of this stuff.
**Lee:** It's so much so much fun.
**Lee:** And it's always, it was always exciting when it was first airing, because I always made a point of not looking into it.
**Lee:** And waiting for the episode and then going, oh, it's her, oh, it's him, oh, awesome, oh, I haven't seen him since I, yeah.
**Lee:** And it kind of added to it, it was a bit of a like a variety performance.
**Lee:** There was always somebody there that yeah, that you just you knew you were you loved from other stuff and they just popped up.
**Lee:** I mean,
**Lee:** I think that's the thing, they must be so well regarded in the industry to be able to get these people to just drop.
**Lee:** I mean, you think.
**Adam:** Pretty much anyone they need.
**Lee:** Yeah. I mean, Helen McCory was doing the Harry Potter movies at this point and still just came and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, apparently, apparently she was in a.
**Adam:** She was in a play with Reece.
**Adam:** And he sort of suggested to her at that point.
**Adam:** Like, did you wanna come and do this and apparently she was really up for it.
**Adam:** But again, like you say, I think it's just that level of respect and cachet that they've got within.
**Adam:** You know, cause everyone knows they're really fucking good.
**Adam:** Even if, even if it's just the thing of it's like.
**Adam:** Well, they're really successful, so maybe I could do with being in an episode of something they've done, you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** but I mean, certainly not in Helen Mcroy's case, but.
**Adam:** who, who actually I I hadn't realized we'd last saw in episode one, two, four, interview with the vampire, where she played second whore.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, you know, that's.
**Adam:** Not not even the first.
**Adam:** Not even.
**Chris:** No, yeah.
**Chris:** She's come a long way.
**Adam:** It's a meta, it's a meteoric career.
**Adam:** Unfortunately no longer with us.
**Adam:** But.
**Lee:** I was gonna say, yeah, shame we lost her last year, didn't we?
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Was it last year? I think, yeah, I think it was actually.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean, the.
**Adam:** And I think that, oh, the what is it? They mention it, The Gospel of Nicodemus. I was looking into it. That genuinely is a text. It's Apocryphal Bible text. So it's stuff that's not considered part of the canon.
**Adam:** Like, it's not properly one of the gospels.
**Lee:** But it's side quest.
**Adam:** Yeah, it is.
**Adam:** It is, it's basically, it's Andor.
**Lee:** Or something, yeah.
**Adam:** It's not part of the main nine, but, you know, it's, it counts.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** And basically, yeah, it's, it's the story, it's basically what Jesus did in the holidays.
**Adam:** But what Jesus did while he was dead.
**Adam:** So it's like a two, it's like a two-part thing.
**Adam:** And it's the first is his trial and crucifixion.
**Adam:** And then the second part is him going to hell, where he frees loads of people who like loads of souls from hell who shouldn't have gone.
**Adam:** from what I can gather, mostly sort of like big important names.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you know, the little people don't really count where the Jesus is concerned.
**Adam:** Well, certainly in the in the hell of the fiction.
**Adam:** But, yeah, Blessed Are the Meek, but, yeah.
**Adam:** I did rescue that very rich pope from hell.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where, where frankly, it'd probably been asking for it.
**Adam:** but anyway, so and that is what's described as the harrowing of hell.
**Adam:** Is Jesus freeing all these things.
**Adam:** Cause it's a weird one because it's actually quite a positive, although it's called the harrowing of hell, it's like, oh, no, that's actually something positive taking place.
**Adam:** Where souls are being freed, and similarly enough in this there is an element where.
**Adam:** I mean, not from Katy's perspective.
**Adam:** But where Hexter and Tabitha are doing.
**Adam:** They're not devil worshippers, you know, they, they are.
**Lee:** Yeah, they are try, yeah, I was gonna say, they are trying to do the right thing.
**Lee:** Unfortunately, it just means that someone is going to get screwed over in order for them to save the world.
**Lee:** So although they are the bad guys in a way, ultimately if they don't do that job, everyone's screwed.
**Lee:** So it's, yeah, so they are kind of the good guys, but not.
**Lee:** It's really strange.
**Chris:** Well, and also, is it terrible for Katy?
**Chris:** To become the vessel?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** I wouldn't like it.
**Lee:** I wouldn't like Kate like that. I like half my shoes I'd have to throw away.
**Chris:** He didn't actually seem like too unhappy.
**Adam:** Yeah, because that's Castiel.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, presumably you presume he's.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** You're you're still experi.
**Adam:** Well, I'm assuming that 10-year-old Andress is stuck in there somewhere in this sort of tormented state.
**Adam:** While this beast creature rages.
**Adam:** That it can't be free to cause mischief.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And essentially, you are tied to a bed and fed rusks and milk for 50 years.
**Adam:** Now,
**Adam:** Some people probably quite like that.
**Lee:** That's a King Cop not got for.
**Adam:** You know, if you, but if you, well, I don't even mean that.
**Adam:** I think just lazy bastards.
**Adam:** You know, I'm just not even a king, just people who can't be asked.
**Chris:** I just think that's funny. The stairlift because he couldn't be bothered to walk up the stairs.
**Adam:** Oh, that's brilliant.
**Adam:** I do because that's the thing as well is I like the first half because it's kind of, it's, well, I think that that was another thing that they mentioned was The Addams Family.
**Adam:** Because it is that sort of thing of it's just these very unusual siblings, but also just the sort of thing say.
**Adam:** Don't worry, I'm not a vampire, I play guitar.
**Adam:** Where he's got the long thing, which he does, because obviously he brings the guitar out later.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I do love, I love love that bit about the salt circle.
**Adam:** He's like, maybe they got slokes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I, I just, I love that, and like, and it's shot so, and that's the thing, although, you know, as we've said before.
**Lee:** It, it obviously draws quite a lot on that, House of the Devil, it's a very British version.
**Lee:** Like, this is if Amicus did it.
**Lee:** and I just love the look of everything.
**Lee:** I mean, the house looks amazing.
**Lee:** I mean, that artwork as well, when, when that goth girl turns up, Shelley and says, oh, I could live here.
**Lee:** And I was like, I would kill to live there.
**Lee:** You're crazy, like it's, but maybe not with the cold.
**Lee:** But yeah, like.
**Lee:** It's so dark.
**Lee:** Because Jennifer mentioned while we were watching it this afternoon.
**Lee:** She was like, oh, I think we're gonna struggle to spot the the hair.
**Lee:** Oh, no, she said the opposite, sorry, she said it should be easy to spot the hair because the house is so kind of everyday.
**Lee:** And I was like, yeah, but it's almost in the pitch black the whole way through.
**Lee:** It's really hard to, I did spot the hair in the end.
**Lee:** I was quite pleased with myself.
**Adam:** Whereabouts is it?
**Adam:** I don't.
**Lee:** So when they go into Hector's bedroom and she picks up the guitar, there's a bedside lamp, there's like a bedside table with just a lamp and the hair is just the only thing that are the only other thing that's on the bedside table.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Adam:** Spotted sir.
**Lee:** But yeah, that's the only time I've spotted it apart from in the episode where it plays obviously a massive part of the story.
**Adam:** Well, this like like Seance Time, this is and The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** We've accidentally ended up back at Lang Langberry House for the interiors.
**Adam:** So again, it's that really big, great gothic staircase.
**Lee:** Now, I got it right. Sorry.
**Lee:** I just, just before because you might be about to say it and I'm so pleased with myself that I think I spotted it.
**Lee:** I believe that is the same staircase from Psychoville, that the house that the blind guy owned.
**Lee:** Only because I remember Daniel Kaluuya standing at the bottom of the stairs there.
**Lee:** yeah, and him going, got a lot of stuff, mate.
**Adam:** Cause I think cause I think Psychoville and this.
**Adam:** Shoots it almost exactly the same.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** I think that,
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, it's in Psychoville, it was in White Chapel and it's yeah, it's rooms from it are in The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** Seance Time.
**Adam:** Mostly utilizing that staircase.
**Adam:** the, the chair the stairlift was a prop, but it wasn't functional.
**Adam:** So that's just going up on like a pulley.
**Lee:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** But also when you think about it, you're like, actually, yeah, I don't think I see anyone.
**Chris:** And it was on its last leg.
**Adam:** I think Shelley's the only person you actually see in it moving.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I think no, because Shell doesn't get in it cause her friend says it's too big.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're too big for it.
**Lee:** And you went, oh, I've only been here five minutes and you called me fat.
**Lee:** But we do see Helen McCroy's character sit in it, but it doesn't move, she just sits in it at the bottom and then she gets up and wanders off, so, yeah.
**Adam:** And also, and when Hexter appears, he just appears.
**Adam:** Like you hear the stairlift.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then they start using that as a scare tactic.
**Adam:** Because then the stairlift is like, you're aware of what that means.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's quite, you know, that's actually quite a unique.
**Adam:** Sort of scare, I think in something that they've used that.
**Adam:** Especially with the.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just think
**Adam:** Because the house being cold as well is that the other thing that they mentioned was, oh, and they talk about ice holding Satan.
**Adam:** that is in the ninth circle of hell.
**Adam:** So again, they're trying to bring it back to it's Inside Number Nine.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** There's just so much goes in writing these and I, I think even if you don't pick up on all of them.
**Lee:** It just adds like another level, all those little extra bits that just goes to kind of solidify the universe that they're working in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that's.
**Chris:** You see why there was a place for, for that book that you've got Adam.
**Chris:** The Insiders Guide.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, this is the thing.
**Adam:** The podcast they did as well, Inside Inside Number Nine, much the same thing cause you get it's that like most things you can sort of like, oh, well, there's the thing.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it, there's the commentary.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it or whatever.
**Adam:** Whereas actually with this, there's so many sort of bits and pieces that you miss out on or sort of.
**Adam:** Just suddenly make you aware when you've got this dense thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, because there isn't a slight episode really of Inside Number Nine.
**Adam:** They, they're pretty, you know, it's pretty densely plotted or running out, you know, it's sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** I can't work out how they have the time, like because they do so much other stuff as well.
**Lee:** It seems like the writing process just for a single episode must be months, the amount of stuff that they cram into it and yeah, and they still seem to be doing 101 other projects at the same time.
**Lee:** They must.
**Lee:** Yeah, they must literally sleep for about two hours a night.
**Lee:** I think I don't know where else they manage it.
**Adam:** Are they, are they sticking.
**Adam:** To the Vincent Price principal?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, I'm not turning it down.
**Adam:** I might not get off it again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It must be exhausting.
**Lee:** But I mean, yeah, as fans of them, it's fantastic because it means there's always something being turned out and it's always top quality.
**Lee:** As you say, you know, like.
**Lee:** You know, how many seasons in a we now, seven, and there isn't a found in episode, there isn't a filler episode, there isn't one that you wouldn't go back and watch again.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** There's ones I've said I won't go back and watch again, but not because they're not great.
**Lee:** But just because they pound the living shit out of me.
**Lee:** They really do.
**Lee:** Which is what they designed to do.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think also it's it's there's not really a similar thing.
**Adam:** You haven't really had that thing of, oh, well, that was like that previous episode.
**Adam:** Or that twist was similar to that.
**Adam:** They've really managed to keep out of, you know, doubling up or.
**Lee:** I just don't know where they've done it for 60 odd episodes and kept everyone so fresh.
**Lee:** And you know, even the gimmicky episodes and stuff.
**Lee:** Like I love those, I think they're so.
**Lee:** Yeah, and just so well.
**Chris:** They still work as the change.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's not just like, oh, that's the, as you say, you know, the gimmicky one where they did it all in rhyme and stuff.
**Lee:** Like, there's so much happens in that episode that's genuinely fantastic.
**Lee:** and all they've really done is taken a really good episode.
**Lee:** And made it even more difficult for themselves to write.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I just, I love that.
**Lee:** And like, and it's shot so.
**Lee:** And that's the thing, although, you know, as we've said before.
**Lee:** It, it obviously draws quite a lot on that, House of the Devil, it's a very British version.
**Lee:** Like, this is if Amicus did it.
**Lee:** and I just love the look of everything.
**Lee:** I mean, the house looks amazing.
**Lee:** I mean, that artwork as well, when, when that goth girl turns up, Shelley and says, oh, I could live here.
**Lee:** And I was like, I would kill to live there.
**Lee:** You're crazy, like it's, but maybe not with the cold.
**Lee:** But yeah, like.
**Lee:** It's so dark.
**Lee:** Because Jennifer mentioned while we were watching it this afternoon.
**Lee:** She was like, oh, I think we're gonna struggle to spot the the hair.
**Lee:** Oh, no, she said the opposite, sorry, she said it should be easy to spot the hair because the house is so kind of everyday.
**Lee:** And I was like, yeah, but it's almost in the pitch black the whole way through.
**Lee:** It's really hard to, I did spot the hair in the end.
**Lee:** I was quite pleased with myself.
**Adam:** Whereabouts is it?
**Adam:** I don't.
**Lee:** So when they go into Hector's bedroom and she picks up the guitar, there's a bedside lamp, there's like a bedside table with just a lamp and the hair is just the only thing that are the only other thing that's on the bedside table.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Adam:** Spotted sir.
**Lee:** But yeah, that's the only time I've spotted it apart from in the episode where it plays obviously a massive part of the story.
**Adam:** Well, this like like Seance Time, this is and The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** We've accidentally ended up back at Lang Langberry House for the interiors.
**Adam:** So again, it's that really big, great gothic staircase.
**Lee:** Now, I got it right. Sorry.
**Lee:** I just, just before because you might be about to say it and I'm so pleased with myself that I think I spotted it.
**Lee:** I believe that is the same staircase from Psychoville, that the house that the blind guy owned.
**Lee:** Only because I remember Daniel Kaluuya standing at the bottom of the stairs there.
**Lee:** yeah, and him going, got a lot of stuff, mate.
**Adam:** Cause I think cause I think Psychoville and this.
**Adam:** Shoots it almost exactly the same.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** I think that,
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, it's in Psychoville, it was in White Chapel and it's yeah, it's rooms from it are in The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** Seance Time.
**Adam:** Mostly utilizing that staircase.
**Adam:** the, the chair the stairlift was a prop, but it wasn't functional.
**Adam:** So that's just going up on like a pulley.
**Lee:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** But also when you think about it, you're like, actually, yeah, I don't think I see anyone.
**Chris:** And it was on its last leg.
**Adam:** I think Shelley's the only person you actually see in it moving.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I think no, because Shell doesn't get in it cause her friend says it's too big.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're too big for it.
**Lee:** And you went, oh, I've only been here five minutes and you called me fat.
**Lee:** But we do see Helen McCroy's character sit in it, but it doesn't move, she just sits in it at the bottom and then she gets up and wanders off, so, yeah.
**Adam:** And also, and when Hexter appears, he just appears.
**Adam:** Like you hear the stairlift.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then they start using that as a scare tactic.
**Adam:** Because then the stairlift is like, you're aware of what that means.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's quite, you know, that's actually quite a unique.
**Adam:** Sort of scare, I think in something that they've used that.
**Adam:** Especially with the.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just think
**Adam:** Because the house being cold as well is that the other thing that they mentioned was, oh, and they talk about ice holding Satan.
**Adam:** that is in the ninth circle of hell.
**Adam:** So again, they're trying to bring it back to it's Inside Number Nine.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** There's just so much goes in writing these and I, I think even if you don't pick up on all of them.
**Lee:** It just adds like another level, all those little extra bits that just goes to kind of solidify the universe that they're working in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that's.
**Chris:** You see why there was a place for, for that book that you've got Adam.
**Chris:** The Insiders Guide.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, this is the thing.
**Adam:** The podcast they did as well, Inside Inside Number Nine, much the same thing cause you get it's that like most things you can sort of like, oh, well, there's the thing.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it, there's the commentary.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it or whatever.
**Adam:** Whereas actually with this, there's so many sort of bits and pieces that you miss out on or sort of.
**Adam:** Just suddenly make you aware when you've got this dense thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, because there isn't a slight episode really of Inside Number Nine.
**Adam:** They, they're pretty, you know, it's pretty densely plotted or running out, you know, it's sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** I can't work out how they have the time, like because they do so much other stuff as well.
**Lee:** It seems like the writing process just for a single episode must be months, the amount of stuff that they cram into it and yeah, and they still seem to be doing 101 other projects at the same time.
**Lee:** They must.
**Lee:** Yeah, they must literally sleep for about two hours a night.
**Lee:** I think I don't know where else they manage it.
**Adam:** Are they, are they sticking.
**Adam:** To the Vincent Price principal?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, I'm not turning it down.
**Adam:** I might not get off it again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It must be exhausting.
**Lee:** But I mean, yeah, as fans of them, it's fantastic because it means there's always something being turned out and it's always top quality.
**Lee:** As you say, you know, like.
**Lee:** You know, how many seasons in a we now, seven, and there isn't a found in episode, there isn't a filler episode, there isn't one that you wouldn't go back and watch again.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** There's ones I've said I won't go back and watch again, but not because they're not great.
**Lee:** But just because they pound the living shit out of me.
**Lee:** They really do.
**Lee:** Which is what they designed to do.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think also it's it's there's not really a similar thing.
**Adam:** You haven't really had that thing of, oh, well, that was like that previous episode.
**Adam:** Or that twist was similar to that.
**Adam:** They've really managed to keep out of, you know, doubling up or.
**Lee:** I just don't know where they've done it for 60 odd episodes and kept everyone so fresh.
**Lee:** And you know, even the gimmicky episodes and stuff.
**Lee:** Like I love those, I think they're so.
**Lee:** Yeah, and just so well.
**Chris:** They still work as the change.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's not just like, oh, that's the, as you say, you know, the gimmicky one where they did it all in rhyme and stuff.
**Lee:** Like, there's so much happens in that episode that's genuinely fantastic.
**Lee:** and all they've really done is taken a really good episode.
**Lee:** And made it even more difficult for themselves to write.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I just, I love that.
**Lee:** And like, and it's shot so.
**Lee:** And that's the thing, although, you know, as we've said before, it, it obviously draws quite a lot on that, House of the Devil, it's a very British version.
**Lee:** Like, this is if Amicus did it.
**Lee:** and I just love the look of everything.
**Lee:** I mean, the house looks amazing.
**Lee:** I mean, that artwork as well, when, when that goth girl turns up, Shelley and says, oh, I could live here.
**Lee:** And I was like, I would kill to live there.
**Lee:** You're crazy, like it's, but maybe not with the cold.
**Lee:** But yeah, like.
**Lee:** It's so dark.
**Lee:** Because Jennifer mentioned while we were watching it this afternoon.
**Lee:** She was like, oh, I think we're gonna struggle to spot the the hair.
**Lee:** Oh, no, she said the opposite, sorry, she said it should be easy to spot the hair because the house is so kind of everyday.
**Lee:** And I was like, yeah, but it's almost in the pitch black the whole way through.
**Lee:** It's really hard to, I did spot the hair in the end.
**Lee:** I was quite pleased with myself.
**Adam:** Whereabouts is it?
**Adam:** I don't.
**Lee:** So when they go into Hector's bedroom and she picks up the guitar, there's a bedside lamp, there's like a bedside table with just a lamp and the hair is just the only thing that are the only other thing that's on the bedside table.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Adam:** Spotted sir.
**Lee:** But yeah, that's the only time I've spotted it apart from in the episode where it plays obviously a massive part of the story.
**Adam:** Well, this like like Seance Time, this is and The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** We've accidentally ended up back at Lang Langberry House for the interiors.
**Adam:** So again, it's that really big, great gothic staircase.
**Lee:** Now, I got it right. Sorry.
**Lee:** I just, just before because you might be about to say it and I'm so pleased with myself that I think I spotted it.
**Lee:** I believe that is the same staircase from Psychoville, that the house that the blind guy owned.
**Lee:** Only because I remember Daniel Kaluuya standing at the bottom of the stairs there.
**Lee:** yeah, and him going, got a lot of stuff, mate.
**Adam:** Cause I think cause I think Psychoville and this.
**Adam:** Shoots it almost exactly the same.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** I think that,
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, it's in Psychoville, it was in White Chapel and it's yeah, it's rooms from it are in The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** Seance Time.
**Adam:** Mostly utilizing that staircase.
**Adam:** the, the chair the stairlift was a prop, but it wasn't functional.
**Adam:** So that's just going up on like a pulley.
**Lee:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** But also when you think about it, you're like, actually, yeah, I don't think I see anyone.
**Chris:** And it was on its last leg.
**Adam:** I think Shelley's the only person you actually see in it moving.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I think no, because Shell doesn't get in it cause her friend says it's too big.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're too big for it.
**Lee:** And you went, oh, I've only been here five minutes and you called me fat.
**Lee:** But we do see Helen McCroy's character sit in it, but it doesn't move, she just sits in it at the bottom and then she gets up and wanders off, so, yeah.
**Adam:** And also, and when Hexter appears, he just appears.
**Adam:** Like you hear the stairlift.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then they start using that as a scare tactic.
**Adam:** Because then the stairlift is like, you're aware of what that means.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's quite, you know, that's actually quite a unique.
**Adam:** Sort of scare, I think in something that they've used that.
**Adam:** Especially with the.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just think
**Adam:** Because the house being cold as well is that the other thing that they mentioned was, oh, and they talk about ice holding Satan.
**Adam:** that is in the ninth circle of hell.
**Adam:** So again, they're trying to bring it back to it's Inside Number Nine.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** There's just so much goes in writing these and I, I think even if you don't pick up on all of them.
**Lee:** It just adds like another level, all those little extra bits that just goes to kind of solidify the universe that they're working in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that's.
**Chris:** You see why there was a place for, for that book that you've got Adam.
**Chris:** The Insiders Guide.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, this is the thing.
**Adam:** The podcast they did as well, Inside Inside Number Nine, much the same thing cause you get it's that like most things you can sort of like, oh, well, there's the thing.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it, there's the commentary.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it or whatever.
**Adam:** Whereas actually with this, there's so many sort of bits and pieces that you miss out on or sort of.
**Adam:** Just suddenly make you aware when you've got this dense thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, because there isn't a slight episode really of Inside Number Nine.
**Adam:** They, they're pretty, you know, it's pretty densely plotted or running out, you know, it's sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** I can't work out how they have the time, like because they do so much other stuff as well.
**Lee:** It seems like the writing process just for a single episode must be months, the amount of stuff that they cram into it and yeah, and they still seem to be doing 101 other projects at the same time.
**Lee:** They must.
**Lee:** Yeah, they must literally sleep for about two hours a night.
**Lee:** I think I don't know where else they manage it.
**Adam:** Are they, are they sticking.
**Adam:** To the Vincent Price principal?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, I'm not turning it down.
**Adam:** I might not get off it again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It must be exhausting.
**Lee:** But I mean, yeah, as fans of them, it's fantastic because it means there's always something being turned out and it's always top quality.
**Lee:** As you say, you know, like.
**Lee:** You know, how many seasons in a we now, seven, and there isn't a found in episode, there isn't a filler episode, there isn't one that you wouldn't go back and watch again.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** There's ones I've said I won't go back and watch again, but not because they're not great.
**Lee:** But just because they pound the living shit out of me.
**Lee:** They really do.
**Lee:** Which is what they designed to do.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think also it's it's there's not really a similar thing.
**Adam:** You haven't really had that thing of, oh, well, that was like that previous episode.
**Adam:** Or that twist was similar to that.
**Adam:** They've really managed to keep out of, you know, doubling up or.
**Lee:** I just don't know where they've done it for 60 odd episodes and kept everyone so fresh.
**Lee:** And you know, even the gimmicky episodes and stuff.
**Lee:** Like I love those, I think they're so.
**Lee:** Yeah, and just so well.
**Chris:** They still work as the change.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's not just like, oh, that's the, as you say, you know, the gimmicky one where they did it all in rhyme and stuff.
**Lee:** Like, there's so much happens in that episode that's genuinely fantastic.
**Lee:** and all they've really done is taken a really good episode.
**Lee:** And made it even more difficult for themselves to write.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I just, I love that.
**Lee:** And like, and it's shot so.
**Lee:** And that's the thing, although, you know, as we've said before, it, it obviously draws quite a lot on that, House of the Devil, it's a very British version.
**Lee:** Like, this is if Amicus did it.
**Lee:** and I just love the look of everything.
**Lee:** I mean, the house looks amazing.
**Lee:** I mean, that artwork as well, when, when that goth girl turns up, Shelley and says, oh, I could live here.
**Lee:** And I was like, I would kill to live there.
**Lee:** You're crazy, like it's, but maybe not with the cold.
**Lee:** But yeah, like.
**Lee:** It's so dark.
**Lee:** Because Jennifer mentioned while we were watching it this afternoon.
**Lee:** She was like, oh, I think we're gonna struggle to spot the the hair.
**Lee:** Oh, no, she said the opposite, sorry, she said it should be easy to spot the hair because the house is so kind of everyday.
**Lee:** And I was like, yeah, but it's almost in the pitch black the whole way through.
**Lee:** It's really hard to, I did spot the hair in the end.
**Lee:** I was quite pleased with myself.
**Adam:** Whereabouts is it?
**Adam:** I don't.
**Lee:** So when they go into Hector's bedroom and she picks up the guitar, there's a bedside lamp, there's like a bedside table with just a lamp and the hair is just the only thing that are the only other thing that's on the bedside table.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Adam:** Spotted sir.
**Lee:** But yeah, that's the only time I've spotted it apart from in the episode where it plays obviously a massive part of the story.
**Adam:** Well, this like like Seance Time, this is and The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** We've accidentally ended up back at Lang Langberry House for the interiors.
**Adam:** So again, it's that really big, great gothic staircase.
**Lee:** Now, I got it right. Sorry.
**Lee:** I just, just before because you might be about to say it and I'm so pleased with myself that I think I spotted it.
**Lee:** I believe that is the same staircase from Psychoville, that the house that the blind guy owned.
**Lee:** Only because I remember Daniel Kaluuya standing at the bottom of the stairs there.
**Lee:** yeah, and him going, got a lot of stuff, mate.
**Adam:** Cause I think cause I think Psychoville and this.
**Adam:** Shoots it almost exactly the same.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** I think that,
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, it's in Psychoville, it was in White Chapel and it's yeah, it's rooms from it are in The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** Seance Time.
**Adam:** Mostly utilizing that staircase.
**Adam:** the, the chair the stairlift was a prop, but it wasn't functional.
**Adam:** So that's just going up on like a pulley.
**Lee:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** But also when you think about it, you're like, actually, yeah, I don't think I see anyone.
**Chris:** And it was on its last leg.
**Adam:** I think Shelley's the only person you actually see in it moving.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I think no, because Shell doesn't get in it cause her friend says it's too big.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're too big for it.
**Lee:** And you went, oh, I've only been here five minutes and you called me fat.
**Lee:** But we do see Helen McCroy's character sit in it, but it doesn't move, she just sits in it at the bottom and then she gets up and wanders off, so, yeah.
**Adam:** And also, and when Hexter appears, he just appears.
**Adam:** Like you hear the stairlift.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then they start using that as a scare tactic.
**Adam:** Because then the stairlift is like, you're aware of what that means.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's quite, you know, that's actually quite a unique.
**Adam:** Sort of scare, I think in something that they've used that.
**Adam:** Especially with the.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just think
**Adam:** Because the house being cold as well is that the other thing that they mentioned was, oh, and they talk about ice holding Satan.
**Adam:** that is in the ninth circle of hell.
**Adam:** So again, they're trying to bring it back to it's Inside Number Nine.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** There's just so much goes in writing these and I, I think even if you don't pick up on all of them.
**Lee:** It just adds like another level, all those little extra bits that just goes to kind of solidify the universe that they're working in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that's.
**Chris:** You see why there was a place for, for that book that you've got Adam.
**Chris:** The Insiders Guide.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, this is the thing.
**Adam:** The podcast they did as well, Inside Inside Number Nine, much the same thing cause you get it's that like most things you can sort of like, oh, well, there's the thing.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it, there's the commentary.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it or whatever.
**Adam:** Whereas actually with this, there's so many sort of bits and pieces that you miss out on or sort of.
**Adam:** Just suddenly make you aware when you've got this dense thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, because there isn't a slight episode really of Inside Number Nine.
**Adam:** They, they're pretty, you know, it's pretty densely plotted or running out, you know, it's sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** I can't work out how they have the time, like because they do so much other stuff as well.
**Lee:** It seems like the writing process just for a single episode must be months, the amount of stuff that they cram into it and yeah, and they still seem to be doing 101 other projects at the same time.
**Lee:** They must.
**Lee:** Yeah, they must literally sleep for about two hours a night.
**Lee:** I think I don't know where else they manage it.
**Adam:** Are they, are they sticking.
**Adam:** To the Vincent Price principal?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, I'm not turning it down.
**Adam:** I might not get off it again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It must be exhausting.
**Lee:** But I mean, yeah, as fans of them, it's fantastic because it means there's always something being turned out and it's always top quality.
**Lee:** As you say, you know, like.
**Lee:** You know, how many seasons in a we now, seven, and there isn't a found in episode, there isn't a filler episode, there isn't one that you wouldn't go back and watch again.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** There's ones I've said I won't go back and watch again, but not because they're not great.
**Lee:** But just because they pound the living shit out of me.
**Lee:** They really do.
**Lee:** Which is what they designed to do.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think also it's it's there's not really a similar thing.
**Adam:** You haven't really had that thing of, oh, well, that was like that previous episode.
**Adam:** Or that twist was similar to that.
**Adam:** They've really managed to keep out of, you know, doubling up or.
**Lee:** I just don't know where they've done it for 60 odd episodes and kept everyone so fresh.
**Lee:** And you know, even the gimmicky episodes and stuff.
**Lee:** Like I love those, I think they're so.
**Lee:** Yeah, and just so well.
**Chris:** They still work as the change.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's not just like, oh, that's the, as you say, you know, the gimmicky one where they did it all in rhyme and stuff.
**Lee:** Like, there's so much happens in that episode that's genuinely fantastic.
**Lee:** and all they've really done is taken a really good episode.
**Lee:** And made it even more difficult for themselves to write.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I just, I love that.
**Lee:** And like, and it's shot so.
**Lee:** And that's the thing, although, you know, as we've said before, it, it obviously draws quite a lot on that, House of the Devil, it's a very British version.
**Lee:** Like, this is if Amicus did it.
**Lee:** and I just love the look of everything.
**Lee:** I mean, the house looks amazing.
**Lee:** I mean, that artwork as well, when, when that goth girl turns up, Shelley and says, oh, I could live here.
**Lee:** And I was like, I would kill to live there.
**Lee:** You're crazy, like it's, but maybe not with the cold.
**Lee:** But yeah, like.
**Lee:** It's so dark.
**Lee:** Because Jennifer mentioned while we were watching it this afternoon.
**Lee:** She was like, oh, I think we're gonna struggle to spot the the hair.
**Lee:** Oh, no, she said the opposite, sorry, she said it should be easy to spot the hair because the house is so kind of everyday.
**Lee:** And I was like, yeah, but it's almost in the pitch black the whole way through.
**Lee:** It's really hard to, I did spot the hair in the end.
**Lee:** I was quite pleased with myself.
**Adam:** Whereabouts is it?
**Adam:** I don't.
**Lee:** So when they go into Hector's bedroom and she picks up the guitar, there's a bedside lamp, there's like a bedside table with just a lamp and the hair is just the only thing that are the only other thing that's on the bedside table.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Adam:** Spotted sir.
**Lee:** But yeah, that's the only time I've spotted it apart from in the episode where it plays obviously a massive part of the story.
**Adam:** Well, this like like Seance Time, this is and The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** We've accidentally ended up back at Lang Langberry House for the interiors.
**Adam:** So again, it's that really big, great gothic staircase.
**Lee:** Now, I got it right. Sorry.
**Lee:** I just, just before because you might be about to say it and I'm so pleased with myself that I think I spotted it.
**Lee:** I believe that is the same staircase from Psychoville, that the house that the blind guy owned.
**Lee:** Only because I remember Daniel Kaluuya standing at the bottom of the stairs there.
**Lee:** yeah, and him going, got a lot of stuff, mate.
**Adam:** Cause I think cause I think Psychoville and this.
**Adam:** Shoots it almost exactly the same.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** I think that,
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, it's in Psychoville, it was in White Chapel and it's yeah, it's rooms from it are in The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** Seance Time.
**Adam:** Mostly utilizing that staircase.
**Adam:** the, the chair the stairlift was a prop, but it wasn't functional.
**Adam:** So that's just going up on like a pulley.
**Lee:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** It looks really good.
**Adam:** But also when you think about it, you're like, actually, yeah, I don't think I see anyone.
**Chris:** And it was on its last leg.
**Adam:** I think Shelley's the only person you actually see in it moving.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I think no, because Shell doesn't get in it cause her friend says it's too big.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're too big for it.
**Lee:** And you went, oh, I've only been here five minutes and you called me fat.
**Lee:** But we do see Helen McCroy's character sit in it, but it doesn't move, she just sits in it at the bottom and then she gets up and wanders off, so, yeah.
**Adam:** And also, and when Hexter appears, he just appears.
**Adam:** Like you hear the stairlift.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then they start using that as a scare tactic.
**Adam:** Because then the stairlift is like, you're aware of what that means.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's quite, you know, that's actually quite a unique.
**Adam:** Sort of scare, I think in something that they've used that.
**Adam:** Especially with the.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just think
**Adam:** Because the house being cold as well is that the other thing that they mentioned was, oh, and they talk about ice holding Satan.
**Adam:** that is in the ninth circle of hell.
**Adam:** So again, they're trying to bring it back to it's Inside Number Nine.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** There's just so much goes in writing these and I, I think even if you don't pick up on all of them.
**Lee:** It just adds like another level, all those little extra bits that just goes to kind of solidify the universe that they're working in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that's.
**Chris:** You see why there was a place for, for that book that you've got Adam.
**Chris:** The Insiders Guide.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, this is the thing.
**Adam:** The podcast they did as well, Inside Inside Number Nine, much the same thing cause you get it's that like most things you can sort of like, oh, well, there's the thing.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it, there's the commentary.
**Adam:** I enjoyed it or whatever.
**Adam:** Whereas actually with this, there's so many sort of bits and pieces that you miss out on or sort of.
**Adam:** Just suddenly make you aware when you've got this dense thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, because there isn't a slight episode really of Inside Number Nine.
**Adam:** They, they're pretty, you know, it's pretty densely plotted or running out, you know, it's sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** I can't work out how they have the time, like because they do so much other stuff as well.
**Lee:** It seems like the writing process just for a single episode must be months, the amount of stuff that they cram into it and yeah, and they still seem to be doing 101 other projects at the same time.
**Lee:** They must.
**Lee:** Yeah, they must literally sleep for about two hours a night.
**Lee:** I think I don't know where else they manage it.
**Adam:** Are they, are they sticking.
**Adam:** To the Vincent Price principal?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, I'm not turning it down.
**Adam:** I might not get off it again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It must be exhausting.
**Lee:** But I mean, yeah, as fans of them, it's fantastic because it means there's always something being turned out and it's always top quality.
**Lee:** As you say, you know, like.
**Lee:** You know, how many seasons in a we now, seven, and there isn't a found in episode, there isn't a filler episode, there isn't one that you wouldn't go back and watch again.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** There's ones I've said I won't go back and watch again, but not because they're not great.
**Lee:** But just because they pound the living shit out of me.
**Lee:** They really do.
**Lee:** Which is what they designed to do.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think also it's it's there's not really a similar thing.
**Adam:** You haven't really had that thing of, oh, well, that was like that previous episode.
**Adam:** Or that twist was similar to that.
**Adam:** They've really managed to keep out of, you know, doubling up or.
**Lee:** I just don't know where they've done it for 60 odd episodes and kept everyone so fresh.
**Lee:** And you know, even the gimmicky episodes and stuff.
**Lee:** Like I love those, I think they're so.
**Lee:** Yeah, and just so well.
**Chris:** They still work as the change.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's not just like, oh, that's the, as you say, you know, the gimmicky one where they did it all in rhyme and stuff.
**Lee:** Like, there's so much happens in that episode that's genuinely fantastic.
**Lee:** and all they've really done is taken a really good episode.
**Lee:** And made it even more difficult for themselves to write.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I just, I love that.
**Lee:** And like, and it's shot so.
**Lee:** And that's the thing, although, you know, as we've said before, it, it obviously draws quite a lot on that, House of the Devil, it's a very British version.
**Lee:** Like, this is if Amicus did it.
**Lee:** and I just love the look of everything.
**Lee:** I mean, the house looks amazing.
**Lee:** I mean, that artwork as well, when, when that goth girl turns up, Shelley and says, oh, I could live here.
**Lee:** And I was like, I would kill to live there.
**Lee:** You're crazy, like it's, but maybe not with the cold.
**Lee:** But yeah, like.
**Lee:** It's so dark.
**Lee:** Because Jennifer mentioned while we were watching it this afternoon.
**Lee:** She was like, oh, I think we're gonna struggle to spot the the hair.
**Lee:** Oh, no, she said the opposite, sorry, she said it should be easy to spot the hair because the house is so kind of everyday.
**Lee:** And I was like, yeah, but it's almost in the pitch black the whole way through.
**Lee:** It's really hard to, I did spot the hair in the end.
**Lee:** I was quite pleased with myself.
**Adam:** Whereabouts is it?
**Adam:** I don't.
**Lee:** So when they go into Hector's bedroom and she picks up the guitar, there's a bedside lamp, there's like a bedside table with just a lamp and the hair is just the only thing that are the only other thing that's on the bedside table.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Adam:** Spotted sir.
**Lee:** But yeah, that's the only time I've spotted it apart from in the episode where it plays obviously a massive part of the story.
**Adam:** Well, this like like Seance Time, this is and The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** We've accidentally ended up back at Lang Langberry House for the interiors.
**Adam:** So again, it's that really big, great gothic staircase.
**Lee:** Now, I got it right. Sorry.
**Lee:** I just, just before because you might be about to say it and I'm so pleased with myself that I think I spotted it.
**Lee:** I believe that is the same staircase from Psychoville, that the house that the blind guy owned.
**Lee:** Only because I remember Daniel Kaluuya standing at the bottom of the stairs there.
**Lee:** yeah, and him going, got a lot of stuff, mate.
**Adam:** Cause I think cause I think Psychoville and this.
**Adam:** Shoots it almost exactly the same.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** I think that,
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, it's in Psychoville, it was in White Chapel and it's yeah, it's rooms from it are in The Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** Seance Time.
**Adam:** Mostly utilizing that staircase.
**Adam:** the, the chair the stairlift was a prop, but it wasn't functional.
**Adam:** So that's just going up on like a pulley.
**Lee:** It looks really good.

---

## Ep 159 Inside No.9 Pt 2

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-159-inside-no-9-pt-2/
Air date: 18 December 2022
Duration: 00:39:58

### Description

Having gorged ourselves on the first layer, it’s time to move to the next plastic tray in our “Inside No.9 Christmas Selection Box”. (Will this increasingly stretched metaphor hold up to the strain for next week? Only time will tell.). First we’re looking at time “Séance Time”, where carefully curated terror can be erased by dog shit on the shoe; and “Mr King”, which gives us a lovely serving suggestion for tadpoles. SPOILERS AHOY SO PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE WATCH THESE FANTASTIC EPISODES BEFORE WE RUIN THE MANY TWISTS AND TURNS SO MASTERFULLY CRAFTED BY SHEARSMITH AND PEMBERTON. Watch (or re-watch), and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Peppa Pig.
**Adam:** Fuck you, cheap bastard.
**Adam:** I've put on, I've put on auditioning for the roll.
**Adam:** I had a, I had a,
**Lee:** and we are here again to discuss the amazing "Inside Number 9" as our December run-up to Christmas.
**Lee:** which we just found out yesterday, they are doing an "Inside Number 9" Christmas, you know, scary episode special again.
**Lee:** two days before Christmas. So that is going to be the balls. I'm fairly certain.
**Adam:** I believe it might actually be the start of a new series as well. Or it might be because I think "Devil at Christmas", I think, preceded the series by about two weeks or something, so it's probably going to be like New Year.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Awesome.
**Lee:** So, there's going to be swearing, there's going to be spoilers as we said with the last ones. If you haven't seen these, definitely go and see them before listening to this, because we will be spoiling all the twists and the plot points.
**Lee:** But as always, even if you don't want to, if you didn't think you're ever going to watch it and then listen to these, they're still worth watching afterwards because they're just, there's so much crammed into those 30 minutes. It's pure gold. So,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I was just going to say, it's lucky you only said 'balls' before you said the 'swearing'.
**Adam:** Ha ha ha.
**Adam:** It's funny, on the radio the other day a guy said 'pissed' and the presenter said, "That's fine. This is, this is an Americanism that's catching on over here. It's just all right."
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, but the trouble is it does mean that you have to double-think everything you see online. Was he drunk or angry?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Who wrote this?
**Adam:** Carlton Hackham back of the Third. Oh, he was angry.
**Lee:** so this evening we are going to be covering from Season 2, we are covering "Séance Time", and from Season 7 we will be covering "Mr King".
**Lee:** So, shall we kick off with "Séance Time"?
**Adam:** well, "Séance Time", as you said, Series 2, Episode 6, which seemed to be the sort of start of them almost accidentally reserving the horror episode for the last part of the series. First broadcast on the 29th of April 2015.
**Lee:** Oh, shit. That's so long ago.
**Lee:** It's still feels so fresh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's funny, isn't it, how good they were doing already. Even from season one. I mean, I suppose they, like we said before, they had a lot of practice with quite a few other ventures.
**Adam:** Yeah. They did hit their stride really quickly with this show.
**Lee:** Yeah, and again, because I knew they were big horror fans, I watched the whole of season one waiting for a horror episode. So when we got it in that last one, I was like, oh, yes, that's, and it's so good.
**Lee:** And then yeah, when they did again in season two with "Séance Time", yeah, this one totally totally blew me away.
**Lee:** It's that, it's that lovely thing, I know we've said it with things before, they create such a great world and you enjoy it, just how nice it is been, that you almost, it's not like an M. Night film or whatever, where you're watching it the whole time going, what's the twist going to be? Where's it going to come? You sort of forget that, especially with this one because it's so funny.
**Lee:** And you get drawn into what jerks the characters are and the comedy of it that you forget that it's, it is going to twist at some point.
**Lee:** Which is when it suddenly comes around, you go, oh, shit, yeah, no, this is "Inside Number 9". We're not just watching an episode of "The League", like this is going to turn on its head. It's fantastic.
**Adam:** It's because they do excel at making them little, a lot of them, it's like a very good short story collection.
**Adam:** Where, you know, they won't necessarily all be the same thing or the same thing, it'll be like writers trying out their, you know, oh well this was a love story, this was a horror story or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** The, the, I think the weird thing is with this, I've been, how do you put, where is it, it's, like I said on the previous episodes I was mainly coming from the "Inside Inside Number 9" podcast, for my info.
**Adam:** For this one it was, there's a book "The Insider's Guide to Inside Number 9" by Mark Salsbury, which is a really good book and a lovely, like just artifact in its own right.
**Chris:** Oh wow.
**Adam:** Like big, it's like a sort of A4 hardback with tons of pictures and all the posters recreated in there. It's, it covers series one to five. Because I think it came out just around the time series six came out.
**Adam:** So, but obviously these, these that covers a period that they don't really cover on the podcast. So it's quite good to be able to get from there.
**Lee:** Marries up quite nicely.
**Adam:** But one thing you were saying about where it's like, you know, this is only their second year but they've done so well in terms of they, what they actually complain about, sort of complain about in talking about this in the book.
**Adam:** Is that they were so, you know, they'd already got to a position where everyone was like, oh, I'll be in an episode, just give me two lines or whatever like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I don't know if we've discussed it, but they have a rule that you can't have, you can't appear twice. So it's, they're the only people who will appear in multiple episodes. If you're an actor and you've been in it, that's it, you're, that's your "Inside Number 9" done.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And weirdly enough they were like, but we now feel that like Harry Adlloyd, Alice Lowe.
**Chris:** Well, that's I would have thought Alice Lowe had been in it. Really? I was like, I'm sure I've seen her. But,
**Adam:** But no, but it's just that sort of thing of, you know, and they're good parts. They are still funny characters and they're really, they play them really well.
**Adam:** But yeah, but both of them I think they're kind of like, oh, we could've had.
**Chris:** Oh, that's funny.
**Adam:** Yeah, we could have, oh, damn, like when they write later ones, they're like, oh, we could have had that. Oh no, that would have been, you know.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, but they, this one was apparently, oh, it's a line of dialogue from from "Beyond the Grave".
**Adam:** David Warner says it in "From Beyond the Grave", "Séance Time".
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** I, yeah, the thing that caught me off guard with it, I think the first time I saw it, I wasn't disappointed, but the way it opens with the séance at the beginning and it feels too much like it hits every, it's, like with a séance, it's like they've written down what are the top 20 things you have to have in a séance? Well, it has to be a Victorian-themed room, and it has to have a creepy doll, and it's got to have an old record player, and it's got to have a, and it's all, but then when you then find out there's a TV show and it's a pretty hacky TV show, it's suddenly all you go, yeah, no, this is, this is perfect. This is exactly what they would do.
**Adam:** Cause, cause it is, it is that almost initial disappointment of, oh, they're, they're laying it on a bit thick with this one.
**Lee:** Precisely.
**Adam:** You know, and then yeah, they turn it around.
**Adam:** But, but one thing that's worth sort of considering as well is that they talk about the sequence where Steve comes in. Like Steve's character comes in after the initial sequence with Tina.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And obviously, they kind of sell it to you as the, you know, this is going to be a haunted séance story.
**Adam:** You know, it's going to be supernatural with weirdos in a big creepy house, blah, blah, blah.
**Adam:** But everyone's on side with it, so like the, the director in the editing process graded it differently, so it looked more like a horror film, you know, or it's got that sort of ambiance to it where something supernatural could happen.
**Adam:** So when it's Steve's character, it's really quite flat.
**Adam:** Because the mystery is gone at that point, and you're seeing the nuts and bolts of what they've done to make the room as it were.
**Adam:** But even stuff like the music.
**Adam:** So it starts off really sort of horror movie.
**Lee:** I noticed that.
**Lee:** Yeah, like, like the sound, the, yeah, the score really builds it up. And as you say, when Steve comes in, that kind of all just drops out entirely, makes it feel so, yeah, like that's the thing.
**Lee:** If you're doing a show like this, you're kind of assuming that the person you're bringing in is going to play along. And when it's a person like that who's just so, you know, I'm just going to take a phone call in the middle of it or whatever.
**Lee:** And it just totally fuck everything.
**Chris:** Loses any like charm or magic or fear. The style is gone completely.
**Chris:** But that's interesting that they do show that so clearly because it's almost like, you know, on one hand they're kind of proving, look, we can make something look unbelievably exactly as it should look, but also the whole thing is we can show you behind the scenes of how it's all going wrong.
**Adam:** Yeah. Both are just done perfectly.
**Adam:** It becomes, it becomes like that thing of, it starts off, it could be "The Woman in Black".
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** The way it's shot, and the way it's scored and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And then it kind of becomes almost like, like a, not quite like it, because they don't really do that a lot, but a bit sort of in the spoof Alan Partridge sort of end of things where it's like backstage at a shoot with the producer and the like, couldn't give a shit make-up lady and the strappy actress.
**Adam:** And it's just, you know what I mean, so it drops off and becomes this like industry comedy.
**Adam:** Yeah. And the music, and then weirdly enough, even though they kill, Clive is his name by the way. The blue demon. Yeah, he does.
**Chris:** Did they actually say it ever?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No, he just gets, I think he just gets a name in the credits.
**Chris:** I was like tempted to watch it back just in case it had been said.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No, it's only in the credits I think that they actually mention it, but yeah, he's, but even at that point, it's still quite a funny thing.
**Adam:** because you've had the build-up with Steve coming in with shit on his shoes and having mouthy phone calls and being a bit of a just a a geeze.
**Adam:** And then he lamps him.
**Adam:** And but also, and he's the only one who genuinely cares.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I thought that.
**Adam:** You know, because he only starts talking about like, what's going to happen to me after they, after the initial bit but he's like, no, he's all right. And then he, you know, whereas everyone else is literally,
**Adam:** even probably Gemma, the producer, is probably the only other one who sort of kind of has a level of concern, but that's more like a professionalism that this has happened on set.
**Lee:** Yeah, and everyone else is just immediately ass-covering. As you say, apart from Steve who then suddenly becomes like a genuine person. He's like, oh, I'm so sorry, I've done this, it was an accident, I didn't realize.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then he goes from this kind of cockney wide boy who's come in and destroyed the show to actually being the only one who seems like a real human being.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, it's all stuff like, oh, I've got to get the wig back, cuz that's a higher.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, and sort of, well, don't, don't touch the body, yeah, but they're going to mark.
**Adam:** And you sort of, and also, I mean, obviously Reece's Terry is a classic Reece Shearsmith study in absolute arsehole.
**Chris:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because he, I mean, even that where it's like, you know, don't worry, you know, I'm sure it'll be fine. And then he walks, then Steve's character walks out of the room and he's like, right, we need to do a check on him, see if he's got a history of mental illness and then we'll pin this on him.
**Adam:** I'm not going back to fucking bingo ads.
**Adam:** Cause that's the thing, it's not even like he is in any trouble in that sense.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** But it is just immediately, it's like what is it? Oh, well, I'll probably just be blacklisted from the industry.
**Adam:** And, the channel cancels again.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's, yeah, he's just such a just a wonderful prick. Yeah.
**Lee:** I I found that with the, with the medium character as well, you know, her constant, oh, can I have some, can I have this? Can you please take these? Can I have a stool for my feet because my ankles were swelling? And then later on when someone says, do you want a chair to put your feet on? She's like, I'm not an invalid.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You were just asking 10 minutes ago for something like that.
**Chris:** She's great, like they all fit in so well. Everyone they've had. So far that I've seen.
**Chris:** But,
**Chris:** yes. So who is she?
**Adam:** That's Alison Steadman.
**Adam:** And she is just fucking brilliant and she's been in so much stuff.
**Adam:** And probably, at the moment, at the moment you probably have to mention Pam in "Gavin and Stacey", is probably what she's widest known as for the moment.
**Chris:** right. Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But, I mean, she's.
**Chris:** It's funny how old that is now.
**Adam:** Well, when, when you look at, you look at her career, I mean, she was like, she did two, she did two plays for today, Mike Lee plays for today, and they were, they're like still talked about now, which is "Nuts in May" and "Abigail's Party".
**Adam:** And again, two totally different characters in it, cuz I mean, "Abigail's Party" she's this sort of like slowney housewife who's just sort of, "Nova Roche, how are you?" And then, and then "Nuts in May" she's very sort of wide-eyed and dippy, sort of hippie girl, really.
**Adam:** or like, yeah.
**Adam:** And just, but she's like, she's, and then she's in "The Singing Detective".
**Adam:** And, she's been in "Awe from Black".
**Adam:** And she was in.
**Adam:** Do you remember "Let Them Eat Cake", which was French and Saunders did a French Revolutionary sitcom that I think lasted a series?
**Lee:** No, but I will definitely be looking that up.
**Adam:** And she, she was Madame du Plonch in that. It was sort of like the one of the main protagonist. But yeah, "Karaoke and Calla Lazarus", "Gone to the Dogs", "Z Cars", "In Sickness and in Health", "Worse Week of My Life", "Pride and Prejudice", "Fat Friends", "Coogan's Run".
**Adam:** and then film-wise, I mean, she's been in, she's been in most Mike Lee films.
**Adam:** I believe she was actually married to Mike Lee. So that might have been.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** That might have been a thing, but I think they she was still in them after they weren't together, so it wasn't like.
**Adam:** but yeah, she's in like "Life is Sweet", "Secrets and Lies", "Topsy Turvy".
**Adam:** she's in "Clockwise", you know, the John Cleese film.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah. And, "Ventures of Baron Munchausen", "Will", "Private Function".
**Adam:** "Life and Death of Peter Sellers", "Shirley Valentine".
**Adam:** I really want to see her role as "Crazy Butcher" in "Looney in the Woods".
**Adam:** Which seems to be a cheap horror film that's just on IMDB. But yeah, she's "Crazy Butcher" in that apparently.
**Lee:** I wanna see that.
**Adam:** She's just done so much stuff and she is always excellent.
**Adam:** I mean, to be honest, like Gavin and Stacey, definitely not my cup of tea. I could happily skim fucking James Cordon and leave him out for the vultures.
**Adam:** But she is the real saving grace of that program because her character is just fucking brilliant and she is just so funny in it.
**Adam:** And it's, but yeah, she is terrific in this.
**Adam:** It's like that bit with her, what do they say, I auditioned for Marvel. They said I wasn't sweet enough. Fuckers.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten all about that until re-watching it tonight and I really did roar at that.
**Adam:** It's the weird thing as well, because I think it's, they're a bit cagey, but I think that this is either,
**Adam:** this is horror stories that Reece and Steve have heard from working within television and theater. Of divish actors and or actresses and, you know, sort of like just crew malfunctions, dysfunctional sort of shooting and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So I think it's, yeah, it all seems to be stuff that they know a lot, because they do tend to return to, actually more the theater than telly, but they do return to both of them in a few episodes.
**Adam:** sort of starting points for stuff. There's the one, what is it, "Shut up and wait", where it's the guy who's on location filming and is just sitting in someone's house that's been designated the green room.
**Lee:** That's right. Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh God, that's a good one. And that, that one as well could almost count as horror. Cuz that's pretty awkward from beginning to end.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** And then there's the, there's the theater one as well, where it's the, basically it's the dresser, where it's the understudy to the guy who's.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten about that one. See, that's the thing with this, there's so many good ones that you, you end up forgetting some, not because they're not great, but just because there's so many episodes that are just,
**Chris:** And they fit so much in. This is.
**Chris:** And it's like, and that's, I guess in a way that's what gives it its replayability.
**Chris:** Like I could watch the "Séance" again and get so much more from it again.
**Chris:** Because when you're watching it the first time, you're sort of, you're trying to think what is going to happen next, like where is this going and you, you know, you can't help but wonder if if you've clocked on to any of it at all.
**Chris:** and then yeah, to watch it again and really appreciate each of the actors and yeah, what they're doing.
**Adam:** Well, also just overall as a production, like we were saying about where it sort of switches mood completely in every sense, it's not, you know, it doesn't continue with the same type of music or anything else like that. It's shot differently, it's lit differently and things.
**Adam:** But then to actually be able to turn that back on and it works at the end, because they have, because they do then take it down the horror route quite heavily, you know.
**Adam:** I must confess, even when I first watched this, I was a bit, I was never sure of the jump scare at the end.
**Adam:** I just thought it was a bit, it was weird, it was like, it it's beneath you, lads.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** I just, I just felt no, you didn't need to do that, lads. You're better than that.
**Chris:** But, how many times, how many times did you jump scares?
**Chris:** I'm assuming.
**Lee:** Very rarely. I think that's why.
**Lee:** They do, kind of.
**Chris:** They are trying everything at some point.
**Lee:** I think I do agree with you, but I just think it just, I do think jump scares are cheap, but in this, it, it did make me laugh both times. And it has made Jennifer scream both times that they did it.
**Lee:** So like it's definitely, yeah, it definitely works. It's because it has got that comedic thing that you don't have to take it too seriously, so I think you can get away with doing something a bit cheesy because it's so tongue-in-cheek.
**Adam:** Oh, it doesn't ruin it overall as a whole. It's just that last moment, you know. So,
**Adam:** and but though I, I still, because apparently they did have trouble working out how they were going to end it, because they weren't sure if they were going to cut to the actual viral video of the boy pissing himself.
**Adam:** Because that was, that was the other sort of, the inspiration for this was.
**Adam:** There was a Radio 4, special in 2010 called "The League of Gentlemen's Ghost Chase". if you can track it down, it's really fucking good.
**Adam:** But basically, it's the four of them, so Reece and Steve and Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson, and they go to, I can't remember the name of the place but they basically go to one of the reputedly most haunted places in Britain.
**Adam:** and it's genuinely, it's genuinely worth hearing because it's so, it's them, so it's so fucking funny anyway.
**Adam:** much like their commentaries and stuff.
**Adam:** Which is a shame we don't get any for "Inside Number 9".
**Adam:** Because their commentaries were like, oh great, I've got double the amount of stuff to watch here now.
**Adam:** Because I will watch the commentary.
**Adam:** But the, and yeah, they did a, they did a séance in that and Mark Gatiss was wearing his, I've read MR James back-to-back rationalist hat.
**Adam:** I was saying, can I ask why he's not speaking in Norman French?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, "Stalls of Barchester" stuff.
**Adam:** And, and then right at the end of it they said that they, there's a bit where they do hear a knock, and then basically at the end of it, it was Mark fucking about anyway.
**Chris:** Ha ha ha.
**Adam:** Even after he'd gone through all the sort of rational stuff with the medium and then it was yeah, because apparently like Reece was like, yeah, but we did hear that knock and Mark just went, and how did you know that wasn't me?
**Chris:** Yeah. Oh, God.
**Lee:** Such a bastard. but the other, the other thing was, and we've all seen variations of it, but a a YouTube video of someone jumping out on someone as like a Halloween prank.
**Lee:** Oh, and getting.
**Adam:** And the bloke just lacing him in the face.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it was, I mean, it's like you see a lot of it with like cameras from haunted house, like haunted houses in America during Halloween and stuff like that.
**Adam:** There's like a bloke comes out with a chainsaw. someone just belts him one.
**Adam:** Also because yeah, you can't allow for that. You might catch the wrong person's flight or fight response.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so it sort of stemmed from that as well, but I think they were also a bit, at that point they were a bit annoyed.
**Adam:** Because nowadays it would be, I mean, listening to last podcast, it appears to be TikTok. But, then they said that it was like, yeah, we can slave our guts out over six episodes of "Inside Number 9" and literally any entertainment place was like, yeah, but can you make a clip that's going to go viral on YouTube?
**Adam:** Cause it's had that many hits or whatever. And yeah, I think there was a, there was an element of bitterness there anyway, that it was like, oh, for fuck's sake, you know, we've gone all the bother of this and then they've they've turned it, yeah, but can you, is there a clip you can put on YouTube and everyone will watch it now?
**Lee:** just to stem from this, so if we, so if it's about time we jump into the next episode, but I did want to mention similar to this, I saw a Shutter exclusive called "Downstream" last week.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** and it's, it's basically, it's that, it's a viral YouTuber who does like, you know, stunts to get views. Things like getting smuggled across the border in the boot of a car and all that kind of stuff.
**Lee:** and basically, there's a massive up raw people, those people saying, some of the stuff you've done is kind of borderline racist. So he loses his sponsor, etcetera. So in an attempt to regain his audience, he spends Halloween night on his own, with cameras set up all over this little shack in the woods.
**Lee:** and it it goes proper full-on Evil Dead.
**Chris:** All right.
**Lee:** And it's absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** I think it is Shutter exclusive.
**Lee:** It's so worth watching.
**Lee:** It was one of those, the guy's such a total jerk. and yeah, it just goes so spectacularly wrong for him.
**Lee:** And it's all, you know, it's all footage from the cameras set up around the house and he's got like a body cam and stuff.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's that thing, you know, like this, like someone who's risen to fame doing a kind of practical jokey type thing, and then suddenly public demand just, you know, the public turns on him. And he's desperate to do something to regain that. And that's what I was thinking of watching this.
**Lee:** I was like, it's just like "Downstream" I watched last week. Yeah.
**Lee:** Check out that.
**Adam:** But the, I think yeah. Cuz, the director Dan Zeph also did "The Trial of Elizabeth Gatch", which is another very good episode.
**Chris:** Oh, that's what I've got.
**Adam:** but he did, he directed for "Dr Who" and "I deal" and sort of bits and pieces.
**Adam:** But he does, again, he seemed to have been quite heavily involved with them as they developed it.
**Adam:** and, but I've got to give a a notice to the nameless Clive, which is a guy called Dan Starky.
**Adam:** And you'll have to give me a moment's indulgence as I list the fact that he is Commander Strax, Commander Score, Commander Jazz, Kgar, Slivid, Sendag, and Shallow, and Plark, the Sontaron.
**Adam:** So that is, the full list, he is basically he's a regular Sontaron Commander Strax in "Dr Who".
**Adam:** But yeah, he also played loads of ones leading up to that and since then.
**Adam:** And it's just because they're a clone race, so they've really gone for it.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Chris:** nice.
**Adam:** But they, as they said, so he was actually quite used to being covered in prosthetics as well.
**Adam:** And also at one point you may have to bleep this, Lee, I don't know how happy he'd be to, how his name, but it really does remind me of Adam Loder.
**Chris:** Ha ha ha.
**Lee:** Ha ha ha.
**Chris:** Yeah, there's definitely something there.
**Adam:** It's the hair, it's the walk, everything.
**Adam:** You just.
**Adam:** For those who have no idea, that's just someone we know.
**Lee:** Yes, so, if we now jump across to our next episode, so we covered "Mr King".
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Again, they snuck it in this time, so as we said, they generally do the horror ones later in the series, if not the very last episode, and this time they've put it in in the second episode. So it really pulled the rug out from underneath us.
**Lee:** with an amazing bit of folk horror.
**Chris:** Yeah. I think they really, really turned this one at the end. I did not expect it to go as far as it did.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and like everyone watched the other two and, you know, the first season, it's like, I'm still am sort of shocked where it does go sometimes.
**Chris:** I just you think you should get used to, but yeah, no, it's.
**Chris:** I was, I was thinking what is, what is going to be happening here and, you know, they absolutely lead you down some paths.
**Chris:** But, it's, it's not at the end.
**Lee:** I did think that watching it again this time, knowing that Chris was watching it.
**Lee:** I was like, I'm wondering how far Chris got in before he was like,
**Lee:** I think I'm watching the wrong episode, because this isn't horror at all.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's going, it's so well done, it's Yeah. It absolutely takes off.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's weird as well because it's very funny, then very serious in its own sort of way, but still maintaining a,
**Adam:** and then yeah, just kicks off, fuck me at the end.
**Chris:** Yeah. He leaves you right on that edge point of how far serious is this going to go, because clearly they're tugging at some elements and it's like, oh, no, and then yeah, like you say, it's funny again.
**Chris:** You think it's not somewhere else.
**Chris:** And yeah.
**Chris:** But I suppose I was trying to think, have they, like this was seems to be by far the most people and they're all children in it.
**Adam:** Yeah, the majority of them, I think were.
**Adam:** I think the, yeah, there's, oh well there's Winnie, the cleaner, Annette Badland.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah. No, she's great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, she, well, she was, I, I've got to, again, I'm sorry, but this, this, this has been a kind of Who heavy episode in a way. But she is Margaret Blain, aka Blondfell Futch Pass of Daise LaVine in "Dr Who".
**Adam:** but she's also, she's just turned up in loads of things over the years.
**Adam:** Cuz she was in "Inside Victor Lewis Smith", she was the nurse in that.
**Lee:** And, she, I know her from most recently, she was in "Man Down" where she played the cleaner who ended up having unexpected sex with Greg Davies. Yes. And then recently she has become the new autopsy, the person who does the autopsies, in Midsummer Murders.
**Chris:** Oh, really?
**Lee:** Yeah, and she's really good in that. Apology, that's the word. She's in, she's in "Jabberwocky", she's Griselda Fishfinger in "Jabberwocky".
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No, she's.
**Lee:** She's really, really good.
**Adam:** and, captives, "Beyond Bedlam", which was a film that got banned for no fucking reason, as far as I could tell, cuz it was cap. but she was, another thing that I'm going to have to mention, she was in, she was in a thing called "Archer's Goon", which was just a really good weird kids TV show. But she played like, there was a set of siblings who basically ran this town, and she was basically the arms industry.
**Adam:** but yeah, no, Annette Badland's just fucking brilliant and and I think she, I think she's still in "EastEnders" at the moment. But no, she's, she's so good in it.
**Adam:** And they they said, that, sort of she brought a bit more of the flirtatious nature with it and everything. And so, yeah, I think Reece said that he was almost like, I I was just reacting normally because it was just sort of like, I just didn't expect that.
**Adam:** And then,
**Lee:** Well he says, is that fantastic bit when she comes in and he's down on his knees taking the photograph and he said, I'm sorry, we were just discussing a possible art product. She's saying, oh, I thought he was taking photos of your cock.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, and and Steve, weirdly enough, I mean, this is a very comedic role for him.
**Adam:** And it's like, I, I didn't know you from Alan, Adam, oh sorry, Adam, we didn't know.
**Chris:** But it's that contrast of how creepy he is as well.
**Chris:** Because he he he plays all, you know, all three. He's he's a creepy headmaster, he's a decent headmaster.
**Chris:** And he's, he's funny. Like it's again.
**Adam:** Cuz it takes, cuz it takes so many twists and turns and it's actually, especially because it's "Inside Number 9", you do have that thing where it's like, right, this could just go straight down into like, this could just be a child abuse storyline, frankly.
**Lee:** I I got to the point where I was like, all right, so the headmaster's a pervert. And he's just making excuses to take inappropriate photographs of the teachers.
**Lee:** Especially when he finds the stack of photos. You're like, well, that's definitely where this is going.
**Adam:** I only noticed it on the on the rewatch of this yesterday.
**Adam:** But some of them have been rated with stars. Some of them, some of the Polaroids of cocks have got like two gold stars, gold stars. So obviously Gold Star.
**Adam:** Oh, that was a good one. You know.
**Adam:** But it's that classic, it's the classic, it's the classic folk horror thing of bringing someone into a community and the entire community is against them and fooling them and driving them to this situation.
**Adam:** Which is the Wicker Man, Red, White, Red Dress. I was going to say, but I was going to say Midsummer because I haven't seen either of those. I haven't seen probably that many. Yeah, yeah, like they've condensed that into 30 minutes again masterfully.
**Lee:** that end bit with the kids, I mean, kids are creepy at the best of times. But the kids in the mask is creepy. But yeah, then when the grownups come in in the outfit as well, that that thing with the baby's, the baby doll's head on it is just horrifying. Literally, as she came out, I went, fucking hell. Like it's just so visceral and so odd.
**Chris:** And it's, and it's the super glue as well. Like, cuz they, they they tease you with it, super glue, but then we lift up his arms. Oh no, it's Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, when he pulls his arm and it's going somewhere else.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, but also the lovely thing as well that even when,
**Adam:** the headmaster comes in at that point, there's the possibility of it.
**Chris:** It might is the.
**Adam:** Well, is the comedy going to be that he'll come in and just go, what have they done to you? What have you done to your mouth?
**Adam:** And then he could, it could have just gone that he would just leave them to it.
**Adam:** And that would be the punchline almost.
**Adam:** But it's like, oh, well, you'll probably know best and then just disappear off or whatever. But then actually he's part of it.
**Lee:** drawn into the woods.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And apparently the whole thing. This all start, this all came from because they were trying to find different "Number 9s".
**Adam:** Fluorine is, number nine on the periodic table.
**Adam:** So that led them down the route of like, would it be someone gluing themselves as a protest.
**Adam:** Like environmentalists using it as a protest, like gluing themselves to something because of, they're adding fluorine into it.
**Adam:** And then it was a child is doing a protest, so she superglues herself to her teacher.
**Adam:** And then they were kind of, they were kind of trying to work it that it would be like the fluorine chain.
**Adam:** Of like, you know, more and more of them get glued together and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And that's where the sort of Greta Thunberg stuff comes in and the environmentalism bits comes in and stuff.
**Adam:** But apparently the other, the other idea was they said about being blackmailed by a child.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Was the other sort of plot strand that obviously they wove into it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** But yeah, so.
**Adam:** And he's.
**Adam:** He's quite nice.
**Adam:** To see.
**Chris:** And especially.
**Chris:** And I've forgotten her name.
**Chris:** What's the girl's name?
**Adam:** It's Carrie, isn't it?
**Chris:** Carrie.
**Chris:** Well done.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, she, she plays fantastically.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** No, she's.
**Adam:** She's really, really good.
**Adam:** the, Louise Hoper who directed this has done episodes of "Sandman" and "Witcher".
**Adam:** lots of documentaries.
**Adam:** but she also did "Wise Owl" for this series.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** Now, when when you see "Wise Owl", Chris, it's this isn't a spoiler. It has a public information film in it called "Wise Owl", which is like, you know, the Charlie says, it's that kind of a thing where it's like this sort of heart warming animation. And "Wise Owl" tells you not what to do, blah, blah, blah.
**Adam:** And they've actually, they turned up on set and didn't realize.
**Adam:** The production team had put posters of "Wise Owl" translated into Welsh in the wall.
**Lee:** You know what. This time I was. I paused a bit where you could see the whole classroom. And I was checking everything on the walls because I'm like, I know these sneaky bastards. There's going to be something in here worth finding. I didn't find it. Well, yeah, it's because I don't speak Welsh, so that's why I missed it.
**Adam:** But they had, obviously the previous teacher was Mr. Hardy, which is a reference to Robin Hardy who directed "The Wicker Man".
**Adam:** and just at one point, this was going to be Tom from "Tom and Jerry".
**Adam:** Have you seen that episode, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** It's, I think it's series one where Reece and his girlfriend are in a flat and then Steve is a tramp who moves in, but basically takes over his life.
**Chris:** Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
**Adam:** And they were, yeah, so,
**Adam:** Reece's character in this was going to be Tom, but they were kind of like, actually, doesn't really matter. Not connected that anyone's really going to be that bothered about or anything. So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Awesome. So, right, so Adam, what are the two episodes we are covering on our next episode?
**Adam:** Next episode, we have "The Harrowing" and appropriately, the Devil of Christmas.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** To cover loads again.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, so thanks everyone so much for listening, everybody. Go and check out those episodes and enjoy your Christmas. Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Chris:** No, no.
**Adam:** No, no.

---

## Ep 158 Inside No.9 pt 1

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-158-inside-no-9-pt-1/
Air date: 4 December 2022
Duration: 00:54:18

### Description

Christmas is a time for dark stories, over indulgence and variety packs of treats. Thus, we present this December, our “Inside No.9 Christmas Selection Box”. This episode we focus on “The Riddle of the Sphinx”, where we discover what’s long and hard and full of seamen. Then we turn our attentions to “The Stakeout” where we learn just how much piss you can get into an empty Pringles Tube. SPOILERS AHOY SO PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE WATCH THESE FANTASTIC EPISODES BEFORE WE RUIN THE MANY TWISTS AND TURNS SO MASTERFULLY CRAFTED BY SHEARSMITH AND PEMBERTON. Watch (or re-watch), and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** Hi, I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here on a cold December evening to discuss the absolutely phenomenal Inside Number 9.
**Chris:** That's a good.
**Lee:** There will be spoilers and there will be swearing. And just to warn everyone, if anyone hasn't seen these and you can find them somewhere to watch because despite me promising everyone last time they're on Netflix and the BBC, they've been taken down from both just this week.
**Lee:** But do go and find them if you haven't seen them, these, they're fantastic to watch, but a bit like tells the unexpected, it's all in the twist with these and we need to discuss them. So if you haven't seen them and you are tempted, definitely watch them before listening to the episode.
**Adam:** Yeah, fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah, without a shadow of a doubt, do not listen to us and fuck up your enjoyment of that. No, absolutely not.
**Chris:** Now, you say, you say it's in the twist, right? But so does Tals of the Unexpected have a lot of twists?
**Lee:** Every episode pretty much.
**Chris:** But but is it but is it like one major twist?
**Lee:** Yeah, it's not like this where it's twist on twist.
**Chris:** This is this is just like I don't know what kind of crazy person can come up with a mound that they fire off every scene.
**Adam:** I think it's because when they were doing it, they were because they watched stuff like Tales of the Unexpected. I think it's like most of us can guess the twist because they're stories that have been around for a while. Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** So they write it from the perspective of, right, so this is where this story obviously goes. How do we subvert that? How do we change that? Or how do we top that? And that's really why it's so good because they do consistently manage to do that.
**Chris:** And and that might be, I mean, they might have constructed it perfectly or I like to think I'm a bit more intelligent than I am, right? Because yeah, like you say, you're like, well, I know where this is going and then of course, I totally didn't see a lot of it. So as you just said, either they I don't know.
**Chris:** Like you're trying to work out what what did they know that we were going to get. And then especially because you said you've watched a lot of those sort of things. I haven't seen that many Tails unexpected or a whole lot of similar things. But yeah, no, it's just it's just funny to think what they must have been thinking while they were writing it.
**Chris:** How far do we take this? And at what point at what point does it become stupid? Because you could have so many twists and you're like, no, it's just getting silly now. But somehow it's like, no, all the way through, you're like, yeah, that was that was perfect.
**Chris:** Perfect. Yeah, you've done that again.
**Lee:** So, so before we crack in too far, we are going to, Adam, would you like to tell people what December has in store?
**Adam:** Yes, well, as we originally thought we were going to do, we were going to be very clever and very cryptic and you know, work make it look like we worked at these things the way that Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton clearly work at Inside Number 9 and we were going to do Inside Number 9vember.
**Adam:** And we we selected five episodes because that would explain the V in November. So it was inside number V and there you go, the Roman numeral. You know, so clever. And then we realized that with the schedule, the first one would go up on December.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, in a in a shameless bit of backtracking and bravado or clever dissolution, welcome to horror for December would like to present you with the Inside Number 9 Christmas Selection box.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** That sounds nice.
**Adam:** And we should be running all the way up to Christmas. We've got we're looking at six episodes in depth. Go and watch every fucking thing. Watch the whole of Inside Number 9 and then come back and listen to us because, yeah, that is far more entertaining if nothing else.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's they're all great, but we've concentrated because it's welcome to horror, we've concentrated on those episodes that really branch into that in certain ways.
**Adam:** And there's a few that we haven't that we that sort of bubbled under the radar that we haven't covered, but I think that the six that we've got are a good, you know, they're they they represent the dark, the the sort of dark fantasy end of Inside Number 9.
**Lee:** Absolutely. So, yeah, well done, Adam, for coming up with this splendid plan.
**Lee:** so we are, so would you like to let the listeners know what one we are, which episode we are about to cover now?
**Adam:** Well, coming out of the box, we have Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Lee:** Not wishing to blow our load too soon, but I have said it before and I will say it again, I still think this is the best 30 minutes of TV I have ever seen. This episode is absolutely unbelievable.
**Lee:** I love.
**Chris:** I might have thought, I might have thought you were a bit too excited saying that before, and then I watched it.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck yeah.
**Adam:** No, it is, it's fucking precision.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** So well done.
**Chris:** Perfect distillation.
**Adam:** So the facts on this one, series 3, episode 3, originally broadcast on the 28th of February, 2017. And as an interesting note to that, the actual crossword in it was written by Steve Pemberton with help from another writer from a crossword poser. And it was and it was in the Guardian that day.
**Lee:** Oh God.
**Chris:** No, really?
**Adam:** Without any sort of thing, it was just put in there as and the riddle master was the Sphinx.
**Lee:** That is so cool.
**Adam:** And they were like, that's a little Easter egg for someone who might suddenly go, hang on.
**Lee:** How awesome. I just I I love this episode. I love all of these, but the two episodes that we're going to cover tonight, there's such a small cast, like three three characters on screen in both episodes.
**Lee:** and you know, as you were saying, Chris, like the amount of twists and turns, we sat and watched this earlier, Lady Jennifer and myself. Yeah, and we said that, like, you can watch a two and a half hour movie that has nowhere near this much plot squeezed in. But it doesn't feel rushed. It feels yeah, lovely pacing and it, oh, it's just work of genius.
**Chris:** I mean and and and as you said, so three characters and it's all done like how it's almost how can they have so much dialogue that still makes sense and throws you off the scent so often?
**Chris:** Like it it is, yeah, it's astounding really.
**Adam:** I mean, they they clearly really pour over every last bit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And one thing I would say is people who are fans of Inside Number 9 and I don't wish to make our efforts redundant. Do listen to there's a podcast on BBC Sounds, which is Inside Inside Number 9.
**Adam:** And it is Reece and Steve talking about I think it started with series must have done, it started with series 5, where they've done every episode, and then I think somewhere between six and between six series six and seven, they did classic ones. So they did like 12 Days of Christine and stuff, but they did Riddle of the Sphinx was one of those.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's the sort of what went into it is fucking fascinating.
**Adam:** But it's another thing that I've been thinking watching it, though, is they're not even cheating in the sense of not not cheating, but they're not taking like if they were on Netflix, they could do episodes at any length.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, like Black Mirror does and stuff like that where it's like, oh, we only this was only 40 minutes because that's how much story we had.
**Adam:** Whereas.
**Chris:** It's funny but it's funny you say cheating though, because.
**Adam:** No, it's not, it's not.
**Chris:** No, no, yeah, but yeah, it's yeah.
**Chris:** You can like tailor it to the time exactly, whereas they are forced to still make sure it works in the fixed window.
**Adam:** Yes, it is. In a specific window of 30 minutes. Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's no, it's just really good.
**Adam:** And obviously, I mean, most of it's a two-hander. It's only really sort of the last, what, 10, five, five, 10 minutes, I think that Reese comes into it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's mostly Steve and Alexandra Roach playing Nina.
**Lee:** Who I I I think we all know from the original Utopia.
**Adam:** Yes. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and and she is so perfect in this because this one, although it definitely is one, as you say, we had to cover because it's one of the darker ones, so it's definitely in that horror vein. The comedy in it as well is just at the beginning, it's so laugh out loud. And she just delivers it perfectly. Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, she fits in with them so well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's also the sort of the fact that both both performances and like of the characters are performing.
**Adam:** You know, they are sort of putting.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But so you get this sort of the first bit is does feel like it's going to be one of those dodgy 90s sort of things where it's like, oh, yes, a young student and the old professor and they fall in love because he teaches her how to stare. You know.
**Adam:** And you know, and dodgy territory like that.
**Adam:** And then but the facade drops for both.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like and you just realized how sort of venal and horrible the Sphinx is and the charm is purely you know, it's it's it's purely an act. It's no sort of he's not genuinely a lovely bumbling old academic. He's actually a nasty piece of work.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's the way it unfolds that that just catches me. As you say, it's the it it's the twist on twist and every time you think you've worked out where it's going to go, it's suddenly changes again even before Reese has turned up.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's like just as you're catching up almost, it's like, no, there's another one. Yeah, it's really crazy.
**Chris:** I mean, I'm assuming, you know, you've picked these six, but you said for so they fit in with what we do, but this must be one of the best that they've written.
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely. It's it's I don't I don't know if I I was trying to work out earlier what my favorite one was and I'm not even sure, but this is a strong contender and is probably if if I managed to work out a ranking, it would be like.
**Adam:** If it's not number one, it's like two or three.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because, yeah, it's just so incredibly well put together. And also the fact that it just explains itself as it goes, which feels natural to like a university lecturer.
**Chris:** Yeah. And that that should ruin it. Like everything about it should not work almost.
**Adam:** It's very sort of expositiony, but it works absolutely.
**Adam:** And but also the fact you've got in there, like when they go into the whole mythology of the Sphinx, like the but it's the Greek Sphinx, not the Egyptian. So it's yeah, and and the sort that brings in the cannibalism and incest cuz you've got Edipus is the person who solves the Sphinx's riddle. And yeah, and it's just but they put all that in there. They let you know what I mean, it's not sort of.
**Adam:** It's not just there as subtext. It really sort of they actually teach you something. Yeah, it does.
**Chris:** It does, but it's still very fun.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, apparently this one was mostly originally from Steve.
**Adam:** In terms of like the idea and everything. And he'd been on there's a game show called Only Connect, which is a really good show, but is also one of those ones that will just you could do like three episodes in a row and just go, I am, you know, have I lost it? I am totally fucking stupid. Why can I not? And then you'll have an amazing run on it. And sort of like you realize, oh, no, no, I actually know what I'm talking about. And, but yeah, he was on like a, I think it was like, it was like Comic Relief or, no, I think Children in Need or something like that, it was a charity, a celebrity edition. And he was on there and the host is Victoria Coran Mitchell. And she, they were talking and he she happened to mention that one of their question sets, a guy called Alan Connor, had just written a book called Two Girls, One on Each Knee, which is, like explains cryptic crosswords, but also goes into the history of the crossword and stuff like that. And she sent she sent a copy to Steve because he was like, oh, no, that sounds like I'd really like to read that.
**Adam:** And that's where the sort of germ of the idea came in where he was sort of learning that it was all about rules and stuff like that. And there's one that I don't think they mentioned in it, which is, a hidden message in a crossword is called an Anana.
**Adam:** So and I think that's the only one that they don't because pretty much everything else they sort of explained as you know, as it's going.
**Adam:** But yeah, and apparently, this was all filmed at Langley Barry House. It's a weird way to this a really uncomfortable word. Langley, Langley Berry House, which is an 18th century manor house near basically near London. And the trustees have hired it out as a shooting location, has basically to they don't know what to do with the place. So they're renting it out, they're making money on it and people are filming there and everything.
**Adam:** And, it's also used in The Harrowing and Séance Time, weirdly enough, because they're episodes that will be covering later on.
**Adam:** And it's also Mr. Lomax's house from Psychoville.
**Adam:** So it's big, you know, with the big staircase and yeah.
**Adam:** And, but yeah, so they that's a a regular I'm going to use the word halt.
**Lee:** It looks fantastic as well. It's got to be said, like his rooms in this just look fantastic. It is how you imagine an, you know, an eminent professor at a university does live. It's got that sort of really look and feel and it again, it's that I think it's their attention to detail in stuff like that that sort of really makes it stand out for me in a lot of them.
**Lee:** It's.
**Adam:** It's it's a crew that really gives a shit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think it's because everyone really gets that they're doing something quality.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, they're doing something that's like it's almost like, look, if you've made, if you've written something so, you know, you've put so much effort into it, so much work into it, it's a bit of an insult to then half-arse it if you're the production designer or whatever like that, you know.
**Adam:** But this is directed by Guillem Morales, who I has done 14 Inside Number 9s.
**Adam:** and he's also he did the TV series The Miniaturist, and wrote and directed two horror films that I must say I've not seen, The Uninvited Guest and Julia's Eyes.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** but he's, he's Catalan. And, yeah, so for Number 9, he's done La Couche, 12 Days of Christine, The Bill, Empty Orchestra, Diddle Diddle Dumpling, Private View, Love's Great Adventure, Misdirection, Wuthering Heights, Simon Says, Lip Service, How Do You Plead, and, and the Stake Out.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, so he's done both of this evenings. He's done both of this evenings ones.
**Adam:** And by the sounds of it, he's a really like he sort of contributes a lot in terms of like he he was the one who said about doing it as a thunderstorm like outside because he said it was to to ramp up as he put it the hammer sort of feeling where you're in those sort of, you know, that wood panel room. So it sort of.
**Chris:** And that that's the same thing that the the sound effects and the music like just really worked.
**Adam:** Oh, Kristen Hensen, the guy who does the music on all of these, is just perfect.
**Adam:** He just really knows I've I've heard I've sort of heard interviews with him, he was on the inside Inside Number 9 podcast.
**Adam:** and it's like the again, he's double thinking stuff.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So he said that when he's doing the music, he's like, right, they want you to think that this is a light comedy. So I'm going to do it sort of plinky deep strings and sort of quite whimsical. And then it goes fucking dark as shit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I don't want to start sinister or, you know, or or indeed he said that but there are times when he's actually put in hints in in the music.
**Lee:** Huh.
**Adam:** To sort of, you know, as as little clues or whatever like that, but also he puts in as I say, he puts in like essentially musical misdirection.
**Adam:** So to try and keep with it, you know, it's not just a like a blanket of the same stuff every time.
**Adam:** And and none of them can really none of them would really work with that, oddly enough.
**Adam:** You know, if this there's there's no house style, if you know what I mean, apart from this is just done the best it can be.
**Lee:** I think that's what I love about the series and I think it's what's kept it so fresh is obviously not only as we say, the amazing lengths they go to to misdirect you with the twists that happen every time. But yeah, it's the fact that every episode feels so entirely different. yeah, so every every week when you sit down, you have no idea what you're going to get.
**Lee:** You know, you could get one of those sort of really dark, really sinister, sort of hammery type ones, yeah. And then next week is a full on, full-blown comedy from, you know, the old school of comedy from the old British stuff from the 70s.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's just it's always a surprise, but it's always a pleasant surprise.
**Chris:** It's what the characters and the dialogue seems to be something that they always get just so right that the characters just work so well together and the dialogue just bounces off and it's just flows in, yeah. So they can apply that to almost any style and story.
**Adam:** It's interesting because I was cuz I was watching them back with Claire and obviously we watched them like first time around and everything.
**Adam:** And, it's weird because sometimes in the dialogue, you can hear their voices.
**Adam:** Like you could imagine them delivering the lines almost. And I think it was that one in this which was just where she says about no, like a proper crossword, not one from TV Quick with Vanessa Feltz in the middle of it. And I could so hear that in Reese's voice. Proper crossword, not one in the middle of it. You know, and it just sort of, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I the weirdest thing, and this seems to be quite quite an interesting thing because they obviously, stuff came out of when they built the crossword that they only spotted afterwards such as RIP NHS.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And literally, that was an accident that they spotted when the board was put up that that was there.
**Adam:** So and it's basically the focal point of the very end.
**Chris:** Yeah. Yeah. Cause it literally says all your middle name is Horus, isn't it? And then leaves and then he blows his brains out and you they close up on RIP NHS. But that was an accident.
**Adam:** Yeah. Because literally he says all your middle name is Horace, isn't it? And then leaves and then he blows his brains out and you they close up on RIP NHS. But that was an accident. That wasn't put into the crossword unlike all the other stuff like the and everything else stuff they put in there.
**Chris:** Like the asxi.
**Adam:** And even the, I switched the cups as a diagonal and things like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, and here's the best bit. So people who might be unfamiliar with Inside Number 9, why the fuck have you listened to this because you've just probably ruined the best fucking half an hour you could watch?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I don't think we can ever make that up to you, sorry.
**Adam:** No, no, I don't think we can, but it's their own bloody fault.
**Adam:** But in every episode of Inside Number 9, there is a a hair is a hair statue.
**Adam:** And it's been in they suddenly revealed it in like series 4 or something like that, where it was like, oh, by the way, we put this hair in and you've not noticed it for four series because no one had noticed this thing before until they pointed it out.
**Adam:** And everyone thought it was a joke, went back and realized that it is in every episode.
**Adam:** But here's the best bit. In this one, they put it on a shelf just behind Steve and it was sort of bit in the shadows.
**Adam:** No one really noticed it.
**Adam:** But, again, no one noticed this on the production, one of the diagonals in the crossword is Lepus, which is Latin for rabbit.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And and they hadn't noticed it, but the best bit was, they were getting loads of people going, that was clever, you hit the hair in the in the crossword.
**Chris:** we saw.
**Adam:** They were no, we didn't.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** But as they said themselves, you know, it's quite weird that it almost sort of like starts to converge to that level of like synergy.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think when you have that many things crossing over like this, yeah, you know, weird stuff is going to start to happen, I guess.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, oh, just and again, I I've watched this today. It's probably the sixth time I've seen it and as I said, I still laugh out loud every time. The twists and I think the thing is once you know the end and you go back and rewatch it, you appreciate more.
**Chris:** You can almost, yeah.
**Adam:** That that is one of the few that it's one of I think because of the amount of twisty turniness, like a twisty turny thing that we do.
**Adam:** Is it creates, the rewatchability of them.
**Adam:** It's not like, tells the unexpected, here's the story, here's the story, here's the story, twist. And once you know that twist, all right, well, that's the story's not interesting now. Whereas you know, not not necessarily all, but certainly a lot of them can really take rewatching again and again and again.
**Chris:** Because and some of the the twists almost they're so minor compared to the rest of what's happened and yet you can almost take them and that would be a big twist in something else.
**Adam:** Oh, definitely.
**Chris:** And you can almost just forget them because there's just so many.
**Adam:** Apparently their influences on this were the 1972 film Sleuth and which I must confess I've not seen, and 1989's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, And Her Lover, which does feature, spoiler alert, does feature cannibalism.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** It that is a fucked up film.
**Chris:** Every time I hear cannibalism now, which isn't that often, I'm sure in life, but I'm going to think of vegan cannibalism.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, yeah, and one thing I would say and certainly again, the horror side of it, the bit with the pot and the piece of like piece of flesh, that is Hannibal.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's Hanniba it's the end the actual film Hannibal with Anthony Hopkins.
**Lee:** That's that's the.
**Chris:** Cut cuts out.
**Lee:** Not Matthew.
**Adam:** No, definitely with with with because in that he cooks and fries a part of someone of Ray Liotta's brain and it's done in a little dish like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I know that Reese's quite obsessed with Hannibal.
**Adam:** So I'm definite that because they didn't mention that, but I'm definite that's where that comes from because it's the same bit of little fizzing skillet and there you go, it's like as a sweet meat.
**Chris:** But again, they managed to do that and they do it so it's kind of funny while still being so visceral. Like it was such a perfect blend. Especially when he's eating it and the noises he's making and it's like, oh, that is exactly you've got to push yourself but oh.
**Lee:** And even at that point. I mean, even when he opens the suitcase and starts because obviously you think he's brought the antidote with him and the suitcase and then he starts taking that stuff out. I was still like first time, yeah, I was like, where is this going now? Like, I mean, yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely beautiful piece of misdirection, but you know, doing it twice as well is just.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Phenomenal.
**Chris:** And that's it, we haven't actually given away like everything we've said still has not covered everything that's in there. You could still absolutely watch it and be like, did they even tell us anything?
**Adam:** I I I think I didn't mention I'm going to mime it for you guys just in case I didn't, but.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I I reckon people that will have been lost in the Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yes, so yeah, and say for me as much as I've I wouldn't say I've loved every episode, I think every episode is brilliant.
**Lee:** But yeah, some of the darker ones, I just haven't gone back to and I don't think I will.
**Lee:** Not because they're brilliant, but because.
**Chris:** Can you remember them, the name of them off the top of your head?
**Adam:** I I would say definitely, wise owl. That is dark as fuck.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And what is the what is the one, it's not Diddle Diddle Dumpling, although that's pretty grim.
**Adam:** But the, oh, it's the one with Nicola Walker and she's married to Steve and I don't want to say any more because that just basically bollocks is the thing for anyone.
**Lee:** The one with Reese when he finds the shoe.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's that's Diddle Diddle Dumpling.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** And to have and to hold.
**Adam:** That's the one with, that I'm thinking of, To Have and To Hold, where it that is, yeah, that's.
**Chris:** All right, I might I might put these on next just to see how dark things can get.
**Lee:** You do. Oh, 12 Days.
**Lee:** Of Christina as well.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Cold comfort as well. Yeah, so like.
**Lee:** And they are.
**Adam:** Cold comfort, I think cold comfort.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cold comfort, I think, would have been a contender for this.
**Adam:** But all of those would be contenders for this, but like we say, we were sticking more the horror end.
**Adam:** And I know that and it's that is that they are much more disquieting.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** They are. That's it, they're they're disturbing rather than, you know.
**Chris:** Although The Harrowing sounds like it could be in that group, but it's not.
**Chris:** Do they do they mess with us there?
**Adam:** I'm going to I'm going to say nothing, but all I am going to say is that it's it's only what Tim Burton's Dark Shadows could have been.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** So for our second episode we're covering this week, we are, as previously mentioned, discussing the steak out.
**Lee:** Adam, would you like to give us the low down on the steak out?
**Adam:** series 5, episode 6, first broadcast on the 9th of March, 2020.
**Lee:** before the world fell apart.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, again, directed by, Morales.
**Adam:** this was this was a bit of a weird one because apparently they wrote the six episodes of series 5 and then they came back and said, have you got another script because one of the ones you've written's too expensive, so we can't budget it.
**Adam:** Have you got.
**Chris:** Well, they.
**Adam:** So have you got another script that's really cheap? And basically, this was I think they said this was like the run up to Christmas, 2018.
**Adam:** And, yeah, they, basically went, right, okay, so cheap, well, just two, the two of us. And two people sitting, right, two policemen in a car. That was literally how they where it came from.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** This is for an episode that I really I really love this episode.
**Adam:** and but yeah, to find out that this was like a real like skin of the teeth job.
**Chris:** It's one of those where the constraints sometimes help to bring out the best.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like we've seen a few times, it's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and I think that the yeah, I mean, and obviously you then get the twist.
**Adam:** Which I remember I remember watching it and I worked it out. but I think they do such a good job with this. How were you with it? I cuz I I think it was it was the bit with the bridge that sort of tipped me off weirdly.
**Lee:** Yeah, see I didn't get it. I I don't remember that triggering.
**Lee:** Again, because they make it in the because it's in the middle of like quite a quick moving scene, so it kind of glossed over.
**Lee:** And of course the coffee cups is just so but it's it's because of that misdirection at the beginning, because it shows you the closing scene at the beginning and you're so convinced you know where it's going. I didn't think outside of that box, which is just fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely the same. I like once I know I was like, oh, that should have been so obvious.
**Chris:** But I think that must have been it, that yeah, just I was just set up and I couldn't you're trying to work out both of the characters. So it's not like I mean, yeah, I just I I was just fascinated by the way they play off each other and they're just yeah, which one of them is really, you know.
**Adam:** I think I think that's another reason I like this is cuz I just really enjoy Reese and Steve as two characters going back and forth.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I like there's there's others like what is it? Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room? I think that's just Yeah, just the two of them, yeah.
**Adam:** And that's that's great as well. That really that's just really good.
**Adam:** Cuz they said that was one of the things with the sort of how quickly they had to do this is they were like, we kind of because it was us, we didn't have to rehearse as intensively because we weren't bringing anyone else in and we know how we work.
**Adam:** But, but yeah, they do so so and the best part is is that it is a proper, oh, for fuck's sake. Apparently they showed this before the series, they showed it to the BFI.
**Adam:** And, like no one there had got it or clearly sort of like the the bulk of the audience had not twitched and then at the end when they were doing the Q&A and they said, well, I mean, it's even the title of steak out and they said the whole audience just went.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah. You know, it's like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And there's this paper with the steak out written on this whole time.
**Adam:** And never once gone vampire.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's sort of and because he's called Varney because of Varney the Vampire, which is the book that predates Dracula.
**Adam:** And it was like a penny dreadful and, when was that?
**Adam:** That was that was like, yeah, that it was completed in 1847.
**Adam:** but it's major influence on vampire fiction, particularly Dracula. It introduces into vampiric law fangs.
**Adam:** fangs.
**Adam:** The double puncture marks on victims' throat, hypnotic powers and superhuman strength, which are all fairly fundamental.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, apparently apparently fucking.
**Adam:** walks around in daylight.
**Adam:** Yeah, so it's you know, there's other bits where you'll be like, oh, fuck off.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** You know, he's there is a lot in there.
**Adam:** And yeah, this was called Varney the Vampire or the Feast of Blood.
**Adam:** Written by either James Malcolm Rhymer or Thomas Peckett Prest.
**Adam:** Again, it's sort of a bit of a gray area. It may be both of them.
**Adam:** And, yeah, so there was that, but it was the it was the running over water thing that tipped me, I think.
**Adam:** So that's how I was able to know.
**Chris:** How how many how many actual references were there?
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Everything's there.
**Adam:** Cuz I mean even like.
**Lee:** Five of them at the end.
**Adam:** Yeah. Yeah.
**Adam:** He has to be invited in.
**Adam:** He has to Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Again, they do a riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** They do at least take you through it.
**Adam:** As well.
**Adam:** Which is which is kind of, you know, I like that.
**Adam:** You know, because it's not done it never feels like they've it's not that they've had to explain it to you.
**Adam:** It's just like.
**Adam:** And here's what you missed.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Yeah, I love the fact that they're the best thing is is I hate it when you.
**Lee:** It does.
**Adam:** Yeah, I love the fact that they're the best thing is is I hate it when you.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Where like a thing lies to you where they're like, oh, this is because of that.
**Adam:** No, that didn't happen or I didn't see that.
**Adam:** Or whatever.
**Adam:** That opening dialogue where it's done and it's that.
**Adam:** I think I've I've never seen it, but I think it's Sunset Boulevard that starts off with like a body floating in a pool.
**Adam:** And then it's like this is me, let me tell you how I end up there and it's sort of like this narration by a dead person.
**Adam:** And so at the start of this, when he goes, yeah, I'm dead, and it's like, yeah, they haven't lied to you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's a vampire, so he's dead. But yeah, it's just so yeah, just perfect that you can go back and not.
**Adam:** And just thread it again, it's like really really impressive.
**Adam:** And also just really fucking funny again.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, for the majority of it.
**Adam:** I mean, that bit about the where he's saying about what they used to have and it's like.
**Adam:** Stack of Pringles.
**Lee:** Why not?
**Adam:** Yeah, get two good pieces in one of them, too.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** And the bit.
**Lee:** When he's starting to open up and he goes, I, I, I spy with my.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Shy away, well, again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Right, you go. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's.
**Lee:** yeah, it's.
**Lee:** And, and you know, and we were saying, you know, I know we mentioned it, we've been discussing it off air quite a lot recently when we've just been chatting.
**Lee:** yeah, just the way they've kept it this fresh for this long, you know.
**Lee:** you know, I know that,
**Lee:** Tausy Unexpected, which again is one that we will reference quite a lot, I'm sure.
**Adam:** We maybe need to cover some. You you've you've seen the majority of them, so.
**Lee:** I watched the entire thing.
**Lee:** Last year, I watched all hundred episodes or whatever it was.
**Adam:** Yeah, but I mean if you dig out like a good three or something like that, we'll cover them or something.
**Adam:** I think it's for the New Year.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean and they've got some really sinister episodes as well.
**Lee:** So again.
**Lee:** But the thing is unlike this, it was you know, they they started with the Roledoll stories that were excellent and they picked the best ones and then it very quickly went into the ones that wouldn't translate quite so well.
**Lee:** Then they.
**Lee:** They ran out of those.
**Lee:** And just started.
**Lee:** Writing their own.
**Lee:** And it it went off the boil pretty quickly.
**Adam:** but but that's but that's the interesting thing as well is that that you know.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously they were based on Roledoll stories, but they I don't know if he adapted them himself for the screen or whatever.
**Lee:** I'm not sure.
**Lee:** How involved.
**Lee:** I know obviously he introduces each one with a very unusual introduction, normally.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** But I think that but again with Inside Number 9 for two people.
**Adam:** Essentially.
**Adam:** And that's not to sort of take away from producers and obviously.
**Adam:** They have a multitude.
**Adam:** By the way, Lee.
**Adam:** Interesting little factoid, I don't think we're covering any of these episodes.
**Adam:** And I can't for the life of me think of his real name, but one of the directors recently on Inside Number 9 is best known to many of us as Barry Ship P's.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Now who.
**Lee:** Was it you who told me that?
**Adam:** I don't think.
**Adam:** It was me.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** It was Jennifer.
**Lee:** So we were discussing him recently and she was looking on IMDb because we were going to be covering him, and she went, did you know some of the episodes were directed by Barry Ship P's?
**Lee:** And I was like.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Fuck off. Well, she went, I'm telling you.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, I, weird, how weird.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** For anyone who's unaware, Charlie Brooker does a show called Screenwipe and Gamewipe.
**Lee:** and yeah, he used to have fictional characters who were interviewed on him, one turns up in the first episode of season 7 of this.
**Adam:** yeah, Philly. Yeah.
**Lee:** as Philomena Cunk, Morgan.
**Lee:** Yeah, but yeah, Barry Ship's is the other the other guy who they interview on it. yeah, I had no idea he was a director.
**Lee:** So I'm going to have to find his episodes and work out which ones they are.
**Adam:** Al Campbell, my scientific advisor has just told me.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** So, yeah, and but again, yeah, that's just a weird one.
**Adam:** Although I do feel sorry for him because.
**Adam:** I'll forget that name again and I'll still be saying it's Barry Ship Peace.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, Charlie Brooker has done that man a severe disservice.
**Adam:** To the point where I think, is he going to chuck it all in at one point and just change his name?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So and the bafter lifetime achievement awards goes to Barry Ship P's.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, again, Morales sort of adding to the plot of like adding to the visuals and adding to the story and everything else like that.
**Adam:** He was the one who came up with the idea.
**Adam:** That they would show.
**Adam:** Tomo in the rearview mirror being fed on and you could you can see the wound moving like where Varney's latched on to him and then it cuts and it's where he's actually in real life but the reflection in the mirror where obviously Varney's not showing, but just you can see the actions that he's doing and, yeah, I don't think that's been that's not something I've seen in a vampire film.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** So it's a pretty unique image.
**Adam:** It'll probably be robbed fucking blind now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm sure it will.
**Lee:** Oh, cuz it just worked so well. It's yeah, fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah, just perfect. You can go back and not.
**Adam:** And just thread it again, it's like really really impressive.
**Adam:** And also just really fucking funny again.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, for the majority of it. I mean, that bit about the where he's saying about what they used to have and it's like.
**Adam:** Stack of Pringles.
**Lee:** Why not?
**Adam:** Why not?
**Lee:** Why not?
**Adam:** Yeah, get two.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** And the bit.
**Lee:** When he's starting.
**Lee:** To open up and he goes, I, I, I spy with my.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Shy away. Well, again.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Right, you go.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's.
**Lee:** yeah, it's.
**Lee:** yeah, it's.
**Lee:** And, and you know, and we were saying, you know, I know we mentioned it, we've been discussing it off air quite a lot recently when we've just been chatting.
**Lee:** yeah, just the way they've kept it this fresh for this long, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah, so and you know, and we were saying, you know, I know we mentioned it, we've been discussing it off air quite a lot recently when we've just been chatting. yeah, just the way they've kept it this fresh for this long, you know. you know, I know that, Tausy Unexpected, which again is one that we will reference quite a lot, I'm sure. yeah, I mean and they've got some really sinister episodes as well.
**Lee:** So again.
**Lee:** But the thing is.
**Lee:** Unlike this.
**Lee:** It was you know, they they started with the Roledoll stories that were excellent and they picked the best ones and then it very quickly went into the ones that wouldn't translate quite so well.
**Lee:** Then they.
**Lee:** They ran out of those.
**Lee:** And just started.
**Lee:** Writing their own.
**Lee:** And it it went off the boil pretty quickly.
**Adam:** but but that's but that's the interesting thing as well is that that you know.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously they were based on Roledoll stories, but they I don't know if he adapted them himself for the screen or whatever.
**Lee:** I'm not sure.
**Lee:** How involved.
**Lee:** I know obviously he introduces each one with a very unusual introduction, normally.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** But I think that but again with Inside Number 9 for two people.
**Adam:** Essentially.
**Adam:** And that's not to sort of take away from producers and obviously.
**Adam:** They have a multitude.
**Adam:** By the way, Lee.
**Adam:** Interesting little factoid, I don't think we're covering any of these episodes.
**Adam:** And I can't for the life of me think of his real name.
**Adam:** But one of the directors recently on Inside Number 9 is best known to many of us as Barry Ship P's.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Now who.
**Lee:** Was it you who told me that?
**Adam:** I don't think.
**Adam:** It was me.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** It was Jennifer.
**Lee:** So we were discussing him recently and she was looking on IMDb because we were going to be covering him, and she went, did you know some of the episodes were directed by Barry Ship P's?
**Lee:** And I was like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fuck off. Well, she went, I'm telling you.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, I, weird, how weird.
**Adam:** Al Campbell, my scientific advisor has just told me.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** So, yeah, and but again, yeah, that's just a weird one.
**Adam:** Although I do feel sorry for him because.
**Adam:** I'll forget that name again and I'll still be saying it's Barry Ship Peace.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, Charlie Brooker has done that man a severe disservice.
**Adam:** To the point where I think, is he going to chuck it all in at one point and just change his name?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So and the bafter lifetime achievement awards goes to Barry Ship P's.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, again, Morales sort of adding to the plot of like adding to the visuals and adding to the story and everything else like that.
**Adam:** He was the one who came up with the idea.
**Adam:** That they would show.
**Adam:** Tomo in the rearview mirror being fed on and you could you can see the wound moving.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like where Varney's latched on to him and then it cuts and it's where he's actually in real life, but the reflection in the mirror where obviously Varney's not showing, but just you can see the actions that he's doing.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** I don't think that's been.
**Adam:** That's not something I've seen in a vampire film.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** So it's a pretty unique image.
**Adam:** It'll probably be robbed fucking blind now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm sure it will.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Cuz it just worked so well.
**Lee:** It's yeah, fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
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**Adam:** Yeah.
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**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
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---

## Ep 157 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-157-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 20 November 2022
Duration: 01:07:19

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “We Have Been Watching Meets The Wolf Man”. It’s time once more, faithful listener, for the team to discuss the varied audio/visual treats that have been assailing our frontal cortexes. In this episode we discuss “Wendell & Wild”, “The Witcher”, “Werewolf by Night”, “Hellraiser 2022”, “Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities” and “Night of Demons 2”, while Adam tells of his encounter with author, dreamweaver plus actor Garth Marenghi at the launch of his new book “TerrorTome”, and we briefly touch on “The Cornetto Trilogy”. Beware of spoilers and swearing and join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** and we are here again for a catch up of what we've been watching in the last six weeks, which is going to be a real trial of remembrance because it's been six or seven weeks since I watched some of it, so I've very possibly forgotten all and every detail.
**Lee:** Very quick pace of housekeeping before we roll into that.
**Lee:** good friend of the show Lord Al has been unwell recently, he's had some health issues. but he is we're glad to say on the mend and has been getting good news.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** So so we just wanted to send our solidarity and he watched Evil Dead Rise out today, which made me very happy.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Get well soon, Alex.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** I would also fuck Paul Weller.
**Lee:** But we'll we can pass on that one.
**Chris:** Fuck Paul Weller?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** Yeah, just just because he's got a shit haircut, I hate his music, and he said in an interview the other day.
**Lee:** I don't follow the news, but I log into Yahoo for my emails, and so you always get the the the stories, yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and he called Robert Smith a fat fuck and said he wanted to slap him, so
**Adam:** Oh yeah, that's fuck you, Paul Weller.
**Adam:** He also stinks of potatoes.
**Lee:** Oh, does he?
**Adam:** Yeah, Claire met Claire saw him in a gallery once standing his pompous mock mod ass in front of a fucking painting and not shifting, then she realized it was Paul Weller, but apparently it smelled like a green grocer, you know, a proper earthy potato smell.
**Lee:** That's interesting.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** A bit like all of his fans who you can definitely always find at any Weatherspoons on any day before two o'clock in the afternoon.
**Adam:** Laughter
**Lee:** That's enough for rubbing Paul Weller.
**Lee:** so.
**Lee:** we are going to run as we always do, round in a circle of who's been watching what.
**Lee:** So, let's start today with Adam.
**Lee:** You can kick us off.
**Adam:** With Adam.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** first thing I'm going to mention is mostly because it's always nice to have a bit of horror you can watch with the family.
**Adam:** Netflix have got.
**Lee:** Oh, we're going to have spoilers.
**Lee:** Hey?
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Spoilers and swearing, especially about that cunt Paul Weller.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Chris:** Lucky you got that in there.
**Lee:** But that.
**Chris:** Laughter
**Adam:** Won't want to make anyone except Paul Weller.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Adam:** yes, sorry.
**Adam:** yeah, always nice to be able to watch horror with your family and there is on Netflix a film called Wendall and Wild.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I'm so keen to see this but I on a drunken night out with a friend said I wouldn't watch it until he came over and we watched it together and we haven't had a chance to sit down yet, so it's burning a hole in my Netflix account.
**Adam:** Well, it's very good.
**Adam:** It's the guy, it's directed by Henry Selick who did Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And it's very much in that same sort especially Coraline in that sort of dark vein.
**Adam:** I mean, technically it's for 12 year olds, Teddy's four.
**Adam:** But he's quite robust and he's quite happy with the concept of reanimated corpses, demons and ghosts being farted out of a giant devil's bum.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** So and I tell you what, fucking soundtrack's incredible as well.
**Adam:** It's got like fucking got the specials, X-Ray Specs, Death, Living Color, it's just really, really fucking good.
**Adam:** But basically, it's technically it's Jordan Peele's latest film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** because he wrote it with Henry Selick and Wendall and Wild are two demons played by him and Keegan Michael Key.
**Adam:** So essentially you get the key and feel like that, which is fucking brilliant.
**Chris:** That's good.
**Adam:** and yeah, it's just a very good weird little tale of these two demons whose who are connected to a hell maiden, that's what the mythology of it is.
**Adam:** but this particular hell maiden is a girl who's parents died, it's very Roll Dahl in that sense.
**Adam:** in that it starts off with parents dying in a car.
**Adam:** So that's yeah, you know, you know, it has that sort of proper Roll Dahl feeling as it were.
**Adam:** and then sort of she goes on to have a troubled life and she returns home to go to a girl's school as part of a sort of program like second help second chance program of like young offenders sort of thing.
**Adam:** but yeah, she ends up going to this school and but Wendall and Wild contact her through the power of the fact they're tripping balls on their demon dad's hair restoring cream.
**Adam:** at the at the start of it by the way, they live on the demon's head and are slowly adding plugs into his hair where he's worried that he's going bald.
**Adam:** So he's getting them to rejuvenate his hair, but yeah, they contact her and say they'll resurrect her parents.
**Adam:** And so she calls them up but then there's a load of other sort of incidents that happens local within within like the local community and you've got.
**Adam:** some like as well as K and P, you've got James Hong, you know, David Lo Pan, he's he's in there, Ving Rhames, Maxine Peek and David Haywood who basically play Trump in a Boris Johnson wig and Liz Truss.
**Adam:** That is seriously, when you watch it, that's just what the puppets look like.
**Adam:** And I know that animation takes ages to make, so I don't feel that the Liz Trust side of it is deliberate.
**Adam:** But it just happens to fucking be spot on.
**Adam:** but yeah, and Angela Bassett and it's got some great music, it's got it's that nicely twisted sort of Coraline Nightmare Before Christmas kind of feel to it and and yeah, Teddy loves it and he's been liking the music as well, which is always fucking good.
**Adam:** So yeah, that's that's that's definitely my first up and I won't go too far with it because I know if you want to watch it, Lee.
**Adam:** Chris, I would also say it probably be worthwhile introducing the littluns as well, because I mean if they liked Coraline or anything like that, yeah, very much in that vine.
**Adam:** It's really good.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic, I should look forward to that.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** I've been watching The Witcher.
**Chris:** Which.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Chris:** Is a it's a based on books by a Polish author called Andre Sapkowski, I didn't realize that.
**Chris:** but it's also based on computer game, which I've never played.
**Chris:** I have seen someone play it for about 20 minutes and I thought it looked pretty good.
**Chris:** There's a lot of magic and effects and lots of different creatures.
**Chris:** And so since watching it I've I've understood a bit more.
**Chris:** it's essentially a world full of your normal kind of fantasy people and monsters.
**Chris:** But then you've also got there was something called a conjunction of spheres which brought in other creatures of myth like vampires and werewolves.
**Chris:** but then also some creatures from Slavic myth, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah, now.
**Chris:** So I've seen the first series.
**Chris:** And it it did remind me a little bit of The Mandalorian.
**Chris:** In that the Witcher essentially who's he's kind of a superhuman, so they're made from it's like genetic mutation along with some sort of magic and so it kind of gives them superhuman powers.
**Chris:** But he's kind of going around helping people in the world, fighting monsters, that seems to be the main thing.
**Chris:** so yeah, he's kind of a a mercenary who doesn't seem to care about anything or anyone.
**Chris:** And except when he starts to fall in love with someone seemingly.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** So yeah, it's it's like it's it's a good.
**Chris:** Good mix of comedy, some dark bits, some of the the episodes are a bit darker than others.
**Lee:** Very Game of Thrones.
**Chris:** So well, yeah, yeah, it's interesting that.
**Chris:** So I suppose you would you would be tempted to compare it to that.
**Chris:** there are differences, I would say and
**Chris:** It's it's I think it's more simple than Game of Thrones at the moment, although there's an amount to learn, but I guess yeah, with just the first season they couldn't fit too much in.
**Chris:** but yeah, you know, it's kind of a thing I love.
**Chris:** supernatural, fantasy, magic, fighting.
**Lee:** I vaguely remember when I watched it, I brought it up in a in a what we've been watching segment.
**Lee:** and I did rubbish it for the fact that the two main characters have got normal names with a letter changed out of them and it felt like some of the laziest writing I've ever known.
**Lee:** Yeah, of course there is Yennefer and Geralt.
**Chris:** Gerald.
**Chris:** Gerald.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I didn't hate it, but I when season two came up, I was like, it's definitely at the bottom of a long if we get another lockdown and I end up in furlo again, I would have watched it, but as I didn't, I was never going to dedicate time to.
**Chris:** So, so I suppose I I I'm I'm definitely motivated to watch computer game based.
**Chris:** Things saying that I've never watched any Resident Evil films.
**Chris:** But.
**Lee:** I've seen them all, I own them all in fact on Blu-ray.
**Adam:** Laughter
**Chris:** But I would be tempted to, but I just yeah, I kind of like it when they managed to make something that is you know, it's at least watchable.
**Chris:** But I don't know, for me it it definitely worked, I did I did find it was entertaining, funny and I quite like the characters.
**Chris:** but then I think as well it's the second thing I've seen with Henry Cavill.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I really like him as an actor.
**Chris:** I think he looks great and yeah, he just he does entertain me a lot.
**Chris:** And so in fact, I did see in Nola Holmes, oh yes, the second one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I haven't seen it yet, but it's on that is on my list.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, so I'm definitely going to watch that as well.
**Chris:** So I I mean, I don't know, what else is he in?
**Chris:** Have you seen him in?
**Lee:** He's Superman, isn't it?
**Adam:** He's Superman, isn't he?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay, I've not seen those.
**Adam:** Does he have a mustache in The Witcher?
**Lee:** I think he's like stub he's got like a stubble beard most of the time because he's rugged.
**Chris:** But not a mustache.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Because I think it was Justice League they had to pay a fortune to digitize out his mustache.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** Because he needs it for another role or something, but they'd sort of there was like some conflict over it.
**Adam:** And yeah, basically sort of, you know, a quarter of the budget, the CGI budget on that film was removing his mustache.
**Lee:** I the thing the other thing that annoyed me about it was his voice.
**Lee:** He does this really over the top dramatic voice, but having later heard the story behind the voice, I actually quite liked it and kind of took a step back on it, I thought it was really over the top, but apparently it was after they'd started filming or, you know, like he'd never intended to do that voice and then he said backstage when they were sort of fanning about, he did an impression of the voice of the character from the game and everyone went, oh no, that's great, you should do that, so he kind of had to stick with it, despite the fact it was never a character choice that he made.
**Lee:** So yeah, so I kind of forgave him for that, I was like, no, he did stick see it through.
**Lee:** I mean you puts him higher in my estimation.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean it might be talking about the the mustache.
**Chris:** It looks like he might have one later on, so it could have been from.
**Lee:** Of season two or.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And then well three I think is coming out soon, so I don't know when that was filmed.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** But yeah, I don't know, I will I will definitely continue to watch it and I will report back to you know if I still like it.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Chris:** I did hear that season two is meant to be better than season one.
**Lee:** I might give it another thing is it's I watched it when it first came out.
**Lee:** Which again is like three years ago now, so a bit like Game of Thrones, it's one of those, it's got lots of characters and lots of storylines and plots and I won't remember anything that happened.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, no.
**Lee:** It's just I.
**Chris:** That's true.
**Adam:** Do you think do you think Netflix should change their name to it gets good in the second season?
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Chris:** Well, although doesn't that happen with them or the the new Lord of the Rings, which I haven't watched yet, I did hear that the first few episodes were not quite great, but then it does seem to have got better towards the end of the first season.
**Chris:** But I don't know if either of you have.
**Lee:** No, I haven't yet.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I can't remember who said it, it might it might have just been someone generally online rather than someone you know, like a known.
**Adam:** Personal trustworthy source.
**Adam:** Yeah, but it was basically it was along the lines of if you had a film called Dracula Dracula Surf Demon, you know, the film would be great, but the Netflix series would be you don't see him by the surfboard till episode seven, and then he doesn't actually hit the water till episode 10 as the fucking finale.
**Adam:** And then you've got to wait for series two for any Dracula Surf action.
**Lee:** Sounds about right.
**Adam:** Laughter
**Lee:** so skipping from Netflix to Disney Plus.
**Lee:** I watched this year the Halloween release of Werewolf by Night.
**Adam:** Oh, was that the Marvel?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** A Jason, isn't it or I can't remember.
**Lee:** So a an awful thing is I can't remember who told me, but there is a character which is in this and I can't tell you anything without spoiling it if you haven't seen it yet.
**Lee:** But there is a character that is in it that is apparently going to be this is like their side, you know, like their stand-alone movie to introduce the character that they're going to become later on in in the actual series.
**Lee:** I really liked it.
**Lee:** I didn't think I was going to somebody showed me the trailer and I was like, this is the Beast must die, but shit.
**Adam:** Laughter
**Lee:** That was what I thought it was going to be.
**Lee:** And it kind of isn't so they get a load of hunters together.
**Lee:** So the there's like and again, like we were saying, this is I watched this when it came out, which was about a month ago now, so I'm crying hard to remember it.
**Lee:** the head of this kind of hunters guild has died, and he has a magical stone, and whoever wields this stone has supernatural powers, he has died, so they've got all these hunters together and released a creature and whoever kills the creature will get the stone and become the new head of this hunters assassination guild or whatever.
**Lee:** It's all in black and white.
**Lee:** It feel it does feel a lot like a sort of an old universal style feel, it's all in black and white apart from the red, so the stone is red and the red of the blood is all in color in the rest of it.
**Lee:** So it's a bit sort of Sin City.
**Adam:** Or or Schindler's List, but probably not quite not quite the same sort of.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Lee:** but yeah, I thought it was really good.
**Lee:** It it yeah, it it was entertaining enough, there were enough twists and plot turns in it.
**Lee:** It wasn't very long, I seem to remember it only being an hour and a quarter or something.
**Lee:** It's fairly short.
**Lee:** but yeah, it was really good, it had a really good cast.
**Lee:** It had a fantastic actor in it who played like this grizzled old Scotsman, except the actor is from LA, so his Scottish accent may have passed in Hollywood, but it definitely did not here.
**Adam:** Is he a bit groundskeeper Willie?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it just kept going for a walk every now and again, it was like he kept forgetting he was supposed to be doing it.
**Lee:** But yeah, I mean it didn't detract from it, it was a it was still good and I enjoyed it.
**Lee:** So it's well worth a watch.
**Adam:** Well actually, a dodgy Hollywood interpretation of a British Isles accent feels very universal horror as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly, yeah.
**Adam:** Laughter
**Lee:** but yeah, yeah, it was it was good, it was good fun.
**Lee:** It was like you were saying, it was it all felt very dark, but then they they put in those Marvel comedic moments that sort of lighten it and the very end scene is kind of hilarious.
**Lee:** yeah, so it's it's it's well worth a watch.
**Lee:** It's it was a good Halloween viewing, it was one that we managed to squeeze in on our run up to Halloween and I'm glad I did.
**Lee:** So yeah, if you haven't watched it, it's on Disney Plus, it's well worth your time.
**Adam:** And you don't need any it's not heavily linked Marvel wise it's a if if anything it's a set up for something that will happen later.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it works as a stand-alone thing but it introduces a character who is then going to turn up in the the kind of extend in the the main Marvel movie.
**Lee:** Or somebody was telling me, but say over a month ago, it there's a lot of drinking goes on at Halloween, so yeah, so don't hold me to that, but that's definitely what I've been told.
**Lee:** But yeah, go and check it out, it's well worth your time.
**Lee:** Adam, back to you, my old son.
**Adam:** I think next next one on my list is finally after some panic that it wasn't going to come out over here we got to see the new Hellraiser.
**Adam:** Oh, Hellraiser 2022 or Hulu Hellraiser, whatever you want to use as a.
**Adam:** Because I am getting a fuck of this, it's like stop just calling them the same fucking thing, you pricks.
**Adam:** I know why you're doing it, I know why you're fucking doing it.
**Adam:** Don't talk to me about algorithms, you pricks, but.
**Adam:** yeah, the new Hellraiser from David Bruckner.
**Adam:** Who I was I was trying to remember what else he'd done and one of his thing was The Ritual.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which I you know, cracking fucking film that is.
**Chris:** Quite quite fairly different.
**Adam:** Yes, oh, definitely yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But the and yeah, the I have to say I think it was as as probably the resident Hellraiser obsessive, yeah, it was fucking good.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** It was a good I'm just going to put it in as finally we've had a decent fucking just story like film out of the the sort of extension of the Hellraiser franchise, which really bottomed out after number four and a lot of people fucking hate that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's you know, that's that's not saying much.
**Adam:** But I think yeah, it was just a good you had interesting stuff in there like sort of that felt true to what we'd seen set up in those original three like in the original sort of trilogy of films.
**Adam:** and some great adaptations of that, like the bit where someone gets taken in the back of a van and it's still that thing of the walls sliding open and the loud from another dimension and they just got pulled away into an extended length of van and then they disappeared and it's like that's just yeah, some sort of cracking bits like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Now, does does that happen in the original?
**Adam:** In the origin in the original it's walls tend to move apart, and that's usually sort of but it's usually within buildings and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's sort of you know, it in a weird way, it's like oh, is it you try and sort of rationalize it of are these a wall that's adjacent in another dimension or.
**Adam:** But yeah, when once you've done it like that, I think it's like no, this is that's proper no escape.
**Adam:** It's just yeah.
**Chris:** And so in the later movies there's when they start to extend they get longer.
**Adam:** The the later movies I think the trouble is the later movies, the majority of which do suffer from a guy writes a horror film and then they say we can get this made if you put Pinhead in it and we'll call it Hellraiser and but this actually felt like you were trying to use it basically it started as a Hellraiser movie when someone was writing it.
**Adam:** And I think that's the important thing.
**Adam:** Pretty much after bloodline they're not.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I think you're right, I think after that they were just a horror movie with Pinhead as the kind of protagonist, whereas this felt like it built on that mythology and took the actual essence of the story and expanded it and as you say it included the Leviathan from the second movie and stuff.
**Lee:** And it sort of drew all of that in and gave it a sto because that was never quite explained what Leviathan was or what it had to do with the box, so it kind of put more background into that and yeah, it did, it felt like an extension of the original movie.
**Chris:** So like taking some elements, some of the best elements from a few of the.
**Adam:** Yeah, and and just just treating it as sort of an original yeah, because I think basically what would happen is is that I think a lot of the films that they sort of made like the the sort of later sequels, they were probably films where it was like, you know, at the end of an anthology film where the guy who's been telling you the story turns out to be the devil, which is like half of the pretty much.
**Adam:** I think it was kind of like that and then they just said yeah, but if you make the devil, if you if when he turns around, he hasn't got horns and a goatee, he's got pins all in his head, then we can make it as a Hellraiser movie and it felt kind of whereas this actually was like, oh no, this is exploring you know.
**Adam:** How this propagates itself different and like the fact they added the different elements of we've always known the box as the lament configuration, but then it turns out that that is its one form and it can be another form, which is a different configuration and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And yeah, I think they just did some interesting stuff in there.
**Adam:** I think the new Pinhead was good, I don't you know, really good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And because you're not trying to act like Doug Bradley, you're doing something different with it.
**Adam:** And it's sort of.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I liked I liked the bites, I think they've obviously they've moved away from the they've moved away a bit from the black leather thing.
**Adam:** But I mean, nowadays, so many people are pierced and tattooed and compared to 1987 when they made the film, it's you know, when they made the first film, it's not an unusual look anymore.
**Adam:** So they've sort of moved around that and sort of like said, you know, moving into other areas with the center bites that it's.
**Adam:** But yeah, and they had some interesting bites, which is always the lovely sort of Pokémon collect them all element of Hellraiser as well where you just like, well, I need to know the name of that man.
**Adam:** Unless it's number three in which case it's like well the one with the pistol you said, yeah, it's called Pistol it.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Lee:** I think the only thing that did irk me slightly and it it is a plot point.
**Lee:** But it it definitely knowing it doesn't spoil the film, so the it it basically turns out that if you manage to use the box correctly, you can ask for something and you will be granted anything you ask for, and the guy who had it previously asked for sensation.
**Lee:** It's a bit fucking abstract.
**Lee:** Like surely you ask for like sensation could be anything, you could just stub your toe and go, that was a sensation.
**Lee:** You went through all that and that was all you got, you know.
**Lee:** Or someone comes up and tickles you, like it's a little you'd want something a bit more, you know, or more they'd give him a bottle of Shazle, it's a cleaning sensation, you know, it's it's quite ridiculous.
**Adam:** Laughter
**Lee:** What a shit wish.
**Adam:** Laughter
**Adam:** Well, not only that, but also it's like fucking hell, mate, if you've been studying all this, you ever heard of Faust?
**Adam:** You everything forzzle, you have to be fucking pretty specific with these fuckers.
**Adam:** Or they will mess with you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Proper wish master, like it's one hundred and one with his gin stuff, you know, no better but yeah.
**Adam:** Also also I have to say I mean, I I thought that Odessa as on as Riley like the main character was really good.
**Adam:** But right at the start, I thought she was Finn Mcssiles from Stranger Things.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Cuz cuz again it was just like oh bloody hell this is everywhere.
**Chris:** That is slightly disconcerting.
**Lee:** Oh, but she was outstanding actually.
**Lee:** I was a bit because at first it was one of those I was like, I've got a horrible feeling this is going to be one of those characters who I'm supposed to be rooting for, but I am going to hate.
**Lee:** But actually.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, she she did kind of despite her many flaws, she actually was quite a good character and you were definitely on her side all the way through.
**Adam:** See, I think that's that's because that's the thing she wasn't made a likable character, but you liked her.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But they they didn't do anything to sort of in you to the character, you know, she was quite sort of.
**Chris:** I suppose you had some sympathy for her.
**Chris:** She was chaotic.
**Adam:** Oh, you you've got sympathy for her in a weird way, you've got more sympathy for the brother who's trying to you know, who yeah, spoiler alert, yeah, that's that's that for it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Ain't coming back.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's just but no, I just thought it was like just.
**Adam:** I mean, fuck me if this had been number five back in the day, this would have still been this would have still been shown at the cinema.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it would have been, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So now as the resident obsessive, what is it that makes you.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Watch each one.
**Chris:** Is it the hope that.
**Adam:** He's always the hope that they'll be better.
**Adam:** It's it's like it's like if you it's like it's like a band, you know, you're hoping that their next album's not going to be shit.
**Adam:** And sometimes it is and you have to say, well, maybe, maybe we've come to a full stop here, guys.
**Adam:** And certainly, I mean, there's there's there's a Hellraiser I've still not seen just because I haven't basically, I want to see it, but I want to see it when they show it on the horror channel or something, I'm not fucking.
**Chris:** Yeah, you've done your duty for.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But everything else I've seen and I mean judgment, like was pretty good.
**Adam:** But again, I think that just suffered from a smaller budget and everything else like that.
**Adam:** That they couldn't they couldn't really give you a story because they couldn't afford cannon fodder.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is you know, you do need a few people to get.
**Adam:** And actually the one thing I will say is, I mean, I like to say, I still think it's absolutely it's a really strong entry in Hellraiser, but it's interesting that the more you look at it, Clive Barker was probably right that Julia should have been the monster.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** As it drifts further from that initial story, you know, as fascinating as I am by you know, the the mythology of the Cenobites and Leviathan and everything else like that, Hellraiser, the original Hellraiser works because you've actually got that really fucked up plot in it that has almost nothing to do with the Cenobites.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And I think yeah, there's a it's a weird thing but the one thing that they've never sort of managed to replicate is just that sheer pervy kink of the first two films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's just a bit sort of like,
**Chris:** So is that what's what you kept watching them all.
**Adam:** The purp kit.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** It's I don't know.
**Chris:** But I'm going to say I'm going to say you watching them all is almost like mirroring the film itself, it's proper sadomasochism.
**Adam:** Oh, believe me, there are times when you sit there and you question your.
**Adam:** What you're doing with your time.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I did yeah, I did the same, I said at one point, I was going to sit down and watch them all, did not.
**Lee:** Yeah, by like the sixth one, I was like, I can't face another two and I soldug on and I was like, that was a massive kick in the balls, like I don't even remember anything about them, I might as well have just not bothered.
**Adam:** There's there's one of the one of the later ones called Deder is kind of okay.
**Adam:** But what you know, in a weird way, I'm annoyed that it's a Hellraiser movie because I'd imagine it had been it was better before they said put Pinhead in it and make a Hellraiser movie.
**Adam:** and similarly, yeah, Hellraiser six, I think that was the proper comic book guy.
**Adam:** Oh, I've wasted my life.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Adam:** I bought that on DVD for an exorbitant price.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Adam:** I was fucking robbed.
**Lee:** At least they're back on track now.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Hopefully, yeah, and hopefully this leads to more as well.
**Adam:** Because I just think yeah, you know, they've got the right people involved.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's a big enough it's a big enough universe that they've now created, yeah, they could still keep.
**Lee:** I mean, this has been proof that they can still keep adding to the adding to the lore of it and making it interesting without having to, yeah, go on all these weird offshoots that make no sense or.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So that they have safely got their hooks back in you.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** And I think and it's a nicely sort of they've made them nicely sort of wrong again, because that's the weirdest thing with all the sequences where it becomes like a moral thing.
**Adam:** Where it's like, oh, Pinhead's there to say, hey, it basically becomes it's a wonderful life, hey, look at all the bad things you've done in your life, and it's like Pinhead wouldn't give a fuck, he just wants to tie your dick to your face and fucking something up your bum.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** That's what he.
**Adam:** He's all about, he doesn't care what moral basis, you just done a good segway into my next one.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Hey.
**Adam:** Oh, good.
**Chris:** Laughter
**Lee:** Go on then.
**Chris:** All right.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Lee:** You can't just leave it.
**Chris:** I thought I needed I needed authority to to set me off.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** so so talking about the moral element.
**Chris:** I love a moral choice in a story.
**Chris:** especially when it's a a racist immoral white dude getting his comeuppance by a Lovecraftian tentacle weird monster thing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** There you go.
**Chris:** That's basically, tell me that's the the aim of this story and I'll I'll be right there.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Adam:** I I think it pretty much is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But no.
**Adam:** I I was.
**Chris:** Getting beat up a bit, halfway through as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I have been.
**Adam:** I've been very impressed.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** The one thing I will say is I've seen a lot of people talking about it because obviously Guillermo del Toro introduces each segment.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Now, any any other anthology series or whatever like that, they'd have said, cool, it's very much in the vein of Rod Serling in the Twilight Zone.
**Adam:** All I've heard people say is, oh, it's very much like Alfred Hitchcock presents and all I can think is, you're thinking a fat bloke has told you this.
**Adam:** That's what you're going with.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Laughter
**Adam:** But no.
**Adam:** I I was.
**Adam:** I've been very impressed.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** First I thought it was going to be the Bram Stoker.
**Adam:** Mummy story.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** and I'm glad it wasn't because I got a whole new story.
**Adam:** That I just really enjoyed.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, no.
**Adam:** I I thought that that one again I thought was really good.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Good.
**Adam:** I'll be honest, I think I prefer The Master's of Horror adaptation of Dreams of the Witch House.
**Lee:** That was good.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Because I was sitting there thinking, you know, it's a bit of a funny one to do and then I was like, oh yeah, that was fucking 20 years ago or whatever it was.
**Adam:** That Master's of Horror came out.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I only watched Master's of Horror last year, so yeah, it's still very fresh to me.
**Adam:** You know, it's not as weird.
**Adam:** It's not as weird to suddenly come across.
**Chris:** As it is in your head.
**Adam:** In my head it was five years ago.
**Adam:** Well, I only watched Master's of Horror last year, so yeah, it's still very fresh to me.
**Lee:** But I did think the the visuals of the witch, not to give anything away.
**Lee:** It was absolutely terrifying, like it's it's got to be one of the creepiest things I've seen on TV in a long time.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think actually my favorite has the favorite of what I've seen so far.
**Adam:** It's probably been The Autopsy.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** I thought it was more the viewing.
**Adam:** I like the viewing.
**Adam:** And it's Panos.
**Adam:** Cosmatos who did Mandy and beyond the black rainbow.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas that but the viewing was great because it was this is exactly what I want Panos Cosmatos to be doing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, I I mean obviously I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** But I I also like I said, I think it was just because The Autopsy was something entirely different for me.

---

## Ep 156 Wild Zero

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-156-wild-zero/
Air date: 6 November 2022
Duration: 00:37:18
Film: Wild Zero · Year: 1999 · Director: Tetsurō Takeuchi

### Description

Our Punk Horror double bill concludes with a recommendation from Leadbelt Art - a film that had slipped under the whole team’s radar for 23 years - the magnificently mental “Wild Zero”. A documentary detailing 2 days in the life of your average gun-toting, fire-belching, shuriken-plectrum-wielding, spirit-guiding jet rock ‘n’ roll band. In this film we learn the very worst way to rob a petrol station; the power of a business leotard; and that a grenade launcher livens up any negotiations. A thrilling dose of unapologetic madness, featuring zombies, explosions, nudity and, at its heart, “Love has no borders, nationalities or genders” a very pure message in a film that takes literally nothing else seriously - watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here yet again for another exciting episode. This evening we are going to be discussing 1999's Wild Zero.
**Lee:** Before we get stuck in, a few bits of housekeeping. One, there will be spoilers.
**Lee:** I I feel you can still enjoy this film, even if you listen to this and it wets your appetite, as you hadn't been interested before, it's still worth seeing because there's enough going on.
**Lee:** Two, there will be swearing.
**Adam:** We won't adequately describe it. Sorry. You know. Yes. Yeah. You know.
**Lee:** I don't think that's possible.
**Lee:** Yes, two, there will be swearing and three, I am full of cold and tripping balls right now.
**Lee:** So, I've had a cold for a week, it has got, it started in my chest and now it has just gone completely to my head and I'm struggling to remember what day it is.
**Lee:** So, if I start talking nonsense or forgetting where I am or how to put a sentence together, don't call me an ambulance, I'll be fine tomorrow.
**Adam:** Woo.
**Chris:** To be fair, we, like, we can hear a little bit coming on, but you do actually sound in pretty good spirits.
**Lee:** It it's weird, it's like it's making me really like strange in the head, like having trouble concentrating and stuff.
**Lee:** But yeah, like I don't feel, you know, normally when you've got a cold, you just feel miserable.
**Chris:** Miserable.
**Lee:** I don't feel that, I just feel like I've had too much to drink without having had anything to drink.
**Lee:** It's kind of exciting if I'm honest.
**Chris:** So so we might have like 20, 30 minutes and then a sudden crash.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's kind of how it goes. That's the thing with these calls, like the tireder you get, the more it kicks in and then all of a sudden you go, yeah, no, now I look like I'm full of Valium and I don't know what the fuck's going on.
**Lee:** But, to be fair, that is the perfect way to watch this movie.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** So, this was given to us for listener recommendation month.
**Lee:** By listener Leadbelt.
**Adam:** Yeah, Leadbelt Art is on Instagram, yeah.
**Lee:** Go and check him out, his stuff on there's awesome.
**Lee:** I had not even heard of this film, so after it came through and it didn't make it in the random selection, I was like, I'm going to go and check this out, I think.
**Lee:** And, yeah.
**Lee:** As soon as I had, I was like, Adam, you definitely need, Chris, you both definitely need to see this movie.
**Lee:** I'm surprised Adam hadn't already.
**Chris:** Well, I'm surprised you didn't know about it as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, I don't know how it went under the radar.
**Lee:** Like it it ticks all the boxes for me.
**Lee:** So I was just, as I said, when I watched it, I was like, when it's a film you've never even heard of, you're like, well, if it's kind of good, it's it's a win because it's something a bit left field.
**Lee:** But yeah, when it's like this, you just like, well, this is fucking awesome, like I I'm just pissed off I've not been watching this film for the last 23 years.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was 1999.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I mean it it's so ahead of its time.
**Lee:** But before I get too carried away and make a mess of myself.
**Lee:** Chris, we'll let you jump in first, what did you make of it?
**Chris:** Well, you segued perfectly.
**Chris:** I mean it's, yeah, I love having my expectations firmly blown out of the water.
**Chris:** And I can safely say that this achieved it.
**Chris:** I guess that the the general style is enjoyable, it is one of those where I feel like a few few beers, a few friends and that's you're set.
**Chris:** This is perfect for that environment, as we said with a couple of others.
**Chris:** But this really really had a a gem to the story that I hadn't expected at all.
**Chris:** And then I was trying to think, like, so 1999, I was trying to think back then I was 19.
**Chris:** How ahead of its time was it to have a whole transgender
**Lee:** It's like the central message of the film.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** It it literally Rock and Roll Has No Boundaries.
**Lee:** Yeah and that's that's exactly it and I fucking love that.
**Adam:** I had to write it down because it's love has no borders, nationalities or genders.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But what would we have thought watching it in 19, I was trying to think, would it have been just so acceptable and so, you know, well done and just that's fine.
**Chris:** That's just that is part of the story.
**Chris:** Great.
**Adam:** I think I think I think us watching it even at that time, that's just speaking for you here, I feel.
**Adam:** But I think we would have just thought, good on you.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Chris:** It's like.
**Chris:** But it must have it would have been so different from so many other things to have done something like that.
**Chris:** I I was trying to think of what other films would have had messages and combined such a contrasting element.
**Chris:** You know, you don't necessarily expect that in this type of film.
**Adam:** Well, I think also the the thing I was thinking, though, was is because up until up until the point where that's the the the sort of scene in question where
**Adam:** Tobio sort of reveals to Ice, and his his reaction is shock and disappointment.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I was really at that point, I was just I've really enjoyed this fucking film, I hope this isn't going to go nasty at this point.
**Adam:** And and actually it was like, no, there's there's shock, there's disappointment which you kind of feel are proper reactions.
**Adam:** There's no revulsion.
**Adam:** Like in what is it, because obviously like there's The Crying Game, which was around about the same sort of time.
**Adam:** Which has a reveal, basically the same thing, a reveal halfway through.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And he like the character immediately throws up.
**Adam:** And it's like and and that was seen as a fairly progressive film.
**Chris:** At the time.
**Chris:** Yeah, but that's yeah, I mean that's that's it.
**Adam:** And and the message sort of does come through in the same way, but it's like, you know, but also just the fact that it's like the the spirit guide of the film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Basically, and not only that, this this is a film in which I I hope, you know, I feel that this is
**Adam:** you know, this is Wild Zero, you know, in in you know, everything about it is Wild Zero the band.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And there are there are bands with a commitment to cheap bones and
**Adam:** you know, bikes that spew fire and microphones that spew fire and
**Lee:** And cars that spew fire.
**Lee:** Everything spews fire for no fucking reason whatsoever and I love the shit out of that.
**Chris:** The rock gods, yeah.
**Adam:** But but someone who kind of is taking themselves kind of seriously in that sense of making yourself like these basically these superheroes.
**Adam:** You know, that if they didn't think that, I don't think that message would be in there because that would, you know what I mean, it's like.
**Adam:** And yeah, just overall I was just I thought well done.
**Adam:** In the middle of this what and at this point, can I just say?
**Adam:** In the middle of this absolutely fucking mad film.
**Adam:** Which is, you know, it's there's a lot going on.
**Lee:** It's it's a very hard to get hold of movie.
**Lee:** So what we'll do is we'll give you a quick rundown of it.
**Lee:** I'll go on Adam.
**Adam:** I was going to say, for anyone who's potentially interested, the file that I had of it has corrupted.
**Adam:** But I found it on fucking YouTube.
**Chris:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Full on YouTube on a on a reasonable print.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** So I had to finish I finished watching on YouTube, because yeah, the the file I had just failed basically.
**Adam:** so yeah.
**Lee:** So just So just to give everyone a quick run, yes, so you can go and check it on YouTube.
**Lee:** Thanks for letting us know, Adam, because like this I I think is absolutely a total recommend from all of us.
**Lee:** But just to give you a quick run down, I'm about to tell you the story of the film, do not think that if you know the story of the film, you do not have to watch the film.
**Lee:** Because it's all about the journey.
**Lee:** Ultimately, it's Plan 9 from Outer Space, with a transgender love story.
**Lee:** If it was a rock and roll musical.
**Lee:** That's basically what the film is.
**Adam:** But it's almost in a weird way, that is incidental to the film.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Like a lot of these films, the plot is incidental.
**Adam:** It just happens that the plot falls on the side of well done, right, you know.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I think it's oh, fucking hell, just.
**Adam:** Now here's the thing, one of the because most of the people in this have only been in like this.
**Lee:** In IMDB, only two of the people in this whole film have got pictures.
**Lee:** Nobody else has even got it.
**Lee:** And one of them's Guitar Wolf, obviously.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, there's because the guy who plays because this is the interesting bit is that Claire recognized Toshi.
**Adam:** Because he's in Kill Bill.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** He's the sleazy businessman who Gogo Yubari murders.
**Adam:** And Claire spotted this and she and she just went, she suddenly just burst out and went, oh, for fuck's sake.
**Lee:** And I was like, what?
**Adam:** Because she'd been trying to work out who he was and she just she just was annoyed with herself because her train of thought was, oh, he's in Kill Bill, I wonder if Quentin Tarantino has seen this film.
**Chris:** And it's like.
**Adam:** No, Quentin Tarantino has definitely seen this film.
**Adam:** You know, this is.
**Adam:** Because it's it's sort of half 50s B-movie, it's got aliens that cause a zombie outbreak.
**Adam:** It's got concert footage of Guitar Wolf the band who.
**Adam:** I I discovered because obviously we were sort of putting this down as punk and I still maintain that because they're essentially the the fucking Japanese Ramones.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But it's that interesting thing because it's punk much more in the thing of where punk took a load of 50s stuff, so it's that so it's more a 50s look and everything else like that.
**Adam:** But Guitar Wolf apparently they call their music Jet Rock and Roll.
**Adam:** And a few people have thought that they mean Joan Jett because obviously.
**Adam:** But because they've said, we really like Joan Jett.
**Adam:** But no, it's jet as in it sounds like a jet engine.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And it does, because it's like comically distorted like 50s punk like garage sort of sounding stuff.
**Adam:** And but it's but the movie's perfect for that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It is, it works fantastic.
**Lee:** It's one of those when Jennifer said I said we were going to be watching it for the episode and she was like, what's it like?
**Lee:** And I was like, it's a bit like Help in that it's basically about the band.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And everything else that happens is kind of incidental.
**Lee:** But there is so much going on and so and and that's what it like.
**Lee:** They are, as you say, you know, like the superheroes of the movie.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** But but the story is just it's like they've just taken all their favorite stuff.
**Lee:** They're like, oh, we love zombie movies.
**Lee:** And obviously we've got to have all their musical numbers in there.
**Lee:** And we like UFOs.
**Lee:** I'd completely forgotten there were UFOs in this film and it had any kind of a UFO element to it.
**Lee:** I remember it being a zombie film.
**Lee:** And then when I watched it back, I was like, but it's caused by UFOs.
**Lee:** And then let's not forget, he does cut the mothership UFO in half in the end with his sword guitar or guitar sword, depending on which way you want to look at it.
**Lee:** I had forgotten all of that shit.
**Lee:** I I remembered them being chased by the club owner, who kept changing his wig and wearing hot pants.
**Lee:** I I remembered that.
**Lee:** But the whole UFO thing had completely.
**Lee:** And it's the opening scene is just Earth surrounded by these funny buzzing UFOs.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh, fuck, have I got the wrong movie?
**Lee:** And I was like, I'm definitely watching the right one.
**Adam:** And weird weirdly, in terms of the CGI, because that's obviously CGI at the start, it's it's fair.
**Chris:** For its time.
**Adam:** The kind of fits.
**Chris:** And it kind of fits in a way, it seems almost like it could be deliberate that it.
**Adam:** Yeah, it could but I think it fits in that camp style, yeah.
**Adam:** But it really it really reminded me of Christopher Eccleston's last episode as Doctor Who because they had Daleks or something.
**Adam:** Gold Daleks or something.
**Adam:** And to be honest, by 2005, they hadn't really got much better.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, so it kind of at that point, I was sold because I was like, well, that's just immediately reminded me of that anyway.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** And I was just going to check, so so what is the deal with the band, like, why why is it so much about them, like, what was their input and to, yeah.
**Adam:** Basically, guitar guitar will it's another way of looking at it is a bit like Kiss movies.
**Adam:** You know, it's that same sort of thing where they've basically developed a character as a band.
**Adam:** It's all say, for example, someone like The Cramps, where the band itself develops this sort of persona that isn't necessarily their actual real life.
**Adam:** Because it fucking couldn't be.
**Adam:** But, you know, it's sort of.
**Adam:** I mean, I actually one thing I thought as well is I I did think have this it felt really like a Mighty Boosh.
**Chris:** So I definitely had a few thoughts of that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Especially when it was like because yeah, because basically the the sort of B-plot of it that isn't involving them is this hapless guy called Ace who sort of basically turns himself around, realizes he can do shit and gets the girl.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah.
**Adam:** But when Guitar Wolf like he accidentally helps Guitar Wolf when they're having a face off, a Mexican standoff with the hot pants club owner and his creepy like henchman.
**Adam:** And because of that, they give him a whistle and it's you blow this whistle and we will appear whenever you're in trouble.
**Adam:** That felt so Mighty Boosh.
**Lee:** Because it's that sort of.
**Chris:** Well, I think there is, I think that is actually in Mighty Boosh.
**Chris:** There is a.
**Adam:** It probably is.
**Chris:** A bit of a storyline with that.
**Lee:** And he's just out.
**Lee:** So Ace gets punched out and Guitar Wolf just cuts his hand and makes some blood brothers while he's still unconscious.
**Lee:** And then just yeah, as you say, just throws his whistle on top of him and goes, call us if you need us.
**Lee:** And then just walks out.
**Lee:** And I'm like.
**Chris:** That's completely absurd, but somehow it's like yeah, okay.
**Lee:** And he does, he you know, he whistles from two towns away and Guitar Wolf stops everything and goes.
**Chris:** Ace needs it.
**Lee:** To the car, to the Batmobile and off they go.
**Lee:** And it's just.
**Lee:** It's so bat shit.
**Lee:** And I.
**Lee:** That's what I love is just the absolute lunacy.
**Lee:** And watching it today because I know how it ends and where it goes.
**Lee:** When I started watching it back today, I was like, the first 20 minutes.
**Lee:** feels like a load of random stories that aren't very exciting, that are just kind of going on.
**Lee:** And then yeah, once they all marry up together, it just goes absolutely mental.
**Lee:** And there's just no going back from that point.
**Lee:** And it just, yeah, so many weird sidelines and stories.
**Lee:** I mean, the gold ball, I'd forgotten all about the gold ball.
**Lee:** And as soon as he he was waving it around in that girl's face, I was like.
**Lee:** I remember that being important for some reason.
**Lee:** It might be what stops him.
**Lee:** No, it's how Guitar Wolf tricks an arms dealer into getting involved in the zombie war instead of running away.
**Lee:** Because he tells her that the zombies are full of balls of gold.
**Lee:** And if if they kill them, they'll make loads of money.
**Lee:** Like it's just insane.
**Lee:** I mean, who would write a story like that.
**Lee:** It's so completely insane.
**Lee:** But.
**Chris:** Oh, we might find out.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Who are the geniuses?
**Adam:** Well, it was written by.
**Adam:** Satoshi Tagaki, or Tagaki, sorry.
**Adam:** and Tetsuro Tagauchi who is the director.
**Adam:** as well.
**Adam:** And he
**Adam:** I think he was I've had a look, he's done loads of music videos, which you kind of.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, you totally see that.
**Adam:** And I think he's recorded Guitar Wolf in
**Adam:** He's recorded.
**Adam:** Yeah, so he's done like Guitar Wolf in concert.
**Adam:** And and sort of stuff like that.
**Adam:** But he's done one other film which is called Florella from 2010.
**Adam:** And literally, I can't find anything on anywhere that's anything other than this this one sentence summary, the experiences of a woman as she passes through several life stages.
**Adam:** So I have no idea what the film is about, it clearly doesn't feature anyone from this.
**Adam:** Because like like you said, there's only about three people that actually got credits outside of.
**Lee:** being part of this film, really.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's yeah, it's just a very yeah, just a very weird sort of set up with them that I can't like say, letterbox, IMDB and everything.
**Adam:** They're just got this one sentence thing, so God knows what the film is about.
**Adam:** And it's obviously not sort of got out there or anything like that.
**Adam:** Whereas Guitar Wolf were in a film before this.
**Adam:** Which sounds like it may be in a similar vein.
**Adam:** They were in a film called.
**Adam:** where are we?
**Adam:** The Saw Losers.
**Adam:** which was 97 and it's a homage to trashy exploitation movies and 50s sci-fi horror by a director called John Michael McCarthy.
**Lee:** That could be someone's given a synopsis to this film as well to be fair.
**Lee:** So yeah, you're right.
**Lee:** It sounds exactly the same.
**Adam:** But but also but this is the rest of it.
**Adam:** In which an alien sent to Earth to kill hippies and a recently released female serial killer team up to murder their way across the USA.
**Adam:** It stars a it stars one of the members of a band called The Oblivions who are like a garage, an American garage band.
**Adam:** Who like Guitar Wolf have just called themselves the band like your name and Oblivion.
**Adam:** Like The Ramones and stuff like that.
**Adam:** and Guitar Wolf were in it as the men in black.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Lee:** I need to find this at all.
**Chris:** That sounds, yeah.
**Adam:** It's it it does sound like a cracker.
**Adam:** So yeah, if you if you have any luck, let me know.
**Adam:** Because I want to see it now as well.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think the because then you've got the because obviously you've got the story with the club owner.
**Adam:** You've got the three people who are just sort of driving to driving to see the meteorite that's landed.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because that's the yeah, sorry, that's the whole thing that draws it together is there's a meteorite.
**Chris:** Trying to learn to use a flick knife.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, that that the most inept robbery.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In history is just beautiful.
**Adam:** That really is.
**Adam:** And and even down to that, where it's like the the couple find each other as zombies.
**Adam:** That's all they wanted to do to be flesh.
**Lee:** It's kind of sweet really in a funny sort of way.
**Adam:** For the film that this is, it's very weird that it is sweet.
**Chris:** As yeah, as effectively, like that way.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** But yeah, Guitar Wolf formed in 1987.
**Adam:** obviously they're a three-piece.
**Adam:** there's the guitarist Say-guy, he was in a band called Far East Punch and then he met Hey-dia-ki Sekiguchi, aka Billy.
**Adam:** Which I will probably be referring him to as in when they were working together.
**Adam:** And they decided to form a band with Billy on bass and another co-worker on drums.
**Adam:** and then they decided, right, so we're going to be Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf, Drum Wolf.
**Adam:** And the band is called Guitar Wolf.
**Adam:** and then yeah, Narita left fairly early, then it was Say-guy's brother.
**Adam:** And then the current drummer joined a guy called Toru.
**Adam:** And that's the lineup for this film.
**Adam:** and then what was it, yeah.
**Adam:** In in 2002, Billy died of a heart attack at the age of 38.
**Lee:** Oh, God.
**Adam:** And they've had two other bass players, three other bass players since then.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, so whoever comes in, it's like GWAR and everything where you can.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You adopt, you are now, right, so you're Drum Wolf because you're in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But yeah, they did I think yeah, total of 17 albums that they've done over the years.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And I've been listening to and it's it's all good stuff.
**Adam:** Because it is just literally just that.
**Adam:** The how they sound in the film, so.
**Lee:** I really enjoyed the music in this.
**Lee:** And it's funny, I've watched it this afternoon, so it's the second time I'd seen it with Jennifer.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And she kind of said, I'd be keen to know if it's bad translation or the lyrics are just very strange.
**Lee:** Because obviously they come up on the subtitles.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's just loads of really random nonsense, which I mean.
**Lee:** I'm sure it to be fair, you don't watch many bands with the subtitles on.
**Lee:** So it might be actually a lot of stuff that we listen to, you just kind of take it in, but if you were sitting there reading it for the first time.
**Lee:** You would be like, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
**Lee:** Like I've said before, with Rob Zombie's lyrics, you know, like I really like Rob Zombie's music, but it does sound like he's walked into Walmart and he's walking along the Halloween section and just going, black cat, scary witch, cauldron, there's a candy cone.
**Lee:** And that's basically all it is.
**Lee:** There's no story or anything to it.
**Lee:** He just says words that make you think of Halloween.
**Lee:** And and that's kind of what this was, it was all very strange.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you do wonder if it's if it's because of the translation.
**Lee:** Yeah, or if they're just like.
**Chris:** Abstract phrases and concepts.
**Lee:** They sound awesome, I love the shit out of the music in this.
**Adam:** It it might make more sense because thinking about it when it's translated.
**Adam:** Because I'd imagine they rhyme.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like, you know, so probably it sort of makes less even less sense because you're like, well, how does that work because you're not used to that rhyming structure.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, you're probably right, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, so it's the stuff would come out completely, you know, it doesn't isn't going to rhyme in English.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah, it might even look weird then where you sort of forgive it in a weird way where it's like, I said, absolute cobblers, but yeah, at least.
**Lee:** It rhymes.
**Adam:** It rhymes.
**Lee:** But when it doesn't rhyme, you just go, oh, I don't I don't get that at all.
**Adam:** I also have to ask a question at this point because I I I this is personally where I'm sitting.
**Adam:** grenade guns.
**Adam:** Why did you bother with any other gun?
**Lee:** Well, all the ones that miss nine times out of 10, yeah, why would you not just blow the fuck out of everything instead.
**Lee:** Like the way he does just go along that block, it's like a that block.
**Lee:** And he's just going through right, one shot destroys an entire room.
**Lee:** And he's just destroying entire rooms in chain until he gets the one he's after.
**Lee:** And you're absolutely right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I'm just I'm just thinking whenever.
**Adam:** I would like a revolver, I want no, give me a fucking grenade launcher.
**Adam:** That makes sense.
**Adam:** And yes, I am willing to use it at point blank range.
**Chris:** Yeah, I I was going to suggest a slight downside to it.
**Adam:** You've never played Hogs of War with me, mate.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Hogs of War with Adam is always fun.
**Lee:** He kills himself as much as everyone else, but.
**Lee:** We always just have such a fun time.
**Lee:** Oh, do you know what, I'd forgotten how much fucking fun that game is.
**Lee:** I might go and play that when we finish recording this.
**Lee:** Rick May's voiceover is just.
**Lee:** Above possible.
**Lee:** Yeah, so we kind of talk about the lunacy of this, but there is just so much going on, you kind of forget, you do, you just forget massive sections of this film.
**Lee:** And then when you watch it back, you suddenly go, yeah, I didn't remember any of that.
**Lee:** They're like.
**Lee:** As I say, like the woman the the very first scene where it's the woman standing next to effectively an armored car with a pair of binoculars.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten her character entirely.
**Lee:** I still don't quite know what she was.
**Lee:** Was it her house she was in when they came in and ripped all her clothes up, so she decided to wear a business leotard?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That was her house.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was her house because she decided, oh, well, I've been waiting for these people to turn up, they haven't turned up.
**Adam:** Because obviously you've got the three the guys in the car who were going to buy them.
**Lee:** Oh, who's killed them all.
**Lee:** You see, I never put two and two together, I didn't realize that was who was going to buy the guns from her.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, they were going to buy.
**Adam:** And also, just how quickly did their chauffeur give up?
**Adam:** He's like.
**Adam:** Oh, there's zombies around us, no, there's zombies around us.
**Adam:** Oh, blow my fucking brains out.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** And Jennifer said, at that point, you climb through between the front seats.
**Lee:** to get into the driver's seat.
**Lee:** You don't think, I'll get outside with all those 35 zombies and try and get in the front seat.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You let it go because it's fun lunacy.
**Adam:** And I have to say, I mean, there is there, you know, they they film it in that way.
**Adam:** But Guitar Wolf have been working on their image this whole time.
**Adam:** So they can't help but be like shot impeccably throughout the whole thing.
**Adam:** You know, again, again, it was a Mighty Boosh thing, is I thought, well, I'm waiting for the guy from Cheekbone Magazine to turn up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** If anyone hasn't seen this film and is going to watch it after us discussing it and finding out you can watch it all on YouTube.
**Lee:** yeah, 100% totally do, but I recommend getting yourself just a few beers.
**Lee:** Put them next to you and every time somebody shouts Tobio or rock and roll.
**Lee:** Just have a mouthful of beer, you will be wankered by the time this film finishes after an hour and 37 minutes because it is literally just over and over again.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I I have to say, and here we go.
**Adam:** I mean, this is, you know, this is Welcome to Horror.
**Adam:** We're meant to we introduce Chris to horror films.
**Adam:** We have been introduced all three of us at at at roughly the same period of enjoyment because obviously I've been watching it for this, but you watched it like how couple of months back or whatever it was.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, two or three months ago.
**Adam:** So, you know, this is one that we're all discovering together.
**Adam:** And it's fucking great.
**Adam:** It's just so.
**Lee:** It it's so so much fun.
**Chris:** And I got to say, I was slightly concerned after having watched Return of the Living Dead.
**Chris:** I was like, oh, is this zombie film going to hold up and of course it's it's zombies, but it's not the same kind of zombie effect.
**Chris:** And so it's like, yeah, that's different enough and there's so much more craziness.
**Lee:** You're right, I never realized they are both not only we said we were going to do rock and roll horror.
**Lee:** Actually it's rock and roll zombies movies.
**Lee:** Yeah, they're actually closer than I remember.
**Chris:** And and of course, because they're both comedies as well, it was like, oh, is this just going to be not as good as as Return of the Living Dead?
**Chris:** Because I I was so shocked at how good Return of the Living Dead was.
**Chris:** It's like, but they had enough difference in here that it's like, yeah, no.
**Chris:** That's this is good.
**Adam:** I actually I actually think it inadvertently makes a really fucking cracking double bill.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** 100%.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** I don't feel there's.
**Adam:** I don't think you can you don't lose anything to either film.
**Chris:** It's almost like someone was planning this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** We know that's not true.
**Adam:** I haven't even seen Wild Zero at that point.
**Adam:** So I was just like, I looked it up and said, oh, Japanese punk band what they Guitar Wolf do rock and roll.
**Adam:** B-movie horror.
**Adam:** Not only that.
**Adam:** In the weirdest of sense, I don't even count this as a zombie movie.
**Adam:** Because there's loads of fucking zombies in it.
**Chris:** There is.
**Adam:** But it's like it's not even that.
**Adam:** None of the things we're talking about like point like plot points or anything like that.
**Adam:** Are were to the overall whole.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** You know, as a as a as a combined thing, it's like, what?
**Lee:** As you say.
**Lee:** The the story is just there's so many elements to the story, I had entirely forgotten until watching it back today.
**Lee:** And then I was like, so I loved this film so much, I was like, we really, really, really need to watch it.
**Lee:** yeah, and then when I watched it back today, I was like, I'd forgotten all about so many elements.
**Lee:** The the bit at the petrol station when he just starts like making it rain guitar petrums and just murders an entire hold of zombies with electricity.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten that the fucking captain gets electrocuted and turns into a super zombie.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten any of that even happened.
**Lee:** How?
**Lee:** How can you it's like we said with ThanksKilling when we watched it the first time and the opening scene literally opening shot is a pair of boobs and I said, I'd forgotten that ever happened.
**Chris:** And then Chris went, I don't believe how could you I just realized that and I was like, what is the opening scene?
**Lee:** You see.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Fair enough, I accept.
**Lee:** And this film is exactly the same.
**Lee:** It's got so much crazy, mental, enjoyable shit that you forget like things that in another film would be key moments and you just let them pass you by and forget that they're kind of an element of it.
**Lee:** Because it just goes in so many random directions and all of them are thoroughly enjoyable.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Now what else have we seen?
**Chris:** I was trying to think the the other Japanese films Tokyo Gore Police.
**Chris:** So that's another and so I had some expectation that it was going to have.
**Chris:** You know, elements of that, which it's.
**Adam:** There's a high level of craziness, but yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again, it's comic gore.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It looks pretty good as well.
**Lee:** As you say, for 1999, it's CGI.
**Lee:** yeah, a lot of the head explosions and stuff look pretty realistic.
**Lee:** I mean, Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** compared to the UFOs at the beginning.
**Lee:** They definitely look pretty.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So so we can definitely say then Ledbelt Art has confirmed himself.
**Chris:** As someone who can recommend in the future.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, 100%.
**Lee:** I mean, as I say, I hadn't even heard of this film.
**Lee:** It was the only one we got for listener recommendation, this time round that I'd never even heard of.
**Lee:** And Adam had said, oh yeah, I've heard of it, but I've I've he's been on my radar and I've been meaning to see it, but I haven't got round to it.
**Lee:** So I thought.
**Lee:** It was like it was the middle of summer, I think it was in the heatwave and I was like, I just want something to put on because I can't sleep.
**Lee:** I managed to get hold of it and it had arrived and I was like, oh yeah, I'll just chuck that on.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then found myself sitting up way too late and laughing way too loud, yeah.
**Lee:** And messaging him in the middle of the night, which I think he's in the US.
**Lee:** So it was probably more on his time zone.
**Lee:** But yeah, literally as soon as the film finished, I had my phone out and I was messaging him on Instagram going.
**Lee:** Thank you so much for telling me about this, like it's just totally made my day.
**Lee:** It was such an unexpected.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I'm pleased to say, I I hadn't seen his profile before, but I'm just having a look through it and he does some really great stuff.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** So like, yeah, slating, yeah, models and.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so go and check out Ledbelt Art.
**Lee:** and yeah.
**Lee:** I think we should probably wrap it up here.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening.
**Lee:** go and check out Ledbelt Art, as we've just said.
**Lee:** Go and check out the Not For Everyone Podcast.
**Lee:** Check out Air CS.
**Lee:** I have just been drinking Werewolf beer.
**Lee:** As it is currently the 30th of October, I went to their brewery last weekend and had a fantastic time.
**Lee:** So I yeah, I'm going to have some of their Halloween beer now possibly just to make sure that I definitely sleep and don't just continue wigging out because of this cold.
**Lee:** Yeah, I've I've missed anybody.
**Adam:** I don't think so.
**Adam:** The only other thing I'd say is check out fucking Wild Zero.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Totally, as I say, it's one of those, like we've said before, with other films, it's kind of about enjoying the journey.
**Lee:** So although we've given you the rough idea of what the story is about, it it takes nothing away to know that story and still go and watch it because it's just fantastic.
**Lee:** yeah, and the music is exceptional.
**Lee:** So go and check out Wild Zero and we will see you all in a fortnight's time for what we've been watching.
**Lee:** Thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good bye.

---

## Welcome to Everyone - Tree house of Horror

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/welcome-to-everyone-tree-house-of-horror/
Air date: 31 October 2022
Duration: 01:27:46

### Description

Back by absolutely no demand it’s a Welcome To Everyone bonus episode for Halloween! In a world filled with divisions, it’s time to find common ground, and for a few generations, that’s quoting The Simpsons. The Not For Everyone Podcast’s Snobby Bobby and Crude Rude Dude team up with Welcome To Horror’s Chris, Lee and Adam to put together their ultimate list of The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror segments. You didn’t ask for it, and we delivered. A Halloween gift from the “Welcome To Everyone” team, we hope you enjoy.

### Transcript

**Adam:** whether or whatever, we're all more or less the same age.
**Adam:** And I was telling my wife last time, I'm like, this like, this is our entire genera- multiple generations since of humor is this is foundational to all of it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** just everything from line delivery to referenciness. It's just like, it's all The Simpsons, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's I sent a thing to Bobby about this, there's a play where, it's set after like the apocalypse.
**Adam:** And, the characters bond over recreating an episode of The Simpsons, because it's the only thing that that they could they all know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like all these disparate group of people, but the one thing they all can do is probably verbatim do a Simpsons episode.
**Chris:** Nice.
**Adam:** It's the great unifier.
**Chris:** It is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, I would say it it bounds generational gaps too.
**Adam:** Because my 10-year-old at this point in history, and I and I'm kind of ashamed and kind of proud to make this statement, probably seen more episodes of The Simpsons than me.
**Adam:** On Disney Plus, and this dude will just watch it all.
**Adam:** I mean, like, I'll go through to like season 26, and he's watched all of it.
**Adam:** And I'm like, I'd never seen one episode.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then I'll walk in when it's on and it's something I've never seen.
**Adam:** And just being in the room for three minutes, I will start laughing because there's always something freaking funny on The Simpsons.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I still know what.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** It's still hilarious.
**Adam:** Let's just do this. let's start with Lee. Like, have you been keeping up with The Simpsons this entire time it's been on?
**Lee:** No, I, so I watched up to, probably about season 15 or so.
**Lee:** And then I dropped out and I'd not seen anything since, and I still haven't, apart from I went and watched all of the Halloween ones and with the exception of that, yeah, I've seen very little of the the later ones really.
**Chris:** I didn't even realise they were still making it, to be honest.
**Chris:** I like, not, I didn't had no idea.
**Adam:** Huge fan, didn't know it was still on.
**Chris:** What like, I remember when it came out and yeah, like blown away by this cartoon that had, you know, all sorts of references in, brought its own references and just the characters were so unusual for cartoon at that age.
**Chris:** When it came out, I I just yeah, I don't know, they captured something so special. but yeah, and then I don't know, one day I just completely forgot it existed and nobody ever mentioned it since.
**Chris:** Until, really, until you brought it up. I was like, what, they're still doing it? And then they're like, hey, there's a mashup with Family Guy, and they're like, The Simpsons still on?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, they they push it pretty heavy in America still.
**Adam:** And what what about you, UK Adam?
**Adam:** It was a it was a weird one for me because it was the different it was the essential difference between whether your family had satellite TV or not.
**Adam:** And we didn't, and I but I remembered, weirdly enough, I did remember the Tracey Ullman Show.
**Adam:** Because we were fan we we were fans of her anyway over here, and then that show came on and The Simpsons was basically the slightly annoying bit in the middle where you're like sort of, well, this isn't anything to do with the rest of the show.
**Chris:** Interesting.
**Adam:** But then when it was and then, yeah, we didn't have satellite telly, so I didn't I didn't see it when it first sort of bloomed.
**Adam:** And probably the first bits I saw were they then started showing it on BBC Two, and it was probably around the time they did the X-Files episode.
**Adam:** Because I think at that point, the two things were at such a zenith.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it would be daft not to show it to the world.
**Adam:** And then they started releasing it on video and I was buying them all, so.
**Adam:** But again, I just drifted out of the fact it was on. I think it was almost like there's so much of it now.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Not, I mean, it's not like, it's not like the MCU or something like that. It's not like it, you know, they they deliberately make episodes about how you can watch The Simpsons at any point and not really know what's going on.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** You know, there's the episode where we find out the truth about Principal Skinner, and then they just say, well, everyone's just gonna call you Principal Skinner and forget about the other bloke. And, yeah.
**Adam:** What's the truth about Principal Skinner?
**Adam:** He's a no good nick. He's Armond something or other. He's not even real. He's like an Arminian.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Right?
**Adam:** He's like it's he met the real Skinner in Vietnam, and the real Skinner died in action, so he took his name.
**Adam:** Yeah, and he just plays his mum, didn't even care.
**Adam:** This sounds vaguely familiar.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Adam:** Steamed Hams.
**Adam:** Okay, so let me ask you guys this, like, was there kind of, like, it sounds like it was exclusive to satellite, according to what you just said, Adam.
**Adam:** But like, was there any kind of like, puritanical rejection of The Simpsons when it first appeared on the scene? Like, were people were parents and in school boards, you know, frightened and appalled by it?
**Adam:** Not letting you say cowabunga or eat my shorts.
**Chris:** I don't remember any teachers caring at all.
**Adam:** I was going like, right when this started getting popular, I was going into like kindergarten, first grade, and we weren't, for a while there, we weren't allowed to wear shirts of The Simpsons to school.
**Chris:** Really? Wow.
**Adam:** Yeah, and now it just seems so benign and like, yeah.
**Adam:** That that never happened over here.
**Adam:** We had it with South Park. There was a big controversy with South Park.
**Adam:** Which again is the opposite way around where it's like, if you watch South Park now, fuck me, the stuff they get away with. It's even worse now in a good way.
**Adam:** But but no one's no one's watching from the moral majority to complain about it.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** But yeah, The Simpsons never really, we never got that over here. We got, do the Bartman.
**Adam:** The big the big argument was, I just remember the big argument being like, well, Bart Simpson disrespects his father. I'm like, but his father's a fucking idiot and it's kind of the entire point of the show.
**Adam:** Like, even in like first grade I'd be like, yeah, but like we all know like hopefully my father's not as dumb, like, you know, it's just like you can still discern like the moral imperative of The Simpsons at a young age.
**Chris:** And I think Bart does respect his mum enough.
**Adam:** Right.
**Chris:** You know, it's Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, no one just no one respects her mum.
**Adam:** I remember seeing a thing with Matt Groening where he says, they, they're the only family on TV that go to church.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, that's true.
**Adam:** Every week, they zip it.
**Adam:** They they are essentially a perfect family.
**Adam:** And in the just the idea of Springfield is just so any town USA, you know, intentionally.
**Adam:** Like I've always thought if I had all the time in the world, I could watch every episode of The Simpsons and try to figure out where Springfield most likely would be. Like, what state it would be in, but I've not had the time.
**Adam:** But that said, I would say this is my second fandom as a child.
**Adam:** Like my first was Pee-wee Herman. Like I was obsessed with Pee-wee Herman. Like that's my first cognisant recollection of being a fan of something.
**Adam:** And then The Simpsons quickly overshadowed that right as it was coming out.
**Adam:** And I was like, it doesn't, like my parents didn't care, but even if they did, like there's no way you would keep me from that.
**Adam:** My dad used to put it on all the time.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, eventually they came around to it anyway.
**Adam:** but it would come on every day after school, two episodes, it would be what, Adam? Home Improvement, The Simpsons, Home Improvement. And The Simpsons, you're like, fuck, I gotta wait through another goddamn episode of Home Improvement to watch another episode of The Simpsons.
**Adam:** And then there would be another one on at like 10:00 at night.
**Adam:** Yeah, so what Adam was saying earlier is you needed to have the satellite TV to have it.
**Adam:** It went the entire opposite here in the States.
**Adam:** First, when I was little, 'cause this shit came out when I was like 10 years old, so I was like the prime age. And it was once a week, you had to wait for once a week.
**Adam:** And then it got to the point where we'd come on at 6:00 at night too, every night, once it got to like season three or four and they had enough.
**Adam:** And then it was Simpsons, Home Improvement, Simpsons, Home Improvement.
**Adam:** And then at 10:00, it would come on.
**Chris:** Married with Children sometimes too.
**Adam:** Right. So by the time, like, mid-2000, the year 2000, I mean, The Simpsons was on like at least two hours a day in America.
**Adam:** And when I was a kid in like junior high and high school, I had the buddy that would record every episode on The Simpsons.
**Adam:** You have another buddy that did that too.
**Adam:** And like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The the the commercials. So I had the one friend that had all The Simpsons on VHS, you know.
**Adam:** And he'd like, he was the the nerd that would go through and label them out, they're like, oh, you know, we want to watch Itchy and Scratchy Land.
**Adam:** Like, he knows we could we don't have to wait until it just randomly comes on.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I remember having the thought back in those days of like, they should just make an entire fucking channel that just plays The Simpsons.
**Adam:** Like when I was like nine, I'm like, that's all I have TV for. That's all I want to watch.
**Adam:** It's already on three hours a day. Just make a whole channel where you just play them on repeat.
**Chris:** Now we have Disney Plus, which is what we need.
**Adam:** It's streaming.
**Adam:** But also, if you have regular cable in America, The Simpsons is still on at least two hours a day. There's some channel playing The Simpsons at least two hours a day. No doubt about it.
**Adam:** It's it's weird, it's kind of got like that over here.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In the, I think, BBC Two, Channel 4, Sky, Disney Plus, like, everyone just shows, so you can like, it's a Sunday morning, oh, Simpsons will probably be on.
**Adam:** It's the longest running fucking television show that's not like news or some shit.
**Adam:** It's it's probably, you know, as much as we talk about, you know, it kind of fell off in this season and we don't really watch it anymore, then Adam saying his kid watches other.
**Adam:** If they they probably run the numbers and said like, it's we're better off playing The Simpsons. I mean, it's a guaranteed paycheque for the networks if you just play a lot of Simpsons, like someone's gonna watch it. Like that that, you know, it fills that quota in one way or another.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** anything else before we jump into the the lists here?
**Lee:** I just wanted to say very quickly something that Adam said about earlier about, you know, like he loves it and his kid loves it and it sort of spans the generations.
**Lee:** I remember when it first came on on a Sunday, like there was always a battle in our house for who was gonna get to the TV first, 'cause like if my parents came in, that was it. It didn't matter what you were watching, what you were doing, they were like, well, I don't want to see that, so it's going off.
**Lee:** and The Simpsons was the one thing for half an hour every Sunday night, we all would be there 20 minutes early, like waiting for it to start, so we could all sit and watch it together and then we'd all just go our separate ways for the rest of the week, television wise, so.
**Adam:** The great unifier.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** I mean, it's I get jokes now from the old seasons that I didn't get when I was a kid.
**Adam:** We replaced church and Sunday supper with The Simpsons in the 90s, basically.
**Adam:** Yeah, they went to church so that we didn't have to.
**Adam:** They went to church so that we didn't have to.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Does The Simpsons explain the downfall of society then?
**Adam:** Thrill me.
**Adam:** Music.

---

## Ep 155 The Return of the Living Dead

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-155-the-return-of-the-living-dead/
Air date: 23 October 2022
Duration: 00:39:21
Film: The Return of the Living Dead · Year: 1985 · Director: Dan O'Bannon

### Description

It’s Punk Horror month, and punk’s not just a costume, it’s a way of life, maaaan! We kick off with Dan O’Bannon’s classic “The Return of the Living Dead”. A movie in which Linnea Quigley ruins the tracking on a million VHS tapes; Poltergeist’s Mr Teague still hasn’t learnt about effective corpse disposal; and the most sensible and practical character is almost certainly a Nazi war criminal in hiding. A fundamental horror comedy filled with pitch perfect performances, a real vein of nihilism and buckets of gore. The film that gave us running zombies and the love of brains - watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening for part one of Punk Rock Horror month.
**Lee:** Starting with the amazing 1985s the Return of the Living Dead.
**Chris:** Can I jump straight in and say, before we start.
**Chris:** Is it a comedy?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Because because you kept that little secret from me.
**Chris:** I assume I assumed deliberately. It didn't take it didn't take me too long this time to to figure it out though. It was before, you know, the final 10 minutes.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I think yeah, I think it's funny how much horror comedy we cover. I think it says a lot about Adam and I that as soon as it need a top list of horror movies, 50% of them are horror comedies.
**Chris:** But if you also imagine that I'm viewing this directly after watching Night of the Living Dead.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I'm thinking this is a follow on from that.
**Adam:** Think think of it a bit like Texas chainsaw massacre one and two, or even Evil Dead.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** I suppose.
**Adam:** because obviously there is the the sort of the basically what happened was is that Night of the Living Dead's written by and obviously directed by George Romero.
**Chris:** And
**Chris:** Just to cut you off as well. I did completely cut Lee off before you'd finished even the first sentence.
**Lee:** Oh no, it's fine. I was literally just rolling into it, but as we've just got into it naturally, let's just Let's go. Let's just keep it going.
**Adam:** So yeah, so Knight's written by George Romero and John Russo and as part of the agreement that they had, John A. Russo got to keep future rights to Living Dead as a title.
**Adam:** So all of George Romero's subsequent entries in it are just the dead. So you've got Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, whereas John Russo wrote a novel called Return of the Living Dead.
**Adam:** And then this is sort of based on that.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** But yeah, there was a script and then Dan O'Bannon who directed it also sort of quite heavily rewrote it and made it more comedic.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** Love Dan O'Bannon's work.
**Chris:** But but you yes, right, so you've said it's punk horror, right?
**Chris:** I was kind of thinking this almost feels like it's carrying on camp horror.
**Adam:** It
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, Punk and Camp Horror.
**Chris:** Seems like a very good transition could do kind of, yeah. Yeah, a similar space.
**Adam:** It is, although you think that's a costume, man?
**Chris:** To wear, yes, yes, very good.
**Lee:** I love that guy's film, like he just
**Lee:** Yeah, I I mean everyone walks that line of like an absolute caricature of a person.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, it it's just so watchable still, all of them.
**Lee:** It is Jennifer's one thing I would like to point out. So just before we started recording, Jennifer was hovering around in the hallway, and Adam and joined you and I was chatting with Chris and I said, oh yeah, we watched it last night.
**Lee:** Jennifer had never seen it either and watched it for the first time.
**Lee:** And he said, oh, what did Jennifer make of it?
**Lee:** And her immediate thing was, well, you need to tell people that just because you're in a graveyard doesn't mean all women get naked.
**Lee:** That apparently that was Jennifer's takeaway from it is that that was the impression she got.
**Chris:** That was one detail you could take away, yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I certainly never get invited to those sort of graveyards.
**Lee:** I just love that I I'm sure I have noticed it before, but it just really stood out this time. As soon as she did it and they got the road flares out, someone in the background just
**Lee:** Sharted? I'm sure they did, but they sharted as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Trash is getting naked again.
**Chris:** Yeah. Turn the lights on.
**Adam:** It's clearly a thing that happens.
**Chris:** But I tell you what stuck with me though, was her her little monologue.
**Chris:** Leading up to it is like, do you have any fantasies about being killed? And then she went into some detail.
**Lee:** Yeah, and something happened later on, yeah.
**Adam:** But Paul Linaea Quigley who obviously we last saw
**Adam:** pushing lipstick into one of her boobs in Night of the Demon.
**Lee:** We last saw her run up to Halloween, obviously always.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was fucking hell, when was that? That was episode 40. I thought it was more recent than that.
**Lee:** Yeah, sorry, Leia. You should definitely have been on between then and now, we do apologize.
**Adam:** But yeah, and but apparently, yeah, so she did the strip and a producer was there who complained you can't put pubic hair on television.
**Chris:** So
**Adam:** So she was then taken off, she was then taken off and shaved.
**Chris:** Done with that.
**Adam:** And then came back, and then apparently the same producer was going, well, now I can just see everything.
**Lee:** Laugh.
**Adam:** And so then she then had to go and have like a sort of like skin pants glued onto her.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It sounds like a pretty fucking rough sort of like shoot for her.
**Adam:** Especially because I always forget she literally does not put her clothes back on.
**Chris:** For ages.
**Chris:** Or or at all, yeah.
**Adam:** Or at all.
**Chris:** It is and she's in it, yeah, a few more times.
**Adam:** Funnily enough, Claire said she thought she wondered why she hadn't seen
**Adam:** that as a more iconic like Halloween costume or cosplay.
**Adam:** And I mean, admittedly, you have to be
**Chris:** Like
**Adam:** Starkers but like
**Adam:** in terms of like, you know, because she said, well, you've got like the hair like the wig and everything is all quite an iconic look, so, I could try and pull that off. Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, it's like a it's like a big go-goggles on and the long grey leggings.
**Lee:** Chris would definitely turn up to a party dress like that.
**Chris:** I'm I'm tempted.
**Lee:** But yeah, no, it is like it is an iconic look, as soon as you see it, you just, and especially later on where they put that prosthetic mouth thing on her so her mouth, you can see her when she goes to bite one of the ambulance drivers and like her jaw is obviously distended by several inches longer than it really is.
**Lee:** They put like a prosthetic bottom half of her face on her. Yeah, that'd make an amazing cosplay, but
**Lee:** yeah, as you say, she is technically naked by that point.
**Lee:** And who's going to go out in just a pair of leggings and a and a wig?
**Chris:** I'm going to follow on straight away with that to say, yes, possibly.
**Chris:** But I I really liked the zombies in this.
**Chris:** Right, and again, it was one of those, well, how how good are they going to be in sort of comedy way?
**Chris:** And yet somehow that just they worked almost as well as the rest of the characters.
**Adam:** They make the thing, they make the very smart decision of having them talk.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And also this is where the brains thing comes from.
**Chris:** Yeah, but I did wonder how
**Adam:** Because
**Chris:** because I think this is fairly old, isn't it?
**Adam:** It's 85s.
**Chris:** 85.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But it's
**Chris:** So what how many other zombie movies had been out before?
**Adam:** Oh, they've been they've been quite a few because of the success of Night of the Living Dead.
**Chris:** I mean, they've been like Living Dead.
**Adam:** And I think Day of the I think Dawn of the Dead had already come out at that point, and I think Day of the Dead might be the same year.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Or it might be like a year before.
**Adam:** So,
**Chris:** we we haven't seen that yet though. So that's what I was expecting us to be watching the third. And so yeah.
**Adam:** But no, this is this is a very divergent
**Adam:** universe.
**Chris:** But but yeah, interesting what they bring into it really.
**Adam:** And they also explain it within terms of film. They mention of have you seen Night of the Living Dead and that's the film that we made about the incident.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, sorry, just to point it out. This is the same year as Day of the Dead.
**Adam:** there we go.
**Adam:** So yeah, so it's two because Day of the Dead.
**Adam:** I mean, I love it, but I get
**Adam:** why a lot of people don't.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** It's a bit of a
**Adam:** Because you'll love it, Chris. It's darker as fuck.
**Chris:** Okay, yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas this this is still.
**Adam:** What I like about this is I think that this I I got a bit sort of, yeah, definitely punk.
**Adam:** Because this as a film doesn't pull any punches in terms of its horror and it does end with the only solution being to nuke everyone.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** No one survived.
**Chris:** That was not.
**Adam:** No matter how much you fought, the army will just drop a bomb on you to solve the problem.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it doesn't and it doesn't solve it.
**Lee:** You just brightened and you're all fucked to get in.
**Chris:** I figured I figured that was the message at the end.
**Chris:** I was like, yeah, okay, I've got my message, great. The army does not know what they're doing, you know.
**Adam:** But it's but it's a very funny film for a film that's that nihilistic.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah. Well, well, so so I mentioned someone that we were covering it tonight.
**Chris:** And and they said, oh yeah, I saw that.
**Chris:** And I was like, that's weird.
**Chris:** I didn't expect that.
**Chris:** And she said, yeah, like, and I had nightmares after it and I was thinking, this is, she was much younger.
**Chris:** But I was like, actually, if I was young watching this, even though it is funny.
**Chris:** I could see there really are some pretty harsh bits in it still.
**Adam:** I think you'd take it more seriously.
**Chris:** Yeah, probably would.
**Lee:** And there's that fantastic and I think it's a perfect shot. I think that's part of the reason I love this movie as much as I do. There was that perfect shot, as you say, like trying to get that balance between real horror and comedy. There's the scene where the zombie has got the paramedic and the whole top of his head is missing and he's literally eating the flesh out of what's left of him.
**Lee:** And the radio goes and he picks up the radio and says,
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Send more paramedics.
**Chris:** I love that.
**Lee:** Like from through horror to fantastic comedy in a single shot and both of them work perfectly.
**Chris:** So, well.
**Adam:** There is a band called that as well.
**Chris:** Send more paramedics.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it was one of those things where I saw it written down I was like, it sort of just sparked something in the back of my head and I was like, what is that from?
**Adam:** And then it
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It took a while to click.
**Chris:** But it is funny though, because so much of this, if you showed it to me written down, I'd be like, is that going to work? And yet it really did. Like, if you'd said that's what they're going to do and I'd be like, that's a bit silly. And yet somehow I just really liked the fact that the zombies said that.
**Chris:** And then later on he said send more cops.
**Chris:** And it's like this is ridiculous, but somehow I just so entertaining that that they've got that personality to them.
**Adam:** Well, also, but then there's also the really fucking and it is dark.
**Adam:** When Freddy has turned and he's sort of like
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Emotionally guilt tripping Tina to try and, I broke my hand just trying to get to you.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's all your fault.
**Adam:** It's really fucking horrible.
**Chris:** Yeah, because she was obviously so upset.
**Chris:** That she wanted to join them like in the room.
**Chris:** This is not a good idea.
**Adam:** But also, there's a it's it's weird because I watched I watched Dark Star because I hadn't seen it for ages and
**Adam:** it's Dan O'Bannon and John Carpenter.
**Chris:** Is this something I should definitely watch?
**Adam:** I think you probably would like Dark Star because it's basically
**Adam:** It's for a start, it kind of inspired Red Dwarf.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** and it's basically it's basically alien.
**Chris:** all right.
**Adam:** But you've got a comedy alien instead of a nasty, horrible, like, you know, living penis dragon.
**Adam:** you've just got a beach ball with funny hands that tickles you while you're trying to get through a lift shaft and stuff.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, but there's a bit in it where at the start of it, they say the commander's dead and the commander is actually in cryogenic suspension at the point of death.
**Adam:** And they can kind of talk to him.
**Adam:** But it's just really sort of distant and sort of slightly harrowing and it's sort of like, you know, it's really cold here.
**Adam:** And again, shouldn't be in a comedy film.
**Adam:** And it's similar with this where you've got like the the absolutely horrible concept of how painful it is to be dead when they've got the half zombie strapped to the table.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it explains things.
**Lee:** That is a beautiful thing, like I just, oh that puppet's amazing.
**Lee:** 1985, it looks everything in this looks phenomenal. Again, it's that thing of having a horror comedy, but as you say, like the horror is 100% real, like if you took the comedy elements out of this, yeah, you're right.
**Lee:** It'd be fucking harrowing because it's really gory.
**Lee:** And then a really disturbing end.
**Adam:** Yeah, with really dark concepts in there as well, you know, it's like
**Adam:** but no, I mean, it's just and
**Adam:** I I've got to say, James Karen as Frank.
**Adam:** It's
**Adam:** one of the finest fucking performances just full stop.
**Adam:** We last saw him in
**Adam:** We last saw him in Poltergeist, he was the real estate boss who didn't move the body.
**Lee:** That's right.
**Lee:** You only dig graves. But it's well, it's
**Adam:** But yeah, he's him and when just his reaction when it all kicks off is just so wonderfully inept and sort of just like when it's the half a dog.
**Adam:** Just kill it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We all know his brain, he just And when he's going to him, look,
**Adam:** I'm just going to saw his head off, I don't know if I can do this anymore for Bert.
**Lee:** It's just And him and Klu are just all the performances in this is astounding.
**Lee:** but yeah, them two together just play it so well, like that boss that boss and middle management type relationship they have.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's no, it's perfect.
**Adam:** And also, I don't know if you picked up on it, Ernie is probably
**Adam:** a escaped Nazi war criminal.
**Lee:** Yes, I did get that, yeah.
**Adam:** I was that obvious you've got pictures of Hitler and Ava Bron up in his
**Chris:** I almost I almost never see pictures when they're on the wall.
**Chris:** I missed the Elvira one as well.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, that's true.
**Adam:** But this is now this is sort of a bit more blink and you miss it.
**Adam:** But he's got a German gun.
**Lee:** I was going to say he's got a Luger. He's got a Luger gun and he's listening to German
**Adam:** Like Panzer marching music from yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** And he's very blond and yeah, like it's a very
**Lee:** But yeah, it's I it's this is one of those films.
**Lee:** I I've got to admit, I don't dig out as often as I should.
**Lee:** Because I always feel like it's a little bit draggy and it goes a little bit slow, and then I watched it last time and it doesn't at all, it's fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah, non-stop.
**Adam:** It's
**Adam:** I, I mean, I was I was still, I was still COVID suffering.
**Adam:** When I watched this, it was nearly a problem because I was laughing so much.
**Adam:** That it was like I was fucking choking at parts of it.
**Adam:** And it's like and it doesn't let up, it's a proper, you know.
**Adam:** And it's weird for something to start off quite intense and keep it going.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Especially something comedic or, you know, or action.
**Adam:** It's you you end up with sort of, you usually end up with like little bits or whatever.
**Adam:** But this just seems to it just fucking rollocks along.
**Chris:** It just gets so much, so right.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I love the way that the the characters left together at the end as well don't all gel. So it's like Kluga and Spider and as you said, the musician guy. So like it it's the the people from the three different elements of the story are all left together and they don't really get on or like each other, but they're all in this horrible situation together and Yeah, they're just there's just something about the writing of this that I just feel was spectacular and is just Yeah.
**Chris:** I think you have mentioned that before then, yeah.
**Adam:** Dan O'Bannon's in it, and he he co-wrote the script, he's the editor.
**Adam:** Special effects and stuff like that so he it's sort of like.
**Adam:** He was doing quite well.
**Adam:** Then there's the incredible fucking story which is a a podcast on on its own of June, they were going to make June. Alejandro Jodorowsky was going to make June back in the mid 70s.
**Adam:** Alejandro Jodorowsky is quite the most singular fucking director visually that you will see.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** His films are fucking insane psychedelic
**Lee:** Nonsense.
**Adam:** I would say I would say very very deep and meaningful, but there we go.
**Adam:** But it's but no, seriously, you've not lived until you've seen a
**Adam:** people marching through with a set of crucified skinless goats and then someone recreate the Conquistadors killing the Aztecs by way of frogs and iguanas dressed up on an exploding Ziggurat.
**Adam:** That is the sort of stuff you get with Alejandro.
**Adam:** Anyway, he wanted to make he wanted to make Dune.
**Chris:** That would have been interesting.
**Adam:** Dan O'Bannon was involved as for sort of like effects and advice and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And basically he got a lot of ideas from Jodorowsky's film which eventually didn't happen.
**Adam:** He then wrote the script to Alien and sold that.
**Adam:** But because he'd he was the one who'd met Giger or Giga HR Giga and Mobius, the French illustrator, and they're the people who go on to design Alien.
**Adam:** And it was actually a hold over from Jodorowsky's plan because what he was going to do is he was going to get different designers to design the different planets.
**Adam:** So that it would be completely different to each other and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And so when they made Alien, Mobius designs all the space suits, all the earth technology and Giga designs the aliens and all the alien sets.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's good.
**Adam:** And that's why they're so sort of drastically different.
**Adam:** And yeah, and again, that's like Dan O'Bannon's connection into that.
**Adam:** And yeah, really he was sort of he would, he did some more sort of script writing but mostly he was a script doctor, but obviously by being involved with Alien.
**Adam:** He's you and essentially, you know, he gets if if Ripley is in a film, he gets paid because he created the character.
**Adam:** And yeah, so he was very did a lot with that.
**Adam:** But the only film he directed was this and a film called The Resurrected, which I've never seen.
**Adam:** 1999 1991 horror film.
**Adam:** but he wrote Alien, Dead and Buried, Life Force, Total Recall.
**Adam:** so he you know, he was involved with quite a lot of really cool stuff.
**Adam:** And actually Toby Hooper was meant to direct Return of the Living Dead and he decided to do Life Force written by Dan O'Bannon instead.
**Adam:** So Dan O'Bannon took over as director on this.
**Adam:** and also apparently, he was meant to play Frank.
**Adam:** He wrote the character of Frank for him.
**Adam:** And I'm just like,
**Adam:** I I mean, I like Dan O'Bannon, but no, I I can only see James Karen doing it really.
**Lee:** He just does such a good job.
**Lee:** I mean, and everybody does in this.
**Lee:** I think, I mean, considering it's such a wacky story.
**Lee:** I think everyone manages to get that balance just right and I know I say it quite frequently, but like it's got to be really difficult to be on that precipice between horror and comedy and managed to not go too comedic then it's all slapstick and stupid. Like and and I think that is the sign of a good director every time and that is the difference between a good horror comedy and a shit one.
**Lee:** And that's why we only really cover the good ones.
**Lee:** Because we don't want to cover any crap.
**Lee:** but yeah, like on this, it just totally everyone is on the same page.
**Lee:** Everyone is in the same film effectively.
**Adam:** Yeah, no one's.
**Adam:** No one is not playing a serious part and funny moments arrive arise from those caricatures.
**Adam:** No one's, oh, this is the bit where we're joking.
**Adam:** No one's winking to the camera or anything.
**Adam:** It's very, it's basically, everything about it is straight apart from the jokes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which sounds fucking
**Adam:** Possibly the most reductive thing I've ever said on this podcast. I'm just going to go in another room and shoot myself in the head.
**Lee:** You're right though. Don't you panic because we're going to step into your realm now, because you mentioned it briefly earlier, music. The music.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I mean, I mean, obviously, aside from 45 Grave and the Cramps.
**Lee:** The score as well is just phenomenal.
**Lee:** Like
**Adam:** The score is fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** It's
**Lee:** so 80s, it's cripplingly painful.
**Lee:** I love it.
**Adam:** But but it's so works.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually, I I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but there's a damn song on the soundtrack, but I don't think it's in the film. Because I I'm I'm pretty sure I I I would I would have spotted it in the film because it's the damn.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Lee:** I remember him.
**Adam:** But yeah, I I think it's on the soundtrack and was it would suit the film.
**Adam:** But I'm pretty sure it's not actually in it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** As I am 45 Grave, obviously their track is the one that is always because it was one that was on the trailer, so it's the one that's always associated with it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and the cramps just again fits the perfect to that. Yeah. It's so wacky and fun and just
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Perfect. And actually, even the even the Rory Gallagher track that goes over
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** when Frank burns himself.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know, just overly poignant in the middle of it all as well, you know, it's sort of
**Adam:** But yeah, it's
**Adam:** I I think it, yeah.
**Adam:** I think it fulfills Punk horror.
**Adam:** I think it's got it's got that same sort of thing.
**Adam:** You clearly don't give a fuck.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean? It's like, here's all these characters, you might like them, you might not. They're all fucking dead by the end.
**Adam:** you know.
**Adam:** You can some people will find this bit disturbing, some people will be cackling.
**Adam:** They're probably weird.
**Adam:** But, you know, it's
**Lee:** Jennifer did laugh all the way through this, a lot more than I thought she would do.
**Lee:** Yeah, just because it is like it is a lot darker than I remember, you know, I said before we started recording.
**Lee:** It's one of those, it's one of those films I always say I love, but I very rarely find myself in the mood to put on.
**Lee:** So I've probably not seen it in five years, which is probably why Jennifer had never seen it because I'd never sort of said to her, you really need to see this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But how often do you put on any zombie film?
**Lee:** I think that's what it is.
**Chris:** Mostly not, yeah.
**Chris:** And yet this is
**Chris:** you could definitely separate this from most other zombie films.
**Lee:** This is one of the highest, like this is absolutely on a tier with like Shaun of the Dead for me. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** This is top five zombie movies without a shadow of a doubt.
**Lee:** but yeah, zombie movies ultimately fall lower on my.
**Adam:** And but I think probably if I'm in a zombie mood, I'm going Romero.
**Adam:** As well, so for me, it's sort of like, oh, it's the in my head.
**Adam:** It's like, oh no, it's the unofficial sort of offshoot.
**Adam:** It's not really the same.
**Adam:** And actually, yeah, it's it really holds its.
**Adam:** Fucking enjoyable.
**Adam:** I think actually the trouble is as well is because I actually watched it.
**Adam:** This this is how forward thinking I was, I recorded it off of Film Four.
**Adam:** And I think it was last Halloween.
**Lee:** Oh God.
**Adam:** because I thought
**Lee:** We're going to do it.
**Adam:** It'll come up eventually.
**Adam:** Because it's but it's also a right, I mean I've got other stuff in there, I've got the frightened sitting in there, we'll have to do that one day.
**Lee:** Oh, that as well.
**Adam:** But but that.
**Lee:** Hold that on the car.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it was just.
**Adam:** It's a it's one of those ones that's oddly expensive.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it's one because it's odd because as on video.
**Adam:** It was one of those ones that you picked up in an off license.
**Adam:** And never regretted the five pound you spent on it because it was just a great film.
**Adam:** And then, but now it's I think because it's rightly got its sort of esteem, like all the fucking Blu-rays are expensive or, you know, you can't get it in certain regions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And it's just yeah.
**Adam:** So I've never actually had it on, I don't think I've had it on DVD.
**Adam:** So again, it's sort of like one of those things if you don't watch it that often, so I again, I don't watch it that often.
**Adam:** And actually it's like, no.
**Adam:** This is fucking terrific.
**Adam:** It does unfortunately mean that I'm probably going to end up paying through the nose at some point to watch it again.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Lee:** So
**Lee:** See if you can get the box.
**Lee:** It's
**Lee:** Like the second one, I thought was pretty good. The third one obviously is like a cult classic as well. Return of the Living Dead 3 is one of those. I've seen three, I haven't seen two. Is it all by the same same director, same writer? Yeah, I think it's not Dan O'Bannon. I don't know about the writing. yeah, so Dean, my brother Dean had returned the Living Dead 2 on VHS, possibly that he lent me. So I saw that one quite a lot.
**Lee:** And I knew that three had a big cult following.
**Lee:** But as you say Adam, that was one of those I spent years trying to track down a copy of that for less than 30 quid.
**Lee:** Because like
**Lee:** I was like, so the first one's pretty good. The second one was a little bit less.
**Lee:** If the third one is less than that and I've paid more money for that than I've paid for 90% of my DVD collection, I'm going to be pretty pissed off.
**Lee:** but yeah, I I did find it a really good. I think it was another one of those where they kind of found, so they did the first one, the second one was not quite so good.
**Lee:** So they went back to, right, well what did people like from the first one and kind of brought it back to that?
**Lee:** yeah, and just made it really well. But of course there's like eight or nine of them now.
**Adam:** Is there?
**Lee:** Yeah. I I knew I knew there was a fourth, certainly.
**Lee:** I got a feeling it's ridiculous.
**Lee:** I think like number eight is from the
**Lee:** grave to the rave or it's it's like a long it got into that.
**Lee:** Like Hellraiser where if you had a zombie film, if you could attach the living dead to it.
**Lee:** Suddenly it became worth a big thing.
**Lee:** But ultimately you're a shit movie.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** You could get it made, yeah.
**Adam:** I think it's that again, though.
**Adam:** It's, let's face it, it's something that you can't really do as a recurring set of characters anyway.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because, you know, literally everyone is dead.
**Adam:** At the end of it, so.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Unless some of them come back as zombies, I suppose.
**Adam:** I think the colonel comes back in the second one.
**Adam:** I read.
**Chris:** Does he?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Because I think that was that's quite nice as well when he's just on the phone is, yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then what happened?
**Lee:** And then what did he do?
**Lee:** And then what did you do?
**Lee:** I love that character.
**Lee:** Like and you kept wondering where that was going until the end when he gave across the access codes and you were like, oh, I see.
**Lee:** So he's the one with the football who's just going to sign the entire thing off.
**Lee:** So the president ultimately hasn't got to do it himself.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's like.
**Lee:** It's so grim and it's it's wonderfully nihilistic.
**Adam:** It's it's wonderfully nihilistic and still a fucking party film.
**Lee:** And that's quite an impressive achievement. It is.
**Lee:** I think that's what it is, you know, I said earlier on, I said I I always felt that it goes on a long time. I think this is one of those films that is like a 1:00 in the morning, I've been drinking for a long time, I'm going to chuck some in or no, I'm going to chuck some in. Oh, that's just horror enough and just funny enough and you put it on and then you start to sober up by half past two in the morning and you've still got half an hour left of it and you're like, oh, fuck, this is a slog now.
**Lee:** I think that's what it is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I define most films at that time in the morning.
**Lee:** Yeah. As sobriety combines with, how long have I actually been up?
**Lee:** Yeah. I definitely shouldn't have another beer. It is half past two in the morning, but equally, I'm not going to make it to the end of this sober.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So yeah, it it's a fantastic and as you said, like it's a perfect party movie.
**Lee:** It is one of those you've got your friends over.
**Lee:** You know, you're all having a few beers and a laugh.
**Lee:** If you want something to chuck on in the background that you can kind of just go back to whenever the key scenes come in.
**Lee:** It's perfect for that.
**Lee:** It's.
**Chris:** It definitely, yeah.
**Lee:** It's perfect for that.
**Lee:** It's that thing of the
**Lee:** the skeleton breaking, like the ground breaker coming out.
**Lee:** And then opening its eyes, which is ridiculous because the skin's all gone off of it.
**Lee:** But he's still got eyes, but fuck it looks good.
**Adam:** Funnily enough, I I think the effects guy said that he he thought that that was a test shot and apparently he was like really pissed off they used it in the main film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's and they use it twice.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's one of the most but it's also iconic because it's in the trailer, it's always, it's always the clip that people show.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Probably because it's in there twice, there's no more but that's not.
**Lee:** And
**Lee:** it just looks awesome.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** And and that's the thing like I I really like the effects in this.
**Lee:** As you say, for a horror comedy, they totally go full on like there's no holding back with it.
**Lee:** It's really splattery and it's really and the ta monster as well.
**Lee:** I've noticed this because obviously I've always known him as the ta monster because that's how he's always referred to amongst Yeah, nerds.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But it was only this time that I actually heard Spider refer to him as the ta man and I was like, oh, so he is actually called the ta man in the film.
**Lee:** It's not just something that people have called him.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's not like Pinned or whatever, which was just yeah.
**Adam:** It's
**Adam:** but and again that's just a really that that is that treads the real line between.
**Adam:** That's funny and that's fucking horrible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because it's it's it's grim as well as hilarious.
**Adam:** But it's
**Adam:** you know what I mean?
**Adam:** Just like a melted skeleton.
**Adam:** And and also the way he moves.
**Lee:** Yeah, I love that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That really reminds me of Thriller when you see the zombies in Thriller, they have that very like I'm wondering if that's where they've got it from.
**Lee:** Like it's that same sort of body move, like like a dance, because obviously in Thriller, it all then becomes a horror.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's definitely got that feel to it.
**Lee:** But I yeah, I really like that.
**Lee:** It's that because he makes the whole thing about.
**Lee:** You know, the limbs freeze up and you have to break the rigor mortis out of him, so the fact that he's kind of it's moving on its larger
**Chris:** Yeah, strange rhythmic kind of, yeah.
**Lee:** joints rather than the smaller ones and it creates that strange.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I it's.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's a masterpiece of a film.
**Adam:** So yeah, you seem to kept this quiet somehow.
**Adam:** It's it's weird because
**Adam:** I think probably me and Lee just clearly don't think about it as much as we should.
**Adam:** Even though it's a fucking great film.
**Lee:** It's one of those films it's like the Exorcist, it's so good, it's kind of
**Lee:** you kind of don't have to talk about it because everyone knows it because it's amazing and it's a league beyond and you kind of forget that to some degree.
**Lee:** And then when you go back and watch it and you go, oh shit, no.
**Lee:** It really is that good.
**Chris:** It is.
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** You know, it's a bit like when somebody says, oh, you know, talk about sci-fi or whatever.
**Lee:** And you go, well, you take Star Wars out immediately before you start.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Because you don't need to talk about that. Everybody knows it because it's amazing and it's a league beyond.
**Lee:** And you kind of forget that to some degree.
**Lee:** And then when you go back and watch it, you go, oh shit, no, it really is that.
**Lee:** Yeah, it it's just, yeah, it it's a fantastic film.
**Lee:** so for our next episode on that note.
**Lee:** We are going to go to the other end of the spectrum.
**Lee:** Not to say it's dog shit, I'm not saying that.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** But we are going for a much less lesser known film.
**Lee:** one that was mentioned to us on our listener request month.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** we had a request for Wild Zero.
**Adam:** And I have still not seen this, so I'm looking forward to this.
**Lee:** My I can't wait.
**Lee:** For the text message you're going to send while you're watching it.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can't remember if you said anything about this or not. No.
**Lee:** Yeah, so so I watched it because someone had recommended it and it's the only thing I'd never seen and I just was like immediately we we need to do this.
**Lee:** We have to do it, yeah.
**Lee:** We need to get I know it didn't make it into listener requests because we did it in the random generator.
**Lee:** But having seen it, I was like we need to fit this in somewhere because it's it's fucking mental.
**Lee:** And it fits perfectly with this film.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's good.
**Lee:** In a very strange way.
**Adam:** I can't wait.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** It's
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's it's one of those ones.
**Lee:** You just I've never heard of it.
**Lee:** It can't be anything.
**Lee:** Someone's recommended it.
**Lee:** I'm going to chuck it on midweek.
**Lee:** Because I'm not quite tired, you know, I want to kill an hour and a half before bed.
**Lee:** And then you just go, well, where has this been all my life?
**Lee:** Like why have I not been involved in this for a longer period?
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** I'm very keen to see that.
**Lee:** That's not overselling it.
**Lee:** So don't get your hopes too high, I went in with a very, I've never heard of this, it's got to be pretty shit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's awesome.
**Lee:** But I love Japanese movies.
**Chris:** Excellent, yeah, looking forward to it.
**Lee:** Indeed.
**Lee:** Good, right.
**Lee:** So, thanks very so much for listening.
**Lee:** just a very quick one before we leave. I said on our last episode, we I mentioned the monsters, and I said it was on Netflix. That was my mistake. I'd ordered it on Blu-ray to come out and I knew it was due originally to come out on Netflix and on Blu-ray on the same day, but apparently they've put back the Netflix release, it's still isn't out now on the 14th of October on the UK Netflix. yeah, and I've had a few people say to me, I thought you said it was on Netflix. I it was originally supposed to come out on both platforms at the same time. and then they didn't, the money grabbing bastards. Yeah, so I do apologize about that. But it'll be out soon and I wouldn't rush too much to see it.
**Lee:** Anyway.
**Lee:** You said it was quite good for kids though, potentially.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, yeah, totally. It's well worth a watch and I think for for kids, it's totally family friendly. It's a great film.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Lee:** Good stuff. Yeah.
**Lee:** Right, so thanks very so much for listening.
**Lee:** And good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Lee:** Watch Wild Zero.
**Lee:** Listen to Not For Everyone podcast.
**Lee:** Any Rick and if you didn't watch Return of the Living Dead.
**Lee:** No, fuck.
**Lee:** And watch Return of the Living Dead.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fucking.
**Adam:** Bit like now.
**Lee:** Spilers and swearing.
**Adam:** A little bit.
**Chris:** It's just not it is not spoiled. Definitely not spoiled.

---

## Ep 154 Nope

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-154-nope/
Air date: 16 October 2022
Duration: 00:28:00
Film: Nope · Year: 2022 · Director: Jordan Peele

### Description

Here’s a cheeky little episode we’re sneaking into the schedule to discuss Jordan Peele’s “Nope”, which is very much a full recommendation from everyone at WTH! A strange tale that unfolds into a beautiful, terrifying whole (much like it’s main antagonist); where Keke Palmer gets to recreate an iconic anime moment; Brandon Perea gets sucked off to the tune of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and Daniel Kaluuya starts a macabre coin collection. It seems Mr Peele has finally won over Lee with this extraterrestrial cross between a Western and “Jaws” with added Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men - watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And two of us are COVID free.
**Lee:** One of us isn't.
**Lee:** But he is a fucking trooper, so he's still here.
**Lee:** Credit to him, well done Adam for being here despite having the plague.
**Adam:** Well, it's just that typical thing of this this is this is what it's like being poor is you only get branded stuff when everyone else has already had it.
**Lee:** so we're here for a little cheeky bonus episode. we just we wanted to discuss the fact that we've all seen Nope. and it probably isn't enough for a full episode, but equally we didn't kind of want to give it short shrift, on what we've been watching.
**Chris:** Nope.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It deserves what we've been watching.
**Adam:** It does deserve something, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It does.
**Lee:** and I am going to break tradition, and I am going to be the first one to give my thoughts on it if that's all right with everyone because I don't think I've ever done that before.
**Adam:** That's not.
**Lee:** but, yes, so just to give everyone a recap for those who are unaware.
**Lee:** Get Out I thought was a fine movie but possibly one of the most overrated movies of all time.
**Lee:** And I've and I've seen The Godfather.
**Lee:** God, I hate that movie.
**Lee:** and we're going to get emails about that. and then, Us came out.
**Adam:** Always.
**Lee:** I loved the first 45 minutes and was like, yes, this is it. Now I get why everyone's obsessed with him. This is fantastic. I love everything about this and then he managed to somehow shit all over everything you'd achieved to that point.
**Chris:** Remember, remember that, remember that, what you just said there.
**Lee:** Oh, right, so that's yeah, well, you wouldn't be the only one, Chris, if that's how you feel about it.
**Lee:** but yeah, so when this came out, I was like, I'm going to give it a go because I I've still got faith, I've still got faith that he can do it.
**Lee:** I know he's had two kind of misses so far.
**Adam:** He is exceptionally skilled, I think.
**Adam:** Should we should we give the gentleman his name?
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, sorry.
**Chris:** You you kind of think everyone would know, but yeah, it's good that they.
**Lee:** We are talking about
**Adam:** We are talking about Jordan Peele.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, terrible, you're quite right, I've just raved about him for five minutes and didn't once say his name.
**Lee:** yes.
**Lee:** but, this time,
**Lee:** I feel he did it.
**Lee:** I think he got his stride in this, I I was I was really into it, he got to get his little nonsense out of the way, like he always has to have something that's got fuck all to do with the film going on and he had that.
**Lee:** But it didn't detract from the film.
**Lee:** Like the whole thing with the.
**Lee:** Go on, Adam.
**Adam:** What I was going to say?
**Adam:** But the point the point of it is is it's there to show you why Jupe thought that he could tame the animal.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** And also,
**Adam:** and and also when he's under the table, his eyes are obscured and that obviously relates to OJ working out about don't look the creature in its eyes.
**Chris:** I I got that from the horse as well.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, the yeah, he's a thing that comes up in it a lot, yeah.
**Chris:** But I think like you said though, it was interesting that it did definitely have a feel like there was no point those flashbacks, I'll give you a link later.
**Lee:** It's like 25 minutes to tell you two things that he could have very easily, very concisely put in a much easier, more
**Chris:** But I would almost like, and we're obviously getting into it pretty quickly.
**Chris:** But I would almost say, for me, that was this whole film was also there was almost no point to it.
**Chris:** And so then it was like both things sort of had no point exactly, but together they made more sense.
**Chris:** So I was like, yeah, it wasn't entirely clear to me what the the aim of the story was.
**Chris:** And I was really expecting there to be something that concluded it in a deep way.
**Lee:** See, but this is the problem, see, this is the M Night thing that we've said before.
**Lee:** So you spent the whole film, instead of watching the film and going, it's a really interesting story of some people on a ranch who are plagued by an alien.
**Lee:** You spent the whole time going.
**Chris:** What else is there?
**Lee:** When's the message?
**Chris:** Right.
**Lee:** Where's the it just made a film.
**Lee:** It's a really good film.
**Chris:** I know.
**Lee:** And I really enjoyed it.
**Chris:** So, so, so I'm not, I'm not against that, but it's interesting how almost we both went into it with the opposite expectation.
**Chris:** and ended up with the opposite result.
**Chris:** So you went into it expecting low, enjoying it, because to be honest, it's fantastically well constructed, like it's really, you know, I was right from the start, I was hooked, and I was like, yeah, it's great style, I like the characters.
**Chris:** This all seems like there's it's just really well done.
**Chris:** But then I was left a bit like, oh, what what what have I missed?
**Adam:** There is a thing though is that again because you kind of get the bit where they returned to Goldie and you see that sequence and everything.
**Adam:** But there's there's he has a lovely thing like has a lovely habit of it's almost like drip feeding.
**Adam:** So you get that bit and you're left to ponder about it and then you get engaged in the main story and you're sort of.
**Adam:** And then you come.
**Adam:** you then get where they're at Jupiter's claim and they're talking to Ricky and then it's so, all right, so and also it's quite you've got that nice thing there that it's like.
**Adam:** You get the idea that Ricky's somewhat more exploitative.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because he's got the hidden museum.
**Adam:** With the fucking brilliant Mad Magazine cover.
**Adam:** That is just perfect.
**Adam:** But and and but then you finally get the whole sort of payoff of it is that Ricky kind of thinks, oh, well, you know, I've I I can survive this sort of thing.
**Adam:** You know, and actually,
**Adam:** probably not and doesn't.
**Adam:** but I love the because there's another there's another thing in it which was I sort of noticed on the rewatch because it hadn't occurred it sort of occurred to me the first time and I didn't sort of put two and two together.
**Adam:** but when the kids like spoke like turn up as aliens.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And like tried to scare him.
**Adam:** There's no explanation that like they've got alien masks with voice changers.
**Adam:** What the fuck's going on?
**Adam:** And then at the end it's like, oh, he's actually intending them to be gifts at the gift shop.
**Adam:** when he has his alien show.
**Adam:** And it's like, it's a nice little thing again where it's like just a weird fucking thing in there that you're like, where did the kids get good alien masks from and stuff like that?
**Adam:** And then, yeah, it does actually have a.
**Adam:** explanation again.
**Lee:** And that's what I like, like it had so many layers and they did all weave in and as you say, like it all meshed with this one for me, like I I think my only criticism
**Lee:** was possibly that the third act, going into the third act, when they had the plan of how they were going to trap it, going into that, I had no idea.
**Lee:** Like they had that little meeting and they're all chatting about it and I was like, I I I don't know what they're going to do and I don't know if it was intended to be that way, so you were kind of seeing it as it unraveled.
**Lee:** But I was like, what, they're setting up all these big wavy thing.
**Lee:** I don't know what the point of them was.
**Lee:** I don't know where they were supposed to be leading.
**Chris:** It was.
**Lee:** it with the horse.
**Chris:** Oh, so.
**Lee:** I know it.
**Chris:** They were electronic.
**Chris:** They were electric, weren't they?
**Chris:** So they could then see when they the field was.
**Lee:** So once it started happening, I could see it, but up to that point where they were talking about the plan, I was like, I don't know what the fuck they're on about.
**Lee:** Like.
**Adam:** I think that's a deliberate.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Adam:** Choice again, I think it's like.
**Adam:** You because you are because it's especially because there's the one bit where they've got the flailing arm inflatable tube and whatever family guy call it.
**Adam:** I can't remember.
**Adam:** and and just the horse.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like, okay.
**Adam:** And I also, I have to say fucking as a as a cast, fucking amazing.
**Lee:** Phenomenal phenomenal cast.
**Adam:** I mean, relatively small cast or certainly of like main characters and everything else like that, but everyone's fucking great.
**Adam:** And I insist that there is now a website set up called Does Keith David Die.com.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Because I can't go through that again, because I was like, Keith David's on my fuck, he's dead.
**Lee:** You know what and I loved that, it not Keith David died, but like I loved that that idea of just something that's completely random and weird just happening like that.
**Lee:** And then later on, once it the story unravels, it then all makes sense and it you totally get it.
**Chris:** That's why it all seemed really clever.
**Chris:** Like,
**Chris:** you know, it seemed like there's there's something really impressive going on throughout.
**Chris:** But it together well constructed.
**Chris:** Like the details were there and the style was there and just everything about it seemed this is, yeah, or, you know.
**Adam:** almost masterpiece level.
**Adam:** Is that what's that lovely thing as well where it's like they just sort of it's been palmed off as oh, there was a problem with an aeroplane and it dropped some metal or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Where no one's really that bothered.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, like no one feels that it's warranting enough attention to it and it's like, oh, it's just one of them freak things.
**Adam:** Like when it rained frogs in whatever town.
**Lee:** I think like, who does who would that come down, like who would you report that to, whose job?
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, it's.
**Lee:** It's going to be to look into it to that degree.
**Lee:** Everyone will just go, yeah, fuck it, it was weird, wasn't it, right?
**Lee:** And just get on with your day, like what else can you?
**Lee:** I've got to say you, saying about.
**Lee:** the way it was all put together and.
**Lee:** the design and stuff, that alien design I thought was absolutely immense.
**Lee:** I was like it was so original and so nice to look at.
**Lee:** Like, yeah, I was totally blown away with that.
**Adam:** What is it with aliens having to have?
**Adam:** mouths within mouths within mouths, though.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's definitely it's it's definitely a an alien xenomorph feel.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I no, it's that sort of sea creature sort of look like a jellyfish.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Kind of.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I mean,
**Adam:** essentially it's Jaws.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As well,
**Adam:** which is just really great.
**Adam:** You've got instead of barrels,
**Adam:** Instead of Quint, you've got Michael Wincott's character with the the cinematographer.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** I love that character as well.
**Lee:** Like I thought he fit into it really well.
**Lee:** That kind of so completely different to the the group who we've been following.
**Chris:** Yeah, they've got different interests.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, but they just all mesh because they're going for the same goal.
**Lee:** Yeah, obviously, Daniel as I've raved about him so much.
**Lee:** I feel I probably shouldn't do anymore or you'll all think I've got a thing for him.
**Lee:** and Kiki Palmer as well.
**Lee:** who I recently, because I, as I mentioned in the last episode, I've been watching, Scream Queens.
**Adam:** Scream Queens.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and she was great in that and I didn't know who she was, before watching Nope.
**Lee:** And then when I went back and watched that, because obviously it's about eight years old now.
**Lee:** And I was like, she looks vaguely familiar.
**Lee:** But she obviously she looked very different to how she did then.
**Lee:** But yeah, like it it's great to see because I don't know what she's done between.
**Adam:** No, she doesn't, she she looks looks like she does a lot of voice work, but also she's a singer.
**Adam:** So it's sort of parallel careers.
**Adam:** as it were.
**Adam:** But no, I mean, she it's her film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, not taking away from anyone else in it, but I mean, yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** There's.
**Adam:** I I mean, I love I love the brother-sister relationship because I think it's a very unique relationship within a film.
**Adam:** Because.
**Chris:** Yeah, it was.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because when it's when it's a couple.
**Adam:** You're kind of like, why have one of you not walked?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, but it's that sort of thing of you can be antagonistic, but you've got a shared history that means that you know each other.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Probably better than anyone else.
**Adam:** And but also that thing where you sort of regress to being a kid.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, like I love how excited they are.
**Adam:** When it's like, I fucking told you we'd bring a non-electric camera.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's sort of but I think yeah, I think it's a really good dynamic.
**Adam:** As you know, it.
**Adam:** You know why they're sticking together.
**Chris:** Yeah, it feels very believable.
**Chris:** Even while being very dramatic.
**Chris:** It's like, you know, it still fits.
**Lee:** I love the CCTV guy as well, which is like that's exactly the like you can imagine someone who sells CCTV and is into aliens as soon as someone comes in and buys that equipment, they're like, oh, I know what they're up to.
**Lee:** I need to get in on this.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I'd like I yeah, I love that the way he kind of bullies his way in and they're like, oh, for fuck's sake.
**Lee:** We're stuck with him now.
**Lee:** But.
**Chris:** And then he's a bit of a weirdo still, you know, useful.
**Adam:** But also but also sort of he earns his stripes.
**Adam:** Because there's the bit where he says, hang on, I was in the fucking house.
**Adam:** When this happened.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And like she fist bumps him and it's like when they're when they're arguing with host.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** also there's a there's a bit that I wondered if you'd spotted Lee.
**Adam:** you know, I'm going to have to put it as it's written in my notes.
**Adam:** When Angel gets sucked off,
**Adam:** and he's covered in barb wire.
**Adam:** the fence pings and it's the notes of Close Encounters.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I did.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten all about that until you just said it.
**Lee:** Yes, I did, I heard it at time.
**Lee:** I went, it's fucking close out.
**Lee:** And I again, like it's those little things that I just.
**Lee:** I loved about this.
**Lee:** I mean, yeah, it's great because it just goes to show if you persevere with something, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to watch the new Halloween movie, but if you persevere with something like eventually that gold can sometimes come.
**Lee:** yeah, and that's how I found Jordan Pill's career so far.
**Adam:** Well, you say, you you liked Get Out, you just didn't feel it was get, you know, you just felt it was getting a lot more plaudits than it probably should have had.
**Adam:** And us was just a a one of those ones that just got under your skin.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** It it was, but that's the thing, like there's enough merit in both of those that I was like, I I really think he can be a fantastic director and I really, really wish he would just focus on not allowing anyone to rush him.
**Lee:** Focus on your film, you know, as much as the message underneath it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** you know, it it's like.
**Lee:** Dawn of the Dead.
**Lee:** Like I I'm not a massive fan of Dawn of the Dead.
**Lee:** I know it's a massive cult classic.
**Lee:** I'd seen that film half a dozen times before somebody said, oh, but did you know when he wrote it, he's kind of original thought was.
**Lee:** Oh, it's just, you know, how materialistic are people that if you remove their brain, they would still all go to the to the mall.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh, yeah, now I can see that, but it works on its own as a film.
**Lee:** And I felt that he was pushing his messages more than, oh, it doesn't matter if the story doesn't all tie up.
**Lee:** Because the message is there.
**Lee:** It's like.
**Lee:** Yeah, it doesn't it it doesn't work like that.
**Lee:** You have to complete both circuits or it just doesn't pick up.
**Lee:** yeah, and I just thought this was yeah, this was just him actually landing a a really solid.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's it's it's great.
**Adam:** I mean, I think probably get out is still my favorite.
**Adam:** But I mean, I think that this of of his of his three.
**Lee:** director.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** But I think that and you wrote you wrote all of them as well, didn't he?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I just.
**Adam:** What I like is I think and it's true of Nope as much as anything else.
**Adam:** I think in terms of characters.
**Adam:** I think he just writes great people.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and the whole thing that Nope is because that's how you should fucking react in that situation.
**Lee:** I did like the fact that it got used on multiple occasions as well.
**Adam:** Especially because that should be your fucking reaction.
**Adam:** This weird shit in the stables.
**Adam:** Nope.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or or the bit where he looks out and it's passing overhead so just put my head down and I'll close the door.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I'll lock it.
**Adam:** Like that's going to make a difference, but it's Yeah, I just love I love a realistic reaction to
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** the the extraordinary.
**Adam:** And I think he always he always does that really well.
**Adam:** And also it was only the second time around that I realized that when you watch the opening credits.
**Adam:** Again,
**Adam:** it's that drip feed of information.
**Adam:** The opening credits are inside jean jacket.
**Adam:** It's jean jacket's throat with the credits rolling over it and you're like.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And it doesn't register.
**Adam:** Because it's just a weird billowing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Aperture.
**Adam:** You know, there's nothing there.
**Adam:** And it's and then it goes into the film sequence.
**Adam:** Like the the old footage.
**Adam:** Oh, and one thing that I did see pointed out that I think is absolute fucking genius.
**Adam:** You know when Emerald's giving him the speech.
**Adam:** And it's like my great, great, great.
**Adam:** And he shouts over to add another great in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's meant to be because she's only parroted.
**Adam:** Like she's learned it from her dad doing the speech again and again and again.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** But obviously she misses out a great because it was his yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** because it's an extra generation.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** Which again, just yeah.
**Adam:** Also there's a there's a Goonies reference in here.
**Adam:** they eat at.
**Adam:** What is it, Copperpot's Cove.
**Adam:** Which is apparently a re like, which is apparently a reference to.
**Lee:** Yes, when they go when they go into the caves.
**Lee:** and they find the dead body, it's Chester Copperpot is the man.
**Lee:** Who went missing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, yes.
**Chris:** So he's he's good with references.
**Chris:** He certainly knows, you know.
**Adam:** But I like I like the fact they're not just it's not just like.
**Adam:** Sometimes you get with say, for example, some seasons of American Horror Story, where it's not just like, oh, I'm just going to do.
**Adam:** I'm going to do exactly that, but it's me filming it, so it's different.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, this is this is something like a bite slide from Akira in Jaws but with an alien.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know, there's it it all works where it should work.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I yeah, I was just yeah, totally blown away by it.
**Lee:** I
**Lee:** Yeah, I I think I went in with low expectations, I'll admit.
**Lee:** But I I mean, even if I'd gone in with high expectations, this film would have would have met it, I just thought it was phenomenal.
**Lee:** And yeah.
**Lee:** I say it's it did a lot of things in a slower way than needed to be done, but that didn't detract from the movie.
**Adam:** It's weird.
**Adam:** Because because I did think to myself when I was when I was watching it again, is I thought, oh, I.
**Adam:** I will I'll probably find it a bit draggy.
**Adam:** because I know it's like two hours plus.
**Adam:** And in actual fact, it probably isn't.
**Adam:** It feels like it might be the right length, it's just in my head, I naturally assume if it's film two hours plus, you probably should have shaved a bit off.
**Lee:** It feels like it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't think you do.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I found it perfectly, perfectly placed.
**Lee:** the other thing I loved as well, with any film like this where you've got a big plan at the end.
**Lee:** to kill the big bad, something always turns up and fucks with that.
**Lee:** I love the idea that it was a media dickhead on a motor bike.
**Lee:** Like that.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, just freelancer from fucking yeah.
**Lee:** Love that.
**Adam:** Who without actually without ever showing his face, you just know what a prick he is.
**Adam:** It's just, yeah.
**Adam:** And actually that's again, that sort of thing of even in the even in like sort of high drama stakes and everything else like that, it's just that lovely bit with, well, now we're going to see what happens when an electric motorbike runs into a blackout power out.
**Lee:** And just.
**Adam:** And just boom.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know what?
**Lee:** I talking about it now, I want to go and rewatch it now.
**Lee:** But
**Adam:** Cuz yeah.
**Lee:** Because.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just it it's got fantastic rewatchability as well.
**Lee:** I think.
**Lee:** Like you said, Adam, you know, when you go back the second time and then you get the when you see the credits.
**Lee:** Because I've got to admit, I haven't rewatched it, I didn't I didn't find time, unfortunately.
**Lee:** But yeah, I I think you're right, I think it this is the type of film that will hold up to multiple views.
**Lee:** Because I think he does put those little Easter eggs in there.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** quite a lot.
**Adam:** You do spend a lot of time going.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** on the second viewing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But not in that sort of way that you do when it's like if there's a mystery to be solved and it's like, well, I know who's done it now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, this is a because there's so much sort of sitting in there.
**Adam:** that you can enjoy.
**Adam:** also, apparently, Jupiter's claim is now part of Universal's permanent backlot, like Universal Studios theme park.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** and is currently the Haunted House Maze for Halloween this year.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Awesome.
**Adam:** I think the one thing that I really want to say about Nope though is that.
**Adam:** There was a there was a guy who saw Nope and he went onto Twitter and said that Jordan Peele was the greatest horror director of all time.
**Adam:** And Jordan Peele replied to him saying, I love your enthusiasm, but I will not tolerate any John Carpenter slang.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So that's his favorite.
**Adam:** There's the man who knows his movies.
**Lee:** Go on, yeah.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I just I've got great hopes for the future now.
**Adam:** I think he's going to do a string of just interesting stuff.
**Lee:** I'm really hoping.
**Lee:** So these three films are so hugely different, and I think like you say.
**Lee:** Like with a John Carpenter.
**Lee:** That's the sign of a really good director where the films are, you know, regardless of how much I enjoyed them.
**Lee:** All they are hugely different feeling movie,
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And hopefully he will continue and and I think that's why he was possibly a great pick for when he did
**Lee:** the Twilight Zone.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I found those pretty hit and miss, but those type of shows always are a bit, to be fair.
**Adam:** I I think the mistake was also that they started remaking old ones.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** At that point you probably at that point you should have you should just ring up Reese Shearsmith and Steve Pemb and ask what's in their bin.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because they're probably chucking out fucking stuff that most people would pay their.
**Lee:** 100%.
**Lee:** excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Let's wrap it up there for this cheeky little bonus episode.
**Lee:** as it is the Halloween season, we just wanted to give you something a little bit extra and as we say, we we did feel that this film,
**Lee:** although not necessarily in the horror genre, definitely.
**Lee:** is.
**Chris:** Enough elements.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's horror.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Are you sure it's horror?
**Lee:** It's it's adjacent and it definitely needed some time and after I'd been so cruel about him possibly on us.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, I didn't want to I didn't want it to look like I'd just gone and then he made a good film, but we're not going to talk about that.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, I thought I'd like to put the record straight and say,
**Lee:** not just I fucking told you he could do it.
**Lee:** But, yeah.
**Lee:** Just so.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He fucking done it.
**Lee:** He did do it.
**Chris:** It does seem like he absolutely made this how he wanted to.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like it all seems like he ignored any else and was just like, yeah, I want this.
**Lee:** I mean, I still stand with that statement for us, I feel Get Out was massive and Us was half written.
**Lee:** and then rushed out because like, oh, it came out 12 months ago.
**Lee:** You need to get the next film in the cinema, just fucking do it and I don't think he had enough time.
**Lee:** And I think.
**Lee:** if he'd been given the time he needed to really work on it, he could have ironed a lot of that stuff out.
**Lee:** That's just my opinion, how I felt.
**Adam:** We could have been talking about a great trilogy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But unfortunately, I think after that massive hit, I think the studios were probably like, if you don't do it in the next six months, everyone's going to forget who you are.
**Lee:** So just get it out now.
**Lee:** Regardless.
**Lee:** which is a terrible way to do it, but I'm sure in business that is precisely what they were doing, you know.
**Adam:** That is why all businessmen are our souls.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Who never understand an artist.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Or a drunk.
**Lee:** But you got there in the end.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening everybody.
**Lee:** this is a cheeky bonus episode and we will be back in a week's time.
**Lee:** Actually a week's time, I know I say that every time we record it.
**Lee:** It never is because it's a fortnight.
**Lee:** but we will be back in a week's time for Return of the Living Dead.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening and good night.
**Chris:** Good night.

---

## Ep 153 We have been Watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-153-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 9 October 2022
Duration: 00:54:32

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Ghost of We Have Been Watching”. It’s that movie recap moment as we discuss what has been entering our brains via our eyes and ears from the glowing screens we can never, ever be free of. In this episode we discuss “Inside No.9” (again), Rob Zombie’s “The Munsters”, “Men”, “Scream Queens”, “Love, Death + Robots”, “Hocus Pocus 2” and “The Man Who Haunted Himself” (with a spirited defence of “Hellraiser: Bloodline” thrown in for good measure). Beware of spoilers and swearing and join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee!
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** No, I am Adam.
**Lee:** I don't know why, over the last 150 episodes, it almost feels as if every episode I get a little bit more excited by that. You know, kind of I can't believe we're still here!
**Lee:** Who the fuck is still listening?
**Chris:** So how's this gonna be in 10 years then? You're just like shoot up through the roof.
**Lee:** it'll hit the moon.
**Adam:** It's like he's running from the crash.
**Lee:** Every time. Look, we fucking live.
**Lee:** How is it still happening?
**Lee:** so good evening. don't forget ladies and gentlemen, this is gonna be there's gonna be a lot of swearing and a lot of spoilers because those are a two favorite things that we like to do.
**Lee:** and we are here for our what we've been watching episode.
**Lee:** it's the run up to Halloween, so there's been lots of new stuff released. and I'm sure we've been slightly leaning towards more horror in our general viewing than usual.
**Lee:** apart from those of us who have been unwell, which is everybody but me.
**Chris:** Oh, you've escaped it, have you?
**Lee:** You see, this is what happens when you don't fuck around.
**Chris:** You got it to come though.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Lock yourself in your house, you don't catch shit.
**Adam:** I I feel so rough, I've got so many, I had so many one-liners about it, but it's just been like I'm rougher than a sandpaper hand job.
**Adam:** I feel sicker than Prince Andrew's Google history.
**Chris:** I think you've you've really set the tone for this one.
**Lee:** Goodbye new listeners. We're glad to see you.
**Lee:** yes, so Chris, let's kick off with you.
**Lee:** What have you been watching in the horror genre since our last gathering?
**Chris:** I've got a lovely little kickoff.
**Chris:** So you've been recommending it possibly every single episode and every single bonus episode.
**Chris:** but after seeing Adam from Not For Everyone started watching Inside Number Nine, I thought I have to. I've got to really get on this, haven't I?
**Chris:** So, so I started from, started from the beginning, right. So Inside Number Nine, came out 2014, Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton.
**Chris:** And they, as far as I know, they write it and mostly are the main actors.
**Chris:** But you do get a whole cast of all sorts of other fantastic actors as well.
**Chris:** But, yeah, so anthology.
**Chris:** What's not to love?
**Chris:** That's great.
**Chris:** And it's amazing really. So I've seen the first two series.
**Chris:** I had seen the first two episodes of series one before, so I didn't watch those again.
**Chris:** but yeah, it is amazing how sort of how different they can make them.
**Chris:** And yet all still have a feeling of it's like impeccable dialogue, character development in a pretty short space of time.
**Chris:** And they seem to gel really like, even though they're playing such different characters, it just seems to work so well.
**Chris:** Whether it's comedy, horror, like
**Lee:** Yeah, I I think that's the thing. I think Adam and I obviously were massive fans of those those two guys and, Mark Gatiss when they used to do The League of Gentlemen together.
**Lee:** and they were playing different characters in the same show.
**Lee:** but yeah, it still surprised me just how well they can kind of write these half-hour segments. It'd be absolutely astonishing and then the next week they just do it again.
**Lee:** And as you say, I was like they might get a couple, you know, it's like Tales of the Unexpected or something where you've got like two or three good series and then it all started sort of sloping away and it got very samey and very shit.
**Lee:** Inside Number Nine just seems to have hit like an eight to nine out of ten and just fucking stuck with it the whole way through and it's still going. It's just astonishing.
**Adam:** It's a sickening amount of talent, isn't it?
**Chris:** Yeah, really. That that's that's I think they would say it that way.
**Adam:** It's no, truly, because like you say, they they show. This would be a series,
**Adam:** this would be an amazing series if you were just the writer or you were just the two actors who appeared in it everyone.
**Adam:** Because it's like a showcase for them as performers.
**Adam:** But it's also their like amazing scripts and their amazing ability of
**Adam:** I mean, obviously there's producers and directors and casting and stuff like that.
**Adam:** The the music, by the way, all the music is done by the guy who did, the soundtrack to Triangle.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Christian Henshaw.
**Chris:** Don't remember you saying that before.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I I think I can't remember, but I because the weird thing was is when I was watching Triangle, I looked him up and I was like, I'm already following him. And then it was like, oh, yeah. I've I've put the two together.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But the they're also when you when you get towards the end, Chris, there's a very good podcast on BBC Sounds called Inside Number Nine. Inside, inside Number Nine.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's presented by Reece and Steve. I think they started doing it when during lockdown because it was like a way of continuing to produce stuff around it.
**Adam:** But yeah, they basically did they did like sort of a best-of series and then every series they've made subsequent to that, I think the last two.
**Chris:** So that's interesting. So best of, they choose their their best episodes to discuss.
**Adam:** They show they chose like, I think like they basically made a series, but I think it was voted for.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I think it was actually voted for online but, because I know,
**Adam:** have you seen, Chris, have you seen the 12 Days of Christine?
**Chris:** Yeah, well so that's what I was gonna say out of the two series, I was thinking, can I choose a favorite? And and that absolutely stands out and it's like, how can this be standing out against what was so amazing already?
**Lee:** Wait, sorry, I just I'm just gonna have to cut through you there. Is that the fucking horrible Christmasy one?
**Adam:** Yeah, it's the one with, oh,
**Chris:** It is.
**Lee:** What is wrong with you, Adam?
**Adam:** His favorite film,
**Lee:** Don't worry, Chris, they have one of those every two seasons or so. One of the ones where I go, yep, I won't be talking to anybody for the next four days having watched that and,
**Chris:** But but it's just the way they mix the twists with still elements of comedy and darkness. And, you know, the psychological surreal experience and you're just thinking, look, they have captured something there that I could really imagine that's almost exactly how something could transpire and you'd just be like, yeah, this is the reality.
**Lee:** But it's the why they keep throwing a spanner in their own works with the, let's make a completely silent episode. Let's make an episode that's entirely iambic pentameter. Let's do an episode where where it's all done in one shot.
**Lee:** Like, like they just keep saying, we've got the best show on TV.
**Lee:** How could we possibly try and trip ourselves over? And they just keep and they they still pull it off every.
**Chris:** But is that that might be, yeah, that's a bit like though creating certain constraints somehow can propel you to create some of your best work.
**Adam:** I think it's also there's such a melting pot of like they admit themselves of influences, but they've got such a wide range.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not just it's not just gonna be like here's 12 Hammer movies. Or, but they also have this sort of lovely thing of how far or how how far do you go as comedy or not.
**Adam:** Because there are certain ones that sort of get they there's some fucking dark shit in some of these. And and done really well.
**Adam:** Because I don't think it's ever done I don't think it's ever done in a way that people would find too repellent, just sort of that's horrible. Yeah.
**Lee:** There's lots of episodes that I watched and then said, I will definitely never watch that again, but I've never said I didn't enjoy it. I've just said I enjoyed it as a journey, but I couldn't possibly ever put myself through it a second time.
**Chris:** Yeah, that is interesting.
**Chris:** Well, I I've got a lot to look forward to.
**Adam:** You have. You really have, man.
**Lee:** I'm just looking. So you've watched the first two seasons, is that what you said?
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, that's it.
**Lee:** Oh, God. See, that's the funny because I thought you'd seen a lot, I thought there was a lot of the like the stand-out episodes you'd already seen, but now I'm looking back through them as we talk. I'm like, yeah, he hasn't seen that one, he hasn't seen that one, he hasn't seen Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah. No, it it's it it just keeps getting better and better. It really does. It's the show that just keeps giving.
**Chris:** Yeah, and how it goes from being comedy to being dark in each different one. And it's like, yeah, now I'm into this now. This is you've you've just set my mood perfectly for.
**Lee:** Every episode has both. Every episode is funny and sinister, but to varying degrees.
**Lee:** Like, a lot of the time they're kind of half and half, but yeah, sometimes they go wildly to one end or the other.
**Chris:** It's like Nanna's Party just because do you remember where he's got his head up in the cake and you're like, because they're setting you up and you're like, I know you're setting me up for for what's obviously going to happen and then it still twists enough that you're like, no, I didn't I did not see that coming.
**Adam:** There are there are certain ones where you do feel they've gone, right, what's the most Tales of the Unexpected episode we can do? And how can we basically, how can we show, like how can we do Roald Dahl now?
**Adam:** Because it's not, you know, it just doesn't cut it anymore.
**Lee:** Yeah, so so for any of our listeners, that is probably possibly the hottest take from this episode is if you haven't seen Inside Number Nine, 100% go out and get stuck in because you've got seven series of absolute gold there.
**Chris:** Stop listening to us whatever you do and just go and press play.
**Lee:** Some of them will make you want to shut yourself in a dark room away from your family for a couple of days, but you'll still feel enriched for it, so it's all good.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Adam, would you like to tell us what you've been watching?
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** I've I well, I'll kick off with because it's now so long ago that I watched it that I could be losing memories as we speak. So, but I watched, Men,
**Adam:** which the 2022 film which is the new one, what the the latest one from Alex Garland.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Who yeah, who did Annihilation and Ex Machina and
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and what was the, yeah, but a lot a lot of movies for Chris.
**Chris:** Yep.
**Adam:** and, and Devs, that was the other thing I was trying.
**Chris:** Oh, Devs, the series. Yeah, that was really good.
**Adam:** And basically it's I definitely, Lee, it will do nothing for you because I think you would just be annoyed at the lack of because there is it's like, you've there is a message, isn't there?
**Adam:** But I'm not entirely sure how what's what you've fallen down on with it, or sort of which side you're on.
**Adam:** It's yeah, it's it's a very but it's a very strange film.
**Adam:** It they sort of bung in a bit of folk horror but that's not really important at all as far as I can sort of say with the film.
**Adam:** but basically so there's this there's a woman played by Jessie Buckley who's basically you find out fairly early on that her husband has possibly slipped, possibly killed himself by jumping off of a building.
**Adam:** and you get drip-fed basically quite early on that you realize that they're in the process of breaking up and he was just a fucking prick.
**Adam:** So you're not really that fucking bothered. you just think, well, out of it.
**Adam:** and then but she goes on holiday, obviously, like to try and sort of you know, get her head back together.
**Adam:** And ends up in this village where she is basically constantly sort of given examples of very toxic masculinity of sort of like just blokes being blokes.
**Adam:** but they're all played by Rory Kinnear.
**Adam:** which is so it's kind of is it that they are it's like there's one man.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's it and it doesn't make itself particularly clear in either camp.
**Chris:** So does she not she responds to them as if they're different, right?
**Adam:** Yeah, she never registers that they are the same person, but we the audience see this. To the point where there is a bit where she there's a there's even like a 14-year-old schoolboy who's a little prick.
**Adam:** And he's got Rory Kinnear's face.
**Adam:** So it all goes a bit fucking Aphex Twin and a bit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, to be fair, it also goes a bit Alan Partridge because there's a bit in an Alan Partridge where they on a schoolboy.
**Lee:** Do you know what? I'll fucking take it. I'm not fussed.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's.
**Adam:** It's very good, definitely worth checking it out. And like I say, just prove to yourself Roger Moore's a fucking good actor.
**Adam:** Because the cliché is there. He actually mentions James Bond in it as well.
**Adam:** They say about industrial espionage.
**Lee:** It's got to be said that literally all I know him for.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah. Was he in Cannonball Run?
**Adam:** He was in Cannonball Run, yes. Playing playing the the son of a wealthy Jewish woman who's had plastic surgery to look like Roger Moore.
**Lee:** Do you know what? Cannonball Run is another one of those.
**Lee:** I I he's only every three or four years, I think, I'm gonna watch that. And I always watch it and go, that was fucked. I need to watch the second one. And I always watch them back to back because I'm always like, I seem to remember the second one being more mental, but I can't see how it possibly could be and then I watch it and go, oh yeah, it is. Yeah. What the fuck?
**Lee:** But yeah, I mean.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** so I have finally gotten around to watching a TV show that I've heard of loads of times but I've only just managed to actually sit down and watch it.
**Lee:** Reason being, I signed up for Disney Plus this No this October, sorry, ready for Hocus Pocus 2, which I did watch and I'll cover if we have time, but it's not quite as horror as this.
**Lee:** so I finally watched 2015 Scream Queens, the TV show.
**Lee:** Did you see it, Adam?
**Adam:** I've not seen it.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** So it's Emma Roberts, and Billie Lourd, obviously who you'll know from American Horror Story.
**Lee:** it's Abigail Breslin, who is the young girl from Zombieland, and Keke Palmer, who you've also just watched in Nope.
**Lee:** And basically they are the main characters in a slasher mystery horror about a sorority house set in 2000, well, set in 2015 when it was made.
**Lee:** Yeah, but yeah, it's it's utterly fantastic.
**Lee:** I was expecting it to be entertaining, when I saw the cast, but actually it's so much better than I expected.
**Lee:** It's that.
**Adam:** See, I think I I think I got it confused because I thought it was a reality show.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Was there a reality show or something of a similar thing?
**Chris:** You could think with a name like that, there could be, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was gonna say, I didn't watch it for I don't know why I didn't watch it.
**Lee:** And it was only when I saw it on, as I say, when I got Disney Plus about two weeks.
**Chris:** Yeah, they seem to be bringing quite a few horror because because that was it was obviously the aimed at kids and Star Wars stuff.
**Chris:** Mandalorian when it first released.
**Chris:** But yeah, they seem to be adding a lot on.
**Adam:** Well, that's a lot of Hulu stuff gets released on there.
**Adam:** So I'm hoping they're gonna do the, the new Hellraiser.
**Lee:** I'm very much actually just before we started recording this evening, I just re-watched, Hellraiser Bloodline.
**Adam:** Oh, cool.
**Lee:** Which you know, a lot of people talk shit about, but I just.
**Adam:** Come and fuck off.
**Lee:** Well, I'd love to see the original cut.
**Lee:** Because apparently the original cut was 25 minutes longer and was all that backstory setting France when the box was made, which was the bit of the film that I really, so that half an hour of the film, I really liked and the rest of it was terrible, really.
**Lee:** But yes, I could definitely have done a full hour of that and then put up with the nonsense.
**Adam:** Because I think the original originally because there is also you can get you can get they've published the script.
**Adam:** Like Martin Atkins's original script, which has a lot more in it.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** But also I think I'm I'm I think I'm remembering this correctly is originally it was just gonna be linear.
**Adam:** So you wouldn't get the flashbacks to because obviously it starts on the space station and then it's like, oh, here's the history of it. And so on and yeah, they go back and they go to various times and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But I think originally it was just meant to be you saw it pass through time.
**Lee:** Yes, I you are correct.
**Lee:** I think because, so another podcast that I listened to just covered it this weekend, which is what reminded me and I was like, oh, I'm gonna listen to that.
**Lee:** Yeah. And that's what they said. It was it was supposed to be,
**Lee:** you know, it was it was gonna show that and basically jump the bits we'd already seen.
**Lee:** but yeah, I mean, yeah, but yeah, it it was it was a it was a good enough film. I quite liked it. It didn't feel too pandery. Yeah, it it it kind of ticked all the boxes had a nice time for an hour and a half. But anyway, we have on quite long enough.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** we shall be back with our next full episode, in two weeks time which will be,
**Lee:** Return of the Living Dead.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** which will be part of our punk rock horror month.
**Lee:** but in the meantime, we are gonna try and squeeze it in.
**Lee:** I'm only mentioning it because it will mean that we definitely have to do it.
**Lee:** we we all have seen Nope and wanted to discuss it, but we decided that we didn't want to squeeze it in here and and have to either cut other stuff out or give it the short shrift because.
**Lee:** Nope.
**Lee:** We'll.
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---

## Ep 152 Elvira

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-152-elvira/
Air date: 25 September 2022
Duration: 01:08:02
Film: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark · Year: 1988 · Director: James Signorelli

### Description

It’s the second feature of our ‘Camp Horror’ double bill - “Elvira: Mistress of the Dark”. A family friendly, innuendo laced film which contains an OAP orgy; the voice of Boobarella (and hundreds more) and that guy from “Ghostbusters II”/“Wayne’s World” (delete as applicable). We learn that, in a different continuum, this could have been part of a famous director’s already macabre CV, with a very stella supporting cast. And you should never work with children (written in at the Producer’s request) or animals (if they’re a psychopathic poodle). A horror/comedy that sadly failed to make Elvira a movie star, but did spread the profile of this horror icon overseas - watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I am drunkenly.
**Chris:** And I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Yes, that's right, we are here for the second part of Kemp Horror month.
**Lee:** I am drunk, which is unusual, which means you're allowed to find it funny and it's not a sign of a problem.
**Lee:** Actually, I think I've started that episode, I think I've started episodes twice like this so far in the year, but it is because I've stopped drinking and not.
**Chris:** Yeah, well that's that's a good marker really, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm doing all right.
**Lee:** I've only turned up twice out of 12 episodes or so.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I've been drunk, it's fine.
**Lee:** yes, so we are here to discuss the amazing, well, I know Adam and I find it amazing, we yet to find out Chris's opinion.
**Chris:** We might be about to find out just how transparent I am.
**Lee:** Chris sent a message to the group saying, Can't wait to talk about this film, I'm not telling you one way or the other, wink.
**Lee:** If he doesn't love this film, I'm going to be really, really fucking surprised.
**Chris:** This might be the end.
**Lee:** there there will be spoilers, there will be swearing.
**Lee:** and other than that, I I oh, one quick piece of housekeeping I did mean to mention.
**Lee:** on the last episode when we did all about evil, I mentioned that I'd first heard about the film from Patrick, and I forgot to mention, Patrick does have a podcast, I didn't realize it was still going until I went and checked it out.
**Lee:** so for anyone who's interested, scream scream queens, and it's Queens with a Z.
**Lee:** and it's Patrick and all of the LGBTQ community from New York like he's part of a big kind of.
**Adam:** All of New York.
**Lee:** Not all of them, no.
**Adam:** All right, okay.
**Lee:** He doesn't know everybody, I don't think it's, you know.
**Lee:** Oh, you're from London, do you know Mrs. Salis, it's not like that.
**Adam:** I was just thinking that's going to be, I mean we find it difficult enough with three of us.
**Lee:** Yeah, if the entire community's there.
**Lee:** They've all got to do song and dance numbers, it's a.
**Lee:** yeah, but but his podcast is, it he's, I think his tagline is, no, I can't remember what it is.
**Lee:** Oh, where horror gets gay, that was it.
**Lee:** If he changed it, it used to be where horror gets bent but he changed it to where horror gets gay.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's a fantastic show, to go and check that out.
**Lee:** I forgot to.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** After the housekeeping.
**Lee:** Chris, what did you make of Elvira?
**Chris:** Well, I'm going to have to start with the obligatory innuendo, and this film has got at least a couple of really big things going for it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** However, it has a whole lot more than just a couple, because it is pretty awesome from start to finish.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And with and with one word, Chris was safe.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** I'm going to say also, a shout out to Algonquin, another, another excellent, dog actor.
**Adam:** Oh, yes, the dog's name's Billy.
**Lee:** And he's an asshole by all accounts.

---

## Ep 151 All about Evil

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-151-all-about-evil/
Air date: 14 September 2022
Duration: 01:09:01
Film: All About Evil · Year: 2010 · Director: Peaches Christ

### Description

September features a double bill of “Camp Horror”, and we kick off with “All About Evil” directed by Joshua Grannell aka Peaches Christ. A film for movies lovers everywhere as talking on your phone in the cinema becomes a capital crime; Elvira embraces her maternal side; and Mink Stole learns the end of that rhyme about snitches. “All About Evil” always felt set to be a cult classic and deserves far greater recognition. Now, with Natasha Lyonne’s star in the ascendant, streaming on Shudder and an excellent bluray from Severin Films, hopefully more people will get to see this macabre comedy - watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here for episode 151, who'd have thought we'd have made it this far?
**Adam:** The thing is.
**Lee:** The
**Chris:** one of us maybe, but.
**Adam:** It's it it does explain why we sort of top-loaded the first 30 episodes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, yeah, after a while we got to like, we'll get round to it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** But they still keep coming, they still keep coming.
**Adam:** That's true. And reassuringly they keep making them. Yes, ones that are either worth watching or, you know, genuinely good or worth knowing about.
**Lee:** Or worth ripping to pieces because you hate them so much.
**Chris:** Oh, oh, oh, is that a hint?
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** So, definitely not for this evening's episode, we are here for the first part of our Camp Horror month with the quite frankly spectacular spoiling it already. 2010 movie All About Evil.
**Lee:** A movie that myself and Adam were marginally obsessed with when it first came out, and oh my God, does it hold up?
**Lee:** But before we get too excited, just to remind you all, there will be spoilers and there will be swearing, so buckle the fuck up, because it is coming.
**Adam:** I think, I think before we, I think before we embark on our Camp Horror.
**Adam:** thing.
**Adam:** I've just going to read this out, which is a quote from Susan Sontag, which is, so we're, we're very.
**Adam:** Very suffice on this, yeah, you know.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** defining, she had a essay notes on camp, and camp.
**Adam:** A sensibility that revels in artifice, stylisation, theatricalisation, irony, playfulness and exaggeration, rather than content.
**Adam:** Now.
**Adam:** I'm not sure about the last part, but I think it does definitely embrace the two movies that we've picked, certainly.
**Lee:** Oh, without a shadow of a doubt.
**Lee:** And I've got to say of all of my favorite sub-genres, it's this and comedy horror for me.
**Lee:** Like I love my gore and slashers and I like my real horror.
**Lee:** But comedy horror and camp horror, particularly, I just love to bits.
**Adam:** They're they're pretty much the same.
**Adam:** In many ways, you know, I think, I mean, a horror itself.
**Adam:** has a camp element anyway.
**Adam:** You know, hammer can be camp, it's anything that's sort of, because, you know, as soon as it's melodrama, that's camp, essentially, on this, certainly on that sort of quote.
**Adam:** So I think it's, it's, it's a vein that runs through it and I think that's why.
**Adam:** Certainly sort of people such as Peaches Christ embrace horror so much, you know.
**Adam:** I think it's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And and I am going to get to you Chris because obviously I want your first thoughts.
**Lee:** But just while I'm thinking of it, because you've mentioned it, yeah, one of the main things I loved about it.
**Lee:** I knew we were in for a good ride the first time we put this in the DVD player, when that title sequence started running and it was all those classic amazing movies that they switched.
**Lee:** And I was like, right, this is someone who knows what they're talking about, really cares about horror.
**Lee:** yeah, and I was like, right, this isn't just, because I think I'd heard about it from one person and they'd gone mental over it.
**Lee:** But I was like, well, it's only one person's opinion, but on person's opinions.
**Lee:** Let's jump to Chris, Chris on your first viewing.
**Lee:** What did you make of All About Evil?
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Now, it takes me a little bit to fully appreciate a slasher.
**Chris:** I think I've said that before.
**Chris:** this this has got everything going for it.
**Chris:** So now I I was trying to see who I recognized.
**Chris:** I do only recognize Natasha Lyonne.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Natasha Lyonne.
**Chris:** Yeah, Lyonne.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** yeah, from American Pie originally and or at least that's the first thing I saw in and then Russian Doll.
**Chris:** but yeah, and she always comes across as as likable but deep and slightly edgy.
**Chris:** but yeah, and so so I guess what I would like is is for both of you to to tell me it to talk about it so that yeah.
**Chris:** I think I want to fully appreciate it from your perspectives first.
**Lee:** That's fair.
**Lee:** That sounds good.
**Lee:** Adam, would you like to.
**Adam:** Well, I well on the sort of back story of it, who was it who recommended it to you, Lee?
**Adam:** Because I can't remember.
**Lee:** So I used to listen to a podcast called Drunken Zombie.
**Lee:** And they used to have a guy called Patrick who used to call in.
**Lee:** and he was mental, like seriously, he used to, when he used to do his phone ins, he used to do it walking down the street and he'd just stopped to scream at people in the street.
**Lee:** Like he was entertaining, but he was a big part of the LGBTQ scene in, New York at the time.
**Lee:** So when the film got launched, he got invited to the opening thing.
**Lee:** and he did a whole episode on it basically saying, look, me and my boyfriend got tickets, we went, we got lost on the way to the theater, it was pissing down with rain and we weren't ready, we didn't have time to eat, like, I got to the theater and couldn't have been less in the mood for the film.
**Lee:** He said, and I came away having one of the greatest cinema experiences of my life because it was, the film was outstanding.
**Lee:** And all the hype and everything that went on with it was phenomenal.
**Lee:** And he just raved about it so much and obviously he mentioned that Mink Stole was in it and Cassandra Peterson was in it.
**Lee:** and I was like, oh my God.
**Lee:** Like I need to get hold of this.
**Lee:** and it was still in a pre-order situation, so I pre-ordered it.
**Chris:** So.
**Lee:** yeah, and when it turned up, I I held on to it for two days because I was like I can't watch it without Dean and Adam.
**Lee:** But I was like, oh, I can't wait, yeah, and that first time of just us sitting down and cracking a beer and watching it was like.
**Chris:** Right, so let me let me interject slightly then, so why, I don't know why, I'm slightly uncomfortable with it.
**Chris:** So because it's got everything going for it and I just can't tell if it's just me.
**Chris:** almost like if I watched it a few times, but is it something about the fact that they're kind of meant to be real.
**Chris:** Well, I mean, they they are real in the film, what's happening.
**Chris:** But so I don't know if that somehow puts me slightly.
**Adam:** What, what you can't quite g for them as they are, the murders.
**Chris:** Well, or just the whole idea of of
**Chris:** You know, potentially snuff films seems odd.
**Adam:** It's it's certainly one that you it's it was weird because someone asked what film we were doing next.
**Adam:** And I explained it was all about evil.
**Adam:** And it was, oh, and then I was like, oh, it's all about evil and I then realized probably a lot of people don't know the film.
**Adam:** So I put in a little explanation and it was like.
**Adam:** Oh, it's like a black comedy about a cinema owner who starts making their own snuff films.
**Adam:** And it was at that point that I thought, that really doesn't sound like a comedy.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** It sounds like a film you didn't.
**Chris:** But that's it, that's it. So that that's the bit that's.
**Adam:** I didn't.
**Chris:** But that's it. So so the actual the film is enjoyable, but it's somehow just that feels like it's hard for me to fully get over that as a, you know, a slogan for it.
**Adam:** Maybe that's, maybe that's where the.
**Adam:** The element of camp comes in, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah, so absolutely.
**Chris:** So that like if if it wasn't, I think I would probably hate it.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** The absurdity of it is what sells it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In that sense.
**Lee:** I I loved that that absurdity and the fact it's such an original idea.
**Lee:** You know, a lot of independent filmmakers, as we've said before.
**Lee:** We'll take kind of very well-trodden stories for their kind of first attempt.
**Lee:** whereas this just felt so original and so fresh.
**Lee:** yeah, and that was what I loved about it.
**Lee:** And it's it is a very dark tale, as you say, if you if you think about it on paper, but it's handled so well and with such a a great level of comedy.
**Lee:** yeah, that I just, I I I loved every minute of it, and I still.
**Adam:** See.
**Adam:** See, I think, because also around, around the time that you got this.
**Adam:** Because I I remember you actually, because you you had to sort of explain it to us.
**Adam:** And obviously, you mentioned, like Peaches Christ who wrote and directed it.
**Adam:** and didn't, didn't you get a letter.
**Adam:** When you ordered it, Lee, like because it was obviously from.
**Lee:** Direct from her, wasn't it?
**Adam:** Or like from her website.
**Lee:** It was no, no, no, that was that was a different one from someone else.
**Lee:** but yeah, I think when I pre-ordered it, it was supposed to come with like a signed copy of the poster or something as part of the pre-order.
**Lee:** which unfortunately didn't.
**Lee:** So I was a bit put out about that, but.
**Lee:** But then I enjoyed the film so much that I genuinely was like, you know what, I have.
**Chris:** Forgive that.
**Lee:** I have had my money's worth out of this DVD over the years because I think this must have been the maybe the dozenth time that I've seen it.
**Lee:** Which is why I was most surprised when I told Jennifer about it and she went, yeah, that doesn't sound familiar at all.
**Lee:** So she sat down and watched it with me tonight.
**Lee:** and absolutely loved it, but she did say, it does give teachers a bad name, because that Miss Morehouse, is her name, is an absolute prick.
**Adam:** Was her.
**Lee:** Was her exact words.
**Adam:** That that's prob, that's probably weirdly enough the only bit of this that sort of works to a different time or gives you an insight into a different time.
**Adam:** where that is seen as an absurd thing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas now it would be, no, genuinely do make sure you've intervened on this, because, you know, school shootings are now a thing.
**Adam:** I mean, not not to put horrible sort of moments into it or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But apparently that is the number one cause of teenage death in America these days.
**Adam:** Above accidents, drugs, anything else, yeah, that is the most likely reason.
**Adam:** So I think now it would probably not, that bit would probably not be as overdone.
**Adam:** Even though it is the whole thing about, if you like horror films, you must be a weirdo.
**Lee:** You must be a weirdo.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's the it's kind of like the Satanic Panic thing and stuff like that where it's like you play Dungeons and Dragons, therefore.
**Adam:** It's the same reason that.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I can't remember which is which Toy Story, there's a toy shop that won't sell Harry Potter because it's like Harry Potter stuff, because it's.
**Adam:** It's yeah, the entertainer will not sell Harry Potter stuff because their owner is like hardline Christian and is like it's magic and wizards and stuff, so it's the dark arts.
**Chris:** So it's like corrupting, yeah.
**Adam:** It's satanic, yeah, so.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** Not only that.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** Not not only that, but also call yourself a businessman.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah, let's ignore one of like the the most successful fucking franchises.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, but anyway, I mean, but that's sort of beside the point.
**Adam:** But, but I remember when we, when we watched this.
**Adam:** Now, here's the thing.
**Adam:** I would, I would have at the drop of a hat recommended this film to anyone.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I yesterday was literally the second time ever that I've seen it.
**Adam:** I've only seen it once at yours, Lee, because I couldn't get hold of a copy of the DVD.
**Adam:** Because it was a fairly limited run and it was gone.
**Adam:** Basically.
**Adam:** I think, I think at one point I did see because it was one of those things where it was like, oh yeah, all about evil.
**Adam:** No, I'll I'll get that because I'll watch that again.
**Adam:** And by then, I think there was copies changing hands for sort of inflated prices and it was like, oh, well, you know, didn't see the thing.
**Adam:** and so the fact that they've released a Blu-ray, Seven have released this on Blu-ray, it's fantastic and it's on Shutter.
**Adam:** So more people hopefully will see this.
**Lee:** I'm definitely going to pick up the Blu-ray of it, because I've still got the original DVD copy that I've got.
**Lee:** Which, I mean, which is it's fantastic quality for a lower budget release.
**Lee:** but yeah, if it's on Blu-ray, I will absolutely be getting hold of that.
**Adam:** this couple.
**Adam:** Yeah, getting quick, it's got the soundtrack on CD with it.
**Adam:** and, like loads of, it's got the extras that were on the DVD that you've got and additional stuff as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so, and it's all pretty good and it looks it looks great as well.
**Adam:** But I think at the time, particularly Dean and then and through Dean, I was getting into John Waters' stuff.
**Adam:** And again, we were bringing them around to you, Lee, so we.
**Adam:** And that is definitely how I feel All About Evil is.
**Adam:** Is it feels like a John Waters film.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** I I ended up, when I was watching it, I ended up with like a load of sort of fantasy double bills in my head of what you could pair this with.
**Adam:** And one of them was Be demented.
**Lee:** Yeah, without a doubt.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That.
**Adam:** That which is probably on an equal pegging with Female Trouble being my favorite John Waters movie.
**Adam:** So, Be demented is the story of a director who kidnaps an actress.
**Adam:** In like a famous but sort of not doing anything worthy actress and forces her to make good films.
**Adam:** It's like they're basically like an artistic terrorist movement.
**Adam:** And I think actually that.
**Chris:** That's another idea.
**Lee:** It's funny you.
**Lee:** I was going to say Jennifer said exactly the same, she was like, this would be a perfect double film bill with Popcorn.
**Lee:** And I was like, that's another one of my favorites.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, you have mentioned that a few times.
**Adam:** I also think because of the classic sort of like the classic nature that Debora is going for, I mean, that's that's just immediately fantastic.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I get the feeling that that was either someone they knew or it was a joke that sort of was the basis of why she's called Deborah.
**Adam:** Because there was no, it's Debora.
**Adam:** but I like like she makes sort of stuff that's.
**Adam:** Obviously like very, a lot of it is historically set, supposedly.
**Adam:** And so again, the other thing I was thinking you pair it with is Theatre of Blood.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know, because I think in a very similar and even the fact you end up with a rooftop like demont at the end sort of would feel very Theatre of Blood as well.
**Adam:** And again, I think it's like Theatre of Blood where it's that that has that sensibility where you're like.
**Adam:** Yeah, that if this was real life.
**Adam:** This is ghastly people.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's not real life, so we can enjoy this, and it's just fucking mad.
**Lee:** It's one of those fantastic movies to enjoy with like.
**Lee:** I've seen this film probably seven or eight times on my own.
**Lee:** But it is a great group watch.
**Lee:** It is one of those.
**Chris:** So that's it, that's what I was thinking.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely, I think it would have worked fantastically well.
**Lee:** Get a few of you together, a few too many beers, chuck this on, it is absolutely perfect.
**Lee:** yeah, and it's a it's a lovely short film as well, it's, you know, hour and 39 or whatever.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And the story moves along really nicely, it doesn't have any slow bits, it doesn't feel rushed any time.
**Lee:** It's just, yeah, it's just.
**Chris:** The characters are all great.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It gets, yeah, it gets it gets into the premise quickly and doesn't even let up.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, it's very true.
**Adam:** There's there's almost like a jump scare where it's like, Deborah, Mr. Twig, like cover up the murder of her mom.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then the next thing you know, oh, we'll drug this one because she was annoying.
**Adam:** You know, which is.
**Adam:** But it's a conversation that's obviously taken place off screen.
**Chris:** But you don't see anything cuts up to that.
**Adam:** You don't see anything that cuts up to that.
**Adam:** but I like that, yeah, like you say, it just gets on with it.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** And also it just.
**Chris:** It seems to do everything right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Maybe I think it's again, it's one of those things where I think if it's if it hits if it hits you on the wrong note or whatever like that, I think it could be.
**Adam:** Because I know like I watched the making of, which is got Joshua Granelle, aka Peaches Christ.
**Adam:** and the producer and the majority of the actors are in it.
**Adam:** And also that that completely threw me because the one thing I was going all the way through.
**Adam:** Was because I was trying to remember who, Stephen was like because I was like, I know you from fucking something.
**Lee:** Oh, Sarah Connor Chronicles.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
**Adam:** And I was like, oh, yeah, that finally that penny dropped but only afterwards.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** He was also, he was brilliant in, he was in a show for, I think it was a Netflix original called Backstrom, which was, which was basically him living with a slightly mental detective, who was played by the guy who gets turned into a fish from House of 1000 Corpses.
**Adam:** Oh, Bill.
**Lee:** Hader.
**Lee:** Yeah, I can't remember his name at the moment.
**Lee:** I've only got one screen, unfortunately.
**Lee:** But yeah, and and that's a fantastic, that was another one when I saw it and I was like, oh, man, that was such a great series.
**Lee:** But they just did the one and and didn't go back to it, unfortunately.
**Adam:** Yeah, Thomas Decker, who plays Steven.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Who is also in, I've never seen it, but he plays David McGowan in John Carpenter's remake of Village of the Damned.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** so he must be like the main creepy kid.
**Adam:** At Midwich.
**Adam:** And he's in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.
**Lee:** Oh, he's he's the main character, I believe in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.
**Lee:** Which, yeah, I don't worry.
**Lee:** Thomas Tecker, I'm not holding that against you.
**Adam:** But but obviously because I mean it's funny, it's funny that you said obviously you recognized Natasha Lyonne, Chris, Mink Stole, who played Evelyn, the like the librarian who gets her lip song shot.
**Adam:** She is a John Waters regular, John Waters basically had a has a repertoire a repertoire company, essentially.
**Lee:** Oh, that's the last thing they.
**Lee:** Are we reputable?
**Adam:** Oh, that's yeah.
**Adam:** Not reputable.
**Adam:** yeah, they're called the Dreamlanders.
**Adam:** Because of John Waters does John Waters' Dreamlands Productions.
**Adam:** So she's in loads of
**Adam:** She's in most, I think, I think she's been pretty much every John Waters film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Give or take.
**Adam:** But so but she's also in but I'm a cheerleader with Natasha Lyonne.
**Adam:** and she was on like Married With Children, so she sort of does stuff here and there.
**Adam:** But really she's it's for John Waters that she's known.
**Adam:** So she was definitely a familiar face when watching it.
**Adam:** Me and Lee both already had an obsession with Natasha Lyonne.
**Adam:** I mean, with me, it was mostly because of Confessions of a Trick Baby.
**Adam:** which is just a a fucking mental film.
**Adam:** it's actually, it's actually the sequel to a kind of the sequel to a film called Freeway.
**Adam:** which is basically Red Riding Hood told through the prism of like a trashy, true crime movie.
**Adam:** basically Reese Witherspoon gets picked up by, a predatory nonce played by, Keith Sutherland.
**Adam:** and rather than like get Granny eaten, she just takes his gun off him and puts him in a fucking wheelchair.
**Adam:** But he's still coming after her, even though he is like, covered in reconstructive surgery stuff.
**Adam:** And Confessions of a Trick Baby, Natasha Lyonne plays a character called White Girl and, basically she ends up escaping from.
**Adam:** what's the a juvenile hall where she's like, she's an American cult store.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** like her, and basically she escapes and goes on a lesbian killing spree with, another inmate and it's, yeah, again.
**Adam:** Very fucked up, very John Watersy.
**Adam:** And it's sort of, yeah, it's a trajectory where you feel like, I can see why All About Evil sort of is definitely in in her wheelhouse, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But the other name that you probably, you, did you recognize Stephen's mom?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** You will after their next episode.
**Chris:** Come on.
**Chris:** I won't.
**Adam:** That was Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** That's.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Which is funny that he had the poster above the bed of Elvira.
**Adam:** Funny or questionable because it does suggest he's not one out of his got money.
**Chris:** Well.
**Adam:** And I'll leave it there.
**Chris:** But so so how many references were actually in this in total?
**Adam:** I think there's only that, that's the only Elvira reference that he's just got the poster.
**Adam:** But but oddly enough, that's right for his room.
**Adam:** He's got all the horror modern model stuff and the other horror film posters and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Elvira's Elvira would be an obvious thing in there, even if Cassandra Peterson wasn't in the film.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Chris:** So when was when was Elvira big, what was?
**Adam:** I'm not even.
**Adam:** Going to rise to that.
**Chris:** No, okay.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** so I I think Elvira's mainstay was in the eighties.
**Lee:** Again, it was that thing of they had a they had a late night slot and they had lots of films that were public domain, but just whacking on some old black and white horror movies didn't necessarily get the audience in.
**Lee:** So they were like, well if we get a host.
**Adam:** It's a tradition, isn't it? It's a it's a very we've spoken about it before the American tradition of you had horror hosts.
**Adam:** But Elvira was Elvira was the sort of in the eighties and nineties was the recognized horror host.
**Adam:** And yeah, so, but I mean, obviously, I mean, she's still, I mean, she's still out there, she's still presenting and doing this and that and everything else like that.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** and yeah, I mean, sort of but like I say, I mean, obviously, we'll get more into that next week when we cover Mistress of the Dark.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I have to say, she's fucking good in this because there is not a hint of Elvira.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Adam:** You know, this if you.
**Adam:** Well, here's that is actually that is brilliant because that is my proof of concept.
**Adam:** Chris has watched this and just thought there's an actress playing someone in a drag.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And didn't.
**Chris:** Not at all.
**Adam:** Which is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Not not that I mean I often don't recognize people very well, so I may not be the perfect here, but yeah, no, it's funny how that. I mean, reminds me of Marilyn Monroe.
**Chris:** There was there was a story about her on the underground and she was not dressed up as that and as she would normally be, nobody noticed her, and she's talking to this reporter, and then she gets off, steps out into New York City, and just starts doing her moves, and suddenly she's people are clambering around her and she's like, oh yeah, she's now become this, everyone recognizes her.
**Chris:** But when she's just being normal, she can get away with it.
**Chris:** It's like it's funny how that.
**Adam:** Well, I think.
**Chris:** It's it's it's noticing the characteristics.
**Adam:** I think it's but yeah, I think certainly in terms of like Elvira, Elvira is a costume.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's not it's not even like an image or something like that.
**Adam:** You know, you you can probably see Keanu Reeves walk around and he might look like John Wick.
**Adam:** Or he might look like Constantine or whatever.
**Adam:** But yeah, Elvira out of the costume is utterly un-Elvira.
**Lee:** Yeah, it just goes to show you how much of a character she'd created.
**Lee:** So as you say, it isn't just the look, it's actually she created this entire persona.
**Adam:** Persona.
**Adam:** Essentially, it's drag.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's much.
**Adam:** In the same way she you like, for example, obviously Peaches Christ is in the film.
**Lee:** Looking amazing, I've got to say.
**Lee:** Like just.
**Adam:** But you would not necessarily recognize her out of drag.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Because but apparently when I was watching the making of, like, Joshua Grenelle, Peaches Christ, whichever you want to go.
**Adam:** I mean, that's he it's Joshua Grenelle is who's the credited director.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, and Peaches Christ is a credited character.
**Adam:** So it's yeah.
**Adam:** but apparently when they were making it, he, would, obviously if he's playing.
**Adam:** he's the only one who can do the Peaches Christ makeup.
**Adam:** Like, you know, drag queens do their own look.
**Adam:** and so if he was playing, if he was going to be on set as Peaches Christ in the film, he would have to come in in full makeup.
**Adam:** Not the not the dress and the hair, but in the makeup.
**Adam:** Yeah, and so they said it was a very weird experience filming it.
**Adam:** Because the makeup looks disdainful, it's like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like, it's naturally done to look slightly sneery.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And loads of the actors said, we really lost confidence if he was ever in the makeup, because we were he he immediately looked like that.
**Chris:** It feels like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** I was trying to work out.
**Lee:** How tall Joshua Grenelle must be, because there's a point at which he's clearly, obviously, when he's as Peaches Christ with the massive wig on and the heels.
**Lee:** But there's a point where she's standing in the door of the and everybody else is coming through and is, you know, sort of a third of the door up and she has to duck to get under the door.
**Lee:** And I was like, he's got to be a really tall dude before he before he goes into change because he's just, yeah, massive.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** And you've got Heckle, who is another San Francisco drag queen.
**Adam:** In there as well.
**Adam:** Who is named after, the Icelandic volcano.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** That we talked about in the Northman.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But like Peaches Christ, so.
**Adam:** Peaches Christ is like quite big in the San Francisco, is big in the drag drag scene in San Francisco and all over, really.
**Adam:** but hosted a thing called Midnight Mass for 12 years, which was like a, basically it was showing cult and excuse me.
**Adam:** Showing like cult cinema and, like modern and old.
**Adam:** Mostly like a lot of horror films, obviously.
**Adam:** And getting guests into talks like have guests like Mink Stole and Elvira, but also like Linda Blair, RuPaul.
**Adam:** Mary Warhoff and John and John John Waters and sort of like were all guests there.
**Adam:** And yeah, basically that ran for about 12 years and was like a massive regular sort of thing in San Francisco.
**Adam:** And he he still now does a horror house every Halloween.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** And apparently like Peaches Christ's horror house is some of the best ones on the on the scene.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And yeah, and Midnight Mass is now the name of Peaches Christ's podcast.
**Adam:** Which is basically the same thing, they just go through, they do what we do, watch old movies and talk about them.
**Lee:** Oh, I will be listening to that next week.
**Adam:** Well, fun, funnily enough, I did notice that one of them was the launch party episode for this.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** for all about evil, I listen to that and that was really, that was really good.
**Adam:** And it had on there like the composer and oh, and the the guy who plays the school principal.
**Adam:** Who in the because there's a short film that Peaches Christ made called Grindhouse, which is and that was pre Tarantino Rodriguez.
**Adam:** And and which is basically the plot of this, but it was like a short that it was like he he describes it as a proof of concept.
**Adam:** That it's almost just like, right.
**Adam:** I've got this idea, but actually I can do more with this idea.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I think it was just it's it's but it that is included on the Blu-ray as well.
**Lee:** I'll definitely be that up in the week.
**Adam:** The the person who plays the principal in All About Evil plays the mother in because here's Drag Queen, no, real name.
**Adam:** what is it is it Spence, but what is it it's come on.
**Adam:** Timmy Spence, thank God for that because I was going to say Jimmy.
**Adam:** So, but Timmy Spence, whose drag queen name apparently was Lois Turd.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, yeah, and yeah, really sort of there's a lot of, I think there's the nurse in this played the original Debora.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** Natasha Lyonne actually got the job because she was in a film called Slums of Beverly Hills.
**Lee:** She she's done quite a lot, hasn't she? She has done a ton.
**Adam:** I've got I've, well, I've got the, I've got the details here, so.
**Adam:** First major acting first acting role was the age of six in Pee-wee's Playhouse and her first major film role was a 1996 film Woody Allen's, everyone says I love you, at the age of 16. Like many child stars, she drifted into alcohol and drugs at an early age, consistently working, but more often attracting press for run ins with the law than the films she was in.
**Adam:** She eventually became addicted to opiates and slowly began to see parts becoming less frequent, often due to erratic with her often erratic behavior blamed.
**Adam:** In 2005, after a downward progression, a heroin addiction, and eventual homelessness, she was admitted to hospital for a collapsed lung, hepatitis C, and a heart infection.
**Adam:** while she was in hospital, she missed a court appearance over an alleged assault, and, basically was going to go to jail.
**Adam:** but she managed to avoid this by opting into the court appointed rehab program, which sort of got her off got her off the smack.
**Adam:** and then but she was really close friends with Chloe Saveni.
**Chris:** So say when did you say when did you say this was?
**Adam:** That was 2005.
**Chris:** Five.
**Adam:** And then, Chloe Saveni sort of like encouraged her to to keep trying to do stuff, you know, to do more, you know, go get back on the horse.
**Chris:** That's Yeah.
**Chris:** I guess she's clearly.
**Adam:** Because she'd done a lot of stuff.
**Adam:** She'd done a lot of amazing things.
**Chris:** She's clearly got skills and.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** While while she was, you know, while she was
**Adam:** battling addiction issues and stuff like that, she was she was still working, she was still in quite a few films.
**Adam:** And yeah, so she sort of went back most through stage and then got more film and TV roles and stuff like that.
**Lee:** I sort of get the impression that that she almost brings.
**Lee:** Her real life philosophy to her characters sometimes, not not specifically but yeah.
**Lee:** It's like it's interesting how it it feels like you're getting something real from her.
**Adam:** Then in 2012, she actually had to have open heart surgery because of the amount of damage that the drugs had done to her.
**Adam:** And yeah, I mean it's, I mean, it's she's a tough bastard.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's very, it's quite Deadpool, you know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Very quite Deadpool, you know.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think so you've got that.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, yeah, anyway, but yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, but it's still.
**Adam:** But it's still, it's still.
**Adam:** And she's in a remake of a bucket of blood.
**Adam:** Which is one of the films that does get mentioned in this, because I think they that's one of the posters at the start.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Because like you said.
**Lee:** You like.
**Adam:** That.
**Lee:** That's a remake of Bucket of Blood.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's the one he's in, the the remake, the, 1995 TV remake, apparently.
**Lee:** Oh, I don't.
**Lee:** I must have it.
**Lee:** I need to rewatch the original, I saw that I saw that once when I went through a period when I first kind of suddenly realized that I liked black and white horror that wasn't the original stuff.
**Lee:** Like I suddenly started picking up on the 50s and 60s stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah, and just went through a spate of just watching tons of them.
**Lee:** yeah, and I watched it then, but again, I watched so many at that time, they all kind of blended into into one, unfortunately.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I should take it back off the shelf and give it another go.
**Adam:** You said.
**Adam:** Patrick Bristow.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Did you say that?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** He's in Samera and X-Men, did you see that?
**Lee:** Because I hadn't.
**Lee:** I was.
**Lee:** I didn't.
**Adam:** Oh, I see.
**Adam:** I remember.
**Adam:** I think he was, yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes, I think he was.
**Adam:** Yes, he was.
**Adam:** I think he was in it.
**Lee:** okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes he was.
**Adam:** No, I think he was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah, he was in it.
**Adam:** No, he was.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** So I definitely do think he was.
**Lee:** That's good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think he was.
**Adam:** I definitely think he was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes, I'm pretty sure he was.
**Lee:** That's interesting.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was in it.
**Adam:** Yeah, he was definitely in it.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes, he was.
**Adam:** Yes, I know for a fact he was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** I'm pretty sure.
**Adam:** I'm pretty sure he was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was in it.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, he was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** I'm pretty sure.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
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**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
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**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
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**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
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**Adam:** Yes.
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**Adam:** Yes.
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**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
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**Adam:** Yes.
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**Adam:** Yes.
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**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
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**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
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**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
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**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
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**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
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**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
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**Adam:** He was.
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**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
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**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He was.
**Lee:** Okay.

---

## Ep 150 Goth

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-150-goth/
Air date: 28 August 2022
Duration: 01:22:24

### Description

Something a bit different for this, our 150th episode, as Lee, Chris and Adam pit their wits against each other in a game of “Goth - The Game of Horror Trivia”. A board game originally published by McNutty Games in 2002; this was a mainstay of Saturday nights for all the cool kids before podcasting came along (well, Lee, Adam and Lady Jennifer anyway). So, will Chris romp to victory with all the trivia he’s amassed over the past 149 episodes? Will Adam reveal the depths of his ignorance without his notes in front of him? Will Lee be unfairly penalised by Quiz Master Jennifer, as is traditional? Join us and find out.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Jennifer:** And I'm Jennifer, your host this evening.
**Lee:** Ooh, a bit like Elvira.
**Adam:** Quizmaster.
**Lee:** Indeed. Eddie Munson.
**Lee:** so as promised for this special 150th episode, we are going to be playing the board game Goth.
**Lee:** just to let you know what we're going to be doing is when the questions are asked, there was going to be a 15 second limit on how long we've got to answer.
**Lee:** and we are going to give the keep the first five seconds silence, so even if we know it immediately, we're going to try and remember to not blurt out the answer.
**Lee:** So that if you're playing along at home, you can shout it out for yourself or make a little note if you remembered it.
**Lee:** so the board game works as such.
**Lee:** you roll the dice, you move that many spaces and you then answer a question based on the number that you rolled.
**Lee:** So if you rolled one, the question is Movie Mayhem.
**Lee:** Two is Alchemy, which is miscellaneous.
**Lee:** Three is Music Macabre.
**Lee:** Four is Bloody Tales.
**Lee:** Five is Stiffs, which is the difficult questions.
**Lee:** And if you roll a six, you get to choose your own category.
**Adam:** Stiffs is death, basically.
**Lee:** Oh, is it?
**Adam:** It's famous deaths, unusual deaths and I think that's where you get a lot of stuff like serial killer questions and things.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think you're right.
**Adam:** Stiffs as in bodies, not as in tough questions.
**Lee:** so you move anti-clockwise around the board.
**Lee:** the aim of the game is to get 13 gravestones in your grave plot, so the first one to 13 wins.
**Lee:** As well as the regular squares, there are also grave robbing squares where you can take a grave from someone else.
**Lee:** there are full moon squares where it's the fastest person to answer.
**Lee:** what we're going to do is rather than blurt the answers out again to give you all a chance, if we know the answer, we're going to shout our own name and then Jennifer is going to say who shouted their name first and we will then answer.
**Lee:** and dead are the other squares, if you land on a dead square then you miss a turn.
**Lee:** if you land on somebody else's corner, so you all have your own corner, if you land on somebody else's corner stone, they get to choose your, question for you, so if Chris lands on mine, I can give him a subject that I know he's particularly bad at or, you know, and that's how it works.
**Adam:** Or it'd be nice and give me one that I'm good at.
**Lee:** It will, yeah, it is also true.
**Lee:** We'll see how it goes.
**Adam:** A lot of that, he doesn't understand board games despite playing them many years.
**Lee:** A lot of it comes down to who, who grave robs from who. It gets very spiteful, but we'll see.
**Lee:** so as we're all playing remotely, Lady Jennifer is going to be this evening rolling the dice and asking the questions and putting in the gravestones, et cetera.
**Lee:** So we can all yeah, do it.
**Chris:** So it's a very nice looking board, isn't it? It's looks like it's well produced.
**Lee:** It is. Oh, it's, it's great fun.
**Lee:** As I say, Adam and myself and Jennifer and my brother Dean, yeah, went through a stage of playing it for months.
**Lee:** We were playing it pretty much every week on a Saturday night, we'd get together, have a few beers and a catch up on the week and then we'd get stuck into a game of golf.
**Chris:** Oh, so now of course you should have memorized most of the questions by now.
**Lee:** There are hundreds of cards.
**Lee:** Each one with six questions and they're double sided, so there are literally thousands of questions in there.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And we attempted as we were, after we said we were going to play this again and brought the board down, we were good and only played a couple of games just to remember the rules and we didn't we didn't get into a habit of playing it every night for a week and then possibly remembering all the questions.
**Lee:** That would be cheating.
**Jennifer:** There is one rule just to remind you that you haven't mentioned, so that's the Groundskeeper rule.
**Jennifer:** So if you roll the dice and you end up landing on someone else, so where their playing pieces, then basically the original occupier steals a gravestone from you.
**Jennifer:** So you don't want to land on anyone, obviously you have no choice in it, because there's nowhere else you can go other than around the board.
**Jennifer:** But just to let you know.
**Lee:** we will be posting pictures of the board and the gravestones and the things just so you've got more of an idea of what it is we're actually doing.
**Lee:** Yes, oh and Grave Robber.
**Lee:** I can never remember Jennifer, with the Grave Robber, if you grave rob, is that the end of your go or do you still get another go?
**Jennifer:** so yes, so basically if you land on the Grave Robber square, you automatically steal a grave from whoever you would like to.
**Jennifer:** So this is where, you know, alliances come into play and obviously if you've been a bit mean and stolen someone else's, they'll probably steal yours back.
**Jennifer:** but yes, you don't then get a go and a question, so.
**Jennifer:** and the only last bit of that rule is you can't do that for your 13th gravestone.
**Jennifer:** So basically you can't win by Grave Robbing.
**Jennifer:** you have to actually answer a question for that one.
**Jennifer:** If we get that far this evening in our time limit that we have set ourselves.
**Lee:** yes, so it's it's the first one to 13, but we are going to be setting a one hour timer when we start.
**Lee:** so at the end of the hour, whoever is winning, will win, and if not, we will have a head to head question or head to head questions until it gets resolved.
**Lee:** And I think that is everything.
**Jennifer:** final thing, we need to pick colours.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Jennifer:** So, Chris, as you haven't played before, I'll let you choose the colour of your playing piece first.
**Jennifer:** You can be black, white, blue or red.
**Chris:** Oh, I'll go for white.
**Jennifer:** White and I'm going to pop you there on that bit right there and I'm just going to make a note of that because I forget part way through normally who's which colour.
**Jennifer:** Adam, as you are also, you know, guest as it were.
**Adam:** can you guess?
**Jennifer:** Black, black like the night.
**Adam:** Black as a raven's wing.
**Jennifer:** Brilliant.
**Jennifer:** So Adam is over there.
**Jennifer:** Lee?
**Lee:** I shall be red please.
**Jennifer:** Red like blood.
**Adam:** Red for filth.
**Jennifer:** Lovely.
**Jennifer:** So probably just see there everyone is on the board.
**Jennifer:** There we go. Okay.
**Jennifer:** Right, everyone ready? Everyone limbo it up, done your stretches?
**Adam:** Let me open my can of Prosecco and.
**Jennifer:** Oh, excellent. It's a party.
**Lee:** It is a celebration.
**Lee:** Jennifer and I may have a wine break at some point halfway through and let Adam entertain people for two minutes while we run downstairs and top up our wine, so just to warn you.
**Adam:** Is that top, is that liquid wine or are you just going to be sitting there for two minutes going?
**Lee:** No, oh yeah, as a warning, the dog is in with Jennifer, and he's a husky, so he does whine, so if you suddenly hear wolf-like noises, we're not piping the sounds in, it is genuinely the dog.
**Jennifer:** I'm hoping he's going to join in when we do our full moon.
**Jennifer:** Chris obviously might not know this, so we'll leave it as a little surprise what happens when Full Moon is announced.
**Lee:** Oh,
**Lee:** Right.
**Jennifer:** Right, so again I'm going to let Chris go first as he is new to the game.
**Lee:** I will start the one hour timer now.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Jennifer:** Chris, you've rolled five, you lucky person.
**Jennifer:** and you go counterclockwise around the board.
**Jennifer:** One, two, three, four, five.
**Jennifer:** Nice boring square.
**Chris:** Looks like, yeah, a bit of a plain square that one.
**Jennifer:** Bit of a plain square, that's good for starting.
**Jennifer:** so that means I'm going to ask you the fifth question on the card.
**Jennifer:** So, just a reminder, I'll read the question, Lee will start the timer, and then answer when you are ready.
**Jennifer:** So,
**Jennifer:** Who released the LPs, 'Butchered at Birth' and 'Tomb of the Mutilated' with the original cover art banned in several countries?
**Jennifer:** An LP is a record.
**Chris:** I think I may have to pass on that one.
**Jennifer:** No passing, guess a band.
**Chris:** Guess any band.
**Lee:** You can pass.
**Jennifer:** No, it's more fun if everyone has to give an answer.
**Jennifer:** Even if it's stupid.
**Lee:** He's way over the 15 seconds now, though.
**Jennifer:** Chris, your final answer.
**Chris:** Sisters of Mercy.
**Jennifer:** Good guess.
**Jennifer:** It is not, it was Cannibal Corpse.
**Chris:** it's obvious when you say it, yeah.
**Lee:** I actually knew that one.
**Adam:** Did you, well done.
**Lee:** Yeah, no.
**Jennifer:** Okay, so Adam, you have rolled one.
**Jennifer:** So, you are getting the first one on here, which is, I've forgotten what the numbers are.
**Adam:** Right. Oh, sorry, that's Movie Mayhem.
**Lee:** Don't worry, just read the question.
**Jennifer:** So, 'Sadomasochists From Beyond The Grave' was the original title for what 1987 film?
**Adam:** Hellraiser, I know it.
**Jennifer:** Oh, he's straight in there.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Jennifer:** Didn't give the five seconds.
**Adam:** I apologize. It's burning in the fun. I might be wrong though, because I don't know.
**Jennifer:** You are correct.
**Jennifer:** It is indeed Hellraiser.
**Jennifer:** popping a little grave in there, first tombstone for Adam, well done Adam.
**Jennifer:** Right, Lee.
**Jennifer:** You have rolled a three.
**Jennifer:** and unfortunately, you have landed on the dead square.
**Lee:** Fucking hell, what a start.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Back to Chris.
**Jennifer:** Chris is rolling a three.
**Jennifer:** Oh, and Chris is also on a dead square. I'm doing well with my rolling.
**Jennifer:** And Adam.
**Jennifer:** Oh, now this is tricky.
**Jennifer:** So Adam is landing on Chris, but also the dead square.
**Jennifer:** So I guess we do the Groundskeeper rule, which means that.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Jennifer:** So that means Chris nicks your gravestone.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Jennifer:** So it's all going on, it's all happening.
**Jennifer:** Right, back around again.
**Jennifer:** So Chris.
**Jennifer:** Five, one, two, three, four, five.
**Jennifer:** So,
**Jennifer:** Are you ready?
**Jennifer:** So another Stiffs question.
**Jennifer:** what electro band play songs entitled 'Dead Stars', 'Stalker', and 'Feedback'?
**Chris:** Well, I'm pleased it's another music question.
**Chris:** So an electro band.
**Jennifer:** I think you might actually have listened to these but you might not have because I might have it wrong.
**Lee:** 15 seconds is out, I'm afraid.
**Chris:** Velvet Acid Christ.
**Jennifer:** Oh, nice, but no.
**Jennifer:** It is Covenant.
**Jennifer:** Nope, never heard of?
**Chris:** I've heard of them. I don't think I've ever listened to any of them.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Adam:** Just you mentioned Velvet Acid Christ.
**Chris:** There's some things buried deep somewhere.
**Jennifer:** Okay Adam, you've rolled a six.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Does that mean I jump on Chris again?
**Chris:** Oh!
**Chris:** You like doing this, don't you?
**Jennifer:** Five. Oh, you do, but as you've got no grave to give up, it doesn't really matter.
**Adam:** No.
**Jennifer:** So that's, that's kind of a bonus really.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** Lee.
**Jennifer:** Lee is moving one to a Grave Robber.
**Lee:** Oh no.
**Lee:** Yep, well, it's going to have to be Chris 'cause he's the only one who's got a grave.
**Lee:** Sorry, Chris.
**Adam:** He is.
**Chris:** That is, that is just nasty.
**Jennifer:** Oh, my only grave.
**Jennifer:** Oh, there you go.
**Jennifer:** Right, back around to Chris.
**Jennifer:** Chris has rolled a six.
**Jennifer:** One, two, three, four, five, six.
**Jennifer:** So that means because you get to choose which number question you would like.
**Chris:** Oh, I guess we'll go for Movie Mayhem.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** Give the names of George Romero's Dead Trilogy in order.
**Chris:** Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Living Dead.
**Chris:** I don't know the third.
**Jennifer:** Very close.
**Adam:** We haven't, we haven't covered number three.
**Jennifer:** You could probably guess what comes after Dawn.
**Chris:** Day of the Living Dead.
**Jennifer:** Yay!
**Adam:** But no, no living, it's only the first.
**Chris:** So that means I don't get it.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Jennifer:** So, as we know, I'm very strict on my rulings.
**Jennifer:** So.
**Chris:** I, I expect nothing less.
**Jennifer:** Exactly.
**Jennifer:** so yes, so no gravestone for you.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Jennifer:** Adam.
**Adam:** He'll.
**Jennifer:** Has rolled a six.
**Jennifer:** Oh, so does that mean you're after Chris again?
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Oh, I'm on bloody Chris again, am I?
**Jennifer:** One, two, three, four.
**Jennifer:** Oh, no, not quite.
**Lee:** No.
**Jennifer:** No, because you've moved back one last time, didn't you after you landed on him?
**Jennifer:** So you are on Lee's blood spot. I believe that means he chooses the question for you.
**Lee:** I will choose two, please.
**Jennifer:** Two.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** what British king hanged more people convicted of witchcraft than any other English monarch?
**Adam:** You had a name spring to mind.
**Adam:** But I could be way off as well.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Right, I'm waiting for the timer.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** is it is it James the Second?
**Jennifer:** Very close.
**Jennifer:** Unfortunately, it is King James the First.
**Adam:** Shit.
**Adam:** Because it's King James the First of England and King James the Second of Scotland.
**Adam:** And I couldn't.
**Adam:** Fuck.
**Jennifer:** Couldn't remember which was which.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Very close.
**Jennifer:** Right, Lee, you've rolled one.
**Lee:** Six.
**Jennifer:** So,
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Jennifer:** This Italian film director started the Giallo genre, later mastered by Dario Argento.
**Jennifer:** Who is he?
**Lee:** Waiting for the five seconds.
**Lee:** Is it Lucio Fulci?
**Jennifer:** It is not.
**Jennifer:** I'm guessing it's the other one.
**Jennifer:** So it is Mario Bava.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Jennifer:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** One of those two bastards.
**Jennifer:** Yes, I mean, usually it always used to be a running joke, didn't it? That if in doubt, the answer was always Dario Argento.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so when it said before him, I was like, oh shit, now I really am in trouble.
**Adam:** Especially that time you won when it was can you name the what's the real name of the victim known as the Black Dahlia? You said Dario Argento and you won.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Right, Chris.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Over to you.
**Jennifer:** You've got one.
**Jennifer:** So that is a film question.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** what movie featured a brothel of blood-sucking prostitutes and starred Dennis Miller, Angie Everhart, and Corey Feldman?
**Chris:** Oh,
**Chris:** That seems like a slightly odd mix.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, why haven't I seen this?
**Lee:** You have.
**Jennifer:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Five seconds.
**Chris:** I'm trying to think, is it something we've seen?
**Chris:** it's not Fright Night. He wasn't in that.
**Lee:** No, you are out of time.
**Chris:** I'm going to say that because I don't know what else.
**Lee:** Bordello of Blood.
**Chris:** No, okay.
**Jennifer:** It was indeed.
**Chris:** Oh, Bordello of Blood. But I kind of think I should check it out.
**Lee:** It's yeah, it was the follow up to 'Demon Knight'.
**Lee:** You know the, we did watch, we did watch 'Demon Knight'.
**Lee:** I, I don't think we did it as a podcast, but I'd be but the soundtrack was fantastic, so you would have watched it in the 90s because it was like Filter and possibly Nine Inch Nails and stuff, like the soundtrack for it was amazing.
**Lee:** Oh, Grave Diggers were on there as well, it was really good soundtrack.
**Jennifer:** Right, who was that? That's Chris's go.
**Jennifer:** So we must be round to Adam.
**Jennifer:** Chasing him down.
**Lee:** Don't forget, people, keep an eye on the timer. Five seconds, don't answer.
**Lee:** You've only got 15 seconds to answer, so when the timer next to me ends, it's too late.
**Jennifer:** Right, Adam, you rolled five.
**Jennifer:** and that meant you've landed on Lee, but as neither of you have got anything to steal, it doesn't really matter.
**Lee:** I've got a gravestone that I stole from Chris.
**Chris:** Yeah, but I would I'd be landing on, yeah, yeah, sorry, ignore me, ignore me.
**Jennifer:** There we go.
**Lee:** I have to say, just as a update, we are doing a bit rubbish so far.
**Chris:** We don't have many gravestones, Jennifer.
**Jennifer:** One gravestone between all of you.
**Jennifer:** But there you go.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Jennifer:** So Lee.
**Jennifer:** Rolled a five.
**Jennifer:** One, two, three, four, five.
**Jennifer:** Right, so this is Stiffs.
**Jennifer:** what weapon is Helga the psychic killed with in the opener of Dario Argento's splatter film 'Deep Red'?
**Lee:** Shitting hell.
**Lee:** I'm going to say a butcher knife.
**Jennifer:** I'm afraid you're very close, but it's not the answer I've got on the card.
**Jennifer:** Which is a meat cleaver.
**Lee:** Right.
**Jennifer:** So slightly different, I'm afraid.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Lee:** Same drawer.
**Jennifer:** Two, Chris, one, two, three, four.
**Chris:** Ooh, that looks more interesting.
**Chris:** What's that?
**Jennifer:** Well, that's your own blood spot, so that means you get to choose which number you would like.
**Chris:** Okay, let's go for Movie Mayhem again.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, okay.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** You got to answer this one.
**Jennifer:** what is the name of Hoth's cave-dwelling, ferociously, sorry, I should read that better. What is the name of Hoth's cave-dwelling, ferociously fanged creature with razor claws in the 'Empire Strikes Back'?
**Chris:** Wampa Ice Creature.
**Adam:** And remember, you've got two podcasts riding on this.
**Lee:** Oh, well, yeah.
**Chris:** Although, although, I don't remember us mentioning him ever.
**Adam:** I don't think we did.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** And I think I went a little bit too quick, but.
**Jennifer:** You did, yes.
**Chris:** But did I have to give the full title? comma, full stop, no.
**Jennifer:** No, luckily the answer on the card is only the Wampa.
**Chris:** All right, fair enough.
**Jennifer:** So you gave more than needed, so well done.
**Jennifer:** You get a gravestone in there, brilliant.
**Jennifer:** Right, over to Adam.
**Jennifer:** Two for Adam.
**Adam:** Two.
**Jennifer:** And that means you're landing on Chris.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** But.
**Adam:** A judicious decision. I think they're sabotaging you.
**Lee:** I think you just want to be on top of Chris.
**Adam:** Well, I've heard he's mentioned that he's, look, Velvet Acid Christ and the Wampa, I'm proud of.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, you got excited.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Even if it wasn't the right answer, it's.
**Jennifer:** Right, Lee, three.
**Jennifer:** So you are getting a music question.
**Lee:** Yep.
**Jennifer:** the attractive blonde female singer Jinx fronted what major label Satanic Rock Band Trio during the late 60s and early 70s?
**Lee:** I have no idea.
**Jennifer:** Coven.
**Jennifer:** Ooh, well done, it is indeed.
**Jennifer:** I get in on there, there we go.
**Jennifer:** So,
**Jennifer:** Tomb for you.
**Jennifer:** And on to Chris, five.
**Jennifer:** One, two, three, four, five.
**Jennifer:** So,
**Jennifer:** This is Stiffs.
**Chris:** Oh, my favourite one.
**Jennifer:** Ready?
**Jennifer:** what was the sequel to Elvira's Sexy Arcade Pinball game, Elvira and the Party Monsters?
**Chris:** Elvira and the Big Silver Balls.
**Jennifer:** It's a good name.
**Jennifer:** Can anyone get this one?
**Lee:** No.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Chris:** You sure, Lee, I would have thought you'd had that one.
**Lee:** I do not know her, everything on Elvira, I'm afraid.
**Lee:** I know, I know.
**Jennifer:** Apparently it's called 'Scared Stiff'.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** There we go.
**Jennifer:** Right, back to, that was Chris.
**Jennifer:** So that must be Adam.
**Jennifer:** One, two, three, you finally get a question, Adam.
**Jennifer:** Are you ready?
**Jennifer:** It's a music question.
**Adam:** Oh, bollocks.
**Lee:** You're great at this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Adam:** Yeah, but yeah, but it's either like it's either really fucking obvious or absolutely obscure on the music ones.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Jennifer:** So, Paul Baloff, or Baylofff, died after a stroke in 2002 while fronting what legendary Bay Area thrash band?
**Jennifer:** I'm not sure I could name any legendary Bay Area thrash bands, but.
**Adam:** What was his name again?
**Jennifer:** His name was Paul Baloff or Baylofff.
**Adam:** No.
**Jennifer:** B. A. L. O. F. F.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Adam:** No idea.
**Jennifer:** Apparently he was Exodus.
**Adam:** Oh, well, yeah, I was only listening to them in the car.
**Adam:** You know.
**Jennifer:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** No.
**Jennifer:** Oh, well, good try.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Jennifer:** Lee, you've got one.
**Lee:** I'll tell you what.
**Lee:** I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll do away with the 15 seconds to answer and I'll just put up the five second timer to not answer.
**Lee:** Is that easier?
**Lee:** Once the timer is up you can answer and yeah, we'll move it from there, otherwise it's yeah.
**Lee:** Come, sorry, right.
**Jennifer:** So yeah, Lee, you're dead.
**Lee:** Fuck.
**Jennifer:** Right Chris.
**Jennifer:** One, two, three, four, five.
**Jennifer:** Oh, Chris has landed on Grave Robber.
**Chris:** Oh, lovely.
**Jennifer:** Chris, would you like to steal from Adam who has none?
**Chris:** Probably not Adam then.
**Jennifer:** From Lee, who has two?
**Jennifer:** Or from yourself?
**Chris:** I'll go for Lee.
**Jennifer:** There we go.
**Jennifer:** Over to Chris.
**Chris:** I'm so pleased I didn't get the last question.
**Chris:** I thought that, I think that would have broken me if I had have lost that bloody stone then.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Jennifer:** Adam.
**Jennifer:** Has got three.
**Jennifer:** So another music question.
**Jennifer:** Oh, okay.
**Jennifer:** Name Ozzy's guitar player who died in a plane which crashed after nicking his tour bus.
**Adam:** Zakk Wylde.
**Jennifer:** Not Zakk Wylde.
**Jennifer:** I'm afraid.
**Jennifer:** It was Randy Rhoads.
**Adam:** Fuck.
**Adam:** Sorry to.
**Adam:** everyone out there.
**Adam:** Ozzy fans.
**Lee:** One of the best musician names ever.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Who is Zakk Wylde?
**Jennifer:** another guitar player?
**Adam:** I'm assuming so now, but.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Right, Lee, you have got three.
**Jennifer:** So you are also on a music question.
**Lee:** Booger.
**Jennifer:** the 80s rock band The Cult started their career as what Goth Rock band?
**Lee:** I have no idea.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Jennifer:** It was Southern Death Cult.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which I didn't know.
**Lee:** Better name.
**Lee:** More controversial, but better name.
**Jennifer:** Right, Chris, you've rolled two.
**Chris:** Is that gets to choose again?
**Lee:** No.
**Jennifer:** No.
**Jennifer:** Because that's no one's blood spot.
**Chris:** All right.
**Jennifer:** That's just the blank one.
**Jennifer:** so you get two which is the Alchemy or the miscellaneous question.
**Chris:** Have we had these before? Go on then, let's see.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** So what killer confessed to killing 13 women in Boston in the early 1960s, but was never charged for those murders?
**Jennifer:** And you can have his full name or his you know, killer name.
**Jennifer:** They're both on the card.
**Chris:** Manson.
**Jennifer:** Not Manson.
**Jennifer:** The clue is kind of in the question, he was called the Boston Strangler.
**Lee:** Oh, the Strangler.
**Jennifer:** The Boston Strangler, indeed.
**Adam:** What is his real name?
**Jennifer:** His real name, according to the card, is Albert DeSalvo.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Thank you.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's bugging me as well.
**Jennifer:** Right, back around to Adam, rolling four.
**Jennifer:** One, two, three, four.
**Jennifer:** So,
**Jennifer:** ooh, book one.
**Jennifer:** name the Clive Barker book in which a regular guy is drawn into saving the world from two villains, Immoculata and Shadwell.
**Adam:** Great and secret show.
**Jennifer:** It is not.
**Lee:** Oh, fuck.
**Jennifer:** It is 'Weaveworld', yes.
**Adam:** Because I haven't read either.
**Lee:** Well.
**Lee:** I did, I did start reading 'Weaveworld' and I got two thirds of the way through and it got really icky and I stopped.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't think I stopped because it got icky, I think I was working in a job where I had to get the train and I was reading it on the train and then by the time I realized, oh, I haven't done that since I stopped working there, it was about six months later and I was like, yeah, I'm not starting again. It gets very dark. I just gave it up.
**Chris:** It's a bit of a weird name, 'Weaveworld'.
**Lee:** It was a reason for it, but yeah, I mean.
**Adam:** Is it to do with the tapestry of a carpet?
**Lee:** Yeah, it's something like that. I was going to say it was something that was woven, it was like a woven story into it, but yeah.
**Lee:** Long time ago now.
**Jennifer:** Right, that was Adam.
**Jennifer:** So Lee's go.
**Jennifer:** You've got number two.
**Jennifer:** So, from 1520 to 1630, there were over 30,000 trials in France accusing people of being what?
**Lee:** Witches.
**Chris:** Oh, I hope so.
**Jennifer:** It is not witches.
**Jennifer:** It is werewolves.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Chris:** That that is a completely unheard of.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Still bad being a man.
**Chris:** Did you say 13,000?
**Jennifer:** 30.
**Jennifer:** 30,000.
**Chris:** 30,000.
**Chris:** Just in France?
**Jennifer:** Apparently so.
**Lee:** I don't think the rest of the world picked up on it the same way that the French did for some random reason.
**Adam:** The scariest thing is is that werewolf was kind of a euphemism for serial killer.
**Adam:** In that it was killers who didn't apparently have a motive.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Adam:** It was just savage crimes, basically.
**Chris:** That still sounds like a lot of.
**Adam:** That's what I'm saying.
**Chris:** 30,000.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** I mean, that was over 100 years, though.
**Chris:** Yeah, but still.
**Lee:** Yeah, but 30,000 in 100 years. We haven't had that many serial killers, thankfully.
**Jennifer:** Well, and it was only trials accusing them, so they might not all have actually been, you know, found guilty.
**Lee:** Might be the same poor bloke again and again.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's up again.
**Adam:** He moves from town to town like the werewolf equivalent of the littlest hobo and rather than helping out people and moving on, he just gets accused of being a werewolf.
**Jennifer:** He's just a big hairy man.
**Jennifer:** Right.
**Jennifer:** Lee, that was your question.
**Jennifer:** So it must be Chris's question now.
**Jennifer:** Four, one, two, three, four.
**Jennifer:** It is Full Moon. We know what that means.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Ooh.
**Adam:** Ooh.
**Jennifer:** So, is everyone ready for the question?
**Jennifer:** Ready to buzz in with your name?
**Jennifer:** It's film.
**Jennifer:** What was Blade's mortal name?
**Jennifer:** No one buzzing in here.
**Lee:** No.
**Jennifer:** One name, just his first name is all I need.
**Lee:** We didn't watch him that long ago.
**Jennifer:** Exactly.
**Chris:** Oh, is it?
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Is it?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** No, I don't.
**Chris:** I don't know.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** It was it was.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** I will give you a clue.
**Jennifer:** Same name as the guy in the Crow.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Eric.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Eric.
**Lee:** Eric.
**Jennifer:** That's it.
**Lee:** Eric.
**Jennifer:** Adam, you've got it.
**Adam:** Eric.
**Jennifer:** You got it.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Well done, Adam.
**Lee:** It's all right.
**Jennifer:** So Adam is.
**Lee:** And Chris.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Right, Lee.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** I'm sure you do.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** I know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know, yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Lee:** Right.
**Jennifer:** Yes, you do.
**Lee:** I do, yeah.
**Jennifer:** I know, I've got.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** Right, then.
**Lee:** I'm going to wait.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I'm just going to wait.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Right, okay.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Jennifer:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** You do know.
**Lee:** I do know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** I know.
**Jennifer:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.

---

## Ep 149 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-149-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 14 August 2022
Duration: 00:39:24

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “Son of We Have Been Watching”. It’s time for our regular round up of what extracurricular viewing we’ve been sticking into our face globes. In this episode we discuss “Prey”, Series 4 Part 2 of “Stranger Things”, “Wild Zero”, “Mad God”, “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, “The UFO Incident”, occult radio comedy “Damned Andrew”, “Ash Vs Evil Dead” and “The Umbrella Academy”. Beware of spoilers and swearing and join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Hey, and we are here for episode 149 of the Welcome to Horror podcast.
**Chris:** Oh, no. Getting close.
**Lee:** old.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Us, not the show. I didn't mean like that.
**Lee:** So we're here for our, our what we've been watching episode that we now do every third episode.
**Lee:** so without further ado, let's get stuck straight in.
**Lee:** There will be spoilers, there will be swearing.
**Lee:** I am drinking for one of the first times in the last eight months because I forgot we were podcasting.
**Lee:** I've only had one beer, but I am the man who three weeks ago went to the pub and had to come home after four pints because he was smashed.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** this could be fun.
**Chris:** Could get messy.
**Lee:** Or embarrassing or who knows, we'll see.
**Lee:** so,
**Lee:** Chris,
**Lee:** what have you been watching?
**Chris:** I'm gonna come straight in with a hard hitting.
**Chris:** It is, it is ending, it's the second part of what I said last time, so that may give it away. Stranger Things season 4, volume 2. And I loved it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** They just, for me, they got it all right.
**Chris:** It was so much fun, they enhanced the the horror aspect as we kind of mentioned before.
**Chris:** But when, when they split it and I didn't realize that it was split into two volumes this series 4 is like, oh, they're going to manage to keep up with this final bit.
**Chris:** And yeah, absolutely. I just thought, so good.
**Chris:** it's got comedy, it's got darkness, it's got the right references, all around great fun.
**Lee:** They just never seem to miss a step with it.
**Lee:** Like everything.
**Lee:** They do, you know, all the new characters that they introduce you immediately, they just fit in and they feel right.
**Lee:** It's, yeah.
**Lee:** And when they have a dick, they're you you hate them.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** They just do a fantastic job.
**Lee:** And and I know, you know, people say, oh, you know, it's written by algorithm or whatever because it's Netflix.
**Lee:** But, you know what, if it works and you get good stuff at the end of it, I've got no problem.
**Chris:** Yeah, no.
**Chris:** That's interesting. I wonder I I know that is said, but I wonder just how much the algorithm does.
**Chris:** Because it seems, I think there's been a few misses lately, like surprising ones.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, some of the stuff Netflix has put out has been not as good as some of the previous stuff.
**Adam:** Isn't there that thing though with the algorithm that essentially it
**Adam:** can only fold back on itself eventually.
**Lee:** Yes, yeah, like a Spotify daily playlist where bands you've never listened to it, it suddenly thinks are one of your best bands because they keep making you listen to it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I think, yeah, that might be where the miss is coming in.
**Adam:** Is if if if I mean, if indeed they are writing to algorithms, I don't know.
**Adam:** obviously, obviously, I'm not, I've not seen.
**Chris:** So I was going to say, yeah, Stranger Things.
**Chris:** You've not seen one episode of it.
**Adam:** I mean, I am, I am fully aware. I will say for any, anyone who could even give remote effort of a shit.
**Adam:** for me, running up that hill will always be the show running scared with Christopher Ellison from the bill.
**Adam:** going going on about his bins as in his sunglasses that had been.
**Adam:** found by a young girl in a murder It was bloody good that was.
**Adam:** Sorry, yeah.
**Adam:** And the other thing, the guy who plays.
**Adam:** Vecna I've only seen it written down so I'm assuming I'm pronouncing it right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** he was, he's been sort of doing the rounds like interviews and stuff like that, and I've seen a couple of clips and he does mention by name, Doug Bradley when he's talking about how he wanted to do the role.
**Adam:** and.
**Chris:** You got to fill me in there, who's Doug Bradley?
**Adam:** Doug Bradley is Pinhead from Hellraiser.
**Chris:** Oh, okay. Yeah.
**Adam:** And I follow him on Instagram and he was just so chuffed.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Lee:** Oh bless him.
**Adam:** Yeah, he really was. He was like sort of like, you know, it's just like that, you know, he felt.
**Adam:** He said it felt really sort of nice and respectful and he was just really.
**Adam:** So, yeah, so cue us to Vecna.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Very good.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** Adam,
**Lee:** what have you been watching?
**Adam:** well, we had, we I thought I'd mention it. We did have an email, I've been meaning to mention it for a while from, Phillip, who had a couple of suggestions for us, one of which was Threads, which he.
**Adam:** He did he did say on there, but I think that might be a bit too bleak.
**Adam:** and he also suggested my next, my first film, which is Mad God on Shutter.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Now, Mad, I don't know have either of you seen this?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** It's, it basically, it's been, it was made by Phil Tippett, who is the, it's a a stop motion film predominantly, like predominantly stop motion, animated film about a sort of, I don't know, a descent into hell almost.
**Adam:** quite abstract, but like really amazingly done.
**Adam:** but, Phil Tippett apparently has been making this for 30 years.
**Adam:** and like on and off, it's like his sort of pet project he'd been doing, but he was the stop motion guy on the original Star Wars trilogy.
**Adam:** I think he did Force Awakens as well.
**Adam:** Oh, it's because, yeah, he did the chess game.
**Adam:** You know the little monsters on the chess boards on the Millennium Falcon.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** That's him, and then from Empire Strikes Back.
**Adam:** He's did the At-Ats and the Ton-Tons and basically most of Hoth.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So, and he did Temple of Doom, he did Robocop, he's, he did ED-209 for Robocop.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Adam:** You know, it's, it's you know, Starship Troopers, Willow.
**Adam:** he.
**Chris:** Some top stuff, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and he became like, Spielberg and Lucas's go-to stop motion guy.
**Adam:** And, yeah, apparently when he when he went to do Jurassic Park, he'd like started doing stop motion dinosaurs, and then they took him in and showed him the CGI ones.
**Adam:** And he went, oh, right, okay, I suppose I'm out of a job then.
**Adam:** but they, they sort of kept him on as an adviser for movement, because the guys had rendered the stuff really well, but they still needed someone to sort of, you know, get that aspect of it right.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and then he so he basically then embraced CGI, so he can do stop motion, he can do CGI, and there's live action bits in there.
**Adam:** Alex Cox, the director Alex Cox is in it for some weird reason, I don't know.
**Adam:** but yeah, it's a, it's just incredible.
**Adam:** It's one of those things where the story behind it is, is genuinely interesting, you know, it's this passion project.
**Adam:** And then when you see it, you're like, holy fuck, this is your passion project.
**Adam:** You're bonkers, mate.
**Adam:** This is.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's like, yeah, to have put the effort in and it's just, it's astounding, it really is.
**Adam:** I can't, I I kind of can't describe it, it's just you have to experience it.
**Adam:** But it's very sort of a bit like, Jan Van Sanameca or Sanamaker.
**Adam:** I'm not sure what.
**Adam:** yeah, sort of like his kind of stuff, like very, surreal and yeah.
**Adam:** Anyway, that's as far as I can go with that because.
**Adam:** As I say, I can't describe it, so I'm going to HP Lovecraft myself at this point.
**Adam:** And describe it as indescribable but recommend it to watch.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Chris:** I'm just going to say Phillip actually emailed us back in 2020 as well.
**Chris:** I don't know if you remember.
**Chris:** He gave us some great suggestions then and we actually did watch some of them.
**Chris:** Candyman we watched.
**Chris:** But he also he had a few Exorcists two and three.
**Chris:** Carnival of Souls.
**Chris:** Eyes without a face.
**Chris:** Shivers.
**Chris:** Or even something like Ravenous and or maybe some J horror.
**Chris:** We did.
**Lee:** We did.
**Chris:** Yeah, maybe a horror comedy too, like Return of the Living Dead.
**Chris:** And Tucker and Dale versus Evil.
**Lee:** Love that film.
**Adam:** Lee, Lee, is this, is this either me or you?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Doing like under a false pretending.
**Adam:** Because, you know, this that's that's a fucking good list.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Oh, no, it must be me because you wouldn't suggest Threads.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yes, true.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So, yeah, so we've still got a few more to to get through.
**Adam:** Yeah, Return of the Living Dead is one I've been thinking of a lot.
**Lee:** Yeah, I keep, yeah, I keep thinking that needs to be bumped up the list as well.
**Lee:** So, we'll definitely have to do that.
**Adam:** We shall see.
**Chris:** So what about yourself, Lee?
**Lee:** So for mine, mine is also a listener recommendation.
**Lee:** So it didn't make it, unfortunately, the wheel did not select it on our spin, but Leadbelt had asked us as his suggestion to see Wild Zero.
**Lee:** And it was the only movie in that list that I'd never even heard of.
**Lee:** so I tracked it down after about two days and managed to watch it.
**Lee:** And what an absolutely fantastic I had to message him and say, yeah, thanks so much for letting me know about this.
**Lee:** It was wild.
**Lee:** It was so much fun, it really was.
**Adam:** This is the, what is it? Guitar Wolf?
**Lee:** It's the band Guitar Wolf.
**Lee:** and basically a zombie outbreak happens, and there's a a lead guy who's kind of, he's a guitarist.
**Lee:** And he wants to be in a band and he's kind of super cool.
**Lee:** And it basically follows him, but he his story intersects the band Guitar Wolf.
**Lee:** and they end up coming into it.
**Lee:** But yeah, so it's a a Japanese.
**Lee:** zombie, low budget movie featuring a band quite heavily.
**Lee:** oh, and it it it's primarily comedy over horror.
**Lee:** But it's it gets that balance really, really well.
**Lee:** yeah, and I just loved every minute of it.
**Lee:** It was such a good time.
**Lee:** So I'll definitely be going back to that film regularly, I think.
**Lee:** Cause it's.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** It's one of those, you know, late night drunken, I want something stupid and that's going to make me laugh and put me in a good mood and just.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it it's that all day long.
**Lee:** So yeah, if you get a chance, find Wild Zero.
**Adam:** Maybe, maybe we need to go,
**Adam:** Well, you know, we we we're trying to sort of theme the months and things like that, you know, so and we know what we've got coming shortly and things like that.
**Adam:** Is there something to be said for a punk, we'll just do a punk month.
**Adam:** and do Return of the Living Dead and Wild Zero.
**Adam:** Cuz I've not seen it.
**Lee:** Adam, make a note of that and we will definitely be doing that, because yeah, I would love an excuse to rewatch this film.
**Lee:** And we were just saying we need to do Return of the Living Dead, and yeah, actually, they're perfect companion pieces, I'd say.
**Lee:** So yeah, that'd be a good month.
**Adam:** Brilliant.
**Chris:** Cool.
**Lee:** Fantastic. Excellent.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Lee:** Thank you very much, Leadbelt for letting us know about that.
**Lee:** Chris, back to you, son.
**Chris:** So, my next one is Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is not, not exactly horror.
**Chris:** But it it does have close enough.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** It's got, it's got everything in there.
**Chris:** Everything.
**Chris:** It's, it's, yeah, no, like it's.
**Chris:** What was really surprising, it is kind of like non-stop craziness and yet somehow you can follow it and enjoy it and it doesn't feel like an overload.
**Chris:** Like they just somehow achieved that.
**Chris:** Yeah, like it's like, you know, surely you should be slowing down at some point.
**Chris:** But it kind of just doesn't.
**Chris:** and even the end when it's, it's all, you know, it starts to get nice, I guess.
**Chris:** instead of more chaotic, and it's, it but it's still done at sort of a higher pace.
**Chris:** And it was just fascinating how they could manage to sort of achieve that.
**Chris:** It's like such a skill of cinematography and storytelling.
**Chris:** Yeah, I I think I've got to watch it again.
**Chris:** But.
**Lee:** I said the same.
**Lee:** We got to the end and I was like, I'm watching that again, so I need to really take it all in.
**Lee:** Because as you say, it feels nicely paced, it doesn't feel rush, but when you get to the end, you go, shit, a lot.
**Chris:** It's a lot happened in there.
**Lee:** A lot happened in there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think, I've, I've yet to see it and it.
**Chris:** Yeah, I was I was trying to a little bit.
**Chris:** I wasn't quite sure.
**Adam:** No, thank you. I appreciate that.
**Adam:** I'll definitely, I'll definitely have to watch it in the week.
**Adam:** But it's, yeah, because obviously I get the gist of it being someone traversing the multiverse in a way or experiencing the multiverse and yeah, if they've managed to do that coherently, then yeah, that is a, that is a real achievement.
**Adam:** Because it usually.
**Adam:** There are a lot of things that pretend to put a lot more thought into that that fuck it up really badly.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** Yeah, I.
**Lee:** I was going to say, I knew I was on to a winner with it when, I think three people whose opinions I really trust all said to me.
**Lee:** It's the best film I've seen, best film I've seen in a while.
**Lee:** I think one of them said it was possibly the best film he'd seen this decade.
**Lee:** And I was like, he's got extremely high standards.
**Lee:** So, yeah, well done, Claudio, you were not wrong.
**Lee:** Oh, but yes, so just to warn you, Adam.
**Lee:** Just so because someone had warned me and I'm so glad they did because otherwise it would have bugged the shit out of me.
**Lee:** The main guy in it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know his voice.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** But he doesn't look familiar.
**Chris:** Yeah, that was so funny.
**Lee:** The reason for it it's data from the Goonies.
**Lee:** who you wouldn't have seen on.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Anything apart from,
**Chris:** Indiana Jones.
**Lee:** But he sounds exactly the same, his voice hasn't changed.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's really strange.
**Lee:** He's an adult now.
**Adam:** Has his voice not broken?
**Lee:** It doesn't sound like it has.
**Chris:** But he has got a great voice, it's very there's something so fun about him when he's talking.
**Lee:** And the action scenes in that film blew me away because that's what he's been doing apparently.
**Lee:** Someone was saying he's been a a fight choreographer since the 80s up to now.
**Lee:** And this is his first acting role again since.
**Lee:** Yeah, and you can totally see it because those fight scenes were just amazing and hilarious.
**Lee:** It just.
**Lee:** Again, all the boxes.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Chris:** So, yeah, big thumbs up for that one.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** Adam, grinning away there like Cheshire cat.
**Adam:** Do you know what?
**Adam:** I was just looking at myself.
**Adam:** And that's terrible, isn't it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, yeah.
**Adam:** yeah, my next one is, literally, well, hot off the presses we recorded but probably everyone's seen it by the time this comes out, I don't know, is pray.
**Adam:** which is the latest installment in the Predator franchise.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** And it's fucking great.
**Chris:** Really?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's genuinely, it's it's my second favorite.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** On like based on one watch pretty much.
**Adam:** And now, and don't get me wrong, I like Predator 2 because I think because it's fucking mental.
**Adam:** So I'm quite happy with that.
**Adam:** And I know and the and I still think the reason that people shit on Predator 2 was because Arnie wasn't in it, because the expectation was if if there was a franchise, Arnie was the franchise.
**Adam:** And, you know, it's like Terminator.
**Adam:** They even sound the same, so I think it's like, well, you know, it's not Arnie in it.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** But this is set before those and it's in the.
**Adam:** in the 1700s.
**Adam:** And basically, it's the story of a girl from, a Comanche, from the Comanche Nation.
**Adam:** sort of her sort of moving on to become a hunter, like sort of and sort of progressing in terms of like acceptance and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And then you shove a fucking predator in it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And it is just, it feels, it has the same, it feels the same as the first one in so much as it's just an exercise in tension.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's just sort of like, it's, right, and how do you defeat this and watching and also being not necessarily being.
**Adam:** as strong as the opponent, but as smart as the opponent.
**Adam:** You know, and and working things out and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And it's, yeah, it's really good and
**Chris:** So it's interesting, I'm I'm just wondering like there technology.
**Chris:** will be much older, so it's kind of interesting, that sounds like that'd be a difficult.
**Adam:** But so's the predators.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Because it's kind of like, I I I'm assuming that it's meant to be because the predators are however many hundred years back.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** So the one thing he doesn't have a plasma cannon, he doesn't have the shoulder gun thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it is a lot more, you know, it's it's more sort of darts, the blades that come out the arms and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So it's all that kind of, it's much more matched.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, it's still fucking mad aerial grenades and shit like that, you know.
**Adam:** But it's still, but essentially it's like, yeah.
**Adam:** but no.
**Adam:** It was just it was like a total surprise.
**Adam:** Because that and Sandman, the series of Sandman has started.
**Adam:** we has come out.
**Chris:** Neil Gaiman.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'll come, I'll come back to that, when I've finished it.
**Adam:** But at the moment, as speak I read Sandman back in the day and
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's it's Sandman.
**Adam:** It just feels right in much in the same way, weirdly enough.
**Adam:** Even though I don't think it went that way.
**Adam:** But much how Preacher seemed quite accurate to the like close to the comic or certainly initially.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah, I think this is, this this as long as they don't fuck up badly somewhere along the line, I think this is going to be a good, this is going to be a good adaption.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** but yeah, so Prey, yeah, just came out on.
**Adam:** It's I think it's on Disney Plus and Hulu.
**Adam:** and that came out yesterday or Friday.
**Adam:** And, yeah, like I say, it was just but again, it's one of those things where.
**Adam:** You have all these things where, you know, all the sort of Star Wars TV shows and everything where there's always this hype about, oh, they're doing a new Master Universe and then then it takes them fucking months to actually bring it to you and everything else like that.
**Adam:** Whereas with this, I mean, okay, I'm not, I'm not.
**Adam:** I don't follow #predator, you know, it's not sort of like something that I'm keeping that up to date with as a franchise or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But still, yeah, just for it to suddenly be like, oh, there's this film, oh, yeah, you watch it, oh, yeah, and it's the new credit film and it's probably the best one that you've done since the first one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's it's just kind of.
**Lee:** It's a great concept just dropping them against a different opponent in time.
**Lee:** Because in theory, you could just drop them in feudal Japan or, you know, the era of the the knights of the round table, like you could literally, there's endless amount of times.
**Lee:** You could just go, right, you've got a group of warriors, just drop some predators in and just see how they deal with it with everyone.
**Lee:** As you say, as long as they've retrospectively taken the Predators technology back, so they're always.
**Lee:** They're always better.
**Adam:** Because I mean, isn't that just that, what was that, wasn't there that fucking mad show that was like.
**Adam:** Samurai versus Verhmacht soldier and Roman Centurion versus barbarian.
**Lee:** I'm deadliest warrior, I think it was.
**Adam:** Yeah, that.
**Lee:** I've watched far too much of that show.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Just.
**Lee:** An embarrassing amount really.
**Lee:** Yeah, but.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's entertaining, it's nonsense but it's highly entertaining.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I recommend, I recommend Prey really highly and Claire's not seen any of the others and she watched it and followed it.
**Adam:** yeah, and it's so I think it passes the newbie test as well.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Adam:** But there's loads of bits in there, well, not actually, no, there's a couple of nice touches in there where I'm like, oh, that's a reference back or that feels like this.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** But it's not like whackin you over the head with it, sort of, you know, just like every five minutes we find out that he's related to the fucking.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Turns out that one one guy like there's a French bear trapper and he was actually related to one of the gang members in Predator 2.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** By adoption and accident of birth.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Lee:** What did you watch next?
**Adam:** I think I well, I'm going to go with.
**Adam:** it was something that I heard with my ear holes, which is the sitcom Damned Andrew.
**Adam:** Which is, the comedian Andrew O'Neill's.
**Adam:** sitcom written and co-written with Tom Deville, which is a name you may know, but he wrote.
**Adam:** Do you remember Urban Gothic?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** The TV series, it was like an anthology series where I would actually like, I'm thinking, it sort of putting in my head to show Chris a couple of episodes of that.
**Adam:** Because there are a couple of stunners in there, you know, genuinely really, really good.
**Adam:** As well as being a pretty high level show, budget not withstanding, but you know, it was some good ideas and stuff.
**Adam:** But yeah, and it's basically, the story of Andrew going through their day-to-day life.
**Adam:** But having accidentally opened a portal to hell and contaminating the entire of London and a bit of Leeds with demons.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But it's the same sort of thing of it has that sort of like mighty Boosh feeling of the mundane with the very strange.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because because obviously it's London, so everyone's dealing with it as Londoners, which is, well.
**Adam:** You know, if well, if there's a demon covering the central line.
**Adam:** Well, if I take the northern and then go.
**Lee:** Fire.
**Adam:** fire.
**Adam:** So it's just, yeah, it's just about sort of like them coping with day-to-day life.
**Adam:** But also all the madness of the demons involved and everything.
**Adam:** And obviously Andrew's sort of ridiculously.
**Adam:** funny anyway, but also but also and there's plenty of like metal references in there.
**Adam:** And, occult and a lot of the occultism obviously because it's.
**Adam:** an an occult sitcom essentially.
**Adam:** But yeah, so you've got, and there's like Toby Hadoke on there and Sanjeev Kohli and, like a lot of other comedians.
**Adam:** But, and this is one of the key things.
**Adam:** It's narrated by Alan Moore.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** And it's so, yeah, just everyone starts off with Alann just talking about non-binary comedian Andrew O'Neill.
**Adam:** Opened a portal in their living room.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah, it's but it's just genuinely piss funny.
**Adam:** I, yeah, just right.
**Lee:** What was it called, sorry?
**Adam:** It's called Damned Andrew.
**Adam:** Now, there was I think there was only four episodes, it was on Radio 4 but it's on the BBC Sounds app, I think for like at least a year on Iplayer.
**Adam:** Cool.
**Adam:** On Iplayer.
**Adam:** So, yeah, it's well worth a listen and also just in the hopes that if enough people listen to it, they might do another series.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just think.
**Adam:** They they did it great, especially there's a part towards the end where.
**Adam:** as part of a mental journey through a demon's mind, they resurrect the Astoria.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** Where it's meant to be the demon was trying to give Andrew places that they felt comfortable in.
**Adam:** So it was, so it's like, what's this? It's like sticky floors and.
**Adam:** Hang on.
**Adam:** This is the Astoria.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Adam:** So yeah, definitely worth if you've enjoyed his.
**Adam:** If you enjoy his standup and stuff, definitely.
**Chris:** Sounds great.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, massive fan of his stand-up stuff, so I'll definitely, yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely be checking that out.
**Lee:** my final one, I'm literally going to do a 30 second job.
**Lee:** Because, we've got to announce our 150th episode.
**Lee:** and we're down to five minute warning.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I, again, back to Netflix.
**Lee:** just finished the last season and it is the last season, of Umbrella Academy.
**Lee:** which I've thoroughly enjoyed and I didn't realize just how bad shit it was until we watched the catch up of the previous season.
**Lee:** And you when they just do it in like a 10 minute run down of what you've been watching, you go, yeah, that's mental.
**Lee:** I just.
**Lee:** but I particularly wanted to mention it because, Aidan Gallagher, who plays Five.
**Lee:** is just, his performance, so his character is a teenage boy, I think he's 16 or 17, but because he's been lost in time, he's been living for 50 years.
**Lee:** So it's a teenage actor playing a very wise, older, middle-aged man in a child's body.
**Lee:** And he does it exceptionally well.
**Lee:** yeah, and I just, yeah, I just can't get over that.
**Lee:** So I just wanted to mention it.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** We are running out of time, so we shall jump in.
**Lee:** So episode 150 is our next next episode.
**Lee:** we're hoping this is going to be entertaining.
**Lee:** but we don't know.
**Lee:** You might decide we're all frauds after it.
**Lee:** Or you might find it boring, but you know, I we we shall see how it goes.
**Lee:** So for episode 150.
**Lee:** We are going to go back and play a board game that we used to play many moons ago before we were podcasting, myself and Adam with Lady Jennifer and previous guest Dean, it became a bit of a weekly ritual for six months, eight months every weekend, we'd get together, we'd have a catch up for an hour and then we would play the 2002 board game called Goth.
**Chris:** Very good.
**Lee:** It's a board game in which you have to answer questions on horror related topics.
**Lee:** in order to earn gravestones to fill up your grave plot, and the first one to 13 stones is the winner.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** I think I've surpassed that.
**Lee:** Yeah, it got.
**Adam:** I've passed 13 star.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And I say and we really enjoyed it and played it for a long, and we haven't played it now in probably, I'd say conservatively, 15 years since we last had a game.
**Lee:** So we have dug it out.
**Lee:** And we're going to dust it off and give it a go, and see how Chris fares with all things that he's been learning.
**Lee:** It isn't just horror movies, it's horror movies, literature, serial killers, unusual deaths.
**Adam:** Music.
**Lee:** Music.
**Lee:** But yeah, all all kind of horror-based.
**Adam:** Everything.
**Lee:** And it's a really good it's good fun.
**Lee:** It's got, you know, other squares where you can steal other people's gravestones and your full moon squares and all that.
**Lee:** But we will be joined, so Lady Jennifer.
**Lee:** will be joining us, she will be our Eddie from Stranger Things for the night.
**Lee:** Because she will be the game master.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** and we'll be doing all of the dice throwing and counter moving and we're all going to do it over zoom.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** That is the plan.
**Chris:** It's going to work perfectly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I say, if anyone's interested and isn't the same stuff as us, if you can track a copy of this board game down, it's so worth doing, because as I say, Jennifer bought it just because it was called Goth and thought it'd be funny and we got absolutely obsessed with it for quite a long time.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** Yeah, if you can track a copy down, do.
**Lee:** we what we'll try and do is we'll try and leave a little gap between the questions and the answers in case people want to play at home and just make a, you know, give you a 10 second thinking time or whatever.
**Lee:** so you can mark down whether you get them or not.
**Lee:** and yeah.
**Lee:** So if you're interested in that, bring a paper and pen, and we will see you in a Fortnite's time for episode 150 for a game of Goth.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, and good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 148 The Pit and the Pendulum

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-148-the-pit-and-the-pendulum/
Air date: 31 July 2022
Duration: 00:38:11
Film: The Pit and the Pendulum · Year: 1961 · Director: Roger Corman

### Description

Audience request month continues with Roger Corman’s “The Pit and The Pendulum”. A film in which a grief-stricken Vincent Price keeps his dead wife’s bedroom exactly as she left it, and similarly ensures that his dead father’s torture chamber is well oiled and fully functional; the local Doctor is a bit overfamiliar, and happy to sign off on DIY home internment; and we get the thesaurus out to namecheck all the synonyms for Hell. The second of AIP’s “Poe Cycle”, where Richard Matheson ditches Poe’s 2 pages of 19th Century torture porn and turns it into a 85 minute Medieval whodunnit - watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** Hi, I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening for the second of our listener request month episodes.
**Lee:** courtesy of Dave.
**Lee:** Who has asked us to cover the amazing 1961 Corman Poe adaptation as loosely as you can possibly put that, of The Pit and the Pendulum.
**Chris:** Oh, is it?
**Lee:** Oh, we'll get into it.
**Lee:** So there will be spoilers, there will be swearing.
**Lee:** And yeah, so for those of you who haven't seen it, totally go and watch it before we do this because it is a bit of a who done it and we will be spoiling that.
**Lee:** but if you haven't and you're not going to go and watch it, just a very quick rundown.
**Lee:** a guy turns up at a castle, his sister has died and he's received a letter with not much information from her husband, who he's never met.
**Lee:** so he's gone there to find out what's going on, only to find that it's a very strange household, and Vincent Price, who is the husband, his family have a history of torture and execution.
**Lee:** So,
**Adam:** First point, first point of order on that one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Technically, if you're a member of the Spanish Inquisition, you can't have kids.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you have to be fairly sort of high-ranking, yeah, Catholic, so, so yeah.
**Lee:** Maybe he was just doing it for fun.
**Chris:** Possibly.
**Lee:** Just a hobby, we've all got to have a hobby.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Lee:** All right.
**Lee:** yeah, oh, and then it turns out that Vincent Price believes he's been haunted by said wife.
**Lee:** So, Chris, with this being I assume your first time watching.
**Chris:** It is.
**Lee:** How do you?
**Chris:** It is, yeah, and I hadn't heard of this, I don't think until it turned up in the, the spinner last, last two, last two episodes ago.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, so, what you just ended on there, I thought was good.
**Chris:** I, as often do, I like the element of psychology, you know, he's going mad, is he really going mad, is she coming back from the dead, what's going on, you know, it's like that starts to get a nice little twisted story, you don't know quite which way it's going.
**Chris:** And, I don't, I don't think I recognized anyone except for Vincent Price, who again, once you know him, he could pretty much do anything and it would make a great film.
**Chris:** And,
**Chris:** The way he turns in this and the different points at which he is going a bit mad, but then, you know, he comes into his full as the, when he takes on, is he this.
**Chris:** I'm going to mix up the names, so we've got Nicholas Medina and Sebastian Medina.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** So it's like it's his dad that he then embodies.
**Adam:** Yeah, he takes on the persona of his father, who,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Who who's torture room it is because that is a fantastic way to show someone round their around your house.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And this torture chamber, it was my father's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I've got to admit, I mean, I've probably seen this film half a dozen times, I would have sworn blind when I sat down to watch it tonight that it was all in Vincent Price's head and he'd imagined the whole thing.
**Lee:** Because I just remembered the end scene and I'd forgot the twist before that.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I was, and the whole the whole way through to be fair, it it does play along that that could be the case.
**Lee:** So it's only when you know, the doctor walks down the stairs and bumps into the wife.
**Lee:** And I was like,
**Lee:** Oh shit, no, I've totally misremembered this.
**Chris:** I wonder.
**Chris:** I wonder, yeah, I wonder if that happens to me.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because this this is probably I I watched it yesterday.
**Adam:** And that was probably the first time in about nearly 20 years, I think.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** I think I've seen it sort of like, I think I saw it once on Telly.
**Adam:** So I knew of it and I, you know, I I'd seen it and obviously I've seen the other Poe cycle stuff a lot more.
**Adam:** I think this just didn't used to turn up as often.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As like mask of the Red Death or, the Raven.
**Adam:** The Raven's always on.
**Adam:** but,
**Adam:** Yeah, it was a very, I know, I totally forgotten about that and I was, I was the same as you Lee.
**Adam:** I was like, oh, they're going with the, you know,
**Adam:** either either a haunting or madness plot.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And, because I was also sitting there going,
**Adam:** I remember Barbara still fucking talking.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I was like, you've made that up, you're you're getting confused with Black Sunday or something like that, you know.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** No, as it turns out,
**Adam:** Yeah, she does actually appear.
**Adam:** But it's because it's, oh yeah, I think she's like third build.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And literally is in a flashback.
**Adam:** And you do at that at that point until.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The whole thing unravels and you find out that, yeah.
**Adam:** Although that is also the question of what a shitty person she is that it's like, yeah, and I'll let my brother think I'm dead.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, she seems very put out that he's there.
**Lee:** Which you know,
**Lee:** Considering he's come all the way from England to come and, you know, find out what really happened because he cares so much and then she's like, oh, have you done away with that prick yet because he's just going to get in the way if he's still here.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Now, I wanted to check what are the other Edgar Allan Poe adaptations that we've seen?
**Adam:** So, of the Poe cycle, I got it all written down.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Well done.
**Adam:** we we have we have scratched off the list.
**Adam:** Tales of Terror, which we did quite early on.
**Adam:** Which is the one that's it's an anthology one with, Vincent Price but also, Peter Lori, thank you, and.
**Lee:** Peter Lorre.
**Adam:** Peter Lorre, thank you, and.
**Lee:** Boris Karloff.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** we did that quite early on, and then reasonably recently we did the Raven.
**Adam:** Which was, Peter Lorre again and Boris Karloff with Vincent Price.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** And that was where he'd been turned into a raven.
**Adam:** Because I mean,
**Chris:** That's right.
**Adam:** That's right.
**Adam:** Again, the whole thing of how much this is based on Poe.
**Adam:** Go back to the Raven as well where it's like, this is a film that has nothing to do.
**Adam:** With.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Rival magicians at war over a possibly dead, possibly possessed ghost wife who's actually just real and just ran off.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** yeah, none of that is.
**Adam:** Sort of particularly in there.
**Adam:** but they make a crack and good.
**Adam:** film out of it, to be honest.
**Chris:** Yeah, I wonder, I wonder how that works for for Poe official Autos, like do they also like this or does it, like they're like, oh, what are you doing?
**Adam:** Weirdly enough, I think this came out, these came out where they were sort of like the first sort of, I don't know, not sort of modern adaptions of Poe because they've been sort of like stuff earlier, but like silent films and things like that as well.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Like so so a lot older.
**Adam:** So these were kind of the first run, so I think a lot of Poe fans just embraced the fact that, you know, they're doing Edgar Allan Poe.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But that but I I so, but now I think a lot of them it's very sort of like, you know, if you're a if you're a Poe-faced Poe fan, you probably go like, oh, you're going to like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You probably gonna struggle.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, but I think anyone else is like it's a bit like, Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna when they do, Lovecraft.
**Adam:** And it's that same thing of people just embraced them because they were the first kind of run of films that were adapting Lovecraft.
**Adam:** But actually when you watch him, they're like, no, you've really, you've just utterly fucked around with this, this is nothing to do with it.
**Adam:** And similarly, so, I mean, the pit and the pendulum, this is so of the Komen cycle.
**Adam:** This is the second one.
**Adam:** So there's,
**Adam:** Just to recap, The Fall of the House of Usher, Pit and Pendulum, Premature Burial, which doesn't have Vincent Price in it, Tales of Terror, The Raven.
**Adam:** The Haunted Palace, Mask of the Red Death and the Tomb of Ligeia.
**Adam:** So that's the sort of run of films, so we're we're three down.
**Adam:** Which is, not bad going.
**Chris:** Pretty good, yeah.
**Adam:** but,
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But I think correct correct me if I'm wrong Adam, but the majority of them do stick fairly closely to the actual store the actual post stories with the exception of The Pit and the Pendulum and The Raven, which is just.
**Lee:** It's as if they've given the title to somebody who's never read them.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And just gone, write us a screenplay on this.
**Adam:** Well, it's because it's Richard Matheson who's the script writer on this, who, and I I just had to jot it down because I know he's sort of like, so Richard Matheson wrote of what we've watched.
**Adam:** Devil Rides Out, Legend of Hell House, wrote the book that that was based on, Tales of Terror, Night of the Eagle and The Raven.
**Adam:** So he does all the Poe adaptations.
**Adam:** So, but I think it's whether he, I think really it's whether they've got enough plot to get their teeth into.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So something like Mask of the Red Death, Fall of the House of Usher.
**Adam:** And actually probably the cleverest thing is doing Tales of Terror where they just did it as an anthology.
**Adam:** So you got the Black Cat and, Cask of Amontillado and, you know, because it sort of suits that.
**Adam:** So the Raven I think was just because it was Poe's most famous poem, so they probably just thought that's next.
**Adam:** I I personally think Roger Corman probably never read Poe.
**Adam:** but he knew the titles.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And just was like, oh, so that's.
**Adam:** That's the one I've heard of.
**Adam:** So we'll make that.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He just.
**Lee:** It's a three-page story just of a man waiting to die.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, shit.
**Adam:** Literally.
**Adam:** Chris.
**Adam:** Claire was watching this with me and she said, let me know when it gets to the bit that's the book.
**Adam:** I was like,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And literally the bit that's the book is once the,
**Adam:** the brother is strapped down under the pendulum.
**Chris:** Oh, right, okay.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** But it more so than that, it's basically a three-page meditation on terror.
**Adam:** Because the reason Pit and Pendulum is like one of the big Poe stories because it is.
**Adam:** A really concise but very good distillation of what he does.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So it's basically very, you know, a touch melodramatic maybe, but.
**Adam:** Someone driving themselves insane through pure terror of being strapped under this torture device that slowly descends.
**Chris:** And this is.
**Adam:** In otherwise pitch darkness surrounded by rats.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, this is sounding a little bit like an early torture porn story then.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's got, it's got.
**Chris:** If that's the focus of.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Torture sending you mad and yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, actually I think you're probably right, it's it's very much a short burst of torture porn.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Now, I can see I can see why because I was sort of thinking they're definitely showing a lot of the pendulum swinging back and forth, and I suppose that could be a reason why they they had it in there significantly.
**Chris:** I mean, it is meant to be the.
**Adam:** Well, it's the in the title as well, so.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, no.
**Chris:** It's, but I I suppose I was, I was perhaps taken by when Don Medina.
**Chris:** when he changed, for me that felt like this is the peak bit.
**Chris:** As opposed to necessarily the pendulum bit, it was like,
**Chris:** I guess that takes my attention when you start to see Vincent Price moving into his crazy, evil.
**Adam:** It's weird because that is the apex of the film of Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, I think that they not necessarily on purpose, sort of but I think it was just the combo of that and Vincent Price.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It all suddenly.
**Adam:** Who does I mean, I mean, obviously obviously it's Vincent Price, it's always going to get to big.
**Adam:** It's going to get to a big performance, let's be generous because we're enjoying it.
**Adam:** You know, it's not.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But that first transition where he just grins.
**Adam:** And he's just a bit sort of, oh yes, and quite every day when he's been this sort of this sort of very haunted figure all through it.
**Adam:** And then.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Suddenly it's like, oh, it's pleasant trees in time of the day and you're like,
**Adam:** Oh fuck, he's gone.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I his performance in this, I mean, I know we always gash about Vincent Price.
**Lee:** But his performance in this is absolutely outstanding, he really, really does.
**Lee:** And it's like considering he has to play so many he has to put so many different hats on in this film, really.
**Lee:** and he.
**Adam:** And the cowards.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** And I think that he, he definitely does do that well, he is good at having those different sides.
**Adam:** But that's kind of what you need for Poe.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** Because because it's being because not being funny, it's like Poe writes madness well.
**Adam:** And that's the art of it.
**Adam:** So it's not just a case of transition it onto the screen, you've got to get an actor who can handle that.
**Adam:** But it's also got to be, you know, I mean, you've then got to get to the point of him screaming his way through a thesaurus of words for hell.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But it's still I think it's like you say, it's because it's sort of like that turning point is the peak.
**Adam:** Although again,
**Adam:** Sorry and sorry we're jumping around folks but also sorry we're spoiling things if you've decided to stay with us even though we told you not to.
**Adam:** The actual twist ending as well.
**Adam:** Where it's just like, right, we're going to leave this place and no one will come back in and, Elizabeth is still in the iron maiden.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And.
**Adam:** And that's just.
**Lee:** I thought that, yeah.
**Lee:** Because for those, for the people who survive, they don't know that it was all a ploy to send him mad, as far as they're concerned, he went mad and he had done it all.
**Lee:** So they just walked away at that point and were like, well, we've wrapped this up.
**Lee:** And they haven't, they've all got completely the wrong end of the stick.
**Lee:** Which is, yeah.
**Chris:** Well,
**Chris:** that is.
**Chris:** That is a profound point.
**Chris:** I mean, you know,
**Chris:** I'd like to bring that back to how often does everyone get the wrong end of the stick?
**Chris:** You see something and you think that's what that is.
**Chris:** And yet, if you can't find out the truth, you will blame that person and yet it was he was the victim.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I think it's, I can't it we were talking about, I think it might have been in our last.
**Adam:** Oh, it was because of, Horror Express.
**Adam:** But we were saying about watching something where you're in on the mystery rather than having to figure it out.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This manages to give you both sides of that in a weird way.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's you.
**Chris:** Definitely, yeah.
**Adam:** You know more than any of the characters put together, but you are still.
**Chris:** Not for the whole film though, it's.
**Adam:** You know, you are still.
**Adam:** It's a mystery and a surprise and a twist.
**Adam:** And so on, so.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think actually the one thing that's a shame is that you don't you don't get more Barbara Steele.
**Adam:** Because I think her particularly her with fucking Vincent Price.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They are brilliant.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, they really, you know, because her face when he goes, when he's clearly snapped.
**Adam:** Is it goes from gloating to like abject fear.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like where it's like, shit, we've bitten off more than we can chew.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** You know, it's sort of.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's a really good performance within like what we see of her.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I was thinking, I was surprised she hasn't been in anything else that I that I could think of.
**Chris:** I.
**Adam:** She was in, Curse of the Crimson Altar.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** she played the bright green lady.
**Lee:** Levinia, yeah.
**Chris:** right, okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** But again, kind of in that she's not really in it a lot.
**Adam:** We will do, we've got to do Black Sunday.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yes, okay.
**Adam:** Black Sunday is the she did that before, I think she did that before this.
**Adam:** but she worked a lot with, there's an Italian director called Mario Bava.
**Adam:** Who.
**Adam:** Then kind of the Pit and the Pendulum particularly kind of fed back into them and they sort of started,
**Adam:** going in the same direction as Roger Corman's stuff.
**Adam:** but that, Black Sunday is like black and white, which, reincarnation film.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** but it is really.
**Adam:** It's really good, it's really fucking dark.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is.
**Chris:** Well, and yeah, 1960, so that must be quite relatively unusual.
**Chris:** To for you to say it quite like that.
**Adam:** Well, because it's, I think it's just it's unusual enough in every sort of sense, it's sort of because it's like I say, because it's in, I mean,
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I mean, there's the there is the dub, I think I've watched the, I think I've watched the dub version of it rather than the subtitled.
**Adam:** But, yeah, there's just something about it, it's just very starkly filmed and weirdly it kind of I like, in the pit you've got the Inquisition painted on the wall.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like the figures of the Inquisition.
**Adam:** Which does come from the story.
**Adam:** Because there's in the story he.
**Adam:** It starts off with him saying that he's been held by the Inquisition and sentenced to death.
**Adam:** And then it's just he's in the pit being.
**Adam:** seeing the blind.
**Adam:** but he talks about like when they say it, he basically blacks out.
**Adam:** So all he sees is them in silhouette.
**Adam:** And just and I think it's just them in silhouette and their lips as they in intone his name.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah, that that sort of,
**Adam:** painting that they've got round the pit of the various sort of like, creepy Inquisition figures and the pointy hats and everything and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Yeah, that that kind of feels like Black Sunday.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because Black Sunday is very high contrast sort of black and white film.
**Adam:** But we'll we'll do it.
**Adam:** So we'll see you for Black Sunday.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And that's the thing with Roger Corman.
**Lee:** I mean,
**Lee:** You know, everyone always talks about how he always got his films in the can long before deadline, they always came in under budget.
**Lee:** But he got so much out of his actors.
**Lee:** Always.
**Lee:** I mean,
**Lee:** I know he's seen as a bit of a schlock master.
**Lee:** But like, these films are masterpieces.
**Lee:** They're so beautifully shot.
**Lee:** So well put together.
**Lee:** they always have that lovely dreamlike quality to them and the color palettes always really nice on them, they've got that really like that, not just when it's the super bright dreamy stuff.
**Lee:** But just the shots of the castles.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes, yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** Tinter Quality Street.
**Lee:** And I love the Matt painting stuff, so like the Matt painting of the pit and of the castle.
**Lee:** I just think they're.
**Adam:** The oil the paint and oil stuff over the like over the opening as well.
**Adam:** Just very abstract and really, really good.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Really good.
**Adam:** Because actually that's another thing sort of although like saying about the because that's something that he has in common with Mario Bava, definitely.
**Adam:** Is.
**Adam:** The sequence when it starts going through all the color changes and the mad angles and everything and the, as the blade's coming towards him and it's all sort of kicking off for once in a bit of expression.
**Adam:** yeah, that whole sort of it.
**Adam:** It just goes mad, you know, it's like the film goes mad to say this person's gone mad.
**Adam:** And it's, yeah.
**Adam:** It but it just is so.
**Adam:** You know, I I agree with you.
**Adam:** I think this is this this is what Roger Corman did best.
**Adam:** Is these Poe adaptations are definitely his that that discovering basically the entire of seventies Hollywood royalty and eighties as well, you know, just like the amount of directors that he helped.
**Adam:** But, yeah.
**Adam:** But as as a director himself, I think these are the these this is the gold, you know, this is the really good stuff.
**Lee:** and if you love all that imagery and the way it's all portrayed, it it still always reminds me, now I've seen it, I can't help but keep harking back to it just say specifically that opening as well with the multicolored twirls, second Elvira movie, Elvira's Haunted Hills.
**Lee:** yes, is like it's a, it's a,
**Lee:** a loving kind of comedic version of an amalgamation of all of these Poe Corman films.
**Lee:** But they pull it off really well.
**Lee:** Like some of the comedy falls a little bit flat, but to look at it, it's it's fantastic.
**Lee:** They do a really, really good job of sort of recreating it.
**Lee:** And and I love the film.
**Lee:** I've seen it half a dozen times.
**Chris:** Should we have watched an Elvira?
**Adam:** We probably should have done by now.
**Chris:** Do do they come under the right category?
**Adam:** Oh, absolutely.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** It's, yeah, it's Elvira is definitely horror.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** And that first film is so eighties and so.
**Adam:** It's also it's also good because if I watch that with Clare, she can see that that is literally Ru Paul's playbook.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Of innuendo.
**Adam:** And it's seriously the full works, how's your head, I've had no complaint so far.
**Adam:** And, you know, all of it is just from Elvira.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** No, we we probably do need to do Alva.
**Lee:** We definitely need to get that on the list.
**Lee:** And it's such a fun watch.
**Lee:** We, we watched it here actually, we had a party at Halloween.
**Lee:** and we said, oh, you know, what does everyone want to watch?
**Lee:** yeah, and that was one that got got the most votes, so we ended up watching that in its entirety.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** So not anti-Christ this time.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** That's one for Chris.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** but yeah, I just I think they just, it's not just the way they're constructed, it's everything because obviously he used to carry his own team with him a lot.
**Lee:** So all of these films feel, that's why it's hard to tell what order they come in because they all feel so completely alike.
**Lee:** Like you said Adam, like, you know, Mask of the Red Death and, and the others.
**Adam:** House of Usher.
**Lee:** House of Usher.
**Lee:** yeah, and the Arrow releases of those are really good as well, like they're, their prints are phenomenally good considering their age.
**Adam:** I don't think I've ever seen the one that doesn't have, Vincent Price in it.
**Adam:** I don't think I've seen Premature Burial.
**Lee:** I have that here on a Midnight Movies release, so it's one of those double-sided discs and it's I can't remember what's on the other side of it.
**Lee:** It might even be Mask of the Red Death and Premature Burial, but yeah, I I think I've only seen it the once.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** It's it's very Roger Corman, it feels exactly like these, but because it hasn't got Vincent Price.
**Lee:** It's the one that I watched and enjoyed and haven't gone back to because.
**Adam:** It's the George Lazenby one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Basically.
**Lee:** Yeah, very good in its own right, but when you compare it to the others, you always watch Vincent Price.
**Adam:** It's not winning anything unless you're feeling very unusual.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I do, yeah, I mean, it's, oh, did you know about the,
**Adam:** the extra bit, there's a prologue to this film.
**Adam:** basically,
**Adam:** I mean, obviously,
**Adam:** now, bear in mind, this film is 1961.
**Adam:** in 1968, when it was sold to, I think, ABC for television.
**Adam:** it wasn't long enough to fill up the two-hour slot, like if you you know, like obviously they chop adverts in, but it still wasn't long enough to fill the two-hour slot.
**Adam:** So they filmed a prologue to bring up the running time.
**Adam:** And, where are we?
**Lee:** Do you know what, it's funny you say that.
**Lee:** So I was discussing this with Dave today, who sent us the request for this.
**Lee:** And someone on the video chat said, oh, I'd like to watch that.
**Lee:** And he sent a photograph later of the fact that it's currently available on Sky Cinema.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And it said an hour and 38 minutes.
**Lee:** And I said, well, that's odd because I've just sat down to watch it and it was an hour and 20.
**Lee:** So where does the other 18 minutes come from, and I was like, I've not got Sky, but I'm pretty sure they don't stick adverts in the middle of it.
**Lee:** So, yeah, that would actually explain, all right, I need to go and track that copy down there and see that.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's, well, it's,
**Adam:** fortunately it's on the arrow release.
**Adam:** They do have, oh, and I'll tell you there's another thing on there that's absolutely fantastic.
**Adam:** But, yeah, so it was, Corman's production assistant Tamara Azief, and she went and filmed it and it features, Luana Anders, who is,
**Adam:** the, sister Katherine, Katherine Medina.
**Adam:** Because she was like the only member of the cast they could get back to do it because obviously it was like eight years ago.
**Adam:** And it basically starts with, her, it's it's her in an asylum where the events of the film have driven her mad.
**Adam:** And then so she sort of like goes around this asylum.
**Adam:** Sid Hage's in it.
**Adam:** Very briefly as a as a sort of molesti guard.
**Adam:** But yeah, Sid Sid Hage turns up in it.
**Adam:** And basically, yeah, it's it's really weird because it's sort of it's obviously not.
**Adam:** Shot on at the same time.
**Adam:** And Luana Anders looks, I mean, not different, but, you know,
**Adam:** it's clearly not two days later or from when, you know.
**Adam:** and,
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just very weird sort of like little thing that they've added in.
**Adam:** But basically, yeah, so she then goes up to someone and starts telling that, well, I'll tell you why I'm here.
**Adam:** and then and the film and then the rest of the film's a flashback.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, I definitely need to track that down and see that.
**Lee:** Because that's very unusual.
**Adam:** Well, I also I thought I would have to put down just in case.
**Adam:** it had it had happened.
**Adam:** well done, Chris.
**Adam:** for not having this happen.
**Adam:** But, yeah.
**Adam:** Not to be confused with The Pit and the Pendulum with Lance Henriksen and Poe.
**Adam:** 1990 1991.
**Lee:** Full Moon production.
**Adam:** Oh no, that there's also Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum.
**Adam:** Which is a low-budget erotic thriller adaptation apparently.
**Lee:** Oh dear.
**Lee:** I don't quite know what you Oh, yeah, no, I don't want to think about it.
**Lee:** I can't.
**Adam:** There's there's a French adaptation.
**Adam:** There's a German adaptation with Christopher Lee called The Blood Demon in 1967.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** And there is a reading of it by Vincent Price on An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe.
**Adam:** Which is basically a filmed TV special where he sits and performs for Poe stories.
**Lee:** I have that on DVD as well.
**Lee:** That's also midnight releases, I think.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's on the that's on the arrow one as well, because I was like, I'd read about it and I thought, oh, I'll drop that down and then when I was going through the extras on this, because I thought, oh, well, they'll have the, I know they have the prologue in there.
**Adam:** And yeah, suddenly I was like, oh shit, I've just had this.
**Adam:** Nice warm slice of entertainment set there for ages and I'm like, oh, look at it.
**Lee:** I couldn't find my arrow release.
**Lee:** So I watched my.
**Lee:** Dodgy old DVD copy, you see, so I've missed all these extras.
**Lee:** I don't know if I've actually watched my arrow release version, but yeah.
**Adam:** As as you guess, it looks incredible.
**Adam:** By the way.
**Adam:** We're not being paid by Arrow.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** They can pay us if they want and they can send us free discs if they want.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** Yeah, we're not actually being paid by arrow.
**Adam:** We just like them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** They just they they always, it's one of those even if they've put a film out like this that they put out years later, they managed to get some really good stuff of the time, a lot of the time the documentaries and things that surround them are all, you know, like they make their own.
**Lee:** Yeah, and they're just really good, yeah, they they just put out really good, you know, stuff that even if you've got it on DVD already.
**Lee:** It's always worth getting anything that they released that you're interested in, but yeah, that's.
**Adam:** Yeah, they're they're always good value.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And a lot of it stuff you don't, I mean, in terms of streaming, you don't get many extras, any more that sort actually that got beat out of them.
**Adam:** It was like talking about extras, for fuck's sake, just show me the film, Jesus Christ.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** Roger Corman's career has been.
**Lee:** I know we discussed it in the previous episodes, but like the amount of stuff that he's done through the years, like the amount of famous films that are attributed to him, and I didn't know growing up, I didn't know who he was particularly.
**Lee:** But, you know, stuff like Death Race and although, you know, like big name stuff.
**Lee:** Like he seemed to be able to turn his hand to almost anything.
**Lee:** Didn't he do a load of softcore porn stuff and things as well?
**Adam:** I I think I think everything, basically, if it was if there was exploitation, Roger Corman even directed or produced it in in some way or another.
**Adam:** So I think there's, I think there's definitely there's probably like, I think there's like bikini films and nudi films and stuff.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** I think it's just it's the thing of being a, what's the word for it?
**Adam:** It's the it's just.
**Adam:** Part and parcel of just doing, well, we're throwing enough shit at the wall, make some money.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Actually, I did very.
**Adam:** In a lovely way.
**Adam:** But you know, you know, really.
**Lee:** I did very nearly actually in the the run-up to this I,
**Lee:** I was going through my collection, yeah, and I did find, you're saying about bikinis, the Doctor Goldfoot, the two Doctor Goldfoot movies.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** yeah, and I I think I watched half of the first one and didn't get to finish it.
**Lee:** And I was tempted to watch it just to sort of, because it was an excuse to watch them really.
**Lee:** But, yeah.
**Lee:** I didn't quite get around to it in the end.
**Lee:** But I definitely will watch the.
**Adam:** Have they also got on there a film called Master of the World or something as an extra?
**Lee:** Possibly.
**Lee:** I I think it's two films either one on one disc or the two films in one box, so yeah.
**Lee:** I don't think there's many extras or anything, so they're.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** but no, it might be worth checking.
**Adam:** Just because that is a sort of a it's an adaptation of a Jules Verne story called Rober Master of the World.
**Adam:** And it's Vincent Price is basically this steampunk Sky pirate.
**Lee:** Oh, wait, I've seen.
**Lee:** I have seen that.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes, I not sure if I saw it as an extra on the.
**Lee:** But I have seen that, yeah, it's very cardboard scenery and stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah, I still need to see it.
**Adam:** I've never seen it to be honest.
**Adam:** But it's always just I and I like I like the the Verne, so, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was again, it was fairly entertaining, but yeah, it was one of those kind of, I don't think it was super low budget.
**Lee:** I think it was just very early filmmaking, so yeah, it all just felt very, you know, plastic.
**Lee:** And stuff.
**Lee:** When they were supposed to be in this huge zeppelin flying around the world.
**Lee:** yeah, and it looked like an office that had been built in a in a warehouse, funnily enough.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, I just I need to watch more Vincent Price.
**Lee:** But I do go through phases of just getting swamped.
**Lee:** And I keep going back to the same old classics again and again.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I do need to diversify a bit, I think, and, like I bought one of his pirate movies and I watched Dragonwick and,
**Adam:** Some of his Noir's good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That that's some good stuff.
**Adam:** Because again, he's just very good at being a menacing bastard.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And actually if you're feeling really go and seek out.
**Adam:** When he was egged on Batman.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, I never really watched Batman.
**Lee:** So I missed all of that.
**Lee:** So I think I might have to.
**Adam:** I mean that that was the original series.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That was the the original series.
**Adam:** Yeah, the Adam West one.
**Adam:** So be prepared, it's basically him in a giant bald head making egg puns.
**Chris:** I think that that has got to be.
**Lee:** That's super bad.
**Adam:** Yeah, and that's exquisit.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** It's super bad.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** let's wrap this up.
**Lee:** So thanks very much for that Dave, that was a perfect excuse for us to go back to another Corman Poe film.
**Lee:** Quite soon after we recently did, they're always good.
**Adam:** I'm also very pleased because sorry, I was just going to say, I was very pleased to realize that the the wheel of horror had had thrown up to us.
**Adam:** The Holy Trinity of Cushing, Lee and Price.
**Chris:** Yes, true.
**Adam:** So well done that wheel of horror.
**Chris:** It's almost like it there was a spirit guiding it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Google.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** So, we will be back in a fortnight's time with our what we've been watching, so I'd better knuckle down and watch something.
**Lee:** Because currently it's a very scant list.
**Lee:** and after that, we will be on episode 150, and we've got something planned for that.
**Lee:** We're hoping it's going to be entertaining, but it might just entertain us and nobody else.
**Lee:** So we don't know, but we will definitely, let you know on the next episode what we've got coming.
**Lee:** So thanks very much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Lee:** I said good night a bit rush there.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Chris:** Eggy Poo gives boy one a shampoo.
**Chris:** I'm looking up at Vincent Price Batman.
**Lee:** I'm hooked up.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Possibly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh.

---

## Ep 147 Horror Express

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-147-horror-express/
Air date: 17 July 2022
Duration: 00:33:46
Film: Horror Express · Year: 1974 · Director: Eugenio Martín

### Description

Audience request month kicks off with a train journey as we climb aboard the “Horror Express”. A film in which Christopher Lee’s moustache bristles with traditional British pomposity; Peter Cushing’s wallet brims with traditional British bribery; Rasputin comes a cropper with a copper; and Inter-Narrational Fiction Pirate Captain Kojak invades from a completely different movie. A truly international film - a British/Spanish co-production about a Russian locomotive travelling from China across Siberia getting waylaid by a New York Cossack, this plays like “The Thing” on a train, but is so much more mental than that already sounds - watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Adam:** I'm Chris.
**Chris:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening to discuss the 1972 movie Horror Express.
**Adam:** 50, 50 years ago.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** I think you know how long it took me to watch this film.
**Lee:** we, this is the first of our listener request month, of which there are two movies. This is the first, chosen by Pinball Bobby.
**Lee:** there will be spoilers, there will be swearing, and regardless of what I think of this film, I love you very much, Bobby. I'd just like to put that out there.
**Adam:** And I'd like to say, I love you even more.
**Lee:** Oh, well, there you go.
**Adam:** There will be fights a-plenty coming up, I think.
**Chris:** Bobby has been pressing for some time for us to cover Horror Express.
**Chris:** So clearly the gods were in his favor.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** And when that it got picked.
**Adam:** The alien gods perhaps.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** I think you'll appreciate this, Bobby, when I say that we choose you.
**Lee:** Okay. So, as this is your first viewing of it, Chris, what did you make of Horror Express?
**Adam:** Well, I think I may have given a little hint there, but for me, right, you know, so I, I think I heard you mention a little bit of what we were to expect, so I think Adam said something like a monkey alien on a train.
**Adam:** He probably said it better than that, but that's kind of what was left in my head.
**Adam:** It was it was something like that. And, and so I thought,
**Chris:** I think he was like an alien Yeti on a train.
**Adam:** Oh, could have been, yeah. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and then Telly Savalas turns up.
**Adam:** Oh, I don't know Telly Savalas, but I got to say I, I definitely like a lot of these actors, right?
**Adam:** But so yeah, so I'm thinking, it's it's it's roughly 50 years ago. I didn't know it was exactly 50 years ago, roughly that. How good are they going to make something that's a bit sci-fi, a bit horror, on a train?
**Adam:** it's got Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. They could probably play golf for an hour, and I'd be happy watching them. I'm not a big fan of sport. No, no dissing golf anyone, but I just don't watch much sport. Right, anyway.
**Adam:** So I thought, it'll be fine.
**Adam:** Yeah, I thought it'd be fine. I can watch that. It doesn't matter.
**Adam:** And I was very pleasantly surprised.
**Adam:** It's got a little bit of everything.
**Adam:** It's it's definitely got a bit of comedy in there, it's got some I think decent enough gore for the time.
**Adam:** it's got a fascinating cast of characters and the way they play off each other, and a bit of rivalry between Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
**Adam:** But, you know, then they get on and they're the British gentlemen trying to be noble till the end and getting whacked in the stomach for their efforts.
**Adam:** It's just it covers everything.
**Chris:** Can I just, can I just say at that point, Chris, you've just reminded me.
**Chris:** How oddly shocking is that?
**Adam:** What, when they get whacked?
**Chris:** When Telly Savalas, Christopher Lee gets whacked, butt of a gun to the stomach, and then Peter Cushing gets one to the fucking small of the back.
**Adam:** I did think if I didn't know beforehand, I won't be messing with any Kosaks.
**Adam:** It's because and, and that, the, the captain, what was his name, Kazzan? I mean, he is a character.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, well, Telly Savalas is a character.
**Chris:** I think that's it, he's really.
**Adam:** Right, okay. Telly Savalas turns up. I'm not sure if Captain.
**Chris:** Right, well.
**Adam:** Well, I got to say, we need to watch something else with him in it then.
**Chris:** Oh, well, there's, there's plenty I can recommend, definitely.
**Chris:** We'll get into that.
**Adam:** So it's I'm going to say, yeah, this is a definite great fun.
**Chris:** I'm so glad you, I'm so glad you enjoyed this, Chris, because yeah.
**Chris:** I read I'll, I can't remember the name, but of the author, but I read there's a series of books called The Midnight Movie Monographs.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Chris:** And I read they've done one on this, and I read that like in prep for this.
**Chris:** Because it was like, I bought it. I've actually now finally got to read it. And it's brilliant.
**Chris:** I like the fact because I've read it. It's the first book I've read in probably like almost like half a year.
**Chris:** It's, yeah.
**Chris:** And but he has this sort of, one thing that he talks about in it,
**Chris:** is that it's kind of this weird parallel that it's like Hammer, the same year Hammer do, To the Devil a Daughter, which he'll eventually, will probably eventually see.
**Adam:** We will.
**Chris:** But it's, but it's considered to be the last Hammer horror film, or the like the last of the original run.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** because obviously I know they've done other stuff and Woman in Black and things like that.
**Chris:** But yeah, so that's like, so the same year that Hammer finish doing horror, you get this where you've got the two Hammer stars.
**Chris:** And but then like in terms of the horror genre, you start getting a lot of the stuff coming in from Europe and Italy, a lot of which is actually older, but is finally getting a release and so people are seeing these things and stuff like that.
**Chris:** And also just horror in general goes a bit grimy and a bit more gory and just a bit more, yeah.
**Adam:** Okay. Yeah, I could see that. I suppose.
**Chris:** And it's like a weird, like interesting, sort of transition point.
**Chris:** But, yeah. Now I'm, and I think to be honest, it's that element, that sort of 70s element more like Death Line or the say. I think that's probably Lee's least favorite aspect of the film.
**Adam:** Yeah, in fact, in fact, I remember when we watched Death Line, Lee was like, I like this a lot more now we've talked about it.
**Adam:** I'm pretty sure that was Death Line.
**Chris:** I think Death Line, you just need to never take Death Line seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah. I reckon if we watched this together, you'd get a lot more from it.
**Adam:** But like, look, let's let's give you a chance, go on.
**Lee:** I was going to say, funny enough, so this film I've tried to watch the first time, so in the last 10 years, I've tried twice to watch it.
**Lee:** I've got about 15, 20 minutes in and just been bored shitless.
**Lee:** and then last year, I finally managed to make it all the way through because I watched it with Lady Jennifer and we just took the piss out of it all the way through, so I got right to the end.
**Lee:** Today, I'm not exaggerating, it took me five hours to watch this film.
**Lee:** I watched 20 minutes and I was like, oh, thank God I didn't buff the dog yesterday. Right, that's it, I'm going to go out and buff the dog. So I paused it. I went outside and I buffed the dog.
**Lee:** Then I came in, I put it back on for 15 minutes, then I stopped it. I had a bit of lunch, I took the bottles to the bottle bank. I went to the furthest bottle bank I could find, so I could drive drive aimlessly about.
**Lee:** I was like, right, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to finish this. I got maybe another 20 minutes in and I was like, oh, screw this, I'm taking the dog for a walk now. So I stopped it, and I took the dog for a walk. It took me five goes. I watched this film in five segments.
**Adam:** Well, no one can doubt your tenacity, Lee.
**Adam:** That, that is.
**Lee:** Honestly, it got to the point where I was like, how pissed off are they going to be if I said, I'm happy to talk about this film, but I only watched half of it and I could not finish. But I thought, no, we have listeners, they have requested this movie, so I shall stick it out. But God, I hated every minute of it.
**Adam:** So look, I'm I'm trying to think the first 20 minutes, not a lot happens, as far as I can remember, but you get hints at what's going on. I liked, straight away, I liked a bit of rivalry between Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee there.
**Adam:** And, and yeah, you're seeing the characters. You get an idea about what's going on.
**Adam:** And then it somehow it just kept building for me all the way through to the end.
**Chris:** I think you'd have to agree, Lee, that it's Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are particularly fucking good in this.
**Adam:** Oh, they are astonishing.
**Chris:** They are really, really good.
**Chris:** And but also their sort of playing off each other is really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Right.
**Lee:** They're they're doing the they're playing their perfect roles.
**Lee:** Peter Cushing is being absolutely sweet and a lovely darling.
**Lee:** Christopher Lee is being an absolute pompous belly the entire film.
**Chris:** But also, but I love the fact, although Peter Cushing is an absolute darling, he's also a bit like, he's like when he's like, I do want to see her, what's in that crate, so I'll bribe the and when he bribes his way onto the train.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And also, also when he's asked if he's a doctor or something.
**Chris:** Just corruption.
**Adam:** But when he's asked if he's a doctor as well, and he's like, well, I'll finish my meal first.
**Adam:** It's like, is that how things used to be? I kind of don't think they would happen now.
**Lee:** I do like that, I did like the line when they were saying, you know, we need to work out who the monster is, and he said, well, how do I know? He said, you're not a viewer, and he said, we're British.
**Lee:** Monster.
**Chris:** We're British.
**Chris:** It's, I mean, yeah. And that's kind of what they're offering in a in a lovely way.
**Chris:** But I mean, I, I know that I know we want to sort of like, I know we want to crack through this and everything, but I've really got to tell you the sort of tale of Lee and Cushing with this film.
**Chris:** So, so Christopher Lee was the first one to come on board with it, and he suggested Peter Cushing to play Dr. Wells.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** And because January 1971, Peter Cushing lost his wife.
**Chris:** And as we've discussed a lot of times on the show, that was absolutely devastating to him.
**Chris:** He regularly sort of, all the way for the rest of his life, whenever he was interviewed, he would just describe himself as, well, I'm pottering along until I get to die so I can see my wife again.
**Chris:** And and he's like, you know, he is utterly bereft.
**Chris:** And Christopher Lee's like, oh, well, you know, I want to keep I'll keep him working.
**Chris:** Because he thought that was the best method to keep him from further into depression, you know.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, possibly.
**Chris:** So and this was filmed in December of 19, sorry, January '71 was when he lost his wife. This was filmed in January, in December '71.
**Chris:** So, in a way, it was like coming up to his first Christmas without her, very, you know.
**Chris:** And I think, yeah, Christopher Lee was like, well, if he's working, he'll be thinking about that and, you know, it'll take his, you know, hopefully helping through it.
**Adam:** Yeah, definitely.
**Chris:** But then Peter Cushing then did try to pull out,
**Chris:** and he rang the because obviously this is like a Spanish English co-production.
**Chris:** And so it's mainly Spanish crew and then you've got the two British stars essentially.
**Chris:** But the yeah, so Peter Cushing spoke to the agent for the British end of it,
**Chris:** and said tried to pull out.
**Chris:** And the bloke said, yeah, you can do that, but you've got to you've still got to make the journey and tell the producer to his face there.
**Chris:** Because he thought, oh, you know, that'll probably.
**Adam:** What he thinks?
**Chris:** He he'll put him off, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So, so and the producer, Berman Golden, no one told him this was what was happening.
**Chris:** So Peter Cushing, he went he went to collect Peter Cushing from the airport, just expecting Peter Cushing's here to start work.
**Chris:** And then Peter Cushing explained to him that he didn't want to, you know, he didn't want to appear.
**Chris:** So, so Golden then spoke to Christopher Lee and like asked him to sort of step in and organized a meal for the three of them to resolve the issue, or hopefully encourage Peter Cushing to stay.
**Chris:** And this ended up being like a a monologue of Christopher Lee reminiscing over the previous films that him and Peter Cushing had worked on, and the other two were sort of sitting there not really talking, just eating eating the meal.
**Chris:** But apparently it sort of the next day, Peter Cushing arrived on set, ready to begin.
**Chris:** And as you can imagine after some profuse apologies for causing any trouble, he didn't mention it again.
**Chris:** But and this is the key bit that gets me and it's it this I thought was just like, because again, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, like you say, they're both fulfilling what you feel they are in real life.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And but this is just so lovely.
**Chris:** So Peter Cushing was still deeply distressed and began to suffer night terrors.
**Chris:** So Christopher Lee took to sleeping in his bed with him.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** So I mean, so he would awaken in unfamiliar because he was waking up in unfamiliar surroundings, so he thought, well if I'm there, he knows where he is.
**Chris:** And it's just such a.
**Lee:** That is a sweet story.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's so sweet. They are just, you know, I think something about Peter Cushing brings out the absolute heart in Christopher Lee, it's just like really lovely.
**Chris:** But also, I cannot help but picture them as Eric and Ernie.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Both sat there in pajamas like Morecambe and Wise and just,
**Chris:** and just, you know, police car goes, he's not going to sell many ice creams going at that speed.
**Lee:** I just, yeah, it was just such a lovely thing that I had to sort of like, it was of all the sort of background stuff on the film, it was like the most sort of like just really lovely. You know, I just thought, fantastic.
**Adam:** But has that been enough to turn Lee?
**Lee:** No, no, definitely not.
**Lee:** But I mean, but watching it again, I can definitely see why Bobby loves it, because I think I said it when, when we covered this on the what you've been watching and I watched it.
**Lee:** This is just the thing on a train.
**Lee:** It's exactly the same as The Thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It's.
**Lee:** Yeah, but badly shot with a terrible score that doesn't go with the film.
**Adam:** You watch your mouth out.
**Lee:** It's all shaky cam. It's, oh, yeah, it's just appalling, it's badly paced.
**Adam:** I'll have you, I'll have you know that the composer worked on Columbo.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He knows how to do a 70s.
**Adam:** That's that's what adds that extra little mystery element to it.
**Lee:** But but this is, see, this is what I was thinking earlier as well. It feels like it should have been a mystery, except there was no mystery because we knew who the alien was in at all times.
**Lee:** So it should have been like a bit like The Thing where you're like, well, who is it? Which one is it?
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, you get that ambiguity. We don't know more than them.
**Lee:** Yeah, but with this, you know, And it's like, so there's no mystery to it.
**Lee:** There's no like, and yeah, and it just yeah.
**Adam:** So I could I mean, right sometimes that would bother me, but for some reason, with this, it didn't. I felt like it was still interesting to see it play out with all of them.
**Adam:** And who who's going to trust who and.
**Chris:** It was nice, it's nice to be in that omniscient position.
**Adam:** Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I suppose.
**Chris:** But also in a weird way, because I was thinking it's a bit like Agatha Christie's The Thing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But again, with Agatha Christie, you don't know who's done it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But then oddly enough with Columbo, you do, so that's again, that's the connection.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Chris:** It's I'm going to I'm going to mention this because we'll talk about it anyway, we've we've fucking got to.
**Chris:** Oh, and another thing, I never knew this, the two writers of this wrote Psychomania, which is another one that Lee's not keen on, but I know that Bobby fucking is because it's dog mental.
**Lee:** I cannot, cannot abide Psychomania. Oh, I'll gladly watch it and yeah, take what you can friends, but.
**Chris:** And again that soundtrack, but yeah.
**Chris:** but yeah, they, but the guy who did the music is a guy called John Kakavas.
**Chris:** he bumped into Telly Savalas in London and was just sort of like they got talking.
**Chris:** And Telly Savalas was like, right, you're a composer, come and have a listen to these recordings, because Telly Savalas did have a a singing career as well.
**Chris:** He's kind of like, he was kind of like Bruce Willis in the 70s.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Chris:** In the, also sang.
**Chris:** But, you know, but was mainly turning up in action and tough roles and stuff like that, you know.
**Adam:** He he does look the part for it.
**Chris:** Yeah. But he so he played this he played John Kakavas's, like his solo stuff that he was recording, and he was like, what do you think of it? But not much.
**Chris:** And he was like, well, if you can if you can do better, could you record me?
**Chris:** And it was like, yeah, if you get me a gig on like in the film industry, like if you get me on some project. Yeah, we'll and that's how they cut the deal.
**Chris:** And that's the reason he's the composer on this, because, yeah.
**Chris:** And then but this guy then went on to do, like I say, he did like loads, mostly television, but he also did Kojak, which was obviously Telly Savalas's like most famous role, like the cop, who was a cop show from the 70s, Chris.
**Adam:** Yeah, where I'd heard of it. I have never seen one.
**Chris:** But yeah, it's just it's just Captain Kazaan walking around in shades and a lollipop saying, who loves you baby?
**Adam:** I think I might have to check one of those out.
**Lee:** What I love is he just turned up and out pricks Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee is such an obnoxious belly, and then it's like, yeah, but not as much as this massive wanker just turned up.
**Chris:** It is, it's like, oh, I've been putting, because I think it's also lovely because you kind of get to this point where they've kind of muddled through.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And they're like, they're getting to the point where it's like, right, I've and clearly Christopher Lee has worked out, well if I turn the lights off, we'll punch the guy whose eyes are glowing red.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So like, but he's just they're sort of kind of just about to do that.
**Chris:** And like I say, up until this point, murder on the Orient Express.
**Chris:** And Chris, have you ever seen Blazing Saddles?
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** Right, because at the very end of Blazing Saddles, the Mel Brooks film,
**Chris:** the the a fight that's taking place in Blazing Saddles crashes through into another set of another film, of like a musical.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Chris:** And like the the director of the musical was going, stop, stop, stop. how dare you come onto my set.
**Chris:** And one of the cowboys just guns up to him and just goes, piss on you, I work for Mel Brooks, and then punches him.
**Chris:** And it's kind of what happens in this.
**Chris:** Is it's like Telly Savalas was in another film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And he just turned up and thought, oh, I'm going to take care of business in this film for the 16 minutes before I get killed.
**Adam:** I can definitely see how it would look like that if, yeah, if you've seen him playing this kind of role elsewhere.
**Chris:** Not only that, but it's also I looked, it's dead on an hour.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I noticed that as well.
**Lee:** It's an hour when he turns up.
**Chris:** It's dead on the hour that it's like the first time you see Telly Savalas.
**Chris:** And it's just sort of, you know.
**Lee:** And he is funny. He turns up and starts slagging all these rich people off and calling them peasants. And it's like, I've just seen you sleeping on the floor next to a fire in a shed with a prostitute. Don't start coming in here and acting the big I am with all these rich people.
**Adam:** I get the impression that he makes his own reality. He does not care what the real one is. It's whatever he says it is.
**Chris:** I'm I'm now thinking of like having Captain Kazaan just as that, like a sort of metafictional character who creates his own realities and therefore just blips through into other people's films.
**Chris:** And just like, you know, you just be halfway through Four Weddings and a Funeral and they're just doing like, you know, like the wedding speech or whatever like that. And then Kazaan turns in, beats a few people up, steals all their vodka, then fucks off.
**Lee:** But it wasn't just him, it was Rasputin.
**Lee:** Why was Rasputin in this film?
**Lee:** What was that all about?
**Lee:** That was definitely Rasputin.
**Lee:** I know they called him something else.
**Chris:** Oh, no, it is purely that is the character that he is there to be.
**Chris:** If if they could have called him Rasputin, I think he's probably too, there might be people who could sue.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It is it is sort of, yeah, he is a very Rasputin-like figure.
**Chris:** interestingly enough, because it's a lot of Italian and Spanish films, because they were going to be dubbed for various markets.
**Chris:** Like they to make money, they had to do an English dub, so they just didn't record the sound and then dub the, dialogue and sound effects afterwards.
**Chris:** but for this, Telly Savalas did his own voice, and Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing did their own voices.
**Chris:** So although they weren't recorded, they did go and record their own dubbing.
**Chris:** but the guy who plays who dubs for the Rasputin.
**Chris:** is a guy called Robert Rietti.
**Chris:** Who basically was indistinct foreign voice for years. He was just he just overdubbed anyone who was basically non-Caucasian in any sort of films or whatever like that.
**Chris:** But, and you'll know him because he's very much he's like about eight different fucking Bond villains for a start.
**Chris:** And it's it's, that is what you say, Mr. Bond.
**Chris:** It's that voice.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And yeah. And suddenly but again, when I'm watching this, I'm like, yeah, I can hear it. I can really hear that through.
**Chris:** But yeah, no, Rasputin is an interesting choice.
**Chris:** And I also like the fact that, I mean, this is how deeply I was watching it.
**Chris:** I was like, so, is the priest following him because although he's a man of God, this character as far as he is concerned is Satan. And so therefore Satan is the only thing that has ever proved to him of supernatural that would imply that there is a God.
**Chris:** And that just takes him to work. And then I was like, no, I think I might be overthinking Horror Express.
**Adam:** Possibly.
**Adam:** Because there's no plot so you've got loads of time to think because there's this all going on.
**Lee:** I sat like I I the thing is, I got to the end and I've written it down with a big ring around it, why was the alien killing everybody? It was never explained what it was doing, to kill.
**Adam:** Well, wait, wait, wait, look, look, here's in fact, this is where we could have that argument of I might like to try and understand the alien.
**Adam:** And you'd be like, no, just kill it. It's killing people, kill it, right?
**Adam:** But I would say it's a little bit like, you know, we kill things without necessarily seeing that it's important.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, but you wouldn't be like, I'm on a train, I've inhabited this body, I would like to go without being noticed. So what I'm going to do is boil lots of people's brains.
**Adam:** Well, no, but but it didn't start with a sort of a modern intellect, did it? It essentially, because you if you take a human back, back when it was frozen, humans were useless practically. It's the only reason we're good is because we have we have books and yeah, so we would be primitive if we had no knowledge.
**Lee:** But once he once he'd killed the guy on the platform, it would have been like.
**Adam:** Well, maybe maybe he was not he was not fully appreciating the complexities of a train filled with.
**Chris:** It does mean that you get a Siberian alien snow Yeti picking a lock.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Which is just.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, that's the bit he learned. There you go.
**Chris:** But but no, but I love the fact that that is supposedly literally all he's learned from that fate.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's why he was so good. He just he never thought about anything else.
**Chris:** He was a he was like a sort of top-level athlete of, lock-picking.
**Lee:** And and just like, I guess it's a horror film, I guess it's the 70s, there is some shaky science going on in the 70s, in film in general.
**Lee:** But the idea that everything that the eye has seen is saved in the liquid, and if you look in the eye, you can see everything it's ever seen.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like it's ridiculous.
**Lee:** Like it's a human eye. Like I know it's got an alien inhabiting that body, but.
**Adam:** But but it was quite a nice like it made no sense, but it was quite a nice.
**Chris:** It's it's a weirdly enough, it's actually based on a myth.
**Chris:** That has been.
**Adam:** Wasn't that like homeopathy?
**Chris:** It was it was around the like there was this theory because loads of people kept trying to do it.
**Chris:** like loads of sort of doctors and coroners and stuff were trying to photograph people's eyes because they were convinced that the final image would be recorded on the not not like.
**Adam:** Well, yeah, we had that with the Mark Hamill one that Lee hated as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, see shaky science.
**Adam:** Yeah. No normally I don't like that, but I completely gave that a free ride in this.
**Chris:** Also shaky, if you want real shaky science, the bumps and creases of your brain are not, the bumps and creases don't disappear.
**Adam:** Yeah, I've made a note of that as well. Don't you worry.
**Adam:** But that's why I felt like this was it was fun enough that I didn't care too much about that.
**Adam:** It was like, no, this this is not I don't I don't need to take this one too seriously.
**Adam:** It's a fun alien train romp with a bit of horror and a bit of gore.
**Chris:** I mean, in terms of the budget as well, for what it is, you know, it's clearly very low budget.
**Chris:** But you've got some actually quite good.
**Chris:** I like the alien eye effects.
**Adam:** Yeah, the red eyes looks really good.
**Chris:** They work better when they're on the actor who they obviously originally did them for.
**Chris:** Because I'm pretty sure they just reuse the same ones on Rasputin, and it was a bit, yeah.
**Chris:** But but also like you get that shot at the start of of the train.
**Chris:** After that,
**Chris:** this is all a model.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** All the train, all the train in this is a model after that first shot.
**Chris:** And it was a model left over from the director's previous film, a film called, Pancho Villa, but which had Telly Savalas in it.
**Chris:** But yeah, he he just reused that.
**Chris:** And they had, they had a corridor and a carriage, and they just had to redress it for for different parts of the train.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Chris:** So, and but they had blow-ups of train carriages on rollers. So at the end of each one, they would sort of swing and look like you could see beyond on the train.
**Chris:** It's like really quite interesting little false perspective thing they did.
**Lee:** This was my other thing that I made a note on. Sorry, just to pick more holes in it.
**Lee:** At the end where they said, Moscow have said, can we change the points? And they said, well, it'll kill everyone. Who was in Moscow? How did they know what was going on in the train? Why did they want to kill everybody?
**Lee:** Like if if they just wanted the the alien dead, but nobody in Moscow knew the alien was on the train. So what was all that about?
**Chris:** I assumed it was when Christopher Lee goes in and finds the telegraph was not sent.
**Chris:** I assume that Christopher Lee then telegraphs.
**Chris:** Because they sort of just leave that and then nothing happens.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I assumed he called for the cops because they got on at the next station. So I assumed somebody had sent the message. But why that message was forwarded to Moscow, who then said, kill everyone on the train, is just a mystery that will never be answered.
**Chris:** Well, it's a mystery because we're never quite sure, Christopher Lee is clearly funded by the Russian government.
**Chris:** You know, that that expedition is on their money. So were they always, is it like when Yutani were like always trying to find like some alien, you know.
**Adam:** To use as a weapon.
**Chris:** I'm just going to give you, probably because it's the only time he's going to appear, I will give you a breakdown on Mr. Aristotle Savalas, they'll Telly Savalas.
**Chris:** who was born to Greek immigrant parents in New York.
**Chris:** He was 37 before he started had a an on-screen role.
**Chris:** He sort of just drifted into.
**Chris:** It sort of been a news, it sort of done loads of stuff and been a news vendor, a radio presenter, a lifeguard.
**Chris:** During this time he tried to save a man who unfortunately drowned while the man's children stood by crying and, telling their dad to wake up.
**Chris:** So he, that obviously stuck with him. So he became like a real campaigner on water safety and obviously, make sure he's going to switch.
**Chris:** yeah, and he basically covered for a friend who couldn't make an audition and got the part.
**Chris:** And that's how he ended up acting.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Chris:** And he sort of like so he,
**Chris:** but he at one I think they were doing he was playing his pilot in The Greatest Story Ever Told.
**Chris:** Which is when he first shaved his head.
**Chris:** And then just stuck with it.
**Chris:** I think it was like, I'm going fucking bold.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** It works.
**Chris:** And it it works. It's the, what's his name, Patrick Stewart.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** Stay bold, yeah.
**Chris:** You just don't look any different.
**Chris:** as well.
**Chris:** But yeah, so he's in The Dirty Dozen.
**Chris:** He's Blofeld in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, making him the only American to play the part and the first American Bond film.
**Chris:** he's then portrayed the role of Lieutenant Theo Kojak in The Marcus Nelson Murders, which was a TV movie that then spun off to Kojak for five seasons.
**Chris:** he also had a music career as we mentioned earlier.
**Chris:** He had a UK number one with If.
**Chris:** a cover, you know, cover.
**Adam:** I'm going to have to look at this, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** while in in the late 70s, whilst working a great deal in Europe, he provided narration for three UK travelogue shorts.
**Chris:** Telly Savalas looks at Portsmouth, looks at Aberdeen, and looks at Birmingham.
**Chris:** I've seen looks at Birmingham.
**Chris:** died the day after his 72nd birthday.
**Chris:** So I'm assuming that was a real party.
**Chris:** but yeah, just stuff to check him out in. He's in Cape Fear.
**Chris:** The Dirty Dozen, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
**Chris:** Film I think you'd love Lee.
**Chris:** He's in a film called The Assassination Bureau, him, Oliver Reed, and Diana Rigg, and it's basically like a steampunk adventure across Europe, where
**Chris:** Oliver Reed's the head of a assassin assassination bureau and then decides to get his team to kill him.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's just yeah, really great film.
**Chris:** He's El Sleazo Tuff in The Muppet Movie, Captain Kronos, a film called Bastard.
**Chris:** and just loads of stuff.
**Chris:** Look him up.
**Chris:** But yeah, and
**Adam:** I've just looked up If, and the top comment is this is the most outrageous song ever, it's pure 70s brilliance.
**Chris:** It's very much in the, have you heard, what's his name, William Shatner's stuff?
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** You need to.
**Adam:** I'm have to look at that as well. No.
**Chris:** Yeah. William Shatner's it's very much in that sort of vein.
**Chris:** I can't think what his big one was, but sorry, that sounds wrong.
**Lee:** It was a David Bowie one, wasn't it?
**Chris:** Oh, he did a Common People quite yeah.
**Chris:** That was in the 90s though.
**Chris:** But yeah, he did, no, it was Rocket Man.
**Lee:** Yes, I think it was, yeah.
**Chris:** And he does it as a spoopy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I'm not that.
**Lee:** Dyer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Very much so.
**Lee:** Well, right. So, let's wrap it up, gentlemen.
**Lee:** thanks very much for your recommendation, Bobby.
**Lee:** lots to talk about there on the positives and negatives.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** A lot of positives.
**Lee:** Positives, Bobby. Don't listen to him.
**Lee:** It's always more entertaining when we don't agree anyway.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so we will be back in a fortnight's time, and we'll be covering our next movie, which is The Pit and the Pendulum, sent to us by Dave.
**Lee:** and then we'll be doing what we've been watching, and then, I believe, we've got one more episode before 150, so we might have something planned for that.
**Lee:** But we shall have to see.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** So, thanks very much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** And goodnight.
**Adam:** Goodnight.
**Chris:** Goodnight.
**Lee:** And go and listen to Bobby's podcast, not for everyone.
**Lee:** Ninja Dust.
**Unknown:** Bo.

---

## Ep 146 We have been watching

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-146-we-have-been-watching/
Air date: 3 July 2022
Duration: 01:06:18

### Description

Welcome To Horror Presents: “The Bride of We Have Been Watching”. It’s time for our first regular round up of what we’ve been sticking into our eye balls outside of our regularly scheduled programming. In this episode we discuss Series 4 Part 1 of “Stranger Things”, “Starship Troopers”, “Morbius”, “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared”, “The House In Nightmare Park”, Nigel Kneale’s anthology series “Beasts”, “They Live”, “Shepherd”, “Halo” the TV series and “Inside No.9”. We also draw our 2 films for July’s audience recommendation month, so tune in to see if your suggestion is one of the lucky ones selected. Beware of spoilers and swearing and join us!

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here for the all-new, exciting, new format, of the show. So this is going to be our what we've been watching, where we are going to discuss the things that we've been watching and not have to try and rush it into the beginning of the episode.
**Lee:** also I don't know how horror it's all going to stay. We're going to do our best, but we shall see.
**Lee:** but in exciting news before that, Adam has been working his little socks off, collecting up all of your listener requests for listener request month.
**Adam:** Excellent.
**Lee:** And putting them all onto a massive, he's got I know you can't see it because it's a podcast, right, but he's got a huge two-foot wheel behind him with all of the films all pinned to it.
**Lee:** And one of those magical spinning board things like they used to have on Wheel of Fortune, and he's going to do that for us live on air right now to choose the film.
**Lee:** So Adam,
**Lee:** Over to you in the studio.
**Adam:** Yes, that's right, folks. I'm here in my gold lame jacket and we've got have have we got films for you.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** Just to let everyone know, the films that we have had, the films that suggestions for the films to watch,
**Adam:** We had 100 Monsters from Claire.
**Adam:** The Asfix from, Mos Eisley Happy Hour, Mos Eisley Happy Hour's very own Westley.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Joe Watson came in with Braindead.
**Lee:** Classic.
**Adam:** Adam Law came in with The Company of Wolves.
**Lee:** Ooh.
**Adam:** Bobby of the Not For Everyone podcast asked for Horror Express.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** former guest Manny asked for Malignant.
**Lee:** Ooh.
**Adam:** Uncle Dave asked for The Pit and the Pendulum.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Adam:** former guest Dean asked for The Toxic Avenger.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And Ledbelt Art asked for Wild Zero.
**Adam:** So, that is a,
**Chris:** Nice.
**Lee:** Well I think,
**Chris:** It is that is a very good list.
**Chris:** But I'm pretty sure I only recognize Braindead, you know, it's I sort of have a sense you might have mentioned some of these before.
**Chris:** I can remember a very long time ago, Lee, you might have talked about The Toxic Avenger.
**Lee:** Yes, I I love those Troma.
**Lee:** And I we were going to watch,
**Lee:** We weren't going to watch Toxic Avenger, we were going to watch Class of Nuke 'Em High, wasn't it?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was that was that was that was part of the this the reason Dean suggested because it was like we haven't done any Troma yet.
**Adam:** So, you know, he wanted to get.
**Lee:** You know what, that is an amazing list.
**Lee:** There isn't a film in there that I wouldn't gladly watch.
**Lee:** And the last one, I haven't even heard of.
**Lee:** So that's that's exciting, so I'll have to check that out.
**Adam:** Wild Zero, I've, I remember hearing about, I too have never seen it, but it's basically a a Japanese punk horror movie,
**Adam:** about a band who get involved with all kinds of weird nefariousnessnesses.
**Adam:** So, yes.
**Lee:** I'm watching that.
**Adam:** That This Well, I mean, this is the thing. This could be a absolute Welcome to Horror, so well done.
**Adam:** Well done, everyone.
**Adam:** I'm just going to I'm just going to move on to my,
**Adam:** where are we?
**Adam:** Get on to my Dirty Wheel of Justice.
**Adam:** And here we go.
**Adam:** Yep, we're loading now and,
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** You've gone all the way down there, have you?
**Adam:** All right, that's typical.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** I'm not going to complain.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** So, and,
**Adam:** First off, we've got,
**Adam:** Whoa, Horror Express.
**Lee:** Hey.
**Adam:** Which, yep, so that is from.
**Chris:** So it's.
**Adam:** Uncle Bobby over on the Not For Everyone.
**Adam:** So that is,
**Adam:** that will be, Cushing and Lee on a train with an alien Yeti that sucks your brains.
**Adam:** And then, and then about two-thirds of the way in, Telis turns up and just steals the film.
**Adam:** Apparently from another film.
**Adam:** So, that should be.
**Adam:** That should be that that's one I thought we've been we've needed to cover at some point anyway.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** And here we go with the second.
**Lee:** Bit RoboCop.
**Adam:** The Pit and the Pendulum.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So that is Uncle Dave's suggestion.
**Adam:** The Pit and the Pendulum.
**Adam:** Now,
**Adam:** I would definitely say that thank you to everyone for your suggestions. Congratulations, Bobby. Congratulations, Dave.
**Chris:** I'm I'm just I just need to check though, The Pit and the Pendulum looks like there's a few different versions.
**Adam:** he asked for the Vincent Price, Roger Corman's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So that's likely to be on the older.
**Adam:** 60.
**Chris:** I see, yep, yep.
**Lee:** 64, 63, 64.
**Chris:** 61, it looks like.
**Adam:** okay.
**Adam:** But, yes.
**Adam:** But please be aware, folks, that all of your suggestions are definitely going to be going onto our list anyway.
**Adam:** Because,
**Lee:** Oh,
**Adam:** There's so there is so much good stuff there, you have suggested so many great films.
**Adam:** And, I mean, for example, I mean, Joe Joe Watson came was the first one who came in and he asked for Braindead and it was like, shit, we haven't even done any Peter Jackson.
**Adam:** And that is very that is very remiss to remind people that, oh, yeah, he's not just Lord of the Rings.
**Chris:** Although I mean, you could, you could probably get Lord of the Rings into horror.
**Chris:** It's it's definitely got a lot of horror aspects to it.
**Lee:** It's closer to horror than some of the things I've got on the list that I might be watching.
**Adam:** But there we go. So, Horror Express and The Pit and the Pendulum will be our,
**Adam:** episodes coming up in July.
**Adam:** And like I say, no doubt the remain the remaining seven will also be coming up because, yeah.
**Adam:** They are some crackers there.
**Adam:** Really are.
**Lee:** Thank you so much to everyone who reached out to us, we, yeah, we we really appreciate it.
**Lee:** We said, let's do listener request month.
**Lee:** And then off there, we suddenly went, hope we get some requests. We look really stupid if no one said.
**Lee:** And then we have to start.
**Lee:** They're all on holiday this week.
**Lee:** We're fucked.
**Adam:** Then we just have to start putting in different things then just putting in false ones ourselves.
**Adam:** So, this was this was suggested by P. Lota.
**Adam:** And Ted has come up with this one.
**Lee:** Fantastic suggestion from Kempston joystick there.
**Adam:** And and Chris, we did see your suggestion for Requiem For A Dream.
**Adam:** I would like to say that we are banned because we are not technically audience, so we can't request.
**Adam:** But equally, it's Requiem For A Dream, mate.
**Adam:** It ain't it ain't happening.
**Chris:** I was thinking that wasn't the only reason it was banned.
**Adam:** To quote, to quote John Water's dad, it was good, but I'm glad I never have to watch it again.
**Lee:** God, yeah, I'd agree with that.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So onto onto this evening's, what we've been watching.
**Lee:** what we're going to do is we are going to go in a circular fashion.
**Lee:** so what we'll do is we'll start with, go on, Chris.
**Lee:** You sound like you're going to.
**Chris:** I was just thinking more triangular, but yeah.
**Lee:** What what I meant was, we're not going to take, you know, I'm not going to do all my films and then Adam, what we're going to do is,
**Lee:** Chris is going to do a film or a watch, and then Adam is going to do a watch, and then I will do a watch, and we will go around until the timer runs out or, yeah, we all get bored.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** There we go.
**Chris:** We've fallen asleep.
**Adam:** This sounds not unlike a threat.
**Adam:** It's like, we we will shoot a villager on the hour, every hour.
**Adam:** You until you either acquiesce to our demands or we run out of villagers.
**Lee:** Oh, that's a point. Squid Game didn't even make it onto my list.
**Lee:** I watched all of that this week.
**Lee:** And it was bloody good.
**Adam:** Oh, it's a it's a cracker.
**Adam:** Also,
**Adam:** Oh my God, poor bloody alley.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Poor alley.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, but yeah.
**Lee:** Great.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Sorry, yes.
**Lee:** So, we won't get into that.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** Chris.
**Chris:** Oh, I get to go first.
**Chris:** All right, I'm I'm launching off with my biggest watch, probably, out of this list.
**Chris:** So,
**Chris:** I'm going to say,
**Chris:** I've been running up that hill.
**Chris:** And not not just because I've just visited Wales and they have really quite large hills.
**Chris:** Also known as mountains.
**Chris:** I've actually been watching Stranger Things and yeah, also listening to a lot of that song until I realized the entire world had went mad on that song and it got into like number one.
**Chris:** And somehow that put me off a little bit.
**Chris:** I feel like I can't join in with everyone.
**Chris:** Anyway.
**Adam:** Just like me, mate.
**Adam:** You can't.
**Chris:** I know, I know.
**Chris:** I actually thought that, I actually felt like I am channeling Adam here.
**Chris:** But yeah, so, so Stranger Things season four, I I was a little hesitant at first.
**Chris:** I was like, oh, is it going to be as good?
**Chris:** Now, I think some people perhaps didn't like season two and three as much as season one, I mean, season one did just, you know, blast out of nowhere.
**Chris:** And grab us all by its 80s aesthetic and pretty original story, really.
**Chris:** while also lots of nods to, you know, previous films and especially, and there's this is where I had real hesitation with this.
**Chris:** Because Robert England is in it and have we mentioned spoilers?
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** Oh, yes. Spoilers are swearing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Don't take them all from.
**Chris:** Yeah, so, so yeah, I thought, oh, are they going to pull that off a a Freddy.
**Chris:** Like, how close is it going to be to Freddy?
**Chris:** and yeah,
**Chris:** I would say fantastic job once again blending horror with adventure.
**Chris:** comedy.
**Chris:** an amazing 80s feel, great style, excellent acting.
**Chris:** Again, lots of children who are getting older now.
**Chris:** but still, they've all got the charm.
**Lee:** Yeah, we we said the same.
**Lee:** So, so we've just watched it as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it is it is far more horror than any of the previous seasons.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But we think that.
**Lee:** It was it's only season four, but when it because of their age, when it flashes back to them in season one, my God, they look young.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** How they've changed so much in four years, but I suppose going from, you know, some preteen to mid-teen.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Definitely.
**Chris:** It can be a big difference.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** but yeah, you know, so and one of the other things that I sort of noticed going through, I guess they really made it clear towards the end was this, idea of sort of who is good and who's bad.
**Chris:** And that's especially the case with 11 in that she's really trying to figure out who is she, so it's it's sort of like a hero's journey.
**Chris:** But does it turn out that she's actually, you know, just evil?
**Chris:** And she just doesn't remember properly.
**Lee:** I've just realized, sorry, I've just remembered of course, we are two episodes behind in the UK. Are we still two episodes behind?
**Lee:** So it's nine it's nine episodes in the season, I believe, and it only put seven of them up on Netflix.
**Lee:** They released it.
**Lee:** They released.
**Chris:** Yeah, well,
**Lee:** Like in the US, so there's two more episodes to come.
**Lee:** So if you've seen the end, don't tell me because I'm still on seven episodes.
**Chris:** No, no, yeah, I'm on seven.
**Chris:** But I thought I just saw earlier it said something like, sort of sneak preview of Volume Two.
**Chris:** Coming out on I think 2nd of July.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** So that's what I mean, so they released it all in the you they released the first seven episodes and held back the last two episodes.
**Lee:** I think there's only two more.
**Chris:** But they're calling it Volume Two and it's just two episodes.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** Possibly, I think there's only two more on IMDB when I look, that might have changed.
**Lee:** But, but yeah, that was a bit annoying.
**Lee:** So America got the whole thing in one go.
**Lee:** And then they,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I was like,
**Lee:** well, luckily I don't go on social media much anymore, otherwise I would probably have had it spoiled, but.
**Chris:** but yeah, yeah, so I I definitely liked this this sort of thread of of what's good and evil.
**Chris:** And you know,
**Chris:** I mean, they did even with say with Lucas joining the sort of jocks and he's he's trying to decide, oh, you know,
**Chris:** like, these respect me, these think a lot of me, whereas my friends are not quite.
**Chris:** And especially with, Max, you know, because she's obviously going for a lot of difficulties.
**Chris:** So, yeah, that's sort of growing up and yeah, where do I fit in, what what decisions do I need to make, who do I side with?
**Chris:** oh, and particularly, what's his name, Paul Riser from Aliens, he played Burke in Aliens.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Yeah, and and he is.
**Chris:** Riser, okay.
**Chris:** and he's he's evil in that, although you don't realize it until it's sort of unfolds and he's getting worse and worse, pretty much.
**Chris:** And so, yeah, in this, I wasn't entirely sure, at first I thought, well, yeah, he seems like he's being good, but then it's not entirely clear then he argues with Brenner.
**Chris:** And it just, yeah, I I thought there was a lot in it that held my attention.
**Chris:** And yeah, and nice little twists and some fantastic scenes.
**Chris:** So, excellent, I I hope they carry on and do a season five.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I I say I am in total agreement.
**Lee:** I,
**Lee:** yeah, I I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I definitely found it way more horror than the previous seasons.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, I think that like you say, Chris, I think they've they've gone back almost to that first season where they've kind of got all the balance right.
**Lee:** Of like the comedy and the horror and there's enough character development.
**Lee:** And it all just sits so nicely.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just so and all the as you say, like with Lucas, was like bringing the new characters in, they fit in so well, nobody's like, oh, we've known these people for ages.
**Lee:** And they're just, they're just.
**Chris:** Oh, we need to bolt on a few more, yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, like they all just come together so nicely, so brilliantly written.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** With the Kate Bush.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Lee:** What would you like to talk about?
**Adam:** well, first up is one that was actually, something that was a recommendation from Chris.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** so I have finally watched, and let's face it, this is going to sound quite sometime now.
**Adam:** But I have finally seen 1997's Starship Troopers.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** Yes, because we were talking about, I think it came up when we were talking about, Tokyo Gore Police.
**Adam:** And we were saying about the the sort of.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, like the side bits and the cheerleading.
**Adam:** That felt a bit like.
**Adam:** RoboCop and then you mentioned about the Starship Troopers.
**Adam:** So, yes.
**Adam:** So it was, it was cheap on Blu-ray at Sainsbury's, so I thought I'll have.
**Adam:** Excellent.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I thought I'll have that.
**Adam:** and, yeah,
**Adam:** that's I mean, I can now, because.
**Adam:** I never saw it because I think a lot of people had sort of said it it wasn't.
**Adam:** Gory didn't put me off, because.
**Adam:** Gory doesn't put me off.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think there were a lot of I think there was a lot of sort of thing where it was like, oh, this is just nasty for nasty sake and everything.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, I just don't think that the people who are watching it have watched many gory films.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And also,
**Adam:** you know, and and weirdly enough, actually, one thing I will say with it is that sort of set both effects wise.
**Adam:** And I mean, obviously, it's majority CGI.
**Adam:** But it still actually stands up quite well, you know, it's not sort of.
**Chris:** I wonder if that's because they're all style.
**Chris:** Does have that sort of humor layer within it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because that that was the thing I got watching it is is I still I think there's a.
**Adam:** It's a weird one because I think there is the what I can only describe as the L. Murray the pub landlord effect.
**Adam:** Inasmuch as I think there's a lot of people who watched it and got the satire of like, you know, oh, here's America going to war.
**Adam:** Well, the Earth, but let's face it, it's America going to war.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the fact that it's sort of begets a a very high level of fascism within yourself to be jingoistic about war.
**Adam:** But then I think there are a lot of people who were just like, yeah, USA, We're Earth.
**Adam:** Who were just quite into it.
**Adam:** It's like, yeah, we would go and kick those fucking slimy bugs' asses.
**Adam:** And we would, yeah, because we would be heroes.
**Adam:** And, yeah, I think it sort of verges on that sort of level of confusion where it's like it sort of I'm not sure if the satire works entirely because I'm pretty sure there's a few people who read it as a straight.
**Adam:** Action film.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** but I mean, it was, I mean, I really, yeah.
**Adam:** I really, I mean, good cast. I mean, it was wonderful to see Michael Ironside and even I cheered when Michael Ironside turned up with a fox arm as leading the troops, you know, and even though it was like the most sort of like crappy like war like jingoistic war film sort of element.
**Adam:** Because of that removed, because it's set in space and everything, you know, it sort of it I but I still was like, hey, my license turned up.
**Adam:** He will kill them.
**Adam:** And, and obviously Clancy Brown and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** But I think,
**Adam:** yeah, I was actually I was really surprised sort of like I say that visually it stood up really well.
**Adam:** even to this day.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** No, I really enjoyed it and also there's a Bowie cover in there, which I was really shocked about.
**Adam:** Because they're the prom, there's a cover of, I have not been to Oxford town.
**Adam:** But they they I think they I have not been to Paradise or something like that, and but yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Which would have which which at the time would have only been two years old.
**Adam:** So it was quite a sort of interesting little moment.
**Chris:** I'll have to listen to that song and then rewatch it again just to fully appreciate that.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** yeah, no, I thought that, you know, I think that it sort of it was definitely, like, like I say, a fantastic parody of a war movie.
**Adam:** Or, for those who of who want that.
**Adam:** A jingoistic war movie.
**Lee:** Well.
**Chris:** Yeah, quite possibly for for for for a certain amount of Americans.
**Chris:** Definitely would be.
**Adam:** I I don't I don't think that's exclusively America.
**Adam:** Well, no.
**Adam:** I don't want to back.
**Adam:** I don't want to stick to bashing them.
**Adam:** Because there's there are plenty of people out there who no doubt do such things.
**Adam:** And well, I saw someone had, someone that I follow on Instagram who'd put put up a picture of, Boris Johnson on a bus stop with just this man is wanted for.
**Adam:** Crimes against humanity and everything and someone had written.
**Adam:** And someone had felt the need to write underneath it in, in marker pen, no, fuck off, he's a fucking legend.
**Adam:** And you like, yeah, in the same way that, I don't know, fucking Rumpelstiltskin's a legend.
**Adam:** You know, see the horrible little goblin people.
**Adam:** But, you know, it's sort of,
**Adam:** But I digress.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, I, so thank you, Chris, because that was like it was one of those ones where it's.
**Adam:** Skirted around ever sort of watch.
**Adam:** And I was like, well, no, Chris definitely, you know, Chris has said that he enjoyed it.
**Adam:** And we were talking about like RoboCop and stuff.
**Adam:** And everything.
**Chris:** Yeah, when that.
**Chris:** Yeah, once you'd said that and I realized that made a lot more sense, particularly with the adverts.
**Chris:** But it it it definitely captures a potential future for us.
**Adam:** Oh, well, I'm not even sure if it's a potential future now.
**Adam:** I think it's just I think it predicted now, unfortunately.
**Adam:** and actually the war the war correspondent bits are just.
**Adam:** Fantastic just because it's the whole thing because it's it's the classic I mean we've as a side order to all this, one of the thing that I've been consistently watching lately is, I've been showing clear drop the Dead Donkey.
**Adam:** And just rewatching that, and that show, again,
**Adam:** apart from the technology that's used in it, really stands up, it's still funny, it's still works as a comedy show and everything else like that.
**Adam:** But it does have that element of Damian's repulsion the Day X day, where it's from, from the,
**Adam:** like on location where it's just those things of like, we're here alive and the bug and then the bloke just gets a fucking scorpions tail through him and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And also,
**Adam:** I do I do like a film that does have an unapologetic level of because that's the thing.
**Adam:** Again, I don't know what the business was because I can understand why it was offputting for people.
**Adam:** Because they were probably like, I think a lot of people might have read it the other way of like, this is just a jingoistic war film with.
**Adam:** And it's really gross.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, you're not quite got the point.
**Adam:** But wasn't it funny that bloke but his brain's blown out, you know, that's just.
**Adam:** That's why it's like, come on.
**Adam:** Come on, people line up.
**Adam:** So, so thank you, Chris.
**Adam:** That was a good recommendation.
**Chris:** You're very welcome.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** my first choice.
**Lee:** I'm going to mention I mentioned it very briefly, you know, a previous episode because I had a little bit of a rant about it, but I'm going to do it again anyway.
**Lee:** so Morbius.
**Lee:** I finally caught up with.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Let's get Morbin'.
**Lee:** Yeah, this film was problematic for me.
**Chris:** You don't have to give a quick summary.
**Chris:** Because I don't I just know it's Marvel.
**Lee:** Yes, so it isn't full-on Marvel.
**Lee:** It's like the Venom.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** It's the same people that Venom stuff.
**Lee:** So it's.
**Adam:** It's the it's Sony, Sony owns certain ones.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** That's not the MCU.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** It's not the Marvel in the queue that like Disney affiliated well, Disney owned Marvel in the queue. No, this is Sony's like you say, I think Venom and Morbius about it really.
**Adam:** Oh, and Ghost Rider, I think then.
**Lee:** but I I really enjoyed the Venom movies.
**Lee:** So I was quite looking forward to this.
**Lee:** but it just fell apart at every.
**Lee:** And the problem is,
**Lee:** it made me feel really hypocritical because I I have become one of those people.
**Lee:** I know we were talking previously off air about how little I hate leaving the house for longer than a couple of hours.
**Lee:** And yet like the cinema has become part of that, it's like, oh my God, every time a film comes out, it's got to be at least three hours long and blah.
**Lee:** So when this came out and it was an hour and 45 minutes, I was like, lovely.
**Lee:** In two a story, get.
**Lee:** But it just felt rushed, it felt like, right, and then he does this, and then he does that, and then he goes to this place, and then and I was just like,
**Lee:** just slow down, take a break, but because they had to squeeze it all into an hour and 45.
**Lee:** It was just rushed.
**Lee:** And it was just scene in the scene, and I was like, just just let something sit for a bit, like, let me get my head around what's just happened before you jump into the neck.
**Lee:** Yeah, so that didn't work.
**Lee:** as I said before, Matt Smith, for some reason, it was it was like they said to him,
**Lee:** we can't decide on delivery, so what we'd like you to do is every, can you try and deliver all your lines like like Stephen Fry, for example, and then on every third one, can you be Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins.
**Lee:** And that is what his delivery was like.
**Lee:** The whole way through.
**Lee:** And I was like,
**Lee:** apart of me it was like, is this supposed to be like, like a like a not schizophrenic, but like is it multiple personalities?
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** Is someone in posh?
**Adam:** Is it reflecting like changes in him, like mood swings or something?
**Lee:** Yeah, but no.
**Lee:** It was just so you couldn't pick.
**Adam:** No, it's just he he kept he kept forgetting he was meant to be Right Winston.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And just and oh, it was just so like it got to the point it got through annoying to the point where I stopped paying any attention to the film and was just laughing at his performance terribly.
**Lee:** So, sorry, Matt Smith, I I know you're you've done some great stuff, but this isn't one of them.
**Adam:** To be to be honest, outside of Doctor Who, I haven't heard a great deal of praise for a lot of the stuff he's done.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's a shame.
**Adam:** So that that might have just been his key, like, he might have found his niche at 27.
**Adam:** And he's now going to have to spend the next 50 years with people going, it's just not that, is it?
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's a shame.
**Lee:** yeah, and I just I found that like the whole superpowers and what happens if he does drink blood.
**Lee:** And what happens if he doesn't drink like the whole thing was just really ill-defined and chaotic.
**Lee:** So, yeah, I just thought and again, I I sat and watched the whole thing and then two days later I brought it up on IMDB and I went, oh, yeah, Michael Keaton was in it.
**Lee:** Like, I just forgot an entire section of the film.
**Lee:** It was just really badly because it rushed like all the kind of sideish stories were all just crammed in.
**Lee:** Right, quick, quick, get through that.
**Lee:** Get through that.
**Lee:** So you just forgot all about him.
**Lee:** And it so you when you boiled it down, you were like, so he invented a thing and then he did a thing and then it killed some people.
**Lee:** In credits.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh.
**Lee:** So, yeah, not a fan of that.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** It's fine, they tried something new.
**Lee:** I'm not upset with it.
**Adam:** But there is a thing going around at the moment where it's just Jared Leto saying,
**Adam:** it's impressive that you've managed to be in the worst of the DC and the Marvel films.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** It is true.
**Lee:** And the thing is, like, I don't think he's a terrible actor.
**Lee:** I just I don't know.
**Adam:** He's just terrible person.
**Lee:** That's why it could that could be it.
**Lee:** I don't know anything about.
**Adam:** But then, you know, we we we we can praise Tom Cruise's performance.
**Adam:** Just just damn him in real life.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** oh, speaking of which, I can't wait to see the new Top Gun.
**Lee:** Because I've heard some really good things about it.
**Lee:** But I haven't yet.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** So it's not on my.
**Lee:** What I've been watching.
**Chris:** It it took me, when did the original Top Gun come out sometime in the 80s?
**Lee:** 80s, early 80s.
**Adam:** 85.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** I didn't watch it.
**Chris:** Till like 2015, I think.
**Lee:** I saw it six years ago for the first time.
**Chris:** Did you?
**Lee:** But I've not gone back and rewatched it.
**Lee:** But I am going to.
**Chris:** It was way better than I expected.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, me too.
**Lee:** I think, but I am definitely going to back-to-back when the new one comes out on Blu-ray or streaming, whichever comes out first.
**Lee:** I once I've got my hands on it, I will definitely be rewatching the original first and then the following night.
**Lee:** I'll watch the new one.
**Lee:** Adam doesn't look like he's going to even consider that.
**Chris:** Does it follow on then?
**Chris:** I I imagined it was a retelling.
**Adam:** No, no, no, it's Tom Cruise.
**Adam:** And it is a sequel.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** He's actually playing.
**Chris:** Fair enough.
**Adam:** The same character.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** Thank you, Maverick.
**Adam:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Sorry, yes, sorry, Chris, I keep trying to hand over to you.
**Lee:** And then,
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Lee:** And then, it's me as well, it's fine.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Chris:** Wouldn't it be funny if if one of these files came alive?
**Chris:** I am a file and you put documents in me do do do do I file.
**Chris:** You you know, if it did a song.
**Chris:** No, that sounds very boring.
**Lee:** What is happen.
**Lee:** Have you been doing Don't Hug Me?
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** He has.
**Chris:** Funnily enough, though, I did actually watch it, it was about like a day or two before, if one of you posted that it's been picked up by I think Channel 4.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** So I'm assuming are they are they actually just going to release the six episodes on Channel 4 then?
**Adam:** I think they're doing I think they're doing new stuff.
**Adam:** Because I know.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well that'd be good.
**Adam:** I know that they'd post I think they'd like the, oh, I can't can't think of the.
**Adam:** Creator's name for the life of me.
**Adam:** Becky.
**Chris:** Becky, yeah.
**Chris:** I've got Becky.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but, yeah, she'd posted that, they were working on new material quite a while back.
**Chris:** Becky Sloan, Joseph Pilling, Baker Terry.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah, she said that she they said they were working on, like new episodes quite a while back.
**Adam:** And then, yeah, saw this in the last couple of weeks and it's like, ooh, okay.
**Adam:** So I presume it's going to be this this sort of like new stuff but additional to what they've already put out there.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I I love it.
**Chris:** It's,
**Chris:** is almost I like it more again each time I watch it.
**Chris:** Just I guess you see a bit more and it's not it's not as good like the first time you watch it, it is kind of confusing.
**Chris:** You know, because you don't really know what to expect or what's going to happen.
**Chris:** But, yeah, it's just it's it's great.
**Chris:** They've captured some some great ideas.
**Adam:** Which is.
**Adam:** Something that I think has been like there was the recently, Inside Number Nine's latest series finished.
**Adam:** And they had, an episode which featured like a public information film in it, and that blended into the psychosis of one of the protagonists.
**Adam:** And it's sort of, and it had that same sort of feeling of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared where it's like, oh, this is something familiar, but now it's being distorted.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, we that episode, so I I'm still on my not drinking on the bandwagon, and I've been like three and a half months and we had a barbecue in the garden, a barbecue.
**Lee:** So we had a bonfire in the garden.
**Lee:** And Jen said, we got some homemade cider.
**Lee:** So I was like, yeah, go on, let's have a drink.
**Lee:** I'm going to have three months.
**Lee:** So chugged away through the cider, a couple of beers.
**Lee:** Came indoors, and Jen said, oh, there's an episode of Inside Number Nine.
**Lee:** Put it on, yeah, it got about 10 seconds in, I went, yeah, I'm not watching this.
**Lee:** Like, this is going to be one of those terrible.
**Lee:** Like, ruins your evening ones, and I'm drunk for the first time in three months.
**Lee:** I was like, nah, fuck this off.
**Lee:** We're not doing this.
**Adam:** Probably a wise decision, to be honest.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We did go back to it the next night when I was sober, and I was like, I'm so glad that would have just.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So badly.
**Adam:** Well, not only that, but also the trouble is by having that bad experience, you've then got it reflected on an episode which is otherwise absolutely fucking brilliant and so subtly done.
**Adam:** What I liked about it is there wasn't.
**Adam:** You know precisely what's.
**Adam:** What's going on in terms of like, you know, what has been going on with him and his dad and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** They didn't have to overdo that, they didn't have to put too much in or anything.
**Adam:** And in a little off note, you know, there's the episode setting the classroom.
**Adam:** That was like, I think the second episode of this of the most recent series.
**Adam:** if you look in the background, there's a wise old owl poster.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** But apparently, recent Steve had nothing to do with it, it was the set designers knew that they were doing wise old owl in something, so they made a wise old owl poster.
**Adam:** Translated the warning into Welsh and put it on the wall, and recent Steve only found it when they got to the set.
**Adam:** And it was like, that must be pretty fucking terrific when you're, you know, the the creative team, everyone's so.
**Adam:** Like into it that they're doing things like that that even they weren't aware of.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Chris:** Now, I'm going to have to catch up with this because, winner of the the spin of horror film.
**Chris:** Dave did put that in a comment something about a wise old owl for those, you know, who know about Inside Number Nine.
**Chris:** So I'm going to have to watch this and see if I can piece together that cryptic.
**Lee:** It's it was again it was just a I know we're not.
**Lee:** Sorry, we're going off slightly.
**Lee:** But yeah, Inside Number Nine this season has been absolutely amazing.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** That that episode and they do every now and again, they do throw in a really dark depressing episode, and they're always brilliantly done, but they are the ones that I go, I'm skipping that when I rewatch these things.
**Adam:** They they have their Requiem For A Dream moments.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Chris's favorite Chris's highlight.
**Lee:** So you're.
**Chris:** You're tempting me, I'm going to have to do this.
**Adam:** Seriously, mate, Inside Number Nine is one of the finest and most consistent anthology series I have ever seen.
**Adam:** And, you know, I I mean, and it's weird because I mean, I love the Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, Outer Limits, Tales of the Unexpected.
**Adam:** Shadows.
**Adam:** And all these various ones where it's like all these great anthology series, but Inside Number Nine for a show that is written by two people.
**Adam:** And essentially stars two people regularly is probably one of the best anthology shows in that's been, frankly.
**Adam:** Because I mean, you know, he genuinely and he genuinely can cut it.
**Chris:** Is it something.
**Chris:** Like because they do such extremes from funny to dark and then like you also said, they're very good at subtlety.
**Chris:** So it sort of got such a mixture.
**Adam:** Yeah, it really really works.
**Adam:** And the best thing about it is is that as in a weird way is you get away from that you get away from thinking about the twist.
**Adam:** Because the tongue.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, of the thing could be different sometimes it's a comedy, sometimes it's a really broad farce, sometimes it's witty, sometimes it's dark as fuck.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** and stuff that you wouldn't necessarily put next to each other.
**Adam:** But that but it has that.
**Adam:** That feeling of a really good like short story collection or something like that.
**Adam:** You know, where it's like you can.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** There's a weird.
**Adam:** There's a sort of weird consistency, one of the things that about it is definitely the music.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** because there's it's the guy who did, Christian Henson.
**Adam:** Who did Triangle.
**Adam:** And I hadn't actually joined it all together until we covered Triangle.
**Adam:** But, yeah, he he writes like he's done all the music for Inside Number Nine, but I've seen like heard interviews with him.
**Adam:** And he's like,
**Adam:** Well, what I do is is I try and get the the essence of the piece, but also sometimes I go into misdirection because I know that, you know, if you go into something putting big gothic horror sounds on it, but you're only going to reveal at the end that there's a supernatural element to this story.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** you have to sort of in a weird way, you have to play the deceit game with them.
**Adam:** But I mean certainly I mean certainly I think it's even if we did it as an offshoot.
**Adam:** You know, I I would happily rewatch.
**Adam:** Any of Inside Number Nine.
**Adam:** So it's definitely definitely worth checking out, Chris.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Amazing show.
**Lee:** Always.
**Lee:** sorry, and did we get into Inside Number Nine?
**Lee:** That wasn't any of my choice, was it?
**Adam:** No, it was from Don't Hug Me I'm Scared.
**Adam:** We got hugged.
**Adam:** And scared and inside number nine turned up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It happens.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's fair.
**Lee:** yes, and also on that, did you see I know I'm probably the only one who's excited by this and I'm probably on a list somewhere for being a 40-year-old man who's excited by this, but the trailer for Hocus Pocus 2 dropped yesterday and I'm excited about that.
**Adam:** To be.
**Adam:** To be honest, I think I think you're in the age range that is the most excited about that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I I don't know if the I don't know if the the the much younger generation are that aware.
**Adam:** To be honest.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Chris:** Was was Hocus Pocus mostly a comedy?
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's a Disney Kids film.
**Lee:** Set it out.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** I just I couldn't quite remember if it was like drama comedy.
**Chris:** Because so I'd nearly started watching The Craft.
**Adam:** The remake or the the original.
**Chris:** I didn't know.
**Chris:** There's a remake.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, I saw the original.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** but I mean she hasn't done her a lot, I guess.
**Chris:** That I know of.
**Chris:** She stopped acting, perhaps.
**Adam:** No, she acting, but I think there was an element of blacklisting after the Island of Dr. Moreau.
**Adam:** but that's a whole.
**Adam:** Another story.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Return to Oz was.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** but yeah, no, so so I was thinking I kind of don't know.
**Chris:** I'd probably mixed those two up, but I'm assuming they're kind of quite different.
**Lee:** Very different.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** All right.
**Lee:** The Craft is very aimed at like.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** Teenagers, I'd say, and it's probably teen horror, quite dark, yeah, okay, whereas Hocus Pocus is just a Disney.
**Chris:** Like a fun family.
**Adam:** Like a.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** Like a Bedknobs and Broomsticks style rather than, you know, sort of.
**Lee:** Scary.
**Lee:** Scary.
**Adam:** So no carry.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, so I I just I think it's one of those.
**Lee:** I think one of the things Disney do do particularly well is like catching like the Disney Christmas films feel proper Christmas, and I think Hocus Pocus catches that Massachusetts.
**Lee:** Halloween, you know, in the fall and just going trick or treat, and it just catches that so well, and then, yeah, they just put three of the most hilarious witches in it.
**Lee:** yeah, and I I just I think the only thing I don't like about that film is like we said earlier, there's a dance number in the middle of it for no reason whatsoever, which I skip every time I watch it.
**Lee:** Because I love.
**Lee:** Bet.
**Adam:** That's that's the that's the thing you have to put up with with Disney though, there's going to be a children.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The only the only film that doesn't subscribe to that is, the Emperor's New Groove, which is why it's fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** But yeah, so I'm very much looking forward to.
**Lee:** And the Monsters.
**Lee:** Looks like it's coming along nicely.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah, there's released a teaser for it now.
**Adam:** Haven't they?
**Lee:** They have.
**Lee:** It's very goofy.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** I I presume he's aiming for October with that as well.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I was.
**Adam:** It would make sense.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But then again,
**Lee:** does he want to go up against Hocus Pocus 2?
**Lee:** I mean,
**Adam:** We it depends actually.
**Adam:** Because both of them have a legacy audience.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Possibly the Monsters might have a greater one.
**Lee:** He could well be right.
**Lee:** anyway, right.
**Lee:** So, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** go and check out.
**Lee:** All the things that we've been discussing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and also.
**Lee:** Apart from.
**Lee:** Apart from the ones that obviously we said were wank, don't go and watch the ones that are you wasting your time.
**Lee:** Don't go and watch Mobius because you're wasting your time.
**Lee:** next month,
**Lee:** as we said, will be listener request month, so we are going to be going with.
**Lee:** Horror Express and The Pit and the Pendulum.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and the rest of those films.
**Lee:** Are definitely going on a list.
**Lee:** We can either we can add them into the draw for the next month.
**Lee:** Or, anyway, they're all going on the list of stuff we need to watch.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We'll we'll be working our way through them. I mean, the list ever expands, one day the list will end and then so will the podcast.
**Adam:** So thank you for continuing.
**Adam:** This Sian effort of, you know, we're just keep rolling this boulder up the hill of podcasts.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Lee:** yes, and we will be back again for that.
**Lee:** And then so we'll do those two episodes and then we'll be back to what we've been watching again.
**Lee:** So, thanks very much for listening, everyone, and good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 145 Body Bags

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-145-body-bags/
Air date: 19 June 2022
Duration: 00:54:06
Film: Body Bags · Year: 1993 · Director: John Carpenter

### Description

Welcome To Horror’s anthology month continues with 1993’s “Body Bags” from horror masters John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper. A film in which Sheena Easton’s baby catches the morning train, gets all hairy, and comes home again; David Kessler is remarkably recovered from his Holiday in England, and still on the pull; host John Carpenter looks distinctly healthier than usual; and Twiggy gazes in terror into Luke Skywalker’s brown eye. A mixed (body) bag of a film, with more cameos than an antique fair playing “Word Up” on a loop - watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** Hi, I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And I've got melon energy drink.
**Lee:** We, we are recording now. I've got melon, someone else.
**Adam:** Gold.
**Lee:** Because we're in the same room.
**Adam:** We are, yeah, well, yeah, we are.
**Lee:** That's why we need energy drink. We have peek behind the curtain, we're meeting once a month now and recording two episodes back to back, which is why one will be high energy and the second one will be like, I've been doing this for an hour and a half now, I'm shattered.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, but when we start talking about this one, I'm sure the energy will appear.
**Lee:** It might do.
**Chris:** It'll go, it'll go stick, it'll go stick,.
**Lee:** So we are covering 1993's John Carpenter's Body Bags.
**Lee:** an interesting anthology film.
**Lee:** Adam, you picked this one, is there a reason you?
**Adam:** I, I wanted to get because as you've, you've, you've now revealed the magic, so the podcast circle will come and get you now because you've revealed how how we're doing this.
**Adam:** But also, it was kind of like, right, if we're going to do anthologies, probably need to find something that's not, we couldn't do two Amicus because you'd be too busy going, was, was that one in this one, or was it in that one?
**Adam:** So, I thought it's different enough, but also it's mainly to just prove to Adam and Bobby from Not For Everyone podcast, listen to the Not For Everyone podcast, because it's great.
**Lee:** It is great.
**Adam:** But also prove to them, we remember Body Bags, don't you start dissin' Body Bags?
**Lee:** Well, they might.
**Adam:** Well, they didn't diss Body Bags, but they were just like, they mentioned it as like a video cover and said, yeah, but that's a film that no one remembers.
**Lee:** One of us may agree with that, but before we get to that.
**Lee:** So Chris, with this being your first viewing of Body Bags, what did you make of it?
**Chris:** Well, as I mentioned on the previous episode, I was surprised to see Denis, who I now know, and realized that we must have talked about previously, because he's in some of the other films we've watched, and I obviously forgot all about that.
**Chris:** And in this one, I did not expect to see Mr. Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.
**Chris:** In what I would suggest is the most oddest viewing of him that I have ever expected.
**Chris:** Because, yeah, to see him in a sort of surreal situation where he's almost kind of necrophiliac.
**Chris:** Because he's, yeah, oh no, because he's he's viewing his wife as kind of dead.
**Lee:** You saying mostly stabbed.
**Lee:** I've got written here, not to jump into it too quickly, but I've got written here in capitals, too much scene.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, there was a lot of scenes, exactly.
**Lee:** Too much scene.
**Lee:** On the big, on the big screen, watching it, the scene where he's having sex, like it's all on display, his junk is right there, like.
**Chris:** I'm going to say, I'm going to say that can't be him though, that must be a body double.
**Chris:** Because you don't see his face in that, I noticed.
**Lee:** No, but you do definitely see everything else like.
**Chris:** You see you see his little Luke.

---

## Ep 144 The Hose That Dripped Blood

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-144-the-hose-that-dripped-blood/
Air date: 5 June 2022
Duration: 00:56:55
Film: The House That Dripped Blood · Year: 1971 · Director: Peter Duffell

### Description

It’s anthology month at Welcome To Horror, and first up is another classic from Amicus: “The House That Dripped Blood”. A film in which Christopher Lee recreates the classic Two Ronnies “Four Candles” sketch; Denholm Elliott shows us his strangler; Worzel Gummidge buys a dodgy secondhand cape from the Crowman; and Mr Kipling makes exceedingly poor wax effigies. Definitely one of Amicus Films’ finest, with a fantastic cast, strong stories and not an actual drop of blood in sight- watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are back for the first time post pandemic, back on the squeaky Chesterfield. I apologize in advance for the squeaky background sounds.
**Lee:** but we are actually all in the same room recording for the first time in
**Chris:** Two years now, actual years.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And none of us are wearing trousers.
**Lee:** Just like the old days.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so thanks very much for joining us.
**Lee:** we have a quick bit of housekeeping before we get stuck in.
**Lee:** we wanted to do a quick get well soon for friend of the show and previous guest host, Adam.
**Adam:** -
**Lee:** not Adam who we have with us, our other friend Adam, who joined us for the Castlevania episode.
**Lee:** Gosh, that was sometime ago.
**Adam:** That was back in this room.
**Lee:** It was back in this room, and it was, yeah, it was like episode 15 or something, super early days.
**Lee:** he was walking across the country, side to side, via Ben Nevis, and from what I got from his message, 'cause I was keeping track of his progress, unfortunately, he had an incident where he fell in a stream, and he's damaged himself like seriously.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Sorry to hear that, Adam.
**Lee:** Yeah, so, get well soon and, you know, at least you did it doing something proper like walking all the way across the country.
**Lee:** I hurt myself that same weekend, I pulled my back out. I'll tell you how I did it. I was sitting on the sofa watching Free Guy, I've been over to pump up my Reebok Pumps, and fucked my back up.
**Lee:** How ridiculous comparatively is that?
**Adam:** I'll teach you.
**Lee:** So yeah, all our love, Adam, and we shall meet up for beers and biscuits and whatnot very soon, sir.
**Adam:** Yeah, get well soon, man.
**Lee:** so, this evening we are going to be watch we're going to be discussing 1971's Amicus beauty, The House that Dripped Blood.
**Lee:** So, in traditional style, like back when we were all back in this room and we were still novices,
**Lee:** Chris, as it was your first viewing of this masterpiece, what did you make of it?
**Chris:** The the first thing that stood out to me was recognizing someone who I knew of as Marcus Brody.
**Lee:** -huh.
**Chris:** Who turns out it's someone called Denholm Elliott.
**Lee:** Denholm Elliott.
**Chris:** Now, I don't think I've seen him in anything else, but I was fascinated to see him, I had no idea he played a horror film.
**Chris:** Now, I'm going to have to just read out all I knew of him, this is how I know him in my head, and you may recognize the bit as I start.
**Chris:** So, Indiana Jones saying, the hell you will, he's got a two-day head start on you, which is more than he needs, Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan. He speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he'll blend in, disappear, you'll never see him again.
**Chris:** Where only luck, he's got the Grail already, cut to middle of fair in the Middle East.
**Chris:** Marcus Brody wearing bright suit and white hat sticking out like a sore thumb.
**Chris:** Oh, does anyone here speak English?
**Chris:** Street vendor, water, No thank you, sir, fish make love in it.
**Chris:** So, so that that's my biggest memory of him.
**Lee:** I completely forgotten that he's in that movie. I clearly need to rewatch it again.
**Adam:** Oh, he's he's in 'cause he's in the first and third, isn't he?
**Adam:** I don't think he's in Temple of Doom.
**Lee:** Is he in Temple No, I don't think he is. No, no, he's not.
**Adam:** No, he's not. He's he's only he's in Raiders and he's in Last Crusade.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But yeah, so, so I had to readjust slightly and see him as as not that character, but, you know.
**Adam:** He rocks a chunky knit sweater in this.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** He does, I know, doesn't he?
**Chris:** And so, yeah, so my my general experience of this film, it's another I I think of it as very charming.
**Chris:** And I'm I was trying to think, what have I said that about previous film, I've definitely said it on some others.
**Chris:** And it could be other Amicus.
**Lee:** I think it was.
**Chris:** Possibly. And so I don't know what they do, but it's like, you know I say some older style films take me out too much.
**Chris:** But for some reason with this, it it wasn't like, I didn't need that immersion exactly.
**Chris:** It was just a very fun, enjoyable,
**Chris:** And I I wondered, like, is that something to do with anthologies?
**Chris:** I know we've said this before.
**Chris:** It's it's almost like, it's perhaps difficult to have a a groundbreaking, sort of legendary anthology, if we've had a few that we've watched.
**Chris:** But they all seem to be a very high standard, they're all very enjoyable, you know, there's something in there for everyone.
**Chris:** And and you kind of can't get bored, I suppose, because it changes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It must be something about that.
**Chris:** But I guess you could also completely ruin it, you could have it could seem very disjointed.
**Chris:** but yeah, no, this was really good again.
**Chris:** I even liked the the sort of bright colors, points, it was that stood out a lot.
**Lee:** I think that's I think that's the thing that I like about the the Amicus anthologies particularly is that not only the actual vignettes themselves were really good.
**Lee:** The wrap arounds are outstanding, like that's what always always gets me is you remember the stories and then you put it on and go, oh shit, yeah, that wrap around is awesome.
**Lee:** It especially with this one as well with the detective looking for the missing actor who is the final story in story four, I think it is.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, what did they explain it as? The the house reflected the personality of the people.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That that was a nice, you know, closing statement.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, that's that's good, that's an interesting way too.
**Chris:** So it's not like just say haunted house.
**Chris:** It's like it's got something else extra.
**Chris:** Now, the only thing, and I don't know if this is a criticism or if I missed it, was there any blood dripped?
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** That's the irony of it. Apparently Amicus actually asked, I think they got an X certificate because they asked for it 'cause they gave it an A.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like the British like the film classification board and they were like, give us an X.
**Adam:** 'Cause it's good publicity, always is.
**Adam:** You know, whatever, you know, I mean,
**Chris:** Or like if they get banned, it's pretty good publicity.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, there's a there's the recent case, the, you know, Host, the film that we covered a while back, the Zoom one. guy who directed that has now done a film called Dashcam, but apparently View are not showing it because it's because of offensive or something like that. From what I gather, it might be just that apparently the main character's particularly unlikeable and right-wing, but
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** You know, I again, that's the same reason why you don't see, like Alf Garnett anymore.
**Adam:** Because it's now just got to the point of you can't have a satire, it's now just like, oh right, no, we can't show this because he's that.
**Adam:** And it's like, you're not meant to necessarily
**Lee:** No, I was going to say,
**Adam:** agree with the person.
**Lee:** I was going to say, I mean, I watched American History X and thought it was a fantastic film. I wasn't rooting for the main character towards the end, obviously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No, taxi driver.
**Lee:** You know.
**Adam:** You're not meant
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** But I think but I think actually the one thing I wanted them, I wanted View to just say that it was light.
**Adam:** 'Cause I thought I would be a you know, is it something like?
**Adam:** And I just wanted View to be like, no, it's 'cause it's filmed on a fucking dash cam.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** We're a cinema.
**Adam:** You know, watch this at home, that's where you're meant to watch it because this isn't going to be great quality.
**Adam:** I thought it might have just been offensive on an aesthetic level.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but I mean, yeah, the
**Adam:** all of I I have to say, I think this is a
**Adam:** 'cause I haven't watched, I haven't watched this one for quite a while now.
**Adam:** House that Dripped Blood.
**Adam:** I'm really think it's one of the strongest of the Amicus ones.
**Adam:** All of the Amicus ones are good to great.
**Adam:** But this one is a particularly good example 'cause I think everything everything works, there's not really a duff story.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** and you've got a particularly strong cast.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And not necessarily like you said, Chris, not not necessarily,
**Adam:** people you necessarily associate with horror.
**Adam:** I mean, like John Pertwee being in it, apparently that was originally,
**Adam:** they offered that to Vincent Price.
**Adam:** And you can see what that 'cause you know, where it's like, well, I've been in thousands of films and the cape and the flamboyancy and everything else.
**Adam:** Like, you can see why it was kind of written for with Vincent Price in mind.
**Adam:** Although John Pertwee does a fucking magnificent job.
**Lee:** I was going to say,
**Lee:** he's got that level of tongue in cheek that as you said, you'd expect from Vincent Price, like he just had it perfectly, like that air of I'm above all this and just taking it out on the staff and
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So he was the fourth one, the arrogant actor.
**Adam:** Yes, yeah, Paul Paul Henderson, the the actor who's being searched for, yeah.
**Adam:** And I actually like the, it's very close to how he plays
**Adam:** the third doctor and he's pretty much dressed how he was dressed for the first series.
**Adam:** Seriously, it's the it's the same look pretty much.
**Adam:** but it's that same sort of thing of
**Adam:** I think because when he when he took when he took the role of the doctor, it was like everyone was like, oh, he's a comedian, you know, how can a comedian be playing this role and everything else like that?
**Adam:** So he went completely the other way with it and he's probably like the straightest sort of no-nonsense serious version of that character.
**Adam:** 'Cause everyone else is quite sort of jokey or jovial or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And he was always a miserable git.
**Adam:** And quite sort of snappy and snarky and stuff.
**Adam:** So it's sort of very sort of kind of similar.
**Lee:** So, just to run through them all quickly, just to remind the listeners who might not have watched it recently.
**Lee:** so the there's the wrap around story as we mentioned, is the detective who is trying to ascertain the whereabouts of the missing actor.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** then we have method for murder, which is the Denholm Elliott story with the murderer Dominic.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's writing a story, he's gone to the house to write his book about a killer and he keeps seeing him in the house.
**Adam:** -
**Lee:** the next story is Wax Works with Peter Cushing and the amazing Joss Ackland.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** which is Peter Cushing is a retired
**Lee:** stockbroker.
**Lee:** He's moved somewhere near wherever this house is, so it's somewhere it seems to be like a seaside town.
**Lee:** There's
**Lee:** there's a waxworks there.
**Lee:** And one of the characters in it looks just like a woman who he loved and was in a love rivalry with Joss Ackland for.
**Lee:** and that goes on from there.
**Lee:** The third story is sweets to the sweet.
**Lee:** Christopher Lee has a Christopher Lee is a single father with a daughter.
**Lee:** he gets a a nurse maid to come and look after her, and he's very strict and over the top with the daughter, and we discover that there may be good reason for that.
**Chris:** I say that that was my favorite one.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I didn't
**Chris:** I wasn't sure, it just really stood out.
**Chris:** I was trying to decide, is it because I'm looking at the way he's parenting and, you know, it's obviously, you know there's a twist there.
**Chris:** And it it unfolds, but just, yeah,
**Chris:** it seemed to have kind of a lot in it.
**Chris:** It it seemed like.
**Chris:** Because I I liked the nanny as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and of course the girl.
**Chris:** Was fantastic.
**Lee:** That little girl, if I'm wrong, is that also the little girl who's in the Christmas, the Christmas Slayer episode, the Shouts from the Crypt?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** She's the, yeah, Chloe Frank, she she lets in the, she lets in Santa.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The murder Santa in the Joan Collins story.
**Lee:** That's right.
**Adam:** And she's also in, The Uncanny.
**Adam:** You know where there's the two, the the little girl and she's, yeah, she's the, yeah.
**Lee:** Of course she is.
**Adam:** Yeah, so she's actually weirdly quite a veteran of like these films and everything.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and she's actually really, really good.
**Adam:** I find her quite I found her quite funny.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** I think she was like genuinely, let's face it.
**Adam:** You're holding your own with Christopher Lee, pretty much, you know.
**Adam:** It's pretty.
**Adam:** And I can't imagine that.
**Adam:** 'Cause that's the thing as well.
**Adam:** It's Christopher Lee.
**Adam:** So when it's like, he's being a bit of a dick as a dad.
**Adam:** You're thinking, he's Christopher Lee.
**Adam:** Maybe he's just being a dick.
**Adam:** So it's sort of, you know, you sort of I can't imagine that Christopher Lee would have been very tolerant of
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** anyone ever.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Adam:** Apart from apart from Peter Cushing.
**Lee:** Yeah, and and Vincent Price.
**Adam:** Yeah, he takes he takes Peter Cushing seriously.
**Adam:** Looney Tunes cartoons, but other than that, everyone else gets very short shrift.
**Lee:** and then the last the last story is The Cloak, as we said, with John Pertwee and Ingrid Pitt.
**Lee:** where he plays an actor on a vampire movie, he isn't taken by 'cause it's a budget movie.
**Lee:** He's very pissed off about the quality of everything, so he goes to get himself his own cloak.
**Lee:** And it may have a darker side behind it.
**Adam:** Which and again, buys the cloak off of the magnificent Jeffrey Bayldon.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Fucking balls to the wall.
**Adam:** I'm just going to be weird.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, 'cause when he's in 'cause he 'cause obviously we talked about him when, he was in,
**Adam:** not,
**Adam:** it's not Tales from the Crypt, it was, or is it Tales from the Crypt?
**Adam:** I can never bloody remember which one.
**Adam:** Yeah, it is Tales from the Crypt 'cause he's in it quite briefly at the so we sort of discussed him back in that episode.
**Adam:** But in that, he's just doing a straight role, very much how say, for example, he plays the warden in Porridge.
**Adam:** You know, he's he's normal.
**Adam:** He's daft as arseholes, but he's normal.
**Adam:** Whereas this is fully blown arch, mad as fuck eyebrows.
**Adam:** stroking a cat, which prompted Claire's catchphrase.
**Adam:** which is whenever there's an animal in a film, she just goes,
**Adam:** That cat's dead now.
**Adam:** 'Cause she knows it upsets me.
**Adam:** So, but,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He plays sinister particularly well.
**Lee:** Like in this kind of over the top, partly comedic, he does an outstanding job in his.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's a small role, but it's amazing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's what you want from the thing.
**Adam:** 'Cause there's, you know, something like that would be really out of place in a full-blown movie.
**Adam:** But in this, it's, you know, everything has to a certain extent a shorthand.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** To get where it needs to be.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** You're only in it for that scene, go fucking nuts.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, really really take to it, I think.
**Adam:** And, and then obviously him and John Pertwee ended up in, Woosel Gummage together.
**Adam:** 'Cause Jeffrey Bayldon was the Crowman who essentially was his god.
**Lee:** Do you know what?
**Lee:** I said this, I I don't remember anything about that show.
**Lee:** But we were sitting there and we were watching it and Jennifer said,
**Lee:** I know him and that.
**Lee:** I said, it's Woosel Gummage.
**Adam:** Catweazle.
**Lee:** And she said,
**Adam:** Oh, sorry, John Pertwee.
**Lee:** And she said,
**Lee:** No, no, she was talking about Balden.
**Lee:** And I said,
**Lee:** And she went, no, it's not.
**Lee:** And I was like,
**Lee:** I'm sure it is.
**Lee:** Then we looked up and I was like, oh, no, it's John Pertwee.
**Lee:** Who's also in the same story.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh, it's Catweazle.
**Lee:** I was thinking, I was like, those two are so similar, that's why I can I confuse them sometimes.
**Lee:** 'Cause I don't remember anything about either show particularly.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** But they both looked very similar.
**Adam:** In the show, he did. I mean, basically, it was almost like he'd created Woosel in his image.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** 'Cause they looked the same and had similar sort of hair and stuff.
**Adam:** But obviously, he was real, or not like he well, he wasn't a fucking scarecrow.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** but yeah, and
**Adam:** but yeah, I think they're all really fucking strong.
**Adam:** They're really strong fucking stories.
**Adam:** And, funny enough, you're saying about that, Chris.
**Adam:** With Denholm Elliott, he was in, he's in another Amicus that we did.
**Adam:** He's involved with horror.
**Adam:** 'Cause I can't remember.
**Adam:** He's not the one who gets his hands cut off.
**Adam:** But he he's one of the people who rip off Tom Baker in the, one where he does voodoo paintings that kill you.
**Adam:** Fenton Briedley.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** But he's not playing Fenton Briedley.
**Adam:** That was Terence Alexander.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But he's, yeah, he's in that.
**Adam:** And also 'cause I know that it's I always know that it's one one with you.
**Adam:** He's the voice of Cowslip in Watership Down.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** So, you know, but
**Adam:** that that story, me and, former guest and sibling of Lee,
**Adam:** me and Dean, I don't know, we probably spent about three months keep saying to each other, you can thank my strangler for that.
**Lee:** That.
**Adam:** 'Cause it just sounded filthy.
**Adam:** It just sounded filthy.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** But also, yeah, it's
**Adam:** it's just the weirdest thing in the world that it's like, oh, well, I've got this I've got this guy who essentially looks looks a bit like an illustration of Frankenstein.
**Adam:** He's got enormous teeth.
**Adam:** He laughs like he's been lobotomized.
**Adam:** What's his name, Dominic?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like, I feel that slightly at odds with.
**Adam:** But there we go, you know.
**Lee:** That name definitely a placeholder. You should have gone back and there.
**Adam:** Unless he was just going to he was going to shorten it to Dom at some point.
**Adam:** But,
**Lee:** But yeah, I just I always love to see Denholm Elliott in anything.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's just he's such a fantastic actor and he did a lot of the a lot of the horror TV shows that were on.
**Lee:** Yeah, 'cause mystery and imagination, all those types of things he did.
**Adam:** Yeah, 'cause he's in Rude Awakening in Hammer House of Horror, which is one of my favorites of that series.
**Adam:** Maybe we'll have to do that as an offshoot.
**Adam:** You know, we'll do the Hammer House of Horror for.
**Lee:** I love those.
**Adam:** 'Cause they're genuinely, they're pretty
**Adam:** I mean, fortunately, I think probably 'cause it was just one series, so it's really strong.
**Adam:** but yeah, I don't think there's much in that that's I don't think there's any really duff ones in that.
**Adam:** All of them are pretty great and they have some and and pretty amazing casts for a TV show.
**Adam:** 'Cause it's mostly movie like people who've been in, you know, Peter Cushing's in there, Brian Cox, Patricia Quinn and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** You know, there's a lot of.
**Adam:** And yeah, Denholm Elliott's in in that one.
**Adam:** And, he was also in a film called, he well, he's in the film and the TV version of a thing called Brimstone and Treacle, which is a Dennis Potter play.
**Adam:** in which basically, it's it's kind of like the the for for want of a better expression, the moral of the story is that a good thing can come from not necessarily a good place.
**Adam:** And basically, Satan turns up in human form and Denholm Elliott's daughter's in a like vegetative coma.
**Adam:** And he basically revives her from her coma, but it's not good.
**Adam:** As it never is with David.
**Lee:** As it never is with that.
**Adam:** Well, no, it's Dennis Potter as well, so it's.
**Adam:** And also he he was in Peter and Dud's Hound of the Baskervilles, 'cause he's Stapleton with the dogs, the forever pissing dogs in in that one.
**Adam:** But also, yeah, the Signalman is another key thing from the Ghost Stories from Christmas.
**Lee:** I watched that this Christmas.
**Lee:** That is still astonishingly good.
**Adam:** It's a brilliant.
**Adam:** It's a it's a brilliant version of an amazing story.
**Adam:** But yes, so,
**Adam:** he's he was in like mystery and imagination and thriller.
**Adam:** But also he do he he turns up quite a lot in comedy as well 'cause he was in like Ripping Yarns and Rising Damp and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And he's actually again, he's like a lot of the people in this, he's one of those people who sort of straddles between the two.
**Adam:** where it's like, oh, you're you're very good for horror and you're very good for comedy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think it's that ability to play it straight.
**Adam:** Because you don't basically, yes, Jeffrey Bayldon's a magnificent in this.
**Adam:** But a film full of Jeffrey Bayldon's would be a bit much.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas this, he sort of it grounds it. Yeah, he really feels real.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, the amount and not that, the amount of bloody fags he gets through in this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I mean, I know he's a writer, but he, you know, I don't think Dominic had much to do.
**Adam:** You know, probably just.
**Lee:** I thought that as well, and the fact that he's pouring himself a drink every two minutes.
**Lee:** I was like, do you know what, if I was drinking straight whiskey and trying to write, I would probably write two pages.
**Lee:** And then be like, yeah, this is all out of focus.
**Lee:** Like the way he just guzzles it away while he's working.
**Adam:** No, he's just slamming it.
**Chris:** Do you think do you think they would do that now, or is that something of the era?
**Adam:** 'Cause I
**Chris:** Because in a few films where there's quite a lot of drinking.
**Adam:** To tell you the truth, I I think it's the era.
**Adam:** I don't think it would be.
**Adam:** Much in the same way, what was the what was the ad the advertising show, Mad Men?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And everyone kept going on about the fact that everyone in it was constantly chain smoking and drinking at work.
**Adam:** And it was like, yeah, because that was pretty much
**Lee:** What normal.
**Adam:** an accepting practice back in those days.
**Adam:** And I think similarly with this, the people who watched it at the time,
**Adam:** that would have not even been a thing that you'd have noticed.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** to to a greater or lesser extent, you know, I think frankly I'll I'll put in a vote now.
**Adam:** To say that I think we should bring back drinking at work.
**Adam:** Not not necessarily driving.
**Adam:** Not necessarily if you're a surgeon.
**Adam:** But frankly, if you've got an office job and you get in the bus, fuck it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I used when I used to work on a very busy sales floor of over 100 people, we were
**Lee:** it we weren't discouraged from going to the pub at lunchtime, 'cause it was like a night shift so you worked from two in the afternoon till nine at night.
**Lee:** Yeah, and they were like, yeah, go over there, have a couple of beers, like you're a lot more chatty when you come back and like it gets people, you know, off edge and
**Lee:** Yeah, like a, you know, it it did used to work for some people.
**Lee:** So it in a.
**Lee:** In the right environment, I think it this.
**Adam:** It greases the wheels for most, just don't film it, you know.
**Adam:** That's that's the key.
**Lee:** That's the thing.
**Lee:** So I've got to admit, I missed drinking during the podcast 'cause I used to
**Lee:** Denholm Elliott it when we were recording, but 'cause it just made 'cause 'cause it just made me forget the microphone.
**Lee:** And I just waffled like.
**Lee:** We were all just sitting around having a drink.
**Lee:** Yeah, but yeah, now I'm on the wagon, I'm currently drinking alcohol-free Hogard just to try and trick my brain into relaxing, but it's not working, so.
**Adam:** and,
**Adam:** I'm going to have to put a shout out for Robert Lang who plays the psychiatrist in this.
**Adam:** who hasn't got that big a role.
**Adam:** But a, is great.
**Adam:** But also he's just one of those faces who pops up in loads of things.
**Adam:** You know, he's Denholm Elliott's psychiatrist in this, the guy with the bald guy with the mustache.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And he just always he rocks up in so many things and just he's really, really great.
**Adam:** But he's mostly sort of generals, policeman or or doctors, he sort of seems to be authority type.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's that sort of thing.
**Adam:** But also he just has a lovely line in doubt, is the best way I can put it.
**Adam:** Is that he has a really good way of sort of, yes, well, I'm sure it's real to you.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** He he does that sort of that that kind of characterization quite sort of quite well.
**Adam:** I really
**Adam:** I really enjoyed him in that.
**Adam:** And also, I mean, like
**Adam:** I I mean, it's possibly of 'cause the weirdest thing is, is you've got obviously, Denholm Elliott's not that great a writer.
**Adam:** 'Cause it's like, oh, who's this?
**Adam:** Oh, this is Dominic.
**Adam:** He's my strangler.
**Adam:** He was.
**Adam:** Which again.
**Adam:** Still sounds dirty.
**Adam:** but he roams the country killing people for no good reason.
**Adam:** Laughing maniacally.
**Adam:** And I'm like,
**Adam:** Yeah, you haven't really put much backstory in this, have you, mate?
**Lee:** Pretty one.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, and then but then at the end of it, it's like, Tom? No. My name's Dominic. And then, yeah, it's that's the other thing we should have mentioned, so all of the stories in this bar one are stories by Robert Block who again, a lot of his stories were often used by the Amicus guys.
**Lee:** apart from Wax Works, which was written by someone called, Russ Jones.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** He doesn't get a credit on this, but he wrote a lot of
**Lee:** like EC comics like horror comics rather not EC.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I looked him up on IMDB, yeah, and he did a lot of the EC comics.
**Lee:** And it he that was how he started and then he got into movies from there.
**Lee:** So this afternoon as a bit of research, I went on YouTube and watched the whole of Gallery of Horror.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Lee:** 'Cause yeah, 'cause I that came up in my notes and I was like, oh, I've never seen that.
**Lee:** So, good.
**Lee:** Yeah, well, as I mentioned to, you know, off Mike,
**Lee:** my plan was to watch, see what the kind of wrap around was like.
**Lee:** Watch the first story and just get a feel for it.
**Lee:** and I sat through the whole hour and 22 minutes of it because I thoroughly enjoyed it.
**Lee:** they're a bit off the wall and they're very cheaply shot.
**Lee:** It looks.
**Lee:** I tell you what it looks like.
**Lee:** It looks like, there's a lot of the matte painting stuff and it looks like they've literally stolen it from, the Roger Corman movies.
**Adam:** Oh, right, yes.
**Lee:** because it's exactly the same castles with the lightning and I'm sure they've literally just lifted it out and stolen it.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's it's really good.
**Lee:** It's well worth watching.
**Lee:** all of the all of them are original stories, apart from the last one.
**Lee:** I thought.
**Lee:** Because the very last story, which is only about 10 minutes,
**Lee:** yeah, and it's a man named Harker going to Transylvania to see Count Alucard.
**Lee:** -huh.
**Lee:** regarding buying Carfax Abbey.
**Lee:** But it's worth watching because it does have a twist in it.
**Lee:** It's the it it starts off just a Dracula.
**Lee:** And then takes a whole new spin.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I thought it was good, it's got like a 3.4 on IMDB, which is
**Lee:** which is terrible, because I mean, it definitely deserves more than that.
**Lee:** It's and it's very, if you're in the mood for one of those,
**Lee:** you know, like the American International type ones, yeah, it it's it works alongside those perfectly.
**Lee:** I'll I really enjoyed it.
**Chris:** You have to set your expectation.
**Lee:** Correctly.
**Lee:** I think I did. I think because it had such a low IMDB, I was like, this is clearly going to be dire.
**Lee:** But I'll give it a go.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I think going in with that expectation, I was surprised.
**Lee:** I mean, it it was never going to rival the House that Dripped Blood, it's nowhere near that league.
**Lee:** But if you want some new.
**Lee:** that you haven't seen before, it's it it works.
**Lee:** I say and it's on YouTube, so you can just watch the whole hour and 20 minutes.
**Chris:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Definitely going to have to do that.
**Adam:** 'Cause from the standpoint of Robert Block, this was his third film for Amicus.
**Adam:** So he did The Skull, which isn't an anthology film.
**Lee:** What an awesome movie.
**Adam:** But also with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, great great film.
**Adam:** then he did Torture Garden.
**Adam:** And then after this, he did Asylum.
**Adam:** and Asylum, again, can't wait to show you, Chris.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and and Torture Garden, they both they both great.
**Lee:** I still haven't seen Torture Garden.
**Adam:** I, oh, yeah, I was meant to bring that around.
**Adam:** I do apologize.
**Lee:** 'Cause that's right.
**Adam:** 'Cause I upgraded to Blu-ray, so I said leave your DVD.
**Lee:** Woo.
**Adam:** But, yes, so, so yes.
**Adam:** So we've got.
**Adam:** Then you get the second story, like the waxwork story.
**Adam:** apparently, this this was filmed just around the time when Peter Cushing's wife became ill.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And apparently, he was trying to actually get out of the.
**Adam:** He was trying to get out of doing a film.
**Adam:** 'Cause he didn't want to leave her.
**Adam:** but it was a contractual obligation.
**Adam:** So he said,
**Adam:** And it's not like.
**Adam:** he doesn't perform.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** That's that's the thing.
**Adam:** I think he I think he was too professional and had too much, you know, pride and everything to not give his best.
**Adam:** But, yeah, under the circumstances, it's sort of, yeah, it's sort of fairly sad.
**Adam:** But you've got,
**Adam:** but again, it's the weirdest story in the world because I don't know about you guys, but I felt that
**Adam:** maybe they weren't that bothered about the girl.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because they did seem like an old couple.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** They they sort of That's how it sort of comes over.
**Adam:** And it's like, you've got the whole sort of, you've got the whole sort of fighting over the girl thing.
**Adam:** And it's like,
**Adam:** I don't think you're I think you guys might have missed the trick here.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But yeah, so you've got.
**Adam:** So you've got Mr. Cushion.
**Adam:** But obviously, you've got the incredible Joss Ackland.
**Adam:** Who,
**Adam:** awarded the CBE in 2001.
**Adam:** Performed the first gay kiss on the West End stage with Denholm Elliott.
**Adam:** In in a play called Bermondsey.
**Adam:** From 1971.
**Adam:** he's the eccentric.
**Adam:** passenger in the music video for the Pet Shop Boys A Way's on My Mind.
**Adam:** And the voice of so much.
**Adam:** There's so many advertising.
**Adam:** 'Cause he is Mr. Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes.
**Lee:** Oh, is he really?
**Adam:** And he's also Good old yellow pages.
**Lee:** Oh, I didn't know that.
**Adam:** They're not there for the nasty things in life, like a blocked drain or a leaky roof.
**Adam:** They can also be there for the nice things as well.
**Adam:** So, yes, that's his
**Adam:** So, you know, I mean, he's all over the fucking shop.
**Adam:** And, you know,
**Adam:** he's still out there, he's he's in Rasputin the Mad Monk.
**Adam:** He's in the the Hammer Rasputin.
**Lee:** I've not seen that.
**Adam:** I've still not seen that.
**Lee:** It's been years or so.
**Lee:** I need to re.
**Lee:** I remember it being like I remember Christopher Lee just going ape shit.
**Adam:** Yeah, Christopher Lee.
**Adam:** From what I get 'cause I've still never seen it, but I get that Christopher Lee in that he's quite quite, you know, going for it.
**Adam:** And it's his favorite role, I think, or one of his favorite roles.
**Adam:** 'Cause I'm pretty sure the Wickerman is.
**Lee:** Remind me before you leave, I should send it home with you.
**Lee:** 'Cause it would be wrong for you to go another day without seeing it.
**Adam:** but obviously, and to our generation.
**Adam:** Obviously, he was in Lethal Weapon two and the reason why thousands of children in playgrounds screamed
**Adam:** Diplomatic immunity, Mr. Riggs at each other.
**Adam:** And then he's the he's the main bad guy in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, villain, one of our dinosaurs is missing.
**Adam:** Oh, what was it,
**Adam:** And he's in the Copper Beaches in the Cherry Bloke.
**Lee:** I was going to say, my favorite performance of his is in the Copper Beaches.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He is great in that.
**Adam:** And he was in Mystery and Imagination, Tells the Unexpected, all those things.
**Adam:** And he's the voice of the Black Rabbit in Watership Down.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And he also, I forgot about this.
**Adam:** He's the narrator of the documentary I've got in search of the Great Beast 666, which is a documentary about Alister Crowley.
**Lee:** Oh, no, he looks a bit like Alister Crowley.
**Adam:** He could play Alister Crowley quite well, I think, actually.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** the weirdest thing is that the girl in the photograph is actually the actress Nicola Pagett, who sort of got more famous through the sort of seventies and eighties, mostly on TV and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But if I was her,
**Adam:** I'd have a word with that props bloke.
**Adam:** 'Cause that's the only failing of that story.
**Adam:** Is that it's like, it looks so much like her.
**Lee:** No, it don't.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It looks so much like her if you if, you know, if I tried to make a sculpture of her on a sex doll.
**Adam:** It's it's not good.
**Adam:** It's and then subsequently, they should have got Christopher Lee's daughter to have a go.
**Adam:** 'Cause her wax figure of Christopher Lee looks more like Christopher Lee than that wax figure looks like Nicola Pagett or Christopher Lee or Joss Ackland.
**Adam:** They're all a bit they're all a bit big face, you know, so.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** but the guy who plays the proprietor of the wax museum is a guy called Wolf Morris.
**Adam:** who is,
**Adam:** Jewish Ukrainian.
**Adam:** But he's along with another actor in this, he spent a great deal of his career playing a variety of ethnicities.
**Lee:** Like I I
**Lee:** I appreciate they weren't that many actors over here, possibly of those ethnicities, so it might have been difficult.
**Lee:** But he doesn't even look anything like it.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** This is the this is the bizarre thing.
**Adam:** It was almost like.
**Adam:** It was almost like shorthand of swarthy was like.
**Adam:** sort of right, right.
**Adam:** That means you can play most of the rest of the planet, apparently.
**Adam:** And it's a bit.
**Adam:** But weirdly enough, the other one who's in it, who is,
**Adam:** oh, what's his name, John Bennett, who is the copper.
**Adam:** Now, he again, he did play Lee Chen.
**Adam:** In the Talons of Wang Chiang, a Dr. Who story.
**Adam:** So he's in yellow face for that.
**Adam:** And you're like,
**Adam:** again, why?
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's I mean, he's a good actor, but he.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He.
**Adam:** Why would you not go for someone who,
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Again.
**Lee:** obviously.
**Adam:** Of of right, ethnicity.
**Lee:** We we wouldn't do it now because we can easily get actors, we have lots of actors in this country from other places.
**Lee:** And although I appreciate on a lower budget you couldn't ship somebody in and there might not be someone to get on hand who's necessarily the correct ethnicity.
**Lee:** But you'd at least pick an actor who has similar features.
**Adam:** Well, say for example, going back to our last episode, Burt Kwouk.
**Adam:** Who said that he's played every Asian nationality.
**Adam:** He's played Japanese, Chinese, Korean.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** but, yeah, 'cause he's in the right ethnicity, you know, to sort of be able to pull that off.
**Adam:** But it's.
**Adam:** No, it's a wonder, it really is, but I don't know 'cause again, John Bennett is a very,
**Adam:** it's a 'cause I love John Bennett.
**Adam:** I think he's a great actor and he's brilliant in this.
**Adam:** But the weird thing is, is.
**Adam:** under normal circumstances, I feel that him.
**Adam:** And John Bryans, who plays Stoker, would be the other way around.
**Adam:** Because John Bennett looks sinister, you know, although obviously his greatest moment is in Porridge.
**Adam:** Where he's the doctor.
**Adam:** who says to Fletch, right, you see that flask?
**Adam:** Fill it.
**Adam:** What from here?
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** but he,
**Adam:** Yeah, John John Bryans.
**Adam:** who plays Stoker.
**Adam:** Is a lot you know, he could play the copper and you'd have John Bennett looking a bit sinister and a bit sort of, you know.
**Adam:** Because,
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's just I like the fact that it switched around.
**Adam:** Because Stoker's much more menacing for being quite normal.
**Adam:** in inverted commas.
**Adam:** But he was I recently finished watching Blake 7.
**Adam:** And he turned up in Blake 7 a couple of times, but once as a torturer called Shrinker.
**Adam:** Which is just a great name anyway.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** he's so good in it because it's just basically they capture him and it's like, all right, we want to know this information and everything.
**Adam:** And it is just his blubbering cowardice of like, you know, he was this Imperial torturer, so he's like used to getting his own way and being thought and then without any guns or backup or anything else like that.
**Adam:** He is a sniveling wretch of a pathetic human being.
**Adam:** And he's very fucking good in it.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** That's that's one of the other things that I really liked in this that I'd actually forgotten until I rewatched it the other way, is the way that the last story then folds into the wrap around.
**Lee:** And it all.
**Lee:** Like I'd forgotten that it it did that and that like that's a very unusual thing, but I really enjoyed that.
**Adam:** I think also, speaking of speaking of the last story, obviously, we have the mighty John Pertwee in there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Father of Shaun, brother of Bill.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** We also have Chris's first, well, I assume Chris's first experience with Ingrid Pitt.
**Adam:** The incredible Ingrid Pitt.
**Adam:** who again, brilliant at the comedy side of it as well as the horror side of it and everything.
**Adam:** Polish bomb.
**Adam:** Real name Ingush I'm going to say this wrong, Ingushka Petrov.
**Adam:** Her German father was a rocket scientist who refused to work on the Nazi military rocket program.
**Adam:** So, five-year-old Ingrid along with her Jewish mother were interned in Stutthof concentration camp, which is near Gdańsk now.
**Adam:** Well, it was it was called Danzig then.
**Adam:** But obviously, like Glen Gdańsk changed his name to Danzig as a tribute.
**Adam:** yeah, they were taken into the nearby woods to be shot amongst a group of prisoners.
**Adam:** But Ingrid and her mom managed to escape and were rescued by partisans.
**Adam:** They lived rough with them for the for the last year of World War II.
**Adam:** After the war, they searched for Red Cross refugee camps for her father and older sister who'd also been sent to another concentration camp.
**Adam:** They did all reunite, but her dad died shortly afterwards, and apparently he was just broken.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Just really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** there's an animated short called Ingrid Pitt Beyond the Forest, which is her narrating the story of that.
**Adam:** I think it came out after she died.
**Adam:** But it was it's a really good little piece as well.
**Adam:** she was living in Eastberlin when she then she was living in East Berlin, she joined Berthold Brecht's Berliner Ensemble Theater Company.
**Adam:** But was forced to flee to the West on the night of her planned stage debut because she'd been openly criticizing the Communist authorities and basically she got a message saying, right, the stars are coming for you.
**Lee:** Oh my God.
**Adam:** during her escape, she swung across the she swam across the Spree River and was rescued by an American soldier, Loud Roland Pitt.
**Adam:** Who she married and moved to California with.
**Adam:** They had one daughter and after their divorce, Pitt kept her surname.
**Adam:** She moved back to Europe.
**Adam:** And to pursue her career in acting.
**Adam:** Appeared in several films before the two Hammer films that propelled her to stardom, obviously, count Dracula and Vampire Lovers.
**Adam:** outside of acting, she wrote several books including both fiction, non-fiction and autobiography, had a regular column in Shiver's magazine.
**Adam:** With her third husband, X-racing driver, Tony Ruttling, she was commissioned to write for Dr. Who, the unused script was eventually adapted as an audio play by Big Finish.
**Adam:** She was an obsessive cricket fan, a karate black belt.
**Adam:** held a student's pilot's license and had a passion for World War II aircraft.
**Adam:** Having mentioned this on the radio, she was contacted by the Air Museum at RAF Duxford to have a flight in a Lancaster bomber.
**Adam:** and then and eventually, yeah, died in 2010.
**Adam:** Heart failure.
**Adam:** although, I've got a fantastic quote from her.
**Adam:** I am mad about breasts, especially mine.
**Lee:** Ha.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** And but, yeah.
**Adam:** Ingrid Pitt.
**Adam:** I mean, it's a fucking life and a half.
**Adam:** That her life is more of a film than most of the films she's been in.
**Lee:** I've got to say of all of the Hammer glamour girls, she is by far my favorite.
**Lee:** Like, her like whenever you see her interviewed or anything, she just nails it.
**Lee:** She's such a personality.
**Adam:** She's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and that's the thing as well.
**Adam:** Is it's one of again, it's one of those things where it's she curiously, I think exudes like a sort of diva quality, but apparently was not in any way, shape or form a diva.
**Adam:** She was very sort of like.
**Adam:** Like no one has no one said that she was like had airs or graces.
**Adam:** It was a shitty.
**Adam:** You know, everyone has always.
**Adam:** Everyone loved working with her and everyone loved Ingrid Pitt.
**Lee:** I was going to say, it isn't a terribly long story because I don't remember what the details were.
**Lee:** But,
**Lee:** the guys at Southend on Sea, the guy who puts that on, I can't remember his name off the top of my head.
**Lee:** but he met her for something.
**Lee:** They were working on a project.
**Lee:** yeah, because as we said before, Jennifer worked with his wife, yeah.
**Lee:** And I'm sure that was what you're saying, you met her and she was yeah, just apparently as amazing one-on-one as she is, you know, in front of the screen.
**Lee:** So, yeah, just an all round outstanding.
**Lee:** And you you get it through in her acting.
**Lee:** as well.
**Lee:** Even in this, where she plays, as you say, the sort of Halty diva.
**Lee:** She does it all with that kind of cock-sided smile.
**Adam:** She.
**Lee:** That's kind.
**Adam:** And the weird thing is, is her and John Pertwee are an amazing couple.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think they just genuinely you get the feeling that they you know what I mean?
**Adam:** They feel like they would actually be a natural.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, they do feel like a couple.
**Adam:** It's like sort of
**Adam:** quite a.
**Adam:** quite a weird one.
**Adam:** But it's sort of just.
**Adam:** It just works, right?
**Adam:** But I mean,
**Adam:** all in all, I mean, it's I'm trying to think.
**Adam:** I don't think there's much else
**Lee:** Oh,
**Lee:** we did we did skip over the the Christopher Lee one.
**Adam:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** That's very true.
**Lee:** Actually.
**Lee:** And that I love the twist in that story because you do watch it the whole time thinking, oh, that poor child is being so mistreated by her father.
**Lee:** And then it's like, oh, no, she's a little shit and if she gets half a chance, she'll kill us all.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but not only that, but also I think it's a very good because it's that use of Christopher Lee's natural sort of
**Adam:** dour authoritarianism.
**Adam:** That you kind of just and the fact that he's such this like this huge bloke, so you're like, well, what what harm can a little girl do?
**Adam:** But again,
**Adam:** and when the fear comes out,
**Adam:** it's really quite.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's such a because it's so rare to see.
**Adam:** Peter Cushing off his.
**Adam:** off his guard, when he's when he's scared, it's really quite.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's unnerving.
**Lee:** To see someone as you say with that kind of demeanor and that bigger stature suddenly act terrified.
**Lee:** And he like he said, he's so rare to see him do it.
**Lee:** And he's just outstanding, I think this although that's a very short performance.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think he squeezes a great deal into it.
**Lee:** And it's yeah, it's.
**Lee:** It is one of my favorite ones of this film if I'm honest.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and the the.
**Adam:** the tutor that he brings in is played by Nirey Dawn Porter, who is also in from Beyond the Grave.
**Adam:** but we've not again.
**Adam:** another Amicus that we've yet to get to.
**Adam:** So many Amicus, so little time.
**Adam:** but her main thing was.
**Adam:** She played Contessa, Caroline Decantini in a ITC thing called ITC TV series called The Protectors.
**Adam:** And that was kind of like her like five minutes of 15 minutes of fame when she was in this show.
**Adam:** Because it was like,
**Adam:** everyone was just obsessed with her because she was always like really glamorous.
**Adam:** Yeah, and everything.
**Adam:** Which is obviously.
**Adam:** You know, I mean.
**Adam:** It's toned down.
**Adam:** In this, because she's not turning up in like full white pant suits and silk scarves and shit like that.
**Adam:** But it's.
**Adam:** But again,
**Adam:** I think everyone top to tail, I think the cast in this is so good.
**Adam:** And everyone's like sort of going for it properly.
**Adam:** And actually, it's really difficult to spot, but Joanna Lumley's in here as well.
**Lee:** Shit.
**Adam:** She's in she's in the last story, like the the John Pertwee Vampire story.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** She's in that, but I think she's only ever seen from behind, but you can kind of tell it's her, but she's got her big like seventies hair.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah, so, so yeah, Joanna Lumley's in it somewhere.
**Adam:** but originally,
**Adam:** the director, Peter Duffell, who mostly did TV, actually.

---

## Ep 143 I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-143-i-bought-a-vampire-motorcycle/
Air date: 22 May 2022
Duration: 01:02:11
Film: I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle · Year: 1990 · Director: Mont Campbell

### Description

Hi Ho Silver! Here comes the lone ranger! He’s riding on down to rescue me! It’s Lee’s birthday choice, and he’s chosen hard-hitting docu-drama “I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle”. A film in which quiet country pubs don’t want any trouble in the saloon, so prefer you take your fights into the adjacent medieval banqueting hall; C-3PO throws shuriken for the Lord; Bob the Builder eats a talking turd; and Michael Elphick stuns us with his beauty regime. A film that feels like a forgotten episode of The Comic Strip Presents… or could more accurately be called “What we did in the holidays by the cast of Boon” - watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. • APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, RIDING PILLION ON AN 850cc NORTON COMMANDO.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Hora.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I am Adam.
**Lee:** Yes, he is indeed.
**Lee:** and we are here this evening to cover my birthday choice. we are covering I bought a vampire motorcycle, because with a title like that, how could you not?
**Lee:** but a bit of housekeeping before we get into the show proper, as it were.
**Adam:** Housekeeping, housekeeping.
**Lee:** we are going to be making a slight change to the format, as it has been for the last five years, we've decided it's time to to mix it up a bit and give certain elements more of a chance to breathe.
**Lee:** so moving forward, we are no longer going to do our what we've been watching at the beginning of the show.
**Lee:** and we are just going to focus each episode on the actual film in question, and then what we're going to do is we're going to do, an episode every three or four weeks just of what we've been watching.
**Lee:** so we don't feel that we have to compress it too much and kind of rush through.
**Lee:** So, that is the new format.
**Lee:** Also, just to give you all the heads up, we're going to be continuing on the fortnightly, time scale as we have been doing.
**Lee:** However, we are going to be doing themed months, or at least we're going to give it a try and see how it goes.
**Lee:** So, we're going to cover this episode, and then our next two episodes are going to be anthologies.
**Lee:** And then for the following month, we are going to be doing a listener request month.
**Lee:** so obviously, that'll only be two movies, but what we'll do is if everyone can submit their movies, if they would like to either on Instagram or email us at info@welcometohorror.com.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's it.
**Lee:** That was well remind remembered, because I haven't mentioned that in about four years, have I?
**Chris:** Very good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, so you can message us there or on Instagram and just give us your requests or if you know us, just send us a text.
**Lee:** and what we'll do is we've not worked out yet, we're going to draw them out of a hat or we'll just pick the ones we most like the look of, but either way, you've got a month to to mull it all over before we kick it off.
**Lee:** So, yeah, let us know what you're thinking, let us know what you'd like us to cover.
**Lee:** I'm not covering Fred, so you can fuck off.
**Adam:** No shit.
**Lee:** There will still be spoilers and swearing.
**Lee:** Probably should have said that.
**Lee:** But,
**Adam:** Oh, why?
**Adam:** That's, that's not a format.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's not a shirri.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** also, when you said, when you said, oh, we've, we've got, when you said we've got two ways of communicating with us, I genuinely thought you're gonna say, so we've got two listeners, so boys, let us know, you know.
**Lee:** Yes, so, yeah, so let us know what you want us to cover.
**Lee:** and it might well be one of our next episodes.
**Lee:** And, yeah, without further ado, we are now going to discuss the film, which I can't find the bloody year of, 1990.
**Adam:** 1990.
**Lee:** Yeah, so 1990's I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle.

---

## Ep 142 The Northman

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-142-the-northman/
Air date: 8 May 2022
Duration: 01:26:44
Film: The Northman · Year: 2022 · Director: Robert Eggers

### Description

It’s Chris’ birthday choice, and he’s chosen the bang-up-to-date, still-at-the- cinema, fresh-as-a-daisy “The Northman”, from WTH favourite Robert Eggers. PLEASE BE AWARE THAT WE WILL BE THOROUGHLY SPOILING THE WHOLE MOVIE! A brutal yet brilliant film, in which Nicole Kidman prefers to Bang Claes; there are no bullshit blood eagles, but a (literal) shed load of ravens and at least one Hawke; and Björk shows us her less cryptic side. Along the way we discuss the 1954 BBC version of “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, “Piranha 3D” and “The House That Dripped Blood” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. • APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, ON A LONGSHIP BOUND FOR ICELAND.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Unknown:** It's a birthday celebration he says I can of coffee.
**Chris:** That sounds like a great thing to celebrate with.
**Lee:** so we are
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** So we are here for Chris's birthday choice this week.
**Lee:** we are covering isn't strictly horror, but, you know, fuck it.
**Lee:** oh yeah, there will be spoilers and there will be swearing.
**Lee:** so we will be covering covering the recently released film by Robert Eggers, The Northman.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes, so more on that shortly.
**Lee:** But before we get all too excited and dribbly.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** So I thought, I can't go for the third time and not watch anything, can I?
**Chris:** So I I ensured that I watch something, right?
**Chris:** And I thought, what could I watch, I got tons of things I could watch.
**Chris:** But I thought, let's just
**Adam:** You know the witch again, did you?
**Chris:** the temptation was there, I'm not going to lie.
**Chris:** Or or even the lighthouse, that that could have been a up for a second viewing.
**Chris:** but we'll come back to that.
**Chris:** But yeah, I thought, I'll open Netflix, let's just have a look, see what's on there.
**Chris:** And and up comes Piranha featured.
**Chris:** And I thought, Piranha, that that sounds rubbish, doesn't it?
**Chris:** Like it's it's a rip off of a masterpiece.
**Chris:** there's no way it could be any good whatsoever, right?
**Chris:** But so I thought I'll just have a look, why are they featuring it for me, who knows?
**Chris:** So I I'll have a quick look up the details and I saw that there was an original Piranha.
**Chris:** by directed by Joe Dante and written by Roger Corman.
**Adam:** -
**Chris:** And I thought, oh yeah, well they've been mentioned a lot, I love Gremlins, that was probably a good one.
**Chris:** I don't have that to hand.
**Chris:** All right, I'm now going to just try the remake.
**Chris:** Let's just see what they've managed to do on this other rip off, potential rip off of Jaws.
**Chris:** I thought I'm going to set my expectations correctly, I'm not expecting anything.
**Chris:** And and it started playing, I realized there's Richard Dryfus in it.
**Chris:** Oh, that's pretty weird.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Why would he be in a complete rubbish film that's ripping off something that he's done, you know, that he's just gone down in history as one of the best films, right?
**Chris:** But he's only in it
**Adam:** I will I will stop you there, Chris.
**Adam:** He did fucking bake off last year.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** So I think he's at loose ends.
**Chris:** It could that could be true.
**Chris:** but I thought I'll just give it a go, right?
**Chris:** And and and as it was playing out, I thought, yeah, this is this is silly.
**Chris:** But as each scene was happening, I was like, he's quite entertaining.
**Chris:** We've got spring break.
**Chris:** Tick, yep, okay.
**Chris:** We got crazy setup for the story.
**Chris:** We got some very entertaining characters.
**Chris:** and it was getting better and better.
**Chris:** And then it got ridiculous, but still quite entertaining.
**Chris:** And then I was like, all right, how far are they going to push this core?
**Chris:** No, they they are.
**Chris:** They are going to push this, this is just they they're going all on.
**Chris:** This is this is just gore.
**Chris:** you know, it's it is it's gory and it's it's what you want in this sort of film, I suppose.
**Chris:** Now, it's definitely not one I would have chosen really.
**Chris:** But I was just in that mood for just clicking play and seeing what happened.
**Chris:** And I got to say, I definitely don't feel like it was a wasted time, I definitely enjoyed it.
**Chris:** I probably won't rush back and watch it.
**Chris:** I won't highly recommend it to many people.
**Chris:** But a few people, I could recommend it to.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** If I remember correctly, I went and saw this at the cinema and then went back three days later with Ben and Adam.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** You need to come and watch this.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Lee:** Yeah with the right people a crowd watching this that it would be a lot of fun.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's part it's party horror all the way.
**Chris:** Definitely, yep.
**Chris:** They they they got it right, that's what they went for and they they achieved what they set out to do.
**Adam:** It was oddly refreshing as well because you'd got because you'd got so used to like.
**Adam:** I will we'll make a horror film of 15 because we want to get teens in.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And then we went and saw this and it's like, no, there's actual tits.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's like skin off.
**Adam:** Yeah, people are, you know, there's blood everywhere.
**Chris:** It it was no holds bard.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it don't it don't really didn't shit about.
**Adam:** And it was sort of like, yeah, it was a refreshing sort of watch because it was like, man, this is yeah, this is a horror film, this is a teen horror film.
**Adam:** You're not meant to be old enough to see this, but you will.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** Cuz wasn't cuz I think we saw it in 3D, didn't we? because it was because it was released as Piranha 3D, was it?
**Chris:** Yeah, it was.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Chris:** Okay, I mean interesting I
**Chris:** Yeah, I didn't realize that, but then I did see the cover said 3D and I was like, okay, yeah.
**Chris:** I can see that might have even added a bit more to this, this is perhaps quite a good candidate for just ridiculous over the top 3D things.
**Chris:** I mean the the special effects they're not amazing, you know, the the the 3D the computer generated effects, you know, they're bit silly some of them.
**Chris:** But it's still, you know, you just don't care, you just like.
**Chris:** It's just fun craziness.
**Adam:** They're still they're still a notch up from that sort of blood of Sharknado.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay, I'm no it could be way worse.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Definitely. Takestand or whatever.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just
**Chris:** So yeah, it's good fun.
**Lee:** again, it was one of those in the cinema where like the atmosphere was both times, the atmosphere was what everyone was hollering and laughing.
**Chris:** Yeah, that would that would add to it even more, yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** Fantastic film.
**Chris:** Good call.
**Lee:** don't watch don't watch the follow up.
**Lee:** Piranha 3 double D.
**Lee:** Really bad.
**Chris:** I did see that mentioned, okay.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, save save yourself the hour and a half and watch watch the witch again because yeah, you won't enjoy it, it's not good.
**Lee:** Excellent, well done.
**Lee:** Adam, I know you've obviously been under the weather recently.
**Lee:** But have you managed to squeeze anything in?
**Adam:** yeah, a couple of couple of fingers up my bum.
**Adam:** No, I've I've watched.
**Adam:** I've finally managed to watch cuz this was so galling.
**Adam:** they finally released the BBC 1984 with Peter Cushing.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Finally after fucking years of legal wrangles and bullshit and everything else like that.
**Adam:** Finally enough people have died that they couldn't hold it back any longer.
**Adam:** It's like like when Stanley Kupe died and suddenly it's like, do you want a orange, we've got three copies of it here.
**Adam:** It's like
**Adam:** Because I don't think they were that they were as concerned as Stanley about keeping it out of the public gaze.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, so finally that got released.
**Adam:** I and I'm going to call I'm going to call him out.
**Adam:** I ordered it on Amazon, Amazon managed to lose the fucking parcel.
**Adam:** And then I'm panicking because they're saying, oh yeah, well you can get your money back.
**Adam:** And it was like, okay, I'll reorder it.
**Adam:** And then it said, yeah, available in three to five months.
**Adam:** And I thought, fuck you, bastards because I know what they're talking, it's limited edition.
**Adam:** So I thought, right, so that's three to five months followed by couldn't get it anywhere.
**Adam:** so I went old school.
**Adam:** And HMV had it, so I.
**Adam:** Well, Claire very kindly rang up, reserved me a coffee because a copy because I was doing my pieces.
**Adam:** and
**Adam:** Yeah, so I got I went and picked it up, but I only managed to watch it the other night, because I've been rough as a box of frogs.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You know, like a near two-hour black and white 1954 adapt of 1984 was probably going to be a bit of an half.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** while while my head was swimming.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** I mean, it looks fucking incredible.
**Adam:** For something that's made that long ago.
**Adam:** The film.
**Adam:** in because when it went out, it went it was broadcast live.
**Adam:** And they had filmed inserts as well of like for exterior shots and things basically to give people the opportunity to change their clothes or move to the next set or whatever like that.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** and those bits look like you filmed them yesterday.
**Adam:** They are incredibly.
**Adam:** And even the sort of the older telerecording of like the studio stuff still looks amazing.
**Adam:** Peter Cushing is, you know, barely shaving.
**Adam:** Donald Pleasance is in it and Donald Pleasance is both a child and yet already bald.
**Adam:** And and interestingly enough, and this is just a weird one out of here, but I know that you'll know who I'm talking about, Lee.
**Adam:** There was a woman in it and I was like, I bloody know her from something.
**Adam:** And when I looked it up, she's the woman who she's the char lady who shares.
**Adam:** Ralph Fiennes's office in Fiennes and Catplay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's crazy.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Adam:** I like the put upon neighbor woman.
**Adam:** but yeah, and still really good, still really, just still fucking works, you know.
**Adam:** It's incredible that something that old because I mean obviously when they made it, it the book had only been out sort of six years.
**Adam:** So, you know, it wasn't it was pretty fresh then, but it's still, yeah.
**Adam:** Still really holds up and just the idea of what they would like, what I think nowadays is is like it almost works as a nostalgia dream for oppressive regimes.
**Adam:** Where it's like, oh, we didn't have the internet and we didn't have people and people didn't have phones.
**Adam:** We could we could still be doing this shit, we could still be rewriting history and claiming that we didn't say that and we did do this and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And yeah, but yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, I recommend the shit out of it.
**Adam:** And I'm counting it as horror because when they first basically because at the time the BBC used to do stuff live.
**Adam:** So they broadcast it they broadcast it one Sunday.
**Adam:** And there were questions in the house.
**Adam:** There was uproar.
**Adam:** Yeah, all the newspapers jumped on it the same way they can do nowadays.
**Adam:** But it was all like, BBC showing filthy torture and how dare they put this on our screens, this is, you know, despicable feel bad stuff just to make people feel terrible and blah, blah, blah.
**Adam:** and so they weren't going to show it the following week.
**Adam:** then it turned out the queen really liked it.
**Adam:** So they were like, oh, okay, yeah, we will redo it then because her majesty has given us the given us the week.
**Adam:** Cuz I'll tell you what, I favor a Republic, but our own dear queen does seem to have pretty good TV taste.
**Adam:** but
**Adam:** Yeah, and so they they redid it and they recorded it.
**Adam:** Cuz the first one went out live, they didn't record it.
**Adam:** They just put it on.
**Adam:** And it was only because they were staging it that they took the opportunity and filmed it and we still got it, which is such a rarity of telly of that age.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so, yeah.
**Lee:** Imagine they're doing something and then we're going to show it again in a week's time, so we've got a completely re-acted thing.
**Lee:** That's mental to think that that was a thing.
**Adam:** I mean, yeah, but then I suppose it's just.
**Adam:** It's at the time it was like theater.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's it's much the same as you sort of do it every night and so on and so on.
**Adam:** But I mean, yeah, just they really, I think that it was a weird one because it was like, as I say, there was it was obviously a slow news week.
**Adam:** When, you know, everyone's moaning about what was on the telly on Sunday.
**Adam:** But yeah, it sort of generated enough press that at the at one point the BBC were like, oh, no, we won't do it again because it's been, yeah.
**Adam:** But it's also they've added a thing on there which I've never seen before.
**Adam:** Cuz I used to have it on VHS off of a repeat from like 94.
**Adam:** And so that went the way of all.
**Adam:** Flesh years and years ago, that did.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** at the start of it, they've actually got just the announcer is sitting down and talking.
**Adam:** But it's so grown up, it's lovely.
**Adam:** It's really refreshing because it's basically, right, we are presenting the play of 1984.
**Adam:** It features torture.
**Adam:** Possibly the most important and and interestingly, they take the themes from it because they're saying one of the most important things with this is the lack of hope.
**Adam:** That this this leads you with because of you, you know, as the story progresses and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And then it's basically, so please make the decision that if you feel that there are members of your household who shouldn't watch this.
**Adam:** Including yourselves, please, you know, you know, don't don't watch it.
**Chris:** I'm sure that was shown as silly pandering there.
**Chris:** Can't you know.
**Adam:** I I don't I don't know, cuz I mean it just felt right because it was just like, we're going to show we're showing this shit.
**Adam:** We're not going to not show you this.
**Chris:** But we're just giving you little heads up.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But on your head beat it, if you want to show your kids this and they have nightmares all night, tough tips, cuz you've made that decision.
**Adam:** Or, you know, if this is going to give you the EBGBs, don't watch it.
**Chris:** Do you think do you think anyone managed to get any of their kids to to watch it?
**Adam:** Oh, well, I mean, the interesting thing is and it's one of the my favorite aspects of 1984 is that there is.
**Adam:** in it, he's got a neighbor who is very for the party and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And his kids are arseholes.
**Adam:** They're the most dreadful pair of pricks.
**Adam:** Because and at the end of it, I mean, spoiler alert for a book that's been out since 1948.
**Adam:** at the end of it, his own kids denounce him for thought crime.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like, and but he's so in the party and so in the mindset that he's like, well, the police don't make mistakes.
**Adam:** They wouldn't have arrested me for something I didn't do.
**Adam:** So I must have done it.
**Lee:** God.
**Adam:** And it's like this terrifying sort of thing, but again, it's like these kids are monsters because they know they have this power.
**Adam:** You know, that that much as anyone does, I mean, you know, it's sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** And it's a real sort of even now, I mean, I think it just is.
**Adam:** Just brilliantly done and conceived.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Lee:** Cool, I have I have got it, so I will be watching it.
**Lee:** So hopefully, I'll give you my because I don't know the story at all, so I'm going to be watching it a fresh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Hopefully this week, so.
**Chris:** You you've lived through some of it, but from that, you don't know any of it.
**Adam:** Well, the weird thing is when you watch it, you will just go, oh, right, that's where that comes from because it's so many things, room 101, Big Brother, news speak, thought crime, thought police, they're all from 1984.
**Adam:** And you're like, at the end of it, it feels like, you know, like it's like when you go through Shakespeare and you realize how many phrases were originated in Shakespeare plays.
**Adam:** It's that same sort of thing where you're like, oh, right, okay, so this is where that comes from, this is where that comes from and so on.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool, I'm looking forward to it.
**Adam:** Yeah, go for it.
**Adam:** It's and Peter Cushing's just chef's kiss.
**Adam:** I mean, he's just great in it.
**Adam:** the only other thing that I've watched is obviously Inside Number Nine is back.
**Lee:** Yes, it is.
**Lee:** And the second episode is horror all over.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Adam:** I literally I've literally just watched that before we started.
**Adam:** And I am buzzing my tits off because that was so fucking good.
**Adam:** I enjoyed the first one, it was a bit more sort of low key.
**Adam:** And certainly like more moving, the one with Mark Gatiss.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** in there as well because you kind of expect, oh, well if Mark's going to be in it.
**Adam:** They'll probably really ramp up the horror.
**Adam:** So I think it was quite nice that they were like, that was their that was their twist almost that it was like, no, we're not doing a, you know, we're not doing a grand sort of thing just because he's here.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, that's that second episode, Mr. King was, oh.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's right up there with the best of them.
**Lee:** Absolutely, yeah, totally blown away by that.
**Lee:** So for me, I I yeah, I also watched obviously Inside Number Nine.
**Lee:** and then last night we have a guest here, previous guest of the show on Maggie is here at the moment.
**Adam:** Hey.
**Lee:** And following the last time she was here and came on the podcast and I showed her Dr. Terris House of Horrors.
**Lee:** I said, what would you like to watch this evening and she said I would like more of that, please.
**Lee:** so we sat down and watched the house that dripped blood.
**Adam:** Hey.
**Lee:** And unsurprisingly enough, yeah, she absolutely loved it because it's such a good film.
**Adam:** Oh, it's good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** That's that's one we've got to do coming up at some point.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely, it's it's so much fun.
**Lee:** So yeah, so I'm really glad cuz otherwise I wouldn't have watched anything and I've I've currently now left them downstairs this evening to watch the Wolf of Snow Hollow.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** So I'll I'll report back on how that one goes down.
**Lee:** Yes, so I think that's everything caught up.
**Lee:** So again, we will reiterate, obviously, normally we do older films, but we are doing something that is very current.
**Lee:** So if you haven't seen The Northman yet.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Obviously, we are about to spoil it.
**Lee:** But I think because I I I was sitting with Jennifer discussing it this afternoon.
**Lee:** And I sort of talked her through the story of it and said, you know, this film isn't about the story, it's the journey.
**Lee:** So so don't feel if you haven't seen it, that it's necessarily going to spoil it to hit.
**Lee:** I mean, Adam, you said, was it you who said that this was the the old story.
**Lee:** Which Shakespeare adapted into Hamlet, was it you who talked about that?
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, you did, yeah.
**Lee:** So it so it's a well-trodden story, but.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** So Chris, as this was your choice, take it away, give us your thoughts on this.
**Chris:** Well, I I'd just like to say what a great choice.
**Lee:** On.
**Chris:** I don't know if I'm blowing blowing my trumpet.
**Chris:** But you know.
**Adam:** Self applause is no applause.
**Chris:** But yeah, so I mean it was it was quite a step up in action.
**Chris:** I was trying to think of all of the films that Robert Eggers has done.
**Chris:** So obviously we've got the Witch, The Lighthouse.
**Chris:** I don't know we've seen both of those.
**Chris:** We haven't seen any others, I don't think, have we?
**Adam:** That's that's it.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Chris:** That is pretty much he's done he's done some shorts, I think.
**Adam:** I think, yeah, he's done some short films.
**Adam:** In fact.
**Adam:** Oh, balls, I meant to look that up.
**Adam:** I'm sure he's done a version of Hansel and Gretel.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** I've I've got that on IMDB, yeah, yeah, it was that was back in 2007.
**Chris:** That was a very short.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it came up on, I can't remember what website it was on, it came up on there and then along it's probably still open as a tab on my phone.
**Adam:** Along with like 22,000 other things including, you know, Dr. Google.
**Adam:** Answers off of pointless and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** So yeah, it's lost in a very long stream.
**Chris:** But yeah, so so this was a real step up in in action, really.
**Chris:** It's still still.
**Chris:** It certainly had the, you know, what is it kind of lonely element to it, you know, a lot of his journey was.
**Chris:** he, you know.
**Chris:** he's his old experience early on.
**Chris:** And then sort of everything happens to him, you're not exactly feeling at one with the world and.
**Chris:** you know, a piece.
**Chris:** It's it's quite a harrowing experience that most of his life.
**Chris:** and that's why I think you know, don't want to jump to the end and trying to think of not.
**Chris:** fully spoiling it.
**Chris:** But it it definitely does go on a journey and you are with him and you do appreciate when he gets glimmers of of hope and good.
**Chris:** And the sort of the questioning aspect of what.
**Chris:** what choice do I now make and obviously that that that gets intertwined with the the which.
**Chris:** And and his prophecy from his childhood as well.
**Chris:** And so it's yeah, it's fascinating to sort of think even if they are essentially supernatural.
**Chris:** You know, you can still have experiences like that in life where you're like.
**Chris:** how do I sort of integrate this information into my my sort of next choices?
**Chris:** So I yeah, and I mean, played out fantastically.
**Chris:** and some of the scenes were were amazing.
**Chris:** And it did like you said, it was.
**Chris:** Macbeth.
**Adam:** Hamlet.
**Chris:** Sorry, Hamlet, yeah, I tend to mix it up, yeah.
**Chris:** Hamlet is essentially the story of Hamlet.
**Chris:** it did remind me of Conan at points.
**Chris:** Is that?
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I think a lot of it is.
**Adam:** There's.
**Chris:** Is that the mythology?
**Adam:** I think there's sort of archetypes, there's certain archetypes, I can't remember the name of the book, but there's.
**Adam:** For example, I think I sorry, I can't remember the author of the book, but there's the the thing the hero's journey.
**Adam:** Which people commonly apply to Star Wars.
**Chris:** Yes, yeah.
**Adam:** Which is the thing of you have like, a young, naive prints.
**Adam:** You have an older advisor and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So I think that they're and people sort of pick and choose from those myths as they go.
**Adam:** but I think that this is quite I mean, basically it's quite an old.
**Adam:** Folk tale that is kind of it possibly predates it's.
**Adam:** it's place in Viking or like folklore.
**Adam:** It they think it might actually be, they think it might actually be like.
**Adam:** Originally,
**Adam:** So, where are we?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So they think it might be.
**Lee:** his notes.
**Adam:** Just just just checking my notes, which have, I'll tell you what, this is the one thing though, is.
**Adam:** I could have fucking researched this for the next 10 years of my life.
**Adam:** Robert Eggers is just he doesn't mess around so good at.
**Adam:** That you know, of cuz I mean that was the thing with the witch.
**Adam:** And the witch was kind of like a lot of it was stuff I knew or stuff that I was aware of.
**Adam:** Cuz when I first saw the witch, I was just so blown away by the fact that it was like, finally.
**Adam:** This is like this is this is witch mythology.
**Adam:** It's how.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's not, you know, it's not sort of the ramped up version of it.
**Adam:** It's not the sort of Hollywood version of it, this is all stuff that is.
**Chris:** It's authentic as you can make that film that aims to be entertainment as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And from that time period, from the the right sort of time period and the right sort of attitudes that people have.
**Chris:** I'd be tempted to say he did that in The Lighthouse as well because if I said to you, I'm I'm going to make a film about two guys in a lighthouse, you're like, how much you're going to get out of that?
**Chris:** And yet he's made, you know, essentially an epic tale of of loneliness in the lighthouse.
**Chris:** And adding to it sort of the myths of the sea and so on.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, this this was something that when when I was sort of like going through it.
**Adam:** Because so
**Adam:** One of the things that sort of came up was about animal symbolism, cuz he uses it a lot in all his films.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And for example, this and but this is the thing that I found fascinating is when you look at it.
**Adam:** So, particularly with birds.
**Adam:** Obviously like in the witch you've got the transformations of the witch and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But with but it's all birds are very key in all three of Robert Eggers's movies.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but the thing is, Robert Eggers puts them in the context of the mood and the attitude of the film and when it was based.
**Adam:** So I mean, obviously with with the lighthouse, you had the seagulls carrying the souls of dead sailors, which is like maritime law.
**Adam:** Which would be correct to.
**Adam:** people on a lighthouse, you know, it's so so it's work from that point of view as well as the echoing the myth of Prometheus.
**Adam:** At the at the climax at the end of that.
**Adam:** Obviously, I don't want to spoil the lighthouse for people because we we've covered the witch.
**Adam:** So we kind of a bit more spoiler already, so.
**Chris:** It's funny, yeah, in my head, we'd covered the house, probably because you watched it and talked about it.
**Chris:** I watched it and talked about it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But in but in in the witch, you have Ravens, like a Raven features.
**Adam:** But in that time period and in that setting.
**Adam:** They would be associated with sort of satanic evil, well, witches, the occult, that kind of thing.
**Adam:** So they are in the context of the witch when the Raven appears, it's only ill omened.
**Adam:** It's only, you know, it's it only spells disaster for the family.
**Adam:** Whereas in this, in Norse law, Ravens are really like sort of powerful signs.
**Adam:** Yeah, they're they're really highly esteemed animals.
**Adam:** Because Odin himself has two Ravens that he sends throughout his realm to report back to him of news.
**Chris:** I was say, in a in a way, the Viking Norse it's like their whole society is kind of dark in a way, isn't it?
**Chris:** It's like that's all except for whereas in the witch.
**Chris:** They were meant to be like pure and good and godly and then the darkness is the Ravens.
**Chris:** It's but whereas they're almost the opposite like, you know, Vikings are almost all kind of a satanic type of.
**Adam:** It's it's the power that comes with it, it's the power that comes with it, but they but in Norse mythology, they were they describe it as it's totemic and basically it's the idea of spirit animals or of animals that sort of define their characteristics.
**Adam:** and Ravens were considered protectors and prophets.
**Adam:** So in this, they help Amleth in his like when they free him from his bonds and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And so.
**Adam:** Weirdly enough, in the context of the witch, the Raven will turn up and it's like.
**Adam:** Right, that's Harbinger of things going wrong.
**Adam:** Whereas in this, the Ravens are helping him and, you know, helping the protagonist of the story.
**Adam:** and and even down to the fact that I I don't know if it's it's not particularly clear, but his father's name is War Raven.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like that's their family name, his War Raven.
**Adam:** Obviously, he loses that as he loses his family position and family name and has to go undercover for one of a better expression, you know.
**Adam:** And and similarly similarly like with the wolf spirit that is passed to him through the ritual.
**Adam:** When he's young just before his father's murder, when he goes when him and his father go through the ritual.
**Adam:** With Willem Dafoe.
**Chris:** Yes, yeah.
**Adam:** And that's where he defines him as the wolf spirit is what runs through their family.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** It's just again, it's like Robert Eggers is just like it's just such a lovely sort of thing where it's like, you know, the the definitions change according to what he's working with.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Also, and this was very late in the day that I found this out, you know, there's a there's obviously the sequence where they raid the village quite near the start.
**Adam:** When you when you first see Amleth grown up.
**Lee:** When when he turns into our friend, Lord Owl.
**Adam:** Yes, yes.
**Lee:** Did you know how much he looked like, Lord Owl?
**Adam:** He does, he does, yeah.
**Lee:** When we're down at Jim, we can see that from Yeah.
**Adam:** But that that bit where they're on the Viking long like the the Viking long boats.
**Adam:** they were built as per Viking long boats.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Robert Eggers was like, oh, no, we need to have the.
**Adam:** So he had historical advisors in.
**Adam:** And you know, just to make sure that everything was correct, so they were built exactly as a Viking long boat would be built.
**Adam:** And there's nothing extra.
**Adam:** There's no super glue in there, they're not held together with like, I don't know, like fucking tungsten or something like that.
**Adam:** They are literally they're they're historically accurate long boats.
**Chris:** All the correct materials.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but then that's the thing is that they said that the point is it goes to prove the.
**Adam:** The know-how of the ship building of
**Chris:** Yeah, they're already pretty advanced.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They they worked.
**Adam:** And and they cut through the water like they said that wasn't like, you know, that's not an effect, that's not them being pulled.
**Adam:** by like by a motorboat or anything else like that.
**Adam:** That they literally got a crew of these guys including Alexander Skarsgard and they are genuinely rowing those boats.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** Incredible.
**Adam:** It's all it's like ritual reenactment.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** If anything, if anything, if Sapphire and still turn up, Robert Eggers.
**Adam:** Shit yourself.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You've obviously done.
**Adam:** You've done it too well.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And time is going to break through.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's got to be set like, like you said, the brutality of this as well is is very much how you would imagine.
**Lee:** As you said that that village raid scene when he's gone off and he's joined that game.
**Lee:** That was really difficult to watch.
**Lee:** Like that was.
**Lee:** Really extreme.
**Lee:** But in the I think that's the thing, I think it's important to bring that context into it because that was what life was like at the time, you can't you can't shy away from it if you've gone this this far down the rabbit hole of.
**Lee:** We're going to make this look and feel genuine.
**Lee:** You've got to do it.
**Lee:** But my God, it was harsh.
**Chris:** And what I really liked about that was that we don't see him as just a hero, is that whole time was you're both kind of good and bad because, you know, it's you've got to survive and.
**Chris:** Yeah, essentially everyone will do that to each other if they're in position of power.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and this is the thing is that I think that they were very, by sort of looking into it, they were very keen that they weren't going to they wanted to dismiss like romantic notions of the Vikings.
**Adam:** Without taking away from, you know, cultural.
**Adam:** you know, sort of cultural elements and the fact, you know, they weren't they weren't purely just brutal.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** They weren't sort of demonized, despite the fact what they were doing was horrific.
**Lee:** As you say, Chris, there was very much that if we don't do this to them, someone's going to do this to us.
**Chris:** Cuz because who was it who was actually controlling them? I don't know if they they'd been bought as kind of mercenaries at that point because someone was in charge saying, I just want the strong ones and then they burnt down the house.
**Chris:** But who was that who he looked like the the armor they were wearing was the same as the village that they were attacking and it was different to the Vikings.
**Chris:** So it's.
**Chris:** The Vikings had been been used.
**Adam:** The the village the village that they attacked is in Ruse, which is now basically Belarus.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** but that was so essentially it was like, Eastern Slavic, so it's kind of a bit Russia, Ukraine, you know, sort of Eastern Europe is that that so that's where.
**Adam:** That's where that village is meant to be.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But this was the thing is that they were, you know, it was literally you they had, well, like any culture, they had art, they had, you know, religion, they had, but they also were, you know, that was what it was.
**Adam:** It was the power of who whoever is the most powerful wins.
**Adam:** You're in a such a brutal sort of period of time.
**Adam:** That it's because as far as I can tell, Amleth is meant to have been taken in.
**Adam:** by the group that he's with.
**Adam:** So it's almost like.
**Adam:** he's been adopted.
**Adam:** and.
**Adam:** But obviously not making it clear quite who he is.
**Adam:** But I also think that it's the there's the interesting there's the interesting element that they.
**Adam:** like you say, they're only taking the strong and then it just becomes like pillage, rape, murder.
**Adam:** the barn full of burning children because they're no use.
**Adam:** And you you sort of see this savage, what's what's the word I'm looking for.
**Adam:** It's like a business mind essentially.
**Adam:** You know, it's a very utilitarian methodical sort of a thing where it's like.
**Adam:** No, no, we we just.
**Adam:** You know, prosaic sort of thing where it's like.
**Adam:** No, we come, we get this, we do that.
**Adam:** They're no use.
**Adam:** Kill them.
**Adam:** You know what I mean? it's sort of like it's just utterly without any sort of.
**Adam:** It's utterly without any mercy, but you know, curious why almost without any malice.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Because it was that.
**Lee:** That was what I was trying to say, when I said they're not demonized, they are because what they're doing is horrific.
**Lee:** But yeah, as you say, it's that it's not it's not a spiteful thing, it's a we need stuff.
**Lee:** So we're going to go and take what we need and what we don't need, we're going to destroy because if we don't, it's going to come back to buy us.
**Lee:** And I you kind of get that impression as well with the with the children and stuff.
**Lee:** It is, it's that if we don't kill them, they will grow up to hunt us down at a later date, which is exactly what Amleth is doing, so you do get that kind of feeling of it's like a self-preservation thing.
**Lee:** If we don't wipe them out, they will be the next lot who will come after us when we're too old to protect ourselves.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** Yeah, as you say, it's kind of.
**Lee:** I know, it just felt.
**Lee:** Distanced.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But but I think it doesn't the good thing is it doesn't shy away from that, you see Amleth walking around that village and he is monstrous.
**Lee:** I mean.
**Lee:** That's the.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The sequence just beforehand where they're going through the Berserker ritual.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And they're sort of adopting their the sort of rage of the creatures and everything else like that.
**Adam:** Cuz they yeah.
**Chris:** They're wearing the wolf skins.
**Adam:** They wear the wolf like the the pelts or the bear pelts and stuff.
**Adam:** Cuz I cuz I didn't realize this.
**Adam:** But Berserker is derived from the words bear and shirt.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** So it's basically yeah, wearing wearing the bear's skin or wearing a bear shirt.
**Chris:** And take on the soul of the bear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly cuz that's how they sort of interpreted what was what they were.
**Adam:** But there's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I would bet.
**Adam:** I would bet.
**Adam:** I would bet.
**Adam:** I would bet.
**Adam:** Probably not.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You know, there's no yeah, so it looks like they didn't.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** Do you need percussion.
**Adam:** When you're wearing a fucking wolf's head and burning villages to the ground.
**Adam:** Probably not.
**Adam:** You've probably got all your aggression out there.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Certainly not lost.
**Adam:** The chuck off your eye hat, you know.
**Lee:** And your minstrels are definitely a target as well.
**Lee:** You know, I mean you couldn't have positions to take with you because they've probably been a bit busy.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Don't shoot me, you know. And again, Robert Eggers wrote this with I'm going to say this wrong.
**Adam:** on aka Sison who now goes by Seon.
**Adam:** So he's obviously gone Elvis on us.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Madonna.
**Adam:** who also wrote Dancer in the Dark.
**Adam:** Which was that film I was talking about.
**Adam:** And also the A24 film Lamb, I don't know if you guys have seen this.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** very recent and basically.
**Adam:** Two people give birth to a human lamb.
**Adam:** I've I've not seen it myself.
**Adam:** And there are a few people, I think there are a few people who have seen it and I think they were all a bit sort of you can you can go too A24 sometimes.
**Adam:** I think I think it's just a bit too sort of like overtly odd.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** I mean, it might it might be great, I would I would still reserve judgment till I've seen it, but I haven't sorted it out.
**Adam:** but he's also.
**Adam:** he's also an author.
**Adam:** And has written from the mouth of the whale and the blue fox and stuff.
**Adam:** and again, this is part of that thing that I really love with Robert Eggers.
**Adam:** He's apparently he just kept going, he was talking to him and it was like, look, I've brought you in because I want to do this, but I have no, you know, I have no connection to Icelandic law or to Scandinavia or anything else like that.
**Adam:** So he really brought him in to.
**Adam:** Ensure that everything was right and correct, but also he was like, like when the ending.
**Adam:** Like he's like, I'll so I want him to come back.
**Adam:** And he's going to fight him in a volcano.
**Adam:** Is that really shit and Hollywood?
**Adam:** Or does that still.
**Adam:** Does that feel right for this?
**Adam:** and.
**Adam:** and obviously got the go ahead.
**Adam:** Apparently.
**Adam:** The there's the genuine Icelandic volcano of Mount Heckler.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that translates to gates of hell.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** I must confess.
**Adam:** I was originally a bit upset when I saw that Mark Colven wasn't doing the music.
**Adam:** Cuz I really loved The Witch and I loved the stuff for the lighthouse as well.
**Adam:** But the two they've got on here, Robin Caroline and Sebastian Gainsworth.
**Adam:** Fuck me.
**Adam:** It's a fucking amazing soundtrack.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** and again.
**Adam:** They like we're speaking to an ethnomusicologist who to check that that to sort of like try and get the right kind of instruments that would be usable.
**Adam:** one thing that I found that was really fascinating though, is that apparently they're not sure.
**Adam:** Just because of no historical sort of nothing historical has archaeologically has been shown.
**Adam:** They don't think that drums were particularly important in to Viking music.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** which is something obviously they've they have drums, it I mean they've got fucking electronics in there.
**Adam:** It's not exactly, you know, it's not.
**Adam:** They're not sort of really going for that, but yeah, apparently so that sort of thing of like, you know, where it's like the.
**Adam:** to keep the stroke of the that's probably bollocks.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You know, there's no yeah, so it looks like they didn't.
**Adam:** I mean, do you need percussion when you're wearing a fucking wolf's head and burning villages to the ground.
**Adam:** Probably not.
**Adam:** You've probably got all your aggression out there.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Certainly not lost.
**Adam:** The chuck off your eye hat, you know.
**Lee:** And your minstrels are definitely a target as well.
**Lee:** You know, I mean you couldn't have to take with you.
**Lee:** Cuz they've probably been a bit busy.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, don't shoot me, you know. And again, Robert Eggers wrote this with I'm going to say this wrong.
**Adam:** on, aka Sison.
**Adam:** So he now goes by Seon, so he's obviously gone Elvis on us.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Madonna.
**Adam:** who also wrote Dancer in the Dark.
**Adam:** That film I was talking about.
**Adam:** And also the A24 film Lamb, I don't know if you guys have seen this.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** very recent and basically two people give birth to a human lamb.
**Adam:** I've I've not seen it myself.
**Adam:** And there are a few people, I think there are a few people who have seen it and I think they were all a bit sort of.
**Adam:** You can you can go to A24 sometimes.
**Adam:** So I think I think it's just a bit too sort of like overtly odd.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't know, I mean, it might it might be great, I would I would still reserve judgment till I've seen it.
**Adam:** But I haven't.
**Adam:** sorted it out.
**Adam:** but he's also, he's also an author.
**Adam:** And has written from the mouth of the whale and the blue fox and stuff.
**Adam:** and again, this is part of that thing that I really love with Robert Eggers, he's apparently he just kept going, he was talking to him and it was like, look, I've brought you in because I want to do this, but I have no, you know, I have no connection to Icelandic law or to Scandinavia or anything else like that.
**Adam:** So he really brought him in to ensure that everything was right and correct.
**Adam:** But also, he was like.
**Adam:** Like when the ending.
**Adam:** Like he's like, I'll so I want him to come back and he's going to fight him in a volcano.
**Adam:** Is that really shit and Hollywood?
**Adam:** Or does that still does that feel right for this?
**Adam:** and and obviously got the go ahead.
**Adam:** Apparently.
**Adam:** The there's the genuine Icelandic volcano of Mount Heckler.
**Adam:** and that translates to gates of hell.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** I must confess.
**Adam:** I was originally a bit upset when I saw that Mark Colven wasn't doing the music.
**Adam:** Cuz I really loved The Witch and I loved the stuff for the lighthouse as well.
**Adam:** But the two they've got on here, Robin Caroline and Sebastian Gamesbrough, fuck me.
**Adam:** It's a fucking amazing soundtrack.
**Lee:** and again.
**Adam:** They like we're speaking to an ethnomusicologist who to check that that to sort of like try and get the right kind of instruments that would be usable.
**Adam:** one thing that I found that was really fascinating though, is that apparently they're not sure, just because of no historical.
**Adam:** Sort of.
**Adam:** Nothing historical has archaeologically has been shown.
**Adam:** They don't think that drums were particularly important in to Viking music, okay.
**Adam:** which is something obviously they've they have drums.
**Adam:** I mean they've got fucking electronics in there.
**Adam:** It's not exactly, you know, it's not they're not sort of really going for that.
**Adam:** But yeah, apparently so that sort of thing of like, you know, where it's like the.
**Adam:** to keep the stroke of the that's probably bollocks.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So, you know, there's no yeah, so it looks like they didn't.
**Adam:** I mean, do you need percussion when you're wearing a fucking wolf's head and burning villages to the ground.
**Adam:** Probably not.
**Adam:** You've probably got all your aggression out there.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Certainly not lost.
**Adam:** The chuck off your eye hat, you know.
**Lee:** And your minstrels are definitely a target as well.
**Lee:** You know, I mean you couldn't have to take with you.
**Lee:** Cuz they've probably been a bit busy.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, don't shoot me, you know. And again, Robert Eggers wrote this with I'm going to say this wrong.
**Adam:** on, aka Sison.
**Adam:** So he now goes by Seon, so he's obviously gone Elvis on us.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Madonna.
**Adam:** who also wrote Dancer in the Dark.
**Adam:** That film I was talking about.
**Adam:** And also the A24 film Lamb, I don't know if you guys have seen this.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** very recent and basically two people give birth to a human lamb.
**Adam:** I've I've not seen it myself.
**Adam:** And there are a few people, I think there are a few people who have seen it and I think they were all a bit sort of.
**Adam:** You can you can go to A24 sometimes.
**Adam:** So I think I think it's just a bit too sort of like overtly odd.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I don't know, I mean, it might it might be great, I would I would still reserve judgment till I've seen it.
**Adam:** But I haven't.
**Adam:** sorted it out.
**Adam:** but he's also, he's also an author.
**Adam:** And has written from the mouth of the whale and the blue fox and stuff.
**Adam:** and again, this is part of that thing that I really love with Robert Eggers, he's apparently he just kept going, he was talking to him and it was like, look, I've brought you in because I want to do this, but I have no, you know, I have no connection to Icelandic law or to Scandinavia or anything else like that.
**Adam:** So he really brought him in to ensure that everything was right and correct.
**Adam:** But also, he was like.
**Adam:** Like when the ending.
**Adam:** Like he's like, I'll so I want him to come back and he's going to fight him in a volcano.
**Adam:** Is that really shit and Hollywood?
**Adam:** Or does that still does that feel right for this?
**Adam:** and and obviously got the go ahead.
**Adam:** Apparently.
**Adam:** The there's the genuine Icelandic volcano of Mount Heckler.
**Adam:** and that translates to gates of hell.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** I must confess.
**Adam:** I was originally a bit upset when I saw that Mark Colven wasn't doing the music.
**Adam:** Cuz I really loved The Witch and I loved the stuff for the lighthouse as well.
**Adam:** But the two they've got on here, Robin Caroline and Sebastian Gamesbrough, fuck me.
**Adam:** It's a fucking amazing soundtrack.
**Lee:** and again.
**Adam:** They like we're speaking to an ethnomusicologist who to check that that to sort of like try and get the right kind of instruments that would be usable.
**Adam:** one thing that I found that was really fascinating though, is that apparently they're not sure, just because of no historical.
**Adam:** Sort of.
**Adam:** Nothing historical has archaeologically has been shown.
**Adam:** They don't think that drums were particularly important in to Viking music, okay.
**Adam:** which is something obviously they've they have drums.
**Adam:** I mean they've got fucking electronics in there.
**Adam:** It's not exactly, you know, it's not they're not sort of really going for that.
**Adam:** But yeah, apparently so that sort of thing of like, you know, where it's like the.
**Adam:** to keep the stroke of the that's probably bollocks.
**Adam:** Oh, right.

---

## Ep 141 City of the Dead aka Horror Hotel

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-141-city-of-the-dead-aka-horror-hotel/
Air date: 24 April 2022
Duration: 01:07:01
Film: The City of the Dead · Year: 1960 · Director: John Llewellyn Moxey

### Description

Once again, all of them witches as we visit “The City of the Dead” (aka “Horror Hotel”). A British film masquerading as an American one, with a variety of success on the accent front; in which several lone women give lifts to a sinister Man In Black who isn’t Johnny Cash; and Christopher Lee’s modern home boasts an en-suite gargoyle and bird-murdering annex. Along the way we discuss “Studio 666”, “The Gorgon”, “Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer”, BBC comedy “The Witchfinder” and our increasing excitement over Robert Eggers’ forthcoming “The Northman”… Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, THROUGH THE TRAPDOOR IN THE FLOOR, UNDER THE RUG.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here, two of us are very sick, but we are here nonetheless.
**Lee:** we this evening will be covering the 1960 black and white classic in my opinion, much overlooked, City of the Dead, also known as Horror Hotel over here in Sunny Old Blighty.
**Adam:** which, which title do we prefer? Or we can come back to that later.
**Lee:** I always, I always knew it only as Horror Hotel and I always loved the film and thought it was a dreadful name. Yeah, well,
**Adam:** Horror Hotel is, is the US release.
**Adam:** Oh, okay. And the City of the Dead is the UK name.
**Lee:** Oh, my bad. See, I don't do the research. I just watch it.
**Adam:** Yeah. Yeah, but I think I think that's the point is because it's it's one of those films that then came back under a different name. You know, like a lot of them do. You know, and so yeah, I think it had come back over, so a lot of people watched it as Horror Hotel over here on like when it was first released on like video and stuff, because rather than no one was bothering going to ask Amicus for a print. So they yeah. we used to get all the American ones. So yeah. Nice. So, but I'm I'm half and half with it. I really am.
**Adam:** Because City of the Dead is quite possibly the least exciting title with Dead in it.
**Chris:** Well, also like, is is it a city? It seems
**Lee:** It looks like five houses in the.
**Chris:** Yeah, that was the bit.
**Adam:** Village of the Dead.
**Chris:** Yeah, like
**Adam:** Which immediately would sound slightly better because Village is a slightly more evil word than City.
**Chris:** Yeah. It's got V in it.
**Adam:** And that's for Vampire. So clearly.
**Chris:** Or vich.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Right, so before we get into that, though,
**Lee:** Chris, have you been watching anything?
**Chris:** I know you've been busy.
**Chris:** No, I've been terrible. I've been on holiday for nearly two weeks and so yeah, done nothing.
**Chris:** I'm awful and I apologize, but
**Chris:** I want to go watch The Northman.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Who wants to go with me?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** I do.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Because that just came out as I realized.
**Chris:** And so yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, is Claire coming as well?
**Adam:** Don't do your voice again.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's that's one of Claire's favorite things from Simpsons or Family Guy, Family Guy, isn't it? Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** We just be a crowd of people, we go yeah.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, it does.
**Lee:** It looks
**Chris:** fantastic. I I've heard I've heard from Adam, yeah, that some people like it.
**Adam:** yes, I believe some former former guests of the show have mentioned that they've seen it.
**Chris:** That's the response.
**Chris:** What were you thinking, Lee?
**Lee:** yeah.
**Chris:** What were you gonna say, Lee?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, Robert Eggers as well. So even though it doesn't technically fall into horror, I think that gives it a a pass, really.
**Adam:** It's weird that The Lighthouse, regardless of it being hallucinogenic or not, you know, in terms of is it fantasy, is it reality, is it within the mind, is it actually happening?
**Adam:** It does feature it's the weirdest horror film that's not been called a horror film that features spunk in the eye and like necrophilic mermaid doings.
**Adam:** It's sort of, yeah.
**Chris:** that's probably not going to appeal to many people outside of of horror.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's going to be it's it's not it's not it's not tropes from a romantic comedy.
**Adam:** I will say.
**Adam:** Although if you do want that for a romantic comedy, watch Spring.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent, yes, so for Chris's choice of our next episode, we will be going to the cinema to check out The Northman.
**Lee:** So stay tuned for that in a fortnight's time, you lucky devils.
**Adam:** Right.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** As long as I don't get COVID again.
**Adam:** You're coming in a fucking bubble, bitch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** wouldn't be the first time.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** yes, Adam.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** What have you been watching?
**Adam:** well, like I said, I said off off screen, I too have been off off air.
**Adam:** I too have been somewhat ill.
**Adam:** So I've had a fairly blurry three days, but I have before that, I did manage to pack in quite a bit.
**Adam:** so I've watched the Netflix Jimmy Saville, a British horror story, which has got horror in the title.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** yeah, I mean it's it's nothing it's nothing new particularly, but it does put a lot in fucking context.
**Adam:** And hopefully would be let's let's just say hopefully it means that they'll stop talking about those plans to put up a statue to Mr. Thatcher.
**Adam:** Because yeah, it's yeah, it's really invidious, horrible stuff.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** on a slightly lighter note, I watched The Torture Garden.
**Adam:** the
**Chris:** What is that?
**Chris:** I've heard of it as a as a club.
**Adam:** I thought you might have done.
**Chris:** I have I got that look about me?
**Adam:** No, it's just I I I know I know some of your history and it's like.
**Adam:** I I I've seen some of your clubbing gear. So I'm assuming that you would have heard of The Torture Garden.
**Chris:** I did I did very nearly go. I got invited to once and I thought, that's just, it's just beyond me. It's just I'm not quite there. I don't think.
**Chris:** But they did play, I did love the music they played there, some of my favorite producers.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was
**Adam:** It was fucking heavy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But no, this is and this is absolutely nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, this is a another Amicus
**Adam:** anthology that I just got on.
**Adam:** I got big stack of Blu-ray, which actually have now turned into an anniversary.
**Adam:** present from my own dear Claire, because basically I said, look, I got this lot for 50 quid and she said, I'll give you 50 quid.
**Adam:** That could be an anniversary present. And I shit you not, that is a fucking amazing first anniversary present.
**Adam:** It's it's like, I thought I got a great deal, but is there any deal better than free and with love? Wow.
**Adam:** So, thank you.
**Adam:** but yeah, and part of that, I also bought got The Gorgon.
**Adam:** and that is a fucking weird Hammer film, that is.
**Adam:** It is very strange and it sort of speaking like we were talking earlier like when you were talking earlier Chris about like the mythology book that you bought Jennifer because you wanted you'd bought her Norse, but she'd wanted Greek, but you couldn't find a Greek mythology one.
**Adam:** And this is the weirdest fucking thing because this the Gorgon basically resets the figure of a Gorgon into like sort of I don't know what sort of Prussia, sort of the sort of Germanic areas of Europe.
**Adam:** So you've got like a burgomaster and stuff like that, but there's also a Gorgon.
**Adam:** And but and you've got Chris I mean, you've got you've got the the full the full Hammer compliment of Cushing and Lee.
**Adam:** And it's and Barbara Shelley.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's a really good film.
**Adam:** The only trouble is I think and this might have been when I was starting to feel ill, actually.
**Adam:** Is that it has oddly long passages where there's literally nothing, not even score happening.
**Adam:** And so there were a few bits where I was like, well, I think I might have drift off there and then suddenly there's there's a clang and there's a Gorgon.
**Adam:** So it really works.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's I enjoyed.
**Chris:** Did you say if this was earlier or later Hammer?
**Adam:** This is, I think this is actually after possibly after Hand the Baskervilles, so it's fairly early.
**Adam:** but it was kind of like I think basically it was Hammer's next thought was we another monster and they went female monster, but rather than go bride to Frankenstein because that I think there's some I think Bride of Frankenstein because it's not it's based on Mary Shelley, but it's it's like I think Universal have some copyright on the character of the Bride of Frankenstein that isn't on Frankenstein himself.
**Adam:** So, you know, other people can use that character and stuff, but I think, yeah, so they I think they went down like a sort of they needed a female monster or whatever like that and so they hit upon the Gorgon.
**Adam:** And the thing is it's like it's basically like a werewolf film because it's so who is the Gorgon and it's like there's three women in this and one of them has lines.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So it's but
**Adam:** Yeah, I think there's a it's but also the Gorgon doesn't look like the person. So I don't know if it would be an appealing role to take if you see what I mean.
**Adam:** It's like Dracula you get to be, you know, you you actually act a part rather than just be, yeah.
**Adam:** It's like this sort of weird creature that's not even played by you.
**Lee:** Interesting.
**Adam:** And then and also finished watching The Witchfinder, the Tim Key Daisy May Cooper thing.
**Adam:** I don't know, did you finish it, Lee?
**Lee:** I did, yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** I thought that that I really just got better and better as it went along.
**Adam:** Because I was
**Adam:** kind of I was I was definitely sold on Tim Key, like and and his character and I was sort of with the Daisy May Cooper character and Jessica Hynes as well.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** Yeah, there were a few so I was like, half and half with everything and then as it went on, I was really getting into it and I really I did enjoy the character and and everything and it's like it's a proper story.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In as much as it's not, it's not, I think a lot of people assumed it was going to be a sitcom and it's like, no, this isn't like, here's a caper for half an hour, it's like, here's half an hour in a longer sequence of time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, so so I think a lot of people weren't necessarily prepared for that.
**Adam:** And then,
**Adam:** and I fucking called it, the first thing I said was, is, well, if they've done a film thing called The Witchfinder, if Matthew Hopkins is in it, if he is not played by a member of the League of Gentlemen, they have fucked up, because clearly they just don't know what they're doing.
**Adam:** And then, low and behold, Mr. Reece Shearsmith click clacks in on his copper shoes.
**Adam:** And and also a really lovely take on it was that they have a sorry, this is a kind of spoiler. So if you do go, if you want, you know, go and watch it but skip for a minute or so. but the fact they have like a false outcome where you meet the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins and he's played by Julian Barrett.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's Julian Barrett in full actor mode, you know, and he sort of and it's like, that's what you expect of Matthew Hopkins, this sort of commanding theatrical figure.
**Adam:** And then that turns out to be the con man and then the real one is a fusty little tedious man in lifts.
**Adam:** And it's sort of like, yeah, no, that is that is distinctly Matthew Hopkins.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** And I got to thank you briefly, right, for bringing back a memory of we watched a little while back now Killing Eve and I didn't realize Julian Barrett was in it as quite a weird guy if you've seen that. I didn't know quite how weird he was going to get.
**Adam:** But he he he doesn't show up in it as well.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, you're right.
**Chris:** He does, yeah, not he's he's a significant role in MI6, but he's not in it that often.
**Adam:** Right.
**Chris:** But yeah, it's
**Chris:** Julian Barrett, it did get quite eerie like in in sort of the style changed a bit, I thought from how it had been, but
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, sorry, carry on.
**Adam:** and, well,
**Adam:** that's all the weather, that's me that's me off me ha else.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right, I've caught up with a couple of things.
**Lee:** so I watched The Foo Fighters movie, Studio 666.
**Adam:** Yep.
**Lee:** fantastic fun, really, really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I think I was messaging Adam at the time while we were watching it and I sort of said, oh, you know, Food Fighters are one of those bands, I have a lot of respect for what they do, and I love them as people, but their music has never really appealed to me greatly.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's is interesting.
**Lee:** But their music in this sounded like Red Fang, and I was like, why don't they always sound like this? It sounds amazing.
**Adam:** I'll have to check out the soundtrack then, definitely.
**Adam:** Because again, they are they are not a they are not a band that pissed me off by appearing on the radio.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** and yeah, it sort of just quite it's just weird that that seems to be everyone's take on The Foo Fighters.
**Adam:** It's like, everyone everyone loves them.
**Adam:** And obviously RIP Taylor.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's but but yeah, they sort of like this weird, they sort of existed in this weird realm of, oh, I really like them. And it's like, do you like their albums? No. Yeah.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Maybe maybe they're on often enough.
**Lee:** Yeah, maybe that's what it is, yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, I mean they worked perfectly well for this. It had a not quite a Beatles feel, but it was a similar sort of, you know, like help and those type of like a really good film centered around them as a band.
**Lee:** yeah, and I just I I absolutely loved it.
**Lee:** I enjoyed it way more than I thought I was going to.
**Lee:** I thought it might be a bit of a sort of cash in thing because they hadn't done anything for a while.
**Lee:** When I was like, oh, is just this just their way of reminding people that they're still, but I don't think it is.
**Lee:** I think.
**Lee:** They
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think they loved the opportunity to be in a horror film and did a really good job of it.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Adam:** I would expect Dave Grohl to probably be a fan of stuff like what is it? Kiss versus the Martian Save Christmas or whatever it is.
**Adam:** So I can imagine that's kind of, you know, in that sort of spirit in in a way, you know, it's those kind of films or like The Ramones what is it, Rock and Roll High School.
**Chris:** But so has this has this made you consider playing Food Fighters more?
**Lee:** yeah, yeah, I think it has to be honest.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I thought I really liked it. The music they were making in it, all that was obviously part of the storyline.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was way more the type of stuff that I'd actually listen to.
**Lee:** But yeah, I mean they are really good musicians.
**Lee:** You know.
**Lee:** yeah, and I just I found them thoroughly likable characters and they were really good. They were surprisingly good actors, really considering.
**Lee:** So yeah, I got really drawn in and yeah, thoroughly enjoyed it.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** so following on from that, I then watched because I nearly chose this as my birthday choice, but then changed my mind at the last minute.
**Lee:** So I decided,
**Lee:** well, I've dug the DVD out now, so I'm going to watch it. 2007's Jack Brooks Monster Slayer.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** This is a sort of medium budget movie.
**Lee:** there's nobody in it you'll recognize apart from Robert England doing what I, you know, I I've got a lot of time for actors like this who make their name in horror and then do lots of lower budget stuff and sort of lend their name to things that they think are worthwhile.
**Lee:** You know what I mean?
**Lee:** yeah, and it's just again, it's a really good fun, silly, it's basically it's a a guy who's a plumber and he's he's got anger management issues.
**Lee:** He keeps going to his shrink and losing his temper and chucking stuff about all the time because his parents were murdered by monsters when he was a kid, which you see right in the opening, so it's not a spoiler. and his college professor is Robert England, who's moved into a big house on the edge of town, and he's having wo problems.
**Lee:** And he goes there and basically Robert England, one way or another, ends up becoming possessed by a monster and setting more creating more monsters and setting them loose and Jack Brooks has to go and smack the shit out of them all.
**Lee:** yeah, it's really good fun.
**Lee:** It's it's
**Lee:** what I like about it as well.
**Lee:** Is they don't immediately go down that right, let's go and get a load of guns root.
**Lee:** Like it's a bloke with anger management issues.
**Lee:** So everything he deals with is his bare hands, or a wrench, or a pipe from the back of his van, and he just beats everything to death.
**Lee:** The effects are really good.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's it's just a really good fun film.
**Lee:** It's another one that people don't really talk about, but I I'm always always happy to watch it and Jennifer was surprised how much she enjoyed it as well.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** So yeah, there you go.
**Lee:** So go and check out Jack Brooks Monster Slayer.
**Adam:** Still never seen, still never seen it.
**Lee:** Yeah, but it's one of those.
**Adam:** No,
**Adam:** I do need to, because I know I know how much you I know how much you rate it.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, it's it's one of those, you know, when you just need something to cheer you up, you're like, I want I'm in the mood for something silly and over the top with loads of gore and it's it's it's perfect for that mood.
**Lee:** It's really, really good.
**Lee:** yeah, but a bit sort of evil dead type of vibe to it.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** right, so onto this evening's main event, Horror Hotel or City of the Dead. So, I'm imagining this was your first viewing, Chris.
**Lee:** Was this
**Lee:** more the Satanic cult that you were after that you didn't get from Rosemary's Baby? That's what I was hoping.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, yeah, that that is exactly the right way to put it, really.
**Chris:** Yeah, there's there's it's very charming film again, I mean I think most of the films with Christopher Lee in seem to have that aesthetic, no matter how long he's on screen for it's but, you know, yeah, just the whole thing was just seemed really well produced, enjoyable, yeah, yeah, it was really really good film.
**Chris:** and and it was black and white and you know, you know, I struggle to get back into the the eras, but yeah, it's just worked really well.
**Chris:** Still, I like the acting.
**Chris:** I liked the the characters.
**Lee:** It's it's a really easy film to get your hands on as well.
**Lee:** I think it not sure if it is public domain, but it's one of those I own about four different copies of it because it's one of those whenever you get like a box.
**Lee:** Like a box set or one of those three films on a DVD, it's always on there.
**Lee:** but yeah, Adam and I have both treated ourselves for this special viewing, we both went out and bought the arrow release, the new 2K restoration job. Oh, and it looks so shiny.
**Adam:** I was shocked. I'll be honest.
**Adam:** It's what it was certainly the clearest we've ever seen it because it's it's
**Adam:** But like you say, I mean, that's the thing is we were saying like with
**Adam:** so we we got it back here as Horror Hotel. So it was like a print of a print of a print of something that fell out of someone's fucking boom.
**Chris:** But that's good.
**Chris:** that it still held up, though, because you you know, I guess sometimes when they get bought up to say 2K or even 4K, then it's you might lose something.
**Chris:** But it seems like you know, it didn't try and go crazy with the effects, it was it was all very, I think tastefully done.
**Lee:** It's atmospheric is what I like about the film. It kind of it doesn't show you a lot, but it builds such an atmosphere.
**Lee:** And and I mean that big crescendo at the end in his in the graveyard is just fantastic.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** I really enjoy myself there.
**Adam:** It's an incredible set, that image, like whitewood, yeah, that's it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** is I mean it's quite a small set as you can sort of see on it, but it's really well done.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** like I mean it's fog shrouded and you know, it permanently night time and it's sort of just which in many ways hides a multitude of sins if you've got a lower budget.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So they've just got, they, you know, they've really turned turned this out.
**Adam:** Because I don't think it was a particularly high budget film.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** at all.
**Adam:** there was
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I think I saw that there was a basically they got it was because this is.
**Adam:** Sorry, yeah, I do apologize. yeah, this is basically the first Amicus film.
**Adam:** they it was Milton Subotsky and
**Adam:** Oh, I can't remember his partner's name.
**Adam:** He's bloody.
**Adam:** That's alluding me, sorry, I do apologize.
**Adam:** It has been a somewhat trying.
**Chris:** Well, while
**Chris:** while you're working, I was just going to say, having mentioned the fog, I sort of laughed.
**Chris:** And yeah, like it wasn't terrible, but one of those details you sort of wonder about.
**Chris:** But picking strange men up on the road as a single woman driver.
**Lee:** It's
**Lee:** two
**Lee:** two women picked that random, I mean you picked an older guy, like, you know, you think maybe they're
**Adam:** Well, he is extremely sinister.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Exactly, and then what he said, he said to see me is a special privilege.
**Chris:** Reserved for a chosen few.
**Chris:** I'm glad I get to.
**Adam:** Especially especially because you know it's two blokes drive drive through.
**Adam:** Does he appear there?
**Adam:** Does he follow.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But the other thing with the budget, so on IMDb, it's got an estimated budget of 45,000.
**Lee:** pounds.
**Lee:** Which is ridiculously low.
**Lee:** you won't get a car for that now.
**Lee:** yeah, that was
**Lee:** But it it I think it works in its favor, particularly one of the things that I've always loved about this is the opening titles.
**Lee:** Those illustrations of just the hooded figures, they just set the atmosphere so well.
**Lee:** It's such a kind of, yeah, sinister dark creepy.
**Lee:** But with without doing anything, it's just very plain black and white drawings.
**Lee:** But they're so creepy.
**Adam:** The whole, I think that's the whole sort of effect of it, because it's essentially unless you're in.
**Adam:** Well, even Christopher Lee's gaff does come with a on suite gargoyle.
**Adam:** And that's blonding and a pigeon stabbing area in the lounge.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** you know, it's relatively normal.
**Adam:** and yeah, Whitewood is just pure sort of because it gets really like almost like sort of 30's German expressionism.
**Adam:** Sort of.
**Adam:** Because you've got like the the silhouette sequence at the in the graveyard at the end.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** a lot of the bits and pieces like that, it's it's really again, making a strength of the fact.
**Adam:** It's not it's not it's in black and white because it was the cheaper film stock they could purchase.
**Adam:** It's in black and white so we think about how we do this. Because obviously by the 60s, you know, the color films were.
**Adam:** fairly commonplace.
**Adam:** So although people were still using black and white, it was they were people who were like, well, we've got to do it.
**Adam:** But if we make if if we make City of the Dead, we can really make it a taken advantage of the black and white photography.
**Adam:** You know, it does it really, really looks the part.
**Lee:** It does.
**Lee:** Actually mentioning the fact it's 1960, the other film that I'd forgotten how sort of almost similar to this that came out the same year, Psycho.
**Lee:** This has exactly the same thing of killing off who you think is going to be your main character you're going to follow all the way through.
**Lee:** And then killing her off, you know, a third of the way into the movie.
**Lee:** yeah, and the fact that this came out the same year and has a very similar black and white look.
**Lee:** There's actually quite a lot of crossover between the two of them.
**Adam:** Apparently and this is the interesting thing.
**Adam:** City of City of the Dead came out over here before Psycho came out over here.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So because there, you know, it would be a wouldn't necessarily be a staggered schedule.
**Adam:** Stuff would get released in the same year.
**Adam:** But it wouldn't necessarily be married up across all territories or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So, yeah,
**Adam:** so Psycho actually only appeared in Britain after City of the Living Dead came out.
**Adam:** So probably a few people are going, that bloody Hitchcock.
**Adam:** Like what he's doing, he's gone black and white, the lass gets killed at the start.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And you think you think you're with her.
**Adam:** Her name's Nan. Don't know what it's for, I think it's short for Nanny.
**Adam:** Anyway,
**Lee:** Oh, speaking of shortening people's names, I hadn't noticed before in this when the brother meets Pat, the the daughter of the priest.
**Lee:** Yeah, and he says, my name's Richard, and she phones him up immediately and goes, Dick, and I was like, you can't just go shortening people's names without checking with them.
**Lee:** Like, he specifically said, my name is Richard.
**Lee:** Don't just go shorten it without checking.
**Lee:** What's wrong with you, woman?
**Lee:** No wonder you ended up on the slab.
**Adam:** I think no, I think I think the worst worst part about that is.
**Adam:** Is that he he he just took it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like,
**Adam:** Dick, yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** the other thing I was going to ask Adam, if it turned up in your research.
**Lee:** We were saying about how good the arrow print is and how various copies that I've got of this kind of from I'm imagining some kind of public domain site or old stock.
**Lee:** I have watched this film probably a dozen times, never realized before, Christopher Lee is trying to do an American accent.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, it's yeah.
**Adam:** is I think it's actually he he it's everyone, everyone in this is an English production.
**Adam:** Everyone in is English.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which which I think I'm pretty sure everyone it is English.
**Adam:** I'll say
**Adam:** certainly Valentine Dyall is and the the I can't think of what his name is, the the brother.
**Adam:** Not the Jeez, we are.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Dick Braden, that bloke.
**Adam:** but like yeah, Nan's brother, I can't think what his name is, but he
**Adam:** he was actually a he he was mostly famous as like a singer and dancer.
**Adam:** He was, I suppose actually it'd be like something like Roy Castle being in Amicus.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** You know, I think he's that kind of a that kind of a person.
**Adam:** he was yeah, he was like he won top male singer in Melody Maker's 1957 poll.
**Adam:** Richard Barlo, there we go.
**Adam:** and he is,
**Adam:** he was from South Africa.
**Adam:** but he was like sort of a big hit.
**Adam:** Over here.
**Adam:** Then obviously you got Christopher Lee, Patricia Jessel are both amazing, but yeah.
**Lee:** Amazing.
**Adam:** And and the guy, Jeff, the guy plays Jethro.
**Adam:** Valentine Dial.
**Adam:** he is English, he is the Man in Black, which apart from in Johnny Cash terms.
**Adam:** It was a character that used to be on the radio as the sort of crypt keeper presenter of tales.
**Adam:** in appointments with fear.
**Adam:** And basically yeah, in in this, he's doing an American accent.
**Adam:** Which annoys me slightly because I want to hear the full clear Valentine Dial.
**Adam:** Which is.
**Adam:** just like hearing a tomb speaking to you, it's just like the the fucking deepest, darkest, crag of rock voice.
**Adam:** and yeah, he he was the he was called The Man in Black and he would present appointments with fear.
**Adam:** And then in later years, there was another Man in Black, which was an act called Edward De Souza, who used to be on.
**Adam:** he used to appear in quite a few Hammer films.
**Adam:** I think he was in Corry.
**Adam:** like like a few years back, I think now, you know, he's still around.
**Adam:** and
**Adam:** then the third Man in Black was Mark Gatiss.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So and and obviously Mark Gatiss that was like a proper that was.
**Adam:** That was sort of not necessarily on a par with getting the role of the doctor.
**Adam:** But he's sort of it's one to tick off the list, it's like if you got, well, I did get to play a very good Victor Frankenstein.
**Adam:** Or, you know.
**Adam:** It's like that.
**Adam:** I think it'd be the same sort of thing.
**Adam:** It's like, well, I am one of the three the Man in Blacks from.
**Adam:** from the radio.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** but yeah, that guy Valentine Dial is
**Adam:** he ended up doing loads of stuff with Spike Milligan.
**Adam:** Because I think he's so.
**Adam:** I think he's such an extraordinary like voice that's somewhere between God and the devil.
**Adam:** Of like this sort of stern crag of voice.
**Adam:** And yeah, he he used to appear on The Goon Show loads.
**Adam:** And he's in loads of like Spike Milligan films and stuff because yeah, he was just someone that he'd collected along the way who.
**Adam:** I think in that it was that sort of Adam West thing of like, well, we know that if we give him a script.
**Adam:** He just says.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No fucks given, he's doing it.
**Adam:** and and in in Doctor Who, he was a character called The Black Guardian who was kind of Satan, basically.
**Adam:** he was like the absolute embodiment of.
**Adam:** all negative, well,
**Adam:** of all negativity.
**Adam:** And then you had the White Guardian who was the opposing force and everything else like that.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** And Valentine Dial was black Guardian and it was like, yeah, I think this is.
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** they dressed they dressed.
**Adam:** Paul Bass up like a git.
**Adam:** he had like a crow on his head.
**Adam:** But, but he still managed to get past that to make you still think.
**Adam:** He'd make your ass squeak.
**Adam:** He's fucking Jesus Christ, he's fucking terrifying when he starts talking.
**Adam:** But yeah, the
**Adam:** I don't know why I didn't choose to do that in American accent, thinking about it.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** It's
**Adam:** I think
**Adam:** I think the heart was there.
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** I that is the only reason that people seem to think.
**Adam:** Is that it's probably because it's it's literally the whole O Lucifer.
**Adam:** The prayer.
**Adam:** The prayer and response thing between her and Jethro and which explains the film and also is probably the most.
**Adam:** It's probably because.
**Adam:** It's probably because you were saying about it's funny when you were saying about that with this sort of period is where everything opens up a bit with modern filmmaking and everything.
**Adam:** You do get that palpable sense of joy.
**Adam:** From everyone involved and that they can do it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that's what's brought that's why it's so energetic and feels so.
**Adam:** Sort of, you know, everyone's going for it.
**Adam:** Because it's like, oh, no, this is.
**Adam:** This this feels much more modern.
**Adam:** And you know, a a a proper way to film this stuff.
**Adam:** Rather than like, as you say, present present it as a play.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** and point a camera at it.
**Adam:** now,
**Adam:** there's obviously we have quite a few
**Adam:** clips from this appear in the video for bring your daughter to the slaughter.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And which makes me think you was like you were saying about with Lee with it being on.
**Adam:** I wonder if Horror Hotel.
**Adam:** It's probably never been copyright over here.
**Adam:** Maybe that's the fiddle.
**Lee:** Possibly.
**Lee:** There's also
**Adam:** You know, so I noticed.
**Lee:** one of the sound bites as well has been used by Rob Zombie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I was going to say that's the other one, the fear superstition, fear superstition, jealousy.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Isn't the start of Dracula.
**Adam:** And if nothing else, that was quite nice because it just makes us as soon as I'm sitting there and it's like, right.
**Adam:** I'm doing horror hotel and.
**Adam:** Or well, I'm listening to Rob Zombie while I.
**Adam:** While I look at the look this stuff up and everything.
**Adam:** And also the clips from the the burning sequence at the start are used in Curse of the Blair Witch.
**Adam:** You know the really good documentary that the Blair Witch people put out like a week before it got released.
**Adam:** Like on the Sci-Fi channel.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so all of those.
**Adam:** All of those clips are appearing in there.
**Adam:** So I'm assuming it is out of copyright.
**Lee:** Possibly.
**Adam:** And so therefore why it's ended up on like those.
**Adam:** Sort of three Vincent Price films in one on one disc.
**Adam:** Things usually usually the back is in there somewhere as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and,
**Adam:** with a sort of view to it obviously being a favorite of.
**Adam:** horror themed musicians or horror influenced musicians.
**Adam:** Did you know that this movie featured on volume two of The Misfits.
**Adam:** Straight to video presentation.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** I want to see that.
**Adam:** Chiller Theater Fiend Club show where Jerry only and Doyle would act as horror hosts.
**Adam:** Show an old movie.
**Adam:** And then part facts and interview utterly unrelated guests.
**Adam:** for Horror Hotel the guest was Roger Corman.
**Adam:** There you go.
**Adam:** Obviously nothing to do with it.
**Adam:** basically.
**Adam:** They made three of these things and released them on video and it was sort of obviously sort of like.
**Adam:** late 80s Misfits or whatever.
**Adam:** yeah, and they they put three of these videos out and it was The Crawling Eye, aka The Trollenberg Terror.
**Adam:** and.
**Adam:** Volume three was The Hideous Sun Demon, aka Blood on his lips.
**Adam:** I don't know that film.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** But yeah, so volume two was Horror Hotel.
**Adam:** And I've watched it, you can see it on YouTube, someone's hopefully put it up but just like the their bits.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and it's sort of it's just and.
**Adam:** I mean, I think Doyle speaks once and like the rest is just Jerry only sort of being like a sort of.
**Adam:** muscly.
**Adam:** Elvira.
**Adam:** He's sort of, you know, sitting there going, and then a Horror Hotel returns.
**Adam:** You know, sort of.
**Adam:** It's yeah, it's quite a weird fucking thing.
**Adam:** But I and you know, it's weird that I just never heard of it because it's like Misfit stuff and I thought, you know, I would have I would have thought someone would have mentioned it.
**Adam:** And that they did like their own Horror Ho.
**Adam:** at some point.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** no.
**Adam:** Apparently not.
**Lee:** I will be looking that up, definitely.
**Adam:** Also,
**Adam:** interesting fact, utterly unrelated to the film, but it's related to Misfits.
**Adam:** Do you know why he's credited why he's called Jerry Only?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** I'll play fair, this is I learned this from Last Dogs in Space.
**Adam:** Apparently like they just Dansig misspelled his surname like his real surname when they wrote out the credits on their first record.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And he said, look, next time, just credit me as Jerry Only and he meant just as Jerry.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But Danzick just written out Jerry Only.
**Adam:** And yeah, that's why.
**Adam:** He and.
**Adam:** A fucking brilliant name.
**Adam:** He's born.
**Adam:** But yeah, that's why he called Jerry Only.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** Very nice.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** so,
**Lee:** we shall wrap it up there.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much everyone for listening.
**Lee:** go and check out City of the Dead or Horror Hotel if you have not.
**Lee:** It's a fantastic film, it's well worth your time.
**Lee:** and if all goes according to plan and the stars are aligned, we will all be taking a little trip out for Chris's birthday to go and see The Northman, and we'll be covering that in a fortnight's time.
**Lee:** So, thanks for watching, everybody.
**Lee:** See you later.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 140 Rosemary's Baby

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-140-rosemarys-baby/
Air date: 10 April 2022
Duration: 01:29:56
Film: Rosemary's Baby · Year: 1968 · Director: Roman Polanski

### Description

It’s time for a stone cold classic as we deliver “Rosemary’s Baby”. A film in which Dr Zaius suddenly goes all Countdown on his deathbed rather than just telling it straight; Maude Chardin reveals what she used to do for fun before picking up young men at funerals; and we definitely don’t see Anton LaVey, despite all his claims to the contrary. Along the way we discuss the sequel book and TV movie as well as “The Norliss Tapes”, “Werewolves Within” and “Psychomania” (aka “The Death Wheelers”) Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. • PLEASE NOTE: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS A SINGLE REFERENCE TO WILL SMITH SLAPPING CHRIS ROCK, A NEWS ITEM/HUMOROUS REFERENCE THAT BURNT OUT SO QUICKLY THAT ITS PRESENCE HERE IS PRACTICALLY NOSTALGIC. • APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, THROUGH THE PARTITION WALL OF A NEW YORK APARTMENT.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Hey!
**Lee:** And we are here this evening for another one. Now I say it quite a lot, but again, another film that I can't believe we've done 140 episodes and haven't actually covered it yet, but there you go.
**Lee:** We are covering 1968's Rosemary's Baby.
**Lee:** after it was mentioned by the Eri Esx girls recently.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and yeah.
**Lee:** Quite rightly, it should definitely have been something we should have covered before now.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Better late than never.
**Lee:** Here we are.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** There it is.
**Lee:** But before we get into that.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Lee:** I know the answer because he's just told me off air.
**Lee:** Have you seen anything horror related?
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** I've been I've been a very naughty boy.
**Lee:** Again.
**Chris:** But I did remember something though that is actually, I think I can make something out of this.
**Chris:** So when when I mentioned the witch, I'm just going to mention it again, and I'm tempted to mention it a bit later on.
**Adam:** But.
**Chris:** But Danny, who's been on the show before as a guest, for Cabinet of the Woods, I think it was.
**Chris:** Another fantastic film.
**Chris:** he mentioned to me about when I'd post on Instagram with my picture of Black Phillip.
**Chris:** saying who knows what it is, Danny didn't know what it was.
**Chris:** And he said he's excited for The Northman.
**Chris:** Which then I went and read up a little bit on it.
**Chris:** And you might have mentioned it to us, Adam or Lee, but yeah, it looks amazing.
**Chris:** Like such a like fantastic cast of quite eclectic people, I think Bjork's in there.
**Adam:** Which I can't remember, I can't remember who it was who said it to me.
**Adam:** But someone did say casting Bjork as an Icelandic witch, is that genius or really lazy?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Fair fair point, I guess we will find out.
**Chris:** Yeah, so.
**Chris:** So I don't know when it's coming out.
**Chris:** But funnily enough, Apple News decided to send me an article about it today.
**Chris:** And it says here, this is from Empire going berserk.
**Chris:** Robert Egger's wild, mad, brutal Viking epic, The Northman is the director's biggest, most ambitious film yet.
**Chris:** And as Empire discovers, some of the blood, sweat and tears were for real.
**Chris:** So I'm even more excited.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I just looked it up on IMDB, that does definitely tick a lot of boxes for me.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, you've if you've not seen the trailer, man, do check it out.
**Adam:** Cuz yeah.
**Adam:** It looks pretty damn fucking fantastic.
**Lee:** Awesome.
**Chris:** Yeah, I also got Anya Taylor Joy, who was in The Witch, quite young in that, and I loved her in The Queen's Gambit as well, which was about chess but done fantastically well.
**Chris:** So yeah, I think she's fantastic.
**Chris:** I'm very excited, I think this is going to be great.
**Adam:** Well, I think also.
**Adam:** It's because obviously he did The Lighthouse and then I'm not sure if he still meant to be doing it or not.
**Adam:** But he then was meant to be doing a remake of Nosferatu.
**Lee:** yes.
**Adam:** I see it there. Yeah.
**Adam:** But this is obviously what he's done what Robert Eggers has done next.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's.
**Adam:** Proper straining at the bit to see this fucker.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It just does look incredible.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, spoilers and swearing.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** There will be both of those things going on.
**Lee:** only for the main film though, just to warn you all.
**Lee:** Well done, Adam.
**Adam:** Yeah, we can't we can't spoil The Northman is just yet.
**Chris:** Not not easily.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Lee:** What have you been checking out recently?
**Adam:** well a couple of bits.
**Adam:** I I think it might have been something that Richard Daniels from the Octarian of Albion had posted.
**Adam:** but I watched on YouTube, a thing called The Norliss Tapes.
**Adam:** And it's directed by Dan Curtis, who did some of Kolchak, I don't think he did the original, but I think he did the Night Strangler and maybe some of the episodes as well.
**Lee:** He did what was the series that he did?
**Adam:** Not sure.
**Chris:** The Night Stalker.
**Adam:** Yes, sorry, yeah, yeah, he was like one of the main driving forces behind that, he also and funnily enough, this was a film I was gonna I've got to recommend it to certainly to you, Lee.
**Adam:** I mean to everyone, but I think you would like it.
**Adam:** He did a film called Burnt Offerings.
**Adam:** with Ollie Reed, which is just a great haunted house film, it really, yeah.
**Adam:** and and also Trilogy of Terror, which is again well worth checking out.
**Adam:** but The Norliss Tapes.
**Adam:** The best way I could describe it is once you've watched all of Kolchak.
**Adam:** If you still want to watch some Kolchak, watch The Norliss Tapes.
**Adam:** Because it's a author who is writing a book debunking the occult, but then sort of gets involved with a sort of ancient Egyptian undead artifact curse magic thing.
**Adam:** but it's got that same it has that because and the reason it's called The Norliss Tapes is because it's just he dictates all his writing.
**Adam:** and it's so the whole thing has that similar feeling that Kolchak does of having the voiceover.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'm I have to say, I think that literally this could be a Kolchak episode or something.
**Adam:** You know, it's got exactly that feeling.
**Adam:** well by which I mean it feels like you're watching a supernatural Columbo.
**Adam:** And yes, the definitely definitely well worth a watch and
**Adam:** The the other thing that I've watched and obviously we've been discussing this as well, Lee, is I well, I rewatched Psychomania for the first time in a long time.
**Adam:** And that film just.
**Adam:** I adore it.
**Adam:** I am not in any way, shape or form implying that anyone should take that film seriously.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's impossible to do so.
**Adam:** But as just a rockous bit of an hour and a half's worth of entertainment of isn't that and the fuck.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it really really suits suits that.
**Adam:** I've asked Lee, we're going to put it on the list, Chris, so you will get to see Psychomania.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Adam:** The the plot of which is basically I believe he's described on IMDB, thank you, my scientific advisor has coming with this.
**Adam:** Also, just for just in case I believe in America.
**Adam:** It is known as The Death Wheelers rather than Psychomania.
**Adam:** but I think it's now they just know it as Psychomania.
**Adam:** But here's the synopsis from IMDB, I'm inspired by you here Chris, because I know you you sort of liked it to go.
**Adam:** An amiable psychopathic leader of a violent teen motorbike gang is spurred by his mother, a satan worshipping spiritual medium into committing suicide and returning to life as an undead.
**Adam:** and it's got that lovely sort of how can I put it, it's got that lovely thing of British teen sort of thug movies.
**Adam:** Like a Clockwork Orange.
**Adam:** Where these teenagers are suspiciously the wrong end of 30.
**Adam:** And but also, you know,
**Adam:** It's got it's George Saunders's last film, giving it full Shere Khan as a very sinister butler.
**Adam:** Beryl Reid is the mother, Doc Cotton turns up at one point.
**Adam:** Tim's mate from Sorry is in it.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** That that horrible little ginger bastard who's in
**Adam:** Blood on Satan's Claw in it as well, who always plays nasty little.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Nasty little shit.
**Adam:** and basically yeah, it is quite.
**Adam:** It's quite something to be seen and it does feature what I consider to be the most infectious guitar riff in the world.
**Adam:** I remember working it out once and I was so pleased, unlike everyone around me who had to hear it for about three hours.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's definitely got to be seen to be believed from from 1973.
**Adam:** So that's got that sort of thing of oh yeah, no one's noticed that the '60s are over yet, so everything everything's still a bit hippy.
**Adam:** But yeah, also.
**Adam:** And also the the thing that I think is the greatest touch of touch of reality about the film has to be the fact that the motorbike thugs are all relentlessly middle class.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So that which just feels absolutely right and so much as it's always the best homes that produce the worst people.
**Adam:** I mean going all the way up to our own dear Queen.
**Lee:** Ouch.
**Adam:** You know, and fortunately, no sweaty noncy in Psychomania.
**Adam:** So, you know, it's.
**Adam:** Still means to cut above our own dear Royal family.
**Adam:** But
**Lee:** Yeah, so it's it's definitely on the list.
**Lee:** I I will be on it, I mean you might be better off, I was thinking you might be better off getting Bobby and Adam on it because I think Adam would love it and I know it's one of Bobby's faves.
**Lee:** I am not a fan, so I'm happy to come and slag it off.
**Lee:** I'll tell you what it feels like, you know when a TV show makes like a sitcom TV show or whatever.
**Lee:** Makes a film and then tries to do something outlandish.
**Lee:** This felt like if Emmerdale would try to make a film.
**Lee:** That was exactly what it looks and feels like to me.
**Lee:** And I fucking hated it.
**Lee:** But I will gladly watch it again and tell you blow for blow, why I felt that way.
**Chris:** You want a bit contrast.
**Lee:** I've only seen it once.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Or it might grow on you.
**Lee:** Not a fan.
**Adam:** As as I as I say, this this the the entertainment of this film is not.
**Adam:** To actually end point think.
**Adam:** That's that's actually pretty good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It is much more of just an strange curiosity, but I get exactly what you mean about the like the TV.
**Adam:** it does it does have that feel of oh, we've got slightly more of a budget.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Everything's on film.
**Chris:** But we're no better at writing or acting or production.
**Lee:** Yeah, you know all of these people and you've seen them doing their normal boring day-to-day slug, but suddenly we're going to transport them into this unreal world that's just a complete lunacy.
**Lee:** And that's that was kind of what I I made of it at the time.
**Lee:** It was a long time ago.
**Lee:** I I will give it another go, yeah.
**Adam:** As as I say, I think for the sheer the sheer mentalness of it.
**Adam:** It's one of those things where you're like.
**Adam:** It's like and again, it has like Robert Hardy is in it, there's some really sort of big names in there.
**Adam:** But like Robert Hardy's in it and I can't work out whether he's shit or brilliant.
**Adam:** I can't work out whether he's just playing an out of his depth police inspector so well or he's phoning it in.
**Adam:** I am I still don't know.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You know, it's sort of yeah, it is quite the quite the extraordinary piece.
**Adam:** it looks pretty fucking great on Blu-ray.
**Adam:** Although and here's here's the here's the tell of a truly cheap and obscure film.
**Adam:** Is that it still doesn't look that great on Blu-ray, you know, it's it's the best it's gonna get.
**Adam:** and yeah, and as I say the soundtrack is just.
**Adam:** Fucking chef's kiss, it's fucking great.
**Adam:** and yeah, that's all the weather.
**Adam:** That's that's pretty much it.
**Adam:** I did watch one other thing on well, I tried to watch one other thing on YouTube, but we'll come back to that because that does have a bearing on our main feature.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** so I like you tried to watch a film.
**Lee:** I tried to watch Werewolves Within on Netflix.
**Adam:** Oh yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** no, it didn't work.
**Lee:** It's it's a Do you know what, it's one of those things where I can't work out why it didn't work.
**Lee:** The cast was fantastic.
**Lee:** it yeah, it came out around the same time as Wolf of Snow Hollow, I believe.
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Adam:** I think it did.
**Lee:** And it has got a bit of a similar feeling in the dry comedy aspect.
**Lee:** But yeah, it just didn't reel me, it might be one of those I just wasn't in the mood.
**Lee:** I watched it literally for about 50 minutes and then stopped to go and read a book.
**Chris:** No.
**Chris:** I was.
**Chris:** I was going to say, we are seeing a bit of a pattern, I think, so it could be you're not in the mood for this for some of these, because I'm sure you've said that a couple of times now.
**Chris:** That on paper it everything is there.
**Chris:** And then just somehow.
**Adam:** Sometimes I think of it though like it's what I would refer to as stabbing Westwood.
**Adam:** Where there's the band Stabbing Westwood, and as a nine-inch nails fan, you should like Stabbing Westwood.
**Adam:** But I don't and they just made me think, I could be listening to fucking nine-inch nails.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It it did kind of have that element.
**Lee:** It was that thing of it wasn't enough comedy and it wasn't quite enough horror.
**Lee:** And it just couldn't hold my attention.
**Lee:** The cast was fantastic and it was the acting was really good in it, considering it's a bit of a lower budget.
**Lee:** It's one of those where almost everybody who turns up on screen, apart from the two main characters, almost everyone who turns up on screen, you go, oh, that's him from what we do in the shadows and oh, that's him from American horror story.
**Lee:** Like you know all the people.
**Lee:** but they just don't seem to gel together.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah and it's just.
**Lee:** Yeah, I don't know what was missing from it.
**Lee:** It's one of those things where it could be something as minor as the editing just didn't get the jokes to land properly and therefore it just felt flattish.
**Lee:** But yeah, I was hoping for more unfortunately.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was worth a stab.
**Chris:** So I would say that's a great segue.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But if you've got more to say, go ahead.
**Lee:** well, I have, I did also want to say the saying I'd nipped off to read a book.
**Lee:** The other book I've been reading, which is definitely in the realm of horror, Adam, you suggested to me when we were covering Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** Guy Adams, The Breath of God, which is Sherlock Holmes versus Alistair Crowley.
**Adam:** Yes, yes.
**Lee:** I'm only about two-thirds of the way through, but it's really, really good.
**Lee:** So anyone who likes your big extended universe stuff.
**Lee:** they've got Holmes and Watson really well nailed down in it and it's in a supernatural setting.
**Adam:** Cool.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's going really well.
**Lee:** So I'm I'm really getting into it.
**Chris:** Nice.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** and.
**Lee:** The only other thing which isn't something I watched but that I did hear about today.
**Lee:** So this is breaking news.
**Lee:** I heard about two things, but one of them having done a five minutes of research, I think might be an April Fools because we are recording this on the 1st of April, someone did post that Netflix for Halloween are going to be launching Freddy versus Jason 2.
**Lee:** Which which I was like, oh yes, I'm totally up for that.
**Lee:** But when I put it in IMDB, it says it's a 45 minute short from 2014 with the same cover.
**Lee:** So either it's happening and they've just grabbed the random cover from somewhere because it's Instagram, they need a picture.
**Lee:** Or it's an April Fool.
**Lee:** In which case.
**Lee:** Fuckers.
**Lee:** the other thing is an artist who I follow, who does like Gothic cartoon work, released today that he has been employed again by Disney because he's done some work for Disney.
**Lee:** To work on a stop motion animation of The Haunted House.
**Lee:** Haunted Mansion, sorry.
**Adam:** Oh, well.
**Lee:** so because obviously The Muppets did The Haunted Mansion Halloween just gone.
**Lee:** Apparently, yeah, they're going to start work on a stop motion animation version.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** If that is true and he's not another April Fool, I'll be very excited about that, but I didn't have time to research that as well, so.
**Lee:** That's just a bit of news for you.
**Adam:** See that's that sounds more likely.
**Adam:** The April the the the other was an April Fool where it's like, yeah, this will just get people excited for 10 minutes.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** And then they'll hate you for lying to them.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** They the other the other feels a bit just maybe a tag too obscure for I don't know.
**Adam:** Yeah, so it probably does have the ring of truth.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I thought genuinely, I thought I thought this is how out of the loop Lee's got.
**Adam:** It's going to be.
**Adam:** I don't know if this is an April Fool, but did Will Smith slap Chris Rock.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's funny you mentioned that.
**Lee:** Talking of women with terrible haircuts who instill violence.
**Lee:** Let's go on and talk about Rosemary's Baby.
**Adam:** Whoa.
**Chris:** Another segue.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I have put in my notes at that point where he says you didn't pay for that haircut, did you?
**Lee:** I was waiting for Will Smith to appear as the genie from Aladdin and slap him in the face.
**Lee:** But luckily, he managed to get away with it.
**Lee:** So yes, as promised, 1968.
**Lee:** Rosemary's Baby.
**Lee:** right at the top, we are going to say that we will not be discussing the director.
**Lee:** As we've talked about that piece of shit quite enough on our ninth gate episode.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Episode 132.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** If you would like to hear what scumbag he is,
**Lee:** But we are going to put that aside and let it drift from our minds and focus on this spoiler alert beautiful masterpiece of a movie.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, go on, Adam.
**Adam:** I was just I was just going to say, there's there there is a feeling.
**Adam:** In terms of like how someone maybe goes on beyond very horrible things in their past.
**Adam:** Is that Rosemary's Baby, you want to keep.
**Adam:** No one's that bothered about Jeepers Creepers.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** You know, so I think yeah.
**Lee:** I think that lets us know.
**Lee:** So, Chris, had you seen this film before and what did you make of it this time?
**Chris:** So I hadn't, I've heard you mention it for years.
**Chris:** Probably before we even started doing the podcast, you may have mentioned it.
**Chris:** Yeah, so obviously I heard about it a lot.
**Chris:** I I.
**Chris:** I'm trying to think, the best way I can sum it up is.
**Chris:** I like everything about it, somehow I don't quite like it.
**Chris:** And I think it's the ending.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Like somehow I just didn't really like the actual story.
**Chris:** And I and this is where I'm going to mention The Witch again.
**Chris:** Is that I really loved The Witch in that you can take it as either.
**Chris:** And obviously we debated a bit about what ending you might prefer.
**Chris:** But the fact that you really can take it as either, I just so much prefer that.
**Chris:** Whereas this, when they really are all witches, it just seemed a bit like, oh, and then and then this is where, you know, we've argued over if a film is a bit funny, is it meant to be a spoof?
**Chris:** And for me, this falls in the realm of then feeling like a spoof.
**Chris:** Because it's like, well, you're they're not like that's not really how witches would be.
**Chris:** Is it all just standing around and then there's the devil baby and then there's a guy taking photos?
**Chris:** It's like that feels spoofish.
**Lee:** See, I think that's the thing.
**Chris:** And it doesn't fit the whole rest of the film.
**Lee:** I think what I like about this is that it does set it in the real world.
**Lee:** Where they are real people with real jobs and real life, but they're going through.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So I liked that bit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I liked that all the way through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But then it's just when they're just sort of all milling around, it's like what is that just how they just hang out in their room.
**Chris:** A bit.
**Chris:** I don't know, just felt really odd.
**Chris:** I couldn't.
**Adam:** See, I I think I think you're I think I think I'm with you, Lee, I think it's the it's that real.
**Adam:** Domesticness of everyone like particularly the Coven that really sells it.
**Adam:** Sells the reality of it.
**Adam:** In a weird way.
**Chris:** So so it might be that we have to watch some more.
**Chris:** Where they perhaps touch on this, but I just I'm just trying to imagine that in the real world and it's like it just breaks down for me.
**Chris:** I just can't quite see how that would actually work.
**Chris:** And when when you're trying to make it seem real, then it feels like it needs to be something that I would believe.
**Chris:** Now, it might just be I have no experience of people in, you know, that sort of lifestyle where that is how they would all act together.
**Chris:** That's that's possibly true.
**Chris:** But yeah, like it's just that I start to question where if you're trying to make it seem very real, I feel like there's a few more details that you perhaps need to cover to convince me.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** The reason it it as we were saying about it working is because I mean, if you take somebody who you know.
**Lee:** Who has who's devoutly religious, like they just have a normal life the same as you and I.
**Lee:** But then they have this it's always in the back of their mind and they have a strong belief.
**Lee:** And this felt like this just felt like they don't go to church.
**Chris:** That that's fine.
**Chris:** That would be fine.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** When they start.
**Chris:** But when they start doing all the actions of manipulating, like you don't tend to get religious people doing a lot of that.
**Chris:** And so it's that combination of.
**Chris:** Not not in not in a.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I know.
**Chris:** Like not where they're all sort of scheming together and they got the doctors involved and it's like, it's just getting a little bit too big conspiracy.
**Chris:** And it's like, you couldn't easily keep that working, I don't think.
**Chris:** Like not where you've really got the devil appearing and doing things.
**Adam:** Or thinking about it.
**Adam:** I mean, I would I would argue that the greatest conspiracy is keeping everyone in line by promising them a better life later.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly, yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that's not that's not sort of that's not mundane actions.
**Chris:** That's sort of like some grand ethereal, you know, we'll say it and it's going to be there.
**Chris:** But we don't actually have to do anything about it right now, whereas this, you've got to do a lot of working together.
**Chris:** A lot of communicating sort of.
**Chris:** It's just like that's just seems like quite a lot.
**Chris:** Now, it might be possible, but whereas I think if they hadn't had that sort of.
**Chris:** Broad end scene where they're obviously feeding her, and I suppose at the time, I was sort of thinking, why are they that bothered about her?
**Chris:** Obviously, at the very end, you realize that they.
**Chris:** At least some of them, they do perhaps, in fact, it's called Roman, wants to bring her into the Coven.
**Chris:** And so it's like, okay, yeah.
**Chris:** That that makes sense.
**Chris:** He wants to.
**Chris:** Some of the others perhaps aren't so keen on her,
**Chris:** But yeah, it's almost like I'd like more details about all of them to kind of really be happy that that it's it's sort of meshes properly.
**Adam:** But then I think even that probably sells the idea in so much as they're not all quite on board.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Because they're.
**Adam:** In the same way.
**Lee:** Because they're the worst place, everyone's got their own personalities and you know, you've got people who are disagreeing with others.
**Lee:** And you've got little cliques within the main group.
**Lee:** And that's that's how it felt to me.
**Lee:** That was why it felt.
**Lee:** I I that last scene, I've got to say.
**Lee:** When on longer than I remember and I had forgotten the pivotal moment where she you can see her thinking of succumbing to it.
**Lee:** And I'd forgotten that that happened, I obviously remember the what have you done to its eyes bit.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But I'd forgotten afterwards, yeah, how they do kind of talk around as you say, Roman sort of starts to convince her.
**Lee:** And and and against the wishes of some of the others clearly wants to keep her in the.
**Lee:** Roman who I've got to say.
**Lee:** I did have to check at one point, I was so convinced that that was bloody Roger Corman.
**Lee:** I was like, how is he not Roger Corman.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** What do you mean?
**Adam:** I know what you mean.
**Adam:** The thing is Roger Corman would have been much younger at the point that this was made.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's what.
**Lee:** I thought, I was like, it looks like Roger Corman now, so I thought either he's aged very well over the last 60 years, he had a very rough beginning to his life and he's been on easy street since.
**Lee:** Or.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** I mean, I'll sort of mention it now now that you've brought up Roman, or Stephen.
**Adam:** But there is a sequel to Rosemary's Baby, which is a TV movie called Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** It's a little bit lately, but all right, I'll go with it.
**Adam:** Very.
**Adam:** Very, I was I was thinking that either or with Bruce Willis as the voice of Andrew.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And is is he.
**Chris:** Ugly in the cradle, or beautiful at the table, or does he keep his father's eyes all the way through.
**Adam:** He's got he's got a he's got at one point he has got what can only be described as a monkey doll's hand.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** I'll I'll be honest, I tried to watch this.
**Lee:** Monkey bastard hands.
**Adam:** Monkey bastard hands, I tried to watch it and frankly, it was shit.
**Adam:** No, it was.
**Adam:** It was fucking awful.
**Adam:** because it was like,
**Adam:** It was just such it was it was I it was I it was clearly a TV movie.
**Adam:** But also and this is this is the weird bit, so Ruth Gordon returns as Minnie.
**Lee:** She was fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah, who was.
**Lee:** Does good.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, I mean, she got an Oscar for this at like 78 or something like that.
**Lee:** Unbelievable.
**Adam:** And she'd actually had a period of not acting.
**Adam:** and then yeah, suddenly it's like, oh, well, I might be doing.
**Adam:** Something all right then if I just won an Oscar in my '70s, you know.
**Chris:** I do think that the acting and interactions and dialogue.
**Chris:** I think throughout was fantastic.
**Adam:** I tell you what the the worst thing is that Mia Farrow wasn't even fucking nominated.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** That's unbelievable.
**Adam:** She does.
**Chris:** That is surprising.
**Adam:** And it's weird because you get her role.
**Adam:** Is often a role that you would not take to, if you see what I mean.
**Adam:** Because you'd be like, oh, get some backbone, or do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** In lesser hands, but you just are so with her and understanding of, you know, why she's in the predicament she's in, because literally every fucker is is gaslighting her and yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and bullshitting her and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** And you do, you know, all the way through it, you're with her.
**Adam:** You really do sort of.
**Chris:** Go with her.
**Adam:** But the but this, yeah, so this sequel.
**Adam:** Roman's in it.
**Adam:** But he's played by Ray Milland, Ray Milland.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** he's the man with the X-ray eyes, he's in loads of likeman stuff.
**Adam:** he is the man who Peter Cushing is telling the cat stories to in The Uncanny.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And to be honest.
**Adam:** When I was watching Rosemary's Baby, I was like, that bloke is so like Ray Milland.
**Adam:** And then, yeah, I found out the sequel, I'm like, right, cuz get this, so you've got so like I said, so Ruth Gordon's in it.
**Adam:** Ray Milland takes over as Roman and it was like, right, that's fucking natural because essentially the guy who's playing him is Ray Milland anyway.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Patty Duke is in it as Rosemary, and get this.
**Adam:** The grown up Adrian or Andrew, depending on which parent is talking to him, is Stephen Mcty from fucking Pontepool.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Like and it's really it's what it's that weird thing of seeing.
**Adam:** Someone young when you know them as like looking like they're made of stone and been weathered on a fucking Icelandic beach for 40 years.
**Adam:** So seeing him young is really fucking weird.
**Adam:** But he but despite all of these really talented interesting people, the story's just sort of meh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it just and it's it's weird because I think it relies too much on the one thing this doesn't have is.
**Adam:** It doesn't have because you never see the baby.
**Adam:** You never have to have the powers or anything that makes it cheap.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I thought that was a fantastic call, never seeing anything of the baby.
**Lee:** And literally just seeing the cart rocking, I thought that was a really good touch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Again, and that's what I like this whole film is subtly uncomfortable.
**Lee:** Like it's got nothing overt in it, but all the way through, there's just a constant air of menace, I think.
**Lee:** I think it starts straight away from when they view that flat and all of the shooting is from down low, it's all shot up a high angle from like down by the skirting.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it just gives it a really strange outlook on everything that just puts you on edge and yeah.
**Lee:** It's it's very well done.
**Chris:** I think the the music was good as well, right, the opening theme and at the end when it replays again.
**Chris:** You know, so yeah, all those touches definitely set the scene.
**Adam:** Yeah, because the the music's by Christoph Kada, who done who did who did lots of Polanski's earlier films.
**Adam:** but he died the same year this came out, he was at a party no, actually, he died the following year because basically he was at a party in December in '68 and he was like play fighting with someone.
**Adam:** And fell over like fell over like a hill, landed on his head, went into a coma and never came out of it and died like few a few months later.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** again that's that's again and much like we had with The Exorcist and The Omen, Rosemary's Baby sort of fulfills that demon children trilogy of again, apparently being a cursed film.
**Adam:** And I mean.
**Adam:** Obviously.
**Adam:** Obviously, you've got Manson the Manson like Manson family murdering Sharon Tate and everything and you know, which obviously, yeah.
**Adam:** That's definitely on the fucking unusual scale.
**Adam:** but you also got like the like I say, the composer died and he was I think he was like 35, 36.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** He was not particularly old and yeah, he just sort of died in quite a weird circumstance.
**Adam:** Although I did see someone part of the basically one of the producers is obviously William Castle.
**Lee:** Yes, I spotted his cameo this time that I don't think I picked up on.
**Lee:** Last time I saw it.
**Adam:** I definitely didn't.
**Adam:** Because when he turned around, I was just fucking, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I was like, oh, it's him.
**Lee:** Oh, it's William Castle, shit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because he he's if you didn't spot him, Chris, he's the guy when she is in the phone booth and he's he's the guy who she thinks is Roman Dr. Sassteen.
**Chris:** Oh, Sassteen.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I must admit, I did mix him up a couple of times, I was thinking.
**Adam:** And and then it turns around, he's a bloke with a cigar.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's really horrible the producer.
**Adam:** But William Castle who we met on there's quite a lot of call backs on this one, but episode 33, House on Haunted Hill.
**Adam:** and he was the mad director of that.
**Adam:** Who would perform like he would he had gimmicks and would shock seats to get people to scream in the middle of his films.
**Adam:** And stuff like that.
**Adam:** He was a and he's he was like talking about, oh, it's a cursed film.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** You would say that, you absolute like sideshow barker.
**Adam:** Of of a man that you are because there is no way that any publicity is bad publicity.
**Adam:** And yeah, we're going to say, because he was saying.
**Adam:** He ended up hospitalized with kidney stones and it's like, that is not the same.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As your pregnant wife being stabbed to death by a load of fucking mad hippies.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not on the same scale, William.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I'm sorry, mate.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But yeah, so but she's got like.
**Adam:** and actually and here's an interesting little insight, apparently a teenage Tim Roth was so in love with Mia Farrow.
**Adam:** He went and had his hair cut like it and felt like a prick.
**Adam:** For six months until it grew out.
**Adam:** I remember seeing an interview with him once.
**Adam:** But the other the other weird in joke in here is obviously is when she meets Terry.
**Adam:** The girl who the woman who the the Castlevetts have taken in, who was a former drug addict.
**Adam:** Who ends up dying.
**Adam:** and she says to her, oh, you look like Victoria Vetri.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That is Victoria Vetri.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** but she's playing she's using she's credited under her original stage name.
**Adam:** Which is Angela Dorian.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it is her.
**Adam:** And that's yeah, so that's just weird.
**Adam:** Who is in Invasion of the Bee Girls.
**Adam:** Which I'm sure for guest Wes said he wanted to come back and look at at some point.
**Adam:** So yeah, you've got Dr. Sassteen, who is Randolph Duke.
**Adam:** From Trading Places, you know, one of the old boys who's the.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but he's I didn't realize he's also in the Wolfman.
**Adam:** And ghost of Frankenstein and stuff.
**Adam:** and Hutch.
**Adam:** Good old Hutch is Dr. Zias from Planet of the Apes.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And that pleases me so much because it makes you realize.
**Adam:** It makes you realize quite how good the the makeup is.
**Adam:** In so much as it still looks like him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but he's he has a lot of experience with Coven.
**Adam:** Because he is Samantha's father in Bewitched.
**Lee:** Oh, cool.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** he's also the puzzler in Batman, which was a villain that I remember.
**Adam:** It was like you couldn't get anyone to play the riddle of this week, could you?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So that's why I'm assuming the puzzler has been created.
**Adam:** And and yeah, and obviously Ruth Gordon.
**Adam:** and who was in like she's in Hamel de Mold.
**Adam:** And and she's I can't remember she's I think she's Clint Eastwood's mum.
**Adam:** In every which way but loose.
**Lee:** Yeah, that was a long time.
**Adam:** Me neither.
**Adam:** she's in Scavenger Hunt.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** she's also something called Voyage of the Rock Aliens in which she's playing the town sheriff, no idea what that's all about, but I'm quite
**Adam:** And in some.
**Adam:** Like female animal house rip off called Mugsy's Girls.
**Adam:** and but I have and this is just purely a fact that is going out.
**Adam:** Entirely for my sister.
**Adam:** she is the main villain in try and catch me.
**Adam:** An episode of Columbo.
**Adam:** And if you're very polite to my mom, she will do an impersonation of how she walks.
**Adam:** She has got like a funny little shuffle.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, so my mom.
**Adam:** There you go.
**Adam:** I'll I'll get.
**Adam:** I'll guess to put it up on the Instagram.
**Adam:** Fucking like she's going to do that.
**Adam:** But yeah, I mean it's there's also there's also a.
**Adam:** there is a sequel book.
**Adam:** Which Ira Levin wrote.
**Adam:** But we are talking 1997.
**Adam:** And it was the last book he wrote.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Rosemary emerges from a covenant of juiced coma in 1999 to find her grown son Andy has rebelled against his satanic destiny.
**Adam:** And become the head of a charitable organization promoting world peace, but circumstances indicate his Antichrist destiny is fulfilled.
**Adam:** Regardless of his participation, and at a candlelit Millennium celebration, a deadly virus is unleashed that destroys the human race.
**Adam:** Satan returns to Earth and drags Rosemary to hell, only for her to awaken.
**Adam:** And find that it's before the events of the first book and film.
**Adam:** And it was all a dream.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** There you go, Chris.
**Adam:** You thought you had a bad ending.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** I was just about to say that sounds like everything, the exact opposite of everything I love about this film.
**Lee:** Is that, you know, the subtlety of it has gone entirely out the window for that.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Definitely, but then like I say, it was his last book he wrote before he died.
**Adam:** And I think it's I think it's fair to say that he might have lost his mojo by then.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I didn't realize there's also been.
**Adam:** In 2014, there was a mini series.
**Adam:** Version of this with Zoe Saldana as Rosemary.
**Lee:** Yeah, I saw that when I was bringing it up on IMDB, so I all the facts in front of me before we started recording, I spotted that, which I hadn't seen before.
**Lee:** I might give it a go.
**Adam:** And there's.
**Adam:** An unofficial sequel segment in the anthology film XX called Her Only Living Son.
**Adam:** but I've.
**Adam:** I must confess, I've not seen that.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Not that.
**Adam:** and to where are we.
**Adam:** I'm just seeing.
**Adam:** I've gotta get.
**Adam:** I think it.
**Adam:** I think it is yeah, like you say.
**Adam:** It's City of.
**Adam:** City of the Dead.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I adore this film.
**Lee:** Let you all know in the dance.
**Lee:** And it's one I think we recorded last time and we had a little 10, 15 minute chat after the end of the episode as we normally do.
**Lee:** And then about 10 minutes afterwards, I got a text message from Adam that just said, what the fucking out haven't we covered this film and I was like, I don't know, I love it.
**Lee:** I absolutely adore it, there isn't a year goes by that I don't watch it.
**Adam:** It was much the same as how long it took us to get to Curse of the Crimson Altar.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's just a just a weird one where it's like, yeah, why have we not done that.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** for our next episode, we haven't planned what we're going to do.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** I just realized as we were talking, I was like, I should probably get that up on the diary that we have.
**Lee:** So I know what we're doing next.
**Lee:** We have a massive list of films as previously mentioned, but.
**Lee:** so what I'll do is I've got three films that I wrote down during our last episode that were to go on the list, that haven't yet gone on the list.
**Lee:** So, Adam, would you like me to just throw those three at you and your gut instinct pick one of those films.
**Lee:** Okay, so we have Severance, the Danny Dyer,
**Lee:** Comedy horror.
**Lee:** 30 Days of Night.
**Lee:** and as you pointed out, why haven't we covered it, it is definitely always in my top 10.
**Lee:** We have not covered Horror Hotel, also known as City of the Dead, I believe is the original title.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's it's a toss up for me between.
**Adam:** 30 days and and Horror Hotel, I think, just because obviously we did Triangle, which was the Severance director last time.
**Lee:** But it's also the same actress from Triangle as well.
**Lee:** She plays the the main woman in it.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Oh, there you go, so it looks like we're going with Horror Hotel for our next film.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Chris:** Good choice.
**Lee:** Let me just.
**Lee:** While you talk amongst yourselves, double check for our US listeners.
**Lee:** that I have got you.
**Adam:** I think it.
**Adam:** I think it is yeah, like you say.
**Adam:** It's City of City of the Dead.
**Lee:** yes, I adore this film.
**Lee:** Let you all know in advance.
**Lee:** And it's one I think we recorded last time and we had a little 10, 15 minute chat after the end of the episode as we normally do.
**Lee:** And then about 10 minutes afterwards, I got a text message from Adam that just said, why the fucking haven't we covered this film and I was like, I don't know, I love it.
**Lee:** I absolutely adore it, there isn't a year goes by that I don't watch it.
**Adam:** It was much the same as how long it took us to get to Curse of the Crimson Altar.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's just a just a weird one where it's like, yeah, why have we not done that?
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** don't forget to go and check out the Not for Everyone podcast.
**Lee:** Don't forget to go and check out Eri Esx.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I hope you enjoyed the episode, ladies.
**Chris:** Yeah, thank you for the recommendation.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely, it's again, it's another one of those that I was desperately came to talk about.
**Lee:** And comes up on a regular basis, yeah, and we just needed a little prod in that direction to get us there.
**Lee:** So yeah, I'm very glad we covered it.
**Lee:** and we will be back in a Fortnight's time with Horror Hotel or City of the Dead, depending on your geographical location.
**Lee:** And we will see you then.
**Lee:** Thanks very much.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Lee:** My stomach could rumbling that whole time.

---

## Ep 139 Triangle

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-139-triangle/
Air date: 27 March 2022
Duration: 01:12:46
Film: Triangle · Year: 2009

### Description

It’s horror on the high seas, with an equally high concept as we get caught up in 2009’s “Triangle”. A film in which we learn that a classical education in Greek mythology is perfect for a career in plot foreshadowing; it’s always best to have an enormous duffle bag knocking about the house; and a sinister mask is all very well for a murderer, but what about the footwear? Along the way we discuss “Altered States”, “Eight For Silver” aka “The Cursed”, “Hellbender”, series 3 of “Wellington Paranormal” and the book “Empire of the Gods” by Benjamin Nash Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, ON A DESERTED CRUISE LINER.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening to cover 2009's Triangle.
**Lee:** But in typical fashion as always, before we get into that, Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** Well, I have been watching things, not strictly horror, but I've been reading something.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, Empire of the Gods.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, this was given to me by a certain Mr. Lee over there.
**Lee:** Hello.
**Chris:** And you might be tempted to say this is not strictly horror either, it is sci-fi, but it's got some horror aspects. I've got to say it.
**Lee:** It definitely does.
**Adam:** Normally.
**Chris:** Yes, there is, there is.
**Adam:** It says that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I, I think, I think this is a very good.
**Chris:** Now, you just got to remind me, I'm sure you said something like you know the writer or it's a friend of a friend.
**Lee:** So my boss at work, I was discussing with another guy, actually, we were talking about the new Dune movie and he just happened to walk into the office at the time and he said, my friend has just written his first novel and it's a sci-fi novel.
**Lee:** It's available on Amazon.
**Lee:** So I went and purchased it immediately. yeah, and then read it in a few days. Yeah, and was really, really impressed.
**Lee:** It was one of those, he said it was his first novel and it was just a friend of a friend, so I was like, I wasn't expecting much.
**Chris:** Your expectations, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and I was totally blown away by it, I really enjoyed it, it was really well written.
**Chris:** It, it is, it's got enough sort of references and the mixture of comedy with some brutal elements, it's all there, really.
**Chris:** And it's still an easy read and I'm just going to read out a little bit because I think it deserves it.
**Chris:** So it's by Benjamin Nash.
**Chris:** It says, at the end of the world, it helps to have a sense of humor.
**Chris:** When flesh eating insects appear in the Cotswolds a week after the mysterious destruction of the pyramids of Giza, Jack Gibson and Denzel Reid's dreary team building week takes a deadly turn.
**Chris:** While fleeing the carnage with their boss Lucy, they crash into a car containing an ancient artifact from beyond the stars, throwing them into the heart of an intergalactic rebellion.
**Chris:** I'm just going to read out a couple of little bits to show you the brutality and comedy.
**Chris:** The giant insects began flooding the men's bathroom like water overwhelming a sinking ship.
**Chris:** I shouted at the officer to run, but it was too late.
**Chris:** The creatures swarmed all over her, burrowing inside her ears, eyes and clothes.
**Chris:** She screamed, allowing at least three to force their way down her throat.
**Chris:** Tearing her face apart in the process.
**Chris:** The memory of it still haunts the dark corridors of mind.
**Chris:** By which I mean, it gives me a serious case of the willies.
**Chris:** My survival instinct kicked in and I dragged a hyperventilating Denzel to his feet.
**Chris:** And then a bit later on.
**Chris:** I walked outside, closely followed by my new K9 companion to be confronted by Denzel standing next to the van.
**Chris:** He was toting a rifle in one hand and a massive floppy dildo in the other.
**Chris:** Ziggy increased his barking by several decibels as he advanced towards my best friend.
**Chris:** Denzel didn't even flinch, he just nonchalantly threw the phallice through the air and cried fetch.
**Chris:** Ziggy did what any self-respecting pooch would do when presented with something to chase and skid it off across the gravel in hot pursuit.
**Chris:** What the hell are you doing with that thing? I asked.
**Chris:** I couldn't find a stick, you replied.
**Chris:** Not the cock, you moron, the gun.
**Chris:** So as you can see, it's nice a easy read.
**Chris:** And yeah, it's each chapter.
**Chris:** Is very compelling.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I really enjoy the the mixture of the the action and comedy.
**Lee:** It ran to me quite a lot of the the Rivers of London series.
**Chris:** Oh, nice.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, it kind of had that same sort of feel to it, which yeah, which I think I'm about four or five books into that series.
**Lee:** So it gives you an idea of how much I enjoyed them.
**Adam:** I I think he has just released another as well, actually, on Rivers of London.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I think they're great.
**Lee:** But yeah, and and this kind of struck me the same way, the action and everything's great, the sci-fi is really good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** it isn't kind of over it does that thing where it doesn't have to overexplain everything.
**Lee:** It's like, this is the world and, you know, you're seeing it through.
**Adam:** You you pick it up from circumstance and mentions, right, yeah.
**Lee:** Precisely, rather than it being too kind of backstory heavy, it just kind of gets on with it.
**Lee:** And yeah.
**Adam:** That's that's good world building.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Chris:** I'm really impressed.
**Lee:** I'm glad that you've brought that up because yeah, I've very much enjoyed it too.
**Lee:** So yeah, well done Benjamin Nash, we want more of that, please.
**Lee:** Thank you very much.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Is that everything you've been up to?
**Chris:** I I have also watched Memento, which I'm going to relate to a little bit of of a triangle.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Chris:** So again, not not not horror, but yeah.
**Chris:** I'll mention it.
**Adam:** It's it it kind of borders into psychological horror.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's a bit, I, it would, it wouldn't be.
**Adam:** It would have been a Hitchcock film back in the 60s, Memento, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's an interesting idea.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and and watching it, I was thinking there aren't many films that have done essentially time travel.
**Chris:** Because from his perspective, it is time is completely messed up.
**Chris:** That they've done it so well with such a unique perspective.
**Chris:** And then I watched Triangle and I was like, oh, that's interesting.
**Lee:** Well, that was why we why I thought we should cover it.
**Lee:** Adam and I had discussed it previously and said it'd be a good film to cover.
**Lee:** But when we went to Horror on Sea and you said you loved the time.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Adam is waving.
**Adam:** I'm just going to say swearing and spoilers.
**Lee:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Especially for Triangle, before we say anything, if you've not seen Triangle, we are going to have to spoil it to even talk about it.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, yeah, definitely don't listen.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Watch it if you trust us and have not seen it.
**Chris:** Otherwise all we can say is it's called Triangle.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's called Triangle and that's it.
**Chris:** It has people in it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent, well done, Chris.
**Lee:** Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** well, I I mean, this I'd almost forgotten I it was when I was only when I was trying to remember earlier to write down what I've been watching.
**Adam:** I watched Blackenstein, which is obviously, well, regards, well, not regarded is, a cheap cash in that was created after the success of Blackula, the black vampire film, which genuinely is good.
**Adam:** And, yeah, I can honestly say in terms of cheap knockoff, this on a budgetary level made thanks killing look like Avatar.
**Adam:** It really is low budget.
**Adam:** But and here's a really cool bit about it, the one thing that looks great is that they've, they've hired the same props they used in the Universal Frankenstein.
**Adam:** Like they found them, they found them available in a prop house.
**Adam:** So the Frankenstein creation room is, I mean, it's not as good because they've hired the equipment, not the walls or anything like that.
**Adam:** So it still likes like really sort of just a big empty space somewhere, someone's garage or whatever.
**Adam:** but they've got all the all the right stuff.
**Adam:** in there.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** it's just a very fucking odd film.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But again, I'm glad I've seen it.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** and then,
**Adam:** William Hurt, died in the week.
**Adam:** so.
**Adam:** Obviously, RIP him.
**Adam:** RIP Peter Bowles, who we saw in Legend of Hell House.
**Adam:** I'd forgot because I'd almost forgotten because I was like, Peter Bowles never done a horror film, but he's in that.
**Adam:** and,
**Adam:** Also we lost Ron Pember the other week, who is not as well known an actor.
**Adam:** But he's definitely a well-known face, who's in just so much stuff.
**Adam:** He's basically who Alan Ford is now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know Bricktop?
**Adam:** Yeah, he's he's essentially that sort of, yeah, he he used to fulfill that that kind of a role.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** Yeah, so, but I watched, so I thought, I'm going to watch Altered States.
**Adam:** And it's it's a Ken Russell film, so I know it's going to have like literally hallucinogenic mentalness in it.
**Adam:** but I'd actually and I'll I I know this sounds weird because I because I'm a Ken Russell fan, but.
**Adam:** I'd actually forgotten that he's a very good director.
**Adam:** Inasmuch as, yeah, he does the visual stuff and things like that, but there's genuinely on the edge of your seat sort of bits where.
**Adam:** You're sort of like, you know, they're sort of chasing people chasing a creature through a seller at a university and it's just sort of hanging around in the pipes and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And it's all sort of, yeah, the way it's shot is really cool.
**Adam:** But, just to give you an idea I've I've I don't know if you've seen it, Lee?
**Adam:** I'm not sure.
**Lee:** I'm not, no.
**Adam:** All right.
**Chris:** Chris.
**Adam:** And Chris, I take it you've not seen it?
**Chris:** I haven't, no.
**Adam:** No, but basically, well, you'll like this, basically the premise is,
**Adam:** William Hurt is a scientist who is using, studying doing studies into century deprivation, so he's using century deprivation tanks and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But he finds a way of, he just, that was it, yeah, he basically goes on the,
**Adam:** white intellectual quest and goes and patronizes some people in South America.
**Adam:** And basically gets Ihuasca.
**Adam:** And, yeah, he's so he goes and does a ritual with them and trips his fucking tits off.
**Adam:** so he decides what would be a really good idea is to take lots of this stuff and get in the isolation tank.
**Adam:** And basically begins to devolve.
**Adam:** Because he's sort of going back through because he's tripping, he's going back to the very source of humanity and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And yeah, he basically devolves into, yeah, a a cave creature and then sort of big glowing electric slug.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** I genuinely, I think the the strangest thing I got watching it is even like the music that was in it.
**Adam:** Is so like the fly, like the Cronenberg version of the fly.
**Adam:** That I almost feel that that's what Cronenberg had watched and sort of.
**Adam:** formulated his way of redoing the fly.
**Adam:** Because it really has that same sort of feeling.
**Adam:** but it's definitely.
**Adam:** definitely worth watch and like I say, you get it's there's a like 18-eyed goat Christ crucified and stuff like that.
**Adam:** You know, you get lots of incredible stuff from the trippy ball sequences.
**Adam:** and, and like I say, it's actually.
**Adam:** you know, it's a really well-shot horror film outside of, oh, and it's got these fucking really trippy bits.
**Adam:** So, yeah, I do recommend Altered States.
**Adam:** the only other thing I've been watching that's kind of horror related is I've watched all of series three of Wellington Paranormal and still that show just goes from strength to strength, I think.
**Adam:** It's just so fucking good.
**Adam:** that that's the one which is is the two cops from the movie version of What We Do in the Shadows.
**Adam:** You know when they come around and it's like.
**Adam:** well, what are you doing there, this this this guy's dead on the floor, drunk, you know, does he want to lay there, no, he doesn't, does he, so come on, think think think these things through, guys.
**Adam:** Let's try and not make a mess.
**Adam:** And, yeah, it's them in their sort of own X-Files.
**Adam:** But yeah,
**Adam:** Series three, very good.
**Lee:** Oh, I have to watch that.
**Lee:** I really enjoyed the first two seasons, the same as you did.
**Lee:** So yeah, I have to watch that.
**Adam:** I think I think they're I think they've actually just been, I don't know whether it's just been on or it's just coming on, but they've,
**Adam:** they've shot another now showing series four as well in New Zealand.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Adam:** So, yeah, but,
**Adam:** No, it's just such a fantastic show.
**Adam:** And and it's I think certainly that and the series of What We Do in the Shadows.
**Adam:** are probably the best things out like, you know, certainly in terms of horror comedy, you know, or certainly on TV, I mean, it's such a few and far between thing anyway.
**Adam:** But it used to be you'd have the league dominating things in that school.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's,
**Adam:** No, it's just a fantastic show.
**Adam:** And and.
**Adam:** Everyone should see it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** There we go.
**Lee:** Absolutely, totally agree.
**Lee:** I've caught up with a couple of movies, both from 2021.
**Lee:** so some nice modern fair, which isn't my normal viewing, I must admit.
**Lee:** so I caught up with a film called The Cursed.
**Lee:** it's well, I saw it called The Cursed, but it is also on IMDB as Eight for Silver.
**Adam:** Sorry, Eight.
**Lee:** Eight for Silver.
**Adam:** Eight for Silver.
**Adam:** All right.
**Lee:** so it stars Kelly Riley and Alistair Petrie, who's always great in everything he's in.
**Lee:** And it is it's funny because I didn't realize it's set in 19th century France.
**Lee:** Because they're all British actors in it, all right, speaking very British, and it it makes no difference to the story.
**Adam:** All right.
**Lee:** And it.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's a really good tale.
**Lee:** basically a group of Romani travelers move onto a piece of land owned by aristocratic group.
**Lee:** and they have some kind of a claim to the land, it's kind of implied.
**Lee:** so basically they hire some mercenaries because someone says, oh, if they go and threaten them, they'll all just move on.
**Lee:** So when they go and threaten them and they don't move on, they just slaughter the lot.
**Lee:** and someone puts a curse on them, and ultimately, it isn't too much of a giveaway because it's the cover of the, DVD.
**Lee:** yes, basically it's a a werewolf curse.
**Adam:** Oh, wow, okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, I've I sorry, I've just looked up Alistair Petrie, I now know who you mean and yeah, he is fucking great.
**Lee:** Yeah, again, again, it's one of those people you don't know his name, but every time you see him, you go, it's him, he's brilliant in everything, but yeah, I didn't know his name until until this.
**Adam:** If you want to know how tragically things had got the other afternoon, I was so bored, I was compiling a list of British character actors who've played members of the Galactic Empire in Star Wars.
**Adam:** And, and I was so when I was going through it, I was like, why did they have him in the rebels, that's so annoying, he would have been a fucking perfect like Star Destroyer captain.
**Lee:** Oh, he's fantastic in Utopia as well, the original, the original series, such a good show.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, so it was a really good film.
**Lee:** So a lower budget, but that didn't damage it in any way.
**Lee:** the effects for the creatures, they get quite a bit of screen time.
**Lee:** And they they hold up really well.
**Lee:** So, yeah, it's it's it's really good, it was one of those sort of last minute finds, I was like, oh, I know anything about it, I'll give it a go, it's got an interesting cover.
**Lee:** And and really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** So that's definitely one to check out.
**Lee:** also very low budget from 21, I watched Hellbender.
**Adam:** Hellbender.
**Adam:** Is that got thingy in it, the one from Pompey Pole?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Oh, sorry, I'm thinking of something else.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** so basically it's a young girl and her mother, and they live out in a house kind of in the middle of a it's it's a modern house, but it's set aside from everyone out in the mountains.
**Lee:** it's never I don't think it's ever given any clear definition of where it is in the mountains.
**Lee:** but yeah, basically they're kept in and the daughter is kept away from everyone and he's told that she's ill.
**Lee:** but it later transpires that it isn't and basically.
**Lee:** it's I I won't give anything away because it's definitely a film worth watching, it's a slow burn and it's it's more psychological than anything.
**Lee:** but yeah, it is a a witch.
**Adam:** You're selling it, you're selling it well there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I'm fucking sold.
**Lee:** But it is a witch, it's really it's got some some of the imagery in it is absolutely amazing.
**Lee:** You'll love it, Adam, it's really, really good.
**Adam:** Cool.
**Lee:** But yeah, yeah, really good movie, again, another one I'd seen the cover around and was sort of interested.
**Lee:** And I watched the trailer and I thought, well, I'll give it a go and see, but I've not really heard anyone talking about it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and and was really impressed with it.
**Lee:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely also I recommend.
**Lee:** before we jump into Triangle, a quick bit of news I wanted to bring up, I'm not sure if you guys have seen it.
**Lee:** So Rob Zombie has come out talking about his Monsters remake and he said it is going for a PG rating.
**Adam:** Yes, I saw that and which makes sense.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because then you're doing the Monsters.
**Lee:** Exactly, that was my concern is that he was going to try and zombie it effectively.
**Lee:** I'm I'm glad that he hasn't and he is going.
**Lee:** and Cassandra Peterson who plays Elvira is going to be in it as well.
**Lee:** so the more of the cast that come out, it's looking more and more like it could be a.
**Chris:** So this could be his biggest hit ever.
**Lee:** Oh, let's hope, let's hope.
**Lee:** I've got good.
**Lee:** I mean, I I think it's again, it's one of those things that I don't know if it would work remaking it.
**Lee:** So I've got reservations from the off, but if somebody could get it going.
**Lee:** I think Rob Zombie might be the person to do it.
**Chris:** I imagine he could get the style, he would get a good style with it.
**Chris:** I mean, certainly from what I've seen of him, he's definitely got the ability.
**Adam:** Also, he's got, one of the cast is Sylvester McCoy, which immediately warmed me to it, obviously.
**Lee:** Oh, is he really?
**Lee:** I didn't see that.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's he's like, he's, I don't think I don't know if he's called Igor, but he's basically grandpa has a lab assistant.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Adam:** because,
**Adam:** Yeah, the because I was I was thinking with it like the same as you leak because I mean, obviously there was The Monsters to Die, which was fucking dreadful.
**Adam:** But had no right to be anything else.
**Adam:** But I do think he'll, you know, I I think he recognizes what the appeal of it is.
**Adam:** And it's not to alter that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's, yeah.
**Adam:** It doesn't sort of like, because, because weirdly enough.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously, I mean, there they started off as a cartoon anyway.
**Adam:** but the, like the Addams Family have obviously faired a lot better in this sort of thing where they've had.
**Adam:** you know, I mean, sort of I'm not that massive a fan, but the, you know, good movies, reasonably, you know, watchable films.
**Adam:** The latest animated ones are pretty good as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, I enjoyed those.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So, yeah, it'll be nice for the Monsters to sort of come back in in into favor.
**Adam:** Funnily enough.
**Adam:** It was something I was thinking the other day is I'm wondering if about showing it to Ted because I know there's nothing in it, but he he knows who Frankenstein is and he knows.
**Adam:** Drag, you know, he knows the horror archetypes and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, I just thought that might it might amuse him, I don't know.
**Lee:** Oh, definitely.
**Lee:** And and as you say, it's,
**Lee:** It I mean, we grew up on them as kids, yeah, and it's definitely helped instill those characters, I think, and, and you know, and played a part in us going back and watching the old 30s and 40s movies, really.
**Lee:** So, yeah, I think it's a it's it is again, it's another good jumping off point, isn't it, really, to to bring them in in such a family-friendly environment.
**Lee:** So you get comfortable with the characters and then move more into their their actual horror.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like stuff like the groovy ghoulies as well and you know, you.
**Lee:** Love The Groovy Ghoulies.
**Adam:** But I think that, yeah, no, I I think that because what was the one you showed me which was a pilot?
**Adam:** Eddie Izzard was grandpa.
**Lee:** So that was 13 13 Mockingbird Lane.
**Adam:** That was it, yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Which tried to to sort of make it because I actually thought that was pretty reasonable, you know, it was a pretty good version, but that was someone trying to a update it so it wasn't using the universal looks of the Monsters.
**Adam:** But also to sort of bring in more horror elements or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And actually, yeah, I sort of I was pondering with where the Rob Zombie would do something the same.
**Adam:** But, you know, it looks like he's just going plain and simple with it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely, and that 13 13 Mockingbird like I was gutted when, after that pilot was ditched.
**Lee:** Because I I again, like you, I'd really enjoyed it and was looking forward to seeing more.
**Lee:** and because it was such high production values and everything, I didn't see how it could fail.
**Lee:** But unfortunately, it didn't test well.
**Lee:** And yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think it was yeah, it was just one of those things, wasn't it, really, unfortunately.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, yeah, I thought that had that really did have potential.
**Lee:** I then again saying that I thought the same with, the first season of Cowboy Bebop, I've just watched the live action first season of that.
**Lee:** I thought it was really, really good.
**Lee:** Yeah, and they've canceled it before season two.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** What a terrible thing to do.
**Adam:** Mind, I was very pleased to see that the because that was the one thing I did, I because I hadn't watched it.
**Adam:** But I did, I watched up to the opening credits of the first episode.
**Adam:** Because I was just like, what music are they using?
**Adam:** Because obviously Cowboy Bebop like the cartoon and then it was just, oh, you're just using the music, fair enough, well done, well done, everyone.
**Lee:** That's good.
**Adam:** That's good.
**Adam:** Pass.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Right, so without further ado, as we say, we are going to go into spoiler territory.
**Lee:** Because it's impossible not to.
**Lee:** we had told Chris, literally don't read anything, don't look at anything, just find the film and watch it.
**Chris:** And I'm glad I did.
**Lee:** Yes, good, I'm glad to hear it.
**Lee:** So what did you make of it?
**Chris:** Well, yeah, yeah, as you correctly, you know, knew.
**Chris:** I'd mentioned my love of time travel movies or movies that play with the idea of time.
**Chris:** And yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, Memento, which it's.
**Chris:** You said again, so spoil it for some people who haven't seen it, even though it's a fairly old movie now, but it feels like time travel is happening because of the way it's presented.
**Chris:** And essentially from his perspective, he is reliving the same experience every day.
**Chris:** Except if he's got new notes because obviously he's got, is it antegrade amnesia?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I know he says it's not amnesia throughout, but but essentially he can't make new memories.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So he remembers everything from before an accident where he had a head trauma.
**Chris:** yeah, but so he can't remember anything new.
**Chris:** And it it's it's a fascinating idea.
**Chris:** I mean, for somebody that that happens to, you are just.
**Adam:** He's Christopher Nolan, isn't it?
**Chris:** Is.
**Chris:** Yeah, yes, and I didn't realize that, I mean, I saw it, I think when it first came out, long time ago now.
**Chris:** But yeah, and I had no idea though, having seen his more recent movies, completely makes sense that he would take on something like that.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** And and the way that it's shot that you work your way backwards, but again, you're following his story and he's trying to piece together that he's he's his life.
**Chris:** And you know, the the people in it and, you know, from his perspective, who do you trust and and sort of it's it's a very complex.
**Chris:** But I thought such a clever way to to play with the idea, like presenting that, in a film, it's got to be very difficult to make it make sense.
**Chris:** And equally with this, I mean, essentially to spoil this straight away,
**Chris:** The the way the time loops.
**Chris:** and and now, so obviously I've watched this once.
**Chris:** And I was so tempted to watch it again, I didn't actually watch it today, which I normally do, I watched it yesterday, and I was if I had time, I would have liked to have watched some of it again.
**Chris:** Because I'm I'm trying to remember, and again, I didn't want to look anything up.
**Chris:** I said to Lee, I looked up the name of the ship because I was trying to think back to the,
**Chris:** essentially the story of Sisyphus.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Rolling the boulder up the hill and replaying it.
**Chris:** And and so, so I'm kind of jumping around a bit here as I I do.
**Chris:** And especially with this movie.
**Lee:** We do, it's fine.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** But so, so you, they tell you the name of the ship.
**Chris:** Which I have forgotten again, A Aeolus.
**Adam:** Aeolus, yeah.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** They explain that about halfway through the film that that's the ship they're on.
**Chris:** And the reason that it's called that.
**Chris:** And so you know that that is happening and and it seems like it's probably happening to Jess.
**Chris:** because obviously there's something a bit strange about her.
**Chris:** But now what I can't remember is, right, every time she goes through the time loop.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Does it reveal more about the previous one, I couldn't remember if you knew what had happened to her son at the start.
**Chris:** I'm fairly certain you didn't, right.
**Chris:** Because that's sort of the point is you don't know.
**Chris:** I was like, oh, hold on, when you see the very end.
**Chris:** I was like, what did they what did they tell you at the start?
**Chris:** Like, it it was obviously meant to be a bit confusing.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because you're trying to piece it together.
**Chris:** But.
**Adam:** It's the well, the sort of implication is that by the time she's on the loop.
**Adam:** Returning to the boat.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's when she loses her memory, essentially.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** and that she regains.
**Adam:** But then she regains it as she's going through.
**Chris:** As she as it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** And there's notes that added and stuff.
**Lee:** So I noticed that this time, it's the point where she wakes up and she says, I had a horrible dream.
**Lee:** And the woman says to, what did you dream, and she said, I can't remember.
**Lee:** So I think.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** So I think her memory restarts when she falls asleep.
**Lee:** And that's when the loop.
**Lee:** But that was what I loved about this was the fact that you thought the loop was just from when she stepped.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** onto the cruise ship.
**Lee:** And it kept playing up and over.
**Lee:** And then when she gets out of it, you're like, oh.
**Lee:** Thank God she's out of it.
**Lee:** And then as soon as you realize that this is also the loop and she's coming back around again to restart, you're like, oh, no, it's it's a loop.
**Lee:** It's a multiple loops within a single larger loop and it's so growling, you feel awful for.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and but and the way it does reveal extra perspectives on each of the experiences they're going through.
**Chris:** Yeah, you know, it's so well done, like it is great.
**Chris:** because yeah, just seeing that bit extra every time, but then the next loop is sort of coming and like how she going to interact with them next and then seeing the one before.
**Chris:** It's yeah, it's fascinating.
**Adam:** The the curious thing is if you watch it from watching it from the start.
**Adam:** There's one bit that's slightly out, but there's certain things such as she has got a noticeably heavy bag.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Noticeably heavy.
**Lee:** Okay, yeah, you notice that when she saw it, when she put the bag in the boat, she was like.
**Lee:** That's a very bad, especially when she got on, what does she have that massive bag to get on the boat?
**Lee:** But of course.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's why she didn't take the bag with that.
**Chris:** So that's it, that's what I was trying to think what were the clues that were you could have picked up on throughout.
**Lee:** What I.
**Lee:** Sorry, go.
**Adam:** I don't know if you can, to be honest.
**Adam:** I think there's because I mean.
**Adam:** The history of this is for me is that Lee showed me this.
**Adam:** And I'm eternally fucking grateful because it's great.
**Adam:** But I remember, I remember being totally blown away by it sort of on first watch.
**Adam:** Watching it this time round, obviously coming in from the point that I know what's happening and everything, it's actually really fascinating like how like you say, there's this weird thing also where you get where you you there's a weird thing where you get with it, which is when you realize that there's three Jese on the ship at any one time.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Rather than because you're used to time loops and stuff where people go back and meet themselves.
**Chris:** They might, yeah, the one.
**Adam:** But the fact this sort of crosses through three loops sort of cross, but like a spyrograph rather than three separate circles.
**Adam:** It's like, yeah.
**Adam:** It's some weird Venn diagram of.
**Chris:** Yeah, complexity seems to just increase.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** quite.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it sort of.
**Adam:** it does help.
**Adam:** make a.
**Adam:** make a very good sense of it.
**Adam:** And actually, I mean, it's I think the director stated, one of them was one of the influences with dead of night.
**Adam:** But he said he wanted to explore it.
**Adam:** So it wasn't just how dead of night loops at the end.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or indeed something like ghost stories, you know, where they put themselves in this like a turnal loop, eternal damnation sort of thing, even Krampus kind of does it as well, and yeah, but I think that this is it's much more interesting that it's like, no, we're going to explore what the implications are of it.
**Adam:** rather than just, oh, so that's what's going on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** So it's a mechanism.
**Lee:** Rather than the final stinger at the end, you kind of learn very early on that you're in a loop, it's saying it's and then the final stinger of course is, yeah, is that that loop is taking place within a larger loop.
**Chris:** Big loop, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you assume the loop is the boat, you assume, you're almost assume that the boat's like the hotel in The Shining or something like that, where it's like the the that's contained there. Yeah. Funny you should say that, did you notice the cabin number when she was.
**Lee:** No, I did.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** When she goes in, 237 is the room that she goes into that's got go to the theater written in blood on the mirror.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** No. Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck.
**Adam:** Trouble is I'm I'm going through the whole.
**Lee:** No, I'm going to tell Liam.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Adam:** No, it was it was just.
**Lee:** So I'm sorry.
**Adam:** I'm going to explain it.
**Adam:** I wasn't going to, I was just going to leave it there.
**Adam:** But I feel I'm I'm.
**Adam:** I'm going to have to tell people now.
**Adam:** Next to all the all the cards in the CD section were hand written, so, you know, like of the band names as you were going through and everything.
**Adam:** And Dot Alison, someone obviously really fancied Dot Alison.
**Adam:** So they put Dot Alison and.
**Adam:** Like just four N's lower case, like.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There we go.
**Adam:** and,
**Adam:** And actually she is married to Christian Henson.
**Adam:** So I I assume that was an easy call to make.
**Adam:** Where it was like, you're trying to send in vocal from the film, the film of.
**Adam:** Do you?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** We'll see.
**Adam:** If that happens or not.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Well, so yeah, so,
**Adam:** request, Rosemary's Baby next episode.
**Lee:** Whoa.
**Adam:** Hopefully by then Colin will have changed.
**Adam:** And I won't sound quite so much like I've eaten a pillow.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'm the same, I keep I keep bunging up and having to move around to keep my circulation going.
**Lee:** but there you go.
**Lee:** So now you all know about my snot, I'll let you all go.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 138 Blood Night

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-138-blood-night/
Air date: 13 March 2022
Duration: 01:23:09
Film: Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet · Year: 2009 · Director: Frank Sabatella

### Description

It’s full on slasher territory this time, as we discuss 2009’s “Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet”. A film in which we witness the dangers of using a pickaxe for amateur colonic irrigation; realise that the lessons of “Scream” thirteen years ago have been long forgotten by the subsequent generation of horny teens; and the stinky man from the cemetery is to be trusted implicitly (at least when he’s Bill fucking Moseley!). Along the way we discuss the Long Island urban folklore that inspired the film, “Galaxy of Terror” (again), “Scream” 2022, “The Mangler”, “The Witch” (again), and “The Devil’s Men” aka “Land of the Minotaur”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, IN A DISUSED PSYCHIATRIC FACILITY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here this evening to talk about 2009's Blood Night, the Legend of Mary Hatchet.
**Lee:** But before we do, laden with swearing and spoilers, no doubt.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching in horror since our last meeting?
**Chris:** So, so I've tried to do something really, really well, yeah, absolutely.
**Chris:** yeah, I've tried to do something really clever tonight. I've posted on Instagram to synchronize with this live event, which is not going to be live for anyone who listens to it, so it makes no sense whatsoever.
**Chris:** They some of some of the people out there may have seen my my story post, so this gives away if you know what I've been watching.
**Chris:** And and it's it's played on my mind since we watched it, I wanted to watch it again for years now. Amazing. It was years ago that we watched this.
**Lee:** I like, where's time gone?
**Adam:** Why are we so fucking old?
**Chris:** Well, and I always wondered because for me it really was like I kept saying it it felt documentary-like in its attention to detail.
**Chris:** and was it supernatural, was there a witch or wasn't there? And I like, what did the what did the writer and director, I think, think, what was his view?
**Chris:** And interestingly enough, I I decided to look it up, which I I don't tend to do, but I thought I've got to try and see if he spoke about it.
**Chris:** So, the film is The Witch, if I don't know if Adam had figured that out, but yeah.
**Chris:** I'd mention it to Lee just before we came on, but go on.
**Adam:** I think I I think I got it when you said it was a documentary like.
**Chris:** Yeah, because supernatural or not, and I was like, all right, okay.
**Chris:** That that does narrow it down, but yeah, I mean I said that at the time that that's how it came across to me. Like there's definitely it's minimal to the horror aspects.
**Chris:** Now, when you do see the witch, whether she's real or not, it's there's, you know, that's pretty harrowing scenes with her.
**Chris:** but yeah, so I just I really wondered what Roger Eggers, what he thought.
**Chris:** And I came across an interview with him, it says the voices of the undead Robert, not Roger, Robert Eggers on The Witch, the writer-director of this archetypal New England horror story talks about how he pulled a powerful Puritan's nightmare from our collective unconscious.
**Chris:** And at one point, one of the questions is, The Witch has been likened to a horror film, but it's also a gothic study of faith and patriarchy, akin to say, The Devils or even The Village.
**Chris:** Now, we haven't seen either of those, but I'm fairly certain you've both mentioned The Village.
**Lee:** I assume that's the M. Night.
**Adam:** Shyamalan one.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was thinking of the M. Night one.
**Lee:** I watched it fairly recently, so I mentioned it in a what would've been watching that I'd seen it, I believe.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Chris:** and at times it feels almost like a documentary account of the harshness of 17th-century life in America. How would you characterize your film?
**Chris:** And he replied with, 'I wanted this film to be like a nightmare from the past, like a Puritan's nightmare that you could upload into the mind's eye, and it's a folk tale.'
**Chris:** Certainly classifying it in the realm of, like you've got to buy a ticket and see it, it's a horror movie, but I think also good fairy tales and folk tale are always family dramas and a family drama is the most interesting drama.
**Chris:** This is what we're always living out in our lives with all of the relationships that we have, and there's a reason why Lear and Hamlet tend to be considered the finest Shakespeare plays.
**Chris:** And the reason why, Luke, I'm your father, and not Luke, I am some guy. And in the complex dynamics of this family within this cabin fever situation, all this Freudian stuff is brewing up and then exploding and exploding in junkin ways.
**Chris:** And he essentially says, 'You can, I don't mind, you can view it either way, as if there is really a witch, or as if it is all just everything's going wrong.'
**Chris:** And, you know, once things start to break down, it's much harder to then deal with the next problem and it cascades into this this nightmare.
**Chris:** and and that's how I I probably prefer to view it when it's I I think, you know, trying to reflect on all the different films we've seen, if it's full-on supernatural, that's good.
**Chris:** And I view that in a certain way.
**Chris:** If it's something where it's mostly real life, but with a a question mark, something's happening, then I tend to think I prefer to think of it that it's in their minds, because I find that the most fascinating, how what we perceive is not reality, and we can conjure up all sorts of horrors in our minds when there's, you know, it's just the wind making a noise.
**Chris:** So, I find that the fascinating aspect of it, and so that's why I think this film stood out so much is because it it really can be seen both ways, and it works fantastically for both.
**Adam:** It's got that ambiguity there, definitely.
**Adam:** I mean, I personally with The Witch, I prefer to read that as a supernatural event, because that gives it a happy ending.
**Adam:** If if you see what I mean.
**Adam:** Because otherwise it is just, it's the at that point.
**Adam:** It becomes like Brazil or something where it's like, oh, no, she's just gone mad.
**Chris:** It's just because.
**Chris:** Yeah, well that's that is that is a bit too mad, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think because it's a but also weirdly enough, I think the ambiguous readings are actually quite the scariness, it's like The Omen.
**Adam:** Like the thing with The Omen is is that if you read it as a battle against the Antichrist, it's quite scary and, you know, so on and so forth.
**Adam:** But if you read it as a man slowly goes mad and is shot dead trying to murder his own son in a church, you know, that actually is far worse and far more horrifying than the birth of the Antichrist, weirdly.
**Adam:** But I think I like that thing you said though about the family thing, because I think that is something that does come up, I mean, like Poltergeist, Hereditary, a lot of it is centered around, yeah.
**Adam:** Or even actually, I mean, even even when it's groups of people, there is that element of family.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, their relationships.
**Adam:** But I mean, well, the classic slasher, I mean, obviously, what with what we're covering tonight, but like the classic slasher thing where it's just it's a group of friends who, you know, are it's that sort of a family, it's a a family of friends rather than, you know, a biological or whatever family.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** It's interesting though, he mentioned The Devils. Now, I don't think Lee's seen The Devils, I'm not sure that,
**Adam:** Have have you mate, Chris?
**Chris:** Don't believe I have, no.
**Adam:** The Devils is fucking brilliant and it's fucking extraordinary.
**Adam:** It is kind of a horror film, but it's basically, it's, Ken Russell.
**Adam:** So, already, it's fucking mad as a box of frogs.
**Adam:** And, Ollie Reed is, and it's base, it is based on a true story.
**Adam:** which was basically this, group of nuns in France,
**Adam:** basically accused a cardinal of possessing them with the devil and coming to them at night and sleeping with them and...
**Lee:** I know the true story that that's based on.
**Lee:** Yeah, didn't know that that was what the film was about.
**Adam:** Yeah, The Devils of Loudun, isn't it? Yeah.
**Adam:** And, yeah, so basically, it's it's that and again, I think Ken Russell goes with he goes with gothic horror, but it is pretty much done from the point of view of, no, this is a lot of people swept up in a hysteria.
**Adam:** and essentially a good man dies.
**Adam:** Or not, I mean, not necessarily good, he's quite a flawed character, but he is he's not what they are accusing him of and he is not the monster that they ascribe him to be.
**Adam:** but yeah, I mean, it's like like I say, I mean, it's it's Ken Russell as well, so it's like lesbian nun OG's and just yeah, it's fucking insane.
**Adam:** There is the line, which I think, Lee's brother Dean had on his WhatsApp for ages, which was,
**Adam:** A crocodile? What fresh madness is this?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is a line from the because because this is the thing, is he, the the character, like Ollie Reed's character, is basically, although he is religious and believes in God and everything, and this is sort of like the Inquisition sort of era.
**Adam:** but he's also quite progressive.
**Adam:** And again, that's another reason why the church authorities are quite happy to hang him out to dry.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because he goes around sort of saying, well, no, this is bullshit, or, you know, and and and he has confrontations with plague doctors about like, you know, where it's just like quacks trying on, you know, you know, sort of and that's where the crocodile line comes from.
**Adam:** Where it's like they're trying to treat someone and they've got a stuffed crocodile in there for some fucking reason.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** but yeah, I mean, it's he is a fucking brilliant film.
**Adam:** It is.
**Chris:** Could we get this on the list?
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** I I mean, I would say, I would say I would encourage you both to watch it.
**Adam:** I'm again, I think we could put it on, I think we could do it as an episode.
**Adam:** But I think yeah, I think it's one to watch where you're like sort of you might want to do the episode knowing what you're getting into rather than sort of because there's it's a lot.
**Adam:** I will say that and there is.
**Lee:** It's not strictly horror, either, although it's.
**Adam:** It's.
**Lee:** Although it is horrific, it's not for someone you know, the story as it is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but I mean he does, I mean he films it fantastically and there's a there's a curious thing as well which is that, the convent isn't sort of sweeping arches and things like that.
**Adam:** A lot of it takes place in very sort of clean tiled rooms that look almost surgical.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, you know, there is a it's it has very much has its own flavor and it has its own it's Ken Russell, so immediately does anyway.
**Adam:** Because he's a mad dirty bugger, so it's sort of, you know.
**Adam:** I mean, I remember there was he was on Celebrity Big Brother once and there was the guy, what was it? Donny Taret, or Danny Taret from a he was like in a punk band that was fucking Towers of London, thank you.
**Adam:** were like a punk band who were like sort of big for about two minutes in the 2000s, and he was on there talking to Ken Russell.
**Adam:** And he was like explaining to him the term MILF, but he didn't want to say fuck in front of Ken Russell.
**Adam:** And I'm like, have you any idea who you are talking to here?
**Adam:** Because, you know,
**Adam:** Ken's not going to be shocked, I know to you he seems like this sort of like rather posh old boy, but actually no.
**Adam:** He is, yeah, he is pure filth and if you've thought about it, he's probably done it, so, you know, it's.
**Adam:** But, I mean it's I I recommend it, but it's like one that.
**Adam:** I think watch it and judge whether we do it on the show, because it's like, yeah, it's not strictly horror.
**Adam:** It gets mentioned with horror a lot.
**Adam:** and I mean, I suppose something something similar.
**Adam:** Would be Robert Eggers like The Lighthouse.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Adam:** Again, not strictly horror, but it really.
**Chris:** Although hard hard to categorize under much else.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** And that's pretty much the same with The Devils, in a weird way.
**Chris:** Yeah, like who else will it appeal to aside from weird, dark people?
**Adam:** I I mean, it's.
**Adam:** It is a.
**Chris:** It's not, it's not light watching.
**Adam:** It's extreme.
**Adam:** I'll put it that way.
**Adam:** And, there's bits of it that are still cut out to this day.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Where they're like, no, you're not doing that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like, no, she can't frigger herself with the thigh bone of a burnt man. No.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Interesting.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I know.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Adam:** And I know.
**Lee:** I'm really glad you went back and rewatched The Witch, though, Chris, because.
**Lee:** I mean, I remember we were impressed with it at the time.
**Lee:** And obviously Adam and I've watched it multiple times, but I know you're not generally one who goes back and rewatches stuff an awful lot.
**Chris:** It's amazing how much there is to watch, it's hard to fit in.
**Chris:** But, yeah, I mean, that was certainly one that stood out from early on.
**Chris:** And amazing how long ago it was, but there you go.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah, it must have been must have been one of our really early episodes, like 10 or something, wasn't it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Well, I think if I, have I got it right, is it this year that we've been recording for five years?
**Lee:** I got that right?
**Adam:** About that, I think.
**Chris:** It could well be.
**Lee:** I know.
**Adam:** My scientific advisor is nodding.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, so yeah, last month we'd been recording this for five years.
**Adam:** Bloody hell.
**Lee:** Bloody hell.
**Adam:** I was on one of the first episodes, I wasn't, I was on it after a while.
**Adam:** And I was pregnant with Ted.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** And Ted's four this year.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's true.
**Lee:** So yeah, five.
**Chris:** That's that's a good way to measure.
**Adam:** Check out the episode pre-venge.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** You're on The Lost Boys as well, don't forget that.
**Adam:** Shameless self-promotion.
**Chris:** Pre-venge was number 25.
**Adam:** thank you. There we go.
**Lee:** It's funny how early we covered some of that stuff when I think about it now. It still seems fairly recent, but.
**Adam:** Well, I think The Witch, it was actually, it was pretty new.
**Chris:** It was number 10.
**Chris:** Number 10.
**Adam:** And was it?
**Adam:** Yeah, it'd only been out a couple of, I think it'd only been out a couple of years when we covered it.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, you're right.
**Adam:** So, it's weird because now it would be considered an older movie, you know, if we covered it now, it's an older movie.
**Adam:** But at the time we were like, this just came out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's I mean, it's an interesting thing.
**Adam:** Funnily enough, I was look when I was sort of looking, when I, sort of researched the films and stuff like that.
**Adam:** It's quite common now that even if they've even if we've covered someone previously, it's pretty common now that they've done another couple of movies since.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Last.
**Chris:** Yeah, or the the Green The Green Knight.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** That is on my list.
**Chris:** Definitely going to.
**Lee:** Yeah, you really need to see that.
**Lee:** Really, really, do.
**Lee:** It's amazing. Again, not again, it's another one of those, if it wasn't for the fact that I it'd be a tight squeeze to call it a horror film.
**Lee:** It'd be fantastic to cover.
**Lee:** But it's just not quite, but again, as you said, you would have to put it.
**Lee:** If you had to categorize it, it would go in as horror because it doesn't fit anything else, but.
**Lee:** But yeah, a fantastic movie.
**Lee:** Wonderful.
**Adam:** The thing I loved about that film is, and this is something you'll probably appreciate Chris, because you've now come to the or you I think have you come to the end of your Marvel run, haven't you?
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, is the great thing about it is that it does expect you to know some Arthurian legend.
**Adam:** So, when when you go into it, you're like, it's like clocking into like a second Avengers movie or like Iron Man 2 completely cold.
**Adam:** So, but you've got to be like, oh, so that's that guy.
**Adam:** Who's in this in another film, or whatever, like that, so it's like, oh, so that's Merlin.
**Adam:** Even though he's got like one line.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But you know, but obviously you know he's a big deal.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** I'm just going to finish off my my segment here by saying, here's the the the spiel that we wrote for it.
**Chris:** Join Lee, Chris and Adam as they take the Horrormobile back to New England 1630 to experience Robert Eggers' incredible 'The Witch'.
**Chris:** Marvel as the guys go skyclad.
**Chris:** Don't worry folks, this is audio only.
**Chris:** Will they get ergot poisoning? Will they mistakenly suckle a raven? Will they live deliciously?
**Chris:** There you go.
**Lee:** Now, credit where it's due, as well, we should tell everyone that Adam writes the the descriptions for all of the episodes.
**Lee:** Because they do make me laugh every single time I read them, so,
**Adam:** Thank you.
**Chris:** I think we need to turn that into like a short book, really, at some point.
**Chris:** They they are they are some genius.
**Lee:** Oh, like a like a Charlie Brooker style, will just book of the descriptions of all the episodes.
**Adam:** We should, well, what we'll what we'll do is that this is this is what we'll do, we'll have to we'll have to do a book which is just purely the kind of based on our reviews.
**Adam:** Where it's like just an an archive of all the films we've watched and how fucking, not only that, but also you you would get that impression of, wow, we jump about a lot.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I've been I've been listening to actually I've been listening to a podcast, which I would recommend, called Hammer House of Podcast.
**Adam:** which is Lisbeth Miles and I'm I'm not doing it's not A Lisbeth, it's Lisbeth Miles.
**Adam:** And, Paul Cornell, who is a, well, they're both writers, but like Paul Cornell and and Lisbeth Miles have both written stuff for Doctor Who.
**Adam:** Which is why I know them.
**Adam:** but it's basically them going through all the Hammer films in order.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, that's nice.
**Adam:** and it's it's really weird because when you do it that way.
**Adam:** You sort of like because you always the way you sort of block them in your head.
**Adam:** And then you actually find out, oh no, there's like eight films between, Curse of Frankenstein before you even get to another big classic or something like that.
**Adam:** Because they've not, I don't think they've got to The Devil Rides Out yet or anything like that.
**Adam:** But it's sort of,
**Adam:** and it's it's interesting as well.
**Adam:** Because there is there there there are ones in there that I've never seen.
**Adam:** By the man who could cheat death and things like that.
**Adam:** Which are all sort of.
**Adam:** They're ones I'm aware of, but I've never either had the fortune to find it on the telly at one point.
**Adam:** So just casually moved into it.
**Adam:** Or or sort of investigated it, but yeah, it's I mean, it's,
**Adam:** yeah, so our scattershot approach, I think, is slightly.
**Lee:** Well, it's funny you saying about, you know, obviously jokingly saying we should release a book.
**Lee:** I I near when I finished my first notepad that we were using.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I've got like a proper leather-bound leather book.
**Lee:** and when I finished my first one, part of me was like, do you know what, be a bit of fun, we should have a competition and I'll just give it away, but then I realized whoever gets it would think I've I've got some kind of disability.
**Lee:** Because I sit in the dark writing, so it looks such a mess when I finished with it, it looks like it's been written by a five-year-old.
**Lee:** I was like, they're going to think I've got broken hands.
**Lee:** So I I decided not to for that reason.
**Lee:** Also, a lot of it is things like, so for this evening's movie, I got so into the film.
**Lee:** I've written one note which is, 'Why the fuck is she naked?'
**Chris:** That's right, it's the it's the ergot poisoning.
**Chris:** Don't worry.
**Lee:** So, yeah, that didn't really help.
**Lee:** Anyway, sorry.
**Lee:** Get us back on track.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Lee:** What horror have you been watching, young man?
**Adam:** well, I watched, I finally got it on Blu-ray, I watched Galaxy, I rewatched Galaxy of Terror.
**Adam:** Which we definitely need to cover on the show just because.
**Adam:** Basically,
**Adam:** imagine 'Alien' meets 'Event Horizon'.
**Chris:** Ooh.
**Adam:** Unfortunately, it's not that.
**Adam:** But it kind of is.
**Adam:** It's a Roger Corman film from 1981.
**Adam:** So, a bit on a bit of a budget.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** it's got Sid Haig, Robert Englund and these and not just like little roles, this is them, like, you know, they're main characters.
**Adam:** Aaron Moran from Happy Days, who used to play Joanie Cunningham.
**Adam:** And Grace Zabriskie, who played Laura Palmer's mom.
**Lee:** And I do remember us discussing this at length sometime.
**Lee:** I think it must have been our House of a Thousand Corpses or Spider Baby, I'm guessing.
**Adam:** Probably around that sort of point.
**Adam:** But yeah, and,
**Adam:** yeah, I mean, it's it's just fucking mad.
**Adam:** But,
**Chris:** I've just had a quick look, the summary says, 'Science fiction suspense thriller'.
**Chris:** In which a rescue spaceship crew meets up with horrors projected by their own imaginations'.
**Chris:** That definitely sounds very good.
**Adam:** It's it's well, it has that marvelous effects.
**Adam:** I think if I remember rightly when I last talked about it, of it's aliens, but they seem to have like ghosts and magic.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you kind of like, hang on, you're aliens, you didn't have to add in ghosts and magic.
**Chris:** Yeah, I remember you saying this.
**Adam:** But, but no, I mean, it's it's unashamedly, I enjoy it.
**Adam:** And it is a very sort of, it's clearly and it's clearly from that era where everyone wanted to do Star Wars.
**Adam:** but as I but and the other thing is that the production manager is James Cameron.
**Chris:** Oh, that's interesting.
**Adam:** So, it does have elements of dry runs for Aliens.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you've got stuff in there like sort of like all the crew have got backpacks with lights on that feels very like in Alien, where they've got like the headlights on the,
**Adam:** on the helmets and they have like over-the-shoulder lights and things like that.
**Adam:** And it's kind of like, oh, this is this is you this is like a demo version.
**Adam:** Of what you're going to do later.
**Adam:** but yeah, and I and I think, yeah, I just think we should cover it in the show.
**Adam:** Because it's fucking barmy and entertaining.
**Chris:** It says here, trivia, the set dresser on this film was Bill Paxton before he took to acting.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's how he knows James Cameron.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, you're right.
**Adam:** So, that's that's how you know James Cameron.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
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---

## Ep 137 Tokyo Gore Police

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-137-tokyo-gore-police/
Air date: 27 February 2022
Duration: 01:22:32
Film: Tokyo Gore Police · Year: 2008 · Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura

### Description

It’s time to break out the pac-a-macs and sou-westers as the blood, mucus and other bodily fluids are spraying everywhere in Japanese Splatter Punk gem “Tokyo Gore Police”. A film in which it’s the stripper’s eyes that are out on stalks, not the audience’s; the kindly, cuddly Commissioner of Police keeps a pet amputee Cyber-gimp on a lead (which may reflect certain aspects of his character development); and even Steve Irwin wouldn’t mess with this crocodile. Along the way we discuss “RoboGeisha”, “It Happened Here”, “Machine Girl”, “What We Do In The Shadows”, “Big Tit Zombie”, “Resolution”, “Black Rain” and “Samurai Champloo”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, WHILST WE INJECTED OURSELVES WITH MURDEROUS DNA.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Ooh, and we are here for I've been wanting to cover this film with Chris for so long.
**Lee:** But I didn't want to scare him off.
**Chris:** I thought You want to cover me with this film?
**Adam:** Just to obscure you possibly, I don't know.
**Lee:** so I have ended up down a two-week rabbit hole of so much stuff, that I will get into, when it is my turn.
**Lee:** But before I get all carried away and excited, Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** Well, thanks to Adam, probably predominantly, I've been watching what we're doing in the Shadows.
**Lee:** Yay!
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, so the last episode I watched was the Baron Night Out on the Town.
**Adam:** that's like.
**Chris:** It is just just great quality entertainment, isn't it?
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** You know, and an ancient vampire Baron wanting to eat and he's Baron because he's got no penis, you know.
**Chris:** And and he wants to eat the pizza pie.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's what he's going to do and they're all sucking on drug blood, we've had we've had the drug blood, yeah.
**Chris:** It's just, yeah, you're not going wrong really.
**Adam:** The thing is,
**Lee:** It,
**Adam:** we drank we drank blood of people who are on drugs. Now we're on drugs.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But how, how's, I surely that's happened in another vampire thing before, and yet, I was like, I don't think I've seen anything.
**Adam:** There's a lot.
**Adam:** This is this is going to help me a bit, there's a line in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
**Chris:** We need more of those sound effects.
**Adam:** You might get more.
**Adam:** You're bargained for when she's got a.
**Lee:** Oh, sorry.
**Adam:** I'm going to cover for it.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** But yeah, yeah there's a line in Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Spike says he was at Woodstock and he what was it? I fed off a flower person and then spent the next two days watching my hand move.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Now, now just to get a bit controversial, is Spike he who must not be named?
**Adam:** hey.
**Chris:** So, it's when when Spike stands up for himself.
**Chris:** Yeah, he is.
**Chris:** No, I think he's in.
**Chris:** Oh okay.
**Chris:** Yeah, Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's Danny Trejo.
**Chris:** okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No, no.
**Adam:** But he's in.
**Chris:** He's like,
**Adam:** but he's in quite a few things, isn't he?
**Chris:** Like yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, but Book of Boba Fett, I think it's almost entirely directed by Robert Rodriguez.
**Adam:** So technically,
**Adam:** Danny Trejo has to be there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's I don't know what blood pack it is.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** It's a feature.
**Chris:** But was he in was he in was it Dusk till Dawn?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** He's in From Dusk till Dawn.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** He's he in From Dusk till Dawn? Yeah, I'm sure he is.
**Lee:** Yeah, he is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But obviously Machete, Machete kills.
**Lee:** So, yeah, Danny Trejo is fantastic.
**Adam:** He is.
**Lee:** so Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** so I, I assume you is that all you've been watching, Chris? Anything else or just?
**Chris:** well, I've also been watching Foundation, but that's that's not it's not really horror, so it's okay we can we can move on.
**Chris:** But it's I I would say every episode is getting way better so if anyone does have Apple TV, you like sci-fi, fairly serious sci-fi with some maths thrown in.
**Chris:** It's it's it's there, it's pretty good, I'd say.
**Lee:** I have had it recommended to me and it is on my list.
**Lee:** and if it wasn't for all the stuff I've smashed through in the last couple of weeks, I'd have even started it.
**Lee:** But yeah, I will get to it.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Chris:** The first few episodes, a bit little bit, wasn't sure but it's some good elements, but yeah, each one now.
**Chris:** We we've got I think there's 10 in the first series, we've got one and a half left, and yeah, each one is like, oh, I'm tempted to watch another one, but you know, it's getting a bit late.
**Lee:** Sorry to cut you off there, Chris.
**Chris:** No, no, no, that's fine, no, I wasn't I wasn't going to mention that, but I thought let's throw it in there, seeing as Adam came back to me.
**Chris:** But yeah, carry on, go for it.
**Adam:** well, after still on a slight hangover of, John Dies at the End.
**Adam:** I went back and watched Resolution which is a film by Benson Moorhead who did The Endless and,
**Adam:** Synchronic and Spring.
**Adam:** And lots of.
**Adam:** Lots of I know Lee wasn't keen on it.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, I I like the titles if anything.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, that well certainly, but the thing is with Resolution is I think that is the one that might convince Lee.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** It is a very strongly comedic film and weird shit happens.
**Adam:** In that basically it's a guy gets a video from his mate of him smoking crack and firing guns in the woods and just yeah, so he leaves his he leaves his pregnant wife and says, look, I've got to go and sort this out.
**Adam:** And she's like backing him saying like, go and see him, see if you can get him to go to rehab.
**Adam:** Rather than go to rehab, he goes there, handcuffs him to the radiator, and basically says, look, you're going to go cold turkey on crack, and then afterwards tell me if you want to go to rehab or you want to suit your life out.
**Adam:** This is like the last which by the way, sounds fucking deathly serious.
**Adam:** But the interaction of the two guys,
**Adam:** particularly the guy who is the addict,
**Adam:** Oh, man, it is so fucking funny.
**Adam:** It's just, yeah, it's brilliant.
**Adam:** The best the best way I can recommend it to Lee is certainly is that imagine it's Henry Zabrowski chained to a wall while someone makes him withdraw from crack.
**Adam:** It's very much that same sort of vibe and energy and yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** The weird side of it is nicely weird as well.
**Adam:** Because basically one the one who's sort of like babysitting him while he comes off, starts finding like pictures left around the building and like around the house.
**Adam:** And like real to real tapes and old city film and things like that.
**Adam:** And then finally at one point, while they're having a conversation, he says to him, yeah, but you sent me that video.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, I didn't send you a video.
**Adam:** And so suddenly they realize that they're actually observed in some way.
**Adam:** And it's really fucking, yeah.
**Adam:** And I would say, I would say give it a go, Lee.
**Adam:** Because I know and I think actually,
**Adam:** because the other thing with it is that I watched The Endless first.
**Adam:** And Resolution kind of is a prequel to it.
**Adam:** you don't need to have seen Resolution for The Endless to work.
**Adam:** Although at one point in The Endless you do go, oh, fuck, right, now I know what these guys are doing.
**Lee:** I remember actually, when we watched The Endless, I'm sure you said, yeah, those two guys in the shack have got their own side movie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and you discussed it when we covered The Endless.
**Lee:** So yeah, I I I might give it a go, remember you recommending it at the time, but I really have got.
**Adam:** Well, I'd say that because also I think I think you'd quite like Spring.
**Adam:** and Synchronic is just very fucking good.
**Adam:** You know, one of those things where you just put it on.
**Adam:** And it's like, this is.
**Adam:** an efficiently told story.
**Adam:** It feels like John Carpenter or something like that where it's like that's just you ain't fucking around.
**Adam:** Here's the story, here's the high concept, right, you've got it, right, we're going with it.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's really, yeah, I really recommend that.
**Adam:** I like I like all their stuff, to be honest.
**Adam:** but yeah, I really I really like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, that was as I say that was kind of like a hold over where it was like, something a bit John dies at the end.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** But it's got that because it's got that same character interaction of just sort of like, yeah.
**Adam:** anyway.
**Adam:** Also, and that was obviously.
**Adam:** See, I've I've I've.
**Adam:** sequel all this.
**Adam:** This is great.
**Adam:** And obviously that was that was if we watched John Dies at the End as my birthday film.
**Adam:** Very kindly Chris got me, a Blu-ray of It Happened Here, which is from 1968.
**Adam:** And it's basically a.
**Adam:** what happened if Germany took over England during the Second World War?
**Adam:** So basically we surrender and then we're an occupied nation.
**Adam:** Same as France or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It was it's fucking good and so and then it just takes such a dark turn at the end.
**Adam:** Because it's like, well, much like Nazi Germany took a dark turn at the end, shall we politely put it or ridiculously put it.
**Adam:** It's like, yeah, as and you just follow someone who's quite ordinary.
**Adam:** And it's and it's really weird because coming out of the well not coming out of the pandemic, but choosing to ignore the pandemic.
**Adam:** As it appears to be this the solution now.
**Adam:** Is there's loads of bits where it's like they're saying, yeah, but.
**Adam:** You know, they're rounding up people or, you know, they're they're doing this, they're doing that, they're killing people or whatever.
**Adam:** And people are all quite, yes, I know it's authoritarian, but it'd be just nice to get back to normal, wouldn't it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, or like, oh, I got an extra potato on me ration, you know, so it's it's proven it is worth it.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And everyone's kind of like, well if we just work with them, you know, that's the new administration, let's just get on with it.
**Adam:** Because it's a lot easier than the fucking war was.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And it's so sort of it's horrifying in that manner.
**Adam:** And then you follow this woman through who's a nurse and I mean, I'm going to right people can skip a couple of minutes because I think I just want to say.
**Adam:** Basically this nurse ends up working for the only nursing organization, which is a fascist run nursing organization.
**Adam:** a couple of friends of hers have taken in.
**Adam:** Because, oh, there's.
**Adam:** partisans as well.
**Adam:** So America is funding British partisans.
**Adam:** So there's still like much like the resistance in France, there's people like out in the woods and stuff like that who are still waging war on the occupying German forces.
**Adam:** So you've got that in there.
**Adam:** And then she she just happens to know some people who get mixed up, well, basically they are partisan sympathizers, they end up having the having an injured partisan at their house.
**Adam:** And it gets found out, they get taken away.
**Adam:** And yeah, you don't see them again.
**Adam:** And that's it and there's no explanation given.
**Adam:** And she gets demoted and sent to the country to work in a different hospital.
**Adam:** But it seems like a much better hospital.
**Adam:** Because it's all like, no, it's not like the, you know, like London's sort of fascist lead thing.
**Adam:** We don't believe in that here.
**Adam:** And everything.
**Adam:** So she gets to dress as a nurse rather than a stormtrooper and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Which it sounds ridiculous, but it's not in the context of thing.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, so she goes and works at this place and it's like a sanatorium in the country and they have a group of miners brought in who've got TB.
**Adam:** Including a small child.
**Adam:** And they give them their sedative at night.
**Adam:** And she and like this nurse is helping out, they give them the sedatives, they give them the sedatives at night.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah, she goes off shift.
**Adam:** Comes back the next day, all the beds are empty.
**Adam:** And basically they've been administering lethal doses as would have been the same in Germany at the time.
**Adam:** Of for ill and disabled and incurable patients.
**Adam:** And it's just so fucking horrific.
**Adam:** And this as I say and the film really it's brilliant and so well done.
**Adam:** It was filmed over eight years.
**Adam:** Because it's actually directed by when they started, the directors were 18 and 16.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** And in the end they were doing this movie and it got so sort of people were putting money in, you know, and everything else like and quite famous directors.
**Adam:** Like I think Kubrick donated film stock that was left over from
**Adam:** Dr. Strangelove.
**Adam:** And all this, you know, there were people were really sort of chipping in in this sort of thing of it's like, no, this is something worthwhile.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it's yeah, it's just I mean, it's fucking amazing.
**Adam:** So thank you, Chris.
**Adam:** And it is one of those things where I would say, going into it knowing knowing what it is.
**Adam:** But fuck me, it's so good and so fucking.
**Chris:** It still hits hard.
**Adam:** Yeah, it really does.
**Adam:** And as I say, there's those you do still get those parallels like I said when it's when it's mostly just British people being sort of like, well, I got an extra ounce of backy.
**Adam:** And, you know, the buses are running again.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, what's what's the problem, really?
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And,
**Chris:** What what did the Nazis ever do for us? Well,
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** apart from that and this I think will probably feed quite into Lee's things.
**Adam:** So I watched I watched Tokyo Gore Police a couple of nights ago.
**Adam:** And then yesterday it was like again, what do you do?
**Adam:** So I went for a film that features the special effects of the director and special effects guy of Tokyo Gore Police, RoboGeisha.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Which.
**Adam:** is.
**Adam:** And here's the best bit is.
**Adam:** It's a film I've been meaning for Claire to see because I thought she'd sort of quite enjoy it.
**Adam:** because it's fucking mad.
**Adam:** I mean, like Tokyo Gore Police the same.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** yeah, sort of I was like, oh, I don't know, should I watch it? Will I end up getting confused between the two but like within two seconds of the opening Claire was like,
**Adam:** You're not going to get this confused, are you?
**Adam:** Like,
**Adam:** no, no, really not.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** you know, so similar and so not similar.
**Adam:** It's quite an impressive sort of thing.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** And it does actually have a cameo from, the, the director of Tokyo Gore Police as well.
**Adam:** he's one of the he's one of the Yakuza and bosses who gets killed off in like a montage.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Lee:** I didn't realize that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah, which is just the story the well, it's it's what it says on the tin.
**Adam:** It's Robogager.
**Chris:** Now, you took you took my slogan away from me.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I was going to use that for Tokyo Gore Police.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Now this is an interesting thing I've been thinking about, though.
**Adam:** And I shouldn't be.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** There's like so RoboGeisha, Tokyo Gore Police, you know, there there's others that are a bit more obscure.
**Adam:** But a lot of the time it always sounds a bit.
**Adam:** Basically.
**Adam:** Porn films used to be sort of puns or, you know, they'd be sort of like,
**Adam:** tits in the trees, I don't know, you know, something a bit more romantic, maybe.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But because of because pornography is now driven purely by computers and the internet, all porn titles are now like shopping lists because it works with algorithms.
**Chris:** For searching.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, it's.
**Lee:** So we've lost that.
**Adam:** I I don't even want to speculate.
**Adam:** But you you know what I mean, it would be like.
**Adam:** teen urban gorilla.
**Adam:** big tits.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** You something like that that would then.
**Lee:** What are you watching?
**Adam:** Well, I was trying to I was trying to find something wasn't well, basically didn't sound didn't sound like I'd actually looked it up.
**Adam:** But,
**Lee:** Well, it's funny.
**Adam:** But yeah and I I I get that sort of same thing with Japanese like translations of like the the English translations of Japanese titles.
**Adam:** Have that same thing to me.
**Adam:** Where it's like, I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen.
**Chris:** They become very literal.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and I wonder if that would help in these days that people are sort of like,
**Adam:** should films start going that more, you know, like.
**Adam:** Evil Space Bastard, you know, something like that.
**Adam:** That gives you.
**Adam:** Actually, it's it's very much a low it's a low budget horror thing, definitely.
**Adam:** Because it goes back it's kind of like exploitation films, I suppose.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It goes back to that, you know, where it's like the.
**Adam:** sort of, you know.
**Adam:** Just the night manglers or something that's quite sort of.
**Adam:** And that's yeah.
**Adam:** I'm going to stop now because I feel I'm going to blind alley of a tangent.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I've lost it.
**Lee:** And and the thing is you've you've led perfectly into one of my films.
**Lee:** So I wasn't sure where I was going to start with what I've been watching, but that's perfect.
**Lee:** So, yeah, so I watched RoboGeisha as well.
**Lee:** I also watched The Machine Girl.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** which again, exactly the same vein.
**Lee:** and then also I watched one called Kyonyû Dragon is the Japanese title.
**Chris:** How does that translate?
**Lee:** but as Adam said, it was released in the UK as Big Tits Zombie.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** which it is a lie because there isn't a Big Tits Zombie in it, it's a group of strippers who find a secret door in the green room, that leads to an occultist's lair.
**Lee:** And one of them, the goth one reads from a book and brings back zombies.
**Lee:** and they have to fight them in order to stop them from getting out and attacking Japan.
**Lee:** So yes.
**Lee:** It's it's one of those.
**Lee:** I heard about it because it was originally it was around this same period all these films were coming out.
**Lee:** And it was based on a graphic novel.
**Lee:** So I was like, oh, yeah, great.
**Lee:** Yeah, and then when they announced what the title was going to be, I was like, oh man, that's going to be on my Amazon list for the rest of my life now.
**Lee:** Do I really want to pre-order that?
**Lee:** And I was like, fuck it, who's looking at my Amazon list?
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, but that's.
**Adam:** That's the point as well.
**Adam:** Is yeah, but I think sometimes that the I mean, obviously the problem with algorithms is that it fundamentally means you have to repeat the same mistakes, so you you know, you have to.
**Adam:** Right, so we have to keep refining this by fucking this up every single fucking time.
**Adam:** You know, like like Groundhog Day.
**Adam:** But with generations and fucking aons.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** I digress.
**Adam:** This might be just a fundamental opposition that I have.
**Lee:** So, yes, so I watched those.
**Lee:** I then realized I was talking to someone recently about Guillermo del Toro.
**Lee:** And realized that I I had a period in the in the sort of nineties when I didn't watch a lot of films, I was living in a bedsit and my girlfriend at the time much preferred playing PlayStation to watching stuff.
**Lee:** So I I didn't really see anything for a while and because of that, I missed Blade 2.
**Lee:** And as a result, I therefore never saw Blade 3 either.
**Lee:** So this week I've gone back and rewatched all of the Blade movies.
**Lee:** Well, I say rewatch.
**Lee:** I rewatched Blade and then the two subsequent movies.
**Lee:** they're so much more fun than I remember the first one being.
**Lee:** It's so I don't think I'd realized just how sort of nod to literally.
**Lee:** There's bits when he looks in the camera and delivers the most ridiculous role.
**Lee:** Wesley Snipes is phenomenally good in these in those films.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I really, really enjoyed them as a trilogy.
**Lee:** They still look really good.
**Lee:** Except for Blade Soul, which looks like he's bought in a pound shop, it's the most plastic shit looking thing I've seen in my life.
**Lee:** And the thing is once you've realized how crap looking it is, it's always on his back, you can't not see it, it just looks gash.
**Lee:** But other than that, it they still hold up and they're, you know, they're great fun.
**Adam:** Was it worried sometimes when they've put that much money into it?
**Adam:** And it's like, well, it it's on his back so we'll have to have it soft so if he falls over or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But like the BBC can do a convincing frying pan that you can hit someone with.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and it's like, what what are you spending your money on?
**Adam:** Come on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So, so we watched the third one just before we started recording tonight.
**Lee:** As I say, the first time.
**Lee:** So I knew Ryan Reynolds was in it, I didn't realize he was basically playing Deadpool in it.
**Lee:** Which was.
**Adam:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** yeah, he plays the exact same smart ass, never knows when to keep his mouth shut, always got a funny line no matter how much he's getting the shit kicked out of him.
**Lee:** And then Natasha Lyonne's in it.
**Lee:** Patton Oswalt's in it.
**Lee:** It's just.
**Adam:** All right.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** So, yeah, I was totally blown away by that and yeah, it made for a great weekend.
**Adam:** Is the third one Guillermo del Toro?
**Lee:** I don't think so, no.
**Lee:** It's only played two, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, as I say, and and Wesley Snipes, I I sort of remember Wesley Snipes overacting in it, which he totally does.
**Lee:** But it's it's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But it's when he does the sort of look to camera and does that, you've got to be kidding, right?
**Lee:** That it just like, oh he's totally in on it and it's and I missed that the first time round.
**Lee:** I think, although I enjoyed the film, I think I missed that it didn't take itself too seriously.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think I was.
**Adam:** Yeah, I know you mean, yeah.
**Lee:** To fully take that in.
**Lee:** But yeah, fantastic.
**Adam:** Well, if I remember rightly, that came out around Blade and that came out around about the same time as the first Underworld film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which did take itself far too fucking seriously.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I think that's why the Blade films are so much better.
**Lee:** Because they know they're ridiculous and they just go.
**Lee:** And it gets more ludicrous as it goes.
**Lee:** You know, in the first one he has to have injections to stop him from going full vamp.
**Lee:** And by the third one, he's just got this mouthpiece, like a gum shield, and he just puts it in and choose on it and then he's fine again.
**Lee:** It's like it's just.
**Lee:** ludicrous, but awesome.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** They're probably things that come from the comics, though.
**Lee:** Yeah, quite possible.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, it might have been that they as writers come in, they always up stuff or change it around.
**Adam:** And it's like, oh, well, that's a fucking pain in the ass.
**Adam:** Let's write this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I wonder if it's because they certainly I know that they do it very well with.
**Adam:** like Marvel stuff.
**Adam:** Of putting in the sort of comic beats in a way, you know, so you get that.
**Adam:** They still have the proper backstory or the significant backstory.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, so much fun.
**Lee:** so from that, I then went on to a load of Japanese stuff.
**Lee:** Because I I've always been love Japanese culture and history.
**Lee:** And I've been really into that since I was a kid.
**Lee:** So I do every now and again just go for a wave of watching like Japanese films.
**Lee:** So I dug all my all my stuff out and then I didn't watch any of it.
**Lee:** And I watched loads of like Hollywood versions of Japanese films.
**Lee:** So I watched 47 Ronin from.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** 2013, Keanu Reeves movie.
**Lee:** with Hiroyuki Sanada as well, who's just one of the greatest actors ever.
**Lee:** this film is a total guilty pleasure of mine, I know it really isn't a great film, but this is probably about the eighth time I've seen it.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** It's it's well worth it.
**Lee:** It's a it's a stupid action movie.
**Lee:** But yeah, set in feudal Japan.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** How wrong can you go with that?
**Lee:** after that, I watched Black Rain from 1989.
**Adam:** Ooh.
**Lee:** With Michael Douglas.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** The Ridley Scott movie.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I wasn't going to watch it, but I saw, I've not listened to the latest not for everyone podcast, but I did see on there that they that somebody watched it.
**Lee:** I think it was Adam recently watched it.
**Adam:** I think it was, yeah.
**Lee:** So it was in.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it was in the description and it reminded me last night when I had nothing much on so I decided to give that another go.
**Lee:** Yeah, and fantastic.
**Lee:** Really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I mean, it's it's so 80s, it's kind of painful.
**Lee:** But if you like 80s trash.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** I always remember the trailer for it look, because it was it was on loads of fucking.
**Adam:** films at one point like videos at one point like rent.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** But the trailer always it looked like because you've got you've got the set in and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And slow mo guns and stuff like that.
**Adam:** It really looked quite Blade Runner.
**Lee:** It it's funny, that's what I always got from it.
**Lee:** And it's all in the dark and there's lots of neon.
**Lee:** So yeah, it's totally got that Blade Runner feel.
**Adam:** Isn't John didn't John Carpenter write it or something?
**Adam:** I'm sure there's something connection with John Carpenter with it.
**Adam:** Or am I.
**Adam:** I'm I might be, oh, shit.
**Adam:** I might be thinking of that fucking film with Tommy Lee Jones and a supercar.
**Lee:** Oh, I don't know what that is, but I want to see.
**Chris:** That sounds like something Lee would want to watch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Actually.
**Adam:** I mean, yeah, it's I yeah, it's quite an early film, John Carpenter wrote it but he didn't direct it with Tommy Lee Jones and basically he's got a.
**Adam:** a Night Rider, you know, like a sort of government supercar.
**Adam:** And that that is literally what I can remember.
**Adam:** Which I don't think he's a comment on the film, but I think it might be a comment on what state I watched the film in.
**Lee:** I've written it down, so I'll find out what that is tomorrow.
**Adam:** Black Moon Rising.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** I'll I'll look for that.
**Lee:** then after that had finished, it was only midnight and I was still going.
**Lee:** So I watched for the first time 13 Assassins, the Takeshi Miike film.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Wow, what a movie that is.
**Adam:** Yeah, that is pretty fucking.
**Adam:** His it's it's weird because he's done so much, because I mean I I would imagine by the time, certainly from the time we started this podcast, if I'd written down how many films he'd done, he'd already done two more by now.
**Adam:** So I'd had to have like shave shave the estimate a bit.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** because he's done so much, but he does his like crime and Yakuza stuff, he's fucking terrific, you know.
**Adam:** And it's weird because you assume because it's because it's him.
**Adam:** You assume that it's going to be fucking mad because that's the other side of things that you get with him.
**Adam:** And it isn't necessarily.
**Adam:** But they do, he does melt it now and again really fucking well.
**Lee:** Well, this did, like it started off really grim at the beginning because so for anyone who hasn't seen it, the story is that the Shogun's got a half brother.
**Lee:** And he's getting on a bit and he's worried the emperor has said he's going to put his half brother in to replace the Shogun at some point soon.
**Lee:** But the half brother is a fucking head case, who just murders, and mutilates and is just an absolute animal.
**Lee:** so to stop him, the Shogun basically hires an assassin and says, look, can you put a team together and take him out because there's no way he can be running his country.
**Lee:** and this group of assassins go after him.
**Lee:** So the beginning of it is just all the stories of what this animal has done and it's really horrific.
**Lee:** But then it's got some really comical moments in it as well once it gets going later on.
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** The guy they picked the 13th member who they picked up in the jungle, when they're crossing the mountain as he starts off as a guide.
**Lee:** And then at the end he says, oh, no, I'm going to stick with you guys.
**Lee:** One of the Samurai sneaks up behind him and clubs him with a great big trunk of a tree to knock him out and he just turns around and goes, what, what do you want?
**Lee:** Like, like as if the guy had tapped him on the shoulder.
**Lee:** Another one comes up and clubs him again and he turns around and goes, why are you all trying to get my attention?
**Lee:** And then nobody's talking to him.
**Lee:** He doesn't work out that they're trying to knock him unconscious.
**Lee:** And then they're like, this guy's really tough, he's an idiot, but he's really tough.
**Lee:** So they just take him into battle with two boulders wrapped up in ropes rather than swords and he just clubs the living shit out of everyone with them, it's just, oh, it's just, yeah, it's it's it's really.
**Lee:** It is, it's that thing where tonally it's kind of up and down, but somehow it just makes it work.
**Lee:** And it's epic.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** the next thing.
**Lee:** I watched after that, Adam, if you have this is what I was saying to you before we started.
**Lee:** Adam, if you haven't seen this, it is a crime, have you seen Samurai Champloo?
**Adam:** Never even fucking heard of it.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So it's the same guy who did Cowboy Bebop.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** He's an.
**Lee:** It's an anime series about two Samurai and a young girl trying to track down a basically she wants to find this samurai, but all she knows is he smells of sunflowers.
**Lee:** She rescues two Samurai from being executed at the beginning.
**Lee:** So they've got like a blood pact and have to stay with her until they find this samurai she's looking for.
**Lee:** but it's all hip-hop and stuff in all the cutaways in between.
**Lee:** And all the fight sequences have hip-hop music playing over them.
**Lee:** It's so you.
**Lee:** It's just fantastic.
**Adam:** Cool.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** So I won't go into too much on that.
**Lee:** And finally, just to wrap up very quickly, I also watched the whole of the Netflix series Age of Samurai.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Excuse me, I'd down a cherry Pepsi Max before we started.
**Lee:** And it's trying to.
**Lee:** so it's basically it covers a 30-year span at the end of or not at the end, but a 30-year span of feudal Japan, how they went from all of the areas being controlled by their own clans.
**Lee:** Basically one clan started getting bigger and bigger and kind of took over.
**Lee:** and the guy who started it gets superseded as they go along the way and all the rest of it.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** It's just incredible, so it's a it's a dramatization of historical events.
**Lee:** So it cuts between talking heads of historians and, you know, them actually playing it out.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** It's just incredible, I watched it.
**Lee:** I watched all six episodes, so that's about five hours long, I watched it in one go.
**Lee:** And when it gets got to the end, I was so gutted.
**Lee:** I was tempted to go back and start the whole thing again.
**Lee:** It's so entertaining.
**Lee:** pretty brutal and nasty in places, but I mean, it it's historically accurate as as much as I can tell.
**Lee:** So it kind of would be.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's a really,
**Lee:** really good story.
**Lee:** So if you get the opportunity, make your way through that.
**Lee:** And that.
**Lee:** finally is everything I watched in the last two weeks.
**Chris:** That's been a busy two weeks.
**Lee:** Or.
**Lee:** not busy two weeks.
**Lee:** I've literally been working,mming and watching stuff and that's literally it.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Except for.
**Lee:** I would like to say a massive thank you very quickly.
**Lee:** Adam, guest on the show previously, when we did what did we do?
**Lee:** It was a Netflix anime thing, Castlevania.
**Chris:** Castlevania, yeah.
**Lee:** on with Adam day before yesterday in London and he took me around the Natural History Museum because I'd never been.
**Chris:** Oh, excellent.
**Lee:** It was a bit of a fleeting visit, we only had like an hour and a half because we were going off to see Book of Mormon.
**Lee:** So we stopped in on the way.
**Adam:** Which is great.
**Lee:** Oh, I literally had to wipe tears away from my face, I laughed so hard.
**Lee:** That was fantastic.
**Lee:** But yeah, so thanks very much again to Adam for that.
**Lee:** We need to get a Welcome to Horror group together at some point and catch him on a day off again and get into take us down and and show us around.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** definitely.
**Lee:** It was fantastic.
**Lee:** So anyone who's not been to the Natural History Museum, I like 40 years old, never been to the Natural History Museum.
**Lee:** I was missing out.
**Lee:** I definitely going back and doing like a full half day there at least.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** I I'll tell you what.
**Adam:** It's the wonderful thing is with it is,
**Adam:** I used to that was something where I used to just go on me up.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, because you can just because in a weird way it's like.
**Adam:** I don't want someone to have to put up with how long I'm going to stare.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Also, they do sleepovers at the National History Museum as well.
**Lee:** Yes, he did mention that.
**Lee:** And I did I do like the sound of that, I've got and he said they they do entertainment and like you get a full meal and everything.
**Lee:** So, yeah, I I could totally see myself doing that, yeah.
**Lee:** Thank you, Claire.
**Lee:** But yeah, I think that's definitely one of the things on my hit list to do at some point once the world goes back to normal.
**Adam:** Also a big thank you to.
**Adam:** Erie Essex.
**Adam:** Who they gave us a lovely shout out.
**Adam:** So thank you for that, ladies.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah, go listen to that.
**Adam:** And obviously go listen to not for everyone.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Oh, to the ladies from Eerie Essex who asked when we're covering Rosemary's Baby.
**Lee:** Just for you, we've added it to the end of our current watch list so in the next six weeks or so, it will be coming up.
**Lee:** So we're going to cover it just for you.
**Lee:** So there you go.
**Lee:** Mark of support for Essex people podcasting.
**Adam:** And and we have also some a late dispatch from Joe Watson.
**Adam:** Who's watched the Netflix Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and he gave I think he said he gave it seven out of 10.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** So that's not, yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's what it's weird, I just keep hearing so many different things.
**Adam:** Where people are, oh, it's so crap.
**Adam:** And then other people that is, oh my God, it's amazing.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** I just don't believe him.
**Lee:** I I need to check it out.
**Lee:** As I said, if it wasn't for the fact I I wanted I had so many things I wanted to hit before we got to this episode.
**Lee:** Although none of them will be in any way relevant and be discussed.
**Lee:** I for my own, sanity, yeah, I just sometimes I just like to get into a little niche and just sit in it for a while.
**Lee:** And that's where I've been for the last fortnight.
**Lee:** So I didn't want anything that was going to.
**Lee:** encroach on that, but yeah, that's definitely next, I think.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Just a quick one, just before we start.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Have you seen the the stuff for Studio 666?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Foo Fighters have made a horror film.
**Lee:** Oh, I heard talk of this.
**Lee:** I wasn't sure if.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's.
**Adam:** It's been made.
**Adam:** Now, I think it's actually been made.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** I need to see that.
**Adam:** Yeah, I was I thought to myself, yeah, no.
**Lee:** I'm not a massive Foo Fighters fan, but their music videos, I don't know if they still are, but they used to be magnificent.
**Lee:** So I.
**Adam:** Not only that.
**Adam:** Also, I'm not a big Foo Fighters fan, I'm a massive Dave Grohl fan.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's that's that's me.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** Also, Glenn Danzig has got a new one out.
**Lee:** A cowboy zombie, a cowboy vampire movie.
**Adam:** Oh, right, I think all of his movies could be described as cowboy.
**Lee:** It shows.
**Lee:** on IMDb that it came out last year, but I cannot find it to watch or buy anywhere, so I don't know if it's been universally panned and has disappeared or if they're just having distribution issues.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Maybe maybe it's just Danzig's finally discovered the emotion of shame.
**Lee:** Too late, Glenn, too late.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I love the miss fits, but that last film was just, oh, painful.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I one thing I will say just as a closing statement with Tokyo Gore Police.
**Adam:** And this is.
**Adam:** a terrible thing.
**Adam:** We haven't had a door in our lounge for about a year.
**Adam:** due to it being removed and then several lockdowns and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah, we finally have had a living room door for the first time in a year.
**Adam:** So Tokyo Gore Police was the first film I've managed to watch for this podcast without well, as loud as I wanted to.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And what.
**Adam:** But more importantly, the ridiculously thing is.
**Adam:** I usually have to watch stuff with subtitles.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And even though I could have this as fucking loud as I wanted to.
**Adam:** I still was reading subtitles.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's fucking worth it.
**Lee:** I am looking forward to being able to go back and watch films now, yeah, without having to have subtitles on.
**Lee:** Because I I've spent that last two weeks nothing but subtitles.
**Lee:** So, yes, so to close out, definitely go and watch this.
**Lee:** It's amazing and the subsequent films, so for our next episode, we are going to be covering a film that Adam and I saw at the cinema at the Gwarzone weekend, the reason I wanted to cover this was twofold, one, when Chris and I this year went to Horror on Sea, we saw a Danielle Harris movie, yes, yeah, so I wanted to watch this because it's one of my favorite Danielle Harris movies.
**Lee:** I loved this film so much.
**Lee:** I must have seen it loads, and there is.
**Lee:** I don't know if I'm sure I'll tell the story again next week, but there was an actor in it and I'm sure when we left the cinema I said to Adam, I really hope I see him again.
**Lee:** He was really good and then I just watched him in the latest James Bond film.
**Lee:** So good to see him out and working.
**Lee:** so we are going to be watching Blood Night, the Legend of Mary Hatchet.
**Lee:** low budget film which I don't think I've seen since Gore Fest.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I'm going to be really interested to see it.
**Lee:** You're in for a treat.
**Lee:** I believe it might be on Netflix, I I double check there's obviously I bought it as soon as it came out after we'd seen it.
**Lee:** because I loved it so much and I've watched it half a dozen times.
**Lee:** But yeah, I think I saw it recently.
**Lee:** I checked and it was on Netflix.
**Lee:** I I definitely found it somewhere to watch online on a subscription.
**Lee:** thing that we've all got, so something like that.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** So go and track down a copy of that.
**Lee:** Hopefully you won't regret it.
**Lee:** It's back to super low budget independent movies, but done really well.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Excellent.
**Lee:** to look forward to it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** On Bill Mosley.
**Lee:** Never go wrong with Bill Mosley.
**Lee:** Right, so thanks ever so much for listening, everyone.
**Lee:** go and check out Tokyo Gore Police.
**Lee:** Go and watch Blood Night.
**Lee:** Also listen to Eerie Essex.
**Lee:** Also listen to not for everyone podcast, obviously.
**Lee:** Brothers Across Seas.
**Lee:** And we shall see you all in the fortnightly time for Blood Night.
**Lee:** Goodnight.
**Adam:** Goodnight.
**Chris:** Goodnight.

---

## Ep 136 John Dies at the End

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-136-john-dies-at-the-end/
Air date: 13 February 2022
Duration: 01:03:06
Film: John Dies at the End · Year: 2012 · Director: Don Coscarelli

### Description

It’s Adam’s birthday choice, so he’s wheeled out what he feels is an under appreciated blast of weirdness: Don Coscarelli’s “John Dies At The End”, adapted from the book by David Wong. A film in which Baron Afanas discusses penises a great deal; Mr Krabs has a Vegas residency; and the teacher from “Gremlins” isn’t taking this shit anymore. Will John die at the end? Will Lee’s opinion of the film change on a second viewing? Will Chris agree with Lee, or be right? Will Adam’s son have a sleepless night and necessitate a big chunk being edited out near the end? Listen and find out! Along the way we discuss “Masque of the Red Death”, “The Book of Boba Fett” and more selections from the series “Masters of Horror”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, AND ACROSS SEVERAL FRACTURED TIMELINES.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And da da da da da da. It's a birthday. We're here for Adam's birthday choice.
**Chris:** Happy birthday.
**Adam:** Thank you. Thank you, everyone.
**Adam:** It's one year older and apparently no wiser.
**Lee:** That's a recurring birthday theme for all of us, I think.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so for those of you who don't normally listen, we will be spoiling the things that we cover, and we will be swearing.
**Lee:** So, if you're easily offended, now is the time to get on your fucking.
**Chris:** Bog off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so in our usual format, we'll start Chris, have you watched anything horror related in the last two weeks?
**Chris:** It's not horror related, but I'm going to get away with it because it's Star Wars.
**Chris:** So we went back to watching Book of Boba Fett last two weeks after stopping because the first couple didn't quite grab our attention.
**Chris:** But, I think we heard from someone that said, look, episode six, it gets a lot better. Should stick with it.
**Chris:** So it's like, all right, we'll go back, put in the effort.
**Chris:** And like, there's definitely there's bits about it that I really like.
**Chris:** but I don't know what it was, overall, it just didn't quite have the same excitement as Mandalorian, but it definitely is getting better.
**Chris:** so I did really enjoy episode five and six.
**Chris:** I thought we were starting to get a lot more interesting.
**Chris:** And I won't spoil it.
**Chris:** Because we shouldn't spoil this, I guess.
**Chris:** I'm assuming neither of you have seen it.
**Lee:** I have.
**Adam:** I have.
**Chris:** You haven't had it yet.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** I, I mean, I know that it's getting a lot of hate.
**Chris:** Is it? Yeah, so I haven't read anything online about it.
**Chris:** yeah, we just heard from someone that was watching it.
**Adam:** Yeah, because yeah, what's been said that.
**Lee:** I think.
**Adam:** I think well, I just think a lot of people, I mean, to be honest, I mean we'll, we'll, we'll cover it on Mos Eisley,
**Adam:** on, on an episode of Mos Eisley Happy Hour, which will be resurrected.
**Chris:** Is it the, high expectations syndrome?
**Adam:** I think it is. I think it's everyone really loved the Mandalorian.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But also because it's Boba Fett.
**Chris:** Yeah. That is quite a, a risk.
**Adam:** Well, I think in a weird way, much as we kind of said about watching it all in order, you kind of Darth Vader loses his impact because you know more about it.
**Chris:** Yeah.

---

## Bonus Horror on Sea 2022

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-horror-on-sea-2022/
Air date: 6 February 2022
Duration: 00:41:33

### Description

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside! Especially when Horror on seas film festival is in town! In our time honoured tradition Lee, Chris and Lady J spent a great day with previous guest Dave at the Horror on Sea film festival and we wanted to share our thoughts on the films and shorts we saw as well as the film festival in general in another bonus episode. So grab you bucket and Spade and join us as we discuss "You Might Get Lost" " Don't Open the Box" "Off the Hook" " Redwood Massacre: Annihilation" "Bad News" "Death Ranch" "For Him" and "Frank and Mary".

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Jennifer:** I'm Jennifer.
**Chris:** We have Jennifer back.
**Jennifer:** Woo!
**Lee:** We are here for
**Chris:** So, so, so. Woo.
**Lee:** We're here for another cheeky bonus episode to cover our experience this year of Horror On Sea.
**Jennifer:** Indeed.
**Lee:** Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we could only make it one day this year, but we some of us got three films in, some of us got two.
**Jennifer:** We did.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** We should be exploring now. Unfortunately, Dave also cannot be here otherwise
**Jennifer:** He was with us for the weekend, we would have liked to have had him here, but unfortunately.
**Chris:** Fortunately he was. Busy at partying.
**Jennifer:** But yes, he's out at Galavanting.
**Lee:** Of course.
**Jennifer:** But I'm sure he will add some comments to the you know, to this.
**Lee:** I'm sure he will tell us where we're wrong.
**Jennifer:** Exactly.
**Lee:** So, the first, so this, so we went on Sunday the 16th of January this year.
**Jennifer:** Should we maybe just set the scene for people that might have not listened to previous podcasts of what Horror On Sea is?
**Lee:** Well done, good idea, Jennifer.
**Lee:** So, Horror On Sea is a it's an independent horror film festival that takes place over two weekends in January at Southend on Sea in Essex.
**Jennifer:** Woo!
**Lee:** it's put on by the White Bus Company, and it's headed up by Paul, whose surname I don't know.
**Unknown:** Paul Cosgrave apparently.
**Lee:** who if you know what every year I see him and I always give him a nod and I always think, you know what I should go over and just say, just speak to him and say you know what he does such a good job and he must, you know, he must go through, he must watch a lot of crap to get to these good films.
**Jennifer:** Well, I think I think he's got a team.
**Chris:** Did he?
**Chris:** Yeah, he mentioned the panel that have to have to them all.
**Lee:** But yeah, so him and his team do a fantastic job. It's a it's a great weekend.
**Lee:** yeah, it's always a good crowd as well. It's quite good to watch them and the merch is always good and it's it's in a nice setting. It's in a
**Jennifer:** What did you buy this year, Lee? Did you spend your money?
**Lee:** This year, I spunked a load of money. I haven't really got on the Arrow release of the Yokai box set of all four of the Yokai movies, so 100.
**Chris:** Yeah, so is this something
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Is this something we're going to be talking more in depth about? Have you, have you seen it yet?
**Lee:** I I've already seen so there's four films in there and I've already seen three of them, but I really enjoy them. But I saw because they're public domain now, so the ones that I saw were on archive.org.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** So they look like just rips. so obviously the arrow releases are going to be all shiny and sexy.

---

## Ep 135 3 Dogs for the price of 1

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-135-3-dogs-for-the-price-of-1/
Air date: 30 January 2022
Duration: 01:40:13

### Description

After our last episode’s look at Hammer’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, we take a deep dive into the great Grimpen Mire, and compare and contrast 3 further adaptations of the classic tale. We cover the 1988 adaptation from the impeccable Granada TV Series starring Jeremy Brett; in which we learn that the great detective was, at best, a mediocre chef. We then discuss “The Hounds of Baskerville” from the modern reimagining “Sherlock” with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman; which leads us to the conclusion that, in modern times, Holmes comes over as much more of a prick than in the Victorian era. And we conclude with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s 1978 comedy version; a film which sticks far more closely to the narrative than is strictly necessary for a silly spoof, and introduces the greatest non-Doyle character into the canon: Mrs Ada Holmes. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF EXPERIMENTAL NERVE GAS.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** We are here for the second half of our exhaustive but incredibly entertaining, Hand of the Baskervilles deep dive, I guess you'd call it.
**Adam:** This has been, this has been the deepest dive we've ever done.
**Lee:** It has.
**Adam:** This is deep in the Sherlock.
**Lee:** But it's amazing.
**Adam:** It certainly is.
**Lee:** It's amazing how all four of them, I'll try and leave the original, the Hammer one out of tonight and not keep going back to it.
**Lee:** But it's amazing how the same story can be told in such entirely different styles.
**Lee:** And I love every single one of them in its own way.
**Adam:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** That is a spoiler alert, there will be spoilers, and there will be swearing, but, you know, it's 100 years old.
**Lee:** If you don't know the story, the Hand of the Baskerville.
**Adam:** Hopefully, and if you listen to our last episode, you may have a little hint as to what happens in the story.
**Chris:** Yes, that's very true.
**Lee:** so, without further ado, we are going to skip our what we've been watching segment again as we did last week because we've got a lot to cover.
**Lee:** And also, but very quickly before I do that, I just want to say, I have watched another of the Masters of Horror, I watched Homecoming last night, the Joe Dante one.
**Chris:** How was that?
**Lee:** Good.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's great.
**Lee:** Very good, and it's a good run. We've just watched Joe Dante, the next one is Deer Woman with John Landis, and I think after that it's John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns, so, oh, what a trilogy.
**Adam:** I'll tell you what, that's, that's the weird thing is, because you get, I personally think that might be why they stuck Dance of the Dead right near the beginning.
**Adam:** Because literally the quality just really ramps up as it sort of this sort of run through, yeah.
**Chris:** Can't wait for that.
**Lee:** Right, so, as previously mentioned, we've covered three versions of The Hand of the Baskervilles.
**Lee:** We have covered the Jeremy Brett Granada version from 1988.
**Lee:** We have covered the Pete and Dud version from 1978. And we have also covered the, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss version from 2012.
**Chris:** 12, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's funny because it still seems like it was two years ago.
**Lee:** I think that's me getting old as.
**Adam:** The weirdest thing is is watching it is 2012, because that series of Sherlock, the first episode went was broadcast over New Year's Day.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, like, so, so it was 2000, like January 1st, 2012 was when it went on, and then they just showed the next three over the course of a week.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** And well, it was great, apart from how long it then got before you got a third series.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you've been building up to it, and they literally sort of like just, they just shut your wad in a week, and you were like, oh, fuck, we're not getting another series of this for ages because they're all big stars now.
**Adam:** Oh, shit.
**Adam:** And also, and this is this needs to go on record.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When you those bits of him up on the tour on Dartmoor, like Benedict Cumberbatch, all those shots were in a trailer.
**Adam:** And the music was David Holmes's, Story of the Ink.
**Adam:** And it was like the BBC's trailer for Sherlock.
**Adam:** And it was first shown straight after the 2011 Doctor Who Christmas special.
**Adam:** And that advert was the best thing about the Doctor Who 2011 Christmas special.
**Chris:** Yike.
**Adam:** Which was fucking shocking.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** And thank, thank you Sherlock for just not making me like take a header out of a window.
**Adam:** Because it was just so, yeah, it was just pitiful.
**Adam:** And, yeah, so that.
**Lee:** Well, thank you for.
**Lee:** I'm sure that many people in the audience will be agreeing.
**Adam:** Arabella Weir and Bill Bailey are in it, wasted.
**Adam:** And you're just like, nah, nah, you've, you're, nah.
**Adam:** This is this this is absolute twaddle.
**Adam:** No. Anyway.
**Adam:** Sorry, we're here for Sherlock.
**Lee:** We are.
**Lee:** Adam, as this is your brain child.
**Lee:** Which of the three would you like to start with?
**Adam:** well, I mean, we've got options.
**Adam:** We've got chronology.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so which would be Pete and Dud, Jeremy Brett and, Sherlock.
**Adam:** Or, and this might be the more interesting way to go with it, is maybe look at the Jeremy Brett first because that's the closest to the source material.
**Adam:** And obviously you've read the book, so you can sort of see that that is definitely the closest of any of them.
**Lee:** I was absolutely staggered how close it is.
**Lee:** Because a lot of the others cut, you know, they cut Laura Lyons out and stuff, obviously for run time.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** everything in it, like even the, you know, the dialogue is almost pitch perfect.
**Lee:** But before I, I'll get way too excited because I love this version.
**Lee:** Chris, is this your first introduction to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock?
**Chris:** Yes, yeah.
**Lee:** Welcome.
**Chris:** Yeah. So, so I was, I was going to say, is that the closest adaptation? It sort of had, you know, the feel out of all of these that it, I mean, I assumed Pete and Dud and Sherlock was not.
**Chris:** but I wasn't sure, yeah, which was closest out of Hammer and Jeremy Brett.
**Chris:** I kind of thought it was Jeremy Brett.
**Adam:** And also the Hammer.
**Adam:** The Hammer version, like we said, definitely ramps the the sort of horror element of it and changes who the villain is at the end as well.
**Adam:** As well.
**Adam:** Because you have, I mean, fuck me, how many times have I watched this story in the past two weeks.
**Adam:** I still can't just can't remember her name.
**Chris:** Well, yes, after watching all of them, it does get next to.
**Adam:** Bear all stage.
**Adam:** And she becomes the villain rather than the sort of heroin in the Hammer version.
**Adam:** Which is how all of them have it.
**Adam:** Apart from the Hammer one which just starts bang in that story, so it's like, oh, this, oh, right, okay, and now we're, now we're Dr. Mortimer.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, that must be Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** Okay, that's been like 15 minutes of debauched chaos.
**Chris:** What have I forgotten about?
**Adam:** So, yeah, so I mean this one's the Interestingly enough, the one thing, and correct me if I'm wrong, Lee, because you've read it recently.
**Adam:** Doesn't Lestrade turn up towards the end of Hand of the Baskerville?
**Lee:** yes, yes.
**Lee:** So, on the, the final day, yeah, Sherlock Holmes calls, sends a telegram and gets him to come down, and it's the three of them who are laying in wait.
**Lee:** So, in the Jeremy Brett one.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, because they pretend to go back to London, don't they?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And that's when they meet up with the Lestrade who's coming in.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Whereas in the, in the Jeremy Brett one, of course, they take Dr. Mortimer with them as their, their third man.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** we would, you know, you brought us, you brought me the case. So, I would like to, would you like to be there for the end of it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, it's a really lovely touch, but it's, but then it's weird because obviously Sherlock, which is the Sherlock one from 2012.
**Adam:** Then kind of is the only one that brings Lestrade in of any of the adaptions I've seen of Hand of the Baskerville.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Despite how sort of completely different their plot and story and everything is.
**Adam:** but it's the only one that sticks to that of having Lestrade turn up, which is just which I just thought was a weird a weird thing.
**Adam:** But obviously in this, so you've got Jeremy Brett's Homes.
**Adam:** What did you think, Chris?
**Adam:** I mean, he is, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, I can see, you know, that's it's well done. It's and obviously it follows the the story the closest.
**Chris:** So it's going to be kind of a classic.
**Chris:** For that reason. It gets a little harder.
**Chris:** I perhaps I should have watched it that way.
**Chris:** After seeing Pete and Dud, a lot of that sticks in the mind.
**Chris:** At the moment, even just that scene, and obviously we've gone completely away from Jeremy Brett, but like, how long they can make a scene about a one-legged man going for a job where two legs is really the minimum requirement for this job, and and how gently he tries to go through.
**Lee:** I think that is actually a Pete and Dud sketch that they had adapted to fit into the show.
**Chris:** It did seem a bit random really, but just
**Chris:** Because the whole thing like you said.
**Chris:** Like they're going to make this comedy of this story, you think, I don't know if that'll work.
**Adam:** It's the well, the weird thing is, and this is another thing that I think's great about watching them all.
**Adam:** Is how accurate Pete and Dud's version is to the story.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you get, I mean, admittedly it's in a different reason because Holmes does stay in London, he doesn't travel down to Dartmoor and stoke them. he does stay in London to visit a brothel and take his laundry round to his mum's.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Adam:** But it's still has that thing going on, and you've still got all the characters, you've got Mortimer, you've got the Barrymore or the Barrymans, I think they are in the Pete and Dud one.
**Adam:** And it sort of oddly sticks quite close to the plot.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** broadly, it follows all the events.
**Chris:** But, yeah, the details are very different.
**Adam:** Oh, exceedingly.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But, yeah, I think, I think you can see now, Chris, why Adam and I are all, I'm sure we've mentioned, Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes multiple times over the last hundred odd episodes.
**Lee:** I'm sure we've mentioned, Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes multiple times over the last hundred odd episodes.
**Lee:** I think once you've seen Jeremy Brett do Sherlock Holmes, nobody else will do.
**Lee:** But he's just got it.
**Lee:** And the way his mannerisms are described, he just puts them exactly as as you imagine it.
**Lee:** He's I think Adam.
**Lee:** We discussed it before, I think we're saying there was a famous photograph of him with this old copy of of the book.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** offset and it's so battered where he literally lives with the damn thing, like everything is so close to that book.
**Adam:** Because he got, because that was the thing, is he got kind of into it much the same as you got with Peter Cushing, where Peter Cushing sort of brought his own clothes and was suggesting lines because he was a real Sherlock aficionado, Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle aficionado.
**Adam:** And Jeremy Brett really did much the same, he really dove into them and studied them and pulled them apart and that, Lee's right.
**Adam:** There is a picture of it. If I can find it, I'll put it up on the Instagram.
**Adam:** and it's just Jeremy Brett and he's holding his complete Sherlock Holmes collection.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like it's like a leather, bound thing, like sort of like it's like quite a nice copy, but it is fucked where he has just poured through it.
**Adam:** And there's annotations and big bits of paper stuck in there and it's falling apart, but it's, it's turned into like this sort of like maniac's phonebook of like, but it's all where Jeremy Brett sort of like was just like.
**Adam:** Of like.
**Adam:** And he much like Peter Christian, he was but so much more so because obviously he was doing it for a longer time.
**Adam:** So he was putting in a lot of the stuff such as, like nailing the the the letters to the mantelpiece with a knife and things like that.
**Adam:** And, keeping tobacco in a slipper that hangs off the side of the mantelpiece and, you know, and, and ITV, like Granada, when they were producing it.
**Adam:** They really, it was like that was their flagship, you know, they were like, we're really going to put everything into this.
**Adam:** And it chose because the the Baker Street set is.
**Adam:** I I mean, I presume it's gone now.
**Adam:** But the Baker Street set was next to their Coronation Street set.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it was a permanent set, so that whole street that they go down is a is a back lot.
**Adam:** That they had.
**Lee:** I just checked, they did.
**Lee:** Between the three seasons, so between, let me just bring it up, so the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was 13, then the Return of Sherlock Holmes was 11, and then the Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes was nine.
**Lee:** So there were 33 episodes they did in total.
**Lee:** That's crazy.
**Adam:** And there's the memoirs as well.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So Casebook, I think it's Casebook is six and memoirs is six.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Another six.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the, oh, no, yeah, it's nine with Casebook because they would include the specials.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So Hand of the Baskervilles, yeah, because they did, so first series was the first two series were called Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** So first series was the first two series were called Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** And it was a different guy playing Watson, his name's David Burke, who was a proper dashing sort of Watson.
**Adam:** It's a he's a really, really good Watson.
**Lee:** You have seen him actually, Chris, he's in two of the Ghost Stories for Christmas.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, he's, he was in the, number 13 and, oh, he's in from the Hill.
**Lee:** From the Hill.
**Adam:** That's it. Sorry, thank you, yeah.
**Adam:** yeah, and he's in that as like an older, obviously, well, obviously an older gentleman because, you know, this was the this was early 80s.
**Adam:** And yeah, and but he's like a really good foil to Jeremy Brett.
**Adam:** And so, but the good thing, but sorry, the good thing is, so Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** which was 84 and 85, ends with the final problem, which is the story where Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** yeah, and then.
**Adam:** but then David Burke, who was originally playing Watson, left to join the Royal Shakespeare Company, so the actor who you saw in Hand of the Baskervilles is a guy called Edward Hardwick.
**Adam:** who then is Watson for the rest of the series.
**Adam:** But the clever sort of clever or accidentally brilliant thing serendipitous thing.
**Adam:** Is that Edward Hardwick is an older man.
**Adam:** You know, he's he's a probably, I think he's about sort of like 10 years older than David Burke.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so, when Holmes comes back in, because they do, the next two series are then called The Return of Sherlock Holmes, which was 86 to 88.
**Adam:** And they start with the story of the Empty House where Holmes comes back, but Holmes is meant to have been missing for about three years.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** Or or or, you know, declared dead for three years.
**Adam:** And so it's quite nice because it is like Watson has aged in that time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And he's sort of, yeah, he's, but yeah, and I, but it's really weird.
**Adam:** I can't really separate between the two.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I think they both really did it so well, but they do it in a different context.
**Adam:** Because Edward Hardwick is only doing it from the point of the Watson who loses his friend and mourns him and moves on.
**Adam:** And then Holmes comes back.
**Adam:** Which is the one we watched.
**Adam:** And then the final series in 94 was the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** And the only reason they stopped was because, Jeremy Brett died in 194, in 1995.
**Adam:** And that's, you know, that was, that was the reason they stopped.
**Adam:** But they actually did, there's 60 stories in total, like Conan Doyle stories.
**Adam:** And they, they adapted 42 of them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Over the over the time.
**Adam:** So, you know, they, there was.
**Adam:** And to be fair, I think a few of the ones that they sort of didn't do were, you know, they were running out of ones that had a bit of meat to them.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Rather, you know, it was getting to the point where it was like, oh, this, this is maybe a 10-page story, but we'll turn it into a special or something like that.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But he's just got that, I love his facial expressions because I, although it isn't funny, I do find myself laughing the whole just with admiration for his abilities as an actor. I mean, he just, like his little things, like his little snide comments and laughs and the way he sort of his eyes dart about.
**Lee:** And he's got that, he's described in the book as being having like a cat-like agility.
**Lee:** Perfect to the book.
**Adam:** And he's sort of like that cat thing, he does, there's bits where he sort of, he's literally sprawled, and just leaps up, and it's like, right, come on, Watson, we're going, you know, and it's sort of, it is that same sort of thing of like from absolute lethargy to, you know, right, right, action now.
**Adam:** Now.
**Adam:** Now.
**Adam:** And, but I think, yeah, I think that's,
**Adam:** They, it's really, it's really interesting over the time as well.
**Adam:** Because they kind of not not to the detriment of it or anything else like that.
**Adam:** But they do explore the fact that Holmes is probably driving himself mad.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** which is again something that sort of, Sherlock touches on, which is much more the sort of a human characteristic, you know, the of of this inhuman sort of person.
**Adam:** Because funnily enough, that was that was something that Claire said about with Sherlock.
**Adam:** Is she said, is he is he is sort of.
**Adam:** rude, abrupt and clearly sort of, you know, I said, is he a dick?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That was that was the term.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it a weird thing because I think just Holmes's character translated to now is much more abrasive than it appears in a Victorian setting.
**Adam:** Because everyone was much more reserved or, you know.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** People weren't really, everyone was, yes, good evening, sir, and and how may I help you, and I'll bring you through, and if you'd like to sit there, and, I'll tell you a story of once when I found a magic whistle.
**Adam:** Whistle.
**Adam:** So, and,
**Lee:** It is, and it's.
**Lee:** Like you said, like with his delivery to, to Mortimer when he's talking about his skull.
**Lee:** And he sort of kind of laughs and puts his hand up, and he says, behave yourself and sit down.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah. That's that's the thing.
**Adam:** They bring out that proper humor, and it brings out that lovely Holmes, Watson interplay as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, I, I love the look of the Jeremy Brett one as well.
**Lee:** They seem to get that sort of that Victorian look.
**Lee:** As you say, I mean, because it's obviously a permanent set.
**Lee:** It's it's a lot better dressed and everything.
**Lee:** But yeah, it just it's got such an amazing feel.
**Lee:** And it does all the way through.
**Lee:** You know, all four of the series.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, it's one of the things I like most about it is its look and feel.
**Lee:** It's it's very low grade color, everything looks realistic.
**Lee:** Unlike the Hammer one where, you know, all the reds and everything are turned up to 11.
**Lee:** On this it's a lot more dialed down, it's got a really nice natural feel to it, and it feels kind of smoggy and.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Cold.
**Lee:** Almost.
**Adam:** And again, that's that's a lovely scene.
**Adam:** When Watson comes in and he's just coughing.
**Adam:** Because he's just been sat in there smoking all afternoon.
**Adam:** He says, this atmosphere's poisonous.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's what they get that's they get that Watson Holmes affectionate sort of.
**Adam:** interplay quite well.
**Adam:** It's like that like the bit where he's, he gives him the food that he's cooked.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Sorry, this is quite disgusting.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes, it is.
**Lee:** Yeah, just great.
**Lee:** Just love those two together. And as you say with the with the previous Watson as well.
**Lee:** I thought they worked really well.
**Lee:** So, yeah, I was glad they got someone.
**Lee:** I'm not sure if it's going to carry over so well.
**Lee:** But yeah, it it did. It was as you say, almost seamless.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** I think because I was a bit too young because when I was watching it when it, because I sort of watched it around pretty much as it went out.
**Adam:** and,
**Adam:** I think I'm just a bit too young to remember David Burke, like that because that would have been like 84 or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So in my head it was always Edward Hardwick more.
**Adam:** So when I went back and saw the earlier ones, I had that same thing of like, oh, am I going to.
**Adam:** And actually it's like, no, no, he's brilliant.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Because the because the weird thing was is that the Sherlock Holmes or Conan Doyle estate were very, oh, sniffy about who adapted Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** And they would never let an ITV.
**Adam:** company, which for American listeners, it's the first independent television company is ITV, and it's a series of fran local franchises, essentially.
**Lee:** Is that what the eye stands for?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Independent Television.
**Lee:** Never knew that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so, because obviously BBC is state, so it was meant to be, and that's why it's commercials and so on and so forth.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Each day it kills millions of virus.
**Adam:** And the the.
**Lee:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Sorry, I was trying to open another tab on my, thing on my to to look, I was trying to remember who played the, because I was going to say they're not sniffy now because they let, and I couldn't remember Robert Downey Jr's name.
**Lee:** So I was just opening another IMDB tab, and it had a fucking advert on it, so I apologize.
**Adam:** Well, what did they do?
**Adam:** Do Sherlock Holmes?
**Lee:** Two of them, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Guy Ritchie fucking directed them.
**Adam:** Yeah, I know.
**Chris:** I haven't seen him, I'll be honest.
**Lee:** I've seen them.
**Adam:** Both.
**Adam:** I was going to say, you've never really spoke that highly of them.
**Adam:** So, I'm like, no.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** Because me and you, we we agree very much on Sherlock.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Of what's good and bad.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Was Guy Ritchie Lock, Stock?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Okay, that's probably the only.
**Chris:** Film I think I know of from here.
**Adam:** It's a little bit like it's lots of like fast cut editing and like tricks.
**Lee:** So, I mean, some of it's.
**Chris:** I might not hate that.
**Lee:** It's got its all right bits.
**Lee:** Like when you see, at one point, Watson goes to find Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** And he's basically involved in an illegal brawl in a warehouse with a load of people watching.
**Lee:** Because he thinks everything through.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Lee:** Before it actually kicks up.
**Lee:** Which, you know.
**Chris:** You have reminded me, I did quite like that effect in Sherlock where they show his mind working and they show the different graphics text come up.
**Adam:** The mind.
**Chris:** The mind palace.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Like that is quite a nice way to sort of really see a mind at work, yeah, it does let you sort of fully appreciate it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Which.
**Adam:** Sherlock also has also has that lovely thing of doing text messaging as subtitles.
**Lee:** I love that.
**Lee:** I think that's such a clever way of getting that information across.
**Adam:** Which which I understand was, that was the.
**Adam:** That was something that the director brought in.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** it was the same director as the film Gangster Number One.
**Adam:** Oddly.
**Adam:** but yeah, that was, like that was a technique he introduced into it, like Moffat and Gatiss said, oh, no, that was entirely him.
**Adam:** We just felt it was brilliant, so we, we ran with it, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But yes, so basically the Conan Doyle estate were very sort of like sniffy about who they'd let adapt the thing.
**Adam:** And then in 1980, I think it was 1984, they, the 100 years copyright on the first batch of Sherlock Holmes stories, finished.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** Yeah, so it's 100 years is like literary copyright, and then after that, so at that point, ITV knew they would be at like an ITV company would then be able to adapt it because they didn't have to seek those rights.
**Adam:** essentially the thing becomes public domain, to a greater or lesser extent.
**Adam:** I still think they, you know, there's no doubt royalties and things go somewhere.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Essentially, yeah, anyone can anyone can adapt them.
**Adam:** And it's just so ironic that they'd obviously been really champing at the bit to do these.
**Adam:** And like Conan Doyle estate were just like, no, you're not doing it because you're toddering and you're ITV, and we don't even have ITV in this house.
**Adam:** and, yeah, turns out they do like the most consistent sort of TV adaption of Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** that is extremely true to the stories and extremely true to the sort of characters and everything else like that.
**Lee:** I think that's.
**Lee:** I've mentioned previously that I'd read, you know, the George Man books and stuff.
**Lee:** that Enola Holmes came out not that long ago.
**Lee:** Netflix have had a real go at it because they did that and they did, the Irregulars as well, which was a little bit of a miss for me, but not terrible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** and as I as I mentioned, the Warlock Holmes.
**Lee:** As well for tonight.
**Lee:** unfortunately, I've only gotten halfway through it and run out of time.
**Lee:** but yeah.
**Lee:** They're fantastic as well.
**Lee:** So it's lovely that this material's out there.
**Lee:** Reading through.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Chris:** It's pretty good twist on them.
**Lee:** So, so Henry turns up, and he's too Canadian, so Watson hates him because he's not British enough, so those two at loggerheads the whole and it's just hilarious. So, yeah, it's it's one of those.
**Lee:** It's one of those.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** It's so much fun.
**Lee:** Probably a dozen times.
**Lee:** If not more.
**Lee:** And, you know, it's I've not read any Sherlock in a long time.
**Lee:** I'm surprised how modern a book it still feels, to be honest.
**Lee:** It's so well written.
**Adam:** Extremely readable.
**Adam:** Conan Doyle's stuff is, yeah.
**Adam:** Never never feels a struggle.
**Adam:** It's just you're just reading.
**Adam:** You don't have to make allowances for.
**Adam:** Or arcane language or anything.
**Adam:** It's just beautiful.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Wonderful stuff.
**Lee:** And go and check out John Dies at the End.
**Lee:** And we will see you all in a fortnite's time.
**Lee:** Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## We have been watching Bonus Episode

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/we-have-been-watching-bonus-episode/
Air date: 23 January 2022
Duration: 01:01:24

### Description

Happy New Year folks! And what better way to kick off than a Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode! With the Christmas break, we did a lot of extracurricular watching, and rather than rush through some great stuff, or end up with a top-heavy first episode, we thought we’d discuss our viewing in a separate ep. Here we discuss such delights as Mark Gatiss’ adaptation of “The Mezzotint”; epic Folk Horror documentary “Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched”; “Devs”; “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”; “Dead Still”; some real classics and the 1986 oddity “Nomads”.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here as a special bonus episode after we were all so cheeky and took the whole of the Christmas and New Year period off. and we've all watched a metric shittonn of stuff. So we've come back to discuss it all now without having to compress it all so it doesn't interfere with the runtime on our normal episodes.
**Lee:** So, without further ado, Chris, what have you been watching?
**Lee:** Oh, and before I do, spoilers and swearing as always is a warning. Sorry about that.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's interesting.
**Chris:** Right, so, so we normally try not to spoil these films too much because people don't really know.
**Chris:** So I'm, I'm keeping it a little,
**Chris:** it depends, older, older stuff, I think, can be spoiled, yeah.
**Chris:** But newer stuff I'm going to be a bit more careful with, right?
**Chris:** So I'm starting with the one that really is the new one.
**Chris:** although all three of mine, I've really enjoyed, obviously that's what I'm talking about, but it's possible to watch some you might not enjoy, but anyway, right.
**Chris:** So the first one is The Devs mini-series from 2020.
**Chris:** So I'm only a year, year past this one.
**Chris:** That's a year and a bit, that's pretty good.
**Chris:** I think I watched it just before the New Year.
**Chris:** So, so it's a mini-series, by Alex Garland.
**Chris:** Famous for Ex Machina, Annihilation, which we covered.
**Adam:** We've covered.
**Lee:** We do need to, we do need to.
**Chris:** we must have talked about it quite a bit.
**Chris:** Because I watched it, so in my head we've covered it.
**Chris:** So either you talked about it so much.
**Chris:** I was like, right, I'm watching that, and we didn't actually end up covering it.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** And but 28 Days Later we did cover.
**Adam:** Yes, we did, yeah.
**Chris:** And,
**Chris:** and also The Beach, which I'm told I should definitely watch.
**Chris:** But it's been so many years now.
**Chris:** So one day I guess I will.
**Chris:** Have you have you seen that?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** I've not seen The Beach. I again, it's I think that was the point where I sort of drifted away from Danny Boyle's stuff and only previously because up until that point I'd been like, I'd watched everything that had come out because I love Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later and Trainspotting and everything.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think The Beach was, I think it was also probably because it was like, no watching Leonardo the fucking DiCaprio.
**Lee:** Fuck up.
**Adam:** But, interestingly enough, you are ahead of me, Chris.
**Adam:** Because I started Devs, but I think I either got as far as episode three or four.
**Adam:** I can't remember.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** I really should have kept going with it, but I, I, I don't know why I did.
**Chris:** You must have got sidetracked with something else.
**Chris:** Or, well, you you may you may relate to some of what I say here.
**Chris:** so so I think I've mentioned it before because we started to watch it and it stood out to me.
**Chris:** But obviously it took us a while to finish the whole lot.
**Chris:** But, I would say unless you're really into, you know, current state of computing, it might be a bit of a hard watch potentially.
**Chris:** And also, you know, so if you enjoy thinking about the nature of reality along with theoretical physics and science and technology, you probably will like it, but it it it does push the boundaries of of disbelief somewhat.
**Chris:** Now, you I think, I think I would say on the whole, I felt it was worth getting through to the end.
**Chris:** I loved the way it riffed on the idea of good and evil, because the characters it's it's not obvious who is good and who is evil and yet bad things are happening.
**Chris:** And it's like, well, why, you know, how can this be going on if no one appears to actually be truly, you know, having a scheme to cause pain on others, and yet pain is happening, and so throughout it's like the circumstances that happen and everyone's roles on how they interact, and it's like, I really don't want to be causing you this amount of pain.
**Chris:** But because of the information they have, they kind of have to.
**Chris:** And that's that's the crucial bit, which I don't really want to give away, like it's,
**Chris:** essentially, I best suppose the best way to say it is it's a bit like time travel.
**Chris:** Any time you introduce time travel into a film, you kind of makes it really difficult to like if you can either tell what's going to happen in the future or in the past, then
**Chris:** it's going to change what you do and you might take actions that would otherwise seem really bad and really inciting, when actually you know you have to do them.
**Chris:** And so it's it's really I found it fascinating.
**Chris:** And the way it played with that.
**Chris:** It does also mean it's that pushing the disbelief, because obviously we never experienced that in real life.
**Chris:** It's like you don't know if that's how it would really happen.
**Chris:** So you kind of have to say, right, within this framework, it works.
**Chris:** but yeah, no.
**Chris:** So I I did really enjoy it all the way to the end.
**Chris:** it did have, and I might mention this before,
**Chris:** this really stood out to me a scene in it that I just replayed it over in my head again and again.
**Chris:** where somebody is in a car crash and it is just like, Hereditary.
**Chris:** Like it's it had enough of a build up for me that it was like, that's I didn't exactly see that coming quite like that.
**Chris:** even though you get a sense of something bad is going on.
**Chris:** yeah, just whenever somebody manages to have that effect in a film.
**Chris:** Like that just really works for me.
**Chris:** I love the fact that it it makes you really think.
**Chris:** You know, almost question your own actions, I find, it's like, yeah, okay, I could see how that could potentially happen to anyone.
**Chris:** And and yeah, being aware of the consequences.
**Chris:** you know, it's a difficult thing.
**Chris:** Hindsight is fantastic.
**Chris:** But trying to foright.
**Chris:** That's the thing to do.
**Chris:** So yeah, so I absolutely recommend it for.
**Chris:** For dark physics.
**Chris:** then the other ones I watched a bit more fun.
**Chris:** Shaun of the Dead.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Chris:** I know both of you have seen this.
**Chris:** Cuz I'm sure we've mentioned it many times and in fact, I think we said we're going to cover it at some point.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Chris:** And I would happily watch it, you know, just like, right.
**Chris:** Like I, you know, I remembered it being good, just didn't remember how good it was.
**Chris:** Like it still holds up so well and I mean it's it's and also I I I remember it still was being fairly new.
**Chris:** Like it feels like a newish comedy horror that was big and it but it's like I think it was 2004 now.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's ridiculously old now, but yeah.
**Chris:** but yeah, I mean the comedy is fantastically.
**Adam:** We all we all have.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Chris:** But you know, like some of the scenes, so good and like the one where he's he's just woken up, it's like the next day and obviously you've had hints of it all throughout.
**Chris:** And that's done really nicely and then he's walking through the streets just not noticing anything and it's like it's just it's so funny to watch him.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Chris:** And and and also I'd totally forgotten how brutal some of the killing of the zombies is.
**Chris:** I'd remembered it as being much more just fun.
**Chris:** And then the first woman that they kill, when he sort of pushes her back.
**Chris:** And she falls back on the the the the wire girl post.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** On the wire, go.
**Chris:** Yeah, and they're just standing there like,
**Chris:** okay, this is this has gone, you know, very wrong here.
**Chris:** yeah, like it's it's fantastic.
**Chris:** So I really enjoyed that and definitely would like to cover it in more detail.
**Chris:** now the third one,
**Chris:** right?
**Chris:** I'm going to say it.
**Chris:** Starship Troopers.
**Chris:** Now,
**Chris:** have either of you seen this?
**Adam:** I have not, although I feel I should have done.
**Lee:** Don't think so.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Well, all right.
**Chris:** So, in my head, I remember it as a kind of a spoof sci-fi action with horror-ish elements.
**Chris:** You know, but but mostly it's an Aliens Predator kind of action sci-fi.
**Chris:** Right, but I always think of it as it's almost like two parts, I feel, like.
**Chris:** The first part is is a bit more funny, but then it does get deeper towards the end.
**Chris:** And I just always forget about that.
**Chris:** And as I'm watching, I'm like, actually, this is getting really good.
**Chris:** And I just thought it was just going to be a really simple, you know,
**Chris:** a little bit of entertainment, just to watch in the background.
**Chris:** and it is it's it's hard to sort of get across exactly how it is a spoof.
**Chris:** But it's it's definitely like it's it's over the top.
**Chris:** In in the way it presents.
**Chris:** Like a lot of the dialogue.
**Chris:** It's it's a lot of what sound like one liners.
**Chris:** So it's like, they're not saying anything in depth for a long time.
**Chris:** But it somehow it still kind of works.
**Chris:** but yeah, it's essentially like the humans are in an existential crisis against aliens.
**Chris:** But they're essentially viewed as just big bugs.
**Chris:** So they have weird things like news reports and and again, they're so over the top.
**Chris:** Like everything feels almost like plastic, sugary reality.
**Adam:** Is because isn't it isn't isn't it Paul Verhoeven? Like the director.
**Chris:** I don't know, yeah.
**Adam:** Because.
**Chris:** Yes, it is.
**Chris:** I don't know what else he's done, though.
**Adam:** Because because he did, Robocop.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** And that's obviously Robocop does have a bit of a.
**Adam:** Because it has that over the top thing, particularly like the adverts and the.
**Lee:** Oh, buy that for a dollar.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, that totally makes sense then.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You're right, I'd forgotten about those.
**Lee:** I need to watch it.
**Adam:** And that's the that's the terms in which I've had Starship Troopers recommended to me.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I when I've sort of read about it online, that's the bit that's interests me.
**Adam:** They've sort of said it follows in it's in that same sort of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because like Robocop you can watch as a straight film, but it's also a spoof and a critique, satire, whatever.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** And of how like future is becoming somewhat dystopian.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because it's essentially I mean it kind of Starship Troopers kind of shows humans in a bad light.
**Chris:** Like it doesn't show us as wonderful, even though we're fighting against, you know, another race that essentially doesn't want to wipe us out.
**Chris:** We're kind of also really, really keen and gunned up to to, you know, wipe them out as fast as possible with as many nukes and it's so yeah.
**Chris:** That's I think that's what gives it that kind of plasticky feel.
**Chris:** But that's where as the depth starts to come in, you sort of appreciate it or at least appreciate it more.
**Chris:** completely getting there.
**Chris:** Yeah, one of the ads it just shows kids stamping on cockroaches.
**Chris:** As a sort of, you know, a public service announcement to get everyone keen on killing the the the bugs.
**Chris:** And then there's a woman laughing maniacally in the background of it.
**Chris:** She's yeah, it is.
**Chris:** For me, for some some reason, it works really well.
**Chris:** So it's one of those I just always forget.
**Chris:** I watch it sort of I think I've seen it four times now.
**Chris:** And every time kind of forget that it's it's got a bit more to it.
**Lee:** I'm going to have.
**Chris:** I've never seen.
**Adam:** I'm going to have to check it out because if you if you've watched it multiple times, so I know that you like it. I really feel I've got to watch it.
**Chris:** I just I remember it as being fun and forgetting that there is a bit extra there to appreciate, you know, as the film unfolds.
**Adam:** Which is essentially the what I go to Robocop for.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Nice, yeah.
**Chris:** So yeah, that's that's my three.
**Lee:** Excellent, well done, you have been busy.
**Lee:** Adam, would you like to go next?
**Adam:** I'll go next, I've got a few.
**Adam:** first off, I've really got to talk about Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, which is is turned up on Shudder now.
**Adam:** I got the Blu-ray from Severin.
**Adam:** And it arrived what I think it arrived like Christmas Eve.
**Adam:** So it was and I'd been shitting myself because obviously it was an import and then it's Christmas post and fucking charges for Brexit and whatever else bullshit they'll give you as a reason not to fucking deliver your parcel.
**Adam:** so I was very pleased when that sort of turned up.
**Adam:** when that turned up just in time and I was like, yes.
**Lee:** Santa works his magic there.
**Adam:** Santa did, yeah, I've I've clearly I've clearly been an adequate boy this year.
**Adam:** I would I would last year, I would I would hesitate to use the term good.
**Adam:** But, and basically it's a documentary on folk horror.
**Adam:** And it was it it's really, really well done.
**Adam:** one of my favorite things about it is now, there's a thing, I don't know if you've seen it, quite quite a lot of the times now with people are talking about folk horror online.
**Adam:** They always say, folk horror, a term first coined by Mark Gatiss in the in his history of horror series.
**Adam:** And when I first saw that, I was like, oh, that must be true.
**Adam:** I'm sure I'd heard it before, but maybe I'm, you know, I'm clearly misremembering it.
**Adam:** You know, I don't want to Mandela effect it and claim that I'm so important that time fucking slipped a groove.
**Adam:** But only I didn't notice.
**Adam:** sorry, anyway.
**Adam:** but then Jonathan Rigby, who was one of the consultants on that show who is like, he's, you'd know him if you saw him.
**Adam:** He's a very stern looking man, bald and
**Adam:** but he's got just a lovely voice.
**Adam:** He really and and he's he did like the the good the BFI Rapturey film.
**Adam:** and he's done lots of stuff with various members of the league.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** And he wrote a really good book called, English Gothic, which is like, basically could be a Bible for this show, certainly in terms of British horror.
**Adam:** It just had that's where I discovered things like mutations and, just loads and loads of stuff and got more of an insight into like the Hammer series and how they actually were supposed to run and things like that.
**Adam:** But, and but yeah, anyway, Jonathan Rigby's on this documentary.
**Adam:** And he does mention that it's actually from his own book American Gothic, which was the follow-up, where he first used the term.
**Adam:** And I kind of feel his whole appearance there is to say, it's not fucking Mark Gatiss, I fucking came up with that, the cheeky bastard.
**Adam:** Just because he's fucking Mycroft Holmes.
**Adam:** Doesn't mean that you should believe everything you see on the internet.
**Adam:** and and then in fairness does mention times earlier when the phrase folk horror has been mentioned, but it still does feel like he's having a dig at his mate.
**Adam:** That it's like like, fuck you.
**Adam:** You invented folk horror my arse.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** but besides that.
**Adam:** I was the director's, I think it's Yunice or Yanish.
**Adam:** I'm not sure.
**Adam:** and yeah, basically it's three hours long.
**Adam:** So set aside.
**Adam:** You know, set that time aside, get a fucking pen and paper because there is going to be stuff you want to find out more about.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's what I did. I came away with a huge list of stuff that needs watching.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh,
**Adam:** so you've seen it?
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, I saw it.
**Adam:** What did you think? It's fucking it's great, you know, I was really.
**Lee:** Yeah, I loved it.
**Lee:** I mean,
**Lee:** as you say, you know, the and as they say in the the documentary itself, you know, folk horror is generally mentioned when in conjunction with a handful of films, but actually, if you apply it properly, there's so much more stuff.
**Lee:** And it goes into all the, you know, the Japanese stuff and all, oh yeah, and I came away with a dirty great list that could definitely bankrupt me if I'm not careful.
**Adam:** Well, I mean,
**Adam:** there's a part of me, I mean, particularly a lot of the telly stuff they were talking about, it was really good because I was like, I've seen that, I've got that, I've seen that.
**Adam:** Then obviously they mentioned Doctor Who and the Demons and I think at that point I'd have to go and change my underwear.
**Adam:** And but but also, yeah, there was loads of films that I hadn't seen.
**Adam:** because there's stuff in there like V.
**Adam:** We need to cover on the show because that is a fucking great film.
**Adam:** Just because of how strange it is, like the Polish or Russian film.
**Adam:** and but also, yeah, so I I came away, I came away with with the list from that.
**Adam:** And I've I've always I've been having a sort of oddly Australian Ostion thing in my head lately that I've been sort of like, oh yeah, I must watch Turkey Shoot again and I must do this and I must do that.
**Adam:** so I watched a film called Allison's Birthday.
**Adam:** Which is because that's the other great thing is Shudder have put up loads of the films that they mentioned in that in the documentary.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** we unfortunately over here we haven't got quite as many as they have in the US, usual story.
**Adam:** But there's a good 30 odd films that they've got, they either already had or they've put in a folk horror, or they've obtained and put up on this folk horror collection.
**Adam:** And yeah, I watched Allison's Birthday, which is from 1981, directed by Ian Coughlin.
**Adam:** and it's got,
**Adam:** it's got John Bleuthall in it, who you will know from various comedy shows, he's like in the Vicar of Dibley and used to appear with Spike Milligan a lot and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And he is, yeah, nicely sort of villainous in it.
**Adam:** Because he sort of comes across a nice genteel old fella, and then the steel comes in and you're like, oh, fuck it hell, yeah, you could be quite a nasty bastard.
**Adam:** and the main character Allison is played by Mrs. Mad Max.
**Adam:** The woman who gets the I can't remember Mrs. Mad Max's name.
**Adam:** But Joanna Samuel, played Mrs. Mad Max, who obviously then dies and changes him from slightly miffed Max to full steaming Mad Max, and yeah, that's when he goes off on one, you know, so any little thing with these people.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** but Allison's Birthday is.
**Adam:** I I it's a TV movie, but I think it was one of those things where they saw what they had and someone put a bit more money in and said they could do a theatrical release possibly.
**Adam:** But it's sort of it's in the same sort of vein as say Hereditary or Rosemary's Baby is that thing of sort of people being used unwittingly by a satanic or a cult cult.
**Adam:** and basically it starts off with Allison and her two friends.
**Adam:** Doing a Ouija board, one of them gets possessed by the ghost of her dad.
**Adam:** And tells her to not go home on her 19th birthday.
**Adam:** And bloody hell.
**Adam:** Allison goes home on her 19th birthday to her aunt and uncle's place and her aunt and uncle are really nice, but they do have a miniature stone hinge at the bottom of their garden.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's all,
**Adam:** there's a weird thing to it because it because it's a bit TV movie, it it oddly creeps it up more, like say with even though I love it, with Hereditary.
**Adam:** You know, it's obvious from the start that like, this is creepy.
**Adam:** This is horrible.
**Adam:** Whereas this is like.
**Adam:** This is like sort of like.
**Chris:** You don't.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, this feels more like you.
**Adam:** You come in in the afternoon and there's an Australian soap.
**Adam:** And then slowly you go, what's going on?
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** And also don't.
**Adam:** Tell me.
**Chris:** I'm scared.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** It's not even that.
**Adam:** It's it's so sort of plain that it oddly makes it creepier because it feels more like it's happening.
**Adam:** Rather than, well, I don't live in a big nothing house with my wife who makes miniatures of traumatic family events and etc, etc, etc.
**Adam:** Whereas this is more sort of like, you know, these people just live in ordinary houses, but they also happen to be a satanic cult.
**Adam:** And, you know, and but yeah, I would and so yeah, because of that, I would recommend it.
**Adam:** You know, that's that's definitely one.
**Adam:** And I'm going to go and.
**Adam:** Obviously watch more from the the the folk horror stuff on Shutter.
**Lee:** Eye of the Devil is the one that caught my attention.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** And I went and spent a lot of time searching for it and couldn't find it, you know, a reasonable price anywhere that I could justify to myself.
**Lee:** And then discovered it's on YouTube in its entirety, so yeah, I'll be having that.
**Adam:** Speaking of on YouTube in its entirety, I cannot ignore the fact that I watched a film called Nomads from 1986.
**Adam:** with Pierce Brosnan and what can only be described as an outrageous French accent.
**Adam:** Like it's it's like it you're sort of listening to it and you're going, this this is probably racist, but I'm not sure who too.
**Chris:** It's Monty Python Holy Grail.
**Adam:** Yeah, it is.
**Adam:** He manages to insult most of Europe.
**Adam:** As he sort of struggles to be this.
**Adam:** French anthropologist.
**Adam:** and basically, but here's the weirdest fucking thing.
**Adam:** Is it's directed by John Mctiernan.
**Adam:** And this film is the reason that he got to do Predator.
**Adam:** Like Arnie saw Nomads and was like.
**Adam:** Right, that's the guy to do Predator.
**Adam:** Because and it's the weirdest fucking thing.
**Adam:** Basically, well, it's a doctor who works working in a hospital, surprise, surprise, and Pierce Brosnan's bought brought in, shouting in French.
**Adam:** And she goes and like talks to him and then he dies.
**Adam:** And then she's possessed by him probably, and that's it's that sort of a film.
**Adam:** She's probably possessed by him or something, or his spirit is making her hallucinate the last few weeks of his life.
**Adam:** In what I can only describe as the most fucking extraneous plot device ever.
**Adam:** Because just show us what happened to Pierce Brosnan.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Because that's what you're doing.
**Adam:** But you're doing it through this woman hallucinating what happened, but yeah.
**Adam:** But there's no sort of mystery to it.
**Adam:** It's quite straightforward.
**Adam:** and basically, but he's meant to be an anthropologist who studied Nomads across the globe and things like that and then realizes that there's like a street gang.
**Adam:** Who ride around in a big black 18 van, one of whom is Adam Ant, so it gives you the level of street punk.
**Adam:** That we're talking here.
**Adam:** You know, far far too pretty street punks, but, they,
**Adam:** but basically yeah, they're like.
**Adam:** They're.
**Adam:** They're so they're basically actually what what this would have been is it would have been a brilliant prequel to Near Dark.
**Adam:** Because they kind of present the Nomads as they're a bit like the vampires in Near Dark.
**Adam:** They basically just ride around, fuck with people and kill them.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** It's but it's a fucking bizarre movie.
**Adam:** And I'm not going to say it's good, but it's really, really compelling.
**Adam:** So I think that's the John McTiernan thing.
**Adam:** He just hasn't he can't shoot a shit film.
**Adam:** You know, I mean, obviously like he makes he he goes on to make Die Hard and and the Predator, so he knows how to shoot like action and.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's just a fucking bizarre one.
**Adam:** But it's definitely but it's free on YouTube, so go and watch it because.
**Adam:** It's I just want people to see it because it's just.
**Adam:** It's it's a proper what the fuck.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** then I can't think what else.
**Adam:** There was.
**Adam:** Obviously we finished what we do in the Shadows.
**Adam:** series three now.
**Adam:** And, on a Matt Berry kick, Toast of Tinseltown has started.
**Adam:** So, which is the follow-up to Toast of London that they're doing on the BBC.
**Adam:** And, on that subject like with the Matt Berry connection as in, Susan Makoma from Year of the Rabbit.
**Adam:** Netflix have just put up The House.
**Adam:** Which is like a an an animated anthology film.
**Adam:** like stop motion animation and it's the it's three tales from a house over three different periods of time.
**Adam:** And it's.
**Adam:** It's definitely not for kids.
**Adam:** But not in the sort of it's not like Avenue Q.
**Adam:** It's not because it's like got knobs and swearing in it.
**Adam:** Or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's just kids probably wouldn't get it is the better way of putting it.
**Adam:** But I do it does also have that feeling that I'd imagine one day a kid is going to be shown it in the same way that I was shown when the wind blows, like the Raymond Briggs anti-nuclear fucking cartoon.
**Adam:** On the basis that, it's a cartoon, so it's for kids, isn't it?
**Adam:** But no, clearly not because they melt at the end.
**Adam:** In the, you know.
**Adam:** It's it's tragic.
**Adam:** But,
**Lee:** Have we trace back your love of horror.
**Adam:** Oh, it's definitely it's definitely got to be in there somewhere.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** yeah, similarly so you've got three stories, you've got the first story is quite sort of, feels like a traditional fairy story.
**Adam:** It's basically it's a family who, they're, you know, they're sort of hard up and they have a mysterious benefactor who builds a house near them, and what they've got to do is they've got to go and live in the house.
**Adam:** And food is prepared for them all the time and everything's fine.
**Adam:** But they can't take any of their previous possessions with them.
**Adam:** And they've got to and they've got to stay in the house.
**Adam:** And then slowly it goes madder and madder because the house is being rebuilt and the parents get possessed and the daughter and is looking after like her little baby sister because the parents have basically been drawn into this weird nightmare.
**Adam:** One of the characters in that is played by Mark Heap.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Who.
**Adam:** You know, just is the modern Donald Pleasence.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah, but I mean and then you've got the second story is setting the present day and it's a a rat who is a building contractor, who is trying to sort of trying to do up a house to sell it on.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** basically there's like an infestation of cockroaches, there was and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And it's a very weird, creepy little sort of gets under your skin sort of feeling to it.
**Adam:** and it the rat is voiced by Jarvis Cocker.
**Adam:** And he's really fucking good.
**Adam:** And it's it's yeah, just that that one sort of is yeah, as I say, it's because it's an anthropomorphized rat.
**Adam:** It's suddenly gone a bit weirder and you're sort of, but you just get drawn into the story in the end.
**Adam:** You're like, oh no, this is just the story of a building contract who's having shit go wrong.
**Adam:** Not.
**Lee:** This is a real who's a rat.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And similarly and the full story and the third story rather is set in the future and it's similar, but it's all anthropomorphized cats.
**Adam:** And basically it's one of them owns the house and rents it out to two other cats, but neither of them can pay the rent and one of them, one of them just, oh yeah, and this is set in the future where the world is drowned.
**Adam:** And the house is one of the few things high enough that it's not in the in the water.
**Adam:** and yeah, one of the tenants catches fish, that's how he pays his rent.
**Adam:** And the other one is an old hippie cat, played by Helen Bonham Carter, who just hands over like.
**Adam:** precious stones, you know, sort of like.
**Adam:** Oh, this this this will improve your chakras and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
**Adam:** And basically yeah, it's the sort of that getting all wound up.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** her hippie boyfriend turns up, voiced by Paul Kay, and it's.
**Adam:** Again.
**Adam:** The best way I can describe it is it feels like all those roll like the recent roll doll stuff.
**Adam:** Like Fantastic Mr. Fox and Coraline, well, that's Neil Gaiman.
**Adam:** But yeah, Coraline and, James and the Giant Peach, it's in that sort of animation sort of feel to it.
**Adam:** but it's kind of like Roll Doll's Tales of the Unexpected as the plot drivers.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** It's a really weird combo and it but it's really, really, really worth checking out.
**Lee:** I also got that recommendation from a previous guest on the show Dave.
**Lee:** Chris and I spent the weekend with him at Horror on Sea, which we will mention at a later date.
**Lee:** yeah, and in the foyer while we were waiting to go into the first film, he was saying he'd watched it and yeah, same as you, Adam, he was saying it's really strange, but really worth watching.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's definitely on my my to watch list, once we finish all of the Hound of the Baskervilles that there are.
**Adam:** other other bits I watched.
**Adam:** Oh, I watched, I rewatched the documentary because I'd watched Allison's Birthday, I was then on an Oz kick, so I rewatched the documentary Not Quite Hollywood.
**Adam:** I think I've talked about it before.
**Adam:** But it's basically about the sort of 70s, 80s explosion of Australian cinema and you've got stuff in there like Mad Max and Turkey Shoot and,
**Adam:** But also Howling Three the Marsupials.
**Adam:** And you know.
**Adam:** Some right classics.
**Adam:** but on that there was a film called Next of Kin.
**Adam:** Directed by Tony Williams from 1982.
**Adam:** and bless her Claire got it for me on Blu-ray.
**Adam:** Because I was watching it.
**Adam:** And I was like, oh, that does look good.
**Adam:** Didn't it?
**Adam:** That one.
**Adam:** And yeah, she chaffed off and ordered it for me, bless her.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So I so I've watched that.
**Adam:** And that's that's really good.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** It's kind of because it was they said the bloke who directed it was basically he was obsessed with Hitchcock.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** yeah, I can really see that.
**Adam:** Because there's so many it just it's shot amazing.
**Adam:** But basically it's kind of a bit Allison's Birthday.
**Adam:** It's another thing where it's a girl returning home after her mother dies, she has inherited this old folk home.
**Adam:** And yeah, just strange shit goes down.
**Adam:** And it has even down to that that it's like the sort of thing of locked away mental relatives and things like that.
**Adam:** That feels a bit Hitchcockian as well.
**Adam:** But yeah, that's that's definitely worth checking out.
**Adam:** If only for the scene when someone's looking through the bathroom door keyhole.
**Adam:** I will say no more than that, but fuck me when you see it.
**Adam:** You're like.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Bastard.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** yeah, I think, I think that's pretty much I think that's pretty much covered everything.
**Adam:** Apart from and I know this is something that you watched as well, Lee, Mark Gatiss's The Mistletoe or Misotin over Christmas.
**Lee:** Yes, I was going to say, I think that's probably a good crossover one, yes.
**Lee:** So, did you see it as well, Chris?
**Chris:** I didn't.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Well, you have got a treat in store.
**Lee:** What did you make of it?
**Lee:** Adam?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** I mean, compared to the last two sort of ghost stories for Christmas that we've had from Mark Gatiss and, you know, we, let's face it, we know this show loves Mark Gatiss, but yeah, the the modern day one he did with Simon Callow, I can't remember the Dead Room.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That that was I just didn't rate that much, if I'm honest.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** They did Martin's Close, which was okay.
**Adam:** But it just.
**Lee:** It didn't talk, did it?
**Lee:** There was nothing.
**Lee:** I mean, especially seeing as the one before when it had done the Tractate Middoth, that was so good.
**Lee:** I was I was kind of hoping to get back into that, which I mean, I think he did with this one, definitely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, it left those other two as you say, just wanting something really, but we definitely got it this year.
**Adam:** Course.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I was and I know it's your favorite MR James story.
**Adam:** So I was just so pleased because I was like.
**Adam:** There was a part of me that was like, I don't want this to be whack, but equally I was like, and don't fuck up Lee's favorite.
**Adam:** You know, I was I had a sense of propriety on your behalf.
**Adam:** I was like, yes.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** no, I was I I thought that was, I thought they and also I just think.
**Adam:** It was done much like how the Tractate Middoth was, it was just done so accurately to literally translating how the story go makes you feel to the screen of how the story should creep you out and everything else like that.
**Adam:** Because I think because that's the thing I like with it is the fact that it's not just one person.
**Adam:** And another person going, what, you talking about this, you know, it's that sort of thing where, you know, you have multiple witness.
**Adam:** Which is actually quite rare with MR James.
**Adam:** You know, you get people who you usually get the person who's affected by the madness or what the effect is on the or the the chosen victim, I suppose.
**Adam:** Or whatever like that, or the,
**Adam:** But yeah, it's rare in that sense that it's a few more people are joined into the psychosis, if you like.
**Adam:** Or the, the supernatural event. Absolutely.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** It was and on such a small cast as well, I'm just looking at IMDB, there's only seven people in it.
**Lee:** but yeah, just such a an amazing cast as well, it was just, oh, it was fantastic.
**Lee:** It was really, really good.
**Lee:** I say, I watched it as it went out.
**Lee:** As I said before, this is the first thing I've watched live on TV, I think since I think we said inside number nine.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, the Halloween the the live Halloween one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Which was a few years ago.
**Lee:** But I I had to see this as it went out, and I'm so glad I did it, it was absolutely fantastic, so, so good.
**Lee:** It made my Christmas.
**Chris:** Yeah, I like I like what Mark Gatiss says about it.
**Chris:** It's delightful to be bringing a little seasonal unease to the nation once again.
**Lee:** Well.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** Funnily enough, that's that is something that, I mean, again of what we watched over Christmas, I did basically churn through the ghost stories of Christmas, but I added in like Shout the Painter and ITB Cast and the Ruins and stuff where it was all like, these were these are kind of ghost stories for Christmas.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and the Stone Tape, I just yeah, I just chewed through those and the the Lawrence Golden Clark ones and everything and it's yeah, it was.
**Lee:** I just need to I do need to rewatch Calen the Painter.
**Lee:** I've only seen it twice, but my God, it's good.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's I think the thing again, it's that much the same as like with the the or I come to you, the Jonathan Miller one.
**Adam:** Because it's because it's kind of a documentary or purporting to be a like a documentary, it it sort of has a different, slightly different feel to it.
**Adam:** To the usual.
**Adam:** Sort of.
**Adam:** Because it's basically, this is the life story of a painter.
**Adam:** Oh, and by the way, this happened.
**Adam:** So it was.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** The only thing I did find was I recognized Francis Barber and I couldn't work out what I knew her from, and I still haven't quite worked it out. I think it's because it feels like I was saying to Chris just before we started recording.
**Lee:** Every time she came on, I was like, I definitely have seen her in something, but I think I've seen her in the same thing a lot, and I couldn't for the life of me work it out, but when I went back through her back catalog, it's all like Midsummer Murders.
**Lee:** So it I think it's that I see her on a regular basis.
**Lee:** But as bit parts in loads of different stuff, and she's phenomenal.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, no.
**Adam:** She's brilliant.
**Adam:** You might she was in, she was in the Red Dwarf episode Polymorph.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** And which is where I I think the first time I ever saw her.
**Adam:** But yeah, she's.
**Adam:** you also because I know you said you've been watching bits and pieces of psycho bitches and she turns up on that as well.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** her, oh, fucking hell, her Queen, her Queen Mary is it was it no, it's not Queen Mary, it's, Queen Elizabeth is fucking terrifying.
**Adam:** Where it's just her, what it's just,
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Things are meant to go in your fanny, they're not meant to come out.
**Lee:** Oh, Claire's just said that she she remembers her mostly for seducing Moss in the IT Crow.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, I remember that as well, again, as I say, one of those she probably comes on my TV every year or so, but in something different.
**Lee:** In a kind of small part.
**Lee:** So it feels like I see her very regularly, but it's normally yeah.
**Lee:** In very different cars.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** so following that, the next thing that I watched isn't exactly horror, but I think it definitely falls into that, into that catchment.
**Lee:** we watched the 2020 TV show Dead Still.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** So, how was that? Because I hadn't heard of it. Yeah.
**Adam:** I hadn't heard of it. I googled it, and then I was like.
**Adam:** There's a fucking show with Michael Smiley.
**Adam:** I don't know about it.
**Lee:** It's very, very good.
**Lee:** So, Michael Smiley is, so it's all set in Ireland, sort of just for the turn of the century, I believe, and he's a photographer of the dead, so back when people didn't have photographs taken a lot, when somebody died, you would get a photographer in to come and take a photograph of that person often posed with the family so that you have something.
**Adam:** That's sadly often usually children.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** but as the series progresses, there is a murderer who is murdering people and posing them and taking their photographs.
**Lee:** So obviously the head of the local constabulary goes to Michael Smiley as the expert.
**Lee:** And sort of says to him, you know, this is very much in your field.
**Lee:** I want you to help me catch this person, and then it gets wrapped up in his story as well.
**Lee:** So it turns out there's something between possibly him and the killer.
**Lee:** That you don't quite know, and he's being very cagey, yeah, it was a fantastic series.
**Lee:** Really, really, really good, so definitely get that on your watch list, Adam.
**Adam:** is it still?
**Lee:** Dead Still.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Dead Still, yeah.
**Lee:** I also caught up with Ghostbusters Afterlife.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** So I thought that would be worth mentioning.
**Lee:** I like, I liked it.
**Chris:** The trailer looked pretty good.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I I liked it.
**Lee:** It was, I was worried that it was either going to be a terrible grab at nostalgia for the old, you know, for the original fans.
**Lee:** and the trailer did look like it might just be sort of fan service.
**Lee:** But I I totally enjoyed it. Now the story is far from original, I won't go any more into it than that, but once you've seen it, you'll you'll get what I mean.
**Lee:** but I I thought they did a really good job.
**Lee:** And it's Paul Rudd as well, who I always find entertaining and charismatic and amusing.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't want to go too much into that because it's new and spoilers and whatnot.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's if you're a fan of the original, I don't think you'd be upset.
**Lee:** But I I would definitely go back to this before I'd go back to the reimagining that came out a couple of years ago.
**Adam:** Right.
**Lee:** which I was desperate to enjoy. I was like, it's a fantastic idea, it's a kind of, you know, like the idea of a parallel universe almost where it's a group of women who find themselves in the same position.
**Lee:** And are trying to have ghosts taken seriously and save New York and everything, and amazing cast, I was like, this can't possibly go wrong.
**Lee:** but it was just.
**Lee:** Too Disney for me and it just fell down on that unfortunately.
**Lee:** But this one, yeah.
**Lee:** Is definitely well worth your time.
**Adam:** The one.
**Adam:** The one question.
**Adam:** I have though is I have I have seen a lot of things where people are saying it's not.
**Adam:** it's not a comedy per se.
**Adam:** It's a bit, you know, it's not quite as sort of caper setup sort of thing as as Ghostbusters.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Just missing.
**Chris:** Bill Murray.
**Lee:** What.
**Lee:** You never know, Bill Murray may be in it.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** You never know.
**Lee:** He's still around, so it is it is possible that he could pop up.
**Lee:** but yeah, no, I totally get what you mean. It was more it felt more like the kind of more like the sort of MCU stuff where it's.
**Lee:** It is action primarily, it's definitely got some good laugh out loud moments in it and yeah, but yeah, it it's not an all out comedy.
**Lee:** It is more of an action movie with comedic elements, yeah, it was a good balance.
**Lee:** It was a good balance, so I was quite quite surprised with that.
**Lee:** And finally, after way too many years.
**Lee:** Oh God, 2006, I am behind the curve on this one.
**Lee:** I've finally started Masters of Horror.
**Lee:** it came out at a time when.
**Lee:** What was I? Oh, do you know what it was? I was really into gaming at the time and coming away from my computer, which was Chris's fault, to be fair, so coming away from my computer for even an evening a week to watch this was torture.
**Lee:** So I I didn't get around to it. But it's great now that I've got this massive back catalog to go through.
**Lee:** So I've finally started and as you would expect, it's a very mixed bag.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, yeah, they are.
**Lee:** so we started off the very first episode, which is incident on and off the mountain road.
**Adam:** Yeah, the Don Coscarelli one.
**Lee:** Don Coscarelli one.
**Lee:** Which, yeah, I mean, I quite enjoyed.
**Lee:** It was a good opener.
**Lee:** A five out of ten, I'd say.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's it's okay, it's because this is the thing, because because obviously like the setup of it was it's.
**Adam:** all classic horror movie directors and I just don't think that it's I don't think it's just it's not up to those sort of it's you know, it's good, but it's not.
**Adam:** Yeah, it doesn't have that sort of same it well it doesn't it's not as fucking mental as Phantasm or as just brilliantly funny and creative as Bubba Ho-Tep.
**Adam:** So it's yeah.
**Adam:** Because I think it's adapted from a story by the guy who wrote Bubba Ho-Tep, so, yeah, I think they're still sort of like that connection there, but yeah, I just it's it's like you say, it's okay, it's not.
**Adam:** It's not bad in any way, it's just not a shout from the rooftops job.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** unlike the next episode which followed that.
**Lee:** which was Stuart Gordon's, Dreams in the Witch House.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, that's.
**Lee:** Which was amazingly good.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** That's.
**Adam:** That's one of his best Lovecraft adaptations.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** And probably because he hasn't had to do a movie.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because because they're all they're all roughly an hour on.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it's a nice length.
**Adam:** So presumably with adverts it would have felt like a movie because it'd been like an hour and a half when it was on telly.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** but yeah, no, that's that's probably.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** I think one of his best Lovecraft adaptations, especially because it's still modern as he always does the Lovecraft adaptations pretty much modern, doesn't he?
**Lee:** It does.
**Lee:** And the main actor in it is the guy who was in Dagon as well.
**Adam:** Yes, of course.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I was impressed with that.
**Lee:** And actually, funnily enough, I I don't normally listen back to our to our own back episodes.
**Lee:** But recently I saw,
**Lee:** nuts, Curse of the Crimson Altar on the shelf, and I thought, oh, we must cover that, and I was like, I'm sure we did cover that. So I went back and listened to the episode, and because it's very loosely based on Dreams in the Witch House.
**Lee:** you did mention this, actually.
**Lee:** I think you'd not long seen it.
**Lee:** And you did say about you need to watch it, even if it's just for the rat with a human face, which was absolutely horrific.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** And it's and it's that weird fucking thing that Master of Horror, I don't know again, I don't know whether it's that time restriction means that it's like if you give them the budget.
**Adam:** It's getting used better or they've just got better people in or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But that's actually genuinely good effect, it's not the dog in a mask at the end of invasion of the body snatchers.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Adam:** It looks really fucking good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** That's fantastic.
**Lee:** which was good because I probably wouldn't have gone back.
**Lee:** If the second episode was episode three, which was Tobe Hooper's, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so the dead.
**Lee:** What a shit show.
**Lee:** That one.
**Lee:** And the thing was.
**Lee:** Every time I a name came up, you know, like the music and everything, I was like, oh my God, this is going to be amazing, Robert England's in it.
**Lee:** How can this possibly go wrong?
**Lee:** Well, it did, it was an absolute, it was horrible, even sitting through it for an hour, I felt like torture.
**Adam:** It's Tush.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** It really is.
**Adam:** It's absolute Tle.
**Adam:** It especially because like you say.
**Adam:** I was watching them when I was watching them where I think it's the first or second series.
**Adam:** But there's one, there's one he does where it's zombie like soldiers coming back from Afghanistan.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** And there's.
**Adam:** And then there's.
**Adam:** And then there's another one he does which I'm sure I think that's the second series one, which is really creepy where it's basically.
**Adam:** all the women have been wiped out and it's just but it's set sort of like five years after this has happened.
**Adam:** And it's like this family trying to protect like trying to protect themselves and it's this basically it's a world without kindness.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because we're not going to fucking buy each other cards, come on.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But, so but I can't but yeah.
**Adam:** You've got you've got two John Carpenters.
**Adam:** There's dear woman.
**Lee:** I was going to say, dear woman is the only one I'd seen, I think.
**Lee:** Because when it when it aired, you brought it around and said, you need to watch this.
**Lee:** It's John Landis, it's ridiculous.
**Lee:** It's absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** yeah, and I've got very fond memories of sitting around drinking and watching that.
**Lee:** So I'm looking forward to that.
**Lee:** Coming up.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Dear Woman's fucking fantastic. Also when you're watching Dear Woman, the main actor in it is Brian Benben.
**Adam:** Which is.
**Adam:** An amazing name as it is, you will try and work out who he sounds like.
**Adam:** He sounds like Tom Hanks.
**Lee:** All right, excellent.
**Lee:** Thank you.
**Lee:** That draws me mad.
**Adam:** Because because me and Claire watched it and we were both like, he really sounds like someone we couldn't.
**Adam:** And then eventually, I googled it and the first third or fourth thing that came up was, why does Brian Benben sound like Tom Hanks?
**Adam:** And of course.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah.
**Adam:** So there's there's there's some really good stuff in there.
**Adam:** And actually when they showed it over here.
**Adam:** We got an episode they didn't show in America because there's a Takeshi Mitzu Takeshi episode.
**Adam:** And basically the act like.
**Adam:** No, I'll be honest.
**Adam:** I can honestly say it's got it's got one of the harshest things I've ever seen on television.
**Adam:** And I'm like, wow, yeah.
**Adam:** I can I can see why they didn't, but I was also I was so pleased.
**Adam:** That I had it.
**Adam:** I had it on video.
**Adam:** I took it around to Deans.
**Adam:** Because I was like, there's the Miki one, the one they've banned.
**Adam:** We have literally got the only copy in the universe.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Then they came out with DVD.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** You go, shit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Then they came out on DVD.
**Adam:** And I'll go shit.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, so I shall be looking I shall be watching that again and reporting back.
**Lee:** So, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Lee:** thanks very much for bearing with us.
**Lee:** I say we were hoping to get this episode out earlier than we did, that's my fault, we were supposed to record on Saturday so that we could post it on the Sunday between our other two Sherlock Holmes episodes, and I had a terrible migraine and lost an entire day to lying on the sofa feeling like I had a head full of concrete.
**Lee:** So, that wasn't much fun.
**Adam:** It's all them poppers you've been doing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Solid gold blow your tits off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, decompression after, you know, Christmas stress.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Adam:** It's got Christmas pence.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Unbelievable.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, so as we mentioned.
**Lee:** Chris and I went to Horror on Sea, we are going to try and get Dave and Jennifer who are also there together.
**Lee:** and just do a little short, you know, 45 minutes or whatever, just to run down what we saw in that day, which was fantastic.
**Lee:** and as well as being an amazing day, I also came away, as I sent a photograph to Adam, with the Arrow release, the Yokai Monsters box set.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That I've been looking at and kept thinking, I really, I really do need that.
**Lee:** and then I got it there sort of half price, so, I can't wait to watch that.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Lee:** I'll I'll make Jennifer watch it.
**Lee:** And see what she makes of it, because it's pretty random.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, this is.
**Adam:** This is the thing.
**Adam:** It's, you know, you're sitting there going.
**Adam:** So he's an umbrella with one leg, and a licky tongue.
**Adam:** And one eye.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Suddenly hopping vampires don't seem so weird.
**Adam:** Well, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I should be.
**Lee:** Looking.
**Lee:** I should be watching that again.
**Lee:** And reporting back.
**Lee:** so, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, apologize again for the fact we were off for a month over Christmas and New Year.
**Lee:** But we have trouble getting together once a fortnight as it is, so that was pretty much a right off that period, so it's good that we've we've got an extra episode out for you now.
**Lee:** and we shall return I will try and get this episode up possibly Saturday, so we will return tomorrow, hopefully, with the next three episodes.
**Lee:** Well the next episode covering the next three of the Hound of the Baskervilles.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I've got to say, I know how one of the podcast, Adam and I listen to.
**Lee:** Last podcast on the left, sometimes they cover stuff and go, oh my God, I can't wait to have this out of my head.
**Lee:** I'm getting to that point now. I've now watched four versions, I've read the entire novel.
**Lee:** And I'm trying desperately to get through the War Look Holmes version of the Hound of the Baskervilles as well.
**Lee:** So four films and two novels of the same thing in a two-week period is making my eyes bleed.
**Lee:** But,
**Lee:** but yeah, always entertaining and very different.
**Lee:** It's great to get a perspective on how you can take a take a text and make it so completely different in three in so many different ways.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** So, right, thanks ever so much for listening, everybody, go and check out Not For Everyone podcast.
**Lee:** And, oh, go and listen to Eerie Essex.
**Lee:** That's also a fantastic podcast we've been listening to.
**Lee:** Big fans of that.
**Lee:** And we will return.
**Lee:** I will try and get this episode up.
**Lee:** Possibly Saturday.
**Lee:** So we will return tomorrow, hopefully, with the next three episodes, well, the next episode covering the next three of the Hound of the Baskervilles.
**Lee:** Good night.

---

## Ep 134 Hound of the Baskervilles

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-134-hound-of-the-baskervilles/
Air date: 16 January 2022
Duration: 01:19:38
Film: The Hound of the Baskervilles · Year: 1959 · Director: Terence Fisher

### Description

We travel to Dartmoor for our first episode of 2022, where we encounter the Hammer Studios version of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. A film in which Peter Cushing’s status as an OG cosplayer leads to some exceptional authenticity; we learn the best way to present a ceremonial dagger to a suspect; the Bullingdon Club dry a half-drowned man out over an open fire; and Christopher Lee gets a good slap. Along the way we discuss Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own relationship with his most famous creation; the question of co-authorship with Bertram Fletcher Robinson; and the many folktales and myths that fuelled the original story. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, AT THE HEART OF THE GREAT GRIMPEN MIRE

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** Hi, I'm Chris.
**Adam:** Hi, I'm Adam.
**Jennifer:** I'm Jennifer.
**Lee:** Happy New Year!
**Adam:** Jennifer's back.
**Chris:** Happy New Year!
**Jennifer:** Yay!
**Lee:** Yay.
**Lee:** Yeah, somehow we had the holidays and Jennifer still isn't sick of the sight of me enough to be desperate to get an hour and a half away from you.
**Jennifer:** No, no, I totally am, but I really like Sherlock Holmes.
**Chris:** This this is, yeah.
**Adam:** That was the trade off, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Do do you like this Sherlock Holmes though? That's the question.
**Jennifer:** Well, we'll have to wait for that, won't we?
**Chris:** Ooh.
**Adam:** Indeed.
**Lee:** so just to let you all know, what we've decided to do as we've had the month off over Christmas and New Year and we've got through a lot. Adam had the excellent idea of rather than us dashing through all the stuff that we've watched and trying to condense it and not giving it the time it's it's due really. we're going to do a bonus episode which will either have dropped before or after this episode or at the same time, I mean, who knows.
**Lee:** So we're going to do that instead. So we're not going to have our usual what we've been watching, and also Sherlock Holmes I think deserves a lot of time because of although we want to stick to one version this evening, we do want to cover it a bit more of an overall really.
**Lee:** So and also thank you to Claire for this fantastic idea of suggesting this, it was it Claire who suggested this?
**Lee:** Or was it Adam?
**Adam:** I think it was me actually because Claire looks dazed and confused by the whole situation.
**Lee:** Oh, sorry.
**Lee:** In that case I see whenever Adam comes up with great idea, I always give Claire the credit.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's because she comes up with so many great ideas.
**Jennifer:** Half the time.
**Adam:** 90% of the time it is Claire's idea.
**Lee:** yes, so we're covering The Hound of the Baskervilles this evening.
**Lee:** but obviously, as we say, Sherlock Holmes in general.
**Lee:** this I think is one of the more horror stories from Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** But I know that myself and Jennifer and Adam are massive fans of Sherlock Holmes, in all of its adaptations really.
**Lee:** Chris, do you use Sherlock Holmes something that you've delved into a lot or particularly?
**Chris:** I I've seen one or two episodes when I was fairly young. I the one that sticks out to me which is you know probably not as applicable is young Sherlock Holmes, which I seem to remember being quite odd and entertaining but I don't know how much like how close is it to actual Sherlock Holmes?
**Adam:** It certainly certainly not based on Conan Doyle.
**Chris:** No, yeah, okay.
**Adam:** It's it's funny you mention that though because the obviously we're doing this evening we're sort of concentrating on the Hammer edition. I got the Blu-ray, the Arrow Blu-ray of it. And one of the things on there is what's what's called 'The Many Faces of Sherlock Holmes' and it's narrated by Christopher Lee, but I think looking at it, it looks like it is a part of the sort of advertising package for Young Sherlock Holmes.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Because there's a big load of young Sherlock Holmes clips at the start before he goes off and into And interestingly enough, I think he's just talking film versions.
**Adam:** and also he he is dressed like the most obvious undercover policeman you've ever seen. He's like sort of blue blue blue blazer and a tweed hat and he's mustache. He he actually looks exactly as he does in Death Line.
**Chris:** Wow.
**Adam:** Almost you know, I mean in Death Line it's a bowler hat, but pretty much it's the same it's that same look of it's like, you come here to arrest me, haven't you? That is the only vibe you're giving off here.
**Lee:** Oh, before we get into it again.
**Lee:** Obviously, there will be spoilers and swearing just to let everybody know.
**Lee:** I'm sure everybody knows the story of The Hound of the Baskervilles, but nevertheless, it's always worth pointing out and there will be swears possibly.
**Lee:** Although I feel wrong doing it because this feels like a cultured episode.
**Lee:** So I mean,
**Jennifer:** Yeah, makes sense.
**Chris:** Although, although I was kind of surprised that there's a little bit of swearing in it.
**Adam:** Is there?
**Adam:** What bit?
**Chris:** Well, well, it's on the more mild end, the you know, the female dog is mentioned.
**Jennifer:** Oh!
**Adam:** All right, okay.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, yes.
**Chris:** I just was a bit to be honest, the whole of the start was a I was a little bit thrown, it was like, oh, okay, I didn't quite see this orgiastic party.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** happening.
**Chris:** It was like, oh, yeah, okay, it's
**Chris:** pretty forlorn.
**Adam:** That's definitely I think it's unique in that opening.
**Adam:** Because obviously in the in the usual version of the story.
**Adam:** Starts with Holmes and Watson, Dr. Mortimer turns up and then reads them that story.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** Whereas Hammer have obviously thought, what do we What do we do best?
**Chris:** Gon.
**Adam:** Like horror melodrama in period costume.
**Chris:** Yeah. Let's
**Adam:** So let's go for that.
**Chris:** Let's go for it.
**Adam:** It's like sort of cold open it almost which is a very unusual way to do it, you know.
**Adam:** And it's even more unusual because then you cut back and the narrator is not like a main character technically.
**Adam:** If well, not he's one of the participants, but he's not Holmes or Watson.
**Adam:** And you go into a Sherlock Holmes movie assuming that you would be like the stories you'd be doing it from Watson's perspective or from Holmes's perspective or whatever.
**Adam:** And so yeah, it's just a weird, very odd opening, but also pretty fucking spectacular. It's very Hammer, isn't it? With those mat paintings in the background and like the very stark colors as well, you know, the.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That very sort of washed out matt paintings with the very red credits over the top and that fantastic font.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes, yes, he's a lovely lovely font.
**Adam:** lovely font work from the Hammer boys there.
**Adam:** And actually I mean that opening sequence, I mean, basically it's the Bullingdon Club, isn't it?
**Chris:** Oh, that yeah, that absolutely it was reminded me of societal a little bit. I was like, this going to go it's not going to go that far, but it's
**Adam:** It's pretty far.
**Chris:** What
**Adam:** enough enough that his coed up mates aren't that's That's that's all it reminded me of is suits in a pub.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, even even his co-up mates are a bit, you can't you can't just like chase a human being down with a horse, can you?
**Adam:** You know that's much.
**Lee:** Because Jennifer, I think it's all right. It's all right to bring a down and abuse her in a game, but setting a dog after her.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, all of a sudden.
**Chris:** That's stepped over a line there.
**Adam:** Yeah, certainly everyone's a fucking vicar.
**Adam:** Having also nearly set fire to her dad.
**Chris:** Yeah, he doesn't look great after it.
**Lee:** He looks pretty dead.
**Chris:** Is is he is he dead?
**Adam:** I'm kind of assuming, I know that this I'm not sure if the Arrow version, I should I should have checked but I just forgot to, but I'm not sure if the Arrow version is any different, but the this is one of the few Hammer films that's cut in England still. and I think there's more of him in the fire. I think they basically put him in the fire and then drag him out.
**Chris:** Oh, god.
**Adam:** So it's not just holding him over.
**Adam:** Although technically, he's been in the moat, so, you know, he should be fine, shouldn't he?
**Lee:** He's dead.
**Adam:** If if anything they're drying him off, you know, it's a kindness.
**Adam:** Yeah, and I think I think the other thing is there's like maybe more shots of the knife with blood on it.
**Adam:** So it's only this opening bit that has bits that are sort of a bit.
**Chris:** I was going to mention that later. I quite liked Peter Cushing or Sherlock Holmes's little flourish with the knife, the dagger later on when he.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** And he's for the death.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** one more thing, and this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Pow.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** It's not too it's not it's not too far off Elvis in what they're like in Walk Hard.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Look at that.
**Adam:** Because I mean, that's in a weird way, because obviously, Peter Cushing was a real like Sherlock Holmes nut.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** He was a proper aficionado of the books before it so
**Adam:** I mean, interestingly enough, part of his costume is Peter Cushing's own stuff that he brought from home. So I get the impression he was an early Sherlock Holmes cosplayer.
**Jennifer:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh, that's impressive.
**Adam:** I think he just dressed up as Sherlock Holmes at home.
**Adam:** I think he just was that much of a fan.
**Lee:** That tweet.
**Adam:** And I mean he does he does kind of resemble.
**Adam:** He resembles the Paget like the classic Sydney Paget illustrations do really resemble Peter Cushing as well, and it's that same sort of very gump face and everything else like that.
**Chris:** But I did not having seen a lot, I did think he was great in it.
**Chris:** I mean, what doesn't he do great, but you know.
**Adam:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** I but I think I think it's that weird thing where you can tell because of how much of a fan he is, how much he's fucking enjoying it.
**Adam:** Because he's really going for it, you know.
**Adam:** But yeah, so and also he changed bits of the dialogue and actually brought them back to the original book.
**Adam:** So there's lines in there there's actually lines in there from other Sherlock Holmes stories, it's not purely like the bit where he talks about his rates of pay that I think's from that's from a different Sherlock Holmes story and stuff.
**Adam:** And even nailing his letters to the fireplace with the knife.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is in the books.
**Adam:** And again, that was something that Peter Cushing said, well, can I do that? Can I will do that? So I've got my letters.
**Adam:** Yeah, so he really like was properly sort of like, no, let's make this the most Sherlock Holmes, most accurate and doing it properly.
**Jennifer:** So Hammer, do we know why?
**Adam:** Basically, this was the first sort of not not flop, but it was the first of that run of Hammer that didn't do well at the box office.
**Adam:** I think mostly because it's not, a monster.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, no, I was going to say, right, because it does seem a little bit odd to me for them to choose this because this isn't ultimately supernatural and I'm assuming the other Sherlock Holmes aren't either, even though they probably build up the whole.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** There's
**Adam:** I mean, the whole the whole thing with and it's quite a weird thing with Arthur Conan Doyle as he turned out.
**Chris:** No, I've heard well, I've heard a bit about him.
**Chris:** Not a huge amount.
**Adam:** His Sherlock.
**Chris:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, he well, I mean, he he was he was Scottish, he studied medicine at Edinburgh and he was under a doctor called Bell who he basically took Sherlock Holmes from. He exhibited a lot of his personality and he was basically a forensic pathologist. He was solving crimes through careful observation of.
**Chris:** Did he say elementary?
**Adam:** that I could not answer.
**Adam:** I mean, Holmes doesn't.
**Lee:** They say.
**Chris:** He says it twice in twice that I can remember in this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not as it's not as prevalent in the books.
**Adam:** In fact, the one thing that is great about the books is that I think there's at least three occurrences of It was around three o'clock when I was awoken by a sudden ejaculation from Holmes.
**Adam:** And there you go, the time's gone.
**Lee:** Told you.
**Adam:** The other way.
**Adam:** So, so if anything he should have ejaculated more than the elementary because there's probably more times that occurs in the books.
**Adam:** It's a bit sort of beam me up, Scotty, sort of things where it's like or you dirty rat where it's things that people said possibly once and then it sort of becomes this part of it.
**Adam:** Much the same as the deer stalker's an invention of Sydney Paget.
**Adam:** It's not in the stories per se.
**Adam:** and Holmes dresses like that for the countryside, so it works that it's sort of Hound of the Baskervilles.
**Adam:** But you know, he wouldn't necessarily be wandering around London in an Inverness cape and a.
**Adam:** deer stalker because that was that was country dress.
**Adam:** So again, I wonder if it's the sort of the Hound of the Baskervilles is the most popular or the most recognized Sherlock Holmes story.
**Adam:** And because of that, that's the image that is portrayed of Holmes.
**Adam:** Whereas in actual fact, yeah, I mean, they sort of got it pretty accurate with the Jeremy Brett version where I think he wears it in Hound of the Baskervilles and that's about it.
**Adam:** Whereas the rest of the time he's about town, so he's just wearing a top out or whatever.
**Adam:** So it's yeah.
**Lee:** Now you're saying about Arthur Conan Doyle, there is a really good series that Jennifer and I found on TV when we were on holiday and came back and bought the box set. and it's called 'Houdini and Doyle'.
**Lee:** Did you ever see that Adam?
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** Yes, I've heard of it, yeah.
**Chris:** That sounds interesting.
**Chris:** Because Houdini was quite science-based.
**Adam:** I think it's based on books as well.
**Adam:** I think it's a series of books.
**Lee:** I'll have to dig that out.
**Chris:** Wasn't Houdini quite science based? And it's that this I think I heard they used to sort of argue over.
**Chris:** Because surprisingly Arthur Conan Doyle was quite into spiritualism and pseudo science which is odd because he's made one of the most rational people ever to exist.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I mean this this was the this was the curious thing is because I mean and it's it's weird because he had another great character, which is a character called Professor Challenger.
**Adam:** And that's the story of 'The Lost World', like the original story of where it's.
**Adam:** They basically go exploring in South America and find a plateau where dinosaurs are still in existence.
**Adam:** there's I think there's been adaptations of it, but no one's ever done because there were quite a few Professor Challenger stories.
**Adam:** I think five in total, I mean it wasn't like anything like the amount that he did Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** But he had this other recurring character.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** the main reason that I'm glad it's not been adapted is because the one man who could play it is probably too old to do it now because Professor Challenger is like in his sort of thirties or forties.
**Adam:** But when you read the book, it is Brian Blessed.
**Lee:** I knew you were going to say that name.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's literally impossible not to read it as Brian Blessed.
**Adam:** He's got this huge beard, he's this bellowing sort of loony bear of a man who's like, you know, embraces people and climbing fucking mountains and stuff like that.
**Adam:** You know, he's just this sort of.
**Adam:** huge.
**Adam:** Brian Blessed essentially.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, so it's a missed opportunity that he didn't play him sort of like a few years ago.
**Adam:** But then,
**Adam:** the weird thing is that the Professor Challenger books do have weird and unusual stuff in it. It's almost sci-fi because you've got things like undiscovered dinosaurs, there's a mysterious gas that comes out of the planet when they're doing drilling like when they're doing like a drilling project or something like that.
**Adam:** But then really unfortunately, the last of the Professor Challenger books is like a thinly sort of veiled sort of like, isn't isn't spiritualism great.
**Adam:** And and and it's literally like and it's literally to the point where it's sort of like the character the debunking characters who don't like spiritualism are practically called things like Mr. Nasty, probably a paedophile.
**Adam:** And whereas all the spiritualists are called like Mr. Braveheart and Mr. Mr. True, absolute unequivocal truth and he'd do the dishes if you asked him. or miss Mrs. would always lend you a fiver.
**Adam:** You know, they're
**Adam:** they are irredeemably good and everyone who is against spiritualism is clearly a vicious party pooping shitter who just doesn't want people to realize that the their loved ones can talk to them kindly through these mediums for a vast sum of money.
**Adam:** but fortunately Homes is never like Con Doyle never sort of did that with Homes.
**Adam:** He was
**Adam:** I I think in a weird way because he got quite sick of writing Sherlock Holmes and that's why he killed him off.
**Adam:** And I wonder if it is almost because you're in this conflict with your own creation who basically is like, no.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is all bullshit, there's only reality now stop being so fucking stupid.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** yeah, I think that that might have been partially why.
**Adam:** he sort of killed him off and was.
**Adam:** And again,
**Adam:** probably why he I think he lost interest in home in writing the stories.
**Adam:** and
**Adam:** So the and I also think that this is the main reason why Hound of the Baskervilles is the one.
**Adam:** That everyone's like always like.
**Adam:** So Sherlock Holmes right the Baskervilles, that's the classic.
**Adam:** one, that's the one that people could name, that's the one people probably have seen a version of, it's the one that gets made into sort of forty odd movie versions and TV movie versions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** It's.
**Lee:** We got tricked.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** basically
**Lee:** what happened
**Lee:** Sorry?
**Lee:** I was going to say we got tricked into watching one. so in 1937, there was they made one called 'Murder at the Baskervilles', which is actually 'Silver Blaze'.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** But the idea is he Hemry first, so then he gets invited there for the weekend and his neighbor gets his race horse nicked, so he deals with it while he's down, so we watched it thinking it was a Baskerville one and it isn't, it's 'The Silver Blaze' story.
**Lee:** But as you say because everyone associates Baskerville, they just nicked the name and reappropriated it, so.
**Adam:** Was that an English one or a German one or something?
**Lee:** It's English.
**Lee:** It's very.
**Adam:** Was it silent or.
**Lee:** No, no, it's.
**Lee:** It's got sound and everything, but you said, didn't you, like the Jennifer, it's one of those.
**Adam:** All right.
**Jennifer:** Very early where it feels like a stage production.
**Jennifer:** It's lots of locked off cameras and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** poor acting but more because you feel they're acting as if they're on the stage rather than a sort of natural so yeah, it was very very dated.
**Adam:** Because I because I know that there was like, I think the first adaption the first film adaption was a German one and that had like five sequels that all seem to be.
**Adam:** So I wondered if it was part of that that they'd sort of just thought, well, we've got to keep Baskerville in it.
**Adam:** So but.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** When so obviously you've got, I think I think basically you have the you have two books and then two sets of short stories. I've everything was published initially in 'The Strand' magazine, like the Sherlock Holmes stories.
**Adam:** So it was the novels serialized and then the short stories would appear and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And then he got.
**Adam:** So he got annoyed with Holmes and killed him off.
**Adam:** in the 'Final Problem'.
**Adam:** And that was.
**Adam:** 1893.
**Adam:** So and obviously at the time it was like, you know, mass mourning, people were walking around with black armbands and you know, because of the death of this beloved fictitious character.
**Lee:** It's the 'Houdini and Doyle' show as well.
**Lee:** Is it it's set just after he'd written the 'Final Problem'.
**Lee:** So all the way through while the two of them are doing their investigations, people keep telling him what a shit he is for killing off Sherlock.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I like that.
**Adam:** But I think yeah, so he he was and he was kind of adamant with it.
**Adam:** He was going to stick to his guns.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** that was that.
**Adam:** And then he went on.
**Adam:** Well, what was it?
**Adam:** I I mean, I'll give you the I've got the backstory.
**Adam:** Because there's a lot of folk myth and folklore that goes into 'Hound of the Baskervilles'.
**Adam:** From Conan Doyle.
**Adam:** And basically in so yes, so he kills off Sherlock he kills off Holmes in 1893.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** In 1901 he goes on a Arthur Conan Doyle goes on a golfing holiday with a friend of his.
**Adam:** Bertram Fletcher Robinson whose nickname was Bubbles.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So so he's gone on the golfing holiday with Bubbles Fletcher Robinson.
**Adam:** and when it when it was raining inevitably, they would just sit around the hotel.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Fletcher Robinson would tell Arthur Conan Doyle about local legends.
**Adam:** So the first one that came up was first thing he was talking about was Black Shuck, which I'm sure you'll have heard about in terms of it's one of the big myths of the British Isles, the sort of spectral Phantom Black dog.
**Adam:** which is sort of East Anglia and Essex folklore and but there's there's sort of black dog.
**Adam:** Phantom black dogs up and down the country.
**Lee:** We had one when we were there, they said it was part of their local folk legend.
**Lee:** That there's a black dog.
**Lee:** That
**Lee:** haunts the streets at night and takes away anyone out after dark.
**Lee:** We didn't find it.
**Jennifer:** No, sorry with that.
**Adam:** Yeah, they've got.
**Adam:** They've got ones they've got ones in Scotland.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's something that just is pretty sort of.
**Adam:** centric to the British Isles for some reason.
**Jennifer:** Keep children in at night, simple.
**Jennifer:** Easier.
**Adam:** So Black Shuck, the word actually is.
**Adam:** Probably from an old English word which is shuka for fiend or devil.
**Adam:** And the stories of Black Shuck vary sort of considerably.
**Adam:** He's always a large black dog, but sometimes he's just a large dog and then anything up to like the size of a horse.
**Adam:** So they really, you know.
**Adam:** he's even been portraying it usually has red or yellow glowing eyes.
**Adam:** occasionally he's portrayed as a cyclops.
**Adam:** Not sure why.
**Adam:** and he's often regarded as a harbinger of disaster or death.
**Adam:** But then also other stories he is a protector or a guide, he sort of protects.
**Adam:** lone women walking alone at night or he guides people through stuff like The Grimpen Mire, you know, he would sort of that.
**Adam:** You know, he'd be people would be led by following this phantom dog that doesn't.
**Adam:** But where's the
**Adam:** quote.
**Adam:** I got.
**Adam:** He takes the form of a huge black dog and prowls along dark lanes and lonesome field footpaths where, although his howling makes the hearer's blood run cold, his footfalls make no sound.
**Adam:** But such an encounter may bring you the worst of luck, it is even said that to meet him is to be warned that your death will occur before the end of the year.
**Adam:** So you will do well to shut your eyes if you hear him howling, shut them even if you are uncertain whether it is the dog fiend or the voice of the wind you hear.
**Adam:** You may perhaps doubt his existence and, like other learned folks, tell us that his story is nothing but the old Scandinavian myth of the black hound of Odin, brought to us by the Vikings.
**Adam:** So yes, so that's Black Shuck.
**Adam:** And that clearly tickled Arthur Conan Doyle's fancy.
**Adam:** And then Conan Doyle went.
**Adam:** Decided that he and Fletcher Robinson would co-write a really good supernatural story.
**Adam:** incidentally,
**Adam:** they were also at that time reading a story in 'The Strand' magazine called 'Followed'.
**Adam:** Which is basically, from what I gather, is basically The Hound of the Baskervilles with a big snake rather than a dog.
**Chris:** How do they dress the snake up?
**Adam:** Like it's no, I think someone just gets what is it they get snake attracting powder put on their boots.
**Adam:** So it's like it's even to that point.
**Adam:** Someone's just someone's looked at it and just gone, you know, if you made that a dog, you could just do it by scent.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Fuck, yeah, right, okay.
**Adam:** So we know they've read that but that's that's by the by.
**Adam:** Because I think half of the definitely the pleasure of Conan Doyle is how well he writes anymore so than the stories that he does.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** Conan Doyle went.
**Adam:** Stayed at Fletcher Robinson's family home, Park Hill House in Ipplepen, which is on the outskirts of Dartmoor.
**Adam:** Fletcher Robinson then told him the story of Richard Cabell the Third.
**Adam:** The squire of Brook Hall in nearby Buckfastleigh also known as Dirty Dick.
**Adam:** Cabell definitely seems to be an inspiration for Hugo Baskerville described as a monstrously evil man.
**Adam:** He had a reputation for immorality, debauchery and the locals believed he'd sold his soul to the devil.
**Adam:** And murdered his wife and murdered his wife.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** and again, some saying that he drove her to ground with a pack of hounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** He lived a hunt.
**Adam:** But when he eventually died, he was buried at the Holy Trinity Church in Buckfastleigh.
**Adam:** And when he was buried a pack of Phantom Hounds were said to have come from the moor to bait and howl at his tomb.
**Adam:** Following that, the ghost of Cabell was then seen regularly hunting on the Moors with these hellish hounds.
**Adam:** In an effort to lay the ghost and this is a place you can go and visit still.
**Adam:** In an effort to lay the ghost, a free standing mausoleum was constructed around Cabell's grave.
**Adam:** With a large stone slab over the top of the coffin and the windows barred with iron railings.
**Adam:** Now.
**Adam:** This this story is such a sort of ingrained part of Buckfastleigh that during World War II, you know when they were taking all sort of ornamental railings and stuff up to add to the war effort for munitions and manufacture and stuff like that.
**Adam:** the locals successfully campaigned to keep the railings on this too during World War II.
**Adam:** They were that adamant that like.
**Adam:** No, we are not letting Richard Cabell out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** They could have told him off and sent him off to fight, you know.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** I mean, this is the thing, you should I mean, that would have been that would have probably been Crowley's answer to it.
**Adam:** It would have just been like.
**Adam:** unleash him, I don't know.
**Adam:** I don't know if that's his voice.
**Adam:** But it could be.
**Adam:** Also one of the one of the local stories.
**Adam:** Is that if you walk thirteen times around the graveyard withershins.
**Adam:** Or anti-clockwise, and then stick your finger in the keyhole of the tomb.
**Adam:** he bites your finger off.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** So it's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's
**Adam:** That's what happened.
**Adam:** Terry Nutkins.
**Adam:** Wasn't a bloody seal at all.
**Adam:** The liar.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** Also at Park Hill House like Fletcher Robinson's house, the groom of slash footman was Henry Harry Baskerville.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Who would go on to say in later years that he inspired the Baskerville name, claiming that both Fletcher Robinson and Conan Doyle had asked him for permission to use the name.
**Adam:** And he owned a copy of the novel inscribed to Henry Baskerville from Fletcher Robinson with apologies for using the name.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** There's also another branch.
**Adam:** of the Baskerville family, the Baskervilles of Clyro Court on the English Welsh border.
**Adam:** Which is now called Baskerville House Hotel if you want to go and stay there.
**Lee:** Ooh.
**Adam:** And it it looks the part.
**Adam:** It really fucking does.
**Adam:** and they were also visited by Conan Doyle and again, they claimed that he asked them for use of the permission to use the name Baskerville.
**Adam:** They said that they agreed on the understanding that no real life connection was made between them, their house and the locality in the book.
**Adam:** But I mean, obviously they'd kind of decided they were doing a Dartmoor story anyway, like Fletcher Robinson and Conan Doyle had.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, so that was going to.
**Adam:** So that didn't.
**Adam:** See that as a problem.
**Adam:** Now these.
**Adam:** Baskervilles also have a phantom dog legend.
**Adam:** the story went that they had a faithful wolfhound that kept whimpering and howling to alert the family there was a wolf at the door.
**Adam:** and then in exasperation with the animal's agitated display, the master of the house drove a spear through its head.
**Adam:** To get it to shut up.
**Adam:** And their crest is actually.
**Adam:** a has a a wolf or wolfhound looking head on its crest with the state with the spear through its head and like five drops of blood.
**Lee:** That's pretty cool.
**Adam:** Which is pretty down.
**Lee:** It's pretty.
**Adam:** And then and obviously with it and in terms of the story it turns out the dog was right.
**Adam:** There was a wolf.
**Adam:** So you know.
**Adam:** well done fella.
**Adam:** So the ghost of this wolfhound supposedly appears whenever a member of the Baskerville family is due to die.
**Adam:** And he appears with the spear through his head.
**Adam:** and
**Adam:** But also this group of Baskervilles intermarried with a group called the Vaughns.
**Adam:** That with a family called the Vaughns of nearby Hergest Hall.
**Adam:** They also have a phantom dog fucking story with with them.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Right, so it's.
**Adam:** It's brilliant.
**Adam:** This is.
**Adam:** And they also have another candidate for inspiring Hugo Baskerville.
**Adam:** because they had Squire Thomas Vaughan who was known as Black Vaughan.
**Adam:** in the late 15th century, who along with his wife Ellena the Terrible was a wicked man and a scourge of the locals.
**Adam:** He apparently,
**Adam:** he used to set his dogs on anyone who annoyed him.
**Adam:** and
**Adam:** He was in he fought in the War of the Roses and switched sides halfway through and was beheaded at the Battle of Bamburgh.
**Adam:** where one of his black bloodhounds appeared and carried its master's head away in its jaws, and that's the story.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** Then Vaughan's ghost began.
**Adam:** Terrorizing the area, overturning carts.
**Adam:** And taking the form of either a black bull or an immense fly.
**Adam:** Eventually an exorcism was ordered to settle the ghost, twelve priests summoned the spirit and through arduous chanting and prayer.
**Adam:** Eventually shrunk the spirit to the size of a blowfly and incased it in a snuff box.
**Adam:** Vaughan's last entreaty was to be not buried beneath water and then the priests immediately buried the snuff box under the bed of a brook and Vaughan's spirit was silenced forever.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** The Phantom of his black dog still appears and was a member of if he owned for members of the Vaughan family.
**Adam:** but the Vaughan family, that branch of the Vaughan family fucking died out.
**Adam:** So obviously they saw a lot of Phantom dogs in their time.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And so basically.
**Adam:** So they came up with this they came up with the story and they wanted the Hound and everything else like that.
**Adam:** And then Conan Doyle was like.
**Adam:** Well, I've only got one I've only rather than invent a character.
**Adam:** I'll just bring back Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So 1902 the thing's published.
**Adam:** And at that point it was published with.
**Adam:** Fletcher Robinson as co-author.
**Adam:** He was credited according to Conan Doyle's wishes, but that then has been later sort of missed off and it's now just credited solely to Conan Doyle.
**Lee:** Interesting.
**Adam:** Although.
**Adam:** Fletcher Robinson did receive royalties.
**Adam:** Royalties payment for it and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And actually Conan Doyle had sold the story to 'The Strand' for fifty pounds per thousand words, then told them he was doing it Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** And up that to a hundred pounds per thousand words.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Because he knew that.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** people were like.
**Adam:** And so yeah.
**Adam:** So 190 when yeah, so when it comes out in 1902.
**Adam:** Obviously, everyone has been Sherlock starved for well, 1901 it was serialized.
**Adam:** 1902 then the book comes out.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** Basically everyone was like, oh, thank fuck more Sherlock.
**Adam:** More Sherlock.
**Adam:** Because and obviously it's a belt of a story.
**Lee:** Yeah, I know how they feel.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So I think.
**Adam:** I think that's why Hound is like the classic one because it was the probably the first one that was like.
**Adam:** It was like the sequel making more money than the original at the box office or something like that.
**Adam:** Where, you know, I think it was just like so many people by this point, you know, people had probably caught up, what is the fuss about this Sherlock Holmes?
**Adam:** You know, when you when you see people mourning a fictional character.
**Adam:** You're probably going to be like, well, maybe I'll check this out.
**Adam:** And then, you know, you've gone through, you've done you've done the 'Strand' magazine equivalent of a Netflix box box set and you're like, oh, I wish I'd known about this when they were still writing them.
**Adam:** And then.
**Adam:** Hound comes out.
**Adam:** And the interesting thing is that the Hound of the Baskervilles is meant to be an earlier case.
**Adam:** So Conan Doyle.
**Adam:** statement on it was that no this was found in Watson's papers.
**Adam:** This is pre.
**Lee:** He's still.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** This works.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it was such a success.
**Lee:** Bring him back.
**Adam:** He brought him back in 'The Empty House' in 1903.
**Adam:** And that's when he actually resurrects the character as he falsified his own death and everything.
**Adam:** And goes on to have however many more further adventures.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It's kind of the.
**Adam:** It's it's kind of weird because it's like it's the absolute sort of pinnacle of Sherlock Mania, I suppose or whatever like that or interest in it.
**Adam:** and yeah, so I think.
**Adam:** That's why it's sort of so memorable.
**Chris:** Like Sherlock is so clever.
**Chris:** He brought himself back from the dead.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** To be rewritten.
**Chris:** If you can make a character that good that you are compelled to resurrect him. Well, I mean this is the thing, is even even at that point, even though because Conan Doyle wrote horror stories.
**Adam:** There's he's he's there's a really good mummy story that he did.
**Adam:** It's like 'Lot'.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, we've got the the Ladybird book, wasn't it?
**Jennifer:** Oh, Ladybird.
**Lee:** Ladybird, Ladybird.
**Adam:** It was Ladybird.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I had that as a kid.
**Adam:** Because Yeah, I had that one and but that yeah, that's that's Conan Doyle.
**Adam:** And the interestingly enough those Ladybird books, they they were Frankenstein, Dracula.
**Adam:** The Mummy, which was lot whatever, Jekyll and Hyde and Hound of the Baskervilles.
**Adam:** So even in those.
**Adam:** They considered Hound of the Baskervilles a horror story.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it.
**Adam:** And I mean it's it's sort of it's definitely the one that because whatever happens, you've still got like this folklore story in there, so it's still because that's obviously I mean like I mean like I say, I mean how many fucking Baskervilles with black dog stories did you want to find?
**Adam:** But you know, they managed to sort of successfully cover them all and create this thing.
**Adam:** But again, it was that sort of tension where Conan Doyle was like, right, I need.
**Adam:** I need a character who's going to explain why this has come about.
**Adam:** And it's it's a strange thing.
**Adam:** You know, where where he was quite happy to write fictions of, you know, he was quite prepared to write supernatural fiction for one of a better expression, but he was very determined that Hound of the Baskervilles would have a rational explanation.
**Adam:** And therefore.
**Adam:** He brings in the arch rationalist.
**Adam:** And it's interesting that Holmes never the he knew in a weird way never to do that with Holmes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because I I suppose weirdly, I mean, this is that point is it's almost like, well if Holmes is right all the time.
**Adam:** Then it would be a very fundamental thing to have been wrong.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I suppose.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's such an obnoxious.
**Lee:** He has such a massive backstory.
**Lee:** So Chris, considering as you said that you're not not as versed in Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** How did you find this just as a a Hammer film sort of stand alone?
**Chris:** yeah, I suppose it's interesting because of sort of the two elements being brought together.
**Chris:** It like they seem to have done this really well for it being sort of the Hammer style yet still getting across Sherlock Holmes effectively.
**Chris:** And it's interesting, you know that all those actors can play the roles and it just works really well.
**Chris:** and I suppose that is as we've said that Sherlock has all the elements of supernatural horror, even if the final explanation is a rational one.
**Chris:** And Yeah, yeah, essentially.
**Chris:** but yeah, and and the main character is not exactly the supernatural one, it's Holmes, but you know, they play off each other so well.
**Chris:** So I you know, it's it's very enjoyable to watch they seem to have held up really well.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it had enough elements of you know, it's quite tense at points but it's also quite entertaining, there seemed to be quite a bit of drinking throughout, not just at the party.
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** Like so yeah, they had all the right characters in there.
**Chris:** It was really good.
**Chris:** And again just Peter Cushing.
**Chris:** so it's hard to you know, not not enjoy it just for that alone.
**Lee:** It's a funny role for Cushing.
**Lee:** Because as Adam said, you can see his love for the character.
**Lee:** Because he plays him so well, that kind of almost obnoxious.
**Lee:** kind of
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** you know, he knows he's better than him.
**Lee:** But it's funny to see Peter Cushing do that because he normally plays such an amiable character to his own entertainment.
**Chris:** Well, yeah, side from talking.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well,
**Adam:** that's the thing you that's the thing is he's either he's either a bastard or or he's lovely to actually see someone who's the hero being a bastard.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** that that bit where it's like enjoy your rabbit stew.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Go talk to your peasant friends.
**Adam:** It's like, fuck me, mate.
**Lee:** Putting in punches.
**Jennifer:** Jennifer.
**Adam:** Because weirdly the other thing as well is I think you've got a.
**Adam:** I think all the bit part because apart from Cushing, Lee and Andre Morell.
**Adam:** These aren't.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, you haven't necessarily got a cast of Oh, I don't know, I suppose they are faces.
**Chris:** I recognize John Le Mesurier.
**Chris:** Now, I hadn't actually seen him in anything.
**Chris:** But I always remember him from the BBC radio adaption of 'Lord of the Rings'.
**Jennifer:** Must have seen 'Dad's Army'.
**Chris:** I I mean, I didn't know he was in it, I didn't know that was him.
**Chris:** I 'Dad's Army' was on on occasion.
**Chris:** I never particularly watched it.
**Jennifer:** No, fair enough.
**Chris:** No diss.
**Adam:** And and obviously the narrator of 'Bod' as well.
**Adam:** He's he's got quite a lot of voice over.
**Adam:** Stuff and.
**Adam:** 'Home Pride Flour', I have to say this I'm very pleased that it's given me the opportunity to talk about John Le Mesurier.
**Adam:** Because I just love.
**Adam:** He was such a lovely man, again, very much in the Peter Cushing end of things where it's like someone who is an absolute gentleman who you never hear anyone saying, you know, a bad word about them.
**Adam:** And just genuinely.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean, he was so he was married three times.
**Adam:** His second wife was Hattie Jacques.
**Adam:** And they had two sons together.
**Adam:** Now Hattie Jacques started having an affair with her driver and John Le Mesurier had just met a woman called Joan who was going to become his third wife.
**Adam:** But John Le Mesurier was basically like.
**Adam:** Well, shall I just go in the spare room? Because you've you know, you're obviously.
**Adam:** And then because of because of he could mention Joan.
**Adam:** He then took the role of the person at fault in the divorce settlement so that she wouldn't get the scandal attached to her.
**Lee:** Oh, that's nice.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Because obviously I mean.
**Adam:** It's I mean, like it's any fucking different now, but certainly at the time much more, you know, very much like Bloke, that's fine.
**Adam:** Yeah, he went off an affair.
**Adam:** A woman.
**Adam:** It would have been she was shunned.
**Adam:** That's it, her reputation is.
**Adam:** Through no one wants to work with her and everything.
**Adam:** So John like was like, no, I'll just look, I'll be the I'll be the one at the fault in the divorce.
**Adam:** So that she it wouldn't affect her career and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And basically they remained.
**Adam:** He remained friends with Hattie until she died.
**Adam:** you know, like they were it was very amicable.
**Adam:** And they had two sons together.
**Adam:** And there's a lovely interview with one of his sons saying who was saying like one of their sons where he was saying he was.
**Adam:** going off the rails a bit because he used to be in the music industry.
**Adam:** and he's like, you know, he said, I was doing a lot of naughty things.
**Adam:** And my mum was worried, so she got John to come and see me.
**Adam:** And apparently he just turned around and was like, I know you're not going to take any notice of me, you know, you can take a blind but you notice.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** you know.
**Adam:** Just for your mum's sake.
**Adam:** Even if you don't.
**Adam:** Stop, just make it look like you've stopped for her sake just because otherwise, you know, she worries.
**Adam:** Bless her.
**Adam:** And it's not going to.
**Adam:** And then sort of like that that chat and then he went, right.
**Adam:** So, have you got a joint?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And anyway, so.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** And then he married Joan.
**Adam:** and then about a few months into that marriage, Tony Hancock's own marriage had collapsed and he was married to Tony Hancock.
**Adam:** So he said to Tony Hancock, you could come and stay there.
**Adam:** Tony Hancock came out had an affair with fucking Joan.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** God.
**Adam:** And and but.
**Adam:** Like so she went off with Tony Hancock, realized that life with Tony Hancock was a fucking living nightmare because he was a paranoid drunk depressive at that point.
**Chris:** That seemed exciting. I love Hancock.
**Adam:** But I wouldn't have wanted to hang around with him.
**Adam:** That's that's another.
**Adam:** But anyway.
**Adam:** But yeah, so she ended up going back to John and he was like again, there was no sort of like.
**Chris:** Well, welcome back.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was.
**Adam:** Yeah, pretty much.
**Adam:** But I mean, he was where was it when he died? Well, his last words were credit he often said to be it was all rather lovely really.
**Adam:** were apparently his last words.
**Adam:** So I think he was just a very nice gentle.
**Adam:** A a gentleman.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** I think he was just a very nice, calm sort of easy going diet.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** His his own.
**Adam:** His own insistence.
**Adam:** Joan took out a notice and an obituary notice in 'The Times'.
**Adam:** Which read, John Le Mesurier wishes it to be known that he conked out on the 15th of November.
**Adam:** He sadly misses his.
**Adam:** Friends and family.
**Adam:** And this is.
**Adam:** This is one of my favorite stories about John Le Mes is that he won a best actor Bafta in 1972.
**Adam:** for a straight role in a 'Play For Today' episode called 'Traitor'.
**Adam:** And after he won, he sat in the audience and lit up a massive fucking joint and the cameras had to keep cutting around him because every time they cut back they just had the thing with the joint flaming.
**Adam:** And you know, and everyone was like.
**Adam:** Princess Anne was attending.
**Adam:** You can't be smoking a joint.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Basically, the whole thing boiled down to, they can't throw him out.
**Adam:** He just won best actor.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** But he was.
**Adam:** Yeah, I mean and and obviously just like in so many.
**Adam:** You know, so many comedy things, not just like that Dad's Army, but he was in like loads of Hancock stuff.
**Adam:** And 'Ripping Yarns' and.
**Adam:** Yeah, 'Spaceman and King Arthur'.
**Adam:** And 'The Wrong' the 'Law'.
**Adam:** And 'Pink Panther'.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** He it's weird to see him as a butler.
**Adam:** Because he's usually either medics or judges seem to be he's kind of the roles that he tends to get.
**Adam:** Apparently also.
**Adam:** And I didn't know this.
**Adam:** Apparently originally him and Arthur Lowe were meant to play the opposite character in 'Dad's Army'.
**Adam:** And John Le Mesurier sort of like.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** I imagine what a fucking disaster that would have been.
**Adam:** Because I think I think to be honest, I think it's a bit like Johnny that the film 'Johnny Dangerously'.
**Adam:** Yeah, someone slapped me once.
**Adam:** Once, yes.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Certainly not in.
**Adam:** Most versions of it.
**Adam:** But I think the and obviously you don't see much dog, to be honest, I think they do they sort of follow the jaws thing of probably realizing that the dog's not going to be great.
**Adam:** So they.
**Adam:** Stick to a lot of good howling and actually I do like the way everyone reacts.
**Adam:** Like everyone reacts kind of well.
**Adam:** In that sort of sense of like everyone's kind of well, no, what no what is that?
**Adam:** You know what I mean.
**Adam:** It's like it's like scared and curious.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that and again it's it's sort of nice to see that this version of it pretty much sticks.
**Adam:** pretty closely to the to the story in many ways.
**Adam:** I mean, they changed the ending slightly, but then even down to that, it's kind of.
**Adam:** probably a good thing for the people who knew the story.
**Adam:** That you see this other version of it because otherwise, you know, it's sort of.
**Adam:** You're like, well, I might as well have read the fucking thing.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Interestingly, this is the this is the first film version in color.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So it was the first time that Holmes was in in glorious Technicolor.
**Adam:** But also, and this was something I hadn't realized.
**Adam:** it's the first time that it's done as a period piece.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because.
**Lee:** Thank you.
**Adam:** I don't know if you caught Claire.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** at the word period there.
**Adam:** But that reader is why.
**Lee:** I married.
**Adam:** Her.
**Adam:** but.
**Adam:** Yeah, so it's.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** This is the first time when you'd got to a point where Holmes actually is of a different era.
**Adam:** So a lot of the adaptations.
**Adam:** Because I mean, Conan Doyle was writing the stories up until about 19.
**Adam:** 1913, 1914, I think.
**Adam:** You know, he was pretty much just up to the eve of the First World War, he was writing Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** So a lot of the film adaptations.
**Adam:** are contemporary because at that point Sherlock Holmes was kind of contemporary.
**Adam:** It wasn't, you know, it wasn't as.
**Adam:** Whereas this is the first time that they'd actually gone, right, so we'll set it in the Victorian era.
**Adam:** Rather than.
**Adam:** You know, oh, it's.
**Adam:** Present day, much the same way as all the Stephen King adaptations now.
**Adam:** It's like, well, anything that's set in the fifties we'll do it in the eighties.
**Adam:** you know.
**Adam:** But up until but for a while they just didn't bother, but now it's so much time has passed that it's like, right, that's going to be weird if someone's having a flashback to the fifties.
**Adam:** you know.
**Adam:** Who's the young character in this or whatever.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** Yeah, so this is the first sort of period version of it.
**Adam:** As well, which is an interesting.
**Adam:** Again, something I hadn't realized.
**Adam:** I think it was like Kim Newman mentioned it.
**Adam:** on like one of the extras or something.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, it was like, oh yeah, shit, this is thinking about it.
**Adam:** Because I know that because that's the thing you've got like the the Basil Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series.
**Adam:** But they are all.
**Adam:** contemporary because they were like sort of 1920s or whatever like that.
**Adam:** So they weren't actually that far removed from Holmes.
**Adam:** So they just accepted that.
**Adam:** So there were certain things in there that weren't in the stories like say modern telephones or something like that.
**Adam:** You know, it's sort of much more but that was just seen as.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, well.
**Adam:** That's what we'd have now.
**Adam:** Rather than, oh yeah, let's go back and look at this from a I suppose it's a bit more difficult at that point as well.
**Adam:** When you're like sort of only 15 years out of something.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** We've got to make this period place.
**Adam:** Can you remember what we had them then?
**Adam:** No, probably not.
**Jennifer:** Well, phones in horror films now, isn't it?
**Jennifer:** Well, like, at what point do they need to get some sort of plot where.
**Jennifer:** Oh, the mobile phone has disappeared, otherwise it's not going to work because they'll just phone up the police and they'll be fixed.
**Chris:** Yeah, I think we mentioned that before.
**Chris:** Like battery running out, making a point of we've got plenty of batteries.
**Chris:** What was it?
**Chris:** It was 'Blair Witch', wasn't it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Oh, I've lost my battery. Oh, it's broken. It's yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I think.
**Lee:** I think the other thing I love about Sherlock Holmes is how much it's led to like an expanded universe.
**Lee:** So obviously after the the Conan Doyle books, so many other people, so I went through a phase at the beginning of lockdown.
**Lee:** I read all of the George Mann.
**Lee:** The guy who does all the like the steampunk books.
**Lee:** Wrote all the Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** And they are exceptional.
**Lee:** And that then led me into reading 'The Warlock Holmes', but I read the first one.
**Lee:** I am going to read the others.
**Lee:** Have you heard of Adam?
**Adam:** I don't think I have, actually, no.
**Jennifer:** Jennifer is showing it to the camera now.
**Lee:** So basically it's the stories of Sherlock Holmes, but the idea is that he is actually a warlock and the police are after him, so he's having to help Scotland Yard because if he doesn't, they're going to lock him up for all of his crimes against humanity.
**Lee:** And the is Transylvania.
**Lee:** He's actually a vampire.
**Lee:** And his henchman is like a golem type, but like they're really, really funny.
**Lee:** But they've taken the original stories and given them this whole twist and they're really entertaining.
**Lee:** So again, it's another one that's like once you get to the end of Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** As you were saying, Adam, you know, where people like, oh no.
**Lee:** You know, if you've killed him off that's the end and everyone was hankering for more.
**Lee:** Like there's been a resurgence in the last twenty years of people saying, well actually in a kind of H P Lovecraft type way, we can take that character and do so much with it.
**Lee:** yeah, incredible stuff.
**Jennifer:** That they, same way they do with Agatha Christie, they allow authors to use the story so this one, this is Anthony Horowitz.
**Jennifer:** who writes 'Midsomer Murders' stories, there we go, but yeah, so his one, you know, 'The House of Silk' is kind of, you know, allowed.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** From the Conan Doyle estates to to write sort of new versions if you like to be to be official Sherlock Holmes, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Which is.
**Adam:** Well they did.
**Adam:** They did a similar thing with James Bond because obviously Ian Fleming wrote the originally wrote the James Bond books and so there are official and unofficial sort of takes on that as well.
**Adam:** I know there's a lot of good, there's a lot of good Holmes crossover stuff.
**Adam:** because there's like Holmes and Lovecraft ones.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, we've got a 'Study in Emerald', haven't we.
**Lee:** Which is.
**Lee:** Like which is a a graphic novel.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** It's Homes basically fighting a I don't want to give.
**Adam:** I don't remember now.
**Lee:** I do.
**Lee:** But I don't want to give away cuz I can't remember if it's a twist, but yeah, it's very H P Lovecraft once it all gets into it.
**Adam:** I'm quite, I'm quite intrigued as well.
**Adam:** Because I know that there is a, I think there's a collection of.
**Adam:** people have done Sherlock Holmes and 'The Hellraiser' universe.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Didn't know that.
**Adam:** Which again, you know, I think there's a.
**Adam:** I think the good.
**Adam:** Because I mean, the good thing is, I mean, it basically is as soon as you're out of copyright.
**Adam:** You can do what you like.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** You can go to town because actually, I mean, this is the weird thing when they did the Jeremy Brett adaptations, they started in 1983.
**Adam:** because that was the first time that Sherlock Holmes had become public domain because it's like a hundred years.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So the first published works was.
**Adam:** 1883.
**Adam:** And so they started adapting from that position because up until that point, the Sherlock Holmes estate and Conan Doyle's estate had never let ITV do it.
**Adam:** Which is ironic.
**Adam:** When you consider consider how well 'The Granada' series is.
**Adam:** But yeah, they wouldn't let ITV do it because they were a bit sort of ITV, you know, they're not going to do it properly.
**Adam:** Are they?
**Adam:** They're probably going to put a page three bird in there and vote Labour.
**Lee:** And then.
**Lee:** It ends up being to a lot of us, myself and Adam, I believe, included.
**Lee:** The definitive version of of Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** Without a shadow of a doubt.
**Adam:** And this is something obviously we'll come back to on our subsequent.
**Chris:** I was going to ask, but yeah, that.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So Adam.
**Lee:** We're going to start wrapping up.
**Lee:** Would you like to tell people what we're going to cover on our next episode?
**Adam:** Our next episode is going to be a bit of a free for all in a way or it's certainly three the number.
**Adam:** so we're going to look at three additional versions of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'.
**Adam:** There will be the original original Jesus.
**Lee:** What original?
**Adam:** The fuck this a fucking book you twat.
**Adam:** Anyway.
**Adam:** Right.
**Adam:** And seen.
**Adam:** Yes, we're going to look at three versions.
**Adam:** We're going to look at the Jeremy Brett version that was on ITV in England, which is like a TV movie version as part of 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes' series, which was 1988.
**Adam:** we're going to look.
**Adam:** At Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's version from 1978, which surprisingly follows the plot quite a lot.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Despite not following a lot of it at all.
**Adam:** And also 'The Hounds of Baskerville', the Sherlock adaption of it, which was to my memory, you know, that'll be the first time I've watched it in a long time.
**Adam:** And to my memory they did a very good job of it and they also made a very good job.
**Adam:** Again of that thing of being, right, people know Sherlock Holmes so we've got to do this faithfully.
**Adam:** But in such.
**Adam:** A way that it's new to people.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Properly.
**Lee:** Which is what Gatiss is fantastic at, exactly the same as he did with Dracula.
**Lee:** But I'm sure we'll.
**Chris:** did he actually write that as well then?
**Chris:** Is that I didn't.
**Adam:** He's him and Stephen Moffat.
**Adam:** together and basically, it's also slightly the reason why Stephen Moffat's not true when a bit you know at one point I think his mother died.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's true.
**Adam:** Halfway through series three of Sherlock.
**Adam:** And series I don't know, eight or nine.
**Adam:** Of Doctor Who.
**Adam:** or was it yeah, like but yeah, basically so I think there was a a lot of fallout in that sort of sense.
**Adam:** And and also I do suspect that's why Mark Gatiss wasn't naturally.
**Adam:** Selected as the person to take over.
**Adam:** From Stephen Moffat doing Doctor Who.
**Adam:** Because I think, I think Mark Gatiss.
**Adam:** Just sat there.
**Adam:** And just went, well, fuck that for a game of soldiers and just seen what you've done for the past two years.
**Adam:** Of like nearly burned yourself out completely.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think the other thing I love about Sherlock Holmes is how much it's led to like an expanded universe.
**Lee:** So obviously after the the Conan Doyle books, so many other people.
**Lee:** So I went through a phase at the beginning of lockdown, I read all of the George Mann, the guy who does all the like the steampunk books.
**Lee:** Wrote all the Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** And they are exceptional.
**Lee:** And that then led me into reading 'The Warlock Holmes', but I read the first one.
**Lee:** I am going to read the others.
**Lee:** Have you heard of Adam?
**Adam:** I don't think I have, actually, no.
**Jennifer:** Jennifer is showing it to the camera now.
**Lee:** So basically it's the stories of Sherlock Holmes, but the idea is that he is actually a warlock and the police are after him, so he's having to help Scotland Yard because if he doesn't, they're going to lock him up for all of his crimes against humanity.
**Lee:** And the is Transylvania.
**Lee:** He's actually a vampire.
**Lee:** And his henchman is like a golem type, but like they're really, really funny.
**Lee:** But they've taken the original stories and given them this whole twist and they're really entertaining.
**Lee:** So again, it's another one that's like once you get to the end of Sherlock Holmes.
**Lee:** As you were saying, Adam, you know, where people like, oh no.
**Lee:** You know, if you've killed him off that's the end and everyone was hankering for more, like there's been a resurgence in the last twenty years of people saying.
**Lee:** Well actually in a kind of H P Lovecraft type way, we can take that character and do so much with it.
**Lee:** yeah, incredible stuff.
**Jennifer:** But they, same way they do with Agatha Christie, they allow authors to use the story so this one, this is Anthony Horowitz.
**Jennifer:** who writes 'Midsomer Murders' stories.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, there you go.
**Jennifer:** But yeah, so his one.
**Jennifer:** You know,
**Jennifer:** 'The House of Silk' is kind of, you know, allowed from the Conan Doyle estate.
**Jennifer:** To to write sort of new versions if you like to be to be official Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Which is, you know, one of.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well they.
**Adam:** They did a similar thing with.
**Adam:** James Bond because obviously Ian Fleming wrote the originally wrote the James Bond books.
**Adam:** And so there are official and unofficial sort of takes on that as well.
**Adam:** I know there's a lot of good, there's a lot of good Holmes crossover stuff.
**Adam:** because there's like Holmes and Lovecraft ones.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, we've got a 'Study in Emerald', haven't we.
**Lee:** Which is.
**Lee:** Like which is a a graphic novel, but yeah, is Homes basically fighting a.
**Lee:** I don't want to.
**Lee:** I don't want to.
**Lee:** I do, but I don't want to give away cuz I can't remember if it's a twist.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's very H P Lovecraft once it all.
**Lee:** Gets into it.
**Lee:** And the is Transylvania, he's actually a vampire.
**Lee:** And his henchman is like a golem type.
**Lee:** But like they're really, really funny.
**Lee:** But they've taken the original stories and given them this whole twist.
**Lee:** And they're really entertaining.
**Lee:** So again.
**Lee:** It's another one that's like once you get to the end of Sherlock Holmes, as you were saying Adam, you know, where people like, oh no.
**Lee:** You know, if you've killed him off that's the end and everyone was hankering for more, like there's been a resurgence in the last twenty years of people saying.
**Lee:** Well actually in a kind of H P Lovecraft type way, we can take that character and do so much with it.
**Lee:** yeah, incredible stuff.
**Jennifer:** But they, same way they do with Agatha Christie, they allow authors to use the story so this one, this is Anthony Horowitz who writes 'Midsomer Murders' stories.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Jennifer:** Yeah, there.
**Jennifer:** You go.
**Jennifer:** But yeah, so his one.
**Jennifer:** You know, 'The House of Silk' is kind of, you know, allowed from the Conan Doyle estate.
**Jennifer:** To to write sort of new versions if you like to be to be official Sherlock Holmes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Jennifer:** Which is.
**Adam:** Well they did.

---

## Ep 133 The Day of the Beast

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-133-the-day-of-the-beast/
Air date: 19 December 2021
Duration: 01:14:40
Film: The Day of the Beast · Year: 1995 · Director: Álex de la Iglesia

### Description

It’s Christmas! And nothing says Christmas quite like kidnap, Satanic Ritual, setting fire to the homeless and infanticide. Yes, to celebrate we’re watching Spanish Occult Caper “The Day of the Beast” (aka “El Día de la Bestia”). A film in which we learn the correct way to spell “AC/DC”; that you don’t need to actually carve a pentagram (particularly if you have expensive flooring); and that you never, ever, wanna fuck with the landlady. Along the way we discuss “Come To Daddy”, “The Guyver”, “Eating Raoul”, Ghost Stories for Christmas, “Carnival of Souls” and “Zoltan - Hound of Dracula”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND/SPEECH QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, THE DAY AFTER THE WTH OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here for our special Christmas episode.
**Lee:** We are all a little bit delicate as last night was the Welcome to Horror Office Christmas party.
**Lee:** and we all got slightly battered.
**Lee:** So despite the fact it's now 8 o'clock the following evening.
**Lee:** I'm full of pizza, but I'm still having a drink again to make my way through it.
**Lee:** And Adam looks like he's pretty much in the same mental boat.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, I'm I'm I'm pretty good.
**Adam:** I'm just sort of I'm I'm at the moment I'm trying to be quite gone.
**Adam:** Sitting between the red lasery things.
**Adam:** You know when it's like Darth Maul's pacing up and down, you're just thinking, you won't feel the benefit.
**Adam:** And then Kwigon just sits quietly, so I'm sort of doing that to reserve my energy for the task at hand.
**Adam:** He's fighting a two-bladed demon.
**Adam:** But sort of.
**Adam:** It's a metaphor somewhere.
**Lee:** Close enough.
**Chris:** I'm feeling pretty good after the two films I just watched.
**Chris:** That that's a little hint.
**Lee:** Two films you just watched.
**Chris:** yes, yeah.
**Chris:** I thought I'd get another one in, you know, quick today and it was well worth it.
**Chris:** And I'm I'm going to do my guess what film it was again.
**Chris:** Now it might only be aimed at Adam though, because I don't think Leo seen it.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Fair enough.
**Chris:** But a little memory that he said he hadn't watched it, but we'll find out.
**Lee:** Okay, well.
**Lee:** Power on, sir.
**Chris:** Okay, right, so I will start with now I might completely ruin these, but let's see what you make of it, Adam.
**Chris:** So one quote that gets said a few times about the film is, I'm just doing my job.
**Chris:** And it's got one of my favorite actors ever.
**Lee:** The history of the Third Reich.
**Chris:** I don't think I'd be in quite such a
**Lee:** Not a Christmas movie then, no.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** And like so it's got one of my favorite actors ever playing what I have decided is a bit of a Colombo role.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** And when I.
**Adam:** Death line again, have you?
**Chris:** No, no.
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, no.
**Chris:** That would be good.
**Chris:** And when I first watched this, it turns out I was probably 12.
**Chris:** Because it turns out I watched it soon after it came out and the the actor who it was.
**Chris:** I thought looked ancient at the time.
**Chris:** Now when I see it, it's like, no, he's just got a mustache on and he's just a little bit older than he was.
**Chris:** In the film that he was in, I think it was like seven years, no, eight years before.
**Adam:** K.
**Chris:** Lee had an idea, Go on, Lee.
**Lee:** I was going to ask if it was Kolchak.
**Chris:** Oh, no, I've not seen that, but I do remember you've mentioned that.
**Chris:** Okay, let's see what.
**Adam:** Well.
**Chris:** What else?
**Chris:** All right, here's another big big clue, it's got a producer of a film that we've watched recently.
**Adam:** Right, okay.
**Chris:** It's got it's got some great '80s.
**Chris:** /'90s action sci-fi music.
**Adam:** Fuck.
**Lee:** It's not June.
**Adam:** It's not June.
**Chris:** All right, I'm I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you.
**Lee:** You presented this.
**Chris:** No, now normally Adam Adam comes straight out and gets it, so either I'm doing terrible hints here or I'm going to give you another big one, okay?
**Chris:** At some point the phrase crude rude dude is said.
**Chris:** And I was like, is this where it came from or.
**Adam:** I might not have seen this then.
**Chris:** You definitely have.
**Adam:** Right.
**Chris:** You've mentioned it twice twice not not too long ago.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** All right, I'm I'll give you.
**Adam:** It's from beyond.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** Shit.
**Chris:** All right, it's it's directed and effects by screaming Mad George.
**Adam:** The Guyver.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** There you go.
**Chris:** I was going to next mention Brian Yuzna.
**Chris:** Yuzna.
**Chris:** So, yeah.
**Chris:** And.
**Chris:** So now Lee, I don't think you've seen it.
**Lee:** I started watching it, I was 20 minutes in and abandoned it.
**Chris:** See, right, now, I remember seeing it and probably at the time.
**Chris:** realizing now, I didn't totally get the humor in it.
**Chris:** Whereas watching it again now, especially after what Adam said, like it made much more sense.
**Chris:** And in fact, it reminded me quite a bit of Psycho Goreman kind of silliness.
**Chris:** Like, and but quite still fairly brutal in parts, but yeah, just, you know, really silly.
**Adam:** Well, it was Psyco Goreman, they talked about the Guyver.
**Adam:** As one of their sort of touchstones.
**Adam:** It was like, I hadn't seen it, but I knew of it.
**Adam:** And the worst thing was is that the few people I knew who had seen it.
**Adam:** Recommended it, but in that way where people say, I loved it when I watched it as a kid, but you might come to it too late.
**Adam:** turns out.
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's still still well right there.
**Adam:** And yeah, it was.
**Adam:** No, I fucking love that film.
**Adam:** It is so much like we were saying about the other day we were discussing specifically Tokyo Gore Police at the party.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** That kind that kind of feeling.
**Adam:** Where it's like very sort of just mental monster creations and brutality, but somehow quite yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's very it's very anime, actually.
**Adam:** I mean it's called fucking Guyver and it's directed by Sree Mad George, who's Japanese.
**Adam:** So it kind of is quite yeah.
**Adam:** I'm just you just don't think that because Mark Hamill's in it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And now I and now I get what you mean about you thought he looked ancient.
**Chris:** Yeah, and I was like, no, it's not that far past, but to me he just looked so old in it when I saw him.
**Chris:** It was like, that's not Luke, really, that's like he's, you know, and clearly he's been around for much longer than than that.
**Chris:** But yeah, I was almost like, oh, he's he won't be around much longer, you know, just, I don't know.
**Chris:** It's just some really odd.
**Adam:** No, no.
**Adam:** But I just remember you just think.
**Chris:** I think it was also, right, I was so sad when they killed him in it.
**Chris:** I was like, no, that that doesn't happen.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He's he's way too important to be killed in a film.
**Chris:** And it just it must have really messed with me.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** He for him, I was watching the film because of him at the time.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's like the main character.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, totally.
**Chris:** And and it was like you're you're just this is, I don't know if I can handle this.
**Chris:** But I I remembered finding it like fascinating and watching it again now, the effects are almost more impressive now.
**Chris:** Because similar to what we said about society, like, yeah, the fact that it's all practical.
**Chris:** Really great work.
**Adam:** Oh, that's the thing is it's one of those.
**Adam:** Like it has that same it's like the thing where there's so much.
**Adam:** So much thought has gone into such a surrealistic, chaotic looking thing.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But you know that someone sat there and had to feed that out of their imagination.
**Chris:** Yeah, you don't just get that done in a in a few moments either.
**Chris:** It's like, yeah, there's there's a good amount of effort that's gone into this.
**Chris:** It it might not have paid off at all, but yeah, it just looked looked fantastic.
**Chris:** But so I I think Lee, you should give that another try one day.
**Lee:** I'll I'll still got it, so yeah, I'll dig it out from the shelf and I'll I'll give it another go, definitely.
**Chris:** You might have to be in the right mood, but yeah, for me it worked well.
**Lee:** I think that's what I thought at the time was I was like, this is one of those films, if you're not in the right mood, it's not going to work.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Do you know and this is something that I was beginning to wonder about.
**Adam:** with lockdown and sort of not seeing people as often.
**Adam:** The Guyver is definitely a good communal watch.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I would say that.
**Adam:** Couple a few beers and like six of you in a room watching it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like or Prince Charles.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Experience, that would be the Guyver.
**Adam:** It's that kind of yeah, it's a party film.
**Chris:** Yeah, cuz it's there's not there's not too much.
**Chris:** It's not exactly too complex to follow.
**Adam:** No, no, it's not.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Crazy fun, yeah.
**Lee:** It's not like you've stuck Memento on.
**Adam:** As the third film after half half the people have passed out.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Well done, Chris.
**Lee:** Adam, have you been watching anything?
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** just to just because my note has just reminded me, there will be spoilers, there will be swearing.
**Lee:** I keep meaning to say it at the top of the show and forgetting.
**Lee:** So for any new listeners, there will be spoilers and swearing.
**Lee:** Sorry, Adam.
**Lee:** So what have you been watching?
**Adam:** Well, I was just going to say so apologies for that spoiler about Mark Hamill's character dying in the Guyver.
**Adam:** Whoops.
**Adam:** but still see it.
**Chris:** I I will be impressed if we upset anyone with that, that will be a niche of a niche that just got upset.
**Chris:** Someone who's listening to us who hasn't seen that and is upset.
**Lee:** Don't encourage people, don't encourage people.
**Chris:** Please, please flame me, go on, I'm I'm out there.
**Adam:** Oh, dear.
**Adam:** I've watched, I've watched quite a good quite a lot of good stuff.
**Adam:** I've finally seen Come to Daddy.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** The Elijah Woods, Stephen McChatty film.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** That was great.
**Adam:** Which was Claire rather lovely got me that on DVD.
**Adam:** Because it was on film four and I fucking forgot.
**Adam:** And and I know there's catchup services and everything else, but bless her know she got me the DVD.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Definitely one you can rewatch, I think.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Especially because it's one is one that I definitely now now I've seen it with.
**Adam:** Knowing what happens, I would like.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** I knowing I I went into it knowing Elijah Wood goes and stays with his strange dad, Stephen McChatty, literally it.
**Adam:** And then, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** Have you seen it yet, Chris?
**Chris:** Yes, yeah, I did watch it as as an extra once.
**Chris:** Yeah, and no, yeah.
**Chris:** I thought it was fantastic but I would definitely like to watch it again for the same reason.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, me too.
**Chris:** It is it does evolve in a slightly unexpected sort of way.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, which which I didn't quite, which I definitely didn't see coming.
**Adam:** I mean, the only thing I would say is that it is it is unfortunate that you lose Stephen McChatty fairly early in the progress of the film.
**Adam:** Because that just that where it's just him and what you assume is his dick dad.
**Adam:** Is some of the funniest fucking I've seen.
**Adam:** While whilst also being really quite uncomfortable.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and if someone by now, I'm dibsing this, if no one's done it before at some point I'm doing a I'm doing a piece of music or a song or whatever.
**Adam:** And I need to sample the cunt rap and just put that at the start of it.
**Adam:** You know, go full Blood duster.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** Because that that was just, yeah, fantastic.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** But yeah, so that was yeah, that was a that was a really good one.
**Adam:** And in fact, maybe we'll bung that on the list because we've all said we'd like a rewatch, so I think that might be one to that that's definitely one to sit there for us.
**Chris:** I think where I'm for me a bit is I still see Elijah as Frodo.
**Chris:** And it's just it's hard, I think the only other thing I've seen him in aside from this is Dirk Gently.
**Chris:** Which I really liked and it's another quirky.
**Adam:** I've not seen his his that version of George Janly, no.
**Chris:** Okay, but he's it's yeah, it's very odd.
**Chris:** So that sort of gave me a little bit of a sense.
**Chris:** But yeah, it just seems like he's he wouldn't be in something quite so sort of random, chaotic, weird, funny.
**Adam:** I I cannot help but salute that man.
**Lee:** Yeah, me too.
**Adam:** Where it's like make make an investment when you did Lord of the Rings, because you knew that this was going to be fucking huge.
**Adam:** And then just use the fact that you're comfortably well off.
**Adam:** to make films you actually genuinely want to be in or or see on the screen.
**Adam:** And obviously because he's done like he was the producer for Color Out of Space.
**Chris:** Yeah, did you said so he started a production company.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, they've they've done loads they've done loads of stuff.
**Adam:** For some reason in my head.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think they did Mandy.
**Adam:** As well.
**Lee:** Yes, I think they have done.
**Adam:** Yes, so they're doing quite a lot of.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Basically, all and all sort of stuff that I just I just get the impression that I've probably got a similar taste to Elijah Wood.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In terms of like the stuff that he seems to want to do and appear in and things like that.
**Adam:** I mean, have you seen the it was on Netflix and it's in a similar sort of vein to come to Daddy.
**Adam:** it's called I just don't want to live in this world anymore.
**Lee:** Yes, I did see that.
**Lee:** That was brilliant.
**Adam:** Yeah, where he's in it as like the sort of like frustrated uptight insell sort of guy and but yeah.
**Adam:** And it's just yeah, it's just this woman basically decides that she's had enough and so she goes and of people just like being assholes for no reason.
**Adam:** and so she goes off to accuse the man whose dog has been shitting on her lawn, which turns out to be Elijah Woods who's this sort of weird like tiny little kung fu man.
**Adam:** Who like does weight training and but he's clearly like, you know, just a he's Millhouse with abs.
**Adam:** And but he's got like throwing stars that he's been practicing and stuff like that and and he's he's fucking net, he's not you know, he's not an Avenger, but he kind of tags along with her to because he agrees with her calls.
**Adam:** And yeah, but that's that's really good and he's got David Yao from the Jesus Lizard in it.
**Adam:** And he is fucking brilliant, he is he plays like the the main sort of villain.
**Adam:** And yeah, he should be in David Lynch films.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He just is a really horrible sleazy little man in it.
**Adam:** He's really good he's in that's another one we've got to do at some point is Southbound, you know, the anthology film.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, cuz he's in that as well and I remember him being great in that.
**Adam:** but yeah, that's that's another one.
**Adam:** of the stuff, oh, yeah, my scientific advisor has helped me here.
**Adam:** So film produced by film produced by Spectravision.
**Chris:** Oh, very good.
**Adam:** Which is Elijah Wood's company, so yeah, as we said, Color out of Space, Mandy.
**Adam:** Daniel isn't real, Cooties.
**Adam:** The Greasy Strangler, which is for my mind, one of the finest fucking things ever to appear.
**Adam:** I know Lee doesn't agree.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten all about Cooties though, and I really enjoyed that and he stars in that again as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's great.
**Adam:** Arch enemy, The Boy.
**Adam:** I don't know what that is, but I can only do it as The Boy.
**Adam:** Girl walked home alone at night.
**Adam:** Oh, LFO.
**Adam:** Now that's a fucking great film that was, I I.
**Chris:** I can't remember which film that was.
**Adam:** I think.
**Chris:** I know you said that one.
**Adam:** And I can't even go into it now because I can't remember, but I just remember how excited that film left me.
**Adam:** if it is the film I'm thinking of.
**Adam:** I fucking hope it is now and it's just like man ounces himself as nonse on podcast, no, that's the one, yeah, Swedish science fiction film about a man who realizes he can hypnotize with sound.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** LFO is a fucking great little film.
**Lee:** I remember you covering that in your what you've been watching, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that's that's definitely another one.
**Adam:** I I would say most of Elijah Wood's films are probably they're probably worth covering because most of them do cross over in horror.Yeah and they So, yeah. but yeah, anyway, so I so I watched that.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** I watched I'll hurry it up, I watched Carnival of Souls.
**Adam:** Fucking just fantastic film and something we're definitely going to cover at some point for you, Chris.
**Lee:** Do you know what?
**Lee:** I do think we have to, I have tried to watch that film three times.
**Lee:** And every time I get about 20 minutes in and go, this is boring the piss out of me.
**Lee:** But it's such a solid classic that I think I'm missing something.
**Adam:** The best the best way to think of it.
**Adam:** Because I think the one thing it does suffer from is it has a it has the sort of stilted, slightly stilted atmosphere.
**Adam:** of acting or type of acting that you get with the Twilight Zone or like early sort of '50s and '60s television.
**Adam:** And if you go into it thinking of it as like a special extended episode of the Twilight Zone.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and it has and it's I it has that feel and it's very it gets more and more atmospheric as it goes on.
**Adam:** Because really the start is after the initial sort of car accident.
**Adam:** Then it's just, you know, it's sort of someone going about their ordinary life and then slowly realizing something's up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's very slowly realizing something's up, so.
**Adam:** Yeah, I can again, it's one of those ones that I think is I I think we should cover it at some point, definitely, because I think also if you because with the motivation to complete it to the end, Lee, I think you'll love it.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's.
**Adam:** I also watched Eating Raoul.
**Adam:** Which is a new one on me, it's not not specifically horror, but it's a black comedy about a couple who want to open a restaurant but but can't get a bank loan, so they start murdering the swingers who party in their in their apartment block and like just stealing their money and stuff.
**Adam:** And then the the title of the character from the title Raoul turns up and is played by Mr. Chakote from Star Trek Voyager.
**Adam:** And yeah, he sort of he helps them turn this from like a cottage industry murder plot into something a bit more like a business.
**Adam:** So it's.
**Adam:** But yeah, and it but it's I think the best way I can describe it is so John Waters, but it's like female trouble.
**Adam:** It's that sort of absurd sly I was about to say slightly camp, fucking hell.
**Adam:** That sort of absurd camp black comedy sort of film.
**Adam:** And I definitely think, certainly, I think it's one that you and Lee Jennifer should check out, Lee.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Because I think you really enjoy it because it's just and the main and actually the
**Adam:** The characters in it like the husband and wife, the it's oh Paul.
**Adam:** No, totally gone.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yeah, the they turn up in Chopping Mall as well.
**Lee:** Oh, cool.
**Adam:** Right at the start of Chopping Mall, there's just two there's two people going, oh, that could be quite useful in the restaurant and that's from their characters from Eating Raoul.
**Adam:** So I'm not entirely sure why.
**Adam:** But
**Adam:** Yes, so the but no, that's definitely one to check out.
**Adam:** and like I said, I think you and Lee Jennifer.
**Adam:** Paul Bartel, that's the name I'm struggling with.
**Adam:** But Paul Bartel and Mary Waronov, who's in House of House of the Devil.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's her and it's her and and Paul Bartel and they're the couple, but Paul Bartel also wrote and directed it and also, I didn't know this is the director of the original Death Race 2000.
**Adam:** Which just immediately put him like, I mean, I love the film and then afterwards I was like, well, and you directed Death Race 2000.
**Adam:** That's fucking fantastic.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** especially because the guy who plays the announcer in Death Race 2000 plays the host of a swingers party in in one scene.
**Adam:** And he is fucking unbelievable because he just.
**Adam:** Hi, it's a proper uhm Troy and Mcclure sort of feeling.
**Adam:** He's just constantly on.
**Adam:** Hi and come right here and it's.
**Adam:** And I could just hear the same voice going, he splatters the scoreboard first.
**Adam:** And then finally I watched Zoltan, Hound of Dracula.
**Adam:** Which we really need to cover on this show.
**Adam:** But also, at this point I will say, Chris, it's not meant to be a comedy.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** it's fantastically hilarious in his own sort of.
**Adam:** Well, in the in the only way that a film that is Dracula doesn't appear, well, Dracula does appear in flashback, but it's purely Dracula's dog and his sort of half vampire Egor type servant.
**Adam:** and they go and hunt down the last remaining Dracula, Michael Dracula, who lives in America.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah, they who who has a family and they have some dogs and slowly Zoltan recruits those dogs into his vampire pack.
**Adam:** all in an attempt to get the blood of the last Dracula and the thing was as well.
**Adam:** Immediately there was a floor because he's got kids, so everyone kept saying, oh, like it's like, oh, well, he's the last Dracula and it's like, well, no, he's got kids.
**Adam:** They're the last Draculas.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, genetically, certainly, you know, there is no argument about that, if you're going to go bloodline as your as your theory, yeah, there you go.
**Adam:** It's
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Believe me, that is not the most absurd thing thing about a film.
**Adam:** With a undead Doberman pincher.
**Lee:** I need to see this.
**Adam:** Oh, man.
**Adam:** It's fucking great.
**Adam:** that is definitely one that I would say.
**Adam:** It's a communal watch but also a absolutely merry with fuck all to do watch as well.
**Lee:** Yeah, we'll have to we'll have to have an evening at mine where you can both stay over and get very drunk and not have to worry.
**Lee:** Yeah, at the end of it, I think that's not be the one to do.
**Lee:** Once all this lockdown nonsense is over, that'll be the next thing on the list.
**Adam:** Yeah, I yeah, Zoltan is something else, really is.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** So I have been starting my Christmas viewing.
**Lee:** so I've been watching The Ghost Stories for Christmas, been going back through some of those.
**Lee:** And I mentioned before I'd rewatched The Stalls at No, I'd rewatched
**Adam:** Treasure of Abbot Thomas.
**Lee:** It was The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, well done.
**Lee:** I watched that a second time because Lady Jennifer wanted to watch it as well, so we rewatched that and then followed it up with The Stalls at Barchester.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Lee:** Yeah, and so it's just I've just checked again because I checked last week and they hadn't put a date up for The Mezzotint.
**Lee:** Which is this year's one.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** Christmas Eve.
**Lee:** Christmas Eve at 10:30 at night.
**Lee:** How perfect is that?
**Adam:** Absolutely, I was overwhelmed with that.
**Lee:** Cannot wait.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So yeah, I shall be.
**Lee:** It's one of the this is going to be the first time in possibly five years, I'm going to watch something live as it aired.
**Lee:** Last time I watched something live as it aired on TV was Inside number nine's Halloween special, so that goes to show you how often I actually watch TV.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Well so League of Gentlemen are obviously the people who can get you to turn up for.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, opening night.
**Lee:** It is, totally.
**Lee:** yeah, so that's about it really.
**Lee:** So not much.
**Lee:** I mean also been watching loads of Vic and Bob.
**Lee:** And also for Christmas watching Black Adder's Christmas Carol.
**Lee:** But that isn't really horror.
**Lee:** Well.
**Lee:** It's got ghosts in it.
**Adam:** Good ghost.
**Adam:** Isn't it?
**Adam:** Yeah, that.
**Adam:** Fuck me, that has been that's been the basis for something that's watched.
**Lee:** That's true, yeah.
**Lee:** We have watched a lot less horror relevant stuff than that, I think.
**Lee:** So, on to this evening's main event, so a film that Adam introduced me to a long time ago.
**Lee:** 1995's The Day of the Beast.
**Lee:** judging by your text, Chris, I think you were probably a fan of this.
**Lee:** But would you like to tell us what you thought of it on your first watch?
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Chris:** It was a you know, I didn't know what to expect, it's one of those, right, it's subtitles, punish, okay.
**Chris:** You know, might be on for something a bit heavy.
**Chris:** And it it turned out it was a very good balance of pretty brutal.
**Chris:** And very entertaining.
**Chris:** And after having just watched the Guyver, I was set up perfectly for this as a continuation.
**Chris:** I yeah.
**Chris:** Like quite I suppose I would say it was definitely a caper, but yeah, with some pretty dark dark elements to it.
**Chris:** So, yeah, really quite surprising.
**Chris:** And I was sort of thinking I couldn't quite remember what you'd said about it.
**Chris:** How much you told me.
**Chris:** but definitely in my head, I was like, well, I'm sure they've mentioned that we don't have many more decent.
**Chris:** Christmas-based films to watch.
**Chris:** So again, I was sort of expecting it to not be quite as good as it turned out to be.
**Adam:** To be absolutely honest and I would like to take this point to apologize to our brethren of not for everyone podcast.
**Adam:** When we did the welcome to everyone Christmas episode last year and it was like your Christmas films.
**Adam:** This had utterly slipped my mind.
**Adam:** Despite the fact that there was a period of time probably up until the sort of I don't know about early 2000s that I did watch this as a Christmas film.
**Adam:** And like it was like a regular I would watch this regularly.
**Adam:** And yeah, but specifically it would be like, well, Christmas is coming up and it's always festive to watch, El De Bella Biznia.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, and I and yeah, so I and I pissed I think I pissed everyone off by saying Star Wars because everyone was like, oh.
**Adam:** Basic.
**Adam:** but I now retract Star Wars and I put El De Bella back in and at the Day of the Beast back in as my third Christmas film.
**Adam:** Because as I say.
**Adam:** It's going to go back on the Christmas watch list now.
**Adam:** But it used to be, yeah, it used to be a fairly regular thing.
**Adam:** And, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** We hadn't run out of Christmas films.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** It is just.
**Lee:** It's just so much fun.
**Lee:** Like it's right right from the opening, you know, while the credits are still rolling, it's the bit that always sticks with me is him pushing that mind down the subway, like, just.
**Chris:** It's watching him starting to do all those act, it's like I can feel it bringing out the sort of naughty boy part of me.
**Chris:** You just think you could imagine watching this, you know, quite a bit younger again with mates drinking and it's just like he's just now on this mission to be the naughtiest.
**Chris:** And and again, yeah, it's brutal, but still the way it's done is just so kind of funny.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's a perfect setup as well for to give you everything it kind of gives you everything you need to know about hit him as a person, Kira as a person because.
**Adam:** It's like, right, I've got to sell my soul to Satan, so I will commit all the sins.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's literally like Nut down ginger, but it's but it's like it's the worst he can think of.
**Chris:** He can.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, it's not that he's avoiding anything, he's genuinely like that.
**Adam:** Fucking hell, yeah, and I really, oh, no, that's terrible.
**Adam:** And a bit of him.
**Adam:** He stole a man's suitcase.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's beautiful, although although also he does go all in with you're going to rot in hell.
**Adam:** When he's to the.
**Chris:** The wallet.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Give the.
**Lee:** I know we don't normally do this, but just for the listeners because I know this is a more obscure movie, so for anyone who hasn't seen it.
**Lee:** a priest who has spent the last 25 years trying to decipher a code that he believes is in an ancient script, discovers that the the Antichrist is going to be born on Christmas Eve in 1995 in Madrid, and in order to get to meet the devil so that he can kill him.
**Lee:** He decides that he has to be the worst human being possible.
**Lee:** As well as work out where the Antichrist is going to be born.
**Lee:** So it's just about this funny little priest going to Madrid and being the biggest brick that he can.
**Lee:** And trying to find out about the cult.
**Chris:** Right, so so just want to check, the reason that he has to be such a big prick is that the devil then won't kill him.
**Chris:** Is that right?
**Chris:** Because his friend.
**Chris:** Who he tells at the start, says, oh, I'm with you on it, but we better watch out because someone might have heard this.
**Chris:** Was that.
**Chris:** And then he gets killed.
**Adam:** As in Satan will have heard this.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** So, you know, obviously he would be that powerful.
**Chris:** That he would have be aware of what the plan is.
**Chris:** So it's, yeah, it's a weird one because it's his plan is meant to be to convince the devil that he's evil.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So that he can sell his soul to the devil, so he gets to be with the devil and discover when the Antichrist is going to be born.
**Chris:** And sort of, yeah, go from there essentially.
**Chris:** Like he's going to be sort of brought in on Satan's plans.
**Chris:** So so was he planning to kill him?
**Adam:** He was planning.
**Adam:** To kill.
**Adam:** He's planning to kill the Antichrist.
**Adam:** Or prevent the birth of the Antichrist.
**Adam:** So presumably kill the mother.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But that level of determination whilst is there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's sort of.
**Adam:** Well, he doesn't really know well, again, he doesn't really know how to summon the devil to sell his soul, but he's pretty convinced he can work it out in a day.
**Lee:** He just walks into the Black Metal record shop with a record.
**Adam:** With.
**Adam:** With with one of the greatest sort of characters in this film.
**Adam:** So the the director, Alex Della Iglecia, and apologies for how crappily I said that.
**Adam:** He's he said that basically it was things like Evil Dead, John Carpenter.
**Adam:** Jaws, I think was another one.
**Adam:** He but basically, yeah, this sort of like you say, an adventure, like a fantasy adventure sort of movie but in that more yeah, Evil Dead, Sam Ray sort of vibe of it will have horror, but it'll also have funny bits.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Rather than oh, well, we'll put a joky comedy theme as he's going around pushing mines over and it's just that.
**Adam:** Like.
**Lee:** Like American Werewolf.
**Adam:** Yeah, American Werewolf would be another one, I think as well.
**Adam:** And yeah, so.
**Adam:** Yeah, so he goes and meet goes and meets Jose.
**Adam:** The guy who runs the record shop who is the absolute perfect like Mela.
**Adam:** As in.
**Adam:** And it's that thing as well that you always find, it's like, I mean, do you do you find this at work, Lee?
**Adam:** Sometimes you'll get people like they'll go like, that delivery driver is really nice.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Covered in tattoos and he's got his hair all over the place.
**Adam:** He's got like really long.
**Adam:** He but he's a really nice bloke.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Why would he not be because most Melers are quite mellow, decent human beings.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, with a good and I think that's the.
**Lee:** I think.
**Lee:** I think that's the thing as a Melar myself in my younger years.
**Lee:** I think you take it, well, we all were, I think you you do take it all with a pinch of you don't take it seriously.
**Lee:** So it's it's got an element of a good sense of humor, so Metalers have got a good sense of humor.
**Lee:** And as you say, generally, that means they're decent human beings.
**Lee:** And Yeah, I think he's he's amazing character in this.
**Lee:** I absolutely do.
**Chris:** It's essentially it's just being obsessed about the thing you're interested in, isn't it?
**Chris:** So, yeah.
**Chris:** You want to take that to an extreme, but that doesn't mean that you take necessarily everything in life to an extreme.
**Adam:** Precisely.
**Adam:** And so you've got this guy who is essentially so sweet-natured that he's like, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** These are.
**Adam:** Basically he connects over the records.
**Adam:** And also, did you.
**Adam:** Did you spot on the slip of paper that he spelled ACDC phonetically?
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Because it's kind it's kind of like meant to be that he's just heard the names, so he's quickly jotted down like these metal bands because it's like Napalm Death, and yeah, something else and ACDC.
**Lee:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** I made.
**Lee:** A made.
**Lee:** And ACDC.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** ACDC is like H A Y.
**Lee:** You know what?I look I didn't even put two and two together.
**Lee:** I read the first I only saw the last one at a glimpse and I went.
**Lee:** Yeah, I don't know who that is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** No, it's because he's because he's never seen it written down, he's just heard someone say ACDC.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** I just love that logic.
**Lee:** Have you wrote it, so it's your fault if I carve on your floor with a knife?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, but I mean.
**Adam:** Also,
**Adam:** There's I mean, it's a fucking great soundtrack.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which again, I forget about the because you've got.
**Adam:** I mean, obviously there's a lot of Spanish bands in there.
**Adam:** Like the stuff that he plays him in the shop because he gives him he says he wants to listen to that album that's called Live Death.
**Adam:** Which apparently is a split live album of suffocation, malevolent creation, ex-order and I love this band name, Cancer.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** They're not.
**Lee:** They're really trying to get your attention with that one.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yeah, so they that but the album that the music that plays is by a band called Katulu.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** So, you know, immediately they score points anyway.
**Adam:** But the main thing music that is the when they go to the club and see the band.
**Adam:** That's a band called Deathcom Dose.
**Lee:** Who like Deathcon.
**Adam:** Two, who are like a Spanish rock rap metal like rap rock band, basically.
**Adam:** and but the thing is is I got I was just getting serious dog eat dog vibes.
**Lee:** You know what I mean, it was that kind of era.
**Lee:** Where it's like actually I'm not going to complain about rock metal here.
**Lee:** But you've got.
**Lee:** Like.

---

## Ep 132 The Ninth Gate

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-132-the-ninth-gate/
Air date: 5 December 2021
Duration: 01:38:11
Film: The Ninth Gate · Year: 1999 · Director: Roman Polanski

### Description

Special guest Manny joins us for this look at a late 90s Satanic Thriller, Roman Polanski’s “The Ninth Gate”. A film in which Frank Langella proves that most Satanic Societies are all “big cloaks, no knickers” when it comes to a punch up; Johnny Depp reveals his fragile tits and comic timing too late to save his performance; and we learn that rare book sellers are drowning in pussy. Along the way we discuss “Prisoners of the Ghostland”, “Outcast”, “Arcane”, the 2005 remake of “The Fog”, “Let Us Prey”, “Last Night In Soho” and “Kevin Turvey: The Man Behind The Green Door”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. *TRIGGER WARNING: We discuss the tragic life and unforgivable crimes of Roman Polanski - so murder, rape and the holocaust are mentioned - there is a warning prior to this portion of the episode with a time to skip forward to avoid it if you so wish.* APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, IN A BURNING CASTLE WHILST 2 PEOPLE HUMPED OUTSIDE.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Just before this evening's episode started, I just wanted to give everyone a bit of a warning.
**Lee:** We are covering the Roman Polensky directed film The Ninth Gate this evening.
**Lee:** we do go into not too much detail, but we do cover Roman Polensky's crimes and also his tragic childhood.
**Lee:** We know obviously we are a light-hearted podcast, and therefore this material might not be suitable for all of our listeners.
**Lee:** So anyone who doesn't wish to hear this,
**Lee:** we have marked the tape.
**Lee:** So it begins at 37 minutes and 20 seconds and ends at 48 minutes and 35 seconds.
**Lee:** So feel free to jump past that
**Lee:** and you will avoid all of the unpleasantness and you can just hear us discussing the movie.
**Lee:** thanks very much and hope you enjoy the episode.
**Lee:** Good night.
**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** Hi, I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we have a surprise guest with us this evening, the often mentioned but always busy until this point, Manny.
**Lee:** Evening Manny.
**Manny:** Evening, thank you for having me. Very, very excited to be here.
**Chris:** It's great for you to be here.
**Manny:** Yes.
**Chris:** I'm, I'm looking forward to hearing all about this film.
**Lee:** Manny may have teased us that he may not have the same thoughts about this film as me, but we'll we'll get on to that when we reach it.
**Lee:** before we get ahead of ourselves, Manny, just very briefly, tell the listeners a bit about yourself and your interest in movies.
**Manny:** Sure, so, I'm one of those, punters who went to university and studied film, but actually before that, I got, film studies introduced to my school so I could do it at A-level.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Chris:** Nice.
**Manny:** Which was, which was really cool. we actually had to do it over Zoom, which seemed odds thinking that I was doing that 15, no, sorry, I'm older than that, 17 years ago.
**Manny:** but, but that was really cool and, yeah, so I really enjoyed doing it at A-level and then went to, university, was hoping that it was going to be, or I was told actually, I was lied to really, that it was a practical course.
**Manny:** and it was really just English literature but film.
**Manny:** So, even though it was incredibly interesting or at least some of it was, got to study some really cool stuff on J-horror, which I really liked. and some core parts of European cinema that I really enjoyed, it wasn't really what I was looking for.
**Manny:** but anyway, it didn't stop my love of film.
**Manny:** and yeah, horror's always been a thing close to my heart, in a non-weird way.
**Manny:** I think my earliest film that I was terrified of was the BFG cartoon.
**Manny:** and I distinctly remember being in my mom's front room and the, the living room door was shut and it was on the TV and I was too young to know how to turn it off, but I was also too young to open the door, couldn't do it.
**Manny:** So I was just stuck in a room with child-eating giants, not knowing how to get out.
**Manny:** And somehow that made me like horror.
**Manny:** So, yeah, did, I've actually, I remember writing and directing a horror when I was about 17.
**Manny:** It was appalling, so I don't really want to talk about it.
**Manny:** But, I've always,
**Lee:** Can we can we cover it on the show?
**Chris:** That would be great.
**Manny:** I would have to find it somewhere, but I think it's about two minutes long and not good.
**Manny:** So,
**Adam:** We we've covered less.
**Lee:** Yeah, we're still talking about Ant-Man Dick Hole after about a year, so,
**Adam:** Only mentioned it to someone in the week.
**Manny:** but yeah, so, love horror films, met Lee through work, got to know about his love of horror films and this podcast. listened to it, listen to a few times, some of shout-outs, which is always been nice.
**Manny:** I think most of them were not, like, they, they were negatively done, but I mean, it's because I had a negative opinion, so it makes sense.
**Manny:** but, yeah, happy to be here and yeah, excited to, to chat about the film.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** yeah, I did wonder about this film when I suggested it, I was like, I really like it, I know it's got its flaws, but there's something very romantic about it.
**Lee:** But we'll come to that in due course.
**Lee:** So, before we get into that, we will do our, what we've been watching.
**Lee:** So we will start as always with Chris.
**Chris:** No, you might assume cheating, but I'm going to prove I'm not, right?
**Chris:** So I've watched, I've watched the rest of Arcane because the first three episodes were released and I was like, that's it, you've, you've got me started on this.
**Chris:** This is, this is way better than I was expecting it might be.
**Chris:** Then they've released the, the final six, I think we maybe missed a few.
**Chris:** Anyway, so when we came back to it, all of the season one was on there.
**Chris:** And it just got better and better for me, I was just so impressed with what they've done with this.
**Chris:** I'm just going to do a brief recap of what it's about.
**Chris:** So it's based on League of Legends, the computer game and it is set in the utopian Piltover and the oppressed underground of Zone.
**Chris:** The story follows the origins of two iconic champions and the power that will tear them apart.
**Chris:** And so essentially, the main story is two sisters and what happens to them.
**Chris:** But what they did so well in this is how the, the experiences of each sister growing up has affected them, and one of them particularly essentially becomes a paranoid schizophrenic.
**Chris:** And the way they show this with the animation and the style is just so powerful.
**Chris:** it's one of the best portrayals of somebody turning from who is a sweet girl living in a difficult situation, you know, essentially street urchins, quite a violent city, and yeah, just wanting to do good and ending up becoming complete psycho.
**Chris:** and just yeah, her thoughts and what she remembers.
**Chris:** And then as you, as you go down this path, you interpret every upcoming, or every new situation with that filter.
**Chris:** So somebody trying to do good you still interpret as being bad and being evil towards you.
**Chris:** So you just constantly send you down this darker path and yeah, it's just so well done.
**Chris:** it like it looks fantastic and yeah, for me the story is just so much deeper than I was expecting.
**Chris:** and then the other thing I was really concerned about is how are they going to, incorporate the ultimate abilities of these characters, which are just over the top in the game, as you can imagine.
**Chris:** How can they possibly bring this into what is a fantastic story?
**Chris:** And again, they I was, I was thinking, how are they going to do this sort of coming towards the end and they just did it in such a good way.
**Chris:** It's still over the top massively, but it, it's done with a cliffhanger and it seems to fit.
**Chris:** So, yeah, just like hats off to the, the writers and the directors.
**Chris:** Now, I don't, I did briefly look them up, I don't recognize them, they haven't done a lot, as far as I can tell.
**Chris:** Did notice though some of the actors, they've got Hailee Steinfeld is one of the voices, I saw her in Bumblebee and I think a few other things.
**Chris:** They also got Kevin Alejandro, Jason Spisak, Harry Lloyd, who I did recognize from Game of Thrones. Daenerys' brother.
**Chris:** I don't recognize any of the others.
**Chris:** But yeah, just like it really blew me away.
**Chris:** So I highly recommend it potentially to anyone, certainly if you like computer games, and if you love adult animation.
**Chris:** Yeah, really fantastic.
**Adam:** And you were a fan of the you played the game and we're a fan of the game as well, so,
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Fans shouldn't worry.
**Chris:** Absolutely, yeah, they seem to have got this balance perfectly.
**Chris:** and, and yeah, and Shelley really enjoyed it as well.
**Chris:** so people who don't, have never heard of the game should enjoy it, if you like your serious animation.
**Chris:** yeah, just a lot to offer.
**Chris:** So it'd be great to see what they do, I don't know when season two is planned for, if it's been finished writing, but yeah, I'm certainly looking forward to that.
**Lee:** Cool, excellent.
**Lee:** That sounds like I have to check that out myself.
**Lee:** Adam, what have you been checking out since our last meeting?
**Adam:** I had a weird, moment of, I sort of for some reason over two nights double built Scottish horror.
**Adam:** both from probably sort of mid, sort of about 2010 sort of time, sort of 2010, 2013.
**Adam:** and, yeah.
**Adam:** So I watched, well, actually, the one I watched second, I'll tell you first.
**Adam:** I watched a film called Outcast.
**Adam:** Which has, and basically that's set on a, Scottish council estate, but it, it's kind of a, well, basically there's a a mother and son hiding out and they've clearly got like magical powers and they're using them.
**Adam:** And sort of there's two people looking for them, one of which is played by James Nesbitt, and they're using sorcery and arcane sort of ritual magic, to try and locate them.
**Adam:** And it has that sort of feel of say something like, I don't know, a bit of sort of Neil Gaiman of, you know, where it's like, it's matter of fact to these people, so they don't explain everything to an outsider or anything else like that.
**Adam:** It's just like, they know what they're doing.
**Adam:** And so,
**Chris:** Like they they use magic but it's just normal.
**Adam:** It's to them it's every day.
**Adam:** They they show you using magic the same way they would show you someone setting up a trap for someone.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, it's like in the in the sort of sense of, you know what they're doing.
**Adam:** and, but yeah, that's,
**Adam:** and, Kate Dickey's in that and she is fucking great, the mum from The Witch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** who is in loads and loads of stuff and is now currently one of my contenders for playing the next doctor.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** but yeah, she, but I think that's only because I feel she would be Peter Capaldi in, it's that same sort of stern Scottishness from someone.
**Adam:** but, yeah, so, and that that was, pretty good, pretty atmospheric.
**Adam:** the monster effects not brilliant,
**Adam:** but overall it was one of those things where it was like, it felt, it almost felt like you'd come in towards the end of a series.
**Lee:** -
**Adam:** Like sort of like you'd watch the last two episodes of a four-part mini series or something like that.
**Adam:** It had that feel that, yeah.
**Adam:** But, but altogether pretty, pretty enjoyable.
**Adam:** And a lot of sort of famous faces in like people you'd recognize from like James Cosmo's in there from Game of Thrones and stuff like that.
**Adam:** one of the actors in it, I hadn't seen in anything before apart from the film that I'd watched the night before, so I accidentally double billed it with this actress for some reason.
**Adam:** but the film I watched the night before was Let Us Prey.
**Adam:** And that is similar sort of thing, basically it's set in a police station in, like sort of Scotland, like one of the islands, so it's quite a sort of small, deserted little place.
**Adam:** and, yeah, so it's this, policewoman's first night at the, at this station.
**Adam:** and basically all shit goes down.
**Adam:** one of the things is that they bring in, Liam Cunningham, again another Game of Thrones, dabos.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's tonight.
**Adam:** Yeah, Dabos and his wooden fingers.
**Adam:** So also, why has no one thought can he play Sean Connery in something?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But, but I digress.
**Adam:** And, but yeah, and that's got, Pollyanna McIntosh is the main, actress in that.
**Adam:** And basically, yeah, so Dabos turns up, he's probably the devil, or he's possibly death.
**Adam:** And it sort of, the best way, even though I've not seen it, it feels like it might be a bit like the prophecy of like some badass turns up in a long coat and actually they're sort of the devil or whatever.
**Adam:** And, but yeah, so he goes, he ends up in the police station and basically exposes everyone's there's sort of guilt of a crime or something awful that they've done.
**Adam:** But it's, the best way I can describe it, because I think I preferred Let Us Prey more than I did Outcast.
**Adam:** but I enjoyed it because it has that Luther effect.
**Adam:** You know, where it's like, this has gone fucking ludicrous now, but I'm still in.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** But seriously, that it's sort of like it's not just things like guilt like, you know, oh, someone, like killed someone when like by accident or whatever like that.
**Adam:** A couple of the guilty people, it's like, it's full-blown serial murder and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And you're like, and you're like, wow, okay.
**Adam:** But, but yeah, just for its sheer sort of like just fucking bizareness and it kind of had that felt like assault on Precinct 13, even though,
**Adam:** or even more like The Thing or something like that, where it's like this isolated police station and they all start getting at each other because of what's going to be exposed by this guy who apparently knows everyone's dark secrets.
**Adam:** but yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, both of them, both of them definitely, definitely worth a look, they're not necessarily sort of repeat viewers or anything else like that.
**Adam:** And like I say, for sheer sort of like just, yeah, I want to be entertained for the next hour and a half, definitely go with, Let Us Prey.
**Adam:** it's oh, and it's Prey as in predation like p r e y not a y.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** Excellent, I might have to put that on my own list actually.
**Adam:** Both I would, I would definitely say, I think you'd enjoy both, definitely, sir.
**Lee:** Excellent, cool.
**Lee:** Right, Manny, have you seen anything recently that you'd like to recommend or tell people to steer well clear of?
**Manny:** yeah, a couple.
**Manny:** so not massively that, that recently, but over the last few weeks.
**Manny:** so I went to see, I think I told you this, I went to see The Last Night in Soho, Last Night in Soho, sorry, but the premiere of it at the BFI, which was really cool.
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Manny:** So, oh, no, I mean, like, you just paid for tickets.
**Manny:** It's like, but,
**Manny:** it was one of the Gala nights, so, what's his name was there?
**Adam:** Edgar Wright.
**Manny:** Edgar Wright, thank you.
**Manny:** was there and was doing questions and stuff, so that was cool.
**Manny:** but I loved that, I didn't find it scary, and I know that it's meant to like it's his turn at horror, or, or real horror as opposed to comedy horror.
**Manny:** But, but then saying that, I do have a pretty high threshold, so I feel like I try and judge it by whether my, fiance would find it scary and she definitely would have.
**Manny:** So, therefore, it is scary, but I don't think it would be to any of us.
**Manny:** but it was brilliant.
**Manny:** and mesmerizing and the performances were great, love the music and it looked fantastic.
**Manny:** So that was awesome.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Manny:** I did finally watch the Wolf of Snow Hollow, on a flight recently.
**Manny:** and that was brilliant.
**Manny:** really loved it.
**Manny:** I think it was the first time I've ever used the, the word irreverent correctly.
**Manny:** but it was a very irreverent film.
**Manny:** but yeah, I thought that was brilliant, I really, really enjoyed it.
**Manny:** Really funny, really like, not twisty turny, but, it, it was just really, it was really well written, really well acted, I like the actors in it and, and that was good.
**Manny:** and then recently, although I've not finished it, but I've seen it a million times, watching Sleepy Hollow.
**Manny:** Which I'll, come in and I've actually got some references or or not references, sorry, I, I will be talking about that later when I talk about the film that we watched because I think that there is some, similarities.
**Manny:** But one's positive and one's not.
**Manny:** So we'll, we'll get to that though.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Manny:** But, the only film that I've watched that I would not recommend, and it's only, it's probably one of the only, one of less than five films that I've started watching and couldn't finish.
**Manny:** but it seemed to be everything that I would want in a film.
**Manny:** It's Prisoners of Ghostland.
**Manny:** with Nic Cage.
**Lee:** Oh, I got about 20 minutes in and blew it right out.
**Manny:** Oh, thank you.
**Manny:** So it wasn't just me.
**Manny:** Yeah, like, I it's like, Nick Cage blowing off testicles, Westerns, Samurai, ghosts, whatever, all in a film, like, that sounds incredible.
**Manny:** No, it's just really awful.
**Chris:** What could go wrong, but somehow.
**Manny:** yeah, like, I'd watch him in anything, but I I couldn't watch him in that.
**Manny:** So that's only one I would not recommend, even as like a, a goof, I would not recommend it because it was, it was actually quite painful to watch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I was going to say, I think there's a a distinct feeling, you know the difference between genuinely like cracked comedians and people who are trying to do surreal.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Manny:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's, there is a certain thing with a certain breed of film at the moment where it's, you feel they've got that, it's that same effect.
**Adam:** Where it's like, I wouldn't be wacky if we got Nicholas Cage to fight Samurai in a vampire Western in Dorset with where he's dressed as a sheep at the start of it and just because they know, right, well, that's ticked all the sort of we're crazy boxes.
**Adam:** And, does not necessarily make a good film.
**Manny:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, and actually just one, but if you're really excited about Samurai and Nicholas Cage, you'd probably make a fucking belter.
**Manny:** Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah.
**Manny:** I was going to say, actually, one, one other comparison I did see a few weeks ago and this was actually the film I thought we were doing tonight.
**Manny:** but, I think there was a, a bless Lee, I think you forgot.
**Manny:** So I was,
**Lee:** Yeah, I,
**Lee:** So what happened was, I'll put it in my phone and then my phone died, so I had to get a new phone and for some reason it's moved half of my calendar stuff over and not the rest.
**Lee:** So, anybody who I've said I'll do stuff with who doesn't hear from me, please let me know, because my calendar's just shit the bed.
**Lee:** So it's, it's not that I'm ignoring you, I just don't know what's supposed to be going on.
**Chris:** Is that the new my dog ate my homework.
**Manny:** So it was, it was Malignant that I'd because, originally, I think you guys, I don't know if you actually watched it or not, but we, originally we were supposed to be doing martyrs, then Lee said he couldn't watch it because it was about torture.
**Manny:** I'd already, rented it at this point and I'd forgotten how awful it is, as in, amazing, but awful, so I did rewatch it and then immediately regretted it.
**Manny:** then was trying to find another film to watch and I sent saw Malignant and loved it.
**Manny:** But, caveated by it's mental.
**Manny:** And just as you were saying there, Adam, about if someone was like actually genuinely wanted to make the film, that's what Malignant is, what Prisoners of Ghostland would be if someone seemed actually serious about it.
**Manny:** Because in terms of throwing lots of ideas about, Malignant has all of the ideas, and but they just went full hog, so it made it good.
**Manny:** Yeah.
**Manny:** so yeah, if, if, if you haven't seen it, definitely see Malignant.
**Manny:** It was brilliant, but shit but brilliant.
**Lee:** See, now I've definitely got to watch it to find out what that's all about.
**Manny:** Yeah.
**Manny:** I don't want to say too much more because it I don't want to ruin it, but it has one of the best sequences, later on the film that was just mind-blowing.
**Manny:** It was brilliant.
**Lee:** Excellent, I'll give that a go.
**Lee:** So mine are, I'll try and keep it quick.
**Lee:** so I watched The Fog remake after we watched The Fog recently.
**Lee:** and, my notes say The Fog remake equals dog shit.
**Lee:** So there you go, that's pretty much all I.
**Chris:** But you got through the whole film.
**Lee:** I did.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** Thank you, thank you for confirming a prejudice.
**Adam:** I've always assumed it was, I've never seen it, but I assumed it.
**Adam:** And thank you.
**Lee:** What it does, sorry, this is probably a little bit late in the show now, but spoilers and swearing, so let's get that out of the way.
**Lee:** because they're fucking coming with this film.
**Lee:** We, what it does is it takes, so what I love about The Fog is how little you see of what's in the fog, like although the iconic shots you see are few and far between, they look incredible and they're really well laid out.
**Lee:** This kind of does that 90s thing of let's just throw loads of gore at it unnecessarily and make half of the film about the characters in the fog where you follow them back in the day and you see what they're doing now and they have to go to the graveyard and oh and it's just so fucking tedious.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it just, it took that idea that, you know, you just read a few paragraphs and you knew who they were and it was enough to make a character of them.
**Lee:** Yeah, and just like showed you them shoe shopping and what were their favorite meals were and like it's just so, oh, God, it's terrible.
**Lee:** And the soundtrack was awful as well.
**Lee:** so yeah, so I did that and hated myself for it, but, you know, I've I've seen it now, so that's fine.
**Lee:** then also same as Manny, this week, I finally caught up with Last Night in Soho.
**Lee:** And I, I felt the same, I was worried about seeing it, I'm going to be honest.
**Lee:** it's set in 1960s London, possibly my work, my least favorite decade.
**Lee:** So, I was like, this is going to be not good.
**Lee:** And he said, this is my love letter to Giallo, which I hate.
**Lee:** So I was like, this is going to be all kinds.
**Lee:** But he said Edgar Wright.
**Lee:** So I was like, well, how's it going to play?
**Lee:** yeah, and I absolutely loved it.
**Lee:** It was fantastic.
**Lee:** Diana Rigg's last film, obviously.
**Lee:** And she is just exceptional throughout, I thought.
**Chris:** That's that's meaningful for you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** And like,
**Adam:** I didn't know she's in here.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Lee:** Yeah, nor did I until we started and I was like, I'm sure that's Diana Rigg and I had to get the phone out and check and I was like, oh, yeah, it is.
**Adam:** She wasn't, she's not dressed up like in, theater of blood, is she?
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** It was just, I'm sure that's Diana Rigg, you know, she's just got the big perm and the sideburns.
**Lee:** Even in her sunglasses I'd recognize her, it's definitely her.
**Lee:** but yeah, no, absolutely fantastic film, really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I think I did mention to you though, Adam, that it I did end up watching it as a double bill with Kevin Turvey, which wasn't what I was planning to do.
**Lee:** but they did keep playing, Downtown in it and I had to say to Jennifer at the end, oh, I love the use of that song in the film, but that song is forever ruined by Kevin Turvey.
**Lee:** And Jennifer said, who's Kevin Turvey?
**Lee:** So I was like, right, that's it.
**Lee:** Upstairs, we're going to watch the man behind the green door.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I've now got, I've now got literal male visions of you going.
**Adam:** Don't you sit there.
**Adam:** You sit there and we're going to watch Kevin Turvey.
**Lee:** That was exactly what it was like.
**Lee:** Yeah, and we got to the end and she just went, well, that was weird.
**Lee:** She went,
**Lee:** Yeah, I guess it was, she went, is this was shown on TV?
**Lee:** Are you sure this was I was like, yeah, yeah, it's right up.
**Lee:** She's like, oh, that's just, wow.
**Lee:** She said it looks like a, a kid's like college TV project.
**Lee:** I was like, well, yeah, it kind of was.
**Lee:** But this was back when comedy was a lot more.
**Adam:** But also that's for what Kevin Turvey is.
**Lee:** Well, yeah, yeah, exactly.
**Lee:** and the only other thing I saw was because of The Ninth Gate, I don't know why, these two always trigger one another in my mind, The Ghost Story for Christmas, the Treasure of Abott Thomas.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Oh, I I can see that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I don't know why, I think at some point I made the connection and now if I watch one, the other is immediately triggered.
**Lee:** So the Treasure of Abbot Thomas, anyone who doesn't know M R James is the story of two guys, one's a college professor and the other one is one of his students and they're good friends.
**Lee:** And one of them is allowed into a cathedral to do some looking into the history of the monks who used to live there.
**Lee:** And one of them was, burnt at the stake for witchcraft and apparently he claimed in his diary that he had, turned lead into gold and had hidden 300 pieces somewhere.
**Lee:** and he's left clues around the cathedral, so they're running around the cathedral trying to find these clues to find this gold.
**Lee:** And unsurprisingly for M R James, when they find the gold, it all goes really tits up really fucking fast.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's, it's one of my favorite gate stories for Christmas, so if you get a chance, definitely check that out.
**Chris:** I just want to flick back to Edgar Wright briefly because I just looked him up on IMDB.
**Chris:** And I see that The Running Man is announced, and I know we were considering covering the original, The Running Man.
**Chris:** At some point.
**Adam:** I don't know, is it, is it actually a remake of The Running Man?
**Chris:** Well, I assume so, because when I clicked on it, it says, directed Edgar Wright and writer Stephen King novel and it says the futuristic United States of 2025 when the world has become a dystopia.
**Chris:** So, that may be out by the time we cover The Running Man, who knows.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** yeah.
**Adam:** But not only that, but also The Running Man.
**Adam:** There's an example of no, the person who made this is genuinely mental.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This, this is, yeah.
**Adam:** It's, it's Nold Fielding, not Russell Howard.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Adam:** It's, yeah.
**Adam:** And not only that, but also it's fucking weird because it feels like that's a it's a bit late.
**Adam:** Because I literally showed Claire the Running Man just as it was obvious that Trump was not going to win the last election.
**Adam:** So I was like,
**Adam:** I've got to show you this while this is actually the world.
**Lee:** I think that's fair.
**Lee:** I think that's a fair analogy.
**Lee:** The thing that makes me laugh is, I in my mind, I just went, oh, they're remaking it again.
**Lee:** For some reason I was convinced they'd already remade it, because they've remade all the rest of his films, how have they not done this one yet?
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** But are they going to do that thing again that's annoyed me?
**Adam:** Are they just going to mention, they're not going to say Stephen King.
**Adam:** Because that fucked me off when it was from the writer of it.
**Adam:** No, no, no, no.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** From, from Stephen fucking King, mate.
**Adam:** If you don't know what that is,
**Chris:** He's the king.
**Adam:** Fuck off.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So this will be just from, from the, from the writer of sometimes they come back.
**Manny:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, that'd be interesting. We shall, we'll keep an eye out for that then, that could be excellent.
**Lee:** and again, like everything he touches just turns to gold in my opinion.
**Lee:** So I can't see him totally ballsing it up, but everyone has to fall at some point, so we'll see.
**Lee:** No pressure, Edgar, but,
**Manny:** It'll be, it'll be interesting to see how he works with, with a, a project that is not his or, because the same, when you look at what happened with Ant-Man.
**Manny:** he left because he wasn't getting his way.
**Manny:** So it'll be interesting to see what it obviously a studio picture.
**Adam:** So that was the same with Tintin.
**Adam:** Wasn't it the same with Tintin as well, wasn't he originally going to be directing that and then, or he was involved some way.
**Manny:** Yeah.
**Manny:** And then Spielberg did it.
**Lee:** Right, we shall see what happens.
**Lee:** Right, so, on to this evening's main event.
**Lee:** so I suggested, 1999's The Ninth Gate.
**Lee:** This is,
**Adam:** All the nines.
**Lee:** All the nines.
**Lee:** so this film, I, I can't even tell you the first time I saw this, because I don't remember.
**Lee:** But I do remember it's one of those films that I've, I kind of, I really like it for a, for a very mainstream audience, I thought it was really good and it was well paced and it's,
**Lee:** I, you know what, I just got a romantic image of it, it's people running around Paris looking for occult stuff to raise the devil.
**Lee:** How can that not be your best weekend ever?
**Lee:** so that's the way I see it.
**Lee:** I, I'm sure somebody on here may have a different opinion.
**Lee:** We shall get to that, but in old tradition, let us start with Chris.
**Chris:** Right, so, I need to, to give a little background, I knew very little about Roman Polansky.
**Chris:** I don't think I've seen any of his other films.
**Chris:** I had heard of the controversy.
**Chris:** Now, I did know that he'd done Rosemary's Baby, which I know we've talked about many times and we will probably still be watching at some point.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Chris:** and I think there was another film that he did.
**Lee:** Fearless Vampire Killers I keep wanting to call it.
**Chris:** you have mentioned that as well, yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** but oh, and and the pianist, I always planned to watch it, just have never.
**Chris:** so I'd heard that film and I'd heard it was a film worth watching, I didn't know it was by him until I checked it recently.
**Chris:** But yeah, so, so really, the most that I knew about him was the controversy.
**Chris:** And I didn't even really learn full details of that.
**Chris:** Mostly I've learned of them through some comments by Adam and Lee points and particularly earlier, you know, tonight.
**Chris:** so, so you got to think I was going to into this and I was trying to watch it as neutrally as possible.
**Chris:** Because it's that whole, you know, at what point do you stop appreciating art because the person who made it has done some terrible things and possibly there'd be a lot of art that we would no longer be appreciating, so it's a hard thing to be sure about where the line is.
**Chris:** but I imagine that did put me in a slightly more critical view while watching it as much as I tried not to.
**Chris:** Now, watching it, I it was entertaining, it was definitely I did like the style and the story seemed to be moving along, I like Johnny Depp generally, and and yeah, it seemed to tickle all the right boxes.
**Chris:** Where, where I probably need all of you to fill me in is if I was missing something.
**Chris:** It it didn't seem to have anything that grabbed me as really unique, I was sort of thinking when I look back on this, what exactly will I be remembering it for?
**Chris:** And it did seem like, and finally enough I think, Manny, you mentioned Sleepy Hollow and I kept thinking of that because it was like a, you know,
**Chris:** I'd say a more normal, version of that almost.
**Chris:** So still got sexual, demonic elements, but yeah, there's a very different.
**Adam:** And, and they're roughly the same sort of time, I think they were within like about five years of each other.
**Chris:** No, I think they were the same year.
**Chris:** I think.
**Adam:** Oh, no, it's 1999.
**Chris:** And so yeah, so Johnny Depp, trying to uncover a mystery, you know, as a detective essentially.
**Chris:** And yeah, and so, yeah, like it was good.
**Chris:** But I wasn't quite sure what it offered especially over a lot of the other films.
**Chris:** Now that might be we've watched some crazy films lately, obviously society was the most recent one in my mind.
**Chris:** That that could also color viewing of subsequent films.
**Adam:** I I can, can I just say if Roman Polansky directed the society, fuck me, would we not be covering it.
**Manny:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That that is a very good point.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I would like to point out at this point, I said it just before we started recording.
**Lee:** Although this is the fourth or fifth time I've seen this film, every time I do forget that it's Roman Polansky.
**Lee:** So every time,
**Lee:** I put it on and it starts and I go, oh, shit.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's Roman Polansky.
**Lee:** So in my defense, I might have been more should I bring this film to the table, or is this just going to deteriorate pretty badly and should we be watching it at all?
**Lee:** But as I say,
**Lee:** I honestly, it just escapes my mind every time.
**Lee:** So it wasn't until it came up and I was like, well, it's the night before.
**Lee:** I can't really now be saying, should we be covering this, because it's,
**Chris:** But but like I said,
**Chris:** we are going to cover Rosemary's Baby, surely, we're not going to not cover that.
**Chris:** I mean, I've heard so much about that, I at least again, I've not heard what it's about really, but I've just heard positive comments.
**Adam:** I I think I think that's and to be honest, I think that's why to a certain extent why Roman Polansky is still making films.
**Chris:** Because he has has made some really great.
**Adam:** The cachet of like his early sort of period of it.
**Adam:** Basically, as as they are in my notes, but basically between before and after him becoming a fugitive from justice essentially.
**Adam:** there is a distinct sort of that period of early film.
**Adam:** Like you have got Fearless Vampire Killers, Rosemary's Baby.
**Adam:** Cul-de-sac, which is incredible, I don't know if you've ever seen that, but that's just, that's a a very good film.
**Adam:** The tenant.
**Adam:** Which is, actually and and Repulsion thinking about it.
**Adam:** But I've,
**Adam:** even The Tenant.
**Adam:** And that is something that I don't know if I could go back to because not only not only is it directed by him, he stars in it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's interesting.
**Adam:** Yeah, and that sort of like and again, it's one of those things where you grew up being aware of.
**Adam:** kind of aware of what the story is, but actually when you look into it, there's no argument and yeah, Roman Polansky is a rapist.
**Adam:** So,
**Chris:** Is that so so I mean, we try not to go too much into politics, and and other difficult subjects always.
**Chris:** But, but what are the basics like, he has essentially done some serious crimes.
**Adam:** He's not,
**Adam:** Well, I'll I'll go through because I've and actually, here's a good idea.
**Adam:** If I go through my sort of potted history of Roman Polansky, anyone who doesn't want to get involved with that sort of shit,
**Adam:** because it is some heavy and awful crap, and not just what he's done, but stuff that's happened to him as well.
**Adam:** you might want to skip the next couple of minutes or whatever on the podcast.
**Adam:** And then we'll just get back round to the actual film itself, because I think that's the point is we.
**Adam:** I think we do that separation.
**Adam:** Let's pretend we are, we're the host of Gardener's World and we're assessing one of Fred West patios.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** Is it a good patio?
**Adam:** That's, that's, that's what we're after.
**Adam:** So regardless of what the man did.
**Adam:** But, but yeah, so if anyone wants to sort of skip through, but yeah.
**Adam:** so Roman Polansky was, born in Paris in 1933, to Polish Jewish parents.
**Adam:** They moved, the family moved back to, Krakow in Poland in 1937, not a very good time to be Jewish and move back to Poland.
**Adam:** so after when the Germans invaded, sparking World War II, the Polansky family, which was, Roman, his mom and dad and his step sister and that, they were moved into the Krakow ghetto with the rest of the city's Jewish population.
**Adam:** Whilst there, as a very young child, he witnessed Nazi atrocities first hand, including summary executions in the street.
**Adam:** Around the age of seven, he saw his father being taken away to Mathausen concentration camp.
**Adam:** he tried to approach and his dad basically had to show him away so he wouldn't be taken along as well.
**Adam:** and, shortly after that, his mother and stepsister were taken to Auschwitz and his mother died in Auschwitz.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** he managed to, get out of, escape the ghetto around the age of 10, moved in with a Roman Catholic family who took him in and basically took him to church, taught him the hymns and everything, so that he could pass as Catholic.
**Adam:** and then here's a, here's one for, here's one for the fact fans, he was actually denounced as not one of us by the, the local priest when he visited.
**Adam:** Wow.
**Adam:** And basically, yeah, so nice, nice one father.
**Adam:** You'd fucking grassed him up.
**Adam:** Grassed up a fucking 10-year-old, saying, well, you know, you really should have been sent to Auschwitz.
**Adam:** Yeah, nice one, mate.
**Adam:** he, yeah, so he had to move on, so he sort of traveled through rural Poland trying to avoid the occupying German forces.
**Adam:** After the war he, he did reunite with his dad in Krakow and began attending the, Words National Film School.
**Adam:** So he then did his first film Knife in Water.
**Adam:** he moved to England and directed Repulsion, Cul-de-sac and The Fearless Vampire Killers.
**Adam:** Which is where he met the actress Sharon Tate.
**Adam:** they, got together, they were married in 1968.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** Polansky and Tate moved to Hollywood because Paramount were looking for a project for Polansky because he was, you know, he was getting lame for himself, but he'd been as like a European director, so this was going to be his first big Hollywood film.
**Adam:** That's what.
**Adam:** That turned into Rosemary's Baby and obviously massive hit, box office smash.
**Adam:** Rightly a fucking classic still, you know, what whatever else, as a film, fuck me, that is a fucking amazing film.
**Adam:** but then in February of '69, they moved into, a 10th, 10,000 feet.
**Adam:** Cielo Drive in Los Angeles.
**Adam:** and, they were expecting a baby.
**Adam:** and in August, Polansky went to London where he was count for locations for a film called The Day of the Dolphin.
**Adam:** And then shortly after midnight on August the 9th, 1968, Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant, and the guests at the house, Jay Sebring, Wojchiech, Frykowski, and Abigail Folger, along with Stephen Parent, who was visiting the property's caretaker, were murdered by members of the Manson family.
**Adam:** it was Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian and Patricia Krenwinkel.
**Adam:** And the trouble is, is that Cielo Drive was previously the house of a guy called Terry Melcher, who was a record producer.
**Adam:** And he was one of the people involved with The Beach Boys when Manson was involved with Dennis Wilson.
**Adam:** So, like Manson was familiar with this guy and familiar with his house.
**Adam:** So when he sent people out, unfortunately it was like he just directed them to places they knew and it was like, right, go and raise hell.
**Adam:** And so, yeah, they unfortunately were renting the house to someone that used to know Manson.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** and then the following night, they actually then committed the, murders of, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, but obviously no one is caught for these crimes initially.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** Polansky's brought back, I mean, obviously he had the alibi, he was in Europe, but he was brought back to this, you know, horrifying scene in his own home, his wife and child have been killed.
**Adam:** The police are questioning him and like with regard to friends, have you got any enemies, because no one was thinking this is just some random fucking thing.
**Adam:** Especially, especially 60s Hollywood where I'd imagine that the the cocaine was freely flowing, so the paranoia was probably fucking through the roof.
**Adam:** and,
**Adam:** and at this point, understandably.
**Adam:** But, but Roman Polansky sort of got a lot of pillaring in the press because it was like, oh, well, he's probably connections to drugs and so on and so forth and, you know, he just genuinely was the wrong place, the wrong time.
**Adam:** Now, obviously, eventually, I think it was, late '69 when, Manson and basically they all got arrested, the family got arrested and the crimes were solved.
**Adam:** But so that was the best part of sort of nearly two years of not knowing what's actually happened in this case and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So obviously, he wasn't, directing or or anything like that.
**Adam:** And really at this point, he started to have like a really antagonistic relationship with the press.
**Adam:** Kind of understandably.
**Adam:** but it's, you know, so.
**Adam:** He then made, Macbeth in 1970. Now his version of Macbeth is really good. However, there is one horrible sort of report, which is at one point, a production designer described a murder scene as unrealistically gory, and Roman Polansky said, well, you should have seen my house last summer.
**Lee:** Yikes.
**Adam:** And you're like, fucking hell, you know, this is this is stuff that's going into that.
**Adam:** And then he goes on to make what, Chinatown and then The Tenant.
**Adam:** In 1977, at the age of 43, Roman Polansky met 13-year-old Samantha Geimer and her mother at a party.
**Adam:** Telling them that he was photographing young American girls for French Vogue.
**Adam:** Gamer's mother allowed, Polansky to take her out alone and he photographed her topless.
**Adam:** Gailey didn't tell her parents and then a few weeks later, Polansky took her out again, plied her with champagne, got her to take a sleeping pill and raped her.
**Adam:** he then drove her home to her parents, where she told them what had happened, they called the police and Polansky was arrested the next day.
**Adam:** In his own autobiography, Roman Polansky admits to this, leaving out where the part where the child said no several times to his various sexual acts, claiming it was consensual.
**Adam:** this would be regarded as statutory rape.
**Adam:** In her own book, Gailey, now Gamer, states, it was rape in every sense of the word, I said no.
**Adam:** Polansky was arrested and charged with six offenses.
**Adam:** and, initially pleading not guilty on all charges, he then plea bargained to have the other charges dropped if he pled guilty to the one lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, I statutory rape.
**Adam:** the, attorney of pressed for this, Gailey's attorney of pressed for this in the hopes that obviously she wouldn't have to go through a court case and it seemed like the most, you know, of the time, the best way to settle it, I suppose.
**Adam:** but then the judge that was assigned to the case was Lawrence J Rittenband, a relentless self-publicist who kind of was clearly thinking, well, this is going to make me famous, because I'm doing the big Hollywood Roman Polansky rape trial.
**Adam:** And he basically was walking around town telling people, oh, yeah, I'm going to give, I'm going to chop the plea bargain out.
**Adam:** And then I'm going to give him 50 years and have him deported.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah, oddly enough, not really best practice for a judge, so, yeah, so, basically, yeah, so there was a lot of.
**Adam:** I think,
**Adam:** this is what has confused a lot of the issue is that the case was looking fucked up, but there is no argument about what Roman Polansky did.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** I think a lot of people kind of backtrack into that territory of like, oh, well, it wasn't going to get a fair trial and this guy was like fucking around and everything.
**Adam:** It's like, yeah, but he still fucking did it and you know, whatever, you know, whatever, whatever happens, that's, that's the case.
**Adam:** anyway, so he was on bail, he went to England and then he went to France because French authorities will not deporrt one of their own citizens and he held joint citizenship, like French citizenship.
**Adam:** and to this day, he is officially a fugitive from US justice.
**Adam:** over the ensuing years, more stories have come out suggesting Polansky has had a predilection for young women or girls.
**Adam:** including actress, Nastassja Kinski and Charlotte Lewis talking about times when they were young and he was creeping on them.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Hollywood alumni have continued to support Polansky.
**Adam:** but these are no.
**Adam:** They're becoming.
**Adam:** Fewer by the year.
**Adam:** Johnny Depp when questioned about appearing in The Ninth Gate claimed no prior knowledge of the case.
**Adam:** Which, you know,
**Lee:** I've got to say, I so again, I've clearly confused him with somebody else.
**Lee:** Because I knew he was you know, there were there were the claims against him, for some reason in my mind, it was one of those he flew to a country where it was legal and did it.
**Lee:** And then came back and was frowned upon.
**Lee:** Like,
**Lee:** in my mind, that was what happened.
**Lee:** I didn't realize at all, right, okay.
**Lee:** But anyway, let's not,
**Lee:** This is supposed to be a comedy show, so let's not.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Lee:** Let's not mention Polansky again and tear this film a new ass, because apparently that's what some of you have got planned.
**Lee:** That's fine.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** I'll I'll be honest, I'm I'm not saying I'll never watch Marters again, but I know that I will have to be in a very particular state of mind and just want the universe to confirm that state of mind.
**Manny:** Yeah.
**Chris:** We'll gladly watch it with you on that day.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it will not be a good day.
**Lee:** We'll we'll,
**Lee:** I was just going to say, I should explain for the.
**Lee:** So at the time, we just said we were going to cover that and something's changed and we didn't do it.
**Lee:** So what had happened is,
**Lee:** I discussed it with Manny and he'd said, you know, I want to cover it.
**Lee:** I said, yeah, great, that's fine, we'd put it in the diary and I'd said to Adam we were going to.
**Lee:** And he was like, are you sure? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it came to the day before when it arrived.
**Lee:** And I looked at the case and I was like, yeah, this isn't what I thought it was and I was like, I think I'm going to be broken if I watch this.
**Lee:** And it's going to be.
**Lee:** It's not going to be a funny podcast, it's going to be the worst episode.
**Lee:** It's going to be a bit like, I remember I went out with a, I went to a pub once with a friend of mine for lunch and he told me the night before he'd watched a Serbian film.
**Lee:** And honestly,
**Lee:** every 20 minutes or so, he kept like just staring off into space and I go to him, James, are you all right?
**Lee:** And he go, is that fucking film, man?
**Lee:** And I was like, you know what?
**Lee:** I don't, I don't need to watch a film that does that to me.
**Lee:** I don't think I'm going to gain anything.
**Lee:** And that's that's what I had visions of.
**Lee:** I was like, I'm going to fuck myself up for the rest of my life for the sake of recording a podcast that isn't going to be funny.
**Lee:** Because I'm just going to start crying, I was like, yeah, no, fuck that, I'm not doing it.
**Lee:** So I apologize for the fact we never covered that.
**Manny:** It's it's fine.
**Manny:** The first time I bought it, I was going through a big because I go in and out of horror phases, I bought it, watched it, I love watching film by myself in the dark. That's the way to watch them.
**Manny:** I've got a couple of friends, I will sometimes watch them with because they're fun to watch with, but generally I watch it by myself. Watched it and gave the DVD away because I didn't want to possess it.
**Manny:** and then, and then I repressed it, to the point where where people were asking me what the worst film was, I wouldn't mention it because I'd repressed that I'd watched it.
**Manny:** and then yeah, rewatching it, it's it's not scary.
**Manny:** it's just incredibly dark and sad.
**Manny:** and and it's yeah.
**Manny:** It's it's.
**Manny:** Yeah, grueling, yes, yeah, yeah.
**Manny:** You feel like you're the one that's been tortured.
**Manny:** and I don't want to watch it again.
**Manny:** And now it just keeps coming up on Amazon Prime saying,
**Manny:** Watch it again.
**Manny:** I'm like, no.
**Adam:** I'll I'll be honest, I'm I'm not saying I'll never watch Marters again, but I know that I will have to be in a very particular state of mind.
**Adam:** And just want the universe to confirm that state of mind. And it will not be a good day.
**Chris:** We will gladly watch it with you on that day.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Manny:** I think,
**Manny:** I think that's definitely a no.
**Lee:** I can't see Claire plumping to watch that.
**Manny:** Anytime, really.
**Lee:** I don't. I I again, I think it's just it's.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's definitely a Christmas film.
**Lee:** I can't remember from what year it is.
**Lee:** But it's quite a well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** I'm old.
**Lee:** but yeah, and yeah, it's I mean, well, obviously.
**Lee:** getting to it when we, when we when we do.
**Lee:** So, but, yeah.
**Lee:** It's definitely a Christmas film.
**Lee:** And it, you know.
**Lee:** There's there's Jesus and everything.
**Lee:** So yeah, it's it's.
**Lee:** It's definitely Christmas.
**Lee:** Also,
**Lee:** dead Christmas is what it says on the poster.

---

## Ep 131 Society

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-131-society/
Air date: 21 November 2021
Duration: 01:05:32
Film: Society · Year: 1989 · Director: Brian Yuzna

### Description

It’s allegory time with none-more-80s what-the-fuck-fest; Brian Yuzna’s “Society”. A documentary about the upper-echelons of the Beverly Hills gentry, which reveals the true face (and fist, and entrails, and pulsing wobbly bits) of the rich. And we learn what was acceptable in the 80s: perving over your own sister; being a star basketball player at the height of 5’ 7”; and bad hair (both on the head and in the oesophagus). Along the way we discuss “Censor”, “Killer Klowns From Outer Space”, League of Legends-based animated series “Arcane” and “The Fog”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, DURING A PARTICULARLY GLOOPY VIRTUAL SHUNT.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Hey, and we are here with all of the spoils and all of the swears. So, get ready, bitches.
**Lee:** Because we're going to upset somebody.
**Lee:** Especially if you haven't seen society.
**Lee:** Huh?
**Adam:** Rosebud is a sled.
**Lee:** Oh,
**Lee:** So we're here this evening to cover 1989's Society.
**Chris:** Wooh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but before we get into that possibly treacherous territory, Chris.
**Lee:** What other random crazy shit have you been watching this week now?
**Chris:** I've been watching something that I think is absolutely awesome, unbelievable, and it has a little bit of horror. I think it's it's so it's aimed at 12 plus, so the horror isn't serious, but you can see if it was 18, it would all be there. So, we're watching,
**Chris:** I've.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** What?
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** What?
**Chris:** I've been watching Arcane.
**Chris:** The the League of Legends adaptation, animation.
**Chris:** Fantastic animation, very similar to I would say Love Death and Robots.
**Lee:** Oh, cool.
**Chris:** something very modern looking about it.
**Chris:** and yeah, and I think they've done a great job of of fleshing out the story to League of Legends, which doesn't really have a main story to it exactly. It's got lots of elements.
**Adam:** So, what is League of Legends?
**Chris:** so it's a a MOBA, massive online battle arena.
**Chris:** Five V five players, you start in one corner, the other start in the other corner, and you've got to try and get to their Nexus, they've got to try and get to your Nexus.
**Adam:** Oh, right. So, basically, originally a computer computer game or like online game, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, and it's become massive in the you know, the tournament world, e-sports, particularly in South Korea. but yeah, pretty big worldwide.
**Chris:** But it's it's like it's a great game, it's very strategic, you got five different types of champions.
**Chris:** And you've all got to work together and communicate to win.
**Chris:** So, it's it's a really good game.
**Chris:** I guess, you know, it's like modern chess kind of thing.
**Chris:** but yeah, so I really it's it's probably in my top three games of all time.
**Lee:** Oh, go.
**Chris:** and it's one of those things where it's like, oh, you hear they're going to make a cartoon from it.
**Chris:** Is it going to be terrible, but I think they've done I'd say arguably, it's between this and Castlevania.
**Chris:** The two has done the best adaptation ever, adaptation of a game.
**Chris:** It's not it's not your Doom sort of situation here.
**Chris:** This this is like.
**Chris:** And it might I was trying to work out like why have they done such a good job of it.
**Chris:** And there's only been three episodes so far.
**Chris:** I think it's it's probably because there isn't a full story, so they've now been able to have some amount of freedom in how they tell it.
**Chris:** but yeah, I think they've done a a great job of of sort of filling in the full back story.
**Chris:** While still keeping it clearly, like they've managed to get in sort of the one liners from the game as well.
**Chris:** And it still seems like it's not too jarring, you know, it's like it's it's not awkward.
**Adam:** Do you think for someone who's never played the game?
**Chris:** It's not.
**Chris:** Well, that's it, that's the other thing that I think they've done well.
**Chris:** So Shirley watched it with me.
**Chris:** and she was able to follow it all and she was asking questions, but they I couldn't answer them because it hadn't been it was sort of new stuff that they'd added in.
**Chris:** So, yeah, there's enough there for someone who's never played the game, while still being loads there for someone who has.
**Chris:** So, it's yeah, I think they've done a really good job of it so far.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Chris:** and there's definitely a whole eerie, creepy side to it as well, because it's it's based around arcane magic.
**Chris:** and and yeah, there's some stuff that sort of turns people into monsters.
**Chris:** And it's it's again well presented, very creepy.
**Chris:** So, yeah, yeah, it's really good.
**Adam:** Because I keep seeing a lot of people watching it, but I had no idea.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Like what it was one of those things where it's like next on the list of Google.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and it's like, yeah, oh yeah, and I've got to remember to find out what that thing is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So, is it worth it?
**Chris:** Yeah, I mean it's it's, you know, it's hard to say if you would like it, but interesting to see.
**Chris:** but yeah, I'm I'm definitely liking it every episode we've got to it.
**Chris:** It's like, yeah, it's getting better and better.
**Adam:** So, it's good because you're a fan of the original of the game, so yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And it's funny, the game I didn't play for many years. I kept seeing it advertised and I was like, oh, that's a free-to-play game.
**Chris:** It's just going to be rubbish.
**Chris:** And and then I think it was I started to play some free-to-play games on iOS and I was like, well, they've done a pretty good job with these.
**Chris:** Like sometimes it's a bit like they're trying to encourage you to spend money, but some of them you can play and get quite a lot out of them without spending anything.
**Chris:** And one day I was like, I'll just give it a go.
**Chris:** I've seen it so many times.
**Chris:** I think I possibly saw someone streaming it on Twitch.
**Chris:** and I was like, oh, that's it, I'm just going to try it.
**Chris:** And once I played it, I realized it was totally not what I thought it was.
**Chris:** yeah, and it was just blew me away, yeah.
**Adam:** That's really great.
**Chris:** So,
**Adam:** On on just as a tangent on Twitch.
**Adam:** Have you seen the thing that they started doing Tetris tournaments on there and loads of grannies are just kicking their asses.
**Adam:** Because they've been playing it for 40 years or whatever.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's funny because Tetris was used in the Nintendo tournaments, like the very early Nintendo tournaments when they were sort of trying to take America by storm.
**Chris:** And and it's weird it's weird to see that.
**Chris:** Because you think, yeah, like how can you have a Tetris?
**Chris:** It's not not that competitive, but yeah.
**Chris:** People can really get into it.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** well, I I I was a bit rough in the week.
**Adam:** So, I watched the Sinbad trilogy.
**Lee:** Oh, yes, I saw that.
**Lee:** He looks so lovely.
**Adam:** Oh, it's beautiful.
**Adam:** And like I said, the weirdest thing is is Blu-ray.
**Adam:** Like when we watched say, Evil Dead 2, you've got it on Blu-ray.
**Adam:** So, you see wires and you see lines and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Fuck me.
**Adam:** Blu-ray, Harryhausen is still the shit.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** It's it does not alter, it still looks fucking great.
**Adam:** It's, yeah, it's to the point of,
**Adam:** you know, it now starts to feel like it might be actual magic rather than.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** He he did something, you know, if it could look that good from back then.
**Adam:** But yeah, that's so yeah, so I watched all three of those.
**Adam:** So, I may shout minota at any moment.
**Adam:** So that that yeah.
**Lee:** At least you pre-warn me because I might have thought you shouted peloton and dash off and jump on an exercise bike, which I don't really want to be doing.
**Adam:** This and this is a weird one, this is something that I've only heard people referring to an exercise bike as very recently.
**Adam:** I presume it's a brand, is it?
**Adam:** Is it someone trying to dis it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, it's it's the whole extra classes and things, isn't it?
**Adam:** Is that thing that people like yeah.
**Chris:** So is it like combined with the software?
**Lee:** I think.
**Lee:** Again, I'm not an expert. I've just I keep because I am,
**Lee:** because like every now and again, I'll go and Google like specific exercises for body parts and stuff.
**Lee:** Or if I get a new bit of kit.
**Lee:** I'll go and stop it, Adam.
**Lee:** It's not inappropriate, it's perfectly sensible.
**Chris:** He's just watching society.
**Chris:** It's hard not to.
**Adam:** Worse than that, just before we came on, I was watching bottom, so.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, we've got no chance now.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, or I get a new piece of equipment, and I'm like, right, I need to, you know, find new exercises I can do with that.
**Lee:** So, because I Google that stuff on YouTube quite often.
**Lee:** It's always, yeah, trying to suggest Peloton.
**Lee:** Which looks like from the advert.
**Lee:** It looks a bit like an exercise bike, but with a monitor on it, and it basically encourages you to.
**Lee:** Basically, it's just like a personal trainer.
**Lee:** So, you just get on your exercise bike, but instead of having your your television on, you've got some on it, keep going, come on, faster, come on, stand up, come on, you lazy fuck, you're not going to lose any way like that.
**Adam:** I used to have that when I went to the gym with you.
**Lee:** But, yeah, well, yeah, I will, yeah.
**Lee:** I did do that.
**Lee:** I am an arsehole.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think also that that that is that is just a massive waste of money.
**Adam:** In the sense of certainly for myself in that I will not be restricted by the idea of I can't punch this person because it's impolite, they'll probably knock the fuck out of me.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, if I've got like a a virtual personal trainer.
**Adam:** I am punching that screen at some point.
**Adam:** It's going to happen.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** It's not that is going to more expensive clothes or since six weeks time when you get bored of it.
**Adam:** That's true.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But, yeah, so I've watched I've been watching those seen the first two episodes of the new What We Do in the Shadows.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** as you know, Lee, they've now put it up on iPlayer in full.
**Adam:** but I'm sort of chewing through it week by week.
**Adam:** so I yeah, so I've seen the first two episodes, both of which are really great and Kristen Shaw turning up as well.
**Adam:** That's always a joy.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** so yep, that's definitely recommended.
**Adam:** and I also watched, sensor.
**Adam:** As in censorship, not as in like stacked up.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Great.
**Lee:** Great album.
**Adam:** Because when I when I first heard about the the film, I was searching for it under that spelling.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** When someone just mentioned something about it and it's like, oh, I said, and yeah, no, it's sensor as in censorship.
**Adam:** And basically, it's a directed by Prano Bailey-Bond.
**Adam:** And it is,
**Adam:** if I've said that wrong, yeah, that's fucking awful because I'm thinking, yeah, what a great memory and it's like, you come back and it's like a Kurt Skrads.
**Adam:** Or, you know, I've mispronounced that terribly.
**Adam:** So, I apologize if I have.
**Adam:** but basically, it's set in the sort of early 80s.
**Adam:** During the video nasty scare and it's about a woman who works for the BBFC, the British Board of Film Classification.
**Adam:** So, she's the one vetting the tapes of like, you know, Evil Dead and SS Abomination or whatever.
**Adam:** Sort of video nasty that you can think of.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, really.
**Adam:** basically.
**Adam:** She watches a video that reminds her of her own sister's disappearance.
**Adam:** When that when she was a kid.
**Adam:** And so, she sort of.
**Adam:** And but yeah, sort of goes from there.
**Adam:** Michael Smiley's in it, which is always the guarantee of satisfaction, all right.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, and Nicholas Burns, Nathan Barley.
**Adam:** Who who is brilliant as a very smug fellow sensor.
**Adam:** Who's just there's going, oh, I mean, the thing is you're saying about that, the eye gouging, come on, that's that's Gloustering King Lear.
**Adam:** And her reply is, right, you've brought Shakespeare into the room, so your argument is invalid.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** Like really good.
**Adam:** really atmospheric, and it's one of those it's one of those ones where someone's sort of losing their shit.
**Adam:** So, it becomes quite hallucinatory and everything.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** Yeah, but also sort of like some nicely sort of comic bits as well.
**Adam:** in there, mostly from, yeah, when they're talking about like the video nasties and stuff like that.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** definitely recommend that one.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** and yeah, that's all the weather apart from something that we obviously all saw.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** So, Lee, I shall hand over to you, sir.
**Lee:** Thank you very much.
**Lee:** so we've had a week of firsts this week.
**Lee:** Well, a Fortnite of first, in fact.
**Lee:** so Jennifer had never seen Society, so she watched it with me.
**Adam:** He.
**Lee:** We'll get onto that in a bit.
**Chris:** She didn't want to join us.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** I think that indicates something.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You might be I was massively surprised.
**Lee:** We got to the end and I was waiting for the what and muth was that.
**Lee:** But actually, we got to the end and she went, that was fun.
**Lee:** And I was like,
**Adam:** What.
**Lee:** Who are you? You're not like I married you.
**Lee:** but yeah, so also she realized that she has never seen The Fog.
**Lee:** The John Carpenter movie.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Chris:** I also have never seen that.
**Chris:** But that's less of a surprise, I imagine.
**Adam:** That's kind of the basis of the podcast.
**Chris:** It is, really, yes.
**Lee:** I have come to the conclusion, this is my second favorite John Carpenter.
**Lee:** And I think the most underrated of his pieces.
**Lee:** I love this movie so, so much.
**Adam:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** I kind of it's one of those I I think it's really good and then I watch it.
**Lee:** And then every time it floors me just how perfect a film it is.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's it.
**Lee:** It's incredible.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It is an amazing fucking film.
**Adam:** First John Carpenter I ever saw.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** And yeah, I'm pretty sure it was, I I think I was aware of Halloween.
**Adam:** But I hadn't actually seen it.
**Adam:** And then the fog was on one night, and it was it was.
**Adam:** I think it was a Halloween job, I think it was on like one Halloween or whatever.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Just yeah, rather than show Halloween.
**Adam:** They show The Fog.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Maybe they'd done Halloween too much so they decided to put The Fog on, I don't know.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** yeah, and again, just like going into it, not knowing anything, and it was just like, this is fucking great.
**Lee:** I I think the last time I saw it, actually, Adam, was with you on Halloween night when we went to the all-nighter John Carpenter one.
**Lee:** and I think because I think because it started at around 3:0 a.m.
**Lee:** I don't think I was like fully tuned into it.
**Adam:** It was a weird one to place there, it has to be said, because it was like the mellowest film they had on.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and you're like, I know you can't do it, you certainly can do it first.
**Adam:** Third, I think, would have been the key.
**Adam:** Because I think you could sort of change the pace if you really, but yeah, just that.
**Adam:** That time in the morning was just like, yeah.
**Adam:** I think that was what finished off a lot of people because it was that then they live, wasn't it?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think it just kind of washed over me, unfortunately.
**Lee:** But,
**Lee:** but yeah, I I just I I just watched it and was so excited again.
**Lee:** I was like, oh my God.
**Lee:** I like I've seen this film probably half a dozen times.
**Lee:** But apart from that time at the Prince Charles, I don't think I've seen it in, well, probably not in 20 years because Jennifer hasn't seen it.
**Lee:** So, yeah, and I was just like, oh my God, why is this not in my yearly re-watching schedule, really?
**Lee:** It's just fantastic.
**Adam:** It's something you you end up weirdly enough appreciating anew.
**Adam:** That I find.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like you do that first time you watch it and then the more you see it.
**Adam:** It's a bit like it has almost it's like that Jaws thing where you watch it and you're like, actually, this is fucking good.
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Exactly, that's exactly it, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, perfect.
**Lee:** and the other film that we watched that Jennifer again had never seen.
**Lee:** And exactly the same as society.
**Lee:** I was waiting for what.
**Lee:** but recently, in the run-up to Halloween, Jennifer kept putting on Halloween playlists through Amazon.
**Lee:** Well, through Alexa, obviously, not through Amazon because that'd upset her massively.
**Lee:** but and it kept putting on the Killer Clowns From Outer Space theme tune.
**Adam:** Oh, the Dikkens.
**Lee:** Yeah, and she yeah, and she kept sort of humming along to it, and I was like, are you humming Killer Clowns? And she was like, I don't know, it's just on a playlist.
**Lee:** And I was like, you've seen the film though, and she went, no, don't think I have.
**Lee:** So, I was like, right, we're going to sit down and watch it.
**Lee:** And we sat down and it got to the end, and I was waiting for a slap or something.
**Lee:** And she just went, oh, that was good.
**Lee:** Oh, we need to watch more films like that.
**Lee:** I was like,
**Lee:** What is going on? Why is your your taste suddenly massively?
**Lee:** But,
**Lee:** I mean,
**Lee:** I'm not going to knock it.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** yeah.
**Adam:** I I think I yeah, but I'm actually quite surprised because I would have thought Jennifer would have liked Killer Clowns.
**Adam:** Because, yeah, I can I can sort of see it.
**Adam:** In a weird way, like with other stuff that she likes, I can see.
**Chris:** Is it is it a like a black comedy?
**Adam:** Oh, it's mental.
**Adam:** This is.
**Adam:** This is this is one we will get we will get to Chris.
**Adam:** And we will this is we're already lining up the new year here.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because I think that that's another one like society that I always saw in the video shop.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's from that right era.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Adam:** But I mean it's sort of because Killer Clowns Killer Clowns is kind of somewhere between like say, how Critters and
**Adam:** Oh, what's the James Gunn film?
**Adam:** Slither.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's kind of that sort of thing of like small town being invaded, but yeah, it's just these weird puppet clown aliens.
**Lee:** Yeah, they're aliens that look like clowns, so they they do sort of mention it vaguely in passing that.
**Lee:** They think possibly they've been here before and clowns are designed to look like these weird aliens, but there's kind of nothing funny about them.
**Lee:** And they they put people in cotton candy cocoons and all their guns look like oh, they drive yeah.
**Lee:** Like they drive tiny cars that they get 12 of them in and all like it's really oh, it's just bat shit.
**Lee:** It's so much fun.
**Lee:** It's great.
**Adam:** It's it kind of it's that same feeling of it feels like it could have been an early Tim Burton.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** It's yeah, it's like Pee-wee Herman's Big Adventure sort of thing.
**Adam:** It's all that kind of.
**Lee:** I was going to say, isn't the film directed by two brothers.
**Lee:** Who basically were special effects guys who just wrote a film to show off their special effects, if I remember correctly.
**Lee:** and I've got a feeling they might have had something to do with Pee-wee's Playhouse. I definitely looked something up recently that had Pee-wee's Playhouse in it.
**Lee:** And I was like, oh, right, so it could have been that and the guys worked on it.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** The guys, those guys, I think did Critters, they were the guys who were behind the effects in Critters.
**Lee:** I think you're right.
**Lee:** That's about it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, excellent.
**Lee:** Cool, right.
**Lee:** Anyway, before I get into a into another rabbit hole of 80s horror, let's move on to this film.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** we are covering 1989's Society.
**Lee:** Now, just to roll back, we've been showing Chris horror films for about three years now.
**Lee:** And occasionally, he goes off and watches something.
**Lee:** Normally quite mainstream or quite expected and randomly on the last episode, out of the fucking blue, Chris goes.
**Chris:** I watched society.
**Lee:** And I was like, what you how?
**Lee:** Like this isn't this isn't commonly known.
**Lee:** How did you end up watching this film, Chris?
**Lee:** I'm desperate to know.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Can I can I just say before that when you said that Chris, my heart swelled at one.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Oh, one.
**Adam:** I was like, my boy, my boy's out there doing it.
**Chris:** So, I just had a fight with Darth Maul and didn't didn't get chopped in half and yeah.
**Chris:** well, so I'm fairly certain it was Bobby that recommended it.
**Chris:** From not for everyone.
**Chris:** I'm I'm fairly certain it was.
**Lee:** I think he would have.
**Chris:** It it may not have been, but having seen it, I wouldn't be surprised if it was, but.
**Adam:** I think it was, I think it was a while back.
**Adam:** But it is it's also the kind of film that Bobby wants he wants to know what you think of these films as well.
**Adam:** That's the thing.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, so like if it was a well back, it must have been percolating around in my mind.
**Chris:** And then I saw it on it must have been on prime, maybe Shutter through prime.
**Chris:** And I'd I'd perhaps I'd added it to a list and then I was like, that's it, I'm just going to watch this today.
**Chris:** This is this is what's going on.
**Chris:** Because I you know, you see the cover.
**Chris:** Now, I think it's got two covers, it's got the one with the woman pulling off her face.
**Adam:** The illustrated one.
**Adam:** Yeah, like the woman.
**Adam:** Yeah, they're like King and Queen.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** and so, you know, that's that's quite unusual.
**Chris:** and then it's got the other one with all the pink bodies, which I I had had no idea what that was.
**Chris:** I I just didn't look at it properly beforehand.
**Chris:** I just sort of saw this pink mess.
**Chris:** And it turns out it is a pink mess.
**Lee:** See, it's funny you say that because I thought that because I said to Jennifer before watching it.
**Lee:** I said, don't watch a trailer.
**Lee:** Don't read a.
**Lee:** Don't look at anything.
**Lee:** Just go in completely cold.
**Lee:** And then the opening credits shows the end all in the background.
**Lee:** And I was like, if you know, that'll definitely spoil it, but I'm keen to know if you didn't know.
**Lee:** If you would go, is that a weird amorphous gold you got?
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Again, we said we'll spoil it, this film is an hour and 15 minutes of where is this going?
**Lee:** Followed by, oh, shit.
**Lee:** So, if we don't spoil it.
**Chris:** Where it went.
**Lee:** It's not going to work.
**Adam:** The opening credits when Claire saw them, she used the term are they having a sext?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Cuz they work.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Actually, the weirdest thing is there is I think it was the video cover or like the the first like completely vanilla DVD release of society was just the arse face.
**Lee:** Huh.
**Adam:** Which was like, wow, that's just completely.
**Lee:** You don't need to watch the film now.
**Adam:** It wasn't even so much that, it was like, if you bought this, if you got this thinking that looks cool as a monster.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And then by the because it's quite tight close-up on the face with just like stretched and everything else like that.
**Adam:** So, when you actually see it in context with a pair of legs and an ass round it, you'd be like, oh, I thought that was going to be like some cool creepy gory demon.
**Lee:** Yeah, it does look very similar to From Beyond's cover, that one actually.
**Lee:** So, yeah, you can see how you go, oh, it's just like From Beyond, no, no, it isn't anything like that.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** No.
**Chris:** I did, right, I I did because I'd watched this before, I thought this time I'll look up some bits about it.
**Chris:** Normally I'll try not to look at anything, occasionally.
**Lee:** Of course.
**Chris:** I just can't help it and I've got to look at something.
**Chris:** But yeah, so I thought I'd look up a few reviews of this just to see get a feel of what the world thinks.
**Chris:** And I did quite like the first one on IMDb, the title was, I respected it more than I enjoyed it.
**Chris:** I could understand, I can appreciate that perspective there.
**Chris:** I'm I'm it's it's hard to use the word enjoy, I would say.
**Chris:** I I I was entertained by it, the majority of it absolutely I I really enjoyed the mystery aspect.
**Chris:** And is is he just going mad or is there something going on?
**Chris:** It it looks like something's going on.
**Chris:** But and then who's involved and how far does it go?
**Chris:** And then obviously when you get the on the feel, it goes quite far.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Quite far up the elementary Canal.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And so, yeah, but I would definitely say looking back at it.
**Chris:** I was entertained.
**Chris:** I did enjoy it, not all of it completely.
**Chris:** But I absolutely think, you know, he was taking some risk making this.
**Lee:** Oh, it's a very brave film.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Well, and it does cover, I mean, you know, like our.
**Chris:** And the idea of society.
**Chris:** Like because you do hear, you've got to be a good upstanding member of society.
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** You have to work hard and and this is society.
**Chris:** And we like to be good.
**Chris:** And it turns out those at the upper echelons, well, they are a little bit deviant on that.
**Chris:** As we've learned over, you know.
**Adam:** I mean, the the unfortunate thing is is that this movie is kind of kind to the rich and powerful.
**Chris:** Probably.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In as much as it's like, well, the excuse is they're actually a different body of squishy alien things that sort of like have weird.
**Adam:** Oles up all up each other is probably better than the genuine sleazy corruption of you know, the rich and powerful.
**Adam:** but it is also that thing, it's pillar of society, isn't it?
**Adam:** When it's always like they always go.
**Adam:** And I mean this is this is something actually that's come up recently is because obviously there's lots of
**Adam:** this is in in in Merrie old England, there's a lot of talk of various politicians taking money and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** And and sort of fiddling their expenses and so on.
**Adam:** And it's described as sleeves.
**Adam:** And that really annoys me because it's not sleaze, sleaze should be sleazy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** If if you're doing the end of society, that's sleazy.
**Chris:** Corruption is corruption.
**Adam:** Yeah, this is corruption.
**Adam:** You know, but yeah, but apparently that's too strong a term.
**Chris:** Sleaze almost makes it sound a little bit fun.
**Chris:** You know, it's like it's not too bad, it's like, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, could be.
**Lee:** It makes it think of 80s boob comedy.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** There's a bit of humor to it somewhere.
**Adam:** Gives him a sort of feel of Robin Asquith rather than, you know, fucking.
**Adam:** But feven asshole come.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But you know.
**Adam:** But I was wondering when when I was watching it, I did wonder, is this the first.
**Adam:** Conspiracy horror we've really covered?
**Adam:** Because I mean horror tends to be reveals and things like that.
**Adam:** So, it often starts out, oh, what's this then it turns out it's a werewolf.
**Adam:** It's yeah, giant fish people, whatever, you know, it's.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but is this one where they derive a lot of the tension and horror from that.
**Adam:** One person against some thing going on, like they live or something like that.
**Lee:** I would say you're right, this could be the first of those we've covered.
**Lee:** However,
**Lee:** I would like to bring this film up in reference to two other movies by the same person.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** I promise not to get on a rant.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** when we covered Get Out, and I said it really reminded me of like an 80s kind of throwaway movie.
**Chris:** Get.
**Chris:** Wait, get out or or us?
**Lee:** Get out.
**Lee:** So, Get Out.
**Lee:** Was the exact same.
**Lee:** Did we not?
**Lee:** No, we discussed it on the us episode.
**Lee:** You're right.
**Adam:** We discussed it on the us episode, which is a shame because I think we should have discussed Get Out because I think we all preferred it.
**Lee:** I I felt that we did cover it.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** We did cover it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, that is it is this movie.
**Lee:** It's an hour and 20 minutes or whatever of what's going on in the back.
**Lee:** As you say, it's as you say, Adam, it's that one character, is he paranoid, is he being overzealous, is something big going on and if so, what?
**Lee:** And then at the end you get the, oh, shit, I didn't see that coming.
**Lee:** So, that's exactly what Get Out reminded me of with this film.
**Lee:** And I think that's why I felt it wasn't original.
**Lee:** Because it felt so close to this style.
**Adam:** Well, it's it's from that same.
**Adam:** Like body snatchers and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Yeah, body snatchers as well.
**Lee:** Perfectly.
**Adam:** You know, Body Snatchers is probably the ultimate example of like conspiracy horror, I would say.
**Adam:** Because it's that thing of the conspiracy is the horror.
**Adam:** It's not a mechanical reason why something's taking place or whatever like that.
**Adam:** and actually, I'll tell you what, and this is the bit where you go, oh, there's a reason why we are still watching Society now.
**Adam:** Is that when Brian Yazna first got the script.
**Adam:** The end was, huh, they're all Satanists.
**Adam:** They're only bloody Satanists and they're sacrificing people.
**Adam:** Come on.
**Lee:** That's a bit soft, isn't it?
**Lee:** It's a fucking.
**Adam:** It's a fucking.
**Adam:** Weak ending.
**Adam:** Whereas this, you fucking.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** A man turns into a giant flicky hand.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** At one point.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** And and and it was all practical effects as well.
**Chris:** Now, that that stands out now as like, oh, that's pretty impressive what they've done there.
**Adam:** Well, the guy, the guy who's done, because obviously it's directed by Brian Yazna.
**Adam:** Who along with Stewart Gordon does a lot of gloopy monster films.
**Adam:** You know, like Re-Animator and From Beyond and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** but the effects guy on this is a Japanese fellow called Screaming Mad George.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, we saw his name in the credits.
**Lee:** And we're like, well, that's pretty impressive, if nothing else.
**Adam:** Because he's I think I think he's actually his credit in full is something like surrealistic makeup effects.
**Adam:** Or something like that.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but yes, his real name is Yohei Tanney.
**Adam:** and when he was he was born in Japan and he chose to call himself George.
**Adam:** Because it was an exotic sort of like, it wasn't a Japanese name, so it stood out.
**Adam:** but then he moved to the states and that's why he had to become Screaming Mad George because there were a few more Georges.
**Adam:** And it wasn't quite as, yeah.
**Adam:** didn't quite stand out as much.
**Adam:** and he was in, he was the singer in a New York punk band called The Mad.
**Adam:** And then they their music videos and they were all just like and this is like 1980 one, two or something like that.
**Adam:** But they're like proper splatterry gory effects sort of weird stuff and things like that.
**Adam:** And that basically got him a job doing special effects in films.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, and that's and but yeah, and I'll give I'll give you the rundown.
**Adam:** He's worked on Poltergeist 2, The Other Side.
**Adam:** Big Trouble in Little China.
**Adam:** Woo!
**Adam:** Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and 4, he's responsible for the cockroach death.
**Adam:** In number 4.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** the Abyss, Space Balls, This Is The End, Jack Frost.
**Adam:** Freaked, an American Werewolf in Paris.
**Adam:** Silent Night, Deadly Night 5, Necronomicon and Children of the Corn 3.
**Adam:** with Brian Yazna, he did Bride of Re-Animator Beyond Re-Animator.
**Adam:** Progeny, Silent Night 4, Faust, Love of the Damned.
**Adam:** The Dentist 2, brace yourself.
**Adam:** And he directed The Guyver with Mark Hamill, which is.
**Adam:** A fucking highly recommended film.
**Adam:** my only regret with that is that I didn't see The Guyver when it first came out because I would have been at the right age.
**Adam:** That it would be my favorite film of all fucking time ever, fucking hell.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That is.
**Lee:** That is a impressive.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's a pretty impressive resume.
**Adam:** And but,
**Adam:** I think yeah, basically him and Screaming Mad George because I think what happened was Screaming Mad George told him what he wanted to do.
**Adam:** And Brian Yazna was like, well, should we make a film, we'll make a film to put that in it.
**Adam:** And then sort of, oh yeah, and I had that script, yeah, hey, this is crap, right, okay, and that's basically what happened.
**Adam:** And it's one of the rare opportunities, you know, when you sort of see things in usually where it's like, oh, a someone wrote a horror film.
**Adam:** And then I said, edit it and we'll make it Halloween 6.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, we'll call it Halloween 6 or something, because we come, yeah, why not?
**Adam:** I mean, not not that it's not that it's a film that's already been made and featured Michael Myers rather than Binhead.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** But, yeah, we'll call it Hellraiser 6 then.
**Adam:** We'll do that.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah, it's rather it was sort of like, yeah, we wouldn't have remembered society, either film where a lot of rich people turned out to be Satanists.
**Adam:** Or had watched it.
**Adam:** And been like, yeah.
**Adam:** That's all right.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is Jesus Christ.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** This this stays in your mind banks.
**Lee:** I've just worked it out, so Brian Bremmer in this.
**Lee:** Who played the younger brother who was a bit of a dick, who died and then didn't who was on the debating team.
**Adam:** Oh, Petrie, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I knew I recognized him from something, and it was really annoying me the whole time.
**Lee:** I've just worked out it's Bumpkin Head.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's Bumping Pumpkin Head.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I was like, oh no, I I think he just looks like someone.
**Lee:** Which is why earlier when you said, he is so and so, and I went, yeah, yeah, yeah, I wasn't quite sure who you meant.
**Lee:** I'm not going to and I was like, oh, he knows who it is, I'll write that down and I'll look later, but no, it's not.
**Lee:** I've just worked out it's Pumpkin Head.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Probably, I mean, I mean, apart from, I mean, Clarissa was Devon Devasquez, who was a former Playboy model.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** But other than that, not many people sort of people involved with this have had careers, but nothing sort of noticeable.
**Adam:** Billy Warlock being the the only one because he was in loads of, he was like in Baywatch.
**Adam:** And Happy Days, Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless.
**Adam:** And he was like recurring roles in all these TV things.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** In America, he's probably like, I don't know, Danny Dyer or someone like that.
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** That's.
**Chris:** That's pretty weird.
**Adam:** But I mean, you're sitting there going, isn't that his name's Billy Warlock?
**Adam:** That's a cool name.
**Adam:** His dad is Dick Warlock.
**Lee:** No, Warlock was our first unsung hero, I believe.
**Adam:** He was, I think he was, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, that's awesome.
**Adam:** I was describing Dick Warlock to Claire and I said he's a stuntman, he's been in he's played Michael Myers, his name's Dick Warlock, and her response was, hey, Dick, leave some pussy for the rest of us.
**Adam:** Hey, because it was like, wow, that is this pasta.
**Lee:** Your classic.
**Adam:** You are.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** The other thing, saying about the 80s-ness of it, we we were very diametrically opposed to the scene when he gets out of his jeep and he's walking around looking for the other guy, and he eventually finds him in that Volvo.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** he's standing in that baggy-ish gray suit in his trainers and Jennifer went, what is wrong with that man? Why is he dressed in a baggy suit and trainers?
**Lee:** And literally, as she started speaking, in my mind, I was just thinking, fuck, he looks cool. I could still dress like that.
**Lee:** You know, literally, as if she'd read my mind, she was like, he looks all right, dress up.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Maybe I won't do that then.
**Adam:** Also, also that guy Petrie is the is literally Martin Prince. It's like this is where Martin Prince goes from from there, you know, from childhood.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** He's just.
**Adam:** Every I love the fact that it is because obviously it's kind of.
**Adam:** From fairly early on, it's like, oh yeah, your parents and your sister involved in weird sex or something.
**Adam:** And they're all fucking each other and everyone else and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** That kind of actually is the answer.
**Adam:** But nowhere near.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** How how basic that is.
**Adam:** You know, weird why.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And but what I why I really love about this is it reminds me of other 80s films from the time.
**Adam:** But it's like it's like what you want to happen to the dickheads in Porky's.
**Lee:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like all these sort of like high school like, hey, we're just a bunch of guys.
**Adam:** Yeah, who probably in 20 years time are just fucking shoot everyone, but we're just a bunch of guys.
**Adam:** And we just need to see the cheerleaders' boobs.
**Adam:** And I just love the idea that it's like, yeah, no, this this that kind of a film.
**Adam:** But then it's gone into like sort of, oh no, this is this is fucking horrible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is icky.
**Adam:** You know, it's.
**Adam:** And it's it's genuinely the sort of the pervy-ness that it sort of highlights is in those other films of how they are.
**Adam:** Kind of creepy.
**Adam:** You know, especially you sort of watch them back and you're like, fucking, you know, these are sort of these are quite despicable film in a way.
**Adam:** Whereas this is kind of like, yeah, this is what you get for trying to see your sister.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In the shower, you twist up.
**Adam:** Or she's a twist in that respect.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** You know what I mean.
**Lee:** Why do you say that, another film I started watching this week?
**Lee:** But I only got halfway through, so I didn't cover it. I started watching a film called Killer Party.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** But that's very much the same.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it starts with a load of girls naked in the hot tub.
**Adam:** That's as far as you got, wasn't it?
**Lee:** Well, it doesn't start with it, but ten minutes in, a load of girls naked in the hot tub. Yeah, and then all the jocks from the frat house round the corner all turn up and basically throw a jar of bees over and then climb over the fence and videotape all the girls running it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I was like, they should still be in prison from the 80s if that's what they're doing.
**Lee:** Like, this isn't a fun prank, like that's very dangerous and very serious sexual crime, really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that's what I.
**Adam:** Because it's like with this, it's like sort of like, oh, I've got to go with the hot brunette.
**Adam:** And it's like,
**Adam:** yeah, but.
**Adam:** And actually my it does feature one I love the line about cream, sugar, or shall I just pee in it?
**Lee:** You're classy, you are.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** The other thing, saying about the 80s-ness of it,
**Lee:** We we were very diametrically opposed.
**Lee:** So, the scene when he gets out of his jeep and he's walking around looking for the other guy and he eventually finds him in that Volvo, and he's standing in that baggyish gray suit in his trainers.
**Lee:** And Jennifer went, what is wrong with that man? Why is he dressed in a baggy suit and trainers?
**Lee:** And literally, as she started speaking.
**Lee:** In my mind, I was just thinking, fuck, he looks cool.
**Lee:** I could still dress like that, you know.
**Lee:** Literally, as if she'd read my mind, she was like, he looks all right, dressed up.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Maybe I won't do that then.
**Adam:** Also.
**Adam:** Also.
**Adam:** That guy.
**Adam:** Petrie.
**Adam:** Is the is literally Martin Prince.
**Adam:** It's like this is where Martin Prince goes from from there, you know, from childhood.
**Adam:** He's just.
**Adam:** I love the fact that it is because obviously it's kind of from fairly early on, it's like, oh yeah, your parents and your sister involved in weird sex all these.
**Adam:** And they're all fucking each other and everyone else and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** That kind of actually is the answer.
**Adam:** But nowhere near.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** How how basic that is.
**Adam:** You know, weird why.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And but what I why I really love about this is it reminds me of other 80s films from the time.
**Adam:** But it's like it's like what you want to happen to the dickheads in Porky's.
**Lee:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like all these sort of like high school like, hey, we're just a bunch of guys.
**Adam:** Yeah, who probably in 20 years time are just fucking shoot everyone, but we're just a bunch of guys.
**Adam:** And we just need to see the cheerleaders' boobs.
**Adam:** And I just love the idea that it's like, yeah, no, this this that kind of a film.
**Adam:** But then it's gone into like sort of, oh no, this is this is fucking horrible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is icky.
**Adam:** You know, it's.
**Adam:** And it's it's genuinely the sort of the pervy-ness that it sort of highlights is in those other films of how they are.
**Adam:** Kind of creepy.
**Adam:** You know, especially you sort of watch them back and you're like, fucking, you know, these are sort of these are quite despicable film in a way.
**Adam:** Whereas this is kind of like, yeah, this is what you get for trying to see your sister.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In the shower, you twist up.
**Adam:** Or she's a twist in that respect.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** You know what I mean.
**Lee:** Why do you say that, another film I started watching this week?
**Lee:** But I only got halfway through, so I didn't cover it. I started watching a film called Killer Party.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** but that's very much the same.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it starts with a load of girls naked in the hot tub.
**Adam:** That's as far as you got, wasn't it?
**Lee:** Well, it doesn't start with it, but ten minutes in, a load of girls naked in the hot tub. Yeah, and then all the jocks from the frat house round the corner all turn up and basically throw a jar of bees over and then climb over the fence and videotape all the girls running it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I was like, they should still be in prison from the 80s if that's what they're doing.
**Lee:** Like, this isn't a fun prank, like that's very dangerous and very serious sexual crime, really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that's what I.
**Adam:** Because it's like with this, it's like sort of like, oh, I've got to go with the hot brunette.
**Adam:** And it's like,
**Adam:** yeah, but.
**Adam:** And actually.
**Adam:** My it does feature one I love the line about cream, sugar, or shall I just pee in it?
**Lee:** You're classy.
**Lee:** You are.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** The other thing, saying about the 80s-ness of it,
**Lee:** We we were very diametrically opposed to the scene when he gets out of his jeep and he's walking around looking for the other guy.
**Lee:** And he eventually finds him in that Volvo, and he's standing in that baggyish gray suit in his trainers, and Jennifer went, what is wrong with that man? Why is he dressed in a baggy suit and trainers?
**Lee:** And literally, as she started speaking.
**Lee:** In my mind, I was just thinking, fuck, he looks cool.
**Lee:** I could still dress like that, you know.
**Lee:** Literally, as if she'd read my mind, she was like, he looks all right, dress up.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Maybe I won't do that then.
**Adam:** Also, also that guy Petrie is the is literally Martin Prince. It's like this is where Martin Prince goes from from there, you know, from childhood.
**Adam:** He's just.
**Adam:** Every I love the fact that it is because obviously it's kind of from fairly early on, it's like, oh yeah, your parents and your sister involved in weird sex all these.
**Adam:** And they're all fucking each other and everyone else and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** That kind of actually is the answer.
**Adam:** But nowhere near.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** How how basic that is.
**Adam:** You know, weird why.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And but what I why I really love about this is it reminds me of other 80s films from the time.
**Adam:** But it's like it's like what you want to happen to the dickheads in Porky's.
**Lee:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like all these sort of like high school like, hey, we're just a bunch of guys.
**Adam:** Yeah, who probably in 20 years time are just fucking shoot everyone, but we're just a bunch of guys.
**Adam:** And we just need to see the cheerleaders' boobs.
**Adam:** And I just love the idea that it's like, yeah, no, this this that kind of a film.
**Adam:** But then it's gone into like sort of, oh no, this is this is fucking horrible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This is icky.
**Adam:** You know, it's.
**Adam:** And it's it's genuinely the sort of the pervy-ness that it sort of highlights is in those other films of how they are.
**Adam:** Kind of creepy.
**Adam:** You know, especially you sort of watch them back and you're like, fucking, you know, these are sort of these are quite despicable film in a way.
**Adam:** Whereas this is kind of like, yeah, this is what you get for trying to see your sister.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In the shower, you twist up.
**Adam:** Or she's a twist in that respect.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** You know what I mean.
**Lee:** Why do you say that, another film I started watching this week?
**Lee:** But I only got halfway through, so I didn't cover it. I started watching a film called Killer Party.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** but that's very much the same.
**Lee:** Yeah, so it starts with a load of girls naked in the hot tub.
**Adam:** That's as far as you got, wasn't it?
**Lee:** Well, it doesn't start with it, but ten minutes in, a load of girls naked in the hot tub. Yeah, and then all the jocks from the frat house round the corner all turn up and basically throw a jar of bees over and then climb over the fence and videotape all the girls running it.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I was like, they should still be in prison from the 80s if that's what they're doing.
**Lee:** Like, this isn't a fun prank, like that's very dangerous and very serious sexual crime, really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that's what I.
**Adam:** Because it's like with this, it's like sort of like, oh, I've got to go with the hot brunette.
**Adam:** And it's like,
**Adam:** yeah, but.
**Adam:** And actually.
**Adam:** My it does feature one I love the line about cream, sugar, or shall I just pee in it?
**Lee:** You're classy.
**Lee:** You are.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I think that's probably all we can say.
**Lee:** On this film.
**Lee:** It's,
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Also.
**Adam:** I still.
**Adam:** I've still to this day never worked out what is going on with the mum.
**Adam:** Like the Clarissa's mother.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, that's really I yeah, I don't get that at all.
**Lee:** And I don't get her.
**Lee:** She's got the thing with the hair.
**Lee:** And the judge has the bit with the hair as well, and I was like, is it?
**Lee:** Is it?
**Chris:** Like hair.
**Chris:** Just get stuck.
**Lee:** Like maybe she's like maybe she's so inbred that she's now like that, maybe.
**Lee:** But again, that was me trying to work it out, watching it.
**Lee:** And then gets to the end and I was like, I don't know.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Something's on.
**Chris:** Mint.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think I think that's the key to it is.
**Adam:** I think it does string you it strings you along nicely.
**Adam:** And then at least gives you a payoff you have never seen before.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's it's very hard to accuse it of I saw that coming.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It sort of it's what's you know, there was that.
**Adam:** Was it Eddie Izzard who said that the best episode you could do of Tales of the Unexpected is a man thinks his wife's having an affair.
**Adam:** So, he hires a private detective to follow her, then he finds out that she's not actually been going to work and she comes home early on a Thursday.
**Adam:** So, he decides he takes the afternoon off, he goes home, he opens the door and a leopard eats him.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's like that genuinely is a tale of the unexpected.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And I think this.
**Adam:** Sort of qualifies in that way.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Adam:** Oh, gives Roll doll run for his money.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think another,
**Adam:** I mean it's like, no, I've completely lost my trying to thought.
**Adam:** So there we go.
**Adam:** This is what I think podcasting is all about.
**Chris:** I think I think that's allowed.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think this.
**Adam:** This film can do that to you though.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's acceptable.
**Adam:** You suddenly have a sudden image in your mind of it.
**Adam:** And it's all gone, what was where were we again?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** This this is the thing.
**Adam:** It is a it is a film that flashes back.
**Adam:** Definitely, it's this is this is one of those ones where you just like I just for no good reason something you remind you.
**Adam:** It must have been hell for people watching Billy Warlock.
**Adam:** In fucking Baywatch all those years to sort of like, oh, right, carry on, it's fine, don't worry.
**Adam:** yeah, I.
**Adam:** I think that's probably all we can say.
**Adam:** On this film.
**Adam:** It's,
**Adam:** And also, I still, I've still to this day.
**Adam:** Never worked out what is going on with the mum.
**Adam:** Like the Clarissa's mother.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, that's really I yeah, I don't get that at all.
**Lee:** And I don't get her.
**Lee:** She's got the thing with the hair and the judge has the bit with the hair as well, and I was like, is it?
**Lee:** Is it?
**Chris:** Like hair just get stuck.
**Lee:** Is it like maybe she's like maybe she's so inbred that she's now like that, maybe, but again, that was me trying to work it out, watching it.
**Lee:** And then gets to the end and I was like, I don't know.
**Chris:** Something's on.
**Chris:** Mint.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But I think that's.
**Adam:** Well, maybe it's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think that's probably all we can say.
**Lee:** On this film.
**Lee:** It's,
**Adam:** And also, I still, I've still to this day.
**Adam:** Never worked out what is going on with the mum.
**Adam:** Like the Clarissa's mother.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, that's really I yeah.
**Lee:** I don't get that at all.
**Lee:** And I don't get her.
**Lee:** She's got the thing with the hair and the judge has the bit with the hair as well, and I was like, is it?
**Lee:** Is it?
**Chris:** Like hair just get stuck.
**Lee:** Is it like maybe she's like maybe she's so inbred that she's now like that, maybe, but again, that was me trying to work it out, watching it.
**Lee:** And then gets to the end and I was like, I don't know.
**Chris:** Something's on.
**Chris:** Mint.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But I think that's.
**Adam:** Well, maybe it's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think that's probably all we can say.
**Lee:** On this film.
**Lee:** It's,
**Adam:** And also, I still, I've still to this day.
**Adam:** Never worked out what is going on with the mum.
**Adam:** Like the Clarissa's mother.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, that's really I yeah.
**Lee:** I don't get that at all.
**Lee:** And I don't get her.
**Lee:** She's got the thing with the hair and the judge has the bit with the hair as well, and I was like, is it?
**Lee:** Is it?
**Chris:** Like hair just get stuck.
**Lee:** Is it like maybe she's like maybe she's so inbred that she's now like that, maybe, but again, that was me trying to work it out, watching it.
**Lee:** And then gets to the end and I was like, I don't know.
**Chris:** Something's on.
**Chris:** Mint.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But I think that's.
**Adam:** Well, maybe it's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think that's probably all we can say.
**Lee:** On this film.
**Lee:** It's,
**Adam:** And also, I still, I've still to this day.
**Adam:** Never worked out what is going on with the mum.
**Adam:** Like the Clarissa's mother.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, that's really I yeah.
**Lee:** I don't get that at all.
**Lee:** And I don't get her.
**Lee:** She's got the thing with the hair and the judge has the bit with the hair as well, and I was like, is it?
**Lee:** Is it?
**Chris:** Like hair just get stuck.
**Lee:** Is it like maybe she's like maybe she's so inbred that she's now like that, maybe, but again, that was me trying to work it out, watching it.
**Lee:** And then gets to the end and I was like, I don't know.
**Chris:** Something's on.
**Chris:** Mint.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But I think that's.
**Adam:** Well, maybe it's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think that's probably all we can say.
**Lee:** On this film.
**Lee:** It's,
**Adam:** And also, I still, I've still to this day.
**Adam:** Never worked out what is going on with the mum.
**Adam:** Like the Clarissa's mother.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah, that's really I yeah.
**Lee:** I don't get that at all.
**Lee:** And I don't get her.
**Lee:** She's got the thing with the hair and the judge has the bit with the hair as well, and I was like, is it?
**Lee:** Is it?
**Chris:** Like hair just get stuck.
**Lee:** Is it like maybe she's like maybe she's so inbred that she's now like that, maybe, but again, that was me trying to work it out, watching it.
**Lee:** And then gets to the end and I was like, I don't know.

---

## Ep 130 Poltergeist

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-130-poltergeist/
Air date: 7 November 2021
Duration: 01:51:10
Film: Poltergeist · Year: 1982 · Director: Tobe Hooper

### Description

They’re here! And they’re watching “Poltergeist” from the combined minds of Cuddly Uncle Steven and Scary Uncle Tobe. A film that teaches us too much TV is bad for your children; that it was perfectly fine in the 80s to hire a group of creepy sexual predators to build your swimming pool; and that, even if you’re actually eaten by a tree, you’ll never be the favourite child. Along the way we discuss “Poltergeist II: The Other Side”, “Poltergeist III”, “Society”and Lee rips “Halloween Kills” a new one. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY VIA THE STATIC IN-BETWEEN TV STATIONS.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Hora.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Sorry, I started the introduction and then realised Adam was taking a massive glug of water.
**Lee:** I do apologise.
**Adam:** That's alright.
**Adam:** I will I will apologise now if my voice eventually cracks into tricky.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** it's I'm I'm I'm hoping that I might go husky and sexy.
**Adam:** But I get the feeling it's going to be much more like scratchy pensioner.
**Lee:** Yeah, so you've got the cold that I had for two episodes.
**Lee:** Which to remind people when we recall once a fortnight is three weeks worth of cold, what the fuck?
**Lee:** also, there will be spoilers and swearing for anybody who's never listened before.
**Adam:** Oh well done.
**Lee:** try.
**Lee:** get in there.
**Lee:** So, this evening, we are covering a film that I cannot believe.
**Lee:** It's taken us nearly 130 episodes to get to.
**Lee:** But because it's such a staple, it just feels like it's always there and you never need to talk about it or watch it.
**Lee:** but we have recovered 1982's Poltergeist.
**Lee:** I may be super excited about talking about this, we shall see.
**Lee:** I'm not giving that away as a spoiler, because you know,
**Lee:** I've got to keep some cards close to my chest.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** Chris.
**Lee:** What have you been watching?
**Chris:** Right, let me let me throw this one out there as I,
**Chris:** let's see if either of the listeners,
**Lee:** Not again.
**Chris:** Oh, oh, oh, now that you've you've seen right through me.
**Chris:** There's there's something off that in this, right, there's a little hint to get you started.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** So, so I think this was recommended by Bobby from Not for Everyone,
**Chris:** quite a long time ago.
**Chris:** It's I'm think it's also one of those that in the video shop the cover stood out quite a bit.
**Chris:** But I think there's a couple of different covers.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** Now, I didn't really know what to expect from it.
**Chris:** I assumed it was going to be
**Chris:** a a bit of a what you call it like a a using horror to look at us.
**Chris:** Look at how we are in life.
**Adam:** Reflect down.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Now I don't want to use the word to give it away.
**Chris:** That's the trouble.
**Chris:** I was trying to think.
**Lee:** It's a Serbian film.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Fucking hell.
**Adam:** I'm not quite sure.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** But so, so let me.
**Adam:** That's what I hope.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I don't need an intervention, it's not like.
**Chris:** That was
**Chris:** yeah, I mean it's it's it might be getting that way.
**Chris:** I don't know.
**Chris:** You can tell me.
**Chris:** I've seen that film.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, no, look,
**Chris:** we got to, you know,
**Adam:** Okay, play the game.
**Lee:** So get it out of him.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** We're going to see which of you can get the answer here, right?
**Chris:** So I'm just going to say I now know all about shunting.
**Lee:** It was a Serbian film.
**Chris:** Well,
**Adam:** society.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** Very good.
**Chris:** Adam.
**Chris:** Now, now I can just say I did not see coming what came at me.
**Lee:** It was a lot closer than I thought to what I was seeing.
**Chris:** Right, yeah.
**Adam:** And then you kind of did.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You see a lot of things coming.
**Chris:** You did, yeah.
**Chris:** Quite a lot, a bit too much.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I'm I now well versed in in that.
**Lee:** Would you like to leave a message for Bobby to either tell him to delete your phone number from his phone?
**Lee:** Or if he's got any phone any photos you'd like to share with you at all.
**Chris:** No, no, it's it's a good film.
**Chris:** It's and it turns out.
**Lee:** Great fun, great fun film.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Can can I just say we should fucking cover it?
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** I've seen it once and that was God, I was living at Butlin's at the time.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** that was what 98, 97.
**Lee:** So yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah around that sort of time.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely needs a rewatch.
**Lee:** It was one that was on late one night and I came home drunk and put it on and was just like,
**Lee:** oh, I'm sure I've heard of this.
**Lee:** It's a horror film.
**Lee:** That I've never got around to watching.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it just kind of half half watched it until the last 15 minutes and then went,
**Lee:** Wooh.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it has an effect.
**Adam:** Double billet with the stuff.
**Adam:** And sell ice cream.
**Chris:** But I would like to know if anyone guessed it before I said that.
**Chris:** Or even when I said that, it'll be interesting to see.
**Adam:** Yeah, I because I was, yeah, no, I think you've summed it up perfectly actually, Chris.
**Adam:** Now you it was just the key.
**Adam:** The the keyword, the IMDB keyword there was shunt.
**Adam:** But yeah, your description is very accurate, it is, yeah.
**Chris:** And so, so it's Brian Yuzna, Yuzna.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** who he did something else, Reanimator.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, Reanimator and a lot of pretty good.
**Adam:** And also ranging from pretty good to pretty shit Lovecraft adaptations.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** But did they all have pretty serious effects?
**Chris:** Because I remember Reanimator I had some along the lines of of yeah.
**Adam:** Because I I can never remember which way around it is but it's him and Stuart him and the director Stuart Gordon sort of basically like interchange producing and directing.
**Adam:** For each other.
**Adam:** so I might be getting mixed up but yeah, I know that like from Beyond, I think yeah.
**Adam:** they both use the same effects crew and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, it's just wow.
**Adam:** It's that that's that's that's where you like you know that it must be that lovely thing.
**Adam:** I've just finding someone it's like you've got it absolutely what I want.
**Lee:** And that must be a very small amount of people who are into that and yeah.
**Lee:** Thankfully, I mean,
**Adam:** It's it's weird, it's it's like cartoon Cronenberg.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** It's yeah, but it's yeah, no, it's a fucking glorious film that is.
**Lee:** Well done, Chris.
**Lee:** Thanks Bobby.
**Lee:** I'm super pleased actually because I was like, oh, it's going to be something possibly, you know, borderline horror.
**Lee:** And then when I was like, fucking hell, Serbia, that's quite cool.
**Adam:** Can I make a can I make a proposal?
**Adam:** I know we had plans, but I need to review my I need to review those plans.
**Adam:** I need to review the plans, short, before we do short.
**Adam:** Shall we watch Serbia for our next project for our next film?
**Adam:** Like, you know, next episode.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Why not?
**Lee:** Chris has already seen it so he's got it in mind.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I'm rararin' to go.
**Lee:** I've only seen it once.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** That's true, that's true.
**Adam:** Chris.
**Chris:** Let's let's shun it on to the next.
**Adam:** Do you want to rewatch it that quickly?
**Chris:** Well, I could do that, yeah.
**Lee:** Or can you remember it well enough that I'm going to push you through it again?
**Chris:** I probably, you know, I I'll I'll make a couple of notes, yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, what I what I, you know, what I liked about it was that I didn't see it coming.
**Chris:** I just did not.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That'll be that's the other thing as well as you get that interesting rewatch when you're like, oh, now I know actually what's going on.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And you and there's lots of like,
**Chris:** bits that you'll pick up on.
**Adam:** Steaded puns and stuff like that.
**Lee:** Yeah, you should have seen that coming a mile off.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** well done, Chris.
**Lee:** So Adam,
**Lee:** what have you been watching?
**Adam:** well, fortunately, fortunately for speed but also for later on in the episode, I would imagine.
**Adam:** I plowed through after Poltergeist and so I watched Poltergeist 2 the other side.
**Adam:** And Poltergeist 3.
**Lee:** Oh, that's.
**Adam:** Because I need that sense of completion.
**Adam:** so, yeah.
**Adam:** I can bring I can bring those up.
**Adam:** I can also safely say now I think I might.
**Adam:** Number two might be my favourite.
**Adam:** Which is.
**Adam:** Which is quite rare.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Of like film sequences where it's like the sequel necessarily will be one that you really, or like the immediate sequel.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because a lot of the time it's like the second one's like, oh, what did we do, oh, quickly, yeah, bung that in and do that, oh, that's fucked.
**Adam:** And then three, they hit their stride.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So yeah, so but I think, yeah, number number two might be my favourite, so but I think that might just be the Reverend Kane.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh, God, what a fantastic character.
**Lee:** But we'll we'll get into that on the.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** okay.
**Lee:** So I have seen some interesting stuffs.
**Lee:** I have watched the new Netflix show Nightbooks.
**Lee:** Have you seen this?
**Chris:** Not I've not heard of that.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Me neither.
**Lee:** So Netflix original film, it's pretty family-friendly.
**Lee:** the kid in it, again, Chris, is literally a spitting image of Toby, you should go and Google it and see.
**Lee:** so it's basically it's a Hansel and Gretel story, a boy gets tricked by a witch and kept in a house.
**Lee:** But ultimately, she keeps people who are useful to her and he writes scary stories.
**Lee:** So she's just about to kill him and he says, I'll write scary stories.
**Lee:** Because she says is there anything is there any use for me keeping you alive, if not, I'm going to kill you.
**Lee:** So he says, I'll write scary stories.
**Lee:** So she says, okay, you're going to write me one every day and read it to me at night and as soon as they're no good, you have stopped being useful and I'm going to kill you, basically.
**Lee:** although that sounds like quite a evil premise, it is done in a relatively family-friendly way.
**Lee:** and I just really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** I was really surprised, I was like this looks super kiddy, but the witch it looks cool so I'm definitely going to give it a go.
**Lee:** And I just had a fantastic time for an hour and a half, I was really surprised.
**Chris:** Yeah, it does look good.
**Chris:** And you're right, yeah, he does certainly have a a bit of a Toby look about him.
**Lee:** I mean it's got a 5.8 on IMDB, so I thought it's got a it's got a good rate I said of 6,000 reviews as well.
**Lee:** So I thought it's got a good rating.
**Lee:** I'll give it a punt and see.
**Lee:** It's on Netflix, so if I get 10 minutes in and it isn't for me.
**Chris:** It's got a bit of a a Disney look to it.
**Lee:** Yes, it's all very like UV looking.
**Chris:** Yeah, but maybe a step up in the extreme or dark look.
**Chris:** I don't know.
**Chris:** Yeah, so some of the monster that just came up looked quite impressive.
**Lee:** And the witch dresses exactly like Lady Jennifer did, as I would imagine in the 1990s.
**Chris:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, yeah, really good film, really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** So I'll recommend that.
**Lee:** unlike my next film.
**Lee:** So I watched Halloween Kills, which a lot of people are kind of raving about at the moment.
**Lee:** Again, I tried to stay away from.
**Adam:** I've seen half and half on it, really, extremely half and half on it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so I hated it.
**Lee:** Like which is terrible because I'm I'm not going to give you any spoilers.
**Lee:** But the film begins with a things that happened on the night in 1978 that you've not seen before.
**Lee:** And then comes to the present day.
**Lee:** And one of the cops in the 1978 flashbacks is my favourite policeman of all time.
**Lee:** Didn't know he was in it until he appeared on screen.
**Lee:** I literally stood up, put my arms above my head like someone had scored a goal in the ice hockey and cheered, I was so excited.
**Lee:** but.
**Adam:** wasn't.
**Lee:** The film went.
**Lee:** I I won't tell you who it is, but I will tell you,
**Lee:** at one point he does face Michael Myers and I thought he was going to give him a full open-handed slap as a way of putting him in his place.
**Adam:** Right, okay.
**Lee:** Does that help?
**Adam:** Not at all.
**Lee:** The policeman from the Wolf of Snow Hollow.
**Adam:** Oh, the the main guy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Who wrote and directed.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, okay.
**Chris:** Jim Cummings.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** When he came into it, I was like, oh my God, this is going to be amazing.
**Lee:** but yeah, he's only in the flashback bit, which is a finish off.
**Lee:** And then the rest of the film basically was a it's a bit like.
**Lee:** I was saying with the with the Jordan Peel films.
**Lee:** Where I feel like they went, right, let's do a horror film, now let's think of a, you know, a political point we want to make.
**Lee:** And then make a film around it.
**Lee:** And that was exactly what it felt like.
**Lee:** It was like, right, we're making a Halloween film, we've got no idea what to do.
**Lee:** Let's pick a hot topic situation and make it around that.
**Lee:** There's a lot of vigilantism going on at the moment.
**Lee:** Let's make it an anti-vigilante film.
**Lee:** And there is no story other than vigilantism and that is all it was.
**Lee:** And it was so so horrible to watch.
**Lee:** It was terrible.
**Lee:** Nothing happens.
**Adam:** I also I also hear that Jamie Lee Curtis isn't in it that much either.
**Lee:** No, well she gets stabbed up it all when it comes back, it carries on on the night from the 2018 one.
**Lee:** Yes, So obviously, she has a stomach she basically half died.
**Adam:** Yeah, she got.
**Lee:** yeah, so it carries on from there.
**Lee:** So she's kind of in the background.
**Lee:** So that was the thing.
**Lee:** So when it kind of started again, I was like, right, so she's in the hospital, somebody is going to have to come in to take her place to go searching for Mike Myers or the next person he's going to hunt down.
**Lee:** And that's how they're going to reboot the series, so they're going to give it a new Michael Myers target effectively.
**Lee:** So that they can create a whole new.
**Lee:** But yeah, no, they don't really.
**Adam:** They're trying to pass it on.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** Yeah, But yeah, they don't really, it's just terrible.
**Lee:** And it's not, it's it's like.
**Lee:** Like we said before, with Dawn of the Dead, Romero was saying,
**Lee:** he made the film and then he said afterwards, this is me saying about modern people and their
**Adam:** The consumerist society.
**Lee:** That's the word.
**Lee:** Thank you.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Consumerism.
**Lee:** and you watch the film and enjoy the film, some more than others, but you watch it as a film and then go,
**Lee:** oh, yeah, that makes sense, but at the time, you're not watching it the whole time going,
**Lee:** yeah, we get it, we get it.
**Chris:** So what is it's more subliminal, subtle, the social commentary isn't in your face.
**Lee:** Yeah, whereas this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** This it could not be.
**Chris:** But would you think they've realised we're all pretty dumb and we just need it to be laid or we don't we don't we don't get it.
**Adam:** What was the film where a guy came on loads of points, it was like a sort of piss take of.
**Adam:** Like sort of 90s Spike Lee like black cinema where it's just a bloke kept coming up and going message.
**Lee:** You know what, if they did that every time that they were pointing it out,
**Lee:** it would have become a drinking game that would murder you.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** It was literally just.
**Chris:** But but would it have improved the film?
**Lee:** If I was unconsciously drunk.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** I'm right.
**Lee:** Maybe.
**Chris:** Oh, right, could could could they have made it with this social aspect and vigilantism?
**Chris:** And made it good, like, is it?
**Lee:** It could have it could have been a really good film and at the end it could have been the town turns.
**Lee:** And everyone the whole town is out looking for him and those who are out looking for him.
**Lee:** But that is all the film is is just,
**Lee:** two or three people going, right, police aren't dealing with this, we're going to go and deal with it.
**Lee:** So they go looking for him, they find him, he murders them.
**Lee:** Two or three other people go, he's killed two more people, this is a step beyond the pale, let's get in the car and look for him and they go and look for him and then he murders those people.
**Lee:** And then it's just that for an hour and a half.
**Lee:** And I was like, just like it's not going over.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** The thoughts.
**Chris:** I've got are.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** The thoughts I've got are, right, I might have the idea watching say one of these films like Halloween and thinking, well, why don't they just sort of spread it around.
**Chris:** Really quick say, look, this is going on.
**Chris:** Let's get as many people doing it as trying to find him as possible.
**Chris:** I might think, how would that work?
**Chris:** And that could be interesting.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Chris:** But it might be that it just doesn't work at all.
**Lee:** But they do that.
**Lee:** I'm not going to spoil it.
**Lee:** But it is when I reached the absolute, oh, get fucked.
**Lee:** moment of the film.
**Lee:** So
**Chris:** Perhaps that is a bad idea.
**Lee:** I'm going to say people just message us and let us know.
**Lee:** Is it?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I've got no problem.
**Lee:** I mean other people listeners, tell me if I'm fucking wrong, but it is.
**Chris:** What what you said Adam, you said it's like 50/50.
**Chris:** As far as you can tell.
**Adam:** No, no, this is this is the this seems to be the response.
**Adam:** There are people and the weird thing is it's people a lot of it it's people who I trust in films going both ways.
**Adam:** There was a similar I know there was a similar split with the recent Candyman where it was like people people whose judgment I I trust.
**Adam:** But there were but everyone was like saying different things they loved it or hated it and seems seems to be a similar thing with this.
**Lee:** It's because it's exactly the same thing.
**Lee:** It's a this film was, okay, we need to make this film.
**Lee:** What's a big you know, like what's everybody talking about at the moment?
**Lee:** Oh, this, you know, this thing that, you know, it it was with this it was vigilantism with that it was Black Lives Matter.
**Lee:** But it was the same thing where it was just.
**Lee:** Just kept hitting you over the head with it.
**Lee:** Every two minutes.
**Lee:** To the point where you were like.
**Adam:** The subtext is a subtext.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Just get on with the film, I know what you're trying to say, you don't have to keep reminding me at the beginning of every single scene.
**Lee:** Just make the film play.
**Lee:** It just.
**Lee:** Oh, it's horrible.
**Lee:** Really, really horrible.
**Adam:** So that was Lee's review of the new film Halloween Blues.
**Lee:** God damn it.
**Lee:** Right, well that's left a horrible taste in my mouth.
**Lee:** oh,
**Lee:** but also the Netflix also just did the
**Lee:** the movies that made us.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** and they've done Halloween, Friday the 13th and a Nightmare on Elm Street.
**Chris:** Oh, well, okay.
**Lee:** Yeah, so last night Jennifer and I watched the Nightmare on Elm Street and the Friday the 13th ones back-to-back.
**Lee:** Oh, they're really good.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I really enjoyed the Aliens one that I saw.
**Chris:** So I imagine it's a similar format it was very entertaining.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's 45 minutes, it's got a lot of the key players involved.
**Chris:** Covers a lot, yeah.
**Lee:** It's kind of a lot of it is stuff that we would already know as fans.
**Lee:** But there's also a lot of stuff that I didn't know in there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** Like really in-depth interviews with Tom Savini and stuff where they're talking about specific, oh, we saw them filming this because we were sitting in the van having a beer.
**Lee:** And we saw what they were doing and saw it was wrong so we went over and intervened and all that kind of like.
**Lee:** Just really good for fans and good for like non-fans.
**Chris:** Yeah, good for fans and good for like non-fans.
**Lee:** Yeah, and they get so much into 45 minutes.
**Lee:** It's one of those, you know, like the the Elm Street one.
**Lee:** that I've got, I'm not sure where it is, the Blu-ray, so I can't remember what it's called.
**Lee:** But it's like four and a half hours long and it's really good.
**Lee:** But it's pretty gruesome.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, whereas this is just if you know the franchise, this is it in 45 minutes and it's really interesting.
**Lee:** So,
**Adam:** Never Sleep Again.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** That's the one.
**Lee:** I should know because I've got a poster for it signed by Heather Langenkamp downstairs.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** I for a second I thought you just going meow then.
**Adam:** I was like.
**Lee:** Meow.
**Adam:** Seductive.
**Lee:** Heather Lang and Camp, if you're listening.
**Lee:** so onto 1982's Poltergeist.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** Chris.
**Adam:** the wobbles.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, bless it, he's too ill to whistle.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** There we go.
**Adam:** We've got a Poltergoose.
**Lee:** I wonder how long it would take for that to come out.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And non-British listeners will be going, what the fuck, why is he saying like that every time?
**Lee:** because we grew up with the young ones.
**Adam:** non-British listeners who do know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well done.
**Adam:** You are good.
**Lee:** So, Chris,
**Lee:** have you seen this before and what did you think of it this time?
**Chris:** I've got a funny story about this.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** So I thought I'd seen it.
**Chris:** I thought it was.
**Chris:** Like quite scary, yeah.
**Chris:** Like really creepy, eerie.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** So this is what I was went in to watching it.
**Chris:** I'm watching it, I'm thinking this is this.
**Chris:** Oh right.
**Chris:** So and I saw the who I thought was both the director and possibly the writer.
**Chris:** And you know, whatever, Tobe, Tobe Hooper.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** I saw him flash up, yeah.
**Chris:** And I thought,
**Chris:** oh, I know him.
**Chris:** He's from a Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
**Chris:** So I was like, right, okay.
**Chris:** I I have this memory of having watched this many years ago.
**Chris:** And then I'm also sort of expecting that, I don't know, okay, it's going to be a scary sort of thing.
**Chris:** All right.
**Chris:** So I'm watching it, I'm thinking, this is this is a fun like entertaining action kind of movie, right?
**Chris:** So I'm thinking what what is going on?
**Chris:** And it's like, it's giving me sense of possibly Jaws.
**Chris:** And there's definitely ET in there.
**Chris:** And I'm like, what is going on?
**Chris:** This is definitely very enjoyable.
**Chris:** But I don't get it.
**Chris:** Like, what has happened?
**Chris:** And I just going further and further and it's like, yeah, there's big stuff happening, yeah, there's there's horror elements, but it's definitely got this action feel.
**Chris:** And I was like, no, if Steven Spielberg made a horror movie, surely this would be it.
**Lee:** And of course.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Got.
**Chris:** Got to the end.
**Chris:** And I thought I'm going to have to look into this.
**Chris:** And I'll normally like to wait and I'll see what Adam's going to tell me about it and what Lee's going to add to it.
**Chris:** And it's like, no, I'm I'm going to have to check what's going on here.
**Chris:** And of course.
**Chris:** Right, written by Stevenberg, which I completely missed.
**Chris:** And it all made a lot of sense.
**Chris:** So it is like a a full on horror version of kind of ET with a supernatural more supernatural element.
**Lee:** He had a big hand in it than that.
**Lee:** He didn't just.
**Lee:** Right, it.
**Lee:** But we'll get to that.
**Lee:** Later.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** No, and you might have mentioned this.
**Adam:** Well, I'm I'm happy to I'm happy to start because I think it's like.
**Adam:** Because everyone always talks about the curse.
**Adam:** But this is the much this is the other big thing about Poltergeist.
**Chris:** So I did see I did see when I searched it said something about curse.
**Chris:** And.
**Chris:** Yeah, and also potentially something about.
**Adam:** We'll cover the curse.
**Adam:** Because curses, it's, you know.
**Adam:** That's that's clickbait, mate.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Like who directed this film versus hear about the curse of the film.
**Adam:** but yeah, so.
**Adam:** originally, Stephen Spielberg intended to direct it.
**Adam:** But he was also contracted to direct ET.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And so he couldn't.
**Adam:** You know, just he literally.
**Chris:** Couldn't possibly do.
**Adam:** Do both at the same time.
**Adam:** Basically, you know, legally, he could not do both at the same time because it's kind of.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** so he chose Toby Hooper because he was like, right, I want I want this made.
**Adam:** so he chose Toby Hooper because he liked Texas Chainsaw Massacre and.
**Adam:** Toby Hooper done another thing called Funhouse at that point.
**Adam:** I don't he hadn't done Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, I don't think.
**Lee:** And the funny thing is, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is much closer to Funhouse.
**Lee:** So it is.
**Adam:** Oh yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Chris:** Was going to say it's closer to this in a way, it's it's not, but I wouldn't necessarily have thought of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1 and this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, so Spielberg, yes.
**Adam:** So he like he thought.
**Adam:** Well, Toby Hooper did a, you know, good horror.
**Adam:** So we go to him.
**Adam:** And originally this was called something like either nighttime or night skies.
**Adam:** Or something, this was like the original idea.
**Adam:** Which was basically rather than a supernatural.
**Adam:** Exhalation, it was aliens.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it was intended to be like.
**Adam:** The dark half of close encounters.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And actually, weirdly enough, it is one of those things where when you look at it, it's like, maybe not the carnivorous tree.
**Adam:** But a lot of the other stuff could be alien abduction and stuff.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** You know, floating objects, all that sort of thing.
**Adam:** It's it might go more that direction.
**Adam:** But basically, yeah, Toby Hooper didn't want to do a sci-fi film.
**Adam:** So he said, well, can we make it supernatural?
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, so but.
**Adam:** Spielberg was clearly he was the producer, he was the writer.
**Adam:** He was clearly very hands-on and was often on set while they were making the film.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It's so a lot of people and also I think ET got delayed, like production on ET got delayed.
**Adam:** So he literally wasn't he wasn't doing anything over on that side of things.
**Adam:** So he was spending a lot of time on the set of Poltergeist.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** and some actors say they were only ever directed by Spielberg.
**Adam:** They don't mention Toby Hooper or they.
**Adam:** but
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And also there's loads of stories where he directly intervenes.
**Adam:** Like and this kind of feeds into the curse.
**Adam:** Oliver Robbins, who plays Bobby, Robbie.
**Adam:** The bit where the clown attacks him, that was like a mechanical puppet.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And yeah, and it did actually start strangling him.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And yeah, so he and literally he at first they thought he was acting.
**Adam:** And like and and and the story goes, it's like Steve Spielberg's going, yeah, that's great.
**Adam:** That's great.
**Adam:** And then realized what had happened and rushed in and and ripped the the prop off him.
**Adam:** Because he realised what had that he realised that he was actually choking, it wasn't acting or anything else like that.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Also when Caroline is hanging from the bed's head, Heather O'Rourke, I mean Heather O'Rourke I think was, I mean she's five when she made this, which is bloody remarkable anyway.
**Lee:** That is out of this world.
**Lee:** That she's.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** It's fuck it's insane.
**Adam:** But when yeah, when she's hanging off the headboard when the closet sort of vortex is happening, that was the only point she became distressed during the filming.
**Adam:** They said she was really cool with all the other effects and all stuff happening.
**Adam:** And everything else like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, I think she just found that too she found that too much.
**Adam:** And she burst into tears.
**Adam:** And apparently Stephen Spielberg then like went over to her, cuddled her, said, no, that's absolutely all right, and don't worry, you don't have to do this anymore.
**Adam:** And then a stunt performer stood in.
**Adam:** for subsequent bits they needed to film to get it all sorted.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Basically Hooper and Spielberg do say that the film's Hooper's, although clearly it feels really fucking Spielberg.
**Adam:** Even like Jerry Goldsmith's score sounds like Jerry Goldsmith.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's it, I was I was I was feeling like, yeah, there's a bit of Star Wars going on, yeah, it's a bit of it's it's definitely like even in the scary sequences had that action sound to them.
**Lee:** It works, it's yeah, that were very, even when what was going on didn't quite suit it, I made a note of it, I was like, some places the music felt kind of out of place, but it worked because it felt kind of too light-hearted and then when it therefore switched to darkness, it gave you that proper, oh, shit, something's really kicking off now.
**Chris:** That's why it made this feel like a very good family horror.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Well, it's Spielberg.
**Lee:** Again.
**Lee:** Something of.
**Lee:** The example I I was thinking was like Jurassic Park.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Which has scary tense moments that would not be out of place in a film aimed at a more adult audience.
**Lee:** But equally, yeah, but Jurassic Park is a family film.
**Lee:** And I think Poltergeist.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, is weirdly a family film.
**Lee:** I also think there's.
**Lee:** Because the one thing I got with it and certainly Claire did was a dissonance with.
**Lee:** like Diane, like the mum's reaction to like at the start of it where she's just.
**Lee:** Wow, this is amazing.
**Lee:** Science projects.
**Lee:** Like very much how Richard Dryfus is in Close Encounters.
**Lee:** You know what I mean?
**Lee:** Where you would be like, you're sitting there thinking, actually, I'm going to just shit my pants and run and similarly with this.
**Lee:** It's like, you know, you've got these people and I think it that maybe.
**Lee:** That's the start of tongue, but I think we all know it's a fucking horror movie.
**Lee:** So we're all starting at.
**Lee:** No, this is just creepy now.
**Lee:** This is already creepy.
**Lee:** I had written down an alternative title for this film.
**Lee:** Would be it's all good fun till someone's face falls off, because like you say, it's.
**Lee:** Like the kids.
**Lee:** And the chair sliding around on the floor, that's kind of good fun.
**Lee:** And then, you know, the when they go into.
**Lee:** Obviously the little girl's disappeared.
**Lee:** But when they go into the bedroom and it's like the toy horse is running like a horse.
**Lee:** And the book's flapping like a bat.
**Lee:** And it's all feels pretty family-friendly and stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And then all of a sudden he goes in the bathroom and his face slides off his skull and I was like, yeah, this took a real turn.
**Lee:** I'm not.
**Lee:** I'm doing that.
**Lee:** Quickly, really.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, because because when they open the door and it's just the stuff going on in there.
**Adam:** That's like fucking Beetlejuice.
**Adam:** Or something.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean, it's proper like.
**Adam:** You say it's proper comic.
**Adam:** This does seem to.
**Adam:** Maybe that is what happens.
**Adam:** Maybe that is the.
**Adam:** This probably we we we might have hit the nail on the head here that it is both Spielberg and Hooper.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the majority of the feels is definitely Spielberg.
**Adam:** And then Hooper comes in.
**Adam:** And it blows.
**Adam:** Face melts.
**Adam:** He's like, right, he's there.
**Adam:** Stand back.
**Adam:** Just a massive top on the joint.
**Adam:** Stand there.
**Adam:** Stephen.
**Adam:** I've got this.
**Adam:** And then just rambles in and a man's face falls off.
**Adam:** Or, you know, that.
**Lee:** That giant white-haired ghost thing that's like, shielding the troll, like it's just it just comes so out of nowhere, it's like, oh, it's just very pretty, light, like fairies or angels or I thought, yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** As I fought.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And all of a sudden.
**Lee:** Massive fucking ghost dog thing.
**Lee:** And you go, whoa, yeah, I didn't see that coming.
**Lee:** But I know the what was it the last yeah, they basically some Spielberg said, where is it?
**Lee:** people seem to say that Spielberg directed it.
**Lee:** And Toby Hooper was more of a technician.
**Lee:** Basically.
**Lee:** He was the guy saying, put the camera there, point at that one there, while Stephen Spielberg was like, right, and your motivation is.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** And also Spielberg was quoted at one point.
**Lee:** With the rather telling phrase that Toby Hooper's not a take-charge sort of guy.
**Lee:** So I think I think Hooper might have been.
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So that.
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**Lee:** Yeah.
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---

## Ep 129 Evil Dead II

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-129-evil-dead-ii/
Air date: 24 October 2021
Duration: 01:33:41
Film: Evil Dead II · Year: 1987 · Director: Sam Raimi

### Description

It’s been ages (2 and a half years in fact) since we tackled a Kandarian Demon, and in time for Halloween, we’re watching one of the greatest sequels ever made: Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead II”. A film that features the most charismatic disembodied hand since The Addams Family; reinvents a video nasty as the goofiest of goopiest slapstick comedies; and features probably the greatest tooling-up montage ever committed to celluloid. Along the way we discuss “LEGO Star Wars: Terrifying Tales”, “Muppets Haunted Mansion”, and the 1974 “Dracula”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY ONTO A REEL TO REEL IN A WOODEN CABIN.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Your greeting, Adam, that's really, really uncomfortable, I'm not gonna
**Chris:** That's a happy hour.
**Adam:** It was making me face anyway.
**Chris:** It's because he's looking at Bruce Campbell there.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** Makes me happy.
**Lee:** It's a little bit too late for this now, but there will be spoilers, there will be swearing.
**Lee:** Only spoilers on the main event, we don't do it on the, what we've been watching, which is
**Chris:** Well, we try not to, unless, unless we get really excited.
**Lee:** Or we get
**Adam:** We try not to, we try not to, unless Lee goes, fuck it, I will spoil it, 'cause it's shit.
**Lee:** I do that quite a lot.
**Lee:** I'm such an asshole, I really am, I don't know how I live with me.
**Adam:** We we don't.
**Chris:** No, no, no, you're not, honest.
**Lee:** So, this evening's main event is, because this is our Halloween episode, this is the episode we are releasing nearest to Halloween.
**Lee:** So, for our Halloween episode, Adam has quite rightly reminded us that we haven't covered one of the best horror films, period.
**Chris:** Honestly, right, every time we cover a film, probably like this one, then I think what was wrong with these two, and then I look back at what we've covered, I'm like, no, fair play.
**Chris:** This is too difficult.
**Adam:** Because they're cho between all this.
**Adam:** It's a big pile, mate, you know.
**Lee:** The problem is, it's not as big as the pile of crap that we managed to get you to avoid.
**Lee:** Like, if you sat through that, that's the problem, if you picked out the, if you sat through the nine crap films to get to the good one,
**Lee:** you'd look as old as we do, to be honest.
**Adam:** And also, it has to be said, we covered Evil Dead
**Adam:** in March 2019.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** And we're usually a bit quicker in getting to the sequel and stuff.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So, yeah, it's, it's been a while.
**Adam:** There's, the the world is significantly different, especially because I found my my Blu-ray box of The Evil Dead was still in the cellophane, because obviously, we must have watched Evil Dead together.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh yeah, of course we watched it here.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, remember them days when we used to sit together and drink beer and then record.
**Adam:** Yeah. And then once we'd recorded, we'd play touching games and.
**Lee:** in the back row.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Now it's just a, now it's just a quick fumble with a, relative flow test.
**Lee:** Right, so to get the, now I feel awful now, saying this after what we've just been discussing.
**Lee:** But we do have a massive congratulations to throw out to friend of the show Joe, him and his good lady wife have just had a child.
**Lee:** Congratulations.
**Chris:** Oh, excellent.
**Chris:** Congratulations.
**Adam:** Full sprog droppage.
**Adam:** yeah, congratulations.
**Adam:** And, also, very sweet, he did actually message us to say, sorry I hadn't got around to listening to the episode until just now.
**Lee:** It's like.
**Adam:** You you were you, you know, you birth was taking place.
**Adam:** And
**Chris:** Frankly you can prioritize that if, if you really need to.
**Adam:** You know, we we won't take offense.
**Lee:** I'll tell you what.
**Adam:** We're not.
**Lee:** Go on.
**Adam:** Now I was just gonna say we're not your employer.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So we won't, we won't take offense that you've had a child.
**Lee:** but what I did realize the other day, actually, that I do wanna put the question out and and have Joe let us know.
**Lee:** So, I, I don't feel, see, normally, I avoid using people's surnames, like I don't use any of our surnames, not 'cause we've done anything, but just 'cause, you know, there's no need to.
**Adam:** Protect the innocent and uphold the law.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** but his name is his username on, Instagram, so I don't mind too much.
**Lee:** So, Joe Watson, but I suddenly realized, I don't know if Joe Watson is his real name, because recently, listening back to a, a ghost podcast I listen to, and they were discussing
**Lee:** The Enfield Haunting and the name that the ghost gave the young girl in that, obviously, bullshit haunting,
**Lee:** was Joe Watson.
**Lee:** So I don't know if that's his real name, or if like us, he's a nerd who has just gone
**Lee:** That's a great name to use, you know, a bit like Ingrid Cold.
**Chris:** Let us know, Joe.
**Chris:** This is
**Chris:** an ask Joe Watson.
**Lee:** Yes, ask Joe Watson.
**Adam:** Ask Joe Watson.
**Lee:** Or, also,
**Adam:** He's
**Lee:** if Joe Watson is his real name, and he's gonna, when he dies, go back in time, Terminator styley, and haunt some people in Enfield.
**Lee:** That could be interesting.
**Adam:** It's, it's when you read the the byline on his Instagram page and it says, I had an average in a chair.
**Adam:** That you might get the inkling that he is taking it from The Enfield Podcast, I don't know.
**Lee:** Sorry to embarrass you, Joe.
**Lee:** But,
**Lee:** There you go.
**Adam:** He's, clearly, I think Lee's just had too much time on his hands, he's been overthinking.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I I would have been, except, I discovered a new, series of films this, I'll cover it in what I've been watching.
**Lee:** I discovered a new series of films this morning, and watched two of the three films just today.
**Lee:** So, I have got too much time on my hands.
**Chris:** That is a busy day.
**Lee:** I can see a box set artwork cover from Arrow and immediately spent three hours of my day just watching Japanese horror.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** Damn pandemic.
**Lee:** We'll, yeah, we'll come back to that.
**Lee:** Chris.
**Lee:** What have you been watching?
**Chris:** I have been watching something that somebody recommended.
**Chris:** And it could well be you.
**Lee:** Hey.
**Chris:** It's the Lego Star Wars, what's it called?
**Lee:** Lego Star Wars.
**Adam:** Tales of terror.
**Chris:** Tales of terror.
**Chris:** That's the one.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, we looked at it, we thought, yeah, this this looks probably child-friendly.
**Chris:** They've seen the other two Lego films, we haven't seen The Lego Batman, though.
**Chris:** I don't know if that
**Lee:** That's very.
**Lee:** It's not as good as The Lego Films, but it
**Chris:** Okay, still good.
**Chris:** Yeah, all right, so, you know, Lego's doing a good job here.
**Chris:** Disney, still doing a good job.
**Chris:** like I I enjoyed it.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Chris:** It, it what was it?
**Chris:** Actually, it showed me the, the Darth Maul back story.
**Chris:** Which I quite, I do quite like the fact that they poke fun at the, yeah, the stories, you know, that could perhaps be taken either way by different people, but I quite enjoy that.
**Chris:** and yeah, and so, so yeah,
**Chris:** that was good to see Darth Maul going down to, I can't remember the planet name.
**Chris:** But the, is it The Night Sisters?
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** Who are having
**Chris:** called, yeah, I don't exactly know what they are.
**Chris:** Like, then they're, 'cause it's a bit weird, isn't it, I mean, you don't, there hasn't been magical or supernatural types in Star Wars, have, has there, aside from Jedi and Sith?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I think
**Adam:** This is this is where we need, this is where we need ways.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Chris:** We do.
**Adam:** prowess.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So we probably should cover this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I I I too watched it as well.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** and thought it was rather fun as well.
**Adam:** though at one point Claire said, what is the best impression in this?
**Adam:** What out?
**Adam:** You know, the flappy blue elephant man.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I pointed out that it's probably the same bloke.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because they because Danny Mendez is all like proper voice over artists doing it.
**Adam:** Rather than, oh, I'm mates, I'm, I live three doors down from Eli Roth and he wants a part in it.
**Adam:** Can he be a stormtrooper?
**Chris:** but now, who is the voice of the Emperor?
**Chris:** 'Cause
**Chris:** is it Srey?
**Chris:** Like it can't be, can it, but does it not sound like him?
**Chris:** That's that's who I kept thinking.
**Adam:** It does sound.
**Adam:** At first I thought it might have been Mark Hamill.
**Adam:** But it's not.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** 'Cause it sounded a bit like his Joker.
**Chris:** He does, he does do some impressive voices, Mark Hamill.
**Adam:** Yeah, he does.
**Chris:** He's he's a talented man.
**Adam:** And it would make sense because then at least you have your Luke covered as well.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Cool, so well done for catching up on that.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Lee:** What have you been watching?
**Adam:** Literally, that.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** I've watched that.
**Chris:** Now, did, did Ted enjoy it?
**Adam:** Did watch it with Ted.
**Chris:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** I genuinely, I genuinely just got,
**Adam:** the best way I can describe it is, that bit in Alan Partridge where he goes,
**Adam:** I'll be honest with you, Lynn, I'm at loose ends.
**Adam:** So I just got completely, and in the end it was like, so I watched that, and then Monk and Kenna Teller videos and, bits of this is Jinsy and stuff like that, just because
**Adam:** I genuinely could not think of what to watch.
**Adam:** So, but yes, I did watch, the terrifying tales, and,
**Adam:** was and found most heartily that I did laugh.
**Adam:** So, yes.
**Lee:** I can't say I really enjoyed it, but I've got this.
**Lee:** not to be too topical, but yeah, at the time, it had just happened at the time, so I didn't realize everybody had this ridiculous cold that I had and still have.
**Lee:** yeah, it just wiped my memory of the evening.
**Lee:** I remember putting it on, I remember the first five minutes.
**Lee:** And beyond that, I've just got my notes to go by.
**Lee:** It knocked me out.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, it's, I mean, to be honest, it's, it's quite fun to to be sharing again in terms of disease.
**Adam:** You know, and and and even, you know, despicable attitudes at work.
**Adam:** It's nice that people are feeling able to share them.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But
**Chris:** There was a bit of a time when we were sort of grouping together as a, you know, a unified.
**Chris:** species, but that's all gone now.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, no.
**Adam:** Fuck that.
**Adam:** It's back to pull the ladder up, Jack, fuck the rest.
**Adam:** But, but yes, unfortunately, because, the box set of, Blu-ray box set of Trial of the Time Lord came out.
**Adam:** So I've mostly been watching that.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** That is absolutely fair.
**Lee:** This is not a job, it is a hobby.
**Lee:** So, don't feel obligated to overwatch stuff.
**Adam:** To be honest, I think there's also an element where I've been like,
**Adam:** everyone's been going on about Halloween.
**Adam:** And I'm like, I'm I'm always watching
**Adam:** horror films and supernatural stuff.
**Adam:** So, in a weird way, I think I might have gone on holiday for Halloween.
**Adam:** And it's just like, yeah, you know, just, I'm like, you know, Squid Game.
**Adam:** Okay, you could, oh, asking for a friend.
**Adam:** particularly as we could cover it, possibly, if the answer's yes.
**Adam:** do you consider Predator a horror film, or could it be construed as a horror film?
**Lee:** Yes, absolutely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, that's what I was thinking as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, now, just 'cause, Claire said the other day she hasn't seen Predator.
**Adam:** So I was gonna show her at the weekend.
**Adam:** But I was also thinking, yeah, we could probably cover that.
**Adam:** But I think we've got to cover Alien before we cover Predator.
**Adam:** just out of sheer loyalty to the Xenomorph.
**Lee:** I'm not gonna lie, I prefer Predator.
**Lee:** I know I'm in the minority.
**Chris:** No, no, no, that's that's difficult.
**Chris:** I I've seen Predator once, and I saw it fairly late on, you know, in life, not when everyone else saw it.
**Chris:** There's a big surprise, but, but I don't, yeah,
**Chris:** and the same for Alien.
**Chris:** In fact, I've seen Aliens, I haven't seen Alien.
**Chris:** And I don't know.
**Adam:** That that seems to be a lot of people.
**Chris:** Yeah, well I guess I was just old enough to kind of get away with watching Aliens when it came out.
**Chris:** but obviously Alien was a bit earlier, and so then it's like we, I guess you wouldn't rush to go back necessarily unless it somebody said, you've really got to watch this.
**Adam:** Yeah, 'cause apart from, apart from Ripley, you don't really need much of a, you don't need to have seen that to understand every fucking last nuance of Aliens.
**Adam:** Because Ripley comes out of prior sleep and tells you what happened.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Now, I actually, I listened, when going to sleep the other day, I listened to the Netflix documentary, The Movies That Made Us.
**Chris:** And I listened to the Aliens episode.
**Chris:** and it was really good.
**Chris:** And I sort of think I should actually watch it properly.
**Chris:** Because it was fascinating to hear, like the director and the producer and how it all came about and how Fox, we're like, yeah, we don't need Sigourney Weaver.
**Chris:** And you know, it's like it nearly didn't happen.
**Chris:** And then the fact that they stuck to it and they were like, no, we need Sigourney Weaver, and they sort of went behind Fox's back or something to get her.
**Chris:** And and obviously it turned out great, because the people who knew what they were doing managed to do it.
**Adam:** I cannot, I cannot even contemplate the idea of the Alien films without Ripley.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Running through.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** And again, that's, that's another good thing you bring up, although, I, I'm guessing none of us have seen it yet, I know I certainly haven't, the latest season of,
**Lee:** The Movies That Made Us just came out.
**Lee:** And it is, Halloween, Friday, and Elm Street.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And then I realized, I hadn't seen the ones from Christmas, so I haven't seen the Night for Christmas or Elf either.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I'm actually looking forward to Christmas for a change.
**Chris:** But yeah, and you mentioned Squid Game, I'd forgotten that I did actually watch that, I sort of blitzed it so quickly.
**Chris:** And that was like, that was that was nearly two weeks ago.
**Adam:** You do a lot.
**Chris:** Yeah, I got through them all.
**Chris:** And and it like fantastic.
**Chris:** I would say everyone watch it.
**Chris:** It like for me, every episode built on the previous in a good way that added something new.
**Chris:** And sort of still felt like a cohesive story, and yeah, characters were good.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's just like,
**Chris:** it was, it was way better than I was expecting.
**Chris:** even right up to the end, I I liked it.
**Chris:** And and I think you said, I was thinking this as I was watching it.
**Chris:** You're like, you know, maybe don't make a a second.
**Chris:** series, because that might take away from it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Let it, let it.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I would prefer it that it was just this thing that I watched over the course of like four days.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That was fucking great for those four days.
**Adam:** And then I can look back fondly on it and enjoy all the memes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** Of the, of the old boy sitting on his own in the corner.
**Adam:** that are currently doing the rounds.
**Adam:** But,
**Lee:** I've luckily managed to avoid them because I haven't seen it yet.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** It's I mean they're they're not spoilery if it they're just a man looking very alone.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** I mean, definitely recommended, but also definitely recommended before it becomes
**Adam:** lazy spoofs in in stuff, in about a year.
**Adam:** You know,
**Adam:** you know the usual way where it's like sort of like, you sort of, oh, BBC, look, BBC News have picked up on this trend that's online.
**Adam:** That means it's over.
**Adam:** So.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, I definitely think it's worth a watch.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** So, I'll add it to the list, it won't be until after Halloween, obviously, but, it's definitely next on the list, I think, after Halloween.
**Lee:** So, speaking of which,
**Lee:** we've been cracking on through our Halloween watching.
**Lee:** unlike Adam, I had a, a different response, which was,
**Lee:** I sat down with Lady Jennifer one night, we went to the local pub, which we literally never do.
**Lee:** and decided, as she had a pad and paper, we were gonna go through all the films that we definitely want to watch for Halloween.
**Lee:** So he said, right, if we make a list of ten films or so,
**Lee:** that'll give us enough to get through, give us a target, and we'll do it.
**Lee:** so eighteen films later on the list, we are now struggling to crack to get through them all.
**Lee:** so the ones we've watched so far.
**Lee:** Beetlejuice re-watch for the first time in probably a decade.
**Lee:** Holy shit, that film has me laughing so loud.
**Lee:** It's unbelievable.
**Chris:** It is too good.
**Lee:** It's one of those films that it was amazing in the eighties and I can imagine it being very possible now.
**Lee:** But actually, it's just, like,
**Lee:** everything about it is so good.
**Chris:** Still works so well.
**Lee:** Catherine O'Hara and Michael Keaton just whoop it away.
**Lee:** I mean, Winona Ryder's portrayal of a an angsty teenage girl is fantastic.
**Lee:** But the comedy from them two just absolutely slays me.
**Lee:** Yeah, the delivery is incredible.
**Adam:** I think it's also it comes from that lovely point where Tim Burton hadn't gone twee.
**Adam:** Do you know what I mean?
**Adam:** Where it was like, oh no, it's a twisted fairy tale rather than just a fairy tale.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, and obviously, like, like we've we said on our crossover episodes with not for everyone, it's also basically a weekend with Adam.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just so much fun.
**Lee:** Loved every minute of it.
**Lee:** I saw the new Muppets, Haunted Mansion.
**Adam:** Oh, I've yet to watch that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Not a film, 'cause it's fifty minutes long, which kind of pissed me off, 'cause when it was first announced, it said an hour and a half on IMDb, the lying bastards.
**Lee:** but,
**Adam:** 'Cause they had to cut out all the Swedish chef because he's got in trouble and he's been cancelled online for some comments about the Holocaust.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** but yeah, I, I, I think the problem is, I really, I, I definitely enjoyed it.
**Lee:** But, I am not the biggest fan of The Muppets.
**Lee:** I'm not as big a fan as Waze, like,
**Lee:** My, my knowledge of The Muppets is how much I love, Muppets Christmas Carol.
**Lee:** And
**Chris:** So what is, why is that different particularly?
**Chris:** What is it about that that stands out for you?
**Lee:** I think it was just one of those, I've never even seen the others, but Muppets Christmas Carol for me, came out, oh, I can't even remember, I think I was in my teens, I was too, I was older than I should have been to, I was older than when you show it to a child, but I wasn't old enough to be a parent showing it to a child either.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Lee:** but just something about it just kind of sparked to me and I was like,
**Lee:** yeah, no, it's, it's nice.
**Lee:** It takes me back to a time in my childhood that's, when everything's nice and lovely and soft and friendly.
**Lee:** and Christmas films hadn't done that for a long time.
**Lee:** And I, yeah, it just really,
**Lee:** I I still believe that if it ever reaches Christmas Eve at midnight and I haven't yet watched Muppets Christmas Carol,
**Lee:** we will end up in a perpetual Christmas Eve until such a point as I rectify it.
**Lee:** It's, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** it could be worse, we've we've seen Krampus.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, so I think I was holding up.
**Adam:** And you've not seen Muppets Treasure Island?
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** I own it, I've not watched it yet.
**Adam:** Change that, because you'll love it.
**Adam:** And it's got bloody Tim Curry in it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think when I said, I think Waze asked me before if I'd seen it, I said no, and he literally told me to fuck off, which directly acceptable.
**Chris:** Adam, Adam was getting a bit of that look.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** When he was.
**Adam:** I was, I was older than you, I'm not, I'm not quite as militant as Waze.
**Adam:** Me and him rarely take a hard line on anything, but, you know, The Muppets is definitely one.
**Adam:** so, oh, and if Claire's Claire's favorite Muppet film as well.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Muppets Treasure.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so she'll get stroppy as well.
**Lee:** I'll definitely watch it.
**Lee:** It's, it's one of them things it's on my list, but the amount of times I've suggested it to Jennifer, I've gone through all the things that are that we've bought that we've not yet watched.
**Lee:** And she always goes, no, you know, when you suggested something a dozen times and it's been turned down.
**Lee:** You're like, I'm not gonna fucking mention it, and once you stop mentioning it, you forget it exists.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** Like, the challenge is on.
**Chris:** I'm, I'm gonna watch this before Lee, just so for she's gonna be aggro with him.
**Adam:** Well, I'll just say this is a point of message to both Claire and D, yeah, same with Guardians of the Galaxy.
**Adam:** Maybe I fucking it won't die.
**Lee:** How have you not seen Guardians of the Galaxy?
**Adam:** 'Cause I was being polite, I wanted to share it.
**Adam:** And I was a fe.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** But it's so good, it makes me cry.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Admittedly, I did watch.
**Adam:** I did, I did try and watch it with Ted because I thought,
**Adam:** well, what's he gonna do, he can't complain that much.
**Adam:** and then the opening dead parent bit was a bit sort of like,
**Chris:** Yeah, that that is the,
**Adam:** I don't wanna have to explain this to a fucking two-year-old.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** That is pretty much the only serious kind of bit.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** Unfortunately, it's right at the start.
**Adam:** It's like.
**Adam:** You know, it's not like, oh, look at that heartwarming hilarious film about the squareheaded old twat.
**Adam:** Yeah, and he's floating out.
**Chris:** And the first bit will kill you.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's because it's Disney, because it's Pixar, and they drink the tears of children.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But luckily, they don't do that on the Haunted Mansion.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** to drag it back around.
**Lee:** I mean, it it's really good.
**Lee:** I I enjoyed it.
**Lee:** yeah, unfortunately it didn't make me eight years old, but that is my only, my only problem with it.
**Lee:** I think it's one of those things, if you showed it to a kid now,
**Lee:** like, if you guys showed it to your kids, I think they would grow up with it being a Charlie Brown type classic, it,
**Lee:** Yeah, but watching it as a forty-year-old man, I was like, yeah, it was good, but.
**Lee:** so move on from that.
**Lee:** So next thing, again, as I just said, as a forty-year-old man, Addams Family 2, the animated version, finally got around to watching.
**Lee:** If you enjoyed the first one, definitely watch it.
**Lee:** It's every bit as good, it's probably one of those, I'll go back to it every couple of years.
**Lee:** It's definitely enjoyable, you can watch it any time of the year.
**Lee:** It's fantastic.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** And it's good.
**Adam:** Do you enjoy it?
**Adam:** I did enjoy the first, like, I did enjoy the first animated one.
**Adam:** 'Cause I'll be honest, I wasn't really that keen on the films.
**Adam:** Even though they've got excellent cast and everything, I was just,
**Adam:** yeah, they're just a bit a bit weaker.
**Adam:** Off.
**Lee:** Yeah, no, I I absolutely agree.
**Lee:** Yeah, whereas the kind of worked more of an animation because they could do more over the top stupidity with it that they obviously couldn't do.
**Lee:** So yeah, no, I'm totally with you.
**Lee:** Both of the films are enjoyable, but like, once every seven or eight years, I wouldn't regularly, it's one of those you go back to rewatch it because you remember nothing about it.
**Lee:** Rather than going back because of the things you remember.
**Adam:** You're not revisiting past glories, you're just, right, I genuinely can't remember.
**Adam:** I did see it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I saw it and I didn't hate it.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I still own it, and I didn't throw it at somebody with and shout words out, so therefore it must be good.
**Lee:** also, so I finally got around to watching the 1974 Dracula with Jack Palance.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** I, I've avoided this forever, because, as much as I love Dracula, I could not see Jack Palance ever playing Dracula.
**Lee:** I was wrong.
**Lee:** He was genuinely really well cast in this, and he, although he's a very different Dracula,
**Lee:** it kind of worked in a funny way, and and the supporting cast was fantastic as well.
**Lee:** So, I mean, that definitely added to it.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Adam:** I think that's what you want, isn't it?
**Adam:** Though, you don't want everyone to try and do Bella Lugosi.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You do you do want someone to give it their own.
**Adam:** Stamp or their own variant on it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Lee:** And it yeah, I was I was really surprised and again, it changed the story enough that I found it interesting without being like,
**Lee:** oh, this is just, you know, trying to fill in all the gaps that were missing or, you know, try and do anything new with it in a desperate kind of way.
**Lee:** I I thought it worked really well, it was really well written.
**Lee:** I think it was Dan Curtis, wasn't it,
**Lee:** who directed it as well?
**Lee:** it was Dan Curtis, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** 'Cause I think the, what you're saying is it didn't do the third series of the BBC Dracula.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The third.
**Adam:** episode, rather.
**Lee:** Yeah, and again,
**Lee:** but it it it did in the same way that I kind of felt it, it told us a story as we know that we're comfortable with and we enjoy and what we're there for.
**Lee:** But added enough extra stuff, that it was like, this isn't just another rehash of the same shit.
**Lee:** So in the same way as the BBC one, as you say, the first two episodes did a really good job of
**Lee:** Yeah, bringing both of those elements together.
**Lee:** I felt the same with this one.
**Lee:** but I haven't finished it yet, so there's another half hour yet.
**Lee:** So it could shit on me yet.
**Lee:** Let's not forget us, that was a fantastic movie for the first hour.
**Lee:** So it's not count our chick.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** and finally.
**Lee:** so Arrow have just released a box set, and I saw that they'd posted it, and then two posts later, I saw that you had liked it.
**Lee:** and it's the, is it Yokai monsters, Youkai monsters from the sixties?
**Adam:** Oh, yes, yes.
**Lee:** So I went and had a Google and saw a trailer, and then saw that they're all available on archive.org.
**Lee:** In obviously a kind of VHS quality shit version.
**Lee:** yeah, and although I can't see myself splurging out any time soon 'cause of current events.
**Lee:** I will definitely,
**Adam:** Well, at the moment it's very likely we're gonna have to make a down payment on a Scott egg come the new year.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Precisely, so sixty quid on a box set of Japanese horror.
**Lee:** Might be a little bit of a push.
**Lee:** But,
**Lee:** oh, it just, they're such fun films.
**Lee:** They're fucking bonkers.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** It's, it's got all the the beauty and the subtlety of Japanese filmmaking.
**Lee:** And then they just kind of chuck on top of it.
**Lee:** And,
**Lee:** here are the monsters.
**Lee:** Here's the monster that's an umbrella.
**Lee:** With a leg and one eye and a massive tongue, and here's the monster that's like a normal woman with a six-foot neck.
**Lee:** And oh, it's just,
**Lee:** I watched two of the, I watched the first two films back to back today.
**Lee:** And I'd watch the third one, but I ran out of time.
**Lee:** So I really enjoyed them.
**Lee:** They're really good.
**Adam:** They are really good.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** they're, I mean, even for, even for Japanese monster movies, like, they're fucking weird.
**Lee:** They are bat shit.
**Adam:** You know, you know, and when you consider that say Mothra is mainstream.
**Adam:** with with the two singing twins who like who are tiny and live in a box who bring Mothra out and just thousands of bizarre fucking things with it.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** yeah, no, they are,
**Adam:** not only that, but also, I mean, again, there's no way on God's earth
**Adam:** that I have got the finances to be, buying that.
**Adam:** But guaranteed with Arrow, they will probably look the best they ever have.
**Lee:** They're 4K restorations, don't, they're gonna look good.
**Lee:** And I, I mean they're beautiful, again, Japanese cinema.
**Lee:** And that's the thing.
**Lee:** That's why I, I don't get chirpy, obviously,
**Lee:** because that's not my style.
**Lee:** But some people are just like, no, you should never have anything dubbed, it should always have the subtitles.
**Lee:** And I'm like, yeah, but with Japanese films,
**Lee:** I want to be looking all the time, because their sets and stuff are so astonishing.
**Lee:** I don't want to be and they.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Again, something like this as well.
**Lee:** At the beginning it was very dialogue-heavy.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I literally felt like I was just reading a book and occasionally getting a couple of seconds to glimpse up at what was happening.
**Lee:** once the ghosts all turn up, it it sort of changes and you can sort of catch up.
**Lee:** But,
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I'm hoping when the Arrow ones come out, they're gonna have a dubbed version, which I know a lot of people will call me a philistine for.
**Lee:** But,
**Lee:** I just wanna take in every second of that beauty, 'cause they're just, nineteen sixty-eight and they just look fantastic.
**Lee:** Even the effects and stuff.
**Lee:** I mean, some of it's pretty ropey.
**Lee:** But the the woman with the really long neck, although you can see how it's all done, it looks incredible.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So good.
**Adam:** Well, I think it's like even,
**Adam:** like, it's like the film, the Japanese film House.
**Adam:** where the effects in that border into the really ropey.
**Adam:** But they have that sort of, for want of a better expression, mighty bush quality.
**Adam:** Yeah, where it's like, how is something done so cheaply, actually a bit eerie or a bit creepy and so on.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And I think it's a similar sort of thing.
**Chris:** But I I but also,
**Chris:** Arrow usually are pretty good for releasing, like, they will usually have the dubs on there and everything else.
**Chris:** Like that.
**Chris:** Because subtitles aren't for everyone's taste.
**Chris:** And not only that, but also, I mean, I've got, I can't even remember, I think it was like the first.
**Chris:** first time I saw, Aguirre, Wrath of God.
**Chris:** Is I decided to watch it, initially I watched it in German with the subtitles.
**Chris:** But the subtitles were too colloquial.
**Chris:** So it'd be like, so the subtitles would be like, hey, look at those guys.
**Chris:** Whereas actually when you watched it with the dubs, they they'd kept it in a more medieval speak, so they're like a man approaches.
**Chris:** Stuff like.
**Chris:** That.
**Chris:** And so I I ended up watching it with the dub.
**Chris:** Because it didn't, it felt more in keeping with how the film should be.
**Chris:** Rather than.
**Lee:** It's funny how that.
**Lee:** has such an effect, 'cause I I can't remember what it was.
**Lee:** But I had I experienced that for the first time.
**Lee:** you know, a little while ago, and I was surprised that just how much it changed the feeling of it.
**Lee:** Just by having slightly different words.
**Lee:** And it might, it might have been, it might have been House movie castle actually.
**Lee:** and I think I'd never heard it in the English before.
**Lee:** And perhaps it was now on Netflix with English, I don't know.
**Lee:** It's something and it or it was just playing, and I was like, that's funny, this is saying like, yeah, it's really different what they're saying, and it really did affect it.
**Lee:** So yeah,
**Lee:** it's funny.
**Chris:** It's funny you say that.
**Chris:** That was that was what the Youkai films felt like.
**Chris:** Was spirited away made in nineteen seventy, but live action.
**Chris:** That was exactly what.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That is
**Lee:** that is impressive.
**Chris:** So it's just.
**Lee:** That is a feat.
**Chris:** and yeah, and that is everything we've caught up with.
**Chris:** So,
**Chris:** we should probably, as we've been going for quite some time now, get into the main event.
**Chris:** Well I was thinking that's a good segway as well.
**Chris:** 'Cause the effects, I could, I could apply what you said to this.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** They are, you know, you could say they're kind of dated and they are a little bit cheap in some but a but amazing, like, just like, it works so perfectly.
**Chris:** Anyway, now I'll let you.
**Chris:** I finish introducing it.
**Lee:** Ha.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** Evil Dead 2, we covered the first one.
**Lee:** As Adam said, about three years ago, now it's about time we got around to it.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** It's a, it's a very strange movie, and it has got that this is the only one that I like.
**Lee:** I've watched three films, I can think of off top of my head, that are kind of a semi remake and a semi sequel, and this is the only one that works.
**Lee:** And I still can't quite work out what they were going for with it, but,
**Lee:** It's a, it's a stone cold classic in my opinion, it's absolutely amazing.
**Adam:** The term Bruce Campbell.
**Adam:** used is 'requel'.
**Adam:** In that it's not quite a remake and it's not not quite a sequel, because the two things have sort of blurred.
**Adam:** but I mean, actually, I mean, originally, the original idea for Evil Dead 2 was basically Army of Darkness.
**Adam:** Is they wanted to push Ash back and do the.
**Adam:** medieval Knights in Armor sort of story.
**Adam:** And then I think they realized that actually they probably wouldn't necessarily be able to get the budget for that.
**Adam:** but then they thought, well, we'll do some more stuff set around the cabin.
**Adam:** 'Cause obviously,
**Adam:** 'cause Evil Dead doesn't end just ends with Ash being attacked by the.
**Adam:** the the unseen force, doesn't it, like just goes, camera goes up, black and then it's the credits or whatever.
**Adam:** And so they were like, well, we could sort of continue from there and just have more going on.
**Adam:** Like going on in the cabin.
**Adam:** And then in their original idea for the script, they were like, right, so we'll put in the bits here from Evil Dead 1.
**Adam:** So that.
**Adam:** You know, to recap the story.
**Adam:** but because they were with a different, because it was a different production company doing Evil Dead 2, they couldn't get the rights to Evil Dead 1.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** So even though they wrote and directed it and everything, obviously, it's it's New Line Cinema who actually owns it as the distributor.
**Adam:** And they wouldn't let them have footage from The Evil Dead, basically they couldn't afford whatever they were asking for the footage from The Evil Dead.
**Adam:** So they just went, fuck it, we'll do it as a different.
**Chris:** Like change it enough.
**Adam:** We'll sort of remake, well, not even change it enough, but change it enough so that they could get to the point they wanted to do the sequel from.
**Adam:** So rather than having to redo the whole film, they were like, right, so it's just Ash.
**Adam:** And, Linda that go, rather than a whole group of them go.
**Adam:** 'cause I did see, I did see, I remember years and years ago seeing a lovely thing where someone said, you can read it that Ash is so fucking stupid.
**Adam:** that he got away the first time, and then took someone back to the cabin.
**Lee:** I seem to remember the first time I watched it, yeah, being like, why is he going back there, that didn't end well.
**Lee:** And then I'm like, maybe he's luring more spirits, and then I was like, yeah, no.
**Lee:** He's totally not happy about what's going on.
**Lee:** So that's not the case either.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think, I think it's a weird, I think it's a bit of a weird one because obviously, maybe they weren't thinking, I mean, even though The Evil Dead obviously became quite a.
**Adam:** I mean, certainly over here became part of the Video Nasty's list.
**Adam:** So it was expected to appear on video, but I suppose they weren't really.
**Adam:** Again, it was like, it's movies, they aren't necessarily gonna be at your fingertips.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Every time, because even then it would have probably been more like rental rather than owning the tape itself.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Maybe they were like of the opinion that it's like, well, we can do this recap because it won't necessarily be.
**Adam:** Basically, no one's gonna fucking marathon it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which obviously, no, they will now.
**Adam:** But, yeah.
**Adam:** At the time that wasn't even a.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** So that's why it's, but this was something that I.
**Adam:** I was really sort of astounded when sort of reading about it, because I mean, it sorts back to Evil Dead.
**Adam:** As well, and it's a a section in my notes that I've titled, 'Hail to the King, Baby'.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Basically, after this, Sam Raimi, Sam Raimi, the director and Rob Tapert, the producer, did, a film called Crime Wave, which flopped.
**Adam:** but the, the original Evil Dead was Stephen King had been instrumental in getting it noticed because he'd raved about it in a screening after seeing it at Can.
**Adam:** And then the marketing team from like the Evil Dead had said, well, said to Sam Raimi, can we get Stephen King to provide a quote for the poster?
**Adam:** So they rang up Stephen King, who basically said, I'll do better than that, and he did a three-page fucking review of the movie for Twilight Zone magazine.
**Lee:** Bloody Nora.
**Adam:** From which they took the poster quote of the most ferociously original film horror film of 1982.
**Adam:** and, yeah, so Stephen King was really like the champion.
**Adam:** that got got the film notice and got it put into distribution.
**Adam:** So it actually sort of had some advertising.
**Adam:** had some outlet.
**Adam:** And people got to know about it.
**Adam:** and then.
**Adam:** They were trying to get, after Crime Wave went, went sort of south, they'd been writing this during Crime Wave.
**Adam:** And they were like, okay, so we'll, we'll just do Evil Dead 2.
**Adam:** Still can't get any funding for it.
**Adam:** And then at the time, Stephen King was doing Maximum Overdrive.
**Adam:** with, the Dino de Laurentiis production company, like Dino de Laurentiis was this, is this producer who's like near mythical, who did, like, Flash Gordon and Manhunter.
**Adam:** And just loads of, and Dune, David Lynch's Dune is de Laurentiis.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Yeah, he was having lunch with Stephen King, because they he was Stephen, he was producing like Maximum Overdrive.
**Adam:** And, Stephen King was like, yeah, look, they're trying to do Evil Dead.
**Adam:** And he basically persuaded him to put up the money to make Evil Dead 2.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** I did not know that.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** He's a man,
**Lee:** isn't he?
**Lee:** Stephen King is, he just bleeds into everything we do, really, he's just such a massive, he's a massive part of horror, like way more than just the stuff that he writes and is fully hands on involved in.
**Lee:** He's been molding the, he's a master of horror.
**Lee:** He's been molding the genre for fucking decades.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** It's that lovely thing of seeing someone who's a fan.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, I don't think Stephen King, I mean, I mean, obviously, his main, his main output during lockdown was baiting Trump all the time on Twitter, which was fantastic.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** Yeah, he is essentially that's his sort of first, you know, he always remains a fan of horror.
**Adam:** 'Cause I mean, obviously, he was the one who raved about like Clive Barker.
**Adam:** And like Evil Dead and various and I mean, even stuff like, okay, for every time, I mean, admittedly, in my head,
**Adam:** he doesn't like the Kubrick version of The Shining, which to me is like moaning about the school that turned your kid into a hot shot lawyer.
**Adam:** Because you'd wanted them to be a doctor.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** other than that, you know, there's certain things like The Mist.
**Adam:** I mean, The Mist is a film.
**Adam:** I would love to cover on the show.
**Lee:** Yeah, that always made it to the what I've been watching, but we only watched it.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I left it off.
**Lee:** We went back and rewatched it in the black and white version.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** As Adam bought us the DVD that has both the color and the black and white version.
**Lee:** I just wanna go back to The Shining for a second.
**Lee:** Have you read it?
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** So, because it would be fascinating to read it and see if like you could see where he's coming from.
**Lee:** In that he doesn't like film because the film is great, you know.
**Adam:** I have seen the TV mini series version of The Shining, which sticks to the book.
**Lee:** And so.
**Adam:** More closely.
**Lee:** Does he like that?
**Adam:** Which which, yeah,
**Adam:** that has his full approval.
**Adam:** That's directed by, Mick Garris.
**Adam:** And yeah, Stephen King really likes that version.
**Adam:** But that version sticks very much to his.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** His original vision, much more to to the book.
**Adam:** Like there's stuff like.
**Adam:** there's topiarian animals in the the maze that come to life.
**Adam:** And obviously that's not in the Kubrick version.
**Adam:** And things like that.
**Adam:** From what I gather, I think the whole thing was essentially a disagreement of philosophy in so much as Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick had differing opinions about what ghosts indicated.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In that Stephen, I think Stephen King was kind of hopeful that ghosts represented that there was something else that there was an afterlife.
**Adam:** That there was something beyond.
**Adam:** Whereas I think Stanley Kubrick considered that to be more disturbing.
**Adam:** Especially because it then meant that you could be trapped in perpetuity as the caretaker of the fucking Overlook and tormented for all eternity.
**Adam:** And and you know, it's one of those ones.
**Adam:** Where you can sort of, I can see both sides.
**Adam:** But I I think it might have just been that he just got angry because he didn't have to topiarian animals.
**Adam:** And there's like, no.
**Lee:** No, no coke.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** but back to, but like back to The Mist,
**Adam:** Stephen King now says, oh, the they altered the ending.
**Lee:** I'm not gonna.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** I'm not gonna go into it, but they altered the ending of The Mist.
**Adam:** And Stephen King said, that's better.
**Adam:** That is the, that is the true version of The Mist.
**Lee:** That is literally one of the best endings to a movie I've ever seen, and it's one of the only times I've ever, I believe I genuinely stood out of my seat and went, oh, fuck.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction.
**Lee:** It just.
**Lee:** I've never seen anything quite that absolutely.
**Lee:** It's it's a fantastic movie, if you haven't seen it, go and watch it.
**Lee:** It is worth the last thirty seconds of that film.
**Lee:** To just be utterly devastated.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think the,
**Adam:** and also, apparently, like Dino de Laurentiis had a,
**Adam:** agreement with the MPAA, like the American classification board, that he wouldn't release anything that was like R-rated.
**Adam:** So, they actually set up a a production company called Rosebud, which is the production company for Evil Dead 2.
**Adam:** So technically it's Dino de Laurentiis's company.
**Adam:** Like DEG.
**Adam:** But they're using a different name to get around a loophole that was this thing that they wouldn't be allowed to make eighteen films.
**Lee:** See.
**Lee:** But I loved that, I it's one of the things I actually made note about, yeah, it's that that initial Rosebud thing.
**Lee:** Because it's such a, it's such a, a kind of nineties, I know it was the eighties, but it was that very nineties looking, it's a picture of a rose with a terrible CGI background.
**Lee:** It's got a very lovely sound and then it just hits you with Evil Dead 2 just fucking out of the blue and you're like, oh, I didn't see that coming.
**Lee:** That's horrible.
**Lee:** It just makes it feel.
**Lee:** all the worse for showing you something lovely and then doing that to you.
**Adam:** Bleach.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** It's and also apparently like.
**Lee:** yeah, the he was, he was doing a film.
**Lee:** Bruce Campbell was doing a film where he was basically this sleazy nightclub singer in Vegas.
**Lee:** And then something happens and it's basically him and about three other people are left on the planet.
**Lee:** And it's like him trying to trace his way across the planet to to solve something.
**Lee:** And it's just him and the go-go dancer that he'd called he'd called the night before that they've ended up stuck together and having to think.
**Lee:** And I'm pretty sure it was something to do with Alejandro Grias.
**Lee:** But I might be.
**Lee:** I'm getting my wires crossed there and it's something else.
**Lee:** I'm not sure.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I doesn't.
**Lee:** There's something about Bruce Campbell.
**Lee:** That's just so massively awesome.
**Lee:** Like,
**Lee:** if you take a film like,
**Lee:** Bubba Ho-Tep.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** I love Bubba Ho-Tep, it is, it is on our list of thirty films that we really should have covered before we reached a hundred.
**Lee:** We're now at a hundred and twenty odd episodes in and we still haven't covered it.
**Lee:** But yeah, like that,
**Lee:** that film in concept is a wacky concept that could so easily have just fallen over and not gone anywhere.
**Lee:** But as soon as you put Bruce Campbell in that lead role, it works.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It can't fail.
**Lee:** And it it absolutely
**Lee:** smashes it.
**Lee:** You know, like you were saying.
**Lee:** The name tells me nothing about the film, then.
**Lee:** I'm assuming.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** So, just a very.
**Lee:** Quick.
**Lee:** elevator pitch.
**Lee:** For Bubba Ho-Tep.
**Lee:** Elvis didn't really die.
**Lee:** He'd had enough of fame and swapped places with an Elvis impersonator.
**Lee:** So Elvis is now in a retirement home.
**Lee:** and a Egyptian mummy is also hiding out in that retirement home and is sucking the life out of old people.
**Lee:** And the only people who know about it is Elvis.
**Lee:** And the guy he shares a room with, who is an old black man who genuinely believes that he's John F Kennedy.
**Adam:** And that's because Kennedy's brain went missing, generally, in real life, Kennedy's brain went missing after the autopsy.
**Adam:** And so he's convinced that Kennedy's he is Kennedy.
**Adam:** But put in a different body.
**Lee:** If you need any more fucked up ideas for a movie, please let me know.
**Lee:** Because I have.
**Adam:** And the ancient, the ancient mummy writes rude hieroglyphs in the toilets.
**Lee:** And he affects, does the nasty, I think, was what he.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah,
**Lee:** I mean, that's,
**Adam:** I mean,
**Adam:** that's a terrific film.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** Yeah,
**Adam:** that, that we're definitely, we've definitely got to cover.
**Adam:** 'Cause I think, I mean, it's just so bloody funny.
**Adam:** And weird.
**Adam:** And odd.
**Adam:** That
**Adam:** the.
**Adam:** Really, that's the stuff I like.
**Adam:** I like the odd.
**Adam:** And I'm saying Evil Dead 2.
**Adam:** definitely counts in the odd.
**Adam:** The.
**Adam:** Oh, and the giant face that comes through the door.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The giant demon head.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** But get this.
**Lee:** I mean, we're we're one off from, like last time when we did Blair Witch and it was, oh, we'll take the camera back and get the money.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** With this.
**Lee:** They just were like, oh, that's so fucking heavy, because they filmed they filmed it in,
**Lee:** they filmed it in North Carolina.
**Lee:** in a place called Waynesboro.
**Lee:** And,
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** They just decided, oh,
**Lee:** this is just too heavy, we'll leave it here.
**Lee:** So they just.
**Lee:** They didn't bother taking the head away when they left, and then the head went missing.
**Lee:** No one knows what happened to it for years, and then it turned up in a Halloween haunted house attraction just outside Waynesboro.
**Lee:** Where obviously someone had got it and just been using it for fucking years.
**Lee:** They're like,
**Lee:** I'm free, giant demon head.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Why wouldn't you, I mean, if it's just sitting.
**Lee:** It's funny, 'cause seeing it this time, I was like, shit, that is exact, it looks exactly like the one in Hellraiser.
**Lee:** That chases them down the tunnel.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's like it's got that same.
**Lee:** It has.
**Lee:** Definitely got that same look to it.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Lee:** and actually.
**Lee:** The,
**Lee:** and actually filming in North Carolina.
**Lee:** North Carolina.
**Lee:** Obviously quite warm.
**Lee:** They were having a heat wave.
**Lee:** And, Ted Raimi, like Sam's brother, who plays, Henrietta, like the possessed Henrietta.
**Lee:** they were literally pouring sweat out of that suit into like cups.
**Lee:** Oh, God.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And you can actually see at certain points in the film that it's coming out of it's coming out of the ear.
**Lee:** There's just like water coming out.
**Lee:** Where it's just him sweating.
**Lee:** And, yeah, apparently it was just like horrific, because, yeah, it's pounds and pounds of latex.
**Lee:** Which would make you do that anyway in the middle of a heat wave in the middle of one of the hottest parts of the country.
**Lee:** That is suffering.
**Lee:** For your art.
**Lee:** That is suffering for your brother because he bullies you.
**Lee:** That's why.
**Lee:** I think that is.
**Lee:** I love Ted Raimi.
**Lee:** He's one of those people.
**Lee:** Who I don't think he gets as much props as he deserves, really.
**Lee:** You for this.
**Lee:** I mean, in Twin Peaks.
**Lee:** He was fantastic in.
**Lee:** I think he just.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Again.
**Lee:** He was one of.
**Lee:** Well, it's also just like, I mean, Candyman, I'd completely forgotten he was in Candyman.
**Lee:** And like.
**Lee:** You know,
**Lee:** it's just weird.
**Lee:** He just gets all these weird little bit parts.
**Lee:** And stuff like that, but actually he's always really good in them.
**Lee:** And one thing he's really good at, oddly.
**Lee:** And this is out of makeup.
**Lee:** He's oddly good at menacing.
**Lee:** If he's playing a bad guy for Guimo Del Toro, I don't know if I could control myself from tearing the screen.
**Lee:** Because.
**Lee:** I think they would just combine to make such a fucking asshole.
**Lee:** They would be trouble.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So we should probably.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So we should probably wrap this up.
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** This film is fantastic.
**Lee:** And of course.
**Lee:** It then does lead to Army of Darkness.
**Lee:** Which.
**Lee:** So surely.
**Lee:** Surely.
**Lee:** That's on our list.
**Lee:** That is definitely on our list.
**Lee:** And it definitely won't be three fucking years before we watch Army of Darkness.
**Lee:** I promise.
**Lee:** It is.
**Lee:** It's I was just saying, I was surprised about the quality of stuff that Jennifer was putting on our Halloween watch list.
**Lee:** Army of Darkness is one of those.
**Lee:** not seen it in, I've probably not seen it in three or four years.
**Lee:** And yeah, a bit like this, it's one of those, I don't feel like I need to watch it all the time.
**Lee:** because I always appreciate it.
**Lee:** But then when you do watch it, you go, yeah, but I should definitely appreciate it more than I do, I think, really.
**Lee:** It just works on so many levels.
**Lee:** And this is a fantastic.
**Lee:** entry level film.
**Lee:** A lot of people have said.
**Lee:** So if you've got someone who wants to get into horror, who possibly wants like an easy in, like we were saying, it's got fantastic horror.
**Lee:** But because of the comedy, it kind of takes away from the horror and the gore to make it a lot more palatable for someone who isn't possibly quite so with the with the genre, really.
**Lee:** Well, I think I think it carries the balance much like American Werewolf, you know, in that it's of I mean American Werewolf, obviously, you know.
**Lee:** much different in terms of, you know, certainly budgetary and number of actors and number of locations and stuff like that.
**Lee:** But I think if you not only that, but also if you want to just give someone a cabin in the woods film, it's Evil Dead 2.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Before you go camping.
**Lee:** Always.
**Lee:** It's the one that show people just to give them another reason that camping is wank.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's why they call it wanking.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** for our next episode, which is gonna be out in the beginning of November.
**Lee:** We were discussing earlier, because I had fucked the dates up and thought it was gonna be our last episode before Halloween.
**Lee:** We're trying to find something truly Halloween.
**Lee:** And it's funny.
**Lee:** Because only.
**Lee:** This morning, I was like, I know we've got a list of stuff that we should have covered and we haven't.
**Lee:** But I was like, what is the film most of all that we should have covered but we yet haven't.
**Lee:** And then Adam, as soon as I said, right, we need to do something Halloween.
**Lee:** Adam immediately came back with, we haven't covered Poltergeist.
**Lee:** And I was like, that's the exact same film that entered my mind not an hour before that text message.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Clearly, we're both on the same page that.
**Lee:** We really need to cover that as a classic that a hundred and twenty odd episodes in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean,
**Lee:** there are a lot of classics that are classics, but you don't you don't need to add it to your repertoire necessarily.
**Lee:** I think they draw people in.
**Lee:** But you don't need.
**Lee:** to get to see it to get a subgenre perhaps, but this film, and Adam and I both said the same,
**Lee:** we both really appreciate it, neither of us have probably seen it in a decade.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, it definitely drew.
**Lee:** Well, yeah,
**Lee:** it just works.
**Lee:** On so many levels.
**Lee:** And this is a fantastic entry-level film, a lot of people have said.
**Lee:** So if you've got someone who wants to get into horror, who possibly wants like an easy in, like we were saying, it's got fantastic horror, but because of the comedy, it kind of takes away from the horror and the gore to make it a lot more palatable for someone who isn't possibly quite so with the with the genre, really.
**Lee:** Well, I think I think it carries the balance much like American Werewolf, you know, in that it's of I mean American Werewolf, obviously, you know.
**Lee:** much different in terms of, you know, certainly budgetary and number of actors and number of locations and stuff like that.
**Lee:** But I think if you not only that, but also if you want to just give someone a cabin in the woods film, it's Evil Dead 2.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Before you go camping.
**Lee:** Always.
**Lee:** It's the one.
**Lee:** to show people.
**Lee:** Just to give them another reason that camping is wank.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's why.
**Lee:** They call it wank.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So,
**Lee:** for our next episode, which is gonna be out in the beginning of November, we were discussing earlier.
**Lee:** because I had fucked the dates up and thought it was gonna be our last episode before Halloween, we're trying to find something truly Halloween.
**Lee:** And it's funny.
**Lee:** Because only this morning, I was like, I know we've got a list of stuff that we should have covered and we haven't.
**Lee:** But I was like, what is the film most of all that we should have covered but we yet haven't.
**Lee:** And then Adam said, as soon as I said, right, we need to do something Halloween, Adam immediately came back with, we haven't covered Poltergeist.
**Lee:** And I was like, that's the exact same film that entered my mind not an hour before that text message.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Clearly, we're both on the same page that we really need to cover that as a classic.
**Lee:** That a hundred and twenty odd episodes in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean,
**Lee:** there are a lot of classics that are classics.
**Lee:** But you don't need to add it to your repertoire necessarily.
**Lee:** I think they draw people in, but you don't need.
**Lee:** to get to see it to get a subgenre perhaps, but this film, and Adam and I both said the same,
**Lee:** we both really appreciate it, neither of us have probably seen it in a decade.
**Lee:** So, yeah, it definitely.
**Lee:** Has there been a poltergeist.
**Lee:** In any of the other films that we've seen?
**Lee:** Ghostwatch.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Which again, is much more of a spoof documentary or a all live footage, whereas this is serious, this one.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Well, yeah,
**Lee:** Ghostwatch was, don't you ghostwatch?
**Lee:** I watched that in the week as well, I didn't add it to the list because.
**Lee:** Good man.
**Lee:** I watch it all the fucking time.
**Lee:** also mentioned earlier.
**Lee:** Joe Watson was the name of the Poltergeist in the Enfield Haunting.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** That's true.
**Lee:** We're watching.
**Lee:** It's all come full circle.
**Lee:** Touchy noisy fall.
**Lee:** Adam's given me a funny look.
**Lee:** yeah,
**Lee:** you know,
**Lee:** you know, touchy, noisy, noisy is what Poltergeist do, not just, I'm not accusing him of being inappropriate.

---

## Ep 128 The Blair Witch Project

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-128-the-blair-witch-project/
Air date: 10 October 2021
Duration: 01:56:46
Film: The Blair Witch Project · Year: 1999 · Director: Daniel Myrick

### Description

In 2021, three podcasters went into a Zoom chat and were never seen again. The recordings of that meeting, believed lost, were recently recovered, and it became clear that they were talking about the 1999 phenomenon that was “The Blair Witch Project”. A film with more arguing than the last time we covered an Argento movie; featuring more snot than a classroom of toddlers in winter; and certainly the first film we’ve all seen shot on handheld cameras, featuring 1 girl and 2 guys alone in the woods, that was rated 15. Along the way we discuss “The Squid Game”, “Boys From County Hell”, “Foundation”, “The Green Knight”, “The Lords of Salem”, “Altered”, “The Last Witch Hunter” and “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY, AND THEN THE TAPES WERE DUG UP IN THE FOUNDATIONS OF AN OLD BURNT OUT BUILDING IN THE WOODS.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening, and welcome to a snotfield. Welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I am Mucus Loaded Lee.
**Chris:** I am Normally Loaded Chris.
**Adam:** And I am Bogiedacious Adam.
**Lee:** Um, we have had yet another, uh, cursed episode this evening.
**Lee:** Uh we were supposed to be joined by Manny, who unfortunately had a last-minute pressing engagement.
**Lee:** Um, I uh, friend of the show and previous guest Chris Jones was going to join in his stead, um, I was then super ill and had to cancel.
**Lee:** That was four days ago, and then this morning when I woke up to start recording, I was super ill again, so I had to tell Chris, probably best not to come and share a microphone. Um, and now Adam is ill on top of it, so it's a bit of a miracle that we're all here to be honest.
**Chris:** It's gonna go well.
**Adam:** Yeah, we'll just see how we go. I mean, will we make it to the end?
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** This is the problem with Robo tripping through an episode, I don't know what's going to be said and I'm still not editing it, so.
**Chris:** It's a bit meta, just like The Blair Witch.
**Lee:** Mmm.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Well, you know, a warning people, there will be spoilers on the main film, but not anything we cover in advance of that.
**Lee:** Uh, and we will probably swear a lot because we're all coughed syrup up.
**Lee:** Um, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, so, beware if you don't like swearing.
**Adam:** Hell yeah.
**Lee:** Now's the time to fuck off.
**Adam:** Rampant on a heady mixture of Tixylix and night time fucking paracetamol.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Um, so, yes, we will still be covering the 1999 Blair Witch Project.
**Lee:** Bit of a classic, I think.
**Lee:** Um, but before we get into that, let's keep it brief, but here we go.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been What have you got there, Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** I have been watching, um I've been watching something called Foundation.
**Chris:** Anyone heard of that?
**Adam:** Oh, cool, the, um, Asimov.
**Chris:** Yes, Isaac Asimov, yeah, adaptation.
**Chris:** Um, now, I really like it. It, it feels like to me a good, a good follow on from The Expanse, which I mentioned last episode.
**Chris:** So it's it's proper, proper epic scale sci-fi with, I would say, it's got some dark, you know, maybe horror-ish aspects on occasion. Um, but it it is is particularly for me an interesting idea.
**Chris:** I hadn't heard of before, um, not not real, I'll say.
**Chris:** But in it, a mathematician has created a field called psychohistory, which tries to use maths to foresee what's going to happen to a civilization.
**Chris:** And in this, he predicts that the civilization is not going to do very well very soon and of course that brings in concepts of, well, him saying it, does that influence it and what is going to influence it and is it true and you know, so that that's all quite interesting.
**Chris:** Um, and but particularly something that stood out to me is and obviously not giving away too much of the plot. I mean, that's that's pretty obvious part of the plot very quickly.
**Chris:** But in it, there's a essentially a superhuman level AI based robot.
**Chris:** So, you know, looks human but is very skilled, far more than than I am certainly.
**Chris:** And helps the emperor of the civilization to to run everything.
**Chris:** But the emperor is a clone of himself, so he's had several generations.
**Chris:** And the relationship that the robot has with him, we've sort of learned in in the most recent episode is quite complex.
**Chris:** Like you can't tell, you know, it suggests that she may love him and which one does she love, all of them equally.
**Chris:** And it's like it's quite a feels like a concept of our time as we every day seem to be hearing more and more about what what amazing things they I can do and we've still got a long way to go, but, you know, it is quite a an interesting philosophical point.
**Adam:** Yeah, a lot of a lot of a lot of sort of those Asimov concepts like like really good like a lot of really good science fiction, it's stuff that is now kind of...
**Chris:** We're on the cusp of it.
**Adam:** We're on the cusp of it.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I keep I keep trying to persuade them at work, uh, because I work for an IT company, and I keep trying to persuade them that they should look into the concept of, uh, becoming an AI psychologist.
**Adam:** In so much as AI are probably going to need therapy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Having to deal with us.
**Adam:** So, you know, you might actually need like a confessor.
**Adam:** All of you know.
**Chris:** I suppose it like in things like Star Wars, you know, that no no, so I had obviously I'd heard of Isaac Asimov but I'd never read the books.
**Chris:** I guess it was a sense of they're probably not going to hold up compared to modern sci-fi, so never rushed to read it.
**Adam:** I think no, Asimov's stuff still pretty it does certainly seem to.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, certainly, I mean, even like with, uh, the short story collection I, Robot, which is fuck all to do with the film.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** Yeah, well, that's I mean this a negative point on this is it has been adapted quite significantly.
**Chris:** So if you are a true fan of the books, you may uh, be a little put off by this, so yeah.
**Adam:** I think it makes sense but I mean, yeah, but I mean like I, Robot, I mean, in that.
**Adam:** Where it came up with the principles that are actually adhered to by gen robotics theorists and stuff like that, the, you know, cannot cannot harm someone.
**Adam:** Cannot do harm.
**Chris:** Is it three rules?
**Adam:** Yeah, it's the three rules of robotics, none of which I can quite.
**Chris:** No, I'm not.
**Adam:** Not on this much cold and flu.
**Adam:** Tesco's as well, you know.
**Adam:** So it's the argh shit.
**Chris:** But yeah, so that that's good.
**Chris:** A couple of other just quickly, um, watched the first episode of it's on Disney Plus, it's like Star Wars short stories made in the style of manga, anime.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, I haven't watched it, but I have seen the things for it.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, it's fantastic style.
**Chris:** I mean, I've not watched a lot of manga, um, but I think the first one is kind of a samurai type.
**Chris:** Which obviously fits with a Jedi, but yeah, you know, it you know, seems like an interesting idea, so I think we will sort of gradually work our way through them.
**Chris:** Um.
**Adam:** And it sort of reflects back because obviously like Rashomon, like the Japanese film that was such a.
**Chris:** Ah.
**Adam:** Influence on.
**Chris:** I think you mentioned that, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Such an influence on George Lucas doing Star Wars where it's like, and it is like, uh, like ancient Japan, samurai stuff.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Um.
**Adam:** But yeah, I've been meaning to check them out because they do look good.
**Adam:** I think the concept is basically that it's, you know, it's like an Elseworld sort of scenario, you know, like they do with comics, so it's just like an alternate thing where the Star Wars story plays out in feudal Japan.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I guess interesting, nice to be able to play with those sort of things.
**Chris:** If you're given given that sort of ability.
**Chris:** Um.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And and of course I also watched the um, the documentary recommended by you Adam for The Blair Witch, which I won't talk about until later.
**Chris:** There's a little teaser for everybody.
**Adam:** It is kind of the part of the movie I always think.
**Chris:** Yes, yeah, I will agree.
**Chris:** Certainly.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Well done, Chris.
**Lee:** Uh so Adam, what have you been storming your way through during your uh disease ridden few days?
**Adam:** Well, I mean, as as as the, uh, as the, the, well, up until recently, the nurse of the of the team here.
**Adam:** Um, I've I've surprisingly watched a lot, so I will buster rhyme my way through this.
**Adam:** So that we just get there.
**Adam:** Um, I'm going to go in, um, one that's actually weirdly relevant to The Blair Witch. I wanted to watch it and I found it cheap, uh, was a film called, um, Altered.
**Adam:** Which is, uh, an alien abduction movie, uh, directed by Eduardo Sanchez, who's one of the co-directors of The Blair Witch.
**Adam:** Um, and Mike from The Blair Witch is in it.
**Adam:** Uh and basically it's a it's it's a pretty good film.
**Adam:** I would love to hear, not for everyone cover it, definitely, because I think it's got enough good stuff as well as bizarre stuff or what the fuck stuff going on in it that they would make a good review or episode of it.
**Adam:** But basically, the premise is that it's a group of like Rednecks who've been abducted years ago, go out nightly trying to find an alien and then one night catch one.
**Adam:** And and it's like the fallout of that where they take it back to one of their houses and are like, well, we've got it now.
**Adam:** So, you know, we'll we'll give them what for.
**Adam:** Give them a probin.
**Adam:** And then it's like, but obviously, it's a fucking alien, so it can do things and, yeah, it's like got mind's got mind control and bizarre.
**Adam:** And it's it's one of those films that's weirdly, it does have it definitely, I think, veers into horror comedy.
**Adam:** In so much as it is it's that thing of you've got these four people who have really fucking bitten off more than they can chew.
**Adam:** But but that and gradually lose that confidence that they started with.
**Adam:** You know, from the from the thing of it, they're very gung-ho and then it's like, shit, this is playing out really fucking badly.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Um, but yeah, definitely, uh, definitely worth a watch.
**Adam:** It was more of a it was just something I'd always wanted to see and I thought while we're covering Blair Witch, I'll definitely check it out.
**Adam:** Um, the other thing that has turned up oddly on Amazon Prime, which I'm really sort of pleased about is I watched The Green Knight.
**Adam:** Which is the, uh, Gawain and the Green Knight adaption.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Really fucking good, really just beautiful, just a proper trip.
**Adam:** Um, and the thing I really like about it is it kind of it has There's definitely a thing going into it, be aware that they will have an expectation that you know the basics of Arthurian legend.
**Adam:** Because there's sort of bits in it which almost it feels like it's like Rogue One or like a Marvel movie but like the third one of a Marvel series or whatever like that.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** There's characters who are highlighted, who are obviously much more important than the main character, but they don't even get named.
**Adam:** But it's like, oh, that's clearly Merlin.
**Adam:** Or, you know, and so you've got Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot, but they're like barely involved, but basically the story of Gawain and the Green Knight is the a giant Green Knight turns up one day when they're having a party, says, uh, anyone who can anyone who wants to strike me with a blow, they can do so and if they defeat me, uh, I will leave and we will recommence this in a year's time and I will do the same move that you did to me.
**Adam:** So Gawain pops up, chops the thing's head off and then the body just gets back up, picks up the head and fucks off and says, see you in a year's time.
**Adam:** And, yeah, I mean, that's the basic of it, but that does not even approach how.
**Adam:** Fucking like astounding it looks and.
**Lee:** It does.
**Lee:** And it it almost overrides the fact that at the time I was like, just give him a nipple twist, like if all he's going to do is come back in a year's time and do to you what you did to him, just give him a very light slap on the face.
**Lee:** Like you don't need to cut his head off in one blow.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And ultimately, murder yourself.
**Lee:** But.
**Chris:** I imagine these knights have got a little bit of ego that, you know.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, that's the I mean that's the thing is it's kind of like it is a sort of tale of a a man reaching.
**Adam:** Because in the in the sort of accepted story of it, Gawain is already a knight, but in this, it's how he becomes a knight.
**Adam:** Is that he goes on this quest, so it's part of his sort of quest to become a noble person.
**Adam:** It's like, you did cut a bloke's head off who wasn't even fucking fighting mate, you know, that.
**Chris:** So it's not.
**Chris:** It's not to get a shrubbery then.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Not even two shrubberies but the part of it in the middle.
**Adam:** Um, that is but yeah, that is really highly recommended.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Adam:** Uh, what they called, um, A24 and so it's it's in that same sort of vein as stuff like.
**Chris:** Everything you could hope for.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's like The Witch or The Lighthouse, one of those things where it's just, you know, I would I think there's probably an argument to be made with a lot of those films of style over substance.
**Adam:** But the style is so much part of it that you're like, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, see, I generally have a problem with style over substance but I enjoyed every minute of that film and and yeah, and I and I recommend it to you guys because, yeah, I just thought it was so beautiful that.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just let it go, really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And and a great and a really good and moderate pretty small cast but a really fucking good one.
**Adam:** Like Dev Patel's brilliant.
**Adam:** And, um, also.
**Adam:** Um, and also, did you spot that is, um, Ralph Ineson was the knight, who is the dad from The Witch.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You know his voice as soon as you hear him.
**Adam:** You can hear it in his voice, yeah.
**Lee:** I kept waiting for him to say all to, but he didn't.
**Lee:** He decided.
**Adam:** Or to.
**Adam:** No, that's Sean, that's Mr. Bean, not not Mr. Bean, but.
**Adam:** But yeah, no, the uh, no, he's, uh, he's the Gaviscon ad.
**Adam:** Come on, lads, this la needs throat clearing.
**Adam:** Which sounds wrong.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** But there we go.
**Lee:** Not appropriate.
**Adam:** In a in a proper.
**Adam:** And finally, I have blasted through all nine episodes in three days of The Squid Game.
**Adam:** As recommended, as recommended by a friend of the show, Alex.
**Adam:** And former guest, Alex.
**Lee:** Hey, Alex.
**Adam:** Um.
**Adam:** Yeah, definitely.
**Adam:** All I will say is, I I think this is the the best recommendation I can make is watch it now because literally loads of people are talking about it, it will get more and more and you want to you want to experience it before you've ruined it by.
**Adam:** What does this mean that keeps appearing on it?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because there'll be one thing that comes out of it that someone will use and then it'll be like, oh, well, what what is that from?
**Adam:** Oh, from that Squid Game.
**Adam:** Oh, right, they've just explained a major plot point.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck it, I won't bother.
**Adam:** Do bother before that happens.
**Adam:** And certainly do and certainly do it before there's like a shitty Western remake because it's a a South Korean show.
**Adam:** And it's got that sort of thing where you're like, this is going to get remade, they're going to miss the fucking point spectacularly.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and it'll just be shite, so definitely, but yeah.
**Adam:** Watch the Squid Game, the premise is basically is that there's a group of people who owe lots of money.
**Adam:** And they end up involved in a sort of tournament of games.
**Adam:** Uh, all the games are ones from childhood.
**Adam:** Now, they're all sort of games that were played in South Korea, but there's stuff like Tug of War.
**Adam:** There's what they call Red Light, Green Light, which is what's the time Mr. Wolf or Grandma's footsteps.
**Adam:** Um, but yeah, basically so you compete in these sort of playground games, uh, but if you lose, you're dead.
**Adam:** There are armed guards who just blow your fucking brains out.
**Adam:** Um, and so you've got this, you've got this.
**Chris:** So is it is it a game show then?
**Chris:** Is it?
**Adam:** It's no, no, no, no, as as it goes on, it sort of becomes clear that it is an entertainment, but it's it's not like say Blade, not Blade Runner, Running Man.
**Chris:** Running Man.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's not TV, it's the year is 19 is 2007, reality shows are now murder.
**Adam:** You know, it's not sort of that sort of thing, it's basically, yeah, it it exists in the real world where basically, yeah, this is not right what's going on.
**Chris:** Okay, right.
**Adam:** Um.
**Adam:** And but basically, yeah, it fit the best way I can describe it is it's somewhere between The Prisoner and Battle Royale.
**Adam:** Where it's that sort of thing of a really fucking tense like the sort of an action sequences and sort of people getting like mowed down and sort of really sort of, you know, no no shitting about violence.
**Adam:** But for but within this world where you're all captive and you've all just been given numbers.
**Adam:** So, and basically, yeah, so as they go through, obviously, the numbers get whittled down.
**Adam:** People start playing strategies, but each game there's a turnaround in each game where basically it fucks with you.
**Adam:** So it'll be like, all right.
**Adam:** You've got a former team, but I don't know what sort of team I need.
**Adam:** Hm.
**Adam:** Do I need people who can do this or you know.
**Adam:** And so everyone starts sort of like double-thinking and re-thinking and betraying each other or helping each other.
**Adam:** And there's a real sort of lovely struggle in it of the very best and the very worst that people can be.
**Adam:** And, yeah, and it's just seriously, it's just so good and like I say, just blast through it.
**Adam:** And we we did it in the about three nights.
**Adam:** Started off I I was just watching it and then by the end of the first episode, Claire was watching it with me and that's how we've watched the rest of it.
**Adam:** And, um, yeah.
**Adam:** And but it's sort of, um, yeah, I think it's one of those things that just.
**Adam:** It will also probably end up getting parodied as soon as enough people have seen it, so it'll be one of those things where it's like a loads of fucking, it'll turn up in Rick and Morty or it'll turn up in The Simpsons or something like that.
**Adam:** And, yeah, um.
**Chris:** I saw that is is it the most watched ever?
**Adam:** It's I think it's certainly the most watched foreign language thing on Netflix and it's approaching being the the biggest thing that's seen on Netflix.
**Adam:** Um.
**Adam:** Also, I mean it it you do get a satisfying plot line with it, it doesn't leave huge amounts dangling or, you know, it doesn't end on a massive fucking cliffhanger or anything.
**Adam:** You get a resolution.
**Adam:** Um, which is good and also I understand that the guy who did it hasn't got.
**Adam:** A loads of people are talking about the second series, I don't think he is has anything, any ideas in that direction.
**Adam:** And to tell you the truth, I think it is one of those things that would be, if it if they leave it as it stands now, it's fucking great.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** All they can probably do is just not do as well because it's that fucking good.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** Hardly recommend.
**Lee:** I should put that on my watch list.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** Um, right, so I also have watched a shit ton of stuff, so I'll try and keep it nice and brief.
**Lee:** Um, so, uh, Shudder original, I believe it is.
**Lee:** Um, Boys from County Hell.
**Lee:** Have you heard of this, Adam?
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's on Shudder, it's absolutely amazing.
**Lee:** So it's a small town in, uh, Ireland, uh and it's got a a mound of rocks in it.
**Lee:** And the the ancient story is that there's a vampire buried underneath this mound of rocks.
**Lee:** But there's a new bypass going in, which has got to go through it.
**Lee:** So they get a load of the guys from the town who are road builders to basically excavate to get ready for the the new road to go in, uh, and they have to take down this mound of rocks and, yeah, vampires come.
**Adam:** Oh, wow.
**Lee:** And it is absolutely hilarious.
**Lee:** It's so, so good.
**Lee:** It was one of those, it turned up and I was like, Shudder original, I'll I'll give it a go because some of their stuff's, you know, pretty solid.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, and was just absolutely blown away by it.
**Lee:** It was so good.
**Lee:** So good, that's definitely one for a rewatch for me, I think, possibly in the next six months, so check that out if you get the opportunity.
**Lee:** Um, I had a fantastic, I had one of those moments, I was going through DVDs on my shelves.
**Chris:** That's quite a lot.
**Lee:** There there is an awful lot there.
**Lee:** Um, and I found one that was still in the cellophane and it was 1969's, uh, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, The Hammer Film.
**Adam:** Hey.
**Lee:** Um.
**Chris:** Where where does that fit in the kind of, is that towards the end?
**Adam:** It's the fifth, fourth or fifth film in the Frankenstein series, I think.
**Lee:** Um, but it was still in the cellophane, I've never watched it, I I bought it so long ago, it was three quid from HMV on DVD, which goes to show you how long ago I bought it.
**Lee:** Um, and I thought, oh, it must be one I've seen, but I'm just in the mood for something in that horror vein, that Hammer horror vein.
**Lee:** I'll chuck it on.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it turned out I'd never seen it.
**Lee:** So I was absolutely beside myself with excitement.
**Lee:** Yeah, really good film.
**Lee:** So I I hardly uh recommend that.
**Lee:** Um, I then watched Something Wicked This Way Comes, the Ray Bradbury adaptation.
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Lee:** Uh, yeah, it that was on our Halloween horror watch list.
**Lee:** Jennifer put it on there.
**Lee:** Yeah, a fantastic call.
**Lee:** Um, Jonathan Pearce is in it, just been Jonathan Price, sorry, just been amazing as he always is.
**Adam:** Oh, he is, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** He's such an underrated actor that guy, he's so good.
**Lee:** Um, he always plays a sinister part.
**Adam:** He was in a sitcom he did with Mark Gates.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** He did a sitcom called Clone and he was the inventor of a clone.
**Adam:** Um, and it was one of those things where it was it was a BBC One 8:00 sitcom, so you get the sort of fact that it's not brilliant.
**Adam:** But weirdly enough, Jonathan Price is fucking amazing in it.
**Adam:** It is a bit sort of it's one of those ones where it sort of veers into Frank Spencer.
**Adam:** Oh, what are you doing, please, just leave the shops on time.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But Jonathan Price in it and Mark Gates is really good because he's like the military liaison for this scientist and he's just he just comes in and is just a bit sinister about the whole affair.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** I'll definitely be checking that out.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, Something Wicked This Way Comes was one I'd never seen until about, maybe five or six years ago when I came across it by accident.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, it was totally blown away and loved it as much the second time around.
**Lee:** Um, Lords of Salem, we rewatched as part of our Halloween watch list.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, I still love that film.
**Lee:** It's it's one of those.
**Chris:** Is that is that a Rob Zombie film?
**Lee:** It is a Rob Zombie film.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Lee:** It's one, I've seen about four or five times, but for some reason, I always watch it and then a week later, if you ask me anything about it, I can remember two, maybe three scenes.
**Lee:** It's just something, I think because it's such a a slow burn film.
**Lee:** You kind of forget a lot of what goes on.
**Lee:** So it's a fantastic rewatch film because every time you go, I'd forgotten how weird this is, I I can see why it didn't work for a lot of people, but I think it's truly brilliant.
**Adam:** I think I think that's that was when he was sort of trying things out, really.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Adam:** And that was like his more sort of European, Italian sort of style horror.
**Adam:** Like sort of Mario Bava sort of thing.
**Lee:** Oh, totally.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Rather than like a gore fest or sort of like, you know.
**Lee:** Just another slasher type.
**Adam:** Killer on the run sort of stuff.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So was that before or after House of 1000 Corpses?
**Lee:** Oh, after House of 1000 Corpses.
**Lee:** That was his first film.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** And then I think he did, uh, Halloween, then he did.
**Lee:** This.
**Lee:** Or did he, or did he do.
**Adam:** No, he did Yeah, I think it might even be Devil rejects Devil's rejects before Halloween, I'm not sure.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** But yeah, they definitely, yeah, so it's house first.
**Adam:** And then it's sort of Halloween and Devil's rejects probably which whichever way around not long after each other.
**Lee:** I was going to say, they were very close together.
**Adam:** Yeah, and then he disappeared for a bit and then he did this and then he did Halloween Two.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** And.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** And rightly so, oh, it's an absolute piece of shit.
**Lee:** Um, a bit like the next film that I watched.
**Lee:** Uh, I then watched The Last Witch Hunter with Vin Diesel again.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Just because I couldn't believe how bad it was the first time.
**Lee:** It's.
**Chris:** It's still that bad.
**Lee:** It is, and to be fair, it's not an awful film.
**Lee:** But I went in expecting a horror and like you said, Chris, because I recently listened back to our Room 101 episode.
**Lee:** I never listened back to our episodes, but it just rolled over on SoundCloud.
**Lee:** So let it go.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, and it's the same thing, which I'm sure is how everybody listens to our.
**Chris:** Nobody listens to our episodes.
**Adam:** Couldn't get to the phone in time.
**Lee:** Um, but yeah, it's got that same, it's an action film with witches, ultimately.
**Lee:** Uh, so it's it's a good action film, it's it's Vin Diesel, really.
**Lee:** But instead of in a car, he's, uh, but actually he does, he does drive an Aston Martin in it.
**Lee:** So he is still kind of Vin Diesel.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** I should mind you, I suppose, last of the Witch Hunters, because I was going Witch Hunter.
**Adam:** It's got to be I was expecting to be dressed up like Black Adder the Second, you know.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No, so, um, so apparently this is based on a Dungeons and Dragons game.
**Lee:** Because he's a.
**Lee:** He's a massive D&D player.
**Lee:** Like I've heard I've heard it the first time and I was like, that's dog shit.
**Lee:** But I've heard it so many times now that Vin Diesel is massively into D&D that it must be true.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And apparently this is based on a quest or something that he did at some point.
**Lee:** Um, yeah.
**Lee:** And it it I mean it's it's passable, it's entertaining.
**Lee:** It's got one of the girls from Game of Thrones in it, you know the redheaded girl from the wildlings.
**Lee:** She's.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** She's the kind of second fiddle love interest in it.
**Adam:** Ygritte.
**Lee:** Ygritte, yes.
**Adam:** Rose Leslie, yeah.
**Lee:** She's outstanding in it.
**Lee:** Um, so, yeah, I mean, if you're in the mood for an action film rather than a horror film, it's it'll pass the time.
**Lee:** And the last thing I watched, which will be very quick to cover.
**Lee:** Because I covered it, I I watched it on the Saturday when we were going to podcast and I was too ill, so it got postponed, um, so I remember nothing about it, but I've just got my notes here, so I watched the Star Wars Lego Terrifying Tales.
**Lee:** And I've got written down, The Lost Boys, Halloween.
**Lee:** Fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** I don't remember watching it, but I did watch it and those are the notes I made, so yeah, so go and watch it because apparently I thought it was really good.
**Adam:** Well, and as we say, we'll we'll be looking to get Mos Eisley out on that as well.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'd love to hear you guys cover that.
**Adam:** We need.
**Adam:** Well, we need a Halloween episode.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** Mos Eisley Halloween episode, we see with that or it's just going through old photos of when Chris went as the Emperor in one of your parties.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I.
**Lee:** Oh God, yeah, I remember that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That was.
**Lee:** I remember the party, I remember seeing pictures of that.
**Adam:** That's why you take so many photos at your parties.
**Adam:** Literally the only memories you have.
**Lee:** Yeah, most of the time, unfortunately, so.
**Lee:** I The thing is, when you when you have a party and you say, right, everyone around at 7:00, you have to start getting ready for that party at like midday, and you have to start getting in the party mood at midday, which means you have to start drinking at midday, so by the time everyone turns up at 7:00, I'm generally arsehole.
**Lee:** So, I'm yeah.
**Lee:** Again, I don't have a problem, I'm just very, very social.
**Adam:** You're you're marry.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** It's a party.
**Lee:** You're allowed.
**Lee:** It's when you do it on a weekday and you're supposed to be going to work, that's when there's.
**Chris:** That's when you have a party every day.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Um, it's it's when you take it's when you take your party in a hidden bottle into the toilet at work.
**Chris:** It's when you don't worry about going to the toilets.
**Adam:** Chris.
**Adam:** pissed himself again.
**Lee:** Right, before I get myself into a sticky situation, let's move on to this evening's main event.
**Lee:** So, 1999's The Blair Witch Project.
**Lee:** I assume that this is something you saw previously, Chris.
**Chris:** It is, yes.
**Chris:** Although, I've got an interesting story about that.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Go on.
**Lee:** I'll let you lead us off there.
**Chris:** It may be that I jump around a bit because this this was somewhat what I was expecting and somewhat not, right.
**Chris:** So I watched it at the cinema, I remember all of the excitement around it.
**Chris:** All of the I'd say hype, definitely.
**Lee:** Massive.
**Chris:** I didn't, yeah, I don't think I'd seen a found footage before that.
**Chris:** I may point some out.
**Lee:** You wouldn't have been.
**Chris:** Right, okay, now I didn't know if it was like the first one or the first one that was big enough for everyone to talk about.
**Chris:** I mean it's possible there were some before that just no one ever heard about.
**Chris:** I don't know.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** There are there were some before, but this basically is what makes it, is what makes it.
**Chris:** Is it only cinema release or major release?
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, that's just it was stuff it was stuff like, uh, The Last Broadcast.
**Lee:** I seem to remember you lending me, Adam.
**Lee:** Which was like a TV.
**Lee:** Thing very similar.
**Adam:** Ah.
**Chris:** Oh, who? At one point were.
**Adam:** Yeah, who at one point were looking to sue The Blair Witch.
**Adam:** Because they felt there was.
**Chris:** Right.
**Adam:** A correlation there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Um.
**Adam:** And, uh, Cannibal Holocaust.
**Adam:** He's a found footage film.
**Chris:** Not not heard of that.
**Adam:** Oh, right.
**Lee:** Don't watch that.
**Adam:** There's a classic the classic 70s, uh, Cannibal film.
**Adam:** But yeah, that that's found footage.
**Adam:** And it's sort of and that's done in an interesting way where it's like the person presents their footage and then they find the bits he cut out.
**Adam:** Mmm.
**Adam:** And it's like, all right, so that just changes everything we've seen.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's it's you know.
**Chris:** That's potentially interesting idea.
**Adam:** I mean, it's I mean, it's a smart thing.
**Adam:** And but I mean it is a fucking grueling watch, but it's, yeah.
**Adam:** Uh, but I think that, um, so but yeah, definitely Blair Witch is what launches it as what I would call a horror genre.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** Yeah, because it's always used for all kind of thing.
**Lee:** But.
**Chris:** Yeah, but that's now that's now that's interesting.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** Right, so yeah.
**Chris:** So I remember watching it, but I definitely struggled with the idea of watching something that is meant to be kind of real.
**Chris:** In a cinema with lots of people.
**Chris:** Like so for some films that doesn't seem to matter.
**Chris:** For this one, it just really I struggled to get past that. Now, I definitely remember enjoying the film.
**Chris:** Um, just it just didn't seem to to uh, you know.
**Chris:** Combine properly there, right.
**Chris:** But what I thought was at the end, it became crazy, right?
**Chris:** So I sort of remembered the witch being there and lots of blood all up the walls and gore and she saw someone half.
**Chris:** Uh, you know.
**Chris:** You know, in a serious mess and then turn around and it all went to chaos.
**Chris:** And of course, watching it this time, it it doesn't happen.
**Chris:** So I was like, where have I got this from?
**Chris:** And I must I sort of remembered it as being, yeah, a good film. I wouldn't have rushed back to watch it.
**Chris:** Um, but what I did think it was, I still did actually enjoy watching it.
**Chris:** So like I kind of I I there was one other thing, right.
**Chris:** So I was thinking, is this just a cheap a way to make a cheap easy to make film and make a lot of money from it?
**Lee:** I think it became.
**Chris:** Okay, yeah.
**Chris:** Well, I so so I was like, well, how much work has actually gone into it compared to another film that doesn't follow us.
**Chris:** So, yeah, I cannot actually tell.
**Chris:** You know.
**Chris:** But overall, I remember thinking, yeah, this is good.
**Chris:** I like it.
**Chris:** It didn't it definitely didn't feel like horror, it was almost more mystery to me.
**Lee:** Yeah, I know you mean.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And but in my head, I remember it's been I'm watching it again. Again, it's not it's not.
**Chris:** Uh, yeah, I guess it's it's psychological thriller, I would have said.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** More because again, it's so much about and really it's really fascinating, right?
**Chris:** So imagine you actually did what they did and you were there and they didn't fully trust each other.
**Chris:** It's like they didn't really know each other that well.
**Chris:** And they all had slightly different agendas and that sort of came out.
**Chris:** You know, as it progresses, where they're accusing each other of the different failings.
**Chris:** So she's like they're saying you're just obsessed with the documentary.
**Chris:** The other guy was, yeah, sure I'll film it, but, you know, I'm I'm half pretending I'm really good at this.
**Chris:** And basically, I've not even looked at the the lens to know what numbers are on it and, you know, it's like.
**Chris:** And the other guy was just moaning quite a lot for a lot of it.
**Chris:** But.
**Chris:** But yeah, and then and and so as things start to go wrong.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was too much.
**Chris:** As things start to go wrong, you're like.
**Chris:** Yeah, well you you, you know, how do you stay calm in that situation?
**Chris:** And when you start to think like, oh, is something happening, you know, and like and now are they are they on my side or not?
**Chris:** And then of course, when you find out the guy's kicked the map into the creek.
**Chris:** And it it does it does, you know, escalate well at that point because how would you react?
**Chris:** And they're just trying to rationalize it.
**Chris:** She's saying like, oh, we're in America.
**Chris:** You know, the, um, the we've cut down most of the forest. I think you probably you could still get lost for a while. But, you know, it's like, yeah, just all that all those thoughts that you you would be going through and, yeah, and just trying to think, oh, we're going to get out of this.
**Chris:** Like, how bad is this, you know, it's like.
**Chris:** That's that's fascinating.
**Adam:** Well, because I I mean actually, I mean, certainly, to that point, I can't remember what they call the Missing 411 or the Missing 431, which is yeah, something like that, isn't it?
**Adam:** And it's basically it's the number of people who've gone missing in national parks since they started taking records, which was like the 70s.
**Adam:** All right.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it's very possible to get lost.
**Adam:** And and rather rather unfortunately, it's one of those things where it's like real life real life disappearances that have unfortunately been co-opted into there's a lot of people who it's like.
**Adam:** I would let's let's put it this way, I would love Bigfoot to be real. So far, not looking likely.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And if I had someone in my family go missing, I think I would be extremely annoyed by some fat dumpy prick in a baseball cap going on about, yeah, it was definitely a Bigfoot came and took them.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** So, you know, from that point, but but yeah.
**Adam:** And I I think but people were still on compuserve, people were still on dial up.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's 1999.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, yeah, compuserve, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, so you.
**Chris:** Yeah, compuserve, yeah, that could be 96.
**Chris:** I was thinking of Google, but yeah, yeah, something like that.
**Adam:** And I think that's thing, so you know, and I think that people were still on compuserve, people were still on dial up. You know, it's 1999, so you.
**Adam:** And I think that's thing, so you know, and I think that people were still on compuserve, people were still on dial up.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's 1999, so you do.
**Lee:** I seem to remember, I did buy it. I think it is on the shelf. I think I put it in one night and got about half an hour into it and was like, yeah, this is just too.
**Lee:** It was too cringey and it was too, I can't quite remember what it was, yeah, like it was it it had too much Hollywood in it almost.
**Lee:** So it was like the guy who was taking them into the woods.
**Lee:** It was like, oh, yeah, I'll take you to where it all happened.
**Lee:** Yeah, and within about 10 minutes or so, it was like, all right, so he's clearly a massive racist and he's a total dickhead.
**Lee:** And like it it just had too much of that, kind of, the thing that worked with The Blair Witch was the fact that they were all.
**Lee:** They didn't quite know each other and they were trying hard and they were all in a horrible situation, whereas this was immediately like, right, there's one person who's a prick and he's going to fuck them all over.
**Lee:** And yeah, and within about 25 minutes, I was like, yeah, I I don't think this is going to work at all in the same way.
**Adam:** I would hate.
**Adam:** I would I would actually have to say I think what's seems to be and like I say, this is reading reviews.
**Adam:** I've not seen it, I I think I put it on for about five minutes one night and then I was like, or I could watch that.
**Adam:** And that's as far as I got, so, you know, I'm I'm not even saying that that remotely gives me a chance of having judged the film, but I just know I don't think this is going to work out. I mean this this feels like it's got four on IMDb out of ten. I I'm going to set my but again, I remember it not being great, so I'm going to go in with low expectations and uh, we'll see how it goes. I mean, it's just it's just it's not That's the thing, it's not The Blair Witch film in the sense of if you like The Blair Witch Project, it's not.
**Adam:** As a horror fan, you can watch you can watch you it works.
**Adam:** Because it's just like, oh, this is just like something that came out like I don't know, Urban Legend or something like that.
**Adam:** You know what I mean, like just one of those sort of mid-range.
**Adam:** Possible, enjoyable.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** And then in 2006.
**Adam:** They did The Blair Witch but they've tried to do found footage.
**Adam:** But obviously, like we said, with proper cameras being made to seem degraded and with a CGI witch and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Now, I can't speak to it because I have not seen it, but I have heard.
**Adam:** Nothing but bad things, shall we say.
**Adam:** I think because I think they've again, weirdly enough, although everyone hated Book of Shadows.
**Adam:** The one thing clever thing that Book of Shadows didn't do was try to do the same film.
**Adam:** Whereas I think this tries to do the same film.
**Adam:** And again, it's like we've discussed.
**Adam:** We don't live in 1999 anymore.
**Adam:** You can't make the same film and get the same reaction.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I mean, the one clever thing that I liked about it is that I know that up until that it was just being made as a film called The Woods.
**Adam:** And then they announced it at Comic-Con that actually, oh, by the way, it's The Blair Witch film.
**Adam:** And everyone lost their shit for about a day and a half.
**Adam:** Um, so, yeah, I quite like that because and that was again, that was just a media.
**Adam:** They they made that decision because it was like, all right, as soon as you announce you're doing this, everyone's just going to say it's shit and they shouldn't have done number two.
**Adam:** And they shouldn't have done it because apparently that's the thing, it ignores number two completely.
**Adam:** That's not mentioned or anything else like that.
**Adam:** But apparently that's the thing, it ignores number two completely.
**Adam:** That's not mentioned or anything else like that.
**Adam:** But I think the main character is meant to be Heather's little brother who's going looking for her.
**Adam:** And there's a will they won't they relationship with the thing.
**Adam:** Which basically all the stuff that they decided not to do with Blair Witch Project.
**Adam:** Was like that's probably just going to get shit.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And you know, but it's it's like.

---

## Ep 127 Ghost stories

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-127-ghost-stories/
Air date: 26 September 2021
Duration: 01:31:19
Film: Ghost Stories · Year: 2017 · Director: Andy Nyman

### Description

We hide our guilt, chill our bones and look for the tenth number as we watch “Ghost Storeis” by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson, adapted from their smash hit stage play. A film in which Daddy’s got Meow Meow; we all get to play Finger-Mouth with the dead; and Martin Freeman makes Adam look a right prat. Along the way we discuss the original stage version, Charlie Brooker’s “Dead Set”; the SNL Vincent Price specials; and the script of unmade horror film “The Otherwise”, by Mark E. Smith and Graham Duff. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Hora. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Yay!
**Lee:** And we're here this evening at the behest of our friend and listener Joe, who has Joe, Joseph Watson, to use his full name because I've never actually spoken to him, so I probably shouldn't show his name, he might not like it.
**Lee:** who who came up with a fantastic idea last week and messaged Adam and said, have you guys covered ghost stories from 2017? If you haven't, it might be one to cover.
**Lee:** and we all went, oh shit, yeah, we've we all watched that and loved it and missed, oh,
**Lee:** and I forgot to say spoilers and swearing.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah. We want to start, you know, reintegrating that into the beginning of the show to give people a heads up because we've not done for the last couple of years.
**Chris:** Here's here's a spoiler.
**Chris:** Joseph Watson may or may not have gone very high up or very low down in my estimation of him.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** I'm not I'm not going to give it away.
**Adam:** That's not a spoiler.
**Chris:** You got.
**Adam:** That's intrigue.
**Chris:** There's there's a bit of intrigue for you.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Intriguing cable.
**Adam:** You're a tease, Chris.
**Adam:** That's what it is.
**Chris:** no.
**Lee:** I know.
**Lee:** but before we get to the bottom of that and find out how Chris felt about this film.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Lee:** I know.
**Lee:** Oh, my word.
**Chris:** It's going well.
**Lee:** I know.
**Lee:** Right, so, before we get into that though, we're going to discuss what we've been watching.
**Lee:** So, over to you Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** Well, I have been listening to
**Lee:** Oh.
**Chris:** listening to the Vampire Lestat audiobook.
**Chris:** Which I know I know it's not Adam's favorite.
**Chris:** That was, you know, he lost a bit of the the Anne Rice happiness during that book.
**Adam:** That's put him off the boil, I'll be honest.
**Chris:** Overboiled.
**Chris:** But no, I've been enjoying it. I do actually really like the way she writes and the way she describes things and I still love the philosophy and the time and
**Chris:** Lestat is is both likable and detestable.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's that's the point of the character really.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** But but I'll tell you what though, listening to it at night when you're half falling asleep, there is some weird stuff going on.
**Chris:** I was having some strange dreams about Vampire Lestat and his adventures in in the rock world.
**Chris:** But I I got to say, I've I've actually been enjoying it, so I'm going to continue listening to these.
**Adam:** Excellent.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Interview is the only sort of short book, the rest of them proper door stops.
**Chris:** They do step up a bit, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But yeah, I'm hoping I don't know if I will get but at the moment I'm positive.
**Chris:** I'm definitely going to continue them.
**Chris:** So, yeah, I've been I've actually really enjoyed going back to that because I did like them when I was younger.
**Chris:** and it's been long enough that I've forgotten the details.
**Chris:** Let's say, but I did, I loved watching the interview.
**Chris:** And yeah, that's the sort of thing that works for me.
**Lee:** Fantastic. Excellent.
**Lee:** Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** I've, well, I've watched a documentary Sons of Sam on Netflix, which was a true crime documentary.
**Adam:** But the reason I mention it is it did make me listen to Hulver.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Because the the bloke who did the music clearly has as well.
**Adam:** and but yeah, that was interesting, but it's the conspiracy that I know is hogwash.
**Adam:** But it's quite interesting in that sense.
**Adam:** also Greg Davis has got a new dark comedy on.
**Adam:** And it feels a bit inside number nine, the way it's done.
**Adam:** He's basically it's called it's called.
**Chris:** Is it the cleaner?
**Chris:** Yes, funnily enough, we watched the first episode.
**Adam:** Yes, with Elena Carter.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I didn't think of it exactly as horror, but yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** It does have a dark enough element, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, basically Greg Davis is a crime scene cleaner, so he goes and mops up like murder scenes and dead bodies, basically.
**Adam:** but each week he encounters someone different.
**Adam:** So the first week it's Helen Bonham Carter, who is actually the woman who stabbed her husband 35 times.
**Adam:** And Greg.
**Chris:** She's showed me next to it.
**Adam:** Yeah, showed me to about seven, you do it, everything else just show me next to it.
**Adam:** And then the second episode was David Mitchell as a writer who's Nan exploded.
**Adam:** So, but yeah, they're sort of.
**Adam:** They're they're that sort of, I don't know if you're not been gentler end of Black Comedy, I suppose.
**Adam:** But it's sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** but I'm definitely going to be sticking with that.
**Adam:** let you know how that goes.
**Adam:** And I've read the otherwise, which is the script of a film written by Marky Smith from the fall and Graham Duff, who wrote Doctor Terrible's House of Horrible and Nebulous and Ideal and loads of stuff.
**Adam:** And it's basically they were in the process, well, they'd written this sort of weird horror script, and were sort of looking to get it funded, but then Marky Smith died.
**Adam:** So, and the fall were are actually in the story.
**Adam:** So and yeah, it's all set round a lonely recording studio and there's satanic bikers, but it's all like sort of just a very sort of Lancastrian or Yorkshire sort of psycho mania almost.
**Adam:** But yeah, and it's very, very strange, very interesting read.
**Adam:** And it's also one of those ones where it's like, I'd really love to see this, but I can't see anyone actually funding it.
**Adam:** Unless there's a really big full fan out there.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I reckon they could have done it crowdsourcing, like you know, like online, so on.
**Adam:** But yeah, so that is and that's my that's all the weather.
**Lee:** Excellent, fantastic.
**Lee:** so I have started my run up to Halloween viewing.
**Lee:** so I've been watching an awful lot, but the things I did want to mention,
**Lee:** one, you can go onto YouTube and watch all of these.
**Lee:** So it's the Saturday Night Live Vincent Price Halloween specials.
**Lee:** Oh, wow.
**Chris:** Sounds interesting.
**Lee:** They are fantastic, so it's Bill Hader, playing Vincent Price, and every year they do one and he has different guests.
**Lee:** again, they're set in the 60s in theory, so they're kind of famous people of the time.
**Lee:** so Kennedy turns up in one and stuff.
**Lee:** but yeah, Kirsten Wig is always with him playing a different person each time and she just
**Lee:** I still think she's one of the funniest actors on TV at the moment, she just absolutely makes me cry.
**Lee:** so yeah, so go and check those out, they've got a Thanksgiving one as well and a Christmas one.
**Lee:** So yeah, I like I spent a good hour and a half and then that just led me into going and watching loads of old SNL stuff.
**Lee:** yeah, so that's a great afternoon, so I'd definitely recommend that.
**Lee:** and in prep, well, not in prep, actually, because last night we watched ghost stories.
**Lee:** And then today Jennifer said, we've not watched Dead Set, I don't think, since it aired.
**Lee:** which again was Andy Nyman, was in there.
**Lee:** So we watched all of that this afternoon in one sitting and,
**Chris:** Was it Charlie Brooker as well?
**Lee:** It was Charlie Brooker wrote it, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I remember you mentioning about this.
**Lee:** It's amazing.
**Lee:** It's on it's on Netflix.
**Lee:** You can all go and watch it.
**Lee:** The whole thing.
**Chris:** So is it a dark dark comedy?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** So it's basically it's a zombie outbreak takes place, and there are a group in the Big Brother house, so they don't know what's going on outside.
**Lee:** And the main character is a runner on the show.
**Lee:** So it's her trying to find the best place to hide and trying to find somewhere secure and her boyfriend is halfway up the country and he's trying to get back to her because he's been carjacked.
**Lee:** By people trying to escape the zombie infestation and it's oh, it's just fantastic.
**Lee:** Like Kevin Eldon's in it and Davina McColl is in it who
**Lee:** I've only ever seen being a presenter, but she genuinely is fantastic.
**Lee:** It especially as a zombie, she's such a good zombie.
**Lee:** so yeah, so go and check that out, it's on Netflix, it's like two hours and 20 minutes for the whole thing.
**Lee:** And yeah, it's just brilliant.
**Lee:** And it's aged 2008, I you know, I was thinking, oh, it must have been 2015 or 16 because it still feels really relevant and really modern.
**Lee:** But yeah, 13 years old and it still looks absolutely incredible.
**Lee:** So yeah, check out.
**Adam:** I I suppose it's quite helpful that Big Brother hasn't fundamentally hasn't changed.
**Adam:** And it's always like that sort of artificial environment.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So it's so you spend most of your time in an area that,
**Adam:** I mean, I've no idea if Big Brother is still running.
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Adam:** But, you know, it never really altered the format, would it be like, right, you lot are the servants and you lot are the nuls.
**Adam:** And that will cause you lot to have a row, wouldn't it? And we can film it.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Lee:** Which is why it was it which is why it worked great to have a zombie outbreak.
**Lee:** Because those zombie films, as we've said before, are always based more on the people than the zombies.
**Lee:** And of course, they always get people like Adam, I don't watch Big Brother either, but I'm always aware of it.
**Lee:** And they seemed after the first couple to always pick people who were going to hate one another.
**Adam:** Oh, definitely.
**Chris:** You got to you got to have the drama, yeah.
**Lee:** So putting them in a genuine seriously dangerous situation where it's life or death and they've all got very different views just worked phenomenally, really.
**Adam:** Yeah, because I I did watch the first series of it.
**Adam:** because it was just like, it's a telly event, so I'm going to watch that.
**Adam:** And that was basically, yeah, it was just we've got genuinely ordinary people in.
**Adam:** Second series, kind of the same, but you found a few more people annoying.
**Adam:** And then by the third series, it was people who realized it was a springboard to a career.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So you had annoying people of that level, plus the the program makers had like you say to that point where it's like,
**Adam:** Right, let's make sure that these people, you know, let's get two people in who are definitely going to have a fucking route.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** I mean, some sometimes it backfired, I remember they did Celebrity Big Brother and they had two of Jordan's exes in there.
**Adam:** And everyone was like, oh, that's going to kick off, that's going to do that.
**Adam:** And it's like, are you telling me they are going to be anything other than quite laid back.
**Adam:** If they are exes of Jordan, you know that they're going to be quite easy going.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, Riz Ahmed, we discussed from when he was on Rogue One previously.
**Lee:** I forgot that he was in this because it was before he was famous, so I'd never put two and two together, really.
**Lee:** he's fantastic in it.
**Lee:** But Andy Nyman just steals the show as.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** An absolute at times, he's the biggest prick ever and then at other times, I'm like, yeah, I kind of do what he's doing, I think, really.
**Lee:** Like he's a bit slimey.
**Lee:** But ultimately,
**Lee:** he's very, yeah, they might have been bit and I don't know, so I'm just going to lock this door and just leave him all to it.
**Adam:** I won't spoil it for anyone.
**Adam:** But the but I will say the sequence with the bin.
**Adam:** Yeah, because Andy Andy Nyman and one of the losers from the Big Brother, like someone who's been evicted already on the Big Brother that is in the fictitious world.
**Adam:** are stuck like stuck in the green room, aren't they?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** with rabbit Divina McColl outside smashing on the door.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's just.
**Adam:** Yeah, just some of the funniest fucking stuff I've seen.
**Lee:** It feels very much like Andy Nyman was kind of,
**Lee:** It's one of those things where you feel like they pointed a camera at him.
**Lee:** And gave him a corpse and then said, right, here you go, 20 minutes just just riff on it.
**Lee:** Because so much of it felt kind of like it was in the moment.
**Lee:** yeah, and a few of his other scenes as well, which again, I don't want to give anything away, give any spoilers because it's well worth watching.
**Lee:** But yeah, it feels very much like like he'd kind of written those lines, maybe.
**Lee:** I don't know the details.
**Lee:** But yeah, really, really good.
**Lee:** So I'm I'm glad Jennifer suddenly said, that's something we could probably chuck on as we've got nothing on this afternoon.
**Lee:** That was a very good call.
**Lee:** so that's it for what I've seen.
**Lee:** Tomorrow,
**Lee:** just to give me a quick shout out, again, the White Bus company, who do horror on C, have been doing a film festival this weekend in Southend.
**Lee:** a lot of classic films, there wasn't anything that really grabbed my attention.
**Lee:** And we were busy this morning, we had a historical walk and stuff.
**Lee:** but tomorrow they are showing Parasite at the park in, which I've still never seen.
**Lee:** So, I will be going tomorrow to a screening by the White White Bus Company to watch that.
**Lee:** Oh, cool.
**Chris:** Cool.
**Lee:** So, yeah, very excited.
**Lee:** I don't know how it was one of those films, everyone was screaming about it and I kept meaning to watch it, and then I think because everybody watched it in a very short period of time because of lockdown.
**Lee:** It then got forgotten very quickly and I was like, oh yeah, haven't seen that yet.
**Lee:** And everyone loved it.
**Lee:** So I shall report back on that next week.
**Adam:** I did I did see also the guy who directed Host.
**Adam:** his name escapes me for the minute.
**Adam:** has his new film is being released.
**Adam:** which is apparently all on a dash cam.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Interesting.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, that's that's literally all I've heard about it.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Chris:** Rob Savage.
**Adam:** That's it.
**Adam:** Rob Savage, yeah.
**Lee:** Now that may or may not play into what we are covering on next week's episode.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Maybe.
**Lee:** I'll tell you at the end.
**Adam:** Everyone's a tease tonight.
**Chris:** They are.
**Lee:** Are you talking about my low cut top?
**Lee:** Oh, no, sorry, you were talking about teas, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, sorry, yeah.
**Lee:** I'm on a different wavelength.
**Adam:** I think I think I think it just counts as a jacket when it's low cut to the naval, Lee.
**Lee:** yes, so, but before we get into this evening's main event, we did have a fantastic bit of correspondence from previous guest Dahney, he's he's listening to our episodes while he's jogging, so he's been catching up recently.
**Lee:** And he's just listened to our 28 days later episode.
**Lee:** And he had a very interesting story that comes from that.
**Lee:** So I'm going to hand over to Adam to read this.
**Lee:** I got this message at like 11:0 at night and literally sat there howling with laughter and had to forward it.
**Lee:** and I checked with him and he said we can share this story on on the podcast.
**Lee:** So Adam, would you like to.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** I don't want to suggest you're getting on in years, Lee, but according to the according to the message, this was actually quite a while.
**Lee:** I'll tell you.
**Lee:** I'll tell you.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Lee:** Do you know what it was, he sent it at quarter to eight.
**Lee:** And it's it's.
**Adam:** You saw it.
**Lee:** No, no, no.
**Lee:** Now this is going to prove how old I am because I do that old man thing of writing a paragraph and then pressing send.
**Lee:** Whereas Dahney, being a youth, does the thing of writing a sentence, send, writing a sentence, send.
**Lee:** So I was sitting eating dinner and my phone went, bing, bing, bing and I was like, oh, for God.
**Lee:** So I just put it on silent and it wasn't until about 11:0 the night I suddenly went, oh shit, my phone's on silent, and I never found out who was messaging me, and I went and checked it and that was when I saw it.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** So for anyone who anyone who gets trapped in a coffin underground with their mobile,
**Adam:** don't message Lee.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I'm sorry, he clearly suffocated, so I didn't even bother.
**Adam:** But anyway, so here's Dahney's story.
**Adam:** I've got a fun 28 days later story for you.
**Adam:** catching up slowly, obviously, with the episode.
**Adam:** So, Frank's flat is in Balfrond Tower, which is where I grew up.
**Adam:** My dad still had that flat when they were shooting the film.
**Adam:** We got in the lift one day and Brendan Gleeson was in it.
**Adam:** With Megan Burns.
**Adam:** My dad, thinking he's fucking brilliant, gets out, holds the door to the main entrance of the building open and says,
**Adam:** on the dad in here.
**Adam:** Silly cunt thought he was Ray Winston.
**Adam:** My insides cringed.
**Adam:** End of story.
**Adam:** That's good.
**Adam:** That was too that was too I know 28 days later was a couple of episodes ago, but that was too good to not.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's the kind of thing I do and I think it's exactly.
**Lee:** I can see myself in his dad's position where you do it and think it's really funny and then two days later, he suddenly go, oh my God, he wasn't in that film and that's it.
**Lee:** I won't sleep for three days then, like just lay in there being so embarrassed about it.
**Adam:** One of them ones that comes back on the death bed.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I said, oh.
**Adam:** Are you in pain, Dad?
**Adam:** No, I've just remembered the time I just thought Brandon Gleeson was Ray Winston.
**Lee:** So thanks very much for sending that Dahney and allowing us to share that story.
**Lee:** It's
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Chris:** That is a classic.
**Lee:** yes, so, onto this evening's main event because I'm sure this one's going to
**Lee:** going to get us talking for a little while.
**Lee:** So the quicker we get into it.
**Lee:** so, as I say, Joseph Watson suggested this.
**Lee:** and he said, oh, I don't know if you've covered it.
**Lee:** when Adam suggested it, I was like, we must have covered it because it was such a great film and we were podcasting at the time.
**Lee:** So we must have done it.
**Chris:** What what were we doing?
**Chris:** Like.
**Lee:** I think we all saw it at different times.
**Lee:** So by the time we'd all seen it, it was, you know, between myself and Adam seeing it.
**Lee:** I think it was a few months difference.
**Lee:** So we said we said, oh, we'll have to add it to the list.
**Lee:** But the list that we've been growing is ridiculous.
**Lee:** So we've just never quite gotten back to it.
**Lee:** But I'm so glad we did.
**Adam:** We still haven't covered the all of the 20 odd films we came up with for what we should do after the hundredth episode.
**Adam:** And this is like 127 or something.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The list's ever expand, we just call us grounds keeper Willy because we keep moving the goal posts.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** But but listeners, if you ever have anything like this, where you're like, have you guys not covered this yet, why have you never done it, yeah, please do message us and let us know and if it's if there's a reason we haven't covered it then, you know, then we'll say so.
**Lee:** But yeah, stuff like this.
**Chris:** If anything, I blame you and Adam, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah, we're shit.
**Adam:** Is you.
**Chris:** That's the best answer.
**Adam:** You can you can blame us, Chris, because yeah, you've.
**Chris:** I feel I feel it's within my rights to blame you on this one.
**Lee:** and again, this is something that so before the film, this was a stage show in the West End.
**Lee:** and Adam.
**Chris:** Oh, that's interesting.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So Adam, I and Jennifer went and saw it when it first opened.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Look what I found.
**Adam:** For the benefits of the type, I'm holding up my still in its cellophane pack of three badges from Ghost Stories.
**Chris:** Very nice.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** What does it what does it say?
**Adam:** one says ghost stories, one says, what are you hiding from, and one says, Daddy's got meow meow.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** I also bought a daddy's got meow meow t-shirt.
**Adam:** And admittedly, it was extra large, which I'm doesn't come up quite to the level that you want it to, but I'm quite happy to look like, you know, a mentally challenged ping-pong player.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** yeah, I I wore it once.
**Adam:** My mum went that's a drugs thing, isn't it?
**Adam:** And I was like, no, no, it's in the context of thing.
**Adam:** Because it was when meow meow was the.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** the drug of choice on the street, according to the Daily Mail.
**Adam:** Like I think three people in the country had heard of it.
**Chris:** lasted for about three days, like, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but then it was the what was killing children.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** so yeah.
**Adam:** My mum went, that's a drugs thing, isn't it?
**Adam:** And I was like, no, it's because in the play and they the cat food is called meow meow and it's like.
**Adam:** And yeah, strangely enough, went in the wash, never saw it again.
**Adam:** So I can only assume she chat out this drugs paraphernalia t-shirt before I, you know, was corrupted immortally.
**Chris:** Now, did you get the badges and the t-shirt before or after having seen it?
**Adam:** It was when we saw it.
**Adam:** It was like.
**Chris:** But I was wondering if you got them on the way in and you know what this all about.
**Adam:** No, no, because.
**Adam:** Because the reason I found those is I was looking for the program.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** when we when we saw it.
**Adam:** because one thing it had in there and I'm really pissed off I couldn't find it, but I do, I'll put it on the Instagram or something like that.
**Adam:** But both Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman had written their like their top five recommended horror films.
**Adam:** And I'm sure Dead of Night was in there.
**Adam:** The only other one I can remember was in there was Rec.
**Lee:** Session nine.
**Adam:** But the Spanish.
**Lee:** I remember Session 9 being in there as well.
**Adam:** Session.
**Chris:** I haven't heard of any of those so far.
**Chris:** We've got to find out what the last two are.
**Adam:** Session nine.
**Lee:** How can they be their top five?
**Lee:** And you've never mentioned.
**Adam:** Session nine is on that list of 20.
**Lee:** Yeah, it is.
**Chris:** Okay, I'll let you off then.
**Lee:** You just haven't got around for it.
**Lee:** We certainly will get to it.
**Lee:** and also, so when we saw it, so the the three vignettes.
**Adam:** We saw it.
**Adam:** We saw it in 2010.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, bloody, yeah, seven years before.
**Adam:** Yeah, the lyric theater Hammersmith we saw it in 2010, which was like, I think it's first London run.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** and.
**Adam:** Andy.
**Lee:** fantastic.
**Adam:** Yeah, Andy Nyman was playing Professor Goodman, Nicholas Burns, who's in this as the false psychic at the beginning.
**Adam:** was Mike Pridel, the role that goes to
**Adam:** Oh, what's his fucking name?
**Adam:** I've drawn completely on his.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's got.
**Adam:** Oh, Mark Freeman.
**Lee:** Oh, Mark.
**Adam:** Mark Freeman.
**Adam:** Thank you.
**Adam:** and David Cardy was
**Adam:** Tony Matthews, the Paul White House character and Ryan Gage was Simon Rifkins, which is Alex's.
**Adam:** I can't.
**Adam:** Yeah, Alex Lawther's character, like the young kind.
**Chris:** Kind.
**Adam:** Oh, sorry.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** But yeah, it was interesting.
**Lee:** So the three vignettes were the same but the wrapper around story was different.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Lee:** Which, yeah, which made it interesting.
**Lee:** correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, I might have remembered this wrong.
**Lee:** But it so Andy Nyman came out as a professor of.
**Adam:** like.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The paranormal, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And basically said, yeah, most stories can be, you know, sort of explained away.
**Lee:** Except for these three.
**Lee:** but he he did like a long 20-minute thing at the beginning, it was really good and really funny.
**Lee:** And they had a website that went along with it, that was a real website because we all went and Googled it afterwards.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** yeah, and it was it's it was really good, but that's what I loved about this.
**Lee:** Was it was the three stories, it worked fantastically, but it wasn't like, oh, I've seen all this before.
**Lee:** Because that whole end bit where it turns out it was a coma and all the rest of it, spoiler alert.
**Lee:** Yeah, it was all new, but that's funny, see.
**Lee:** So I saw this when it came out, I hadn't seen it again, and when we kept getting the flash of you keep seeing the hospital window, don't you, and I kept thinking, yes, that's why do we keep seeing that?
**Lee:** I know that's relevant, but I couldn't quite pick why out of my memory.
**Lee:** And then when it came to it, I was like, oh shit, yeah, now I remember.
**Lee:** Oh,
**Lee:** it's fantastic.
**Lee:** So Chris.
**Lee:** Without further ado,
**Lee:** where is Joseph going up or down from this one?
**Chris:** Well, I'm sure you've both got your thoughts about this.
**Chris:** I'm going to start with every action you've ever taken or didn't take has had an effect.
**Chris:** Left a little trace, a ghost of itself.
**Chris:** Me choosing that phrase, that sentence.
**Chris:** What does that make you think that I thought?
**Adam:** I'm guessing that you embraced this film, Chris.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'd be surprised if you if you didn't like this.
**Chris:** Probably say of anything given the title Ghost Stories, this could be right up the top of of what I would like in a film to do with Ghost Stories, probably.
**Chris:** It's got everything done so well.
**Chris:** You don't know for sure where it's going.
**Chris:** And for me, the ending was.
**Chris:** I mean, it's something I've thought about enough, you know, like the idea of the state of mind you could be in, levels of consciousness, when you're in a coma.
**Chris:** The the way that and as I mentioned earlier, in fact, about listening to Vampire that, when you're you know, half asleep, the way what's happening in the real world can, you know, be woven into your consciousness and create this crazy story.
**Chris:** That so yeah, watching that it's like, yeah, that absolutely could happen.
**Chris:** And I I just loved the way that ended.
**Chris:** but as well.
**Chris:** Like the acting was fantastic.
**Chris:** Like.
**Chris:** I mean.
**Chris:** I think really at first Paul White House, I don't think I've seen him play a serious character.
**Adam:** He is so fucking good in this.
**Adam:** I mean, everyone is.
**Chris:** They they are, they are.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But I think that was the shocker because it's like, I've only ever seen him playing.
**Chris:** you know, in in his comedies.
**Chris:** And he was like, yeah, that's that's a powerful, you know, it's very believable.
**Chris:** I didn't realize at first Philip Goodman wasn't Andy Nyman till I checked because I was like,
**Chris:** oh, right, who is this?
**Chris:** I mean, I don't know if I if you'd perhaps mentioned it.
**Chris:** But and I've never seen him before playing in anything.
**Chris:** yeah, like so just everything about it.
**Chris:** I was like, yeah, this is gripping me.
**Chris:** yeah.
**Chris:** I loved it.
**Chris:** Fantastic.
**Adam:** I mean, that I was I was watching I was watching it back with the commentary.
**Adam:** Which I hadn't done before.
**Adam:** because I just thought it's Jeremy Dyson, I mean, that's that's what we've.
**Adam:** I mean, we we've said we've it and we told people the ending.
**Adam:** So at this point, I think it's a bit bad that we're backtracking.
**Adam:** We assume that you know things.
**Adam:** But obviously written and directed by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson from their stage play.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Chris:** Now, I don't know, so who, like Jeremy Dyson.
**Chris:** I don't really know, have I seen him in anything?
**Adam:** You wouldn't have seen.
**Adam:** You might have seen him in the background, actually, he's in the background of this.
**Adam:** He's the he's the DJ at the barmixer in the.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** Didn't even spoil that.
**Adam:** Yeah, looking looking a bit like Julian Barrett.
**Adam:** But but of an acceptable height, not a terrifying height.
**Adam:** But yeah, so.
**Adam:** And he is the fourth member of the League of Gentlemen and basically he made the decision that he didn't want to perform.
**Adam:** He's like, he says, he's not an actor.
**Chris:** He.
**Adam:** He, you know, he basically and also, I mean, the league, I suppose there is that thing, I mean, they're all good actors, so I suppose that if you didn't feel up to snuff.
**Adam:** If you're standing next to like Steve Pembton and then Reese and Mark Gates and, you know, you would be like, no, I think I'll leave it to you guys.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But but he then took on much more like a sort of production role and a directing role and things like that.
**Adam:** With it with it as a live show.
**Adam:** but he basically the league is two groups of writers.
**Adam:** And so Steve Pemington and Reeve She Smith write together and Jeremy Dyson writes with Mark Gatiss.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And even I mean, this is the extent to which he does not appear on film.
**Adam:** In the League of Gentlemen movie, which has the League of Gentlemen playing themselves.
**Adam:** He is played by Michael Sheen.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which which again is in itself I love because Michael Sheen only plays werewolves and real people who exist.
**Adam:** That's the that is his two roles, basically.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So yeah, but so Jeremy Dyson sort of but he he's written he's written like.
**Adam:** He's written a lot of books.
**Adam:** he wrote and produced a mini series called Funland.
**Adam:** but he also wrote and directed three series of Psycho bitches.
**Adam:** Now Psycho bitches is one of those things that I really wish I could fucking get hold of.
**Adam:** It's not on DVD.
**Adam:** I think the first series is available on to purchase on Amazon.
**Adam:** But series two and three aren't there.
**Adam:** And basically the concept of psycho bitches was famous women through history going to their psychiatrist.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** And so you've got and actually Jeremy Dyson turned up in it, I believe, as the mother of Jesus at one point.
**Adam:** just doing a full-blown Peter Cook and Dudley Moore mother sort of type thing.
**Adam:** And I was like, he's out there and he's performing miracles, isn't he?
**Adam:** But yeah, so and Psycho bitches is genuinely one of the best fucking series I've ever seen.
**Adam:** And I reckon if you can find it, watch it.
**Adam:** And then get me a copy of it because I want to watch it again.
**Adam:** Because it used to be it's one of the finest fucking things I've ever seen.
**Adam:** And it was you got loads of different comedy actresses on there like Julia Davis and
**Adam:** Michelle Gomez, Francis Barber.
**Adam:** And also and yeah, so he did three series of that.
**Adam:** But he's also written short story collections.
**Adam:** There's Never Trust a Rabbit, which I've read and it is fucking brilliant.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Lee:** that from you, I believe.
**Lee:** Is that yeah, you must have yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Wonderful book.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again, it's that sort of thing.
**Adam:** Where it's like one one of the stories in there is a like a a debunker who is then confronted with the genuine supernatural event or someone with apparently magical powers.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So it kind of again feeds in as a thing as part of this, I suppose.
**Lee:** There was another one in there, correct me if I'm wrong, it was a basically it was an art teacher and he had a student who he really hated.
**Lee:** Who was terrible, but one day did a really beautiful painting of a window with a storm going on outside.
**Lee:** And then at the end of the story, spoiler of it, the teacher, I think he ends up with a prostitute and she stabs him.
**Lee:** And as he's laying there bleeding out and he looks up, he sees that that is what this kid had painted all those years ago.
**Lee:** And he gave it a terrible mark because although it was an amazing painting, he hated the kid, so he was like, yeah, no, you're rubbish.
**Lee:** And yeah, and I'm sure that was in that book as well.
**Lee:** I was trying to remember where I'd read it and I couldn't, but now you mentioned it, I'm sure it was in there.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's that I think that is one of the stories in there and again, it kind of feeds into the ghost stories thing.
**Adam:** Where it's like the guilt.
**Adam:** playing out in your final moments or in your repose and stuff like that.
**Adam:** He also wrote the cranes that build cranes and the haunted book.
**Adam:** He's written one novel called What Happens Now.
**Adam:** An academic study that I really want to get my fucking hands on called Bright Darkness, the lost art of the supernatural horror film.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which was I think that was published mid 90s when basically I think basically it was one of those things where the book was written.
**Adam:** And then J Horror exploded and then you got so many more like supernatural things happening.
**Adam:** Like good supernatural things happening in horror.
**Adam:** He wrote the SX Files to Basildon and Beyond with Mark Gatiss, which was like a spoof.
**Adam:** X Files book in the late 90s.
**Adam:** And he's currently writing with Andy Nyman a series of books.
**Adam:** The first of which is called The Warlock Effect and that's due to come out.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Chris:** Sounds interesting.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So yes, so I mean and he so he's obviously a co-writer.
**Adam:** Co-director on this.
**Adam:** With Andy Nyman.
**Adam:** Andy Nyman does kind of he says, I think Andy Nyman, I've heard an interview where he said,
**Adam:** I basically, if you ask me, I'm an actor.
**Adam:** But he also writes, directs.
**Adam:** he's Darren Brown's fucking engineer.
**Chris:** So so that's that's what really stood out to me.
**Chris:** I mean, I think you probably mentioned it when you mentioned this before, yeah, I mean, that that's intriguing, isn't it because, you know, I mean obviously no Deren Brown and to think that yeah, someone who works with him to create his, you know, masterpieces of magic and psychology is a yeah, very impressive.
**Adam:** Well, I mean part of that.
**Adam:** Because again, this sort of feeds back into the play.
**Adam:** Because the interesting thing with the play was is as they they kind of.
**Adam:** Weirdly enough, the play is the the sort of horror stories are kind of cliche.
**Adam:** Well, certainly the the sort of settings.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** a lonely home.
**Adam:** Yeah, a deserted building, the woods at night.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And what they said was is that basically the the thing they wanted to do with the play.
**Adam:** Was prove that they could shit you up in the theater.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it was kind of like.
**Adam:** It was.
**Adam:** It was like, yeah, you can make these horror films and you put in jump scares and you put it, you know, you can edit and flash a face up and do all kinds of things.
**Adam:** But if we can scare you live and make you jump and, you know, and they did.
**Lee:** They did.
**Chris:** They did.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was so fucking good.
**Adam:** But this all comes from this kind of all comes from his magic background.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So a lot of the stuff that he did with Darren Brown sort of fed into that.
**Adam:** And similarly in the film, there there's no there's no digital effects.
**Adam:** There's.
**Adam:** There's obvious stuff, like, you know, the actual look of like the like Mark Freeman's wife.
**Adam:** You know, that's obviously a CGI thing and everything else like that, but all the stuff like all the bottles piling themselves up on the on the thing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's just yeah, I was going to say you could see that actually like, you say you can see the difference between the practical effects and CGI.
**Lee:** And it just made it look so much more sinister.
**Lee:** Because it's.
**Lee:** As good as CGI is now and it is incredible compared to what it used to be.
**Lee:** You can still see that it's like a looks like a computer game.
**Lee:** Whereas that is, you know, just look like the movement of every block and everything was just and it just makes it so much more creepy.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think, well, they said the one thing it does as well is it gives the actor something to react to.
**Adam:** So rather than saying stare at that point where there'll be an effect happening.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like, shit, it's actually happened, you you react in time with it.
**Adam:** So you kind of you are in the.
**Lee:** It's actually happened, yeah.
**Adam:** You're in the moment, you are in the room in some and so forth.
**Adam:** So yeah, so the majority of the effects in it are practical ones.
**Adam:** That from sort of, you know, their magic tricks essentially and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And the the ghosts in the bed.
**Adam:** That's very.
**Adam:** whistle and I'll come to you.
**Adam:** That was literally.
**Adam:** Four fishing wires and a fan under a blanket.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Adam:** And they were like they said that they were just like, wow, we expected this to be reasonable.
**Adam:** But this is actually.
**Adam:** You know, genuinely creepy and we know what it is and what they're doing.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And and it's I know we've discussed it before, but just the cast on this,
**Adam:** Which is.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Just.
**Lee:** So good.
**Lee:** So like Samuel Bottomley, who played Goodman when he was younger, I I can't believe they I I'd never put the two together.
**Lee:** But when you see him side by side, you go, yeah, he just looks like a young version of it.
**Lee:** It's really, really good.
**Adam:** He really does.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** interestingly enough, his son is an actor now.
**Lee:** Oh, is it?
**Adam:** Andy Nyman's son is an actor.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, but I think I think he's in the barmitz for, but I think he was just a bit too young.
**Adam:** to actually play Goodman as like a 13-year-old.
**Adam:** Did you spot the Utopia connection there, Lee?
**Lee:** Yes, I did.
**Lee:** Because so when he turned up, Jennifer went, we've seen him recently.
**Lee:** And I went, Grant from Utopia.
**Lee:** And she went.
**Lee:** Oh, my God.
**Lee:** And that's the thing.
**Lee:** It even in Utopia, so from season one to season two.
**Lee:** Obviously they've all aged a year or two.
**Lee:** But because he's 10 years old, going from 10 to 11 or 12, he looks so much older.
**Lee:** And again with this, it's, you know, it's a couple of years.
**Lee:** But he suddenly looks like a teenager and not a child.
**Lee:** But yeah, he's fantastic in this, really, really good.
**Adam:** Well, I mean.
**Adam:** I mean, that that bully sequence.
**Adam:** is.
**Adam:** That's the.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing with this.
**Adam:** Is that there's there are all the jump scares, but the really horrible bits are like the bully sequence.
**Adam:** The the the bit right at the start with Nicholas Burns doing the psychic.
**Lee:** That was horrible. Watching that woman scratching.
**Adam:** That's almost that's almost unbearable to watch.
**Adam:** Yeah, you know, with the and and it's all, you know, it's just very good actors.
**Adam:** But you are sort of like, oh, this is just horrible.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** And and the one that the one that always gets me is Martin Freeman.
**Lee:** I like Martin Freeman, I think he's a great actor in Sherlock and I I've got a lot of time for him as an actor.
**Lee:** But the big surprise in this when you suddenly find out who his other character is.
**Lee:** I I just couldn't see it, I couldn't see him through that makeup.
**Lee:** And then when he rips it off, I was just like, oh my shit.
**Lee:** He does such a good job in this.
**Adam:** Well.
**Adam:** I think I I think I've I think I've mentioned this certainly, I think I've mentioned this to you, Lee.
**Adam:** When I finally got around to to watching this, because it yeah, like I think it was like a couple of months after it come out that I finally got it and watched it.
**Adam:** Because it I think also there was an element of like, I've seen the play.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, and it's like, well, it's just going to be, you know, the play because again, that's the weird thing is if you just did the play straight onto screen, it would just be jump scares and stuff like that.
**Adam:** They they didn't really have.
**Adam:** Because you had did have all those sort of bits in there, but it like you say, it was presented as a lecture, whereas this you have.
**Chris:** Like any sense that watching the film would have possibly taken away from the effect of the play.
**Adam:** May have.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Because I just wonder like I could imagine if they'd done a really good job on the play and that's almost a bit unexpected that they could do that, you might think, oh, you know, the film's just going to be a bit more normal, not really as effective.
**Lee:** Yeah, certainly, because I know the play's done another run fairly recently.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So I'd say to anyone who enjoyed this film.
**Lee:** Definitely go and see it as a play.
**Chris:** That's still definitely worth going to, yeah.
**Adam:** You get a different experience.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** And and again, seeing the way that they do this, you know, like the Paul White House story that we, you know, in the warehouse, like seeing that done on a stage with one actor and just set changes, the way they do it is absolutely and it's all done kind of in front of your eyes.
**Lee:** Yeah, they use lighting to take your eye away from what's going on on the on the, I won't, I'll say I won't give it like.
**Lee:** So it's like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But because it's so dark, it allows them to change the sets.
**Lee:** So the lights come up, you're looking at it, the lights go down and it's just him walking around with a torch, lights come up again, it's a totally different set.
**Lee:** There's no noise, no, it's just it's so clever.
**Lee:** It's absolutely unbelievable.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** I'd so I think one of the other things that came up was and I remember this from the time.
**Adam:** when the film came out, one of the taglines was the brain sees what it wants to see.
**Adam:** And so.
**Adam:** They they misspelled stories on the poster, they transposed the I and the E and so and yeah, and it was a thing that you know, it.
**Adam:** You know, it definitely knew glances it was okay. Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** But funnily enough, I was because I was looking into that.
**Adam:** And I saw like there was some it was like some old forum post where it was people talking about it when the film was coming out.
**Adam:** And like saying, oh, well, I hope, you know, most people were like, well, if it's as good as the play, it would be fucking brilliant and so on and so forth.
**Adam:** But there was one guy who was like, I'm not sure if they've done this deliberately.
**Adam:** Or whether the bloke who put it on the side of the bus fucked it up, but have you know, has anyone else noticed that the E and the I are around the wrong way?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But again.
**Adam:** That's that's very Darren Brown is I was just about to say that is Andy Nyman and Darren Brown all over, isn't it?
**Adam:** Stuff like it's yeah.
**Adam:** yeah, he's it's that magic thing of.
**Adam:** tricking you into seeing stuff, I I remember because it's funny once you get to know his stuff.
**Adam:** It kind of we went to see him once, in a a tiny little theater under it was a little underground place.
**Adam:** I can't remember where it was now.
**Adam:** I remember we got off the station.
**Adam:** And it was in some arches.
**Adam:** It was a tiny little theater and he was basically saying to people, in the interval, I want you to queue up and come and write an animal on the board.
**Adam:** Think of an animal and he gave you three animals to think of.
**Adam:** And we we didn't go and queue up, but we sat in the seat and then later on, we noticed all of the posters leading up to it, which were made to look like other things they were doing as productions.
**Adam:** But they.
**Adam:** Oh, no, it's not.
**Adam:** No, no, no.
**Adam:** You got.
**Adam:** The monkey, elephant, and giraffe.
**Adam:** They were made to look like other things they were doing as productions.
**Adam:** But they all had the word tiger in them, so it obviously set up.
**Adam:** So it's one of those.
**Adam:** It was only once you spotted it, you went, oh shit, yeah, like, I wonder how many people that worked, but it's just it's so clever, it's absolutely unbelievable.
**Adam:** The the thing.
**Adam:** The thing that got me when we saw Darren Brown was when they he did that.
**Adam:** It was like at the start of it, he did like a relaxation thing.
**Adam:** where it was like, all right, you know, and it was all I want you to picture this and everything else like that, like got everyone stand up, and then it was like, yeah, if you if you felt tired during that or I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was like, if you felt tired or you could really hear that in your head, remain standing, and it's like, and as I sat down, I was like, you've just picked out all the suggestible people.
**Adam:** Well done, I've that's you know, immediately right, these are the people I'm going to focus on because I've actually hypnotized them now.
**Adam:** Let them, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And a lot of it is all stuff that sort of hits into this.
**Adam:** So, but I don't think.
**Adam:** One thing we have to say is that it might be the only time that Danny Dyer will appear on this podcast.
**Adam:** But we might have to do Severance at some point.
**Lee:** Oh, I thought that earlier when Chris said, I don't think I've seen Andy Nyman in anything.
**Lee:** And I was like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I was like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** I was like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
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---

## Ep 126 The Raven

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-126-the-raven/
Air date: 12 September 2021
Duration: 01:28:17
Film: The Raven · Year: 1963 · Director: Roger Corman

### Description

Once upon a Sunday dreary, 3 podcasters tired and beery, Considered which film would hopefully bore none - They gibbered ‘neath the heaving shelves, of DVDs and asked themselves, “What’s got a great cast? Something a bit more fun?” - All at once they realised the one, And a nervous excitement had begun, “Of course! We’ll watch The Raven by Roger Corman!” Along the way we discuss Shudder original “Jakob’s Wife”, Alan Moore’s “The Show”, “Utopia” and “The era Expanse”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are somehow here despite all the chaos that has befallen us in the last few days.
**Chris:** I I blame the HGV drivers if anything.
**Lee:** Topical.
**Chris:** Scorching, then.
**Lee:** You can be listening to this in six months time and go, what? You want to be an HGV driver?
**Chris:** If if I was getting paid 20% more, I'd be yeah.
**Lee:** so we were, as previously mentioned, we were supposed to be having a guest, and covering Martyrs.
**Lee:** but, entirely 100% my fault.
**Lee:** I held my hand up, we've not been able to do that, unfortunately.
**Lee:** So Manny will hopefully be joining us in a month's time.
**Lee:** we'll keep you posted on what we will be covering when he joins us.
**Chris:** Cool, excellent.
**Lee:** So that was our first hiccup.
**Lee:** And then our second hiccup was we were supposed to record last night as we normally do.
**Chris:** No, nothing to see here, nothing to see here.
**Adam:** Right, I'll show you an attraction. He said don't need.
**Lee:** Adam and I arrived on time.
**Chris:** Look, I'm firing green lasers.
**Lee:** Adam and I arrived on time, after about 25 minutes still no Chris, so I phoned him and he didn't answer. He then phoned me back and his first words were, Saturday, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yes, Chris, it is Saturday, it's recording day.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, yeah, I can't do that now, I ain't watched the film yet.
**Chris:** I thought, I thought we recorded on Fridays, what happened to that?
**Lee:** Well, you'd have been twice as late.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Chris:** I got to think up these excuses, haven't I?
**Adam:** Yeah, we got to
**Adam:** That that's an even worse one.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's it's it's never the good it's never the good things of, you know, it's like I didn't go into work yesterday.
**Adam:** Don't compound it with, sorry I didn't come into work yesterday, but I was off my tits on mescaline.
**Lee:** That's it.
**Chris:** That's what I should have said.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Lee would have let that one go.
**Lee:** My cousin
**Adam:** We'd have all let that slide.
**Lee:** My cousin once lost a job because, he worked in a window factory and he took the day off, and his excuse, which wasn't the truth, his excuse was, I was on my way into work smoking a joint at the bus stop and the police arrested me, so I couldn't phone in and let you know, because they arrested me. So they said, so you're on your way into the factory, stoned off your tits, you can pick up your paycheque and on your bike, sir. So,
**Lee:** Well done for that one, bust.
**Chris:** Did you say that was the truth or wasn't the truth?
**Lee:** I don't think it was as I remember.
**Chris:** It wasn't the truth. So what could have been the truth?
**Adam:** That was better.
**Lee:** What was worse?
**Chris:** It was just the best one he could.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, bless him.
**Lee:** so, but we are here, as promised for everyone who follows the Instagram, so if you didn't know about the change of film, one, I apologize that you watched Martyrs, and two, why aren't you on the Instagram being aware that we are now covering 1963's classic The Raven.
**Lee:** but before, oh, go on, Chris.
**Chris:** Well, no, the the biggest shock I had in this was that for the whole film, as much as I was enjoying it, I was looking for Jack Nicholson to appear, right?
**Chris:** Now, you you might say what's wrong with you?
**Chris:** There might well be something wrong with me, I just could not recognize him as the young guy, I just did not at all see it.
**Lee:** It didn't register with Jennifer Iver until I said, I'm not sure if this is an early or his first appearance and she went, who's?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But it but anyway,
**Chris:** Like now, yeah, anyway.
**Lee:** We're jumping ahead again, we keep doing it.
**Lee:** so before we get into this evening's movie that Chris is very excited to talk about.
**Lee:** Chris, did you watch anything in the last two weeks?
**Chris:** yeah, so we we were watching aptly The Expanse.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** Now, have either of you heard of that?
**Lee:** I've heard of it, I've not it's the sci-fi thing from Netflix?
**Chris:** It is, yeah, well, so it started on Netflix.
**Chris:** I probably years ago now.
**Chris:** And we started watching it probably on then, but then it stopped on there, I think, and then appeared on Amazon Prime.
**Chris:** And now they've carried it on.
**Chris:** They got one more season, I think they're going to do.
**Chris:** They've done five seasons.
**Chris:** It changes it changes enough each season, but still for me just covers everything I like about sci-fi.
**Chris:** It's got fantastic philosophy, fantastic science, fiction, spaceships, shooting,
**Chris:** loads of politics, interesting characters.
**Chris:** It just covers everything.
**Chris:** So, it does have elements of horror throughout,
**Chris:** because they have this this they call it the proto molecule.
**Chris:** And it's essentially you don't really know, it's sort of monster, like it is alien, but it's it's very monster-like in what it does.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Chris:** And it's kind of psychological as well as actually creating kind of these beings and also hybrids of humans and it.
**Chris:** So it's all quite, unusual.
**Chris:** Then it then it starts to expand into, you know, the the sort of interdimensional kind of ideas and so, yeah, it's, it's it's I thought it was really good.
**Chris:** but now we've got another like,
**Lee:** Not bad.
**Adam:** No, I was just going to say, not wishing to do a Chris, but I'll admit.
**Adam:** When you say what you was watching, I was watching a plane out the window and I didn't hear what it was.
**Adam:** What what is this, sorry, what's the program?
**Chris:** It's it's The Expanse.
**Adam:** The Oh, sorry.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Sorry, carry on.
**Chris:** So it seems it seems like it's got a bit of a cult following,
**Chris:** following on from
**Chris:** I've forgotten the name of it.
**Chris:** It's Battlestar Galactica, the the remake that also got a bit of a cult following.
**Chris:** for for similar reasons, really, it just, you know, it covers a lot of what I like from that kind of sci-fi, I suppose.
**Chris:** So, yeah, so that's that's what we watched until we got the end of it.
**Adam:** Nice.
**Lee:** Excellent, sounds good.
**Lee:** Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** I've got,
**Adam:** I've got two bits, I watched,
**Adam:** FrightFest doing their digital thing, which I think actually finishes today.
**Adam:** So by the time people are listening to this, fuck it, you wouldn't be able to watch anything anyway.
**Adam:** But for next year, if they do it again,
**Adam:** I watched on their digital like their streaming, because they've had, obviously they had the they had the actual festival at Leicester Square
**Adam:** last weekend and then throughout this week they've just put the best of
**Adam:** like a sort of basically all the big stuff, up on, up for streaming.
**Adam:** I was a bit reluctant at first because I was like,
**Adam:** Well, you can't pause it and you can't you don't keep it afterwards and you can't rewind it.
**Adam:** And then my brain some vague memory in my brain just went, yeah.
**Adam:** Like the cinema.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** I was like, oh yeah, no that's true, if I went to the cinema to see this, I couldn't pause it, take it, take a slash without missing anything.
**Adam:** but yeah, they, and, you know, pretty good.
**Adam:** I think it was like eight quid.
**Adam:** But, yeah, so I watched,
**Adam:** the show, which is the new film that Alan Moore's done.
**Adam:** I think I've spoken about showpieces, which is the short films on here before.
**Adam:** and this is like a continuation of that.
**Adam:** I'll be 100% honest, I am nuts deep into this fucking project.
**Adam:** And obsessed with it.
**Adam:** So my critical faculties might be off.
**Adam:** Because it might mean that if someone else, if someone watches it without having seen the short films, you might be thinking, what? What the fuck's going on?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think you could watch it and pick up without having seen the shorts.
**Adam:** But but showpieces is on Shudder.
**Adam:** So I recommend people watch that anyway.
**Adam:** And it's the thing where basically, Alan Moore's created, a world called Nighthampton, which is the sort of flipped dead side of Northampton, where he comes from.
**Adam:** And he is basically a cross between Aleister Crowley, Peter Cook and Viv Stanshall.
**Adam:** In that he's a 60s sort of early surrealist comic, part of a double act called he's Frank Metterton of Metterton and Matchbright.
**Adam:** and basically there's all this thing about, oh, well he was rumored to be involved with the occult and basically he's created his own universe, with him as God and his old double act partner as the devil.
**Adam:** So basically it's Derek and Clive, if Derek was God,
**Adam:** and I can't remember which one was Clive and which one was Derek now, but anyway.
**Adam:** yeah, but basically if Peter Cook was God and Dud was the devil.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Adam:** and yeah, it's that that was genuinely,
**Adam:** like really good and
**Adam:** goes to prove because the the short films were like 2013 or something like that, when they released them, they've been building up.
**Adam:** But the amount that still harks in and explains like the film explained bits of the short stories and the short films and vice versa.
**Adam:** So it is like it's obviously a genuine whole world in his big brain.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And, with, but there's loads of, surprise sort of members of the cast including Mr. Andrew O'Neal.
**Lee:** Oh, right, okay.
**Adam:** Playing, and get this, because I think it stretched him somewhat, he's playing a cross-dressing occult stand-up comedian.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** The fact the fact that he's not called Andrew I think is probably the the the only thing that makes it not actually be Andrew O'Neil.
**Lee:** In that case, is it not Andrew O'Neil, he's just an actor?
**Lee:** And has just been embedded in this for the last 20 years?
**Adam:** If that that could be the case and frankly, I think I think him and Alan Moore should get a room.
**Adam:** So,
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I I know that the only thing that would be stopping Andrew O'Neil from licking Alan Moore's balls is because I was in the way. So, you know, I think he would, he would have just betrayed this part for for this length of time just to add back story.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Anyway.
**Adam:** Anyway, he's just being annoying.
**Adam:** Yeah, he just doesn't say anything to me.
**Adam:** Anyway.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
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---

## Ep 125 28 Days Later

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-125-28-days-later/
Air date: 29 August 2021
Duration: 01:28:08
Film: 28 Days Later · Year: 2002 · Director: Danny Boyle

### Description

We’re joined by Claire for her birthday choice; Danny Boyle’s apocalyptic vision “28 Days Later”. A film in which Tommy Shelby overcomes a coma-inducing head injury to master parkour and kick the fuck out of a bunch of squaddies; the Ninth Doctor has unsavoury plans for Miss Moneypenny; and Mad Eye Moody comes a cropper with a crow. Along the way we discuss “28 Weeks Later”, Abattoir Fermé’s “Monster!”, “Blood Red Sky” and “The Empty Man” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror, I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Unknown:** I'm Claire.
**Adam:** Yay!
**Adam:** Claire's back!
**Lee:** As promised, we're back for our second of our 90s birthday episodes.
**Lee:** Um, with
**Adam:** I've just got to raise my hand and apologize for several mistakes, including uh, this is actually 2002.
**Lee:** It is, yes.
**Adam:** But it just feels 90s, so...
**Lee:** It looks like an episode of fucking EastEnders, but we'll get into that when we get to. Come on.
**Adam:** I also, I also have to apologize for last week's podcast where I said uh about the podcast, really disliking uh Anthony Hopkins, when I actually meant Sir Matthew Hopkins, um, but there we go.
**Lee:** I didn't pick up on that either.
**Lee:** Um, but I did listen to the episode, uh, yeah, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
**Lee:** So, well done, looking forward to tomorrow's.
**Chris:** I think we need to be a bit careful about apologies because we could go on for a long time, I'm sure.
**Lee:** Yeah, we could be here all night.
**Adam:** That's true.
**Lee:** The way you put your hand up, Adam, I was like, did he want me to high five him?
**Lee:** Because like
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, I was just I thought there was a number five different part coming out. I don't know what I'm going to do.
**Adam:** Yeah, no, no, it would have been high five and then big tens.
**Adam:** But
**Unknown:** I'm in the room and doing the other section.
**Unknown:** You're my wife, so I'm quite happy to make it like a bit of a prank.
**Adam:** Thanks.
**Unknown:** You're welcome.
**Adam:** Fucking patriarchy.
**Lee:** I am currently pouring a beer in celebration of, uh, your birthday, Claire, so
**Unknown:** Oh!
**Lee:** Happy birthday!
**Unknown:** I've already got tomorrow.
**Lee:** Lovely, lovely!
**Chris:** Cheers.
**Lee:** Yeah, have a drink on, everybody, unless you're listening to this in the car and then, uh, you know, maybe don't.
**Adam:** Oh!
**Chris:** Yeah, and just do a pretend drink.
**Lee:** Uh, yes, so we're here for the second of our birthday episodes in a row, um, to cover, uh, 28 Days Later.
**Lee:** Um, so we will get into why we are covering that when we get into the episode.
**Lee:** Um, but before we get into the episode,
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching since our last episode?
**Chris:** Right, so I was going to try and do this in a what hints can I give you who's going to get it first.
**Chris:** I think I possibly did that last episode.
**Chris:** So I must be like
**Adam:** Oh!
**Chris:** Oh, good, good try.
**Chris:** That was like, that is, that was getting right in there.
**Chris:** But no.
**Chris:** Um, so, let me try and give you a few hints that I've got here.
**Chris:** Um, that doesn't give it away immediately, Alex Garland was involved.
**Adam:** Devs.
**Chris:** Oh, very good, I definitely need to watch that, I've been told that and you saying that tells me I should.
**Chris:** And, but no.
**Chris:** Um, Daniel Boyle was also involved.
**Adam:** Um, Sunshine?
**Chris:** Great answer, no.
**Adam:** Ah!
**Lee:** The 2012 Olympic opening ceremony?
**Chris:** Oh, come on, you're all doing really well.
**Chris:** That, that would have been impressive if I'd watched that again.
**Chris:** It was good, I did quite like it.
**Chris:** Um, Robert Carlyle was also involved.
**Adam:** Um, 28 Weeks Later.
**Chris:** Yeah!
**Chris:** That is, um,
**Chris:** very good, Adam.
**Chris:** So, yeah, I thought after having watched 28 Days Later, why not carry on?
**Adam:** Had you seen it before?
**Chris:** Well, it turns out I had and I didn't realize it, but, but I'd also completely mixed up it with 28 Days Later and I'm probably going to do the same again tonight.
**Chris:** So, yeah, some of the scenes in it I'd kind of thought were probably in 28 Days Later.
**Chris:** I'd completely forgotten so much of 28 Days Later.
**Chris:** When I was watching, I was like, I did not remember all of this with the military guys.
**Chris:** And that, that whole, you know, dark side of it and, and realizing that actually that's what a lot of the film is about, is human nature aspect.
**Chris:** Whereas before in my head it was just the zombies really and the fact that it wasn't, they weren't zombies, it was from, um, a virus.
**Lee:** You must be the only person, Chris, to watch 28 Days Later and immediately think, well that wasn't fucking bleak enough.
**Lee:** What I now need
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** More of that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Totally.
**Chris:** I totally, I was watching, I was like, yeah, do not remember it being this dark at all.
**Chris:** Um, so, yeah.
**Adam:** Oh, fuck, yeah!
**Chris:** Yeah, um,
**Adam:** What, what we'll do is, because, because every, I'm just, just to annoy people, I was thinking I might refer to people in 28 Days Later by the roles that they are now much more famous for.
**Chris:** Mm.
**Adam:** So I was going to say, so Tommy Shelby and Miss Moneypenny are going along with the meg. I knew it.
**Adam:** And so if any, so if you do the same, so if any point you say Big B or Luther, we'll know that you've mixed it up and you're talking about 28 Weeks Later.
**Chris:** That sounds good.
**Adam:** Ha!
**Lee:** Excellent, so, so without any spoilers of the first film, did you enjoy, you obviously enjoyed the first one, but what did you make of the second one comparatively?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So, I did, I did, no, I did, I really, I really liked it.
**Chris:** But I was, when watching it, I was like, well, done now because I have seen it, what have I mixed up and so I was a bit unsure and I was thinking, did I, actually, no.
**Chris:** Tell you what, the bit that had stuck in my mind from 28 Weeks Later was Robert Carlyle running away from the house and jumping in the boat and obviously leaving his wife behind, that, that stuck in my head.
**Chris:** I didn't remember much of the rest of it for some reason, but, um,
**Chris:** And some of that I'd sort of perhaps made me think badly of it.
**Chris:** I don't know, it just somehow had that effect.
**Chris:** But then on watching it again this time it's like, no, I think that's, that's really well done.
**Chris:** Like it is actually again a good look at humanity and, you know, when you get in difficult situations, the choices you make and people's good and bad sides and how a lot of it is, um, although I think this is in 28 Days Later, like
**Chris:** how many mistakes are made when people are emotional and absolutist, they're like, well, this is what we got to do and we're doing this and forget what, you know, you're not sort of looking at the bigger picture, you're just like, well, I'm dealing with this now and I'm right, so you can shut up and get on with it.
**Lee:** So, Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** Only thing I've been watching is I've been rewatching
**Adam:** the sitcom Monster, which is by the Belgian theater company Abattoir Fermé.
**Adam:** Um, I think I've mentioned it on the show before, it's really good.
**Adam:** But the main reason I've been rewatching it is they've just done a feature film which looks equally as fucking insane and gory and weird and, yeah, everything else that I like from Monster.
**Adam:** But the Monster is like a six-parter about a director who makes shock movies on a budget.
**Adam:** Um, but he is entirely insane as is his cast.
**Adam:** And, yeah, but it's well worth checking out.
**Adam:** But yeah, keep, keep your eyes out, there's a, there is a couple of trailers out for the film which is called Hotel Poseidon.
**Adam:** And does look, it, looks up my street, I'm hoping I'm, I'm hoping it'll be available fairly soon.
**Adam:** I think it's playing FrightFest, but, uh, I do not know.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** and that's literally all the weather.
**Lee:** Claire.
**Lee:** Um, obviously, we, it's been a while since you've been on, um, and we know that you've been watching along with Adam, which we're, we're always hugely excited to hear that you're, uh, you have become a convert.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, so are there any films that you've watched recently that you, uh, particularly enjoyed?
**Unknown:** Well, one sticks out and that was that Kurt Russell film we watched last week.
**Adam:** Oh, Bone Tomahawk.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Chris:** You weren't keen.
**Unknown:** It wasn't, it wasn't shit, but I feel like if I didn't speak English I'd have enjoyed it more somehow.
**Lee:** That is Quentin Tarantino in a nutshell.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, actually, yes.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You're absolutely right.
**Lee:** Man cannot write a script.
**Lee:** He can make it look lovely, he has all the best actors, it's a great storyline, everyone talks like an absolute imbecile.
**Lee:** You're absolutely right.
**Unknown:** If you like blood and white ladies' feet, he's the guy for you.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But yeah, I, I've not watched anything really.
**Unknown:** Just, uh, just shitty kids cartoons.
**Unknown:** Um, and that's it, that's my life now.
**Adam:** Yeah, sorry, mate.
**Adam:** I think it's quite good, though, welcome to horror.
**Adam:** I was watching Monster and Claire was playing The Sims.
**Adam:** But Claire said that she, there, she just kept forgetting it wasn't in English.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because everything does feel like, you know, you, you know what's happening.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And also, the director, his, has a set of false teeth in that looks so joke shop, I kept forgetting that it's fake, like he'd be, oh no, they're too shit to be a prop.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** They've got to be real teeth, but no, they are comedy Vic Reeves teeth.
**Adam:** Yes, definitely.
**Adam:** But it's basically, yeah, he's just, um, utterly, um, utterly vile or utterly inappropriate, um, doesn't understand.
**Adam:** I mean, at one point to get the movie made, their accountant finds the one grant they've not used, which is a, um,
**Adam:** like equal opportunities employment grant.
**Adam:** So he decides, right, well, I'll just hire, as he says, I'll hire ethnic minorities and they can play the monsters.
**Adam:** So he's got like, a couple of black guys, a guy in a wheelchair.
**Adam:** And it's there sitting there going, so why are we the monsters?
**Adam:** He's like, yeah, you're right, that, that could come across as racist, couldn't it, I've got it, all the white actors should black up.
**Adam:** That is, that is how fucking gone Ad Harri Shredder is.
**Adam:** And it's, yeah, and it's all sort of just ridiculousness.
**Adam:** It's sort of like half, half gory occult sitcom, half office sort of politics thing of like, yeah.
**Unknown:** It feels theater, like more than it does TV.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which is where they're from anyway, so, yeah.
**Adam:** They're just a company that I discovered and thought, that sounds brilliant, but unfortunately, I can never enjoy any of their shows because they'll be in Flemish and then I found out they've done this series and it had subtitles, so I was, yeah, that's what got me in.
**Lee:** Excellent, I shall be checking that out.
**Lee:** Um, I've watched a couple of things since our last recording.
**Lee:** Um, I watched Blood Red Sky on Netflix.
**Adam:** What?
**Lee:** Um, which, uh, should also be called 30 Days of Die Hard on a Plane.
**Adam:** Ha!
**Lee:** Um, it is, it's, uh, 30 Days of Night-style vampire is, uh, controlling it with drugs and he's on a plane when it gets hijacked, so she allows herself to turn back into a vampire and then picks off the hijackers one by one.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** it was, it was good, I quite enjoyed it.
**Lee:** It could definitely have been half an hour shorter than it was, but,
**Lee:** I mean, other than that it was passable.
**Lee:** Um, and then the London Horror Society put a thing up saying, oh, why is nobody talking about The Empty Man from, I think it's possibly 2019?
**Lee:** Um, it's really good.
**Lee:** And the reason is because it's exactly the same as us.
**Lee:** It's really, it's a great concept.
**Lee:** So, so I'm going to say it's a dog shit write off, but you want, you know, love it.
**Adam:** Ha!
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** buy the t-shirt.
**Lee:** But like it, it's got a great, it's really creepy and it's a really good concept.
**Lee:** Until the end twist when you go, well, if that's the twist, nothing else that happened in this film possibly have happened.
**Lee:** So you've just wasted the last hour and 45 minutes by trying to be too smart.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** yeah, so I was really pissed off about that, because it was, it was, it was really good until that point.
**Lee:** It's, it was really creepy and all the imagery was really good.
**Lee:** But yeah, it was one of those, assumes the twist happened.
**Lee:** You went, well, how was he talking to her and how was that happening and why do they remember him and the
**Chris:** Can't they make, can't they make Blu-rays where you get the option, do you want the shit twist at the end or, or cut it?
**Chris:** Yeah, do you want the Lee version or the director's cut and like, you know, then you've got a film you could enjoy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, it was absolutely.
**Adam:** Can't it be a banned snatch?
**Chris:** Yeah, basically, well, just, yeah, just the ending, how do you want the ending?
**Adam:** I think, I think the weird that it's, um, oh, what it is that horrible thing where you get that suspicion, that someone's gone, I've got this great plot and it's got twist, but they haven't actually got the twist yet, someone's given them the money and it's like, fuck, we better come up with this twist, uh, it was his sister all along.
**Adam:** He hasn't got a sister.
**Adam:** Right, her in.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know, what are you talking about?
**Adam:** And it's like, and we lost, um, we lost Sean Locke this week, which is a real shame, um, and, um, yeah, but I, I remember the words of very good friend of his, Mr. Bill Bailey, when he said, how does he write jokes, well, I start with a punchline and work my way back and that admittedly is a joke, but plot twist films, that's how they should be done.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like, it's like you don't think Agatha Christie lucked into her like solutions at the end of who the murderer was or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's like, no, I think she knew and then wrote the story.
**Adam:** Whereas I think a lot of people seem to be forgetting that doing it backwards these days.
**Adam:** What should we do, oh, it's all a dream, oh, yeah, because that will fuck me off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was, it was.
**Lee:** Oh, and, and yeah.
**Lee:** Again, it's the problem of if it had been crap, I'd have turned it off, but once I'd spent an hour and 45 and then it's shitting in my face, that was what really pissed me off.
**Lee:** So, uh,
**Lee:** yeah.
**Chris:** It says here, The Empty Man was not screened in advance for critics and received mostly negative reviews upon release.
**Chris:** So,
**Lee:** They heard it's pod.
**Adam:** Ha!
**Lee:** Um, right, so without further ado, let's crack on to this evening's main event.
**Lee:** I'm going to got trumpet, but if I did.
**Lee:** Um, so, Claire.
**Lee:** Um, I know we mentioned it briefly, but explain your history with this film, please.
**Unknown:** This film, in the words of a great scholar, left a dot in my pants.
**Unknown:** Because this is the one that made me not want to watch horror films.
**Unknown:** This is like, this and House on Haunted Hill, but like the new version, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, Jeffrey Rush version, yeah.
**Unknown:** Because I watched those, these were like one of the first horror films I watched when I was a teen in a sort of like sleepover party scenario.
**Unknown:** Which is already like one of the most tense like just places full stop.
**Unknown:** Um, because you don't want to look like a dick.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And I was just convinced I look like a dick, which made me even more scared.
**Unknown:** Um, and I barely watched any of it.
**Unknown:** And now I was like, I'm a double R bastard, so I'm going to watch this and um, I want to see how it
**Unknown:** if it still has the same effect of me, now I'm not scared of horror as a genre.
**Unknown:** Like the idea of watching a horror film doesn't frighten me anymore.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** yeah, that that was my thinking.
**Lee:** So did you make it to the end on this time around?
**Unknown:** I did, yeah.
**Lee:** Yay!
**Chris:** And how were your pants?
**Unknown:** I'm not doing it.
**Unknown:** Ha!
**Adam:** We did, there were, it was, we were a morse-free laundry that time, no dots, no dashes.
**Chris:** That's very good.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Um, so I know we've said it on the, the show before, but I think that's the thing with so many people who don't watch horror, they, they go to something like that, like a party or a sleepover when they're a teenager, you haven't got much to compare it to and somebody's always like, you know what would be really funny, to scare the cock out of everyone and prove how hard I am by making everyone watch something.
**Lee:** And it's such a dick move, because it just spoils it for everybody because so many people never go back again.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And that, and that was definitely me.
**Unknown:** And um, I was, yeah, watched it yesterday and it was just like, I mean, I had the advantage of I barely watched it the first time because I was hiding for most of it.
**Unknown:** But um, I could only really remember like images of it rather than parts or scenes of the film and um, yeah, watching it this time was just a completely different experience if that's not too wanky to say.
**Lee:** But did you enjoy it or did you just find it tolerable this time?
**Unknown:** I, I wasn't frightened by it at all.
**Unknown:** Hm.
**Unknown:** I don't know if I enjoyed it.
**Unknown:** But I'm glad I watched it again.
**Lee:** Hm.
**Chris:** Now, just, just to add at that point though, we are watching this still during a pandemic.
**Chris:** Now that, that might, that might have adjusted, you know.
**Unknown:** Yeah, these things make you guys.
**Unknown:** Um,
**Unknown:** but yeah, no, I think, because I said this to Adam after watching it and you were shocked.
**Unknown:** Um, that I felt like this had aged worse than like Firefly.
**Lee:** This looks awful now.
**Lee:** Like everything about it, it just looks really off its time.
**Unknown:** And um,
**Unknown:** yeah, and I think that was the thing, well that and another detail that we'll come to, just really distracted me throughout the whole thing.
**Adam:** Ha!
**Unknown:** So I was just very distracted.
**Chris:** See that's, that's like funny, because I get that with some, some eras more than others and I didn't get that with this for some reason.
**Chris:** And yeah, it's funny, I can't work out exactly.
**Unknown:** It's like, you know, when these are new and now like really fashionable.
**Unknown:** People are going around wearing all that and people of our age are now like, well, I've made my decision, that's when I'll, was that my teens, that's where I'm staying.
**Chris:** See, it's funny, right, I've, I've heard this, I've heard that 90s are back in.
**Chris:** I still don't venture out of this room a lot, so I've yet to actually experience that 90s.
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah, we went somewhere else.
**Unknown:** Yeah, kids love Watch Kayna.
**Unknown:** Fuck.
**Unknown:** Yeah, it's gone, 90s is done, finished.
**Chris:** But this, this was 2K, though, wasn't it, it's turned out to be just.
**Adam:** Ha!
**Adam:** I think this is the trouble though, I think you're right, I think probably me, certainly I feel, I would have been in my prime.
**Adam:** And I was like,
**Adam:** yes, this is exactly what the world's like.
**Adam:** And unfortunately, I've not moved on from there.
**Adam:** So it's like, no, that's still what the world's like.
**Lee:** Fucking Tony Blair.
**Adam:** Even George W. Bush, fucking, what?
**Unknown:** Oh, Anthony Blair's long hair now, it's horrible.
**Lee:** Oh!
**Adam:** If you've not seen it, Tony Blair now looks like the bloke who fires them in Kill List.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh!
**Adam:** He really is like a wizened old ponce.
**Adam:** So,
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Long curly hair.
**Lee:** And so, Chris, you saw this back when it was released, I'm imagining.
**Chris:** Yeah, I think I might have seen it in the cinema.
**Chris:** I don't actually remember going there, but I just, I remember it being big and so I'm assuming it was around the time and so it's, it's quite possible that I did.
**Chris:** Um,
**Chris:** Yeah, um,
**Chris:** But I, I definitely remember being left with a sense that I liked it, even though I couldn't remember the details, um, I, I essentially did just remember the zombies being fast.
**Chris:** And I guess, you know, I probably hadn't seen many zombie films.
**Chris:** I'd probably seen them more in computer games, I imagine, than films because I can't actually remember, I hadn't seen any of the classics.
**Adam:** This was the period where Resident Evil brought zombies into.
**Chris:** Yeah, but funnily enough, I'd, I'd never actually played Resident Evil because I didn't have a PlayStation.
**Chris:** Um, and I just, I'd never got it in PC.
**Chris:** But I guess, I, I think in things like Quake and Doom.
**Chris:** You know, they're zombie, essentially zombie type characters in, in it.
**Chris:** So, and you know, I'd heard of them in the same way I'd heard of vampires, I didn't see that many vampire films either.
**Chris:** So it just, yeah, I don't know, for me, it felt like it, they had done a good job of what I imagined to be modernizing zombies, making them fast.
**Chris:** I, I, I remembered, I'd seen it again this time, I'd remembered thinking what was interesting is how at the start, it's the monkeys, um,
**Chris:** and the scientists are kind of obviously doing something bad, probably, although his argument is, they have to infect them to study it.
**Chris:** And you can make the argument because we do probably need to understand this sort of stuff and you can't infect humans, so you know, it's that's a debate there to be had.
**Chris:** But then you've got the tree hugging hippies thinking they're doing something wonderful by releasing them, but they don't understand what they're doing and they just, they're so convinced.
**Chris:** And, and, you know, that that is still a good, this is a, you know, a good story to see for, for modern times now.
**Chris:** I mean, you know, the different groups around the world who think they've got the answers to life and it's their ideology and they're so convinced they're right and they don't want to listen to anyone else, whereas really, you've got to have a debate.
**Lee:** See now I agree, I, one of the things that made me screaming in the office mad a couple of years ago, um, was when, uh, all the protesters were, um,
**Lee:** uh, demonstrating against climate change.
**Lee:** Um, and they've been saying the best way to, to help prevent climate change, they've been saying for decades, one of the best ways is to get out of your car and get on public transport.
**Lee:** So in order to make a protest, they blocked all the public transport for a week and put everyone back in their car.
**Lee:** And I'm like,
**Chris:** They blocked all the
**Lee:** yeah, so what you've now done is you've put everyone back in their car, they're going to realize how much nicer it is when there isn't some dirty, smelly griefer super gluing himself to the window and now all those people are going to get in the train, you fucking idiot.
**Lee:** Um,
**Chris:** Yeah, that's that's not quite how I put it, but, yeah.
**Lee:** That's how I'd put it and I'll stand by that.
**Chris:** Um,
**Chris:** But yeah, so it's, it's sort of interesting, you know, this is a bleak film and essentially everyone is kind of doing it wrong a lot of the time.
**Chris:** And, and that's because, you know, I mean, humans were not been made to be great at things, we've been made to just about, you know, continue, uh, the DNA and that's it.
**Chris:** If we roughly do that good enough, the rest can just be complete chaos.
**Unknown:** And then it's, it's like, and we are like pack animals, like we live in families.
**Unknown:** Which is how the virus spread so quickly and then when you're in just pairs or threes, you fuck up completely because you've not got enough people to go, should we really be hanging about down here or should we fuck off?
**Adam:** But then in appear, the more people you add, the more they get a commitment.
**Adam:** And then by the end of it, there's some cuts sending you a memo and the fucking rage virus zombies got you by the throat.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's like, I did, I said an email.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's it, you're like with the military, so I mean, I did find that fascinating this time and it was a bit like, oh, you know, I, I completely understand what's going on here now.
**Chris:** But in that situation, I don't know, what is the right answer?
**Chris:** If, if the world is getting wiped out, you sort of have to reproduce.
**Adam:** I don't.
**Lee:** I don't think it's about reproduction.
**Chris:** Oh, all right, no, so I mean it is because the biological urge that needs to be dealt with somehow and that's what it comes from.
**Lee:** That's why that's what happens when the internet's gone.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's true.
**Adam:** They're out in the English woods, surely they could find some pornography.
**Lee:** Ha!
**Adam:** Or some, come on, old school.
**Chris:** You know, I mean that there's, you know, I mean that is in like, in some situation like that.
**Chris:** Obviously at some point it's got to get serious and you've got to figure out, well, what do we all think is a good setup now?
**Chris:** Um,
**Chris:** I mean, that that would be a very boring film to try, try and figure that out in a, in a very nice way.
**Chris:** But, you know, it's clearly a difficult thing.
**Adam:** There's a show you might like, Chris, there was a show in the 70s and I think they remade it in the mid 2000s called Survivors.
**Chris:** Mm.
**Adam:** And the certainly the original version of it was like 28 Days Later via The Good Life.
**Chris:** Mm, okay.
**Adam:** And so,
**Adam:** it's quite, so basically a virus, there's a viral outbreak and it wipes out loads of people.
**Adam:** Um,
**Adam:** but it is the people trying to like exist.
**Adam:** So unfortunately, for every episode that you've got like something exciting happens.
**Adam:** Like an army bloke turns up and tries to be a prick and they kill him.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** There's about 40 episodes about crop rotation.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Gay pants.
**Adam:** Yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** It's so it's, but it, but that does go much more into that idea of like.
**Adam:** You're they're trying to build a society and there's even like, there's like an episode where.
**Adam:** They basically have to form a cult because there's a guy who kills someone.
**Adam:** And they're like, so what do we do about this?
**Adam:** Because there's no law, do we reintroduce law?
**Adam:** And things like that.
**Adam:** Uh, it's obviously, it's from the 70s.
**Adam:** And like I say, it's very sort of,
**Adam:** it's very middle class in that, well, well, you know, we should have a fair judge and jury, really.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, he's an animal, take him outside, make him dig his own grave.
**Adam:** Kill him.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Ha!
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** no, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, you know, in those sort of circumstances, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah, and that Adam's playing for next Monday.
**Lee:** This is just.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** No, I'm off work.
**Lee:** Ha!
**Lee:** Um, but yeah, I the thing that struck me more than anything, I've got to say, uh, that you touched on, Claire, was just how badly this film has aged in everything about it.
**Lee:** Like, the look and feel of it, at first, I was like, oh, has she put the biker Grove DVD in, this like, it just looked like terrible ITV shooting, it was awful.
**Adam:** Because it's all on, it's all digital video.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Really early.
**Adam:** Yeah, very early, yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah, I think that might have been why I was a bit disappointed.
**Unknown:** Because, because I had such like, such a reaction from it first time, I'd built it up in my mind that it must be this like amazing piece of cinema, which had shocked me like that.
**Unknown:** And actually, no.
**Unknown:** It, probably the 12 other teenagers shit scared me more than the film.
**Chris:** But was there, was there something about like the opening scene when he, when he's walking around London and it's deserted.
**Chris:** I mean, that I'm fairly certain that had a big impact, it was like, well, we haven't sort of seen London look like that before.
**Chris:** So is it just that that, it was almost like the zoomed out.
**Chris:** And seeing these grand vistas that normally look bustling with life, like, was that just such a contrast?
**Unknown:** Those, those quiet bits, I thought were more effective than
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** The zombie bits.
**Unknown:** And because you really felt like, and I even said, what the fuck would you do?
**Unknown:** Like,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because you would never, to see a hospital deserted.
**Unknown:** You'd go, oh, I don't know, you'd assume something had happened there.
**Unknown:** But for London to be just.
**Chris:** But of course, we have now seen that in real life.
**Chris:** There's much like, watching this, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, it's just nothing special about this film, we're done now.
**Adam:** Has the power of this film been diminished by the fact that we now know that a pandemic's a bit more fucking boring?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Ha!
**Adam:** You know.
**Chris:** I can't, I can't trust anything in this now.
**Lee:** It's
**Chris:** What else have they lied to me about?
**Lee:** No, that was fantastic, the music that they overlayed on that, um,
**Lee:** on those London scene. I know we talked about it a couple of weeks ago, Chris, and you said you've never listened to Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
**Chris:** Well, yeah.
**Lee:** This, like, watching this, it sounds identical.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like, it's just
**Lee:** It's just incredible.
**Chris:** No, so that's it, so I must have played Godspeed You! Black Emperor before.
**Chris:** I'm sure like it's been played.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** He would have.
**Adam:** He would have played.
**Chris:** Yeah, but when I, yeah, when I was watching, I was thinking, yeah, like,
**Chris:** it was reminding me of something so that is, yeah, I think that's fantastic.
**Adam:** Because that earlier stuff because we, we did see it and I definitely saw it in the cinema.
**Adam:** I'm pretty sure I saw it with you, Lee.
**Lee:** I was going to say the same, yeah.
**Adam:** And I, and I definitely saw it with Dean, because I remember the little flattened out aisle.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Of like, him going, it's Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You get a flattened out, it was wrong with you, like.
**Chris:** You get a flattened out, that's what, that's more weird than anything.
**Lee:** Ha!
**Adam:** You know, I met you then.
**Adam:** What's wrong with you?
**Adam:** Um, of just like whispered sort of like, it's got to speed you black.
**Adam:** It's got to speed you black and it's actually, um, it's Hastings from their album.
**Adam:** F Sharp A Sharp Infinity.
**Adam:** And apparently, Danny Boyle said that he uses music when he writes.
**Adam:** And that album was basically, as he said, that's what he wrote the film to.
**Chris:** Yeah, that's interesting.
**Adam:** So he sort of.
**Adam:** He used it in there.
**Adam:** There's, there's a really good, there was, there was a nice little series of CDs which was, um, authors doing the same thing.
**Adam:** Where they picked music that they listened to while they were writing and Clay Barks was really good because it was mostly soundtracks.
**Adam:** Um,
**Adam:** but similarly, yeah, he said that because I can't remember what was the other thing he said, it was like, there was another film where he'd, um, like he, it was, oh, it was Underworld.
**Adam:** Uh, the first Underworld.
**Adam:** album was what he wrote Trainspotting to.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Um, so it's sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** But, um, but no, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and that, that whole opening sequence is fucking incredible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it has to be said.
**Adam:** I think that, because, interestingly enough, Claire was like, at one point, I think we just went to get a drink and have a pea or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And you said, oh, is it much longer?
**Adam:** And I was like, strangely enough, I don't think it has, because I was like hitting plot points really quickly, and when they were filming it, they only had like very small times where the basically the police would block off roads for them for about half an hour early on a Sunday.
**Adam:** And that's when they'd filmed the deserted London stuff.
**Adam:** And, interestingly enough, I think that that might have been what helped the pace of the film.
**Adam:** Because I think if they'd have had more cart blanche to film empty London, it would have been much more ponderous.
**Adam:** I think.
**Adam:** There would have been, it would have got to the point where it's like.
**Adam:** Get, make something happen.
**Unknown:** Yeah, don't tell me, show me.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it was like, and I think that that might have actually been in its favor.
**Adam:** Like the sort of.
**Adam:** The fact that they couldn't shut down London fully.
**Adam:** And actually, most of the night stuff is regraded day footage because it was cheaper to do that.
**Adam:** And more effective than it was to digitally try and remove street lights and building lights for any of the nighttime stuff.
**Adam:** So, yeah, so a lot of it was day for night shooting.
**Lee:** It looks better than a lot of day for night shooting, to be fair.
**Lee:** And yeah, considering how bad it looks in general, I think that came across really well.
**Adam:** I think that's the thing, I think that's the thing of the digital element of it, but like I say, it's such an early digital thing.
**Adam:** Weirdly enough, it now looks like you shot it on a phone, not the latest model.
**Chris:** Mm.
**Adam:** You know, it looks like YouTube.
**Adam:** And, and it's sort of pre, obviously predates YouTube by three years.
**Adam:** But I think, yeah, it does look like that, but that to me in my head, I think still makes it feel realistic.
**Adam:** Whereas I think for you, you were like,
**Chris:** That's just lost it.
**Chris:** Completely.
**Adam:** You know, it looks like they haven't got.
**Adam:** They haven't got the light.
**Unknown:** But it wasn't even that.
**Unknown:** It was, I don't, I don't even know what it.
**Unknown:** What it was about, because obviously, like you can say, oh, the telly that the chimps are watching it on, you can't be big.
**Unknown:** Aren't they chunky?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Lee:** You were, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, but chimps can only watch big chunky tellies.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They's done that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the like the big four channels.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And the like the big four channels.
**Unknown:** But it was just everything, everything about it felt like it, like the really quick cuts felt really off the time.
**Unknown:** The fact that there was so much, well, I said to you, the NHS really deserve those round of applause because Jim was in a coma when he fell off a fucking bike.
**Unknown:** He's come out the coma and he's doing parkour and killing eight army men, you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I can't, I had exactly the same thought at the same point.
**Lee:** It was when he suddenly ambushed them shirtless in the rain.
**Lee:** And I was like, didn't he hear three days ago, like he's doing very.
**Lee:** Yeah, he gets shot.
**Unknown:** He gets shot.
**Unknown:** He gets shot in the chest point blank.
**Unknown:** And makes it.
**Unknown:** With a rifle.
**Chris:** Yeah, but it's, he's doing it from passion.
**Chris:** He's, he's got something to live for, they've all lost it.
**Adam:** It's interesting because the whole thing, especially, like, I love.
**Adam:** I mean, for a start, I love the scene where he blinds the bloke with his thumbs because, I, you know, I, life goals.
**Adam:** But also,
**Adam:** you know, he is literally the most unpleasant of a bunch of arseholes.
**Adam:** And that's inclu, that's including.
**Adam:** Christopher Eccleston pretending to be Charles Dance and a gooner in a fucking Philly, Philly fucking apron.
**Adam:** But yeah, still there.
**Adam:** Fuck off you can't, don't miss him.
**Adam:** I'm glad he gets his head smashed in.
**Adam:** I would have, I would have been happy about that if he was a charity worker.
**Adam:** He's like, he's just such a prick.
**Adam:** But that scene then has the bit where she thinks Jim's infected.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it is almost kind of like,
**Adam:** oh, so he's channeling his rage.
**Adam:** But and it pains me because I do love the film.
**Adam:** But yeah.
**Adam:** I love the film, I think because everything's really, really, really fucking bleak and everything's really, really accurate.
**Adam:** And then finally it's like, yeah, but you'd want a happy ending and a happy ending, unfortunately in this scenario involves slaughtering seven army men.
**Adam:** And getting shot in the chest.
**Adam:** You know, it is, that's, that's the best you can expect as a happy ending, you know.
**Lee:** But then I still think, right.
**Lee:** So Hannah.
**Lee:** is like, she's a really shit actor, she can't, she's not great.
**Lee:** But as a character, she's brilliant, she's really fucking useful, she can drive, she can fix cars, she can handle her drugs.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I think she should have been the one that took down the army men and not Jim. she didn't take out Christopher Eccleston.
**Chris:** She did take out Christopher Eccleston.
**Lee:** Yeah, that's true.
**Lee:** That was a pretty badass move.
**Lee:** That was really good.
**Adam:** She has only, I think she's only done like two other films and they were before this, but she is now a musician and pop star.
**Adam:** She's, but she's called Betty Curse and it's like sort of emo punk pop that you can imagine someone called Betty Curse would produce.
**Adam:** But yeah, so she's not really.
**Adam:** She's not really pursued an acting career since this.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** You're, you're right, though.
**Lee:** Because I.
**Lee:** That was my first thing as I said, so I saw this at the cinema.
**Lee:** I bought it when it came out on DVD, I might have watched it once but not seen it again since.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, and it's the activist at the beginning, they are the shittiest actors and I was like, if the acting is this level all the way through, I'm really going to struggle with this.
**Lee:** It was Murphy then.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** But, but we saw.
**Lee:** So I think I think they were.
**Adam:** No, I think Jim was the only one where he didn't flash it.
**Adam:** Flash it.
**Adam:** I mean, most, most of the infected.
**Adam:** I'll tell you what, because they got like dancers and athletes and stuff like that because they were like, well, what do we want from these people, physicality more than anything else.
**Adam:** So, you know, they don't, they don't need to be fucking Marlon Brando.
**Adam:** They've just got, you know, you need.
**Adam:** Um, but like the guy who plays Mahler.
**Adam:** He's basically, he's like a stuntman who's been in all the Disney Star Wars, all the Daniel Craig Bonds, children of men, Dr. Who, and loads and loads and loads of stuff.
**Adam:** And most of them have been in most of them have been in Dr. Who, most of them have been in the descent.
**Adam:** And one of them is the thin bloke from the Come to Daddy video.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, right.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think that's.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think that's right.
**Adam:** But yeah, so they've all, so there's all, but yeah, so a lot of people have sort of and half of the.
**Adam:** Half of the military guys are all like, there's people from EastEnders and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And you know, there's everyone's sort of, yeah, they just seem to have hit a real vein of British talent just before most of them actually sort of break cover.
**Adam:** In a way.
**Unknown:** And I suppose because it is such a small cast, obviously, that they they had to pick people who could act.
**Unknown:** Because otherwise, it's going to stand out like a sore thumb.
**Adam:** Like Hannah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I think, yeah, there's there's um, Lee's looking intently at his screen again.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** He might have gone.
**Adam:** If, if, if he's not,
**Adam:** the one, the one I think made me laugh was, my plans, my plans for the summer with a picture of the girl from Hereditary and then just a picture of a pole for the delta varian.
**Lee:** Ha!
**Lee:** I didn't watch it.
**Lee:** I got.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** Midsummer.
**Adam:** I got halfway through and got bored.
**Adam:** Yeah, actually, yeah.
**Adam:** I think he just went.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I was like, oh, all the tears.
**Adam:** There's been a few of them.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But actually, yeah.
**Adam:** There's been a few were pretty poor, but yeah, I think the next thing I would go to push myself would be something more supernatural.
**Adam:** So, Yeah.
**Adam:** Any recommendations that you have, I'll go for that.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Chris:** I highly recommend on your own in the dark.
**Chris:** Any of the supernaturals.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because you weren't keen on.
**Adam:** What was it?
**Adam:** I Am a Ghost.
**Adam:** Which wasn't we didn't cover it on the show, but you weren't.
**Lee:** Yeah, that that was horrible that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That was, that was horrible.
**Unknown:** Um, but I would give that a go if you lot covered it, I would join you with that.
**Unknown:** I hope my balls are.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Unknown:** I will.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'm trying to think because we, we.
**Adam:** I think we do a fair spread so we probably do a supernatural at some point.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, you can, but you know.
**Chris:** Yeah, that.
**Chris:** Yeah, it didn't, I think the difference with that is, you're kind of on the side of the supernatural ghost.
**Chris:** Aren't you?
**Chris:** You know, you don't.
**Adam:** Well, that, that was something they mentioned in Monster.
**Adam:** When I was watching it, and they said, you, you've got it right because you had the monster.
**Adam:** But you made him sympathetic.
**Adam:** And that's what you've got to have, you've got to fear the monster, but also have sympathy for the monster.
**Unknown:** I think, I think if something looks like a person, then I'll be fine with it.
**Unknown:** Which is why I wouldn't class something like Candyman.
**Unknown:** But if it was ghostly,
**Adam:** What, like Lee is a ghost?
**Adam:** That's right, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Hello.
**Lee:** He's going.
**Lee:** Me, with a sheet on my head.
**Adam:** Well, actually, you've experienced that all week because that's what Ted's been doing.
**Lee:** Oh, God, Ted's suddenly become allergic to trousers.
**Lee:** And so, all I've seen is just a small person's cock and balls and him saying, I'm spooky, whoa.
**Adam:** And, and he.
**Chris:** Is that, is that Harry's learning to get around by if you, he turns into something that's horror themed.
**Chris:** And he's like, oh, he's good with that, that's fine.
**Chris:** Don't worry.
**Adam:** Curiously enough, I'm just quite pleased the amount of times he what he wants to watch spooky things as he falls.
**Adam:** Asleep.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** All the time, yeah.
**Adam:** Like he likes Coraline.
**Adam:** He likes Halloween specials of various cartoons and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Well, also he likes Christmas.
**Adam:** I think it's just a decoration thing with him.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Anything sparkly.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Cool.
**Lee:** Um, right, so, uh, we should probably wrap it up here.
**Lee:** So, thank you very much for joining us, Claire, and happy birthday for tomorrow.
**Chris:** Happy birthday.
**Unknown:** Oh, thank you.
**Unknown:** Thank you.
**Adam:** I'm not wishing you a happy birthday now because I wish you one of the moment.
**Adam:** You're not getting more.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Don't wear it out.
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** Uh, yeah, and thank you for bringing this film back into our, back to our attention.
**Lee:** Because yeah, it, it was great to go back and rewatch it.
**Unknown:** Oh, good.
**Unknown:** Well,
**Adam:** And I had a thoroughly miserable time.
**Adam:** It's wonderful.
**Lee:** Right, right, my strike.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And on that note, we are hopefully, if we can arrange our guest, we hopefully going to have a guest again for the next episode.
**Lee:** Um, and we are going to continue, I've not seen this film.
**Lee:** Um, we are going to continue down the miserable AF route.
**Lee:** Um, and we are going to watch Martyrs with our friend Manny.
**Adam:** Ooh.
**Lee:** Uh, if all things go well.
**Adam:** Well, I can, I can honestly say I'm expecting Chris to really, really enjoy this and possibly you not so much, Lee.
**Chris:** Martyr's not a comedy.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Please tell me that's written on your hand.
**Chris:** No.
**Adam:** No, no.
**Chris:** All right.
**Chris:** I will.
**Chris:** I will bear that in mind.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** So, in the meantime, everyone, thanks ever so much for listening.
**Lee:** Uh, go and check out all of our friends, other podcasts that we always discuss.
**Lee:** Uh, they're not for everyone, podcast, check out the ESX podcast.
**Lee:** Uh, and most importantly, for Christ's sake, watch something cheerie before our next episode because it's going to go further down here.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, and good night.
**Chris:** Good night.
**Adam:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Bye.

---

## Ep 124 Interview with the Vampire

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-124-interview-with-the-vampire/
Air date: 15 August 2021
Duration: 01:47:57
Film: Interview with the Vampire · Year: 1994 · Director: Neil Jordan

### Description

It’s Lady Jennifer’s birthday choice, and she’s selected none-more-‘90s-sexy-drac-fest “Interview With The Vampire”. A film in which a moody Brad Pitt is forced to stand in a trench; Trigger teaches piano; and a puppet of Tom Cruise gives one of the better performances. Along the way we discuss “Fanny Lye Deliver’d”, “Rick and Morty”, “Undergods”, “The Raven” and the podcasts “Eerie Essex” and “The Alexei Sayle Podcast”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY. APOLOGIES ALSO TO ANY TOM CRUISE FANS…

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** Hi, I'm Adam.
**Unknown:** Hi, I'm Jennifer.
**Lee:** Yay!
**Chris:** Jennifer's back.
**Unknown:** Yay!
**Unknown:** And older.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Adam:** Are you wiser?
**Unknown:** Wiser? I'll always wiser. Yes, than everyone.
**Lee:** Wiser than me, certainly.
**Chris:** When when is your peak?
**Lee:** Well, yeah.
**Unknown:** When's my peak?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I've got cats, not dogs.
**Unknown:** yeah. I'll never peak.
**Lee:** Yeah, let's leave that there.
**Lee:** I was just going to say what I would say wiser than wiser than she was, but of course she still picked this film, so we'll
**Chris:** Oh, that that could that could be a subtle hint at what's to come. Yeah, that's it.
**Unknown:** This is, you know, ideas.
**Chris:** Rebuttal.
**Adam:** Lines are being drawn.
**Lee:** So, yeah, so our main event this evening for Jennifer's birthday choice is Interview with the Vampire.
**Lee:** AKA, how to be a prick to someone for generations.
**Unknown:** Sounds like my life.
**Unknown:** Watch that film, I'm like this is brilliant. Anyway, before that.
**Lee:** So before that, in our run up, we shall do our, what we have been watching.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching?
**Chris:** Right. No.
**Chris:** It's possible, it's possible if none of you have seen this that you'll think you're wasting your time.
**Chris:** That is nothing to do with welcome to horror, what that is pointless, right?
**Chris:** But I'm going to read out something and I'll see your responses.
**Chris:** So I've been watching,
**Chris:** wait for it.
**Chris:** I've been watching Ball Fondlers on Interdimensional Cable.
**Adam:** Right.
**Chris:** we've got we've got one person on board here.
**Lee:** No idea.
**Chris:** Okay, it is Rick and Morty.
**Adam:** Jura is Morty.
**Adam:** You've been watching Interdimensional Cable and Rick and Morty then.
**Chris:** I have, I have.
**Chris:** So I I right enough people have told me to watch Rick and Morty, right?
**Chris:** And years ago I watched the first episode and I was like,
**Chris:** it's it's good, it's just a little bit too maybe juvenile.
**Chris:** I felt and then that was perhaps a bit snobby, I'm accepting maybe a bit snobby, right?
**Chris:** But I just couldn't quite get on board with it.
**Chris:** Anyway, enough people over the years have said, Rick and Morty, just watch Rick and Morty, like what's wrong with you?
**Chris:** Yeah, and then you had something called a Pickle Rick, which I think must be from Rick and Morty.
**Chris:** Now that I've reached the episode Pickle Rick, and I'm like, oh, that must be where it came from.
**Chris:** Anyway, right, so, so then someone fairly recently said, Rick and Morty, and this was after we'd been discussing all sorts of philosophy, science, you know, time travel,
**Chris:** transferring your consciousness, all that sort of stuff, yeah. I was like, all right, shit, I'm just going to watch it again.
**Chris:** And of course I got to episode three and I was like, that's it, I'm stuck. I'm just watching the rest of these.
**Chris:** Nothing else, nothing else is coming on. That's it.
**Unknown:** A few episodes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So I'm now in season four, every spare moment of TV watching availability has been spent watching it, right?
**Chris:** And so, yeah, there you go. That's that's my welcome to horror what I've been watching.
**Chris:** I think there's enough horror in it that you can just about squeeze it in, but I also don't feel that I need to.
**Chris:** It's good enough.
**Unknown:** I think turning into a pickle and then attacking rats that's very horrific.
**Lee:** Right.
**Lee:** It's a fantastic show and yeah, you're right, it really does delve into some really dark places.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But in a hilarious way, so.
**Chris:** It's yeah, unbelievable writing.
**Chris:** How they managed to combine so much crazy stuff.
**Adam:** It's got.
**Chris:** Which is very watchable.
**Adam:** It's almost got that thing that Red Dwarf used to like had in the sort of early days where you're like, loads of people are watching this and they're really enjoying it.
**Adam:** But they're also being exposed to pretty fucking big sci-fi concepts.
**Chris:** Like
**Adam:** Like multidimensional stuff and things like that, you know, and as it goes on and you get.
**Adam:** That sort of element to it where there's however many different realities and replacing yourself in another one and.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's not actually the original person who was that original person and yeah.
**Chris:** And and I found out it's not ended.
**Chris:** I thought we had finished years ago, but it turns out they're still making episodes.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's Netflix now, so I think they're doing them sort of sporadily, but yeah, they.
**Lee:** Still fantastic, so.
**Adam:** There's some there's some new ones there's some new ones out.
**Adam:** I have seen the start of one because it some they put it up on Instagram and at the start of one he meets it's Rick and.
**Adam:** Jerry meeting the Cenobites.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Oh there you go.
**Adam:** But but and the whole thing is is that basically.
**Adam:** As it turns out it's because they have to keep spending a night with Jerry because pain and torment is pleasure to them.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Adam:** So they they go and they have a barbecue with Jerry.
**Chris:** You don't get much more pain.
**Adam:** And that's like they're getting their rocks off because it's that that pain form.
**Chris:** I can I can see the pain in Lee's face just from the mentioning of such such a situation.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Excellent, well done.
**Lee:** so, Adam, what have you been watching?
**Adam:** Right, I've got a ton, but I will get through it quick.
**Adam:** I watched Bone Tomahawk, which I hadn't seen before.
**Lee:** I still not seen it.
**Adam:** Right, I'm going to say okay.
**Adam:** And definitely Kurt Russell is one of the best things about it, obviously, because it's Kurt Russell.
**Adam:** There's some great stuff in there, Sid Haig's in it right at the start, which I didn't even realize.
**Adam:** but I mean, I'm now probably indicated a spoiler there by saying, he's in it right at the start.
**Adam:** You can imagine, yeah.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** But yeah, sort of the best way I can describe it is dark place.
**Adam:** In as much as I think I'd have enjoyed it more if it wasn't so unironically macho.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** It's quite a sort of like we're a stoic men going to do stoic things.
**Adam:** And, you know, people who are like sort of and just lots of no nonsense men in the wilderness arguing.
**Adam:** But yeah, not bad, but sort of oddly.
**Adam:** Best way I can describe it as I think when I summed it up with Clare.
**Adam:** When it came out, I thought that looks good.
**Adam:** Then I left it, then another film came out by the same director called dragged across concrete, which was.
**Adam:** Vince Vaughn again in not in a funny role but Vince Vaughn in a prison riot film.
**Adam:** And I was like, oh, that sounds fucking awful.
**Adam:** But I still want to see Bone Tomahawk.
**Adam:** And then the guy made a third film, so he's pretty prolific.
**Adam:** But that was a bar where some like Gulf War veterans drink.
**Adam:** and these old boys have to defend it against a group of young punks who've turned up.
**Adam:** I think they're basically cannon films, is the best way I can put it.
**Adam:** You know, they're a bit sort of.
**Adam:** Chuck Norris sort of a.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I mean, I I enjoyed it while it lasted, but there was definitely a there was a distinct level of sort of, oh, you you haven't moved on here, really, have you?
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** You've not thought that there might be a bit more nuance needed in this.
**Adam:** But it does, but it does feature some really graphic,
**Adam:** A really graphic scalping and chopping someone in half and stuff.
**Adam:** But yeah, overall it was sort of okay. but yeah, glad glad I've watched it, glad I didn't pay for it.
**Adam:** Well it was on prime, so I paid for it technically, but you know what I mean.
**Unknown:** You sold your soul, Adam.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It feels it feels free, yes.
**Unknown:** Your soul.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Not free with Amazon.
**Chris:** It's got a lot of souls.
**Adam:** I kind of paid for it, Jeff Bezos clearly hasn't.
**Adam:** As he wanks in his spaceship.
**Adam:** Then I watched Fanny Ly Deliver, which is.
**Adam:** like it's set just after the English Civil War.
**Adam:** And it's kind of a, it has a sort of a bit of a Western feel to it, weirdly.
**Adam:** like a revenge Western feel to it.
**Adam:** But basically, Maxine Peak is married to Charles Dance.
**Adam:** Obviously, it's a loveless marriage because it's in England during the Puritan age.
**Adam:** And he's a man of God, so it's basically, you know, he's just a prick.
**Adam:** and then two people turn up and expose her to other religious concepts.
**Adam:** Basically, they're ranters, which was the first blossoming of the notion of a god within.
**Adam:** But but also they're pricks as well.
**Adam:** And it's it's just a really good film in the sense that basically by the end of it, she has come to her own conclusion, but it's not through anyone else.
**Adam:** It's through observing and experiencing.
**Adam:** But yeah, but it's also it has that nasty.
**Adam:** Witchfinder general edge.
**Adam:** You know, where it's that that sort of a thing where it's basically it feels like that done small scale because there's only like eight people in it.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's definitely worth checking out, it's not horror, but it's sort of it it feels a bit folk horror just the way it is because it's that period of time.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** You know, and there's some sort of gruesome moments and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But basically, yeah, that's that's a good one.
**Adam:** I also watched Undergods, which is a film which is like a sort of sci-fi anthology set in a future dystopia.
**Adam:** Which was really good.
**Adam:** Not quite sure, I think it's one of those ones where I'd sort of half recommend it in as much as if it sounds like it's your bag, go for it.
**Adam:** But I don't know if it's for everyone.
**Adam:** It might be not for everyone, so I might have to suggest don't cover it.
**Adam:** And yeah, it's basically three stories of well, basically fucked up things happening in this sort of possibly Eastern European dystopian future.
**Adam:** But it's two corpse collectors telling each other stories.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** As as they drive around picking up bodies for even meat or slavery.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, it's.
**Adam:** It's good, it's fucking brutal in places and it's also.
**Adam:** But it's packed with really good character actors and it's oddly funny.
**Adam:** But in that sort of way that, you know how if you watch Brazil.
**Adam:** By the Terry Gilliam film.
**Adam:** And it's like it's funny, but if you identify or feel yourself in that position, it's a fucking nightmare.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It has that sort of a feel to it.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** But yeah, that was genuinely genuinely good.
**Adam:** And on recommendation from Bobby from not for everyone podcast, I watched most of series one and all of series one and most of series two of a sketch show called I think you should leave.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Adam:** Which I really recommend everyone watch it, it's it's like a sort of.
**Adam:** I don't know, it's like a bit like a dark big train or something like that.
**Adam:** It's just sort of.
**Adam:** I can't even begin to describe the sketches.
**Adam:** But some I mean there's some or it's it's American.
**Adam:** it's Tim, I can't remember his name, Tim Robinson from I think from Tim and Eric's Awesome Show.
**Adam:** I'm not sure.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** but yeah, it's just a really good sketch show and the great thing is is all the episodes are like 17, 20 minutes.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** There there's nothing that outstays it's welcome in them, but there's some great sketches.
**Adam:** There's like one where it's the girl who's invited her snobby older boyfriend to a party.
**Adam:** And they're playing, you know the game where it's like you take names out of a hat and you have to describe them.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's that game, but he keeps coming up with like obscure jazz people and something like.
**Adam:** What do you mean you've never heard of of weightless sugar Ray Enoch.
**Adam:** He's he was on the Colgate jazz hour every week, come on.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** but yeah, and and and sort of nicely childish and sort of, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's definitely worth it definitely worth to watch that one.
**Lee:** Excellent film.
**Adam:** also, I've been listening to there's two podcasts, one I discovered, Alexis Sale has a podcast.
**Adam:** And that's just really worth a listen to just to hear a grumpy man talk about weaponry and what's wrong with the world.
**Chris:** We've got we've got Lee for that.
**Adam:** We've got we've got Lee for that, but it when I don't speak to Lee, I get from that, you know.
**Adam:** But I mean, it's Alexis Sale pretty much as you expect Alexis Sale.
**Adam:** And one of the funniest things on there is just to give you an example of the mood of the show, they have a Patreon and they promise you nothing.
**Adam:** And they said that they feel that that's in keeping with the concept of how bad things are in terms of just reality.
**Adam:** That it's like, yeah, you pay us and we give you nothing.
**Adam:** But if you but if you pay us like gold standard, you get absolutely nothing, you know, it's definitely nothing.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just well worth listening.
**Adam:** He's him and his producer who basically who sounds like.
**Adam:** He's visiting his grumpy granddad and like have and he's like, granddad, you should.
**Adam:** But I mean there's been brilliant bits.
**Adam:** Like at one point, because Alexis Sale, as we know, doesn't give a fuck.
**Adam:** but to actually knows that there's a reality out here.
**Adam:** And you have to be careful.
**Adam:** Because at one point he said, well, I mean, you know, not so much the Patreon, but I mean, I'll send you a special message if you could get me a gun.
**Adam:** Like, you know, maybe a Glock or something like that.
**Adam:** And it was like, no, please, Alexi, just don't say it.
**Unknown:** Please, please don't say it.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, but okay, I won't, but if you get me a gun.
**Adam:** And also a podcast that's just started called Essex.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Unknown:** It's like Indiana, but not quite as, you know, cool.
**Adam:** It's it's not it's not quite as Joe Dante.
**Adam:** Definitely. but basically it's them it's
**Adam:** two two ladies, Betton Briggs Miller and Alyssa Clark.
**Adam:** And they are sort of detailing haunted areas and stories from around Essex and the first one they've done is like haunted hotels and B&Bs and I thought that'd be right up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Your Alley because I know I know you guys would want to go and stay in as many of them as possible.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Adam:** It's a but yeah, it's a good show.
**Adam:** And also they they've displayed having the right frame of mind when they described Anthony Hopkins is both an asshole and a git.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** But yeah, and so the pod those podcasts definitely worth a listen to.
**Adam:** So, yes.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Adam:** And that's all the way.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** definitely watch the podcast and definitely watch I think you should leave.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Lee:** Okay, I'll be writing those down so.
**Lee:** Excellent, thank you very much.
**Lee:** I've watched a couple of bits but nothing new.
**Lee:** I've rewatched all three of the Goonies movies, amazing, but we'll be covering them at some point.
**Lee:** I dare say, so I won't go too much into that.
**Lee:** and I rewatched Roger Corman's The Raven with Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff, that's his name, wasn't it?
**Lee:** yeah, which again in the in the fantastic.
**Lee:** World of Roger Corman where he would basically take an Edgar Allen Poe story, take the name and then entirely write something that had nothing to do with anything, really.
**Lee:** And then.
**Adam:** The Raven.
**Lee:** So basically it's battling wizards and it starts with a raven turns up at the window.
**Lee:** He lets it in and it's Peter Lorre who's been bewitched into being a raven.
**Lee:** He turns him back and he says, that prick up the hill did it.
**Lee:** By the way, your dead wife isn't really dead, he's got her enchanted up there.
**Lee:** And they go up there to try and get his wife back and it's, it's mental.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but it's fantastic fun and it's really, it's really funny and it's really brightly colored and it's.
**Lee:** It's all the great things that Roger Corman's comedy horror stuff was really.
**Adam:** We should again, we should definitely cover it on the show at some point.
**Adam:** Especially because I know Clare's requested to see more Vincent Price and that's definitely one I've got lined up.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because it's yeah, just a great little run around that film, yeah.
**Lee:** Definitely.
**Chris:** Sounds great.
**Lee:** quick RIP, obviously, and I think it's a horror related as as music gets really.
**Lee:** obviously, Joey from Slipknot died.
**Lee:** At 46 this week.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** As far as I'm aware, they still haven't said why, his family just said he died in his sleep.
**Adam:** Yeah, but his passengers died screaming.
**Adam:** He was driving a bus at the time.
**Adam:** Bum, bum.
**Adam:** Sorry.
**Lee:** Yeah, I just felt that was worth worth mentioning is, I mean, they're definitely a horror band, so
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** and I watched one other thing which isn't quite horror, but.
**Lee:** We have had a hashtag Ask Welcome to Horror question.
**Lee:** And the other thing that Jennifer and I have been watching falls into that category.
**Lee:** So, Adam, would you like to read our hashtag Ask Welcome to Horror question?
**Adam:** Let me just spring up on the screen.
**Lee:** Open it, get it back out the envelope, he's opening it up from the mailbag.
**Adam:** Yeah, come out of the golden envelope.
**Adam:** right.
**Adam:** This.
**Adam:** And and this this part of the show we call Ask Welcome to Horror.
**Adam:** And this week's Ask Welcome to Horror comes from a Bobby from Texas.
**Adam:** who has asked, what is the best introduction to cult British sci-fi television?
**Adam:** And yeah, that's hell of a question.
**Adam:** Thanks, thanks, Bobby.
**Adam:** So, yes.
**Adam:** Lee, so I I think I know what you've been what you you've been I know what you've been watching lately and definitely I'm, yeah, that goes on the list certainly.
**Adam:** So do you want to kick off?
**Lee:** Oh, thank you very much.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** So, so the main one that I would suggest for this, is as we've mentioned quite a lot recently is Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Which, which we've just finished so, we've finished all six seasons in the last two months or so.
**Lee:** and I can honestly say.
**Unknown:** It makes no sense.
**Lee:** When we got to the final episode of season six, I knew exactly the same as I learned at the end of episode one, season one.
**Unknown:** Yeah, that's absolutely.
**Chris:** Now that that is that is either genius or double genius.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It.
**Chris:** Because it kept it kept him for all six seasons.
**Lee:** It's a fantastic show, it's nothing's ever explained, none of it ever makes any sense.
**Lee:** But it is so entertaining and so good, it's fantastic.
**Lee:** David McCullin, who I didn't really know particularly before this.
**Lee:** He's absolute national treasure, I loved him so much.
**Lee:** He's such a prick in it.
**Lee:** He was.
**Adam:** He is so good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** He has got a run for the money with Lestat, I think for later, really.
**Unknown:** Isn't he?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Unknown:** He's the biggest prick.
**Adam:** I I would feel threatened by steel, I think.
**Adam:** I think Lestat I would just be bothered.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Annoyed.
**Lee:** He'd spoil your night, but you wouldn't be scared of him.
**Lee:** Joanna Lumley, obviously I was amazing, I've only ever really.
**Lee:** Apart from the the hammer movie that she was in, I've obviously only ever seen her in absolutely fabulous.
**Lee:** So I've never seen her in a serious role, I didn't realize what a fantastic actress she is.
**Lee:** Because in she's a caricature, isn't she?
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** She's good.
**Adam:** Oh, she's fucking brilliant.
**Adam:** It's it's a weird thing because like you say, I mean, basically to give give the concept, Sapphire and Steel is.
**Adam:** A show about what can best be described as two time detectives who come from somewhere, they are not human and they turn up and solve problems with time.
**Adam:** But it's things, basically, it's time breaking into reality.
**Adam:** And causing things like hauntings and time slips and.
**Adam:** They even do like a future episode and stuff like that.
**Adam:** And like people from the future.
**Adam:** Everything is set in the present, like the the then present day, which was the late 70s, early 80s.
**Unknown:** Yeah, 70s, I love the outfits.
**Adam:** And oh, yeah, I mean some of them are quite stunning, you know.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** So they basically turn up and have to solve these problems.
**Adam:** There's a really obscure intro to it where they describe all these people.
**Adam:** And but they say they describe them as elements, which is unfortunately fucked up.
**Adam:** Because neither Sapphire nor Steel are elements.
**Lee:** You've ruined it, Adam, now.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** I know.
**Adam:** But the but the interesting thing is is that there's sort of certain things in there.
**Adam:** Like when you dig deep on the mythology and stuff like that, there's sort of things where it's like, can steel exist at the point.
**Adam:** Before steel was invented by man.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Because you know, it's not a naturally Sapphire is a naturally occurring compound, whereas steel is manmade.
**Adam:** So it's like, oh, if they sent him back in time, he can't live a certain point because he can't exist as he doesn't occur at that point.
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** But it's that's besides the point.
**Adam:** But it's just mind bending stuff.
**Adam:** Steel and and basically the great thing is is that you get them.
**Adam:** You really understand their characters.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Almost from the the off.
**Adam:** And each series is a is a contained story.
**Adam:** So there's like the first one's a six part, second one's I think eight, which is the haunted railway station, which is probably the is the one that everyone remembers or everyone goes on about when they watch the first time.
**Unknown:** More sense kind of in a way, is it?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** And then of course you've got the episode you've got the story of the man who lives in photographs, who has no face.
**Adam:** Which which just saying it is creepy.
**Adam:** And so.
**Adam:** And that's the thing is you get this sort of you've got these two people who you are familiar with despite not knowing.
**Adam:** Really what they're what they're about or what they are.
**Adam:** And they investigate like really creepy, weird, melodramatic moments and they tend to.
**Adam:** Meet up with like one human, I mean they're fairly sort of like small cast, aren't they, usually?
**Adam:** I mean there's that.
**Adam:** but but all in all, that is that's a definite recommend.
**Adam:** Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** Because oddly enough, it's one of those things where it's just really so well fucking done.
**Adam:** That it bypasses the confusion.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** As as Chris said, that's absolutely it.
**Lee:** To watch something for six seasons and then the end of it say, at the end of the first episode, you find out ghosts aren't ghosts, they're just things in the past that are breaking through time.
**Lee:** And there's never anything that you learn beyond that ever.
**Lee:** But you don't need to, they just make it so like it's the characters, it's all about the characters and then trying to beat this unknown, unseen force.
**Unknown:** But I guess probably back then, you know, like the the effects aren't great, obviously.
**Unknown:** And you know, kind of you kind of had to build on the characters and the acting, I think, to be able to make it interesting and make it.
**Unknown:** Whereas a lot of things perhaps after that, you know, rely on effects to entertain.
**Lee:** But as you said Adam, the small cast and small sets because the idea is there are events that are happening in like a time slip, so it's always a contained there. So it's only that place and those people who are in it. You still you had one studio, that was it.
**Lee:** But yeah, so that's definitely.
**Adam:** It's ITV, that's why they could afford McCallum and Lumley, that's where all that's where all the money went.
**Lee:** Oh, is it?
**Adam:** Definitely.
**Lee:** Oh, rightfully so, those two are incredible together.
**Adam:** Also, also when David Collins turns up as silver.
**Lee:** Yeah, I love him so much and LED, yeah.
**Adam:** As well, because that's the thing is they do bring in the other and like LED's just fantastic.
**Adam:** And again, it's that weird thing, it's like, I now don't know why he's there.
**Adam:** And what he's bringing to it.
**Adam:** But you just love the character, he's just because he's.
**Adam:** Because he's such an opposite to either of those two.
**Adam:** Because Sapphire's quite quite well.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** And then Silver's just like he's like, I don't know, he's like Tom Hiddleston as Loki.
**Adam:** He's just he's that sort of trickster sort of thing, even though he's a good guy.
**Adam:** You he's just faintly amused by it all.
**Adam:** And you know.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** so to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** It's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And they because when they did the film of it, the film was okay, but the one thing that I felt was is that all the all the book stuff was all like looked a bit like flash animation.
**Adam:** It looked like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It looked like you'd gone on Wok Records' website, which was a really nice well-designed website, but equally it was like, no, I've seen this.
**Adam:** Whereas the.
**Adam:** The ones in the TV show are definitely and and most of the it's most of the same cast like most of the radio cast moved over and did the TV version.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with the film.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing you've got like the infinite improbability drive and in the film, it's like, oh, we've turned into sofas, and oh, we've turned into knitted people.
**Adam:** And I can't help but feel that was Douglas said, like,
**Adam:** Yeah, we didn't really have the budget to do it last time, so, you know, we'll reduce it down.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, because on the TV show, one of them turns into a penguin and the other one's arms fall off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On South End Pier, it's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Just I mean, just the fucking dialogue and the the humor of the whole thing is just, yeah.
**Adam:** And and Arthur Dent is probably the the quintessential.
**Adam:** Englishman, I think in so much as.
**Adam:** Utterly inept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But mudling through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but you know.
**Chris:** Is he very polite as well?
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Have you never seen Hitchhiker's, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** He's so you.
**Unknown:** We'll call him Arthur from now on.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Right, we'll re we'll catch you in the next one, but go and watch it now.
**Chris:** Not not until I've seen it.
**Unknown:** Tomorrow, you can watch it tomorrow.
**Adam:** Definitely, seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah, if you.
**Adam:** It's the, yeah, the six part series, watch it, you will fall in love.
**Adam:** It is incredible.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Fantastic.
**Unknown:** It's like the original Rick and Morty.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's not far off.
**Adam:** Because it has that high concept stuff going on.
**Adam:** I mean, it's not.
**Adam:** I mean, there's no Mr. Poopy butthole in in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
**Adam:** But then.
**Adam:** But then, I mean, when you I mean, fucking hell, I mean, on his own you've got Marvin the paranoid Android and every line of his is a meme.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's, you know, I think you're I'm feeling very depressed.
**Adam:** And just from there, you know, it causes me pain to even think down to your level.
**Chris:** It sounds it sounds a little bit along Terry Pratchet kind of a.
**Lee:** I was just going to say that actually.
**Chris:** Comedy kind of yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** In fact, the I mean, books wise, Terry Pratchett obviously did Discworld and pretty much the same with Douglas Adams, Douglas Adams mainly wrote more Hitchhiker's.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** The world built and built and built and, yeah.
**Adam:** You do sort of.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's just an incredible one and not only that, but also I think it's one there's nothing in it.
**Adam:** You you could definitely watch it with your kids.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They would not they there's no there's no particularly bad language, there's definitely nothing too scary, there's nothing too there's nothing too violent or sexy or anything else like that.
**Chris:** That's that's very English.
**Adam:** It's very English, yes.
**Adam:** But still brilliant.
**Adam:** Exactly. I mean, that's the thing, is that that goes to prove how well it is that it doesn't need sex, violence, swearing.
**Adam:** And.
**Chris:** It's still.
**Adam:** And car chases to sort of.
**Unknown:** Yeah, game around and it doesn't need it. Yeah.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Lee:** so my to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period, but it's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And they because when they did the film of it, the film was okay, but the one thing that I felt was is that all the all the book stuff was all like looked a bit like flash animation.
**Adam:** It looked like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It looked like you'd gone on Wok Records' website, which was a really nice well-designed website, but equally it was like, no, I've seen this.
**Adam:** Whereas the.
**Adam:** The ones in the TV show are definitely and and most of the it's most of the same cast like most of the radio cast moved over and did the TV version.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with the film.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing you've got like the infinite improbability drive and in the film, it's like, oh, we've turned into sofas, and oh, we've turned into knitted people.
**Adam:** And I can't help but feel that was Douglas said, like,
**Adam:** Yeah, we didn't really have the budget to do it last time, so, you know, we'll reduce it down.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, because on the TV show, one of them turns into a penguin and the other one's arms fall off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On South End Pier, it's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Just I mean, just the fucking dialogue and the the humor of the whole thing is just, yeah.
**Adam:** And and Arthur Dent is probably the the quintessential.
**Adam:** Englishman, I think in so much as utterly inept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But mudling through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but you know.
**Chris:** Is he very polite as well?
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Have you never seen Hitchhiker's, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** He's so you.
**Unknown:** We'll call him Arthur from now on.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Right, we'll re we'll catch you in the next one, but go and watch it now.
**Chris:** Not not until I've seen it.
**Unknown:** Tomorrow, you can watch it tomorrow.
**Adam:** Definitely, seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period, but it's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And they because when they did the film of it, the film was okay, but the one thing that I felt was is that all the all the book stuff was all like looked a bit like flash animation.
**Adam:** It looked like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It looked like you'd gone on Wok Records' website, which was a really nice well-designed website, but equally it was like, no, I've seen this.
**Adam:** Whereas the.
**Adam:** The ones in the TV show are definitely and and most of the it's most of the same cast like most of the radio cast moved over and did the TV version.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with the film.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing you've got like the infinite improbability drive and in the film, it's like, oh, we've turned into sofas, and oh, we've turned into knitted people.
**Adam:** And I can't help but feel that was Douglas said, like,
**Adam:** Yeah, we didn't really have the budget to do it last time, so, you know, we'll reduce it down.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, because on the TV show, one of them turns into a penguin and the other one's arms fall off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On South End Pier, it's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Just I mean, just the fucking dialogue and the the humor of the whole thing is just, yeah.
**Adam:** And and Arthur Dent is probably the the quintessential.
**Adam:** Englishman, I think in so much as utterly inept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But mudling through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but you know.
**Chris:** Is he very polite as well?
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Have you never seen Hitchhiker's, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** He's so you.
**Unknown:** We'll call him Arthur from now on.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Right, we'll re we'll catch you in the next one, but go and watch it now.
**Chris:** Not not until I've seen it.
**Unknown:** Tomorrow, you can watch it tomorrow.
**Adam:** Definitely, seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period, but it's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And they because when they did the film of it, the film was okay, but the one thing that I felt was is that all the all the book stuff was all like looked a bit like flash animation.
**Adam:** It looked like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It looked like you'd gone on Wok Records' website, which was a really nice well-designed website, but equally it was like, no, I've seen this.
**Adam:** Whereas the.
**Adam:** The ones in the TV show are definitely and and most of the it's most of the same cast like most of the radio cast moved over and did the TV version.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with the film.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing you've got like the infinite improbability drive and in the film, it's like, oh, we've turned into sofas, and oh, we've turned into knitted people.
**Adam:** And I can't help but feel that was Douglas said, like,
**Adam:** Yeah, we didn't really have the budget to do it last time, so, you know, we'll reduce it down.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, because on the TV show, one of them turns into a penguin and the other one's arms fall off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On South End Pier, it's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Just I mean, just the fucking dialogue and the the humor of the whole thing is just, yeah.
**Adam:** And and Arthur Dent is probably the the quintessential.
**Adam:** Englishman, I think in so much as utterly inept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But mudling through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but you know.
**Chris:** Is he very polite as well?
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Have you never seen Hitchhiker's, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** He's so you.
**Unknown:** We'll call him Arthur from now on.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Right, we'll re we'll catch you in the next one, but go and watch it now.
**Chris:** Not not until I've seen it.
**Unknown:** Tomorrow, you can watch it tomorrow.
**Adam:** Definitely, seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period, but it's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And they because when they did the film of it, the film was okay, but the one thing that I felt was is that all the all the book stuff was all like looked a bit like flash animation.
**Adam:** It looked like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It looked like you'd gone on Wok Records' website, which was a really nice well-designed website, but equally it was like, no, I've seen this.
**Adam:** Whereas the.
**Adam:** The ones in the TV show are definitely and and most of the it's most of the same cast like most of the radio cast moved over and did the TV version.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with the film.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing you've got like the infinite improbability drive and in the film, it's like, oh, we've turned into sofas, and oh, we've turned into knitted people.
**Adam:** And I can't help but feel that was Douglas said, like,
**Adam:** Yeah, we didn't really have the budget to do it last time, so, you know, we'll reduce it down.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, because on the TV show, one of them turns into a penguin and the other one's arms fall off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On South End Pier, it's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Just I mean, just the fucking dialogue and the the humor of the whole thing is just, yeah.
**Adam:** And and Arthur Dent is probably the the quintessential.
**Adam:** Englishman, I think in so much as utterly inept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But mudling through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but you know.
**Chris:** Is he very polite as well?
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Have you never seen Hitchhiker's, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** He's so you.
**Unknown:** We'll call him Arthur from now on.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Right, we'll re we'll catch you in the next one, but go and watch it now.
**Chris:** Not not until I've seen it.
**Unknown:** Tomorrow, you can watch it tomorrow.
**Adam:** Definitely, seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period, but it's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And they because when they did the film of it, the film was okay, but the one thing that I felt was is that all the all the book stuff was all like looked a bit like flash animation.
**Adam:** It looked like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It looked like you'd gone on Wok Records' website, which was a really nice well-designed website, but equally it was like, no, I've seen this.
**Adam:** Whereas the.
**Adam:** The ones in the TV show are definitely and and most of the it's most of the same cast like most of the radio cast moved over and did the TV version.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with the film.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing you've got like the infinite improbability drive and in the film, it's like, oh, we've turned into sofas, and oh, we've turned into knitted people.
**Adam:** And I can't help but feel that was Douglas said, like,
**Adam:** Yeah, we didn't really have the budget to do it last time, so, you know, we'll reduce it down.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, because on the TV show, one of them turns into a penguin and the other one's arms fall off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On South End Pier, it's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Just I mean, just the fucking dialogue and the the humor of the whole thing is just, yeah.
**Adam:** And and Arthur Dent is probably the the quintessential.
**Adam:** Englishman, I think in so much as utterly inept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But mudling through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but you know.
**Chris:** Is he very polite as well?
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Have you never seen Hitchhiker's, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** He's so you.
**Unknown:** We'll call him Arthur from now on.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Right, we'll re we'll catch you in the next one, but go and watch it now.
**Chris:** Not not until I've seen it.
**Unknown:** Tomorrow, you can watch it tomorrow.
**Adam:** Definitely, seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period, but it's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And they because when they did the film of it, the film was okay, but the one thing that I felt was is that all the all the book stuff was all like looked a bit like flash animation.
**Adam:** It looked like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It looked like you'd gone on Wok Records' website, which was a really nice well-designed website, but equally it was like, no, I've seen this.
**Adam:** Whereas the.
**Adam:** The ones in the TV show are definitely and and most of the it's most of the same cast like most of the radio cast moved over and did the TV version.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with the film.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing you've got like the infinite improbability drive and in the film, it's like, oh, we've turned into sofas, and oh, we've turned into knitted people.
**Adam:** And I can't help but feel that was Douglas said, like,
**Adam:** Yeah, we didn't really have the budget to do it last time, so, you know, we'll reduce it down.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, because on the TV show, one of them turns into a penguin and the other one's arms fall off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On South End Pier, it's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Just I mean, just the fucking dialogue and the the humor of the whole thing is just, yeah.
**Adam:** And and Arthur Dent is probably the the quintessential.
**Adam:** Englishman, I think in so much as utterly inept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But mudling through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but you know.
**Chris:** Is he very polite as well?
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Have you never seen Hitchhiker's, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** He's so you.
**Unknown:** We'll call him Arthur from now on.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Right, we'll re we'll catch you in the next one, but go and watch it now.
**Chris:** Not not until I've seen it.
**Unknown:** Tomorrow, you can watch it tomorrow.
**Adam:** Definitely, seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period, but it's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And they because when they did the film of it, the film was okay, but the one thing that I felt was is that all the all the book stuff was all like looked a bit like flash animation.
**Adam:** It looked like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It looked like you'd gone on Wok Records' website, which was a really nice well-designed website, but equally it was like, no, I've seen this.
**Adam:** Whereas the.
**Adam:** The ones in the TV show are definitely and and most of the it's most of the same cast like most of the radio cast moved over and did the TV version.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with the film.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing you've got like the infinite improbability drive and in the film, it's like, oh, we've turned into sofas, and oh, we've turned into knitted people.
**Adam:** And I can't help but feel that was Douglas said, like,
**Adam:** Yeah, we didn't really have the budget to do it last time, so, you know, we'll reduce it down.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, because on the TV show, one of them turns into a penguin and the other one's arms fall off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On South End Pier, it's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Just I mean, just the fucking dialogue and the the humor of the whole thing is just, yeah.
**Adam:** And and Arthur Dent is probably the the quintessential.
**Adam:** Englishman, I think in so much as utterly inept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But mudling through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but you know.
**Chris:** Is he very polite as well?
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Have you never seen Hitchhiker's, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** He's so you.
**Unknown:** We'll call him Arthur from now on.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Right, we'll re we'll catch you in the next one, but go and watch it now.
**Chris:** Not not until I've seen it.
**Unknown:** Tomorrow, you can watch it tomorrow.
**Adam:** Definitely, seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period, but it's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** And they because when they did the film of it, the film was okay, but the one thing that I felt was is that all the all the book stuff was all like looked a bit like flash animation.
**Adam:** It looked like.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It looked like you'd gone on Wok Records' website, which was a really nice well-designed website, but equally it was like, no, I've seen this.
**Adam:** Whereas the.
**Adam:** The ones in the TV show are definitely and and most of the it's most of the same cast like most of the radio cast moved over and did the TV version.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And again with the film.
**Adam:** That's the weird thing you've got like the infinite improbability drive and in the film, it's like, oh, we've turned into sofas, and oh, we've turned into knitted people.
**Adam:** And I can't help but feel that was Douglas said, like,
**Adam:** Yeah, we didn't really have the budget to do it last time, so, you know, we'll reduce it down.
**Adam:** And it's like.
**Adam:** Yeah, because on the TV show, one of them turns into a penguin and the other one's arms fall off.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** On South End Pier, it's like, yeah, it's.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Just I mean, just the fucking dialogue and the the humor of the whole thing is just, yeah.
**Adam:** And and Arthur Dent is probably the the quintessential.
**Adam:** Englishman, I think in so much as utterly inept.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But mudling through.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** But but you know.
**Chris:** Is he very polite as well?
**Lee:** He is.
**Adam:** Have you never seen Hitchhiker's, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** Oh, dude.
**Lee:** He's so you.
**Unknown:** We'll call him Arthur from now on.
**Lee:** Right.
**Adam:** Right, we'll re we'll catch you in the next one, but go and watch it now.
**Chris:** Not not until I've seen it.
**Unknown:** Tomorrow, you can watch it tomorrow.
**Adam:** Definitely, seriously.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** so to my only other thing.
**Lee:** which again, I have seen not as much as Adam, but I thoroughly enjoyed.
**Lee:** I think Chris Jones came over and watched the whole thing in like one night.
**Lee:** is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, obviously.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** The TV series.
**Lee:** yeah, so I don't know it in depth because I've only seen it through once, but we did literally marathon the whole thing.
**Lee:** and I get people's love for it now because it's like the effects let it down because of its period, but it's got that charm about it, which makes you kind of bypass that.
**Adam:** It's so well written and so well performed.
**Adam:** Again, like Sapphire and Steel.
**Adam:** It's that same thing of just like, you're forgiving this because you're in.
**Adam:** Yeah, you're just in you're in because of the humor and the and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the humor and the stuff.
**Adam:** And because the thing is is Hitchhiker's was originally a radio show and when they and then Douglas Adams wrote it as a book.
**Adam:** And then they decided to make it for TV and the weird thing was is they were like, shit, what do we do because of.
**Adam:** We've got this narrator, we've got the book's narration.
**Adam:** On the radio show and they were like, what, how do we do that then?
**Adam:** And then they came up with, well, we could animate the read out of the book.
**Adam:** And the the animation, you know, some of the the practical effects like around the people and the monsters and the robots and stuff like that.
**Adam:** Some of them are a bit chunky and a bit crap.
**Adam:** But those like the read outs of the book like the animation of that.
**Adam:** Is beautiful.
**Lee:** He's incredible.
**Adam:** It's just.
**Adam:** And also just one of those things where you look at it and it's like, computers don't look this good now.
**Lee:** No.

---

## Ep 123 Candyman

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-123-candyman/
Air date: 1 August 2021
Duration: 01:46:13
Film: Candyman · Year: 1992 · Director: Bernard Rose

### Description

We turn our attention to 1992 and Bernard Rose’s exquisite reimagining of a Clive Barker short story; “Candyman”. A film in which Ardelia Mapp from The Silence of the Lambs realises all her white friends are trouble; John Connor’s foster dad is still a major piece of shit; and we all get seduced by the deep mellifluous voice of Lieutenant Commander Worf’s little brother. Along the way we discuss “The Field Guide To Evil”, the “Fear Street” trilogy and “Haunted”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES - THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror.
**Lee:** I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Chris:** Oh, that that was that was good.
**Lee:** That's quite pretty.
**Adam:** Thank you.
**Chris:** I don't think you can keep it up for too long though, or this will be a short episode.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** As well as then chunking and throwing up all over half way through the episode.
**Adam:** The trouble is it's going to Barry White quite quickly.
**Adam:** No, I'm not going to cut the part of sophisticated Lady, No, off.
**Lee:** He's already turned into a Woman. Yeah.
**Lee:** So, as you can probably tell from Adam's voiceover, we are going to be discussing 1992's Candyman this evening as our main event.
**Lee:** But before we get too excited, and we get all carried away with ourselves and start talking about Candyman.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching in the last fortnight?
**Chris:** I would love to be able to say something, but I'm going to have to have my bottom spanked here, because not a lot.
**Lee:** You've been on holiday.
**Chris:** I'll blame holiday and I was sure I'd come up something, but I just didn't manage to today, so we got back yesterday, late yesterday and yeah.
**Chris:** So, there you go.
**Chris:** That that was a an easy one.
**Lee:** That's fine.
**Lee:** I'm sure I'll make up for it next time.
**Lee:** I think myself and Adam have got a shit to get, actually by the end of it, so yeah.
**Lee:** We'll let you off this week, Chris, without a thrashing.
**Chris:** Okay, get a couple of yeah, a couple of those a year.
**Lee:** Oh yeah, I think we all need a couple of passes where you're like, I just haven't had time in the fortnight.
**Lee:** It sounds like a long time.
**Chris:** Yeah, sometimes it flies by.
**Lee:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Adam.
**Adam:** It's also it's that lovely thing of how much of a how much of a thing you're in where it's like,
**Adam:** Do you know what, life's been pretty dreck for about for the past fortnight.
**Adam:** And it's like, yeah, what what I really fancied watching was someone skinning people alive, you know?
**Adam:** Just fucking offset that.
**Lee:** So on that note, what have you been watching Adam since we were last?
**Adam:** Well, I've got I've got one one that relates to
**Adam:** our good friends, the not for everyone podcast.
**Lee:** Oh!
**Adam:** in that I've finally on on their recommendation, I've finally got around to watching Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
**Lee:** Oh, I've heard you on that episode, but I've not seen it.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, no, it's a proper like 70s crime drama Sam Peckinpah.
**Adam:** And it's one of those it's one of those films where you're like, this genuinely feels like it doesn't have any of the sort of jazziness or sort of sensationalist sort of elements of later crime films where it's like,
**Adam:** Hey, look at these cool hitmen.
**Adam:** Or, you know, look, look, they talk about Madonna.
**Adam:** Just before they go and shoot people.
**Lee:** Ha ha.
**Adam:** This this just genuinely feels like, oh no, look, this is this is what happens when grown-ups do horrible things.
**Lee:** That sounds horrible.
**Adam:** It's it is, I mean it's it's one of the best fucking concepts I've ever heard for film is it's basically a mob boss puts a hit out on this guy, but the bloke actually got killed in a car accident.
**Adam:** So someone works out, oh well, if I go and dig the body up and cut the head off,
**Adam:** I take that to him and I get paid even though I didn't kill the guy.
**Adam:** It's not, you know what I mean, but it's sort of, yeah, and the sort of cross the sort of cross betrayals and things like that.
**Adam:** That go hand in hand with that sort of thing.
**Adam:** I mean, the only thing is is that, I mean, it's one of those films as well, that lovely 70s thing where literally everyone is clearly wankered because they are drinking from the bottle the whole time.
**Adam:** And and also just it's just so happens that the main guy can outshoot anyone.
**Adam:** So it's sort of, you know, there there is a sort of like, you were playing piano in a bar, weren't you?
**Adam:** But you have but you have just seen off like the mafia and a whole village full of disgruntled people and you know, a whole.
**Adam:** But that's that's beside the point, but it is genuinely, you know.
**Adam:** It was a genuinely good film.
**Adam:** And also one of those ones that just sticks with you.
**Adam:** Because basically, I mean, it costs him a lot more than just going and digging up the the head and it's a real like it does feel like someone unraveling before your eyes of like, actually, this is a pretty nasty thing to have to go and do and it just gets worse and it clearly fucks you up as you go.
**Adam:** So it's, yeah.
**Adam:** I'm not sure if it's one for you, Lee, but it's definitely, yeah, I yeah.
**Adam:** And I'm like I say, it's one of those ones that I've always heard about and never got around to watching.
**Adam:** But because because Adam and Bobby did it, I thought, well, I'll
**Adam:** And it turned up on Arrow sale for seven quid.
**Adam:** So I thought I'll have a dose, I'll have a dose of that in full Blu-ray.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, no.
**Adam:** That's that's a good one.
**Adam:** But the the main thing I watched, which kind of feels like a lot more films than I actually watched.
**Adam:** is I've watched the Field Guide to Evil, which is a modern it's like, I think it's 2018.
**Adam:** So it's only a few years old now.
**Adam:** but it was basically the concept is it's an anthology film where they get.
**Chris:** Oh, we know anthologies.
**Chris:** We know how good they are.
**Lee:** Love them.
**Adam:** Well, it's it's in that it's in that sort of vein that the anthology seems to be much more these days where it's like, it's actually it's a collection of short films.
**Adam:** I you've got several different directors to do it rather than one guiding overall hand.
**Adam:** so you don't really get a wrap-around story, but you do get a like there's a a big book which is the Field Guide to Evil.
**Adam:** And basically the concept is you've they've got eight well, it's actually nine directors because two of them are Ajo who direct together.
**Adam:** but so you've got like eight filmmakers and they do eight films based on the folklore.
**Adam:** Each one's based on the folklore of the their country of origin.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Adam:** And so you so you've got stuff you've got stuff from Austria, Germany,
**Adam:** there's yeah, Poland, India,
**Adam:** Turkey, the US and.
**Adam:** I'm trying to think where else.
**Adam:** but I mean mainly sort of a bit European-centric, but yeah.
**Adam:** Hungary.
**Adam:** but they're all really but it the filmmakers, you've got Can Evrenol who did Baskin.
**Adam:** And the woman who directed the Lure, the directors of Goodnight Mommy, I've still goodnight Mommy, I've still not seen it, but it's the that was a film that was sort of like.
**Adam:** And that's the that's the other thing that this has given me is that the people I don't know.
**Adam:** It's really made me want to see some other stuff of theirs because it's sort of like, right, okay, that was a that was a good fucking 20 minutes.
**Adam:** And I'd be impressed to see what you're going to do as a full length.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** but I mean like each each story's like each story's like about 20 minutes long.
**Adam:** So it's that good thing of if something's not quite clicking for you, you get something else shortly.
**Adam:** And also again, it brings me back to that thing where I'm always saying about with horror films where it with horror films where it's like adaptations and stuff like that, with this, essentially, you just get the money shot of each piece.
**Adam:** So rather than sitting there and it's like, you know, watching an hour and a half where it's like, oh, well, they'll tell you what the folklore is and then you wait around for it to happen and then it and then it occurs and that's the end of it or it's it occurs and then there's 15, 20 minutes of farting around about what the aftermath was.
**Adam:** This is just literally, here's the grim bits, crack on.
**Adam:** You know, so.
**Adam:** but yeah, there's and but there's there's one which is.
**Adam:** There's I mean, there's there's a couple that weren't all that, but then still good enough looking that I sort of like.
**Adam:** you know, that I didn't I didn't mind that.
**Adam:** but there's a couple there's a guy one of the directors got the story for Greece.
**Adam:** which is like which looks like paintings from the front covers of fantasy like fantasy novels.
**Lee:** Oh, nice.
**Adam:** It's like incredible and I'm assuming it's, you know, it's like natural scenery or whatever like that, but it's it just is so near hallucinogenic and it's basically the story of a celebration that a goblin tries to infiltrate.
**Adam:** But all these drunk great blokes just basically kidnapped the goblin and forced him to bleed wine for them.
**Adam:** with a with a with a particularly slipknot looking goblin as well, with a big nose.
**Adam:** Which is quite it's it's quite good in the way because it's that sort of thing where you're kind of.
**Adam:** You would think it was a crappy effect except in this it kind of it's like, oh no.
**Adam:** That that's what this goblin looks like a crappy effect.
**Adam:** If you see what I mean.
**Adam:** Because everything else looked so fucking stunning that it's like,
**Adam:** No, I know that this isn't I know his nose is not wobbling because they didn't care.
**Adam:** Or they couldn't get it right.
**Adam:** I know that they've thought, wouldn't it be great if he has a wobbly big old wobbly knob nose and sort of stuff like that.
**Adam:** there's a couple of stories that a lot of it, especially like the European stuff, really evokes the witch.
**Adam:** So it's that kind of a feeling, you know, that sort of like bleak forestry and that's that's another reason.
**Adam:** I think you'd like it, Lee.
**Adam:** There's a lot of like that sort of the witch, Hansel and Gretel, that hallucinatory forest dreamlike sort of element to it.
**Adam:** particularly like the German and Austrian stories.
**Adam:** and the final story in it, which is Peter Strickland's story and he's he directed the Barian sound studio.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** It is genuinely the best modern silent film I have ever seen.
**Adam:** In that it feels exactly like a silent film and it has, you know, like.
**Adam:** Like title cards for the speech and everything, so it follows all the.
**Adam:** It follows all the patterns of an old silent film, but he's not tried to like put noise on the thing to make it look old or anything else like that.
**Adam:** It's in color, everything looks the tints, it's beautifully rendered and everything and really sort of quite grim fairy tale sort of.
**Adam:** Tim Burton without the quirk sort of looking sort of thing.
**Adam:** And, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, that's just amazing.
**Adam:** The the and also, yeah, just out of nowhere.
**Adam:** I'm I'm watching it and I said I'm saying, that is Reece Shearsmith, isn't it?
**Adam:** And Reece Shearsmith does the voiceover of one of the stories.
**Adam:** There's like a story set in a story set in India like sort of colonial India, so it's all black and white.
**Adam:** And at the start of it, there's some live action, but it keeps going to just sort of montages of old photographs.
**Adam:** And I don't to me, they look like they've just got some old photographs.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And use them to sort of like illustrate the point.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Adam:** But overall, it's one of those things where and I've seen I've seen sort of like reviews online.
**Adam:** And a lot of people seem to be giving it a bit of a sort of, meh.
**Adam:** And it's like,
**Adam:** well, the nature of these sort of things is going to be up and down when you've got like different directors and stuff like that.
**Adam:** But just as a proper you know, just as an interesting little exercise, it's really good.
**Adam:** Plus apart from the the USA story is the story of the Melonheads.
**Adam:** But it's all genuine folklore from around the world and none of it was stuff I knew.
**Adam:** They haven't gone for obvious.
**Chris:** It's interesting.
**Adam:** stuff.
**Adam:** You know, it's not like, you know, it's not like, I mean even like with the US thing, they've gone with the Melonheads, which is a fairly obscure.
**Chris:** Yeah, I've not heard of that before.
**Adam:** It's like it's almost like redneck folklore that is, I suppose you could describe it where it's basically these deformed cannibal children that live in the backwoods of America.
**Adam:** but yeah, there's yeah, there's like a German possessing spirit that makes you ravenously hungry.
**Adam:** there's the the Turkish one like Can Evrenol's one, which is probably which is probably one of the better ones.
**Adam:** And it's probably the the most sort of from start to finish scary.
**Adam:** which it kind of almost reminds me of it really evokes Drag Me to Hell.
**Adam:** There's a lot of ghosts and scary old women.
**Adam:** so.
**Adam:** But it's that but that's a a a creature from Turkish folklore that is a a gin of
**Adam:** childbirth of like of post-childbirth depression.
**Adam:** Essentially.
**Adam:** It's postpartum depression as a creature.
**Adam:** As a thing that affects you and it's sort of, but again, like I say, all of these things are brand new to me.
**Adam:** And I just love I love folklore and that kind of thing anyway.
**Adam:** Which kind of feeds very much into tonight's main feature.
**Adam:** But I think that yeah, just just on that level where it's like,
**Adam:** if nothing else, you'll watch it and you'll be like, I'd like to know more about that.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or I want to read up on that.
**Adam:** Because they are all, you know, nothing, I don't think anything for it is you know, nothing's fictional, it's all based on real, I mean it's a term I use quite a lot, real folklore, but you know what I mean?
**Adam:** It's like it's actual actual folklore.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I'd definitely recommend it, I think I'd definitely recommend it to you guys.
**Adam:** I don't know whether we'd cover it or whether just see you can see it.
**Adam:** Because I think more than anything, it just even on a very basic ground level.
**Adam:** There might be a couple of dodgy effects, particularly some of the Melonhead stuff.
**Adam:** But in general, it just looks stunning, it's really well shot.
**Adam:** And it like I say, it veers towards the theatrical, it veers towards the fantastical in its approach.
**Adam:** And yeah, yeah, it's definitely definitely one to seek out.
**Chris:** Yeah, sounds great.
**Lee:** Excellent.
**Adam:** And that's all the weather.
**Lee:** Thank you very much.
**Lee:** I'll put that on my list for for a very soon viewing then.
**Lee:** I'll have to make sure I see that.
**Adam:** I think, I'm not sure, but I think it's because I've got it on I got I managed to pick up an Italian Blu-ray of it.
**Adam:** but it's I think it's on Shutter.
**Adam:** Or it's on it's on Shutter or Prime.
**Adam:** One or the other.
**Adam:** I'm.
**Chris:** Yeah, I'm I'm seeing it on Prime.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, I'm I'm not sure I'm not sure if it's a paid to watch or anything, but I know it's on there.
**Lee:** Fantastic.
**Lee:** I shall give that a go, thank you very much.
**Lee:** so I have caught up with parts two and three of Fear Street.
**Lee:** The new thing.
**Adam:** Oh yes, yes.
**Lee:** I know I sort of raved about the first part.
**Lee:** It it genuinely is better, believe it or not.
**Adam:** Oh, cool.
**Lee:** I I've just looked on IMDb and everybody else says the same.
**Lee:** Oh, don't say the same.
**Lee:** But the the rating, so the first part is 6.2 and then 6.8 and then 6.7.
**Lee:** So yeah, people agree, they sort of, you know.
**Lee:** It it the the second two are better than the third.
**Lee:** And I love the first one.
**Lee:** It was a really fun, a really fun story in and of itself.
**Lee:** and they did a really good job of shifting it around in the time.
**Lee:** So the first part I say takes place in 1994.
**Lee:** And the soundtrack is so full of it that I've actually gone and bought a load of CDs this week.
**Lee:** I've just bought Smash by the Offspring.
**Lee:** and I bought Dookie by Green Day, there wasn't any Green Day on it, but it just put me back in that old mindset of 1994, so good.
**Lee:** yeah, so I've gone back and bought loads of stuff I used to listen to.
**Lee:** Yeah, the second one is a slasher.
**Lee:** And the third one is set back in, as you were saying, Adam.
**Lee:** it's that, you know, during the witch hunts and stuff, it's set in 1666.
**Lee:** and they tie all the all the stories all tie together in one big piece.
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** But it sort of tells the story backwards and then brings it.
**Adam:** Oh, cool.
**Lee:** it's really good.
**Lee:** I really enjoyed it.
**Lee:** very different, but really clever.
**Lee:** I said the only thing I didn't like about it and I won't give anything away cuz I know you guys haven't seen it, but for anybody who has, the big heart thing.
**Lee:** I don't know why there was any need for that.
**Lee:** It was it was like they put it was like you were saying, Adam.
**Lee:** Like all of it, it is fantastical because it's as you can tell from the trailer, this isn't the spoiler.
**Lee:** it's basically a whole town that's cursed because of a witch who was put to death.
**Lee:** and this is how it's kind of affected different ages and different people through the.
**Lee:** but yeah, then they put this really, really fantastical bit in it that doesn't explain anything and actually just I have more questions than if it hadn't been in there and it vaguely annoyed me.
**Lee:** But not enough to not enjoy it.
**Lee:** I think I'll definitely go back and rewatch all of these, they're really good.
**Lee:** Yeah, and it's one of those, if you've ever got like a sick day or something where you're just not feeling yourself and you're like, oh, I'm just going to spend the day in bed and I'm not going to do anything.
**Lee:** Or if.
**Adam:** I'm spending the day in bed, I'm feeling myself.
**Adam:** I'll just tell you that now.
**Lee:** So yeah, or if you've just got a day and you just want a triple movie marathon, they're fairly short, they're all only an hour and 45-ish each, I think.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I I do think I'll go back at some point and watch them all in a day back-to-back and and have.
**Lee:** Yeah, an enjoyable time and a shitload of ice cream.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** That's on my list.
**Lee:** so that was one that I really enjoyed.
**Lee:** now for one that I didn't enjoy so much.
**Lee:** And this is the third series of this show.
**Lee:** And the first season was all right.
**Lee:** The second season was awful, the third season is now even worse.
**Lee:** and I'm still watching it.
**Lee:** And I'll put it's I've always do it, I'll put it on and I know it's going to make me aggy.
**Lee:** I've got more notes about this than I've got about fucking Candyman.
**Lee:** That was how annoyed I was about it.
**Lee:** But yeah, but this is also Netflix, so, you know.
**Lee:** Although I sort of falled over Fear Street a bit.
**Lee:** This is my counter to it, it's the haunted TV series that they're doing.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Lee:** Are you aware of this, Adam?
**Adam:** no.
**Adam:** This isn't this isn't like the this isn't there because obviously they did Haunting of Hill House and then they did Yeah.
**Adam:** The haunting is it that is not is not connected to those.
**Adam:** It's not that.
**Adam:** All right.
**Adam:** Okay.
**Adam:** In that case, I have no idea.
**Chris:** Real people sharing.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah, sharing real experiences.
**Lee:** So basically it's someone who's had a haunting or a particularly traumatic experience and they sit them down in this old scary study and they have all their family and friends around.
**Lee:** And they basically tell the story of this horrible thing that happened to them.
**Lee:** And me being me, obviously, I skip all that.
**Lee:** So like season three, the first one was about somebody grew up in a cult and I was like, yeah, I don't I don't want that.
**Lee:** I want to jump straight into the my house is haunted.
**Lee:** Right?
**Lee:** So that's what I did.
**Lee:** Now.
**Lee:** This was set me up from the beginning, I shouldn't have done this.
**Lee:** So I set up late one night, about 11:0 at night.
**Lee:** Jennifer had gone to bed, I was like, do you know what, I'm going to have a couple more beers and then I'm going to go to bed, so I'm just going to put this on.
**Lee:** And it was a guy saying like just put it out there.
**Lee:** I know I've said this on the show, but I will reiterate before I lay into people who say they've been haunted, I don't believe in ghosts.
**Lee:** I do believe that when people say they've had experiences, I don't think they're lying.
**Lee:** I think they believe the things they're saying.
**Lee:** I think misidentification.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And, you know, like we said before, Jennifer and I thought we'd seen a ghost.
**Chris:** You could easily, yeah, accept what happened.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** If we were believers, that would have been the end of it.
**Lee:** We saw a ghost.
**Chris:** You're happy to stop there.
**Chris:** You don't want to try and prove that it isn't.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Really.
**Lee:** Because you're like, well, I know what I saw and that was what I saw.
**Lee:** We we would totally taken in by what we saw on on that evening.
**Lee:** So that's so that's where I'm coming from.
**Lee:** But on this, and this is the problem.
**Lee:** It's things like this.
**Lee:** So this guy says, we moved into this house and in the barn, and we moved in, it had been empty for a long time and we moved in, and in the barn there were all these scary old photographs.
**Lee:** And old newspaper articles about horrible things that happened in the house, including the previous owner who had hung himself in the barn.
**Lee:** So the previous owner had hung himself in the barn, who bought the fucking newspaper about the article, cut it out and put it in the shed.
**Lee:** Where did it come from?
**Lee:** Why are you not asking questions, you pillock?
**Adam:** Fucking point.
**Lee:** The second one was a girl who got a music box with a locket in it.
**Lee:** And every time she wore the locket and opened the music box, a ghost would come and try to strangle her.
**Lee:** And, you know, she kept seeing it and it was awful.
**Lee:** And then.
**Adam:** On the box.
**Lee:** And then she says, nothing happened because I didn't open the box for a long time.
**Lee:** Then I moved in with an older man who had a younger daughter, and when she opened it, the haunting went to her.
**Lee:** I was like, why the shit do you still own this thing?
**Lee:** I don't know.
**Lee:** Put the locket on, open the box, a ghost appears in the mirror and tries to strangle you.
**Lee:** That box is going on the fire within the next 15 minutes.
**Lee:** I'm not keeping it and taking it when I move house, you stupid pillock.
**Adam:** Or re-gift.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Must be someone that working don't like.
**Lee:** And then the third one, I only got to watch half before we started recording this evening's one.
**Lee:** but it was it was a a family moved into a house.
**Lee:** And it's that thing, this is what annoys me about the show.
**Lee:** Is they make so much of it, I haven't finished this episode and I'm willing to admit that, but basically it it started with a load of people listening to black metal.
**Lee:** And wearing a scary mask and sacrificing a cat and all this stuff.
**Lee:** And then it goes to the girl actually telling the story.
**Lee:** And what she actually said is, the people who moved out, we saw them leaving.
**Lee:** They didn't seem very happy with us, they seemed very off.
**Lee:** So therefore, they were definitely weird.
**Lee:** And they left some weird shit in the garden.
**Lee:** So when my mom fell down the stairs, we decided there's definitely a demon cat in the house.
**Chris:** Yeah, makes perfect sense.
**Chris:** What where?
**Lee:** All this stuff.
**Lee:** They said.
**Lee:** So the reason they thought that, the mom fell down the stairs and they said it was a she felt a presence had pushed her.
**Lee:** And I was like, it's a brand new house with a rickety old set of stairs that she doesn't know and she's fallen down and broken her ankle.
**Lee:** And then the girl says, I saw the demon cat and I tried to kill it and it just disappeared and vanished.
**Lee:** And then two days later, I found out I had typhoid and I was dying and my temperature was 108 and I went blind.
**Lee:** And it was like.
**Lee:** So the cat clearly gave her typhoid.
**Lee:** It wasn't that she was 108 degrees, hallucinating and a that it definitely that a ghost cat has given her typhoid.
**Lee:** Because the people who are forced to move out to let them into the house, clearly were demon worshippers.
**Lee:** Because they had a scary mask that they forgot to take with them and left it in the garden.
**Lee:** Like it's just.
**Lee:** Such.
**Adam:** I'd like to think I'd like to think demon worshiper.
**Adam:** Has take most of that kit with him.
**Lee:** Yeah, what that's the other thing, it was like it was the high priest in this flashback wearing the mask.
**Lee:** And this guy ripped open the cat and poured the blood all over this naked woman.
**Lee:** And he was dancing around in the background.
**Lee:** I was like, oh yeah, and then when they left, what, they just left it in a bin bag with a load of beer cans and left it floating around in the pool.
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** If that's your high priest of your cult's like important thing, I don't think you just move out and leave it floating in the pool with some junk.
**Adam:** I think I think Claire made a very good point that it's or they just bought it to freak you out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** From a fucking joke shop.
**Lee:** Yeah, you're like if you're getting forced out of your house and somebody else can move in, yeah, you're quite right.
**Lee:** You would, you know, shit in the oven.
**Lee:** Or leave a scary mask in the house.
**Lee:** Like.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah, shit in the oven.
**Adam:** Crashing the carpet.
**Adam:** Fish in the back of the telly.
**Adam:** You know, all the all the stuff.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Mind you, there was I saw a thing I think it was something Claire showed me where it was just some bin men finding some bin men had found someone had thrown out a ouija board.
**Adam:** And they just put, we're keeping this and we're going to put it back in three weeks.
**Lee:** Ha ha.
**Lee:** Brilliant.
**Lee:** Absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** yes, so I need to stop torturing myself with this.
**Lee:** Because I just it's not good for my blood pressure.
**Lee:** I get so angry with this show.
**Lee:** You can't have many left though, can you?
**Lee:** How many is there?
**Lee:** I think there's five or six, I think there's six in a series or something.
**Lee:** And as I say, I I I skip the ones that are like, yeah, I was once nearly killed by a serial killer or yeah, I was part of a cult and that sort of stuff.
**Lee:** Because it they they don't really appear to me.
**Lee:** I watched the alien ones and the haunting ones.
**Lee:** Yeah, it get really, really aggy about it.
**Lee:** So, before I burst a blood vessel.
**Lee:** Let's get on to the this evening's main event, Adam's request.
**Lee:** and quite rightly so.
**Lee:** Because I think probably spurred by the fact that there is the new remake coming out.
**Lee:** So we wanted to remind people that there is actually an early good one.
**Adam:** Well, I to be honest, the new one that's coming out, I'll we'll get into it.
**Adam:** I quite excited for.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Because.
**Adam:** Although they've done although they've done the one thing that annoys me, they've called it Candyman.
**Adam:** Which.
**Adam:** It's like Halloween, like the 2018 Halloween.
**Adam:** It's like,
**Adam:** Find something else, please.
**Adam:** Even if you call it Halloween 2018, I know that's shit, but it rhymes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And at least I'm not going to confuse Google.
**Adam:** Looking for the John Carpenter one and getting that one and vice versa.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Apart from that.
**Adam:** The I will say the new one does actually look.
**Adam:** Yeah, well we'll get into it, but it looks pretty like it could be pretty fucking decent.
**Adam:** And the main reason, admittedly, was I just kept seeing the fucking trailers for the new one.
**Adam:** And they use the theme tune, they use Helen's theme, like the.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** That's sensible.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And so it's just been buzzing around my head.
**Adam:** Like a chest full of bees.
**Adam:** And this is this is almost exorcism just to get it out because I'm like, I really must watch Candyman just because that music's just been, yeah, just been traipsing around my head for about a month and a half.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** So, Chris, was this your first viewing of Candyman?
**Chris:** Not my first viewing.
**Chris:** but I did watch it when when did it come out?
**Lee:** 92.
**Chris:** 92, so I was 12.
**Chris:** Probably, I probably watched it a few years after it came out, I would think.
**Chris:** I may have been 15, 16.
**Chris:** I just I remember it being talked about at school.
**Chris:** So it it, you know, in that meta way it had built up a myth around it, being itself, but.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I am the whisperer in the classroom.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** yeah, but I I definitely did watch it, but it was very late at night.
**Chris:** I don't think I watched it again.
**Chris:** And so it was sort of a bit of a dreamlike, you know, memory.
**Chris:** but I just remember thinking it was amazing, but it was the concept of saying the name five times because we then did that for the next two years.
**Chris:** Connor's going to say the name five times in the mirror, you know.
**Lee:** Five times is too many.
**Lee:** This is this is the.
**Lee:** It's funny.
**Lee:** We were doing a quiz recently, my brother for my birthday bought me a book of horror quizzes.
**Lee:** and it's like 10 questions on each thing and it'll either be a film or a director or an actor, yeah, and we did the Candyman one.
**Lee:** And yeah, I I realized how little I remembered it.
**Lee:** But yeah, the options was how many times you have to say his name.
**Lee:** Is it twice, three times or five times.
**Chris:** I think everyone would go for three.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Surely.
**Lee:** Surely.
**Lee:** No, I wouldn't do it five times.
**Chris:** That just sounds like a spoof, doesn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But isn't it to prove, I don't know, like.
**Chris:** You know, you're really dedicated if you're going to stand there.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me.
**Adam:** She was like, I think in that sort of in a pissing about way, she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke.
**Adam:** But I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But I mean obviously skipping ahead slightly.
**Adam:** But also, how would you do the final sequence with everyone's favorite 90s douchebag Trevor.
**Adam:** How would you do the bit where it's just him going, oh, Helen, Helen.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Five times maybe.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, funnily enough, that's what Claire said to me, she was like, I think in a pissing about way she was just going, oh, well, I know a very important fact about Candyman that you probably don't know.
**Adam:** And I was like, what's that?
**Adam:** And she said, if you say his name three times, he appears.
**Adam:** And I was like, I think it's five in the film, not to shit on your joke, but I was like, I think he's actually five in the film.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** Reading about it, apparently the very first version of it, they they wanted to do it 13 fucking times.
**Lee:** Jesus Christ.
**Adam:** So suddenly five doesn't seem that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Three times definitely.
**Adam:** 13 times?
**Adam:** What's the matter, mate, you got staff, what's the what's going on?
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.

---

## Ep 122 Bloodbath at the House of Death

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-122-bloodbath-at-the-house-of-death/
Air date: 18 July 2021
Duration: 01:39:27
Film: Bloodbath at the House of Death · Year: 1984 · Director: Ray Cameron

### Description

Accompanied by Westley from Mos Eisley Happy Hour and As Yet Unexplained, the team visit Headstone Manor for “Bloodbath at the House of Death” - a harrowing account of a real life haunting and multiple murder (well, not really, but if it’s good enough for those bullshit artists The Warrens, it’s good enough for Kenny Everett). A film in which we see a surprisingly faithful homage to that bit in Empire Strikes Back when Luke fights Vader on Dagobah; Gambit from The New Avengers is VERY friendly with Philip from Rising Damp (probably bonded over a Nescafé); and Vincent Price trades insults with a regular from “On The Busses”. Along the way we discuss “Fear Street Part 1”, “Loki”, “Highlander” and Tommy Wiseau’s masterpiece “The Room”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are joined this evening as, I can't remember if we mentioned or if we just teased the fact that we were going to be joined this evening.
**Lee:** by a star of the Mosleyley Happy Hour, Wes. How you doing, Wes?
**Wes:** Hello.
**Chris:** And as yet unexplained.
**Lee:** And as yet unexplained, of course.
**Lee:** I think yeah.
**Adam:** Didn't get to explain anything though.
**Adam:** That's the reason you're here is because obviously there's a lot of real sort of like occult law in this and it's based on real folk legends and everything. So we thought we'd better get you in to get that full understanding. yes, so as promised, we are here to discover to to discuss, should I say, the slightly unusual, Bloodbath at the House of Death. But before we get into any of that kind of nonsense, we are going to discuss as usual what we've been watching. So, Chris, we'll start with you. What have you been watching horror-wise?
**Chris:** So I've been continuing the adventure of Castlevania.
**Chris:** So the second season is is so far, I think I'm halfway through it and it has been I it's it's slow in the first one, but it's a lot of character development and really makes the story far deeper and far more interesting than I'd expected it to be when we saw season one.
**Chris:** so yeah, it's it's great fun. Still really enjoying that.
**Chris:** and and not it's I suppose it's probably, I haven't seen that many different Dracula adaptations, it's it's absolutely still one of the best computer game adaptations, but as far as Dracula goes, it seemed like an unusual twist as far as I can tell on what I've always thought of Dracula.
**Chris:** So I suppose that's that was perhaps their plan.
**Chris:** it's also not entirely clear who you're following, as in, you know, who you're siding with.
**Chris:** They're all bad and good, which that I don't know that does seem to be sort of a modern thing, I don't know, I seem to be seeing that in a lot of films where it's less clear exactly who's good and who's bad.
**Lee:** Yeah, there's sort of more dimensions to the characters.
**Adam:** I mean essentially more realistic.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** Which helps ground something that's that fantastical as well, obviously.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So yeah, so that's been really good.
**Chris:** and then we've also been watching Loki continuing the Marvel viewing.
**Chris:** So that that's been really fun.
**Adam:** Oh, my internet's called
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Oh yeah, yeah, then blast our guy.
**Chris:** Yeah, no, it's it's absolutely I think it's.
**Chris:** And funnily enough, the the episode I just saw, it started to make me think of Terry Pratchett, because it's it's gone quite silly, but you know, it's still got the sort of fantastical sci-fi sort some science elements in that regard and it's yeah, it's it's fun and yeah, just a bit odd.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Lee:** West, what have you been watching horror-wise recently that you'd like to discuss?
**Wes:** This week I watched the House on Haunted Hill, the original one.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Nice.
**Wes:** Then Bram Stoker's Dracula.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Again.
**Wes:** But I bought The Reptile on Blu-ray and for some reason I watched a whole bunch of other things I had I've already seen a million times before, so that's the way it goes, I suppose, isn't it?
**Lee:** Oh, the Reptile is fantastic.
**Adam:** That's definitely one to cover.
**Adam:** That that and Plague of Zombies, because they're like basically made at the same time.
**Wes:** They're all the same set and costumes, isn't it?
**Adam:** Yeah, same set, same costume, same locations, it's the works and most of the same cast.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Wes:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Plague of Zombies is.
**Adam:** Yeah, they just don't get the love they deserve.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** They don't get the love they deserve and I'm and I'm convinced it's because of the lack of big hammer names.
**Adam:** You haven't you haven't got you haven't got Mr. Lee, you haven't got the Cush.
**Adam:** So people are like, oh well, you know, that's he's he's okay. No, he's fucking brilliant. Yeah. Jeez, it really.
**Wes:** Just because I was watching that the Peter Cushion moth one that I can never remember the title of.
**Adam:** Oh, The Blood Beast Terror.
**Wes:** Yeah, that reminded me that, oh, I haven't seen The Reptile for a while, so that's why I got that.
**Adam:** Peter Cushion is in The Reptile though, isn't he?
**Adam:** I'm just thinking.
**Wes:** I don't think he is. I'm not sure.
**Adam:** I can't remember now because I might I might be getting I might be getting him confused I'm getting him confused with The Ghoul.
**Adam:** The Peter Cushion Ghoul where it's like someone's locked away and he's come back from a far away land and so on and so forth.
**Lee:** yeah, no, you're right, he isn't, no.
**Lee:** I thought he had a lesser role in that, but he does not appear to.
**Adam:** I thought he was some reason in my head he's Jacqueline Pierce's dad in it and no he's clearly not, so yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I clearly need to re-watch that as well. So I think I might actually, yeah, do the same, yeah, and possibly, yeah, with Plague of Zombies and do it as a double feature at some point during the week.
**Wes:** You can you can also get them on
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Wes:** You can get them very good, see them on Amazon, you can get the one where they released a couple of years ago.
**Wes:** Where you get the DVD, the Blu-ray and the bonus disc all for about 12 quid, I think it is.
**Wes:** That's quite good.
**Adam:** Yeah, they got pretty good it's quite nice that we've now got to the point where you can clean up a bit on Hammer Blu-ray because they've actually they've actually realised, yeah, we've sold it to everyone who can afford the 20 quid.
**Adam:** So one fucking film.
**Wes:** I've also got the first Frankenstein Hammer film.
**Wes:** And that comes with a free film, The Four-Sided Triangle.
**Adam:** Oh, really?
**Wes:** Yeah, as a bonus feature, so but because it's on Blu-ray it doesn't come with the collector's book that the DVD does come with.
**Adam:** Right.
**Wes:** Yeah.
**Wes:** It depends how much you like reading, I suppose.
**Adam:** Or reading.
**Wes:** Or reading, yeah.
**Adam:** He's all right.
**Wes:** You know, it's a train journey, isn't it?
**Adam:** I went to that, I went to that reading festival that they advertised. Couldn't hear myself think them fucking bands playing in the field next door.
**Wes:** Consider it.
**Adam:** I'm trying to read fucking.
**Wes:** You could write a letter.
**Adam:** I did.
**Wes:** Good.
**Adam:** Heard nothing back. Apparently people don't communicate like that anymore.
**Wes:** That's because they don't read.
**Adam:** That's why. Royal Royal Mail just put all letters in a big burning furnace now because they're like, well, if you could if you couldn't email them, fuck you. That's what that's that's the Royal Mail's current current message as well if they're translated into Latin.
**Lee:** excellent.
**Lee:** Adam, have you been watching anything horror related?
**Adam:** Well, it's sort of well, basically last week Clare and Ted got bronchitis, so I was so I'll sing sing a lot of phlegm and sort of things like that.
**Adam:** You know, I'm going to definitely put that in the basket with horror.
**Adam:** I will apologise as well. I think I I've picked a much milder form up, but if my voice suddenly goes, yeah, I I will please bear with me while I have a coughing fit off mic.
**Adam:** So, you know.
**Lee:** who's
**Adam:** Mike.
**Adam:** He's well he's the bloke who comes around and does, you know, I've got a man who does, you know, I don't don't want to go into it further not on not on broadcast, no.
**Adam:** Fair enough.
**Adam:** But speaking of watching things you've watched a thousand fucking times though, I've taken the plunge and started buying the fucking Doctor Who Blu-ray classic series. So I've been watching loads of those. I know it's because they've come out in not they've come out slightly cheaper in not so fancy packaging.
**Adam:** And it's like, right, if I missed if I missed the boat this time, I'm going to be pissed off with myself and spend the whole time going, well, so I followed the message from butthole surfers and all all of it's better to regret something that you have done than something that you didn't do.
**Adam:** yeah, so I've been watching those, but equally, the other oh, excuse me, the other night we watched the true a true life horror of The Room, which I introduced Claire to Tommy Wiseau's magnum opus, his magnum magnuson.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Which you know, I mean, we can't count it as horror, but you do see a lot of his grotesque arse.
**Adam:** bobbling bobbling around in sheets. There is a spot on it. It's, you know, I I would argue that a man impersonating Arnold Schwarzenegger whilst looking like Willem Dafoe's been pulled inside out.
**Adam:** I think is a, you know, that that counts as horror for me.
**Adam:** So there we go.
**Adam:** And one that might and this is something that's kind of adjacent, it's much more fantasy, and something that I think might cause horror to everyone on the show possibly, when they find out it's my first time I've ever watched Highlander.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So there we go.
**Lee:** Oh, no.
**Chris:** You beat me to it.
**Adam:** Oh, you've never seen it, Chris?
**Chris:** No.
**Lee:** That's
**Wes:** Yeah, that's a really good film.
**Lee:** Oh, man. I thought it was a really good film.
**Lee:** And then I re-watched it about a year ago and it turned out it was absolute Todd, it was terrible.
**Wes:** The when he's when he starts when he's the when he's receiving the quickening and they carefully place lightning.
**Wes:** You know, it's it's it's quite good. A towel, I thought.
**Adam:** I've never thought of it before as receiving the quickening.
**Adam:** But now that is the only way I shall refer to it.
**Wes:** Don't watch Highlander 2, because it's called Highlander 2, the quickening.
**Wes:** It actually that's what it is.
**Wes:** The quickening.
**Adam:** Yeah. By the way, that is literally anything that anyone has said to me when I was because I think it was like, I'd watched it and then it was like, oh, there's a couple of podcasts that covered it.
**Adam:** And I didn't listen to it because I hadn't seen the film at that point.
**Adam:** So I went back and listened to them and all of those basically all start with, yeah, it's not Highlander 2, don't watch that, it's shit.
**Adam:** So I'm I'm way I'm way stamping well away from that.
**Adam:** But yeah, it was just I think I might be lucky in that I didn't watch it the first time round, so I think I was actually, oh, that was good.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** I didn't I enjoyed it, I but also rather than shit, the first time I watched this, I didn't realise the flaws.
**Adam:** I was watching it this time going, the flaws are some of the best bits in this.
**Adam:** And obviously Mr. Krabbs is the main villain, so that's, you know.
**Wes:** The Corgon.
**Adam:** yeah, and that was and obviously, yeah.
**Adam:** Fucking the one Scotsman in it is playing a fucking Egyptian by way of Spain.
**Lee:** Yeah, precisely.
**Lee:** And he's playing a terrible Scotsman.
**Lee:** What's going on?
**Adam:** I also did find I found this out about it though is apparently Christopher Lambert is allergic.
**Adam:** Like has an allergy thing so he can't wear contact lenses, without his glasses he is fucking blind.
**Adam:** So although the sword fights suddenly became a lot more impressive or certainly the bravery of the people competing with him because yeah.
**Adam:** You just got some mad French bastard at you you can't see fuck all in front of his face.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** But overall, I think I and I also respect any film that has that many ideas.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's the it's the phantasm thing again where it's like not all of this hits, but well done on not just literally the opposite of The Room.
**Adam:** Where Claire was waiting for a plot and I said, no, you know the plot.
**Adam:** It's just waiting for that now.
**Adam:** And, you know, football games in a like hula hoop sized area of the ground.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** and yeah, so unfortunately, unfortunately.
**Lee:** So it's a bit like this evening's movie did very much the same, not wishing to spoil it, but yeah, a slasher and a satanic cult movie.
**Lee:** And it turns out they're all aliens anyway, spoiler alert, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, actually.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's nice to see it's nice to have too many ideas, I think.
**Wes:** Yeah, throw enough shit at the wall, some of it's bound to stick.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** so I caught up with the new Netflix movie Fear Street part one.
**Chris:** Oh yeah.
**Lee:** Which I I really enjoyed.
**Lee:** I had a really good time watching it.
**Lee:** I mean, it again, it's that thing that Netflix do of it's nothing entirely new, but they just give it so much heart that it's, yeah, a really endearing, really good fun, I had a fantastic and I thought I hadn't read anything about it.
**Lee:** I thought it was going to be one a month or one every couple of months or whatever.
**Lee:** yeah, and I watched it last Saturday and then yesterday, the second part came out, so it looks like they're going to release them over three weeks, which is yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's good, so you've got a film each week to look forward to.
**Adam:** I've no, I've literally I saw that there's a pop-up video store in London to advertise it.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think Daryl's working there.
**Lee:** Yes, yes, friend of the show, Daryl. I knew he was working at a VHS store, I didn't know it was a pop-up one to do with Fear Street. Oh, that's cool.
**Adam:** Yeah, I think it's I think it's to do with Fear Street, so yeah.
**Adam:** but other than that, I know literally nothing.
**Lee:** It's.
**Lee:** So it's it's a kind of supernatural slasher movie.
**Lee:** set in the set now, I believe.
**Lee:** Oh no, it's called 94.
**Lee:** So it happened in 94.
**Lee:** You will love it, Adam, the soundtrack is fantastic.
**Lee:** It's every song you remember from the early 90s.
**Adam:** Oh, okay.
**Lee:** It's all that kind of, you know, like garbage and Paul's head and all those bands.
**Adam:** It's trip hop, isn't it?
**Adam:** That's that's.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Like sounds of it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it's it's.
**Adam:** I will I I definitely will enjoy it because when my throat went, I was just listening, I'd do my usual thing which is I'm just going to listen to tricky because it's the only person I can sing along with at the moment.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** but yeah, so and it's got a really good IMDB, which is why I wanted to catch it, you know, the first couple of days after it came out.
**Lee:** But it's one of those don't there's a lot of hype, try not to read anything or know anything going in.
**Lee:** This so for the second, I'm not even going to watch the trailer.
**Lee:** I'm just going in cold.
**Lee:** but yeah, just know it's really good fun and yeah, you'll enjoy it.
**Lee:** and that's all I've watched really, except I did catch up with the newly released trailer for Last Night in Soho.
**Lee:** The new Edgar Wright horror movie.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, it looks interesting.
**Lee:** It looks interesting.
**Lee:** But I was listening to an interview with him and he basically said what he's trying to do is make an Italian giallo movie set in Soho in the 60s.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Not exactly my favourite of any of those genres, but it's Edgar Wright, if anyone can make that stuff work, I think he's probably going to be the man to do it, so,
**Adam:** And also I presume I presume it's not got Kevin Spacey in this movie.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No, he's started to get stuff.
**Adam:** Couldn't couldn't afford the insurance.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Speaking of which, onto tonight's main film.
**Lee:** So yeah, 1984's Kenny Everett starring Bloodbath at the House of Death.
**Lee:** I knew obviously we would be getting very much into British comedy TV from the 70s and 80s, which is why we have Wes with us here.
**Lee:** Because I know that obviously he and Adam are are really into that stuff, so I thought it'd be good to to bring you in and get your thoughts.
**Lee:** And again, it's just your sense of humour, this one, Wes, so,
**Wes:** Oh, yeah.
**Wes:** Totally agree, you know.
**Lee:** So Chris, what did you make of Bloodbath at the House of Death?
**Chris:** You you know what the answer's going to be.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I it's what what a very entertaining film.
**Chris:** I I clearly need to watch a bit more Kenny Everett.
**Chris:** Because I I I remembered the name when you mentioned him and I I probably saw like maybe adverts or you know something like that.
**Chris:** I don't remember seeing actually anything full length with him in, so I don't know if I was a bit too young or I guess he was a bit adult, most of his stuff, was it?
**Lee:** Yeah, he was amazingly proper.
**Chris:** So.
**Adam:** A lot of people
**Lee:** going too far.
**Adam:** A naughty boy.
**Chris:** Oh, okay.
**Chris:** So he was a he was a bit controversial at the time.
**Adam:** Right.
**Chris:** Yes, so and and then of course and Vincent Price as well, which you know, you probably mentioned it and I saw his name come up in the credits.
**Chris:** I think, but like he's his role in this.
**Chris:** I was thinking, oh, how's that going to work?
**Chris:** He like because I figured this was maybe a bit too much of a comedy.
**Chris:** But it's amazing how he fits into it perfectly.
**Chris:** He he just and I think because he still can play.
**Chris:** He he almost like he's playing both a serious and a ridiculous character at once and doing them both fantastically and you know, he's like his speech is fairly long sort of monologues with quite impressive vocabulary and it just works in both ways, you know, and so.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** So.
**Chris:** He's he's great.
**Chris:** And I guess he's a bit older in this as well, isn't he?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** I think the other films, all the other films we've seen him in.
**Adam:** Yeah, when when did he, was he 87, he died?
**Adam:** So it's very late in his career, because it was around the time it was around the time he made Elvira's Mistress of the Dark, wasn't it?
**Wes:** I thought that was a 90s film, an early 90s film.
**Wes:** Sort of 89, 90.
**Adam:** For some reason in my head, he's like about 87, but I might be wrong.
**Lee:** I think it was his last film, it was his last film because he because that was the point, wasn't it, he did a scene in it and that was the last the last thing he ever filmed, I believe.
**Lee:** I'm checking on IMDB now.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Chris:** I should probably watch that then.
**Adam:** It's yeah, I've totally nothing to do with it, but when I went to see him, but his hands, I had a nose bleed.
**Adam:** And I was wearing a white t-shirt and I came out and I look like I've been stabbed.
**Adam:** So there you go.
**Chris:** That probably encouraged a lot of people to.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, yeah.
**Adam:** I came I came out fairly quiet so it looked like the people I've were beaten me up.
**Chris:** but yeah, so like even from the start in this, you know, obviously this it's it kicks off pretty full on straight away, but in a funny sort of way, but then I I really quite liked the as he bought the comedy into it, the way it had each of them the couples in the car and explaining what they're doing.
**Chris:** And just something was like, yeah, that's that's pretty good. They're obviously, you know, I I guess pointing out a little too much exactly what their place in this is.
**Chris:** But yeah, just I don't know, it was I was warmed to it straight away.
**Chris:** Really.
**Chris:** And yeah, it continued throughout being very entertaining.
**Adam:** Yes, less less than subtle.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, yeah.
**Wes:** I just love the opening line.
**Wes:** Oh, shit.
**Adam:** Oh, with the guy in the bushes, yeah, I forgot about that.
**Wes:** That's a great way of opening the film.
**Wes:** With the Oh, shit.
**Wes:** Even Vincent Price for me, even the when he was swearing.
**Wes:** The acting, you could tell he was above everyone else.
**Wes:** It was like.
**Wes:** Yeah, this is me off.
**Adam:** You pissed off.
**Wes:** Yeah, that was.
**Adam:** Brilliant.
**Adam:** Actually, I watched I watched like there's a there's an extra on the DVD, I watched it just before they started and they said oh like they were it was like a Australian interview with Kenny Everett because despite the fact this died on its ass over here, it did very well in Australia.
**Adam:** And yeah, he he said, oh no, everyone was great. he said, I thought Pamela Stevenson was quite snooty though because she was just not she wasn't a team player, she'd just keep going off to her dressing room and everything.
**Adam:** And it was just when he said, so we're sitting there with Vincent and everything and it's like, you know, that's just fantastic.
**Adam:** Vince Price just mucking in with like all these stalwarts of British TV comedy.
**Adam:** But as it turns out, the reason that Pamela Stevenson kept whipping off is actually she was pregnant.
**Adam:** So she was honking her rivets up between takes and didn't tell anyone.
**Lee:** Yeah, that that extra on the disc, I watched that as well, literally as soon as the film finished when I watched it the other week.
**Lee:** yeah, and I found it really interesting, you know, just telling you about how it was all privately funded, yeah, and what a massive flop this film was, unfortunately.
**Lee:** he never really made that money back.
**Lee:** And I suppose lends to why it became a lost film for so long.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, the story behind that was is that because obviously, yeah, it died on its ass at the box office mostly and we'll get into Kenny because I he just for an idea for certainly for our our international listeners.
**Adam:** Kenny Everett doesn't appear on the cover of Bloodbath at the House of Death video that was released in America.
**Adam:** It's only Vincent Price because literally, they won't know who Kenny Everett is, but we can sell it on the basis that Vincent Price is in it.
**Adam:** But yeah, well, as I say, we'll get into that.
**Chris:** He's his picture on the front is very good.
**Lee:** I think they should have released, yeah.
**Chris:** That does sum it up perfectly, really.
**Adam:** They they are very carry on like illustrations as well, the thing, yeah.
**Adam:** And the but yeah, so it's sort of Kenny Everett had controversially.
**Adam:** The week before they started filming and this they said that was one of the reasons why their funding got lynched, was Kenny appeared at the Conservative Party conference in 1983.
**Adam:** And I saw another interview with Kenny Everett where he's talking about it and basically he said, because at the time everyone was like, oh, fucking hell, Kenny Ever's Tory, fucking and just, you know, and so and they they said literally that was why the Blood Baths that came out in at a point where he was at his lowest sort of popularity amongst well not necessarily the public, but certainly sort of with media darlings, etcetera.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** And but he actually said, oh yeah, I went and did that, why did you why did you do the Tory Party conference?
**Adam:** And he said, well, they asked me first.
**Adam:** And yeah, I don't think he had much of a but apparently Michael Winner wound him up before he went on.
**Adam:** He said, there, you've got to go and be outrageous so you get in the papers.
**Adam:** And he said to him, well, what's outrageous then, let's bomb Russia.
**Adam:** Perfect.
**Adam:** And yeah, so that so he went, so yeah, that was that was when he did the party conference.
**Adam:** It wasn't just that he'd done the party conference.
**Adam:** He came out in the brotherly love giant foam pointy fingers and said and said, let's bomb Russia and let's kick Michael Foot's stick away.
**Adam:** And Michael Foot was the.
**Adam:** was the leader of the Labour Party at the time.
**Adam:** Who had a walking stick.
**Adam:** And
**Lee:** Irony.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, exactly.
**Adam:** And so.
**Adam:** So, but I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema, and it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly. Streaming will kill it when people were moaning about multiplexes.
**Adam:** But they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** So like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do is they'll store it for you.
**Adam:** But they charge you for it and eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do.
**Adam:** Is they'll store it for you, but they charge you for it.
**Adam:** And eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do.
**Adam:** Is they'll store it for you, but they charge you for it.
**Adam:** And eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do.
**Adam:** Is they'll store it for you, but they charge you for it.
**Adam:** And eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do.
**Adam:** Is they'll store it for you, but they charge you for it.
**Adam:** And eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do.
**Adam:** Is they'll store it for you, but they charge you for it.
**Adam:** And eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do.
**Adam:** Is they'll store it for you, but they charge you for it.
**Adam:** And eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do.
**Adam:** Is they'll store it for you, but they charge you for it.
**Adam:** And eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do.
**Adam:** Is they'll store it for you, but they charge you for it.
**Adam:** And eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** It disappeared disappeared from sort of distributions and stuff like that.
**Adam:** No one was really asking for it.
**Adam:** It was never sold to television, strangely enough.
**Adam:** because they yeah, they never they it was released on video, but just like commercial video cassette.
**Adam:** It wasn't sort of there wasn't a good copy anywhere, let's put it that way.
**Adam:** And then in 2008 or whatever it was, there so the company that made the DVD, Nucleus Films, basically there I think it's what's it name? Mark Morris who runs Nucleus Films.
**Adam:** He said, I've got a wall filled with my old video tapes and I if if I'm just trying to think of something, I look at them and just go, I'd like to see that again.
**Adam:** Or I'd like to see that come out and Bloodbath at the House of Death was one of them.
**Adam:** But he found out that he couldn't get hold of a print because no one wanted it, it flopped totally and this was like 20 odd years later.
**Adam:** Couldn't find it had never been sold to telly, so he couldn't get like a VT copy of it that might be passable for a DVD transfer or anything like that.
**Adam:** And then he asked he went to talk to the original production company, but the original production company went bust while they were making the fucking film.
**Adam:** yeah, that was a bit of a non-starter.
**Adam:** But so what they did was they he started ringing the actual processing labs and at the end credits in every film you get which lab processed the foot the footage.
**Adam:** And obviously.
**Adam:** Not hoping for much, but whatever he then he spoke to this particular lab, and they still had the negative, so rather than releasing like a shitty VT version of it, they actually managed to get the negative and strike a new copy from it and, you know, because it does look really fucking incredible.
**Adam:** It's probably like for for the film of its age.
**Adam:** There is no way on God's earth it should look that good.
**Lee:** Absolutely.
**Wes:** I I haven't got the DVD or video or anything.
**Wes:** I managed to see it on YouTube and even then it was crystal clear.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I think I think it's an upload from the because you can't get the DVD anymore.
**Wes:** No.
**Wes:** You can get the novelisation though for about 20 quid on eBay.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Adam:** Interesting fact about the novelisation, you know in the you know, you know in the list of dead people where it's like four people were skewered in their own bed and someone watching that blew up.
**Adam:** apparently in the book, the person who blew up was Marcel Wave, you know the French character that Kenny used to do.
**Lee:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, with the false chin.
**Adam:** And yeah, so it was Marcel Wave who was too turned on by four feet and bees stabbed with a spear that he spontaneously combusted.
**Adam:** Again, gives gives you gives you a level of the film, doesn't it?
**Adam:** but yeah, so they they found it in storage, but the trouble is is what what a lot of companies obviously do.
**Adam:** Is they'll store it for you, but they charge you for it.
**Adam:** And eventually they chuck it away because, you know.
**Adam:** Fortunately, they hadn't chuck Bloodbath away, but the the accrued storage fine was 25,000 pounds.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Wow.
**Adam:** And again.
**Adam:** Let's face it.
**Adam:** It's not it's not a hidden Kubrick, it's not, you know, sort of like Alfred Hitchcock's first like home videos or whatever like that.
**Adam:** It's not going to it's not going to make back 25, 25 fucking grand.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But again.
**Adam:** Mark Morris sort of hammered at it and basically he managed to talk them down on the price because it was like, look, this way you will get some money for this.
**Adam:** Otherwise, what else are you doing with this because literally no one else is interested.
**Adam:** So make some money or chuck it away.
**Adam:** And no one's got anything.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** But I didn't realise this that they said at the time, oddly, because everyone thinks, oh, multiplexes, that killed cinema.
**Adam:** And it's like, no, streaming did, don't be silly.
**Adam:** Streaming will kill it.
**Adam:** When people were moaning about multiplexes, but they actually said with multiplexes, this film could have done better, but because they were like the average, it was like a three screen cinema was probably the biggest cinemas that you had certainly in England.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** Yeah, if your film wasn't doing well, they just pulled it because they had loads of other films to show, and, you know, if you had like five big films that week, that cinema was only showing three of them.
**Adam:** And yeah, so if your film wasn't doing well.
**Adam:** It's like, well pull that because this other one's doing great.
**Adam:** And we'll.
**Adam:** Yeah.

---

## Ep 121 Dracula AD1972

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-121-dracula-ad1972/
Air date: 4 July 2021
Duration: 01:34:27
Film: Dracula A.D. 1972 · Year: 1972 · Director: Alan Gibson

### Description

The Drac is back! Following on from our last episode, we trace the Count to the present day (sort of) with “Dracula A.D. 1972”. A film in which the police are willing to take operational orders from the Grandfather of one of key suspects in a murder case; we see the dangers for a young vampire regarding personal hygiene; and grumpy Christopher Lee refuses to perform most of his dialogue (again). Along the way we discuss “Synchronic”, “From A Whisper To A Scream”, “Castlevania”, “Phantasm”, “Dr Phibes Rises Again” and “The Satanic Rites of Dracula”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here in the middle of a massive thunderstorm. fittingly enough, to discuss Dracula AD 1972. I an absolute classic in my opinion. Spoiler alert.
**Lee:** I've got over excited already.
**Adam:** Did you like it?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** but before I get too excited and get my geek out about Dracula.
**Lee:** Chris, what have you watched since our last meeting?
**Chris:** I thought I would keep it themed so we've seen two Draculas. I thought, what what what Dracula related things could I watch? And I
**Lee:** What's that? You say we?
**Chris:** we we watched the first Dracula last time.
**Lee:** Oh we, yeah, I thought we Oh we as in we, we, this collective we here.
**Chris:** No. although she did hear what was going on and she was like, what what are you watching?
**Chris:** And you know, when we get into it, that will become clear as to why it was a bit confusing.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Chris:** so she may well have watched this the majority of it probably would have been actually fine, I would think.
**Chris:** but yeah, so, so I thought, what can I watch? And I've been seeing Castlevania pop up occasionally because apparently I'm now three seasons past that I have not seen.
**Chris:** So I thought, well, let's give that a go again. And I started watching it and I was like, I really should have been watching this before because it is still so good.
**Chris:** I remembered it being great when we covered it before, but I thought season two still as good but it is. It's just really great.
**Chris:** I mean even if you, even if it didn't have a great story and great acting and great voices, who I one of the characters, his name's oh, I keep getting it's God something.
**Chris:** but he is oh, no, I forgot the actor's name. Jesus right, come back to that. is it Peter, Peter Stoma?
**Adam:** Peter Stormare, the from Fargo.
**Chris:** Yes, no, I haven't seen Fargo, right? But he was he was the one of the crazy cops in Spun, if you ever saw that.
**Adam:** Yes he was.
**Chris:** Where they take they take cocaine and just complete anyway so that's the first time I ever saw him and he cracked me up in that.
**Chris:** And then I've seen him in something else since.
**Adam:** He's in Constantine, isn't he? He's the devil in Constantine, isn't he?
**Chris:** Yeah, I think you're right.
**Adam:** Keanu Reeves, Hellblazer adaption.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** but yeah so I think it's great anyway. And so he plays one of the voices, which is good.
**Chris:** And the other voice actors are great. but the visuals alone are good enough to watch, you know?
**Lee:** Yeah, I remember it being.
**Chris:** If it was just visuals, I would just sit and watch that for forever long it's on for. So yeah, so that's been really good.
**Chris:** and it was in keeping with with the theme.
**Chris:** And also, so I'd asked about Alucard before and obviously Adam you said Dracula backwards, but in this, and this might be why I was mixing it up, Alucard is Dracula's son.
**Chris:** And the point of it being Alucard was he's sort of the opposite in a way of Dracula in as in he's trying to save humanity.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's like the anti-Dracula's father, I think.
**Chris:** Yeah. even though he's kind of got some of Dracula's powers.
**Chris:** So yeah, I don't know if that's where that comes into it or.

---

## Ep 12 Mos Eisley Happy Hour - The Rise of Skywalker

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-12-mos-eisley-happy-hour-the-rise-of-skywalker/
Air date: 27 June 2021
Duration: 01:48:22

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 2019, Greggs launches it’s Vegan Sausage Roll; Kentucky outlaws bestiality whilst Washington State legalises human composting; and Epstein didn’t kill himself. Our Star Wars watch-through reaches the end of the saga with ”The Rise of Skywalker”. So put on your best Indiana Jones cosplay; sign up to Emperor Palpatine’s Onlyfans; cheer as Withnail shoots that terrible **** Hux; and say “Hehey!” to everyone’s new favourite character: Babu Frik. • Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Oh yeah, 'cause, oh, sorry.
**Adam:** And also I'm joined by CA88, our very own battle droid, Mr. Chris.
**Chris:** Hello.
**Adam:** Hello.
**Adam:** Yeah, 'cause that thing from Dune, I, I was listening to a thing about Dune and they kept saying that, and all I could think was 'Nick Nack Padywack', the Mr. Bungle song.
**Adam:** A Quizat Haderach,.
**Adam:** So yeah. So I've got that out the fucking way, ain't it?
**Chris:** Where's, where's your box to burn your hand if you...
**Adam:** Don't know, don't know.
**Lee:** I've warmed me feet in it. It's cold here today.
**Adam:** That's the thing. It's one of those ones where it's, yeah, if he was, imagine if you just gave that, you're a pervert.
**Adam:** Right? You're going to take your hand out.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Oh.
**Lee:** Oh, film me, film me. No, film me.
**Adam:** Oh, film me, film me, film me.
**Adam:** It's sick, they're going.
**Adam:** But, so, and this, as you may not be aware from our beginning there, is a podcast in which we will be talking about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
**Adam:** and, not Dune, and not the fantastic band Mr. Bungle, although we recommend both quite heartily as well.
**Chris:** Yes, absolutely.
**Adam:** So yes.
**Adam:** and, yes, I suppose we've, we've come to, we, we've come to the end of the saga. It's, it's been a long time, we've lost some people along the way.
**Adam:** Obviously, Lee has become a Force ghost that we can only contact via, meditation or, you know, well, certainly not via the internet apparently.
**Chris:** We tried calling out for him but there was no response.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I took loads of Jabba mushrooms and that didn't conjure him up.
**Adam:** He's almost like, he's like Master Cyfo Dias. He set everything up and then he's not actually appeared in the main series. So what? And to be honest, I've only said that because that name has been running through my head like a fucking screensaver all day for no good reason.
**Adam:** I don't know why, and I've been saying it in a Scottish accent, the one that, thingy doesn't use.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And, yes, it's been, a, an intriguing time, it has to be said.
**Chris:** Ooh.
**Adam:** What?
**Lee:** Appeared in like the Millennium Falcon to save all your asses at the last minute. That's right. You thought I was dead, but just like the Emperor, I'm a motherfucking zombie. Boom!
**Adam:** Live, calling in live from Exogesis, what is it, Exogesis?
**Lee:** Exogol.
**Adam:** Exogol. Exogol. I, Exogesis, I'm thinking of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Yeah, we've, we've covered a lot of topics while you've been away, Lee.
**Adam:** Mr. Bungle, Dune for no good reason.

---

## Ep 120 Dracula

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-120-dracula/
Air date: 20 June 2021
Duration: 01:48:48
Film: Dracula · Year: 1958 · Director: Terence Fisher

### Description

Stop! Hammer Time! And that means a proper classic as the team enjoys 1958’s “Dracula” (or “Horror of Dracula” in the USA). A film in which we learn that vampires cannot transform themselves into animals, especially on a tight budget; Peter Cushing doesn’t fuck about when using a hammer; and if you can’t say it with flowers - scream it with garlic. Along the way we discuss “In The Earth”, “Army of the Dead”, “The Visitor” and “Ash Vs Evil Dead”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** And we are here finally to cover a film that as Adam pointed out quite rightly, we should definitely have covered a very long time ago.
**Chris:** About six years ago.
**Lee:** we are here.
**Adam:** Around 100 episodes ago, I think.
**Lee:** so we are here to cover the original Hammer Dracula, or Horrors of Dracula for those of you in the US.
**Lee:** but before we get too excited and go off on a tangent about how much we love Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, which spoiler alert, that's happening, and Michael Gough, bloody Nora.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** So before we get into all that,
**Lee:** Chris, what have you been watching since our last recording?
**Chris:** Well, what I'm going to say here might upset some people, other people may say, good on you, great job.
**Chris:** We thought we'd finished with Marvel, but we started watching the the Wanda Vision episodes on Disney Plus because like, oh, there it's there. Look, let's press play, let's check it out. It looks a bit weird. All right.
**Chris:** And it is a bit weird, but it does also show what you can do when you change from a movie format to episodes, because I think you can try things, as we saw with Mandalorian, that you otherwise might not quite want to try or would just wouldn't work in a film.
**Chris:** So, it does let you explore a lot more options and I do think what they did was it was original enough.
**Chris:** I mean, I don't know, do either of you know anything about it?
**Lee:** No, I haven't seen it.
**Adam:** I kind of know, I know the context of it, but equally, I know that it comes with a lot of MCU back story that I'm not privy to, so.
**Chris:** I would say I think, I think you can enjoy it without knowing much. They do kind of explain as you go.
**Chris:** Because it is, it's sort of filling in a back story, so it's it's not like you need to know all of the other characters.
**Chris:** It it kind of just teaches you more about Wanda and a bit about vision, but you can, yeah, you may already know him.
**Chris:** But so it was interesting, it was quite meta, almost like, like double meta, I don't know.
**Chris:** Because it's yeah, and it's very difficult to say much without giving it away.
**Adam:** But I know that they I know that it kind of moves through eras of American television or American sitcoms. Yeah, which you'd say, well, how can they possibly do that?
**Adam:** I mean, how do you fit that into the story in a way that makes any sense?
**Chris:** But they do, and I I totally didn't see it coming the way it did.
**Chris:** but yeah, I I thought it worked.
**Chris:** And and as it went on, it also gets darker towards the end.
**Chris:** So, it's it's yeah, it's a lot more fun to begin with.
**Chris:** and and yeah, and it ended well and so overall, by the end, I I did enjoy it.
**Chris:** probably I'd say a lot more than I expected to. I thought after seeing the first episode it was going to be, yeah, this will be a bit of fun.
**Chris:** But it did it did manage to build it enough that I was quite happy and quite glued to it all the way through.
**Chris:** So I would recommend it if you like MCU, but also if you want to see something a bit different and if you like seeing those eras of TV.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Sounds.
**Lee:** See a lot.
**Adam:** I'd like to see an American I'd like to see an English program tackle it where they sort of go through are you being served and then nice start of a bit and start off with Hancock then go step to cancer and are you being served and then duty free.
**Adam:** You know, let's let's get really crap with the sitcoms, shall we?
**Adam:** And radio show, you know, they could really sort of go.
**Chris:** Rising damp.
**Adam:** But I I agree with you, Chris, I think like with The Mandalorian,
**Adam:** that that I think a lot of these things because there's so much in them, probably would work better moving towards a TV format.
**Adam:** But it's that limited series thing that seems to be the point.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because the ones because all the other ones like the stuff like what is it like Arrow and things like that where people are sort of like, yeah, they're okay or whatever.
**Chris:** But I think that had a lot of episodes did it because I didn't actually I didn't watch any of that.
**Adam:** Yeah, I but I think that's the thing is they're sticking to the old format of right, we're a TV show, so we do like 20 odd episodes for seven like a year for seven years or something like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Whereas actually, you know, you're probably better off sticking to like.
**Chris:** Shorter, sweet.
**Adam:** Yeah, like Game of Thrones or Mandalorian, like do eight really good fucking episodes, because then you've still you've still fulfilled more time than you would get in a movie.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Adam:** But you're not sort of having to fill stuff or sort of put placeholders in and.
**Chris:** Well, when that I think that freedom of not having to fit to an exact time length per episode, probably is quite nice from a writer's perspective.
**Adam:** I there's so many things that it works well with.
**Adam:** I mean, like even something that's a bit more traditional like Mind Hunter, there were a few episodes of that where they were they were shorter than the hour or whatever.
**Adam:** And it just made sense because it was like, that's all this case is.
**Chris:** Yeah, adding anything else just waters it down.
**Adam:** Yeah, and it bunging anything else in you, you're just going to be aware that it's padding. So.
**Adam:** I'd like to see a lot more TV go that route.
**Adam:** And it it makes so much sense with stuff like Black Mirror.
**Adam:** Like anthology stuff.
**Adam:** Because it's like sometimes you might have an hour and a half worth of story, you might only have 25 minutes on another one.
**Adam:** It would yeah, so.
**Lee:** No, I agree for Black Mirror, it it does work perfectly.
**Lee:** And I, you know, it's as you say, it does it is nice that stuff's on demand now and we've had that opportunity that's never been there before. yeah, and it it just and it it it makes what should be how many times have you watched something and thought that would be a great episode of something for 35 minutes, but they've made it an hour because that's how long the show is.
**Lee:** And it totally ruins it if you start sticking out to pad in and so yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, you can I've been I've been rewatching I've been rewatching a lot of old Doctor Who and you can see there's certain ones where they would have cliffhangers and recaps.
**Adam:** And sometimes they might recap like the last 10 minutes of the previous episode.
**Adam:** You're like, right, you had 15 minutes for this episode, didn't you?
**Adam:** But you've just bunged in like the previous 10.
**Adam:** So, yeah, definitely the I mean, there's something to be said I suppose for the discipline of it.
**Adam:** That you know you've got to fill a certain amount of time.
**Adam:** But equally, yeah, if you've got imagine if you've got some.
**Adam:** Like let's face it, it's like short films, there's so many short films that are then, oh, well, this is the short film that we made.
**Adam:** Here's the hour and a half and you're like, the short was better.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You did this really well in 15 minutes and scare the crap out of me, but I'm fucking bored at an hour and a half.
**Lee:** That's why I was so pleased when that Kung Fury came out, you know, a few years back, they did the 5 minute version, got the crowd funding, the feature length come out, 35 minutes.
**Lee:** Perfect, in out, done. If you'd made it an hour and a half, it would have been terrible, but for 35 minutes, it was absolutely perfect.
**Adam:** Because I think there's there's definitely something to be said for it with comedy, definitely.
**Adam:** Because I think there's so many things where you can just be, yeah, we've got the joke now.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And yeah, I'll see you going to do right, okay. Yes.
**Lee:** So Adam, what have you been watching since our last union?
**Adam:** well, I, there's a new, there's a new episode of the Occultaria of Albians podcast, which actually dropped today, and because that's what all the cool kids say, and it's our very own, Mr. Wesley Sith from Mos Eisley, Happy Hour is a guest on it.
**Chris:** Oh, right, excellent.
**Adam:** recounting recounting a true life a true life tale of one of when he had like a a UFO sighting.
**Adam:** And yeah, no, it was just just it was just good to hear him.
**Adam:** So, yeah, but
**Adam:** But I mean, yeah, the the episodes are they're still they're still a great podcast as well.
**Adam:** But yeah, it was just like, oh, bloody out, just out of the blue suddenly.
**Adam:** Well, I didn't expect to hear him today.
**Adam:** So that that was yeah, that that was good. the I've watched.
**Adam:** Finally watched I got round to watching something I bought in an arrow sale ages ago, the film called The Visitor.
**Adam:** Particular favorite of Bobby from not for everyone podcast.
**Adam:** Not it has to be said a favorite of Adams from not for everyone podcast.
**Adam:** Because having watched it, I went back and listened to the episode, I really couldn't remember the episode at all.
**Adam:** But I'd obviously, I had heard it.
**Adam:** And
**Adam:** yeah, Adam's take on it is that Bobby's main reason to for enjoyment was how pissed off he was with the film.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** But yeah, very, very strange like Italian, Italian made kind of horror Sci-fi possibly.
**Adam:** a bit like someone's basically someone obviously just went the Exorcist, that's big, isn't it?
**Adam:** The Omen, that's big, isn't it?
**Adam:** Cocaine, that's great, isn't it?
**Adam:** And melded the three and basically wrote this script and, I mean it is.
**Adam:** It's beautifully just mental, it's it makes no fucking sense.
**Adam:** And it's there are, yeah, there's there are birds in it, some of whom reveal that they have knives that come out of them and look like decoy ducks.
**Adam:** There are the film director.
**Adam:** Two film directors, Sam Peckinpah and John Huston, and John Huston has like a starring role in it for and he he's, you know, he's he's an older man of a certain gravitas.
**Adam:** I mean, he's he kind of strikes the same sort of figure as say, Christopher Lee does as Count Dooku, you know, like an older, a much older man, you know, not necessarily at his physical peak.
**Adam:** And they give him like fucking Starsky and Hutch action music every time he appears and it's just it's an old geezer walking along in a white printed suit.
**Adam:** You know, it's not.
**Adam:** It's that they've sort of added a dynamic to it.
**Adam:** They there is oh, Lance Henriksen's in it, they've cast a girl obviously on the basis that she looks a bit like Linda Blair.
**Adam:** And she is possibly the most like on purpose horrible child in a horror movie.
**Adam:** she is absolutely horrible child.
**Adam:** and there's God and the devil and Jesus and a satanic cult who are financed by basketball.
**Adam:** And there's ice skating fight scenes where the little girl throws teenage boys twice her size through fucking windows.
**Adam:** There's it's just fucking mental. It genuinely is. I really enjoyed it.
**Adam:** But, yeah, it's it's definitely not for everyone. It it's it's like.
**Adam:** It's it almost has that thing of you're like, have I fallen asleep and missed a bit of explanation, or is there a better print of this where they've got more plot in or did they cut this for some reason?
**Adam:** And yeah.
**Adam:** So that was, that was remarkable, barmy, yeah, I I mean, I fucking enjoyed it, but yeah.
**Adam:** Good mighty, it is a a right oddity.
**Adam:** and yeah, and by the end of it, I'm not entirely sure who the visitor is.
**Adam:** So, you know, I think it's John Houston, but he's mind not be.
**Adam:** But yeah, so and I told Bobby I'd watched it and he waxed lyrical about about it as well, so we've been holding a mutual appreciation society for The Visitor on WhatsApp.
**Adam:** the other film that I got, finally got to see because it's been out in the states for a while, but it's actually finally released over here, is Ben Wheatley's new film In the Earth.
**Adam:** and Lee, you've you watched this as well.
**Lee:** I have.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think very much much more in the line of sort of Kill List and Field in England.
**Adam:** It's much more in his sort of folk horror territory than anything else.
**Adam:** like it the best way I can describe it is it's and it's made me want to cover Annihilation on the show.
**Adam:** Because I don't know if we'd cover in the earth on the show.
**Adam:** necessarily, but I feel it has a lot in common with Annihilation, but it's like, it's like you made Annihilation, but on with with no money.
**Lee:** I was going to say exactly the same thing. It's if the BBC did a TV special of Annihilation.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's like it's actually what it feels like is this feels like it's the 1970 like the 1983 original TV series that then someone made big budget in the states later, but it's come afterwards.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, it's a very a very sort of trippy.
**Adam:** with very, very small cast, a really good fucking cast.
**Adam:** I have to say, I think there's I don't know if you found this leak because I mean, obviously, I don't want to give too much away because it's literally just come out.
**Adam:** And I, I mean, I encourage people to see it.
**Adam:** because I did I did enjoy it.
**Adam:** I think it gets a bit bogged down when they reach the second encampment.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I I I agree.
**Adam:** There's a lot of exposition.
**Lee:** And for a film that's only an hour and a half, it felt a lot longer than it was.
**Lee:** I
**Adam:** It was an hour and 45 actually.
**Lee:** Oh, an hour and 45.
**Adam:** But still, still it it does feel longer than that, yeah.
**Lee:** I think I've I've come to the decision following this film that I've seen all the Ben Wheatley I need to see.
**Adam:** Yeah, Sightseers still win for you.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's another one of those.
**Lee:** Like when when he got to the end of it, Jennifer said, okay, so what was it about it that you didn't like? And I was like, I can't put my finger on it. I just didn't it just didn't click for me.
**Lee:** I mean, it's it's one of the greatest casts.
**Lee:** The cast was absolutely incredible.
**Lee:** but it just did absolutely nothing for me and I don't know why.
**Adam:** Because it's it's a weird thing as well because you get that sort of you get that real momentum.
**Adam:** Because you've got like basically basically the the the plot is a research scientist is looking to join up with a former colleague and as it turns out, former girlfriend.
**Adam:** who is doing research out in the world and it's actually it's set during probably COVID.
**Adam:** They don't make they don't make that a they don't state definitively it's that.
**Adam:** But everyone is social distancing and wearing face masks and stuff.
**Adam:** And basically they filmed it during the COVID outbreak.
**Adam:** So they make a.
**Chris:** That's that's quite.
**Chris:** That's quite nice.
**Adam:** Yeah, so they they make a sort of they make a sort of Boon of that in a way.
**Adam:** Is that there's already the sort of and so, yeah, basically there's this research scientist and it's people who are looking for a cure to whatever it is that is plaguing the world, whether it be COVID or whether it be a different viral outbreak or something like that.
**Chris:** So could that have been something to do with it, Lee? Was it just seemed a bit too real?
**Adam:** Or no.
**Adam:** Well, I don't want to speak for you, sorry, yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** No, I say it wasn't it wasn't that because the as Adam said, that the the sort of the pandemic that's going on is just a plot point to get them to wear the it sort of kicks off.
**Lee:** So the whole thing doesn't hinge on that, it could work just as well without the pande, but it just made it very easy for them to say, right, this is why everything's so encapsulated and why there's nobody about because it's during lockdown so people aren't going out or moving around so much.
**Chris:** Yeah, I go.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And I say and I mean it's it it did some very good.
**Lee:** The gore and stuff.
**Lee:** Like I I literally the cringy bits, I was sit I kept pulling my knees up to my chest at because it was so gory.
**Lee:** It was brilliant.
**Adam:** Because I I can't remember the actor's name, but the main the the main like the main character.
**Adam:** basically, they put him through it.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Adam:** There is a lot of there, you know, he he is brutalized.
**Adam:** And it's
**Adam:** But I mean, I liked and and basically, yeah, so they they go out into the woods and it's meant to be that they've got to reach this camp where this scientist is who's stopped communicating with anyone.
**Adam:** So they're looking to find out what's happened and everything.
**Adam:** And it's a she's deep in the forest and it's like two days journey to get there.
**Adam:** I did look it up and I believe that it is because they say, oh, well, the only way we can reach it is on foot.
**Adam:** but I believe that apparently in mainland, England, they in mainland UK, you're only about six miles from a road at any point.
**Lee:** Oh, really?
**Adam:** So I'm not entirely sure about the two day thing.
**Adam:** But, you know,
**Adam:** it was just something I had to sort of I because I was like, a two days walk.
**Adam:** I mean, here, you you know what I mean, you sort of.
**Adam:** But anyway, so suspension of disbelief not withstanding.
**Adam:** but yeah, and when they and basically it's him and a park ranger, and they and she's she's directing him to sort of like and they go in.
**Adam:** And then they meet whom Reece Shearsmith who is playing a man who supposedly is just someone who lives on the land who is not meant to be there, but, you know, that's it.
**Adam:** And he offers to help because they've been attacked and injured, and yeah, basically you then get like a sort of.
**Adam:** a domestic UK version of Wolf Creek for about 30 minutes, where this guy basically just fucks with them.
**Adam:** then they go and meet the they they finally sort of escape from him, go and meet the the scientist and it's all about either using art or science to communicate with the spirit of the forest.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** there's I mean, as you can imagine, the electronica was right up my street of yes, strobe lights and blast.
**Adam:** And it does have such a sort of trippy their parts of it that are pure sort of like hallucinatory sort of feeling to it.
**Adam:** Very much like Field in England.
**Adam:** I mean, I I definitely I definitely think I I mean, I definitely recommend it.
**Adam:** I did enjoy it.
**Adam:** As I say, I think it has a bit of a stumbling in the middle.
**Adam:** where it sort of slows its pace.
**Adam:** and I can't quite explain why that happens.
**Adam:** but all in all, I think it was a really enjoyable film and you get a there's one one character who stands out as a very remarkably capable person.
**Adam:** Whereas everyone else is either fucking mad or just not right for this sort of a situation.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** but yeah, and but I mean, the fact that he, the fact they did it in the pandemic and I mean, what, there's six people in the cast, I suppose.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Six or seven.
**Adam:** And but still, you know, you do get this coherent thing, but it is like like we said.
**Adam:** It's really made me want to do Annihilation on here.
**Adam:** Because it's just made me want to rewatch Annihilation.
**Adam:** because it has a very similar has a very similar thing, but Annihilation is on a different sort of a different scale certainly budgetarily.
**Adam:** As well as for the extraordinary.
**Adam:** Whereas this I think this is much more about, well, yeah, we're we're communicating with the spirit in the forest, but at the end of it, maybe there is no spirit of the forest.
**Adam:** Whereas in Annihilation, no, weird shit is happening. That is genuinely a shark crocodile.
**Adam:** And that is a man-made of flowers.
**Adam:** So, you know, it's sort of.
**Adam:** It's it's sort of yeah, it's sort of tipped me onto that thing, I think.
**Chris:** So I'm just having a look at Ben Wheatley's filmography list and so we we watched Kill List, you said this is also brutal, similar to Kill List. Yeah, like I I didn't necessarily think of it.
**Adam:** It's not as brutal and I think also the difference is in Kill List, there's not really, I mean, Michael Smiley's character is probably the nearest you get to a like a likable character in it.
**Adam:** whereas whereas this actually you do.
**Adam:** You are rooting for the heroes because they are good people or you know what I mean.
**Adam:** They're Whereas Kill List, obviously you've got a a family, basically a firm of hit people.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So, you know, in terms of actual sort of identification, it's sort of a bit, yeah.
**Chris:** But so it's so it's first film down Ter, I've not heard you mention that. Sightseers you said Lee's favorite and then you've just mentioned a Field in England as being very good.
**Adam:** A Field in England, which again is his the first film that he did with Reece Shearsmith.
**Adam:** And a Field in England again is it's kind of a horror, but it is also piss funny.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Adam:** Despite being like a black and white civil war era, psychedelic Western in the UK with magic.
**Chris:** That's a reasonable feature.
**Adam:** You know, there's a lot going on.
**Chris:** And then Sightseers is also a black comedy, is it?
**Adam:** Yes, yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah, okay.
**Lee:** Have you not seen Sightseers, Chris?
**Chris:** No, I remember, I think, I guess it was the time when you watched it.
**Chris:** And I remember you saying, it's great.
**Chris:** You should definitely watch it.
**Adam:** I think I think that's something we might need to cover as well.
**Adam:** Yeah, we might need to do on the show.
**Adam:** If if only so we can welcome to horror, but it definitely needs watching.
**Adam:** It's it's got brutal killings in it.
**Adam:** That's why it's got.
**Lee:** That's true.
**Lee:** That is true.
**Chris:** We don't you know, we don't watch tons of those, so it's reasonable to put one in there now and then.
**Adam:** And then, then he did, he did High-Rise, which I I liked.
**Adam:** A lot of people didn't and I can understand why.
**Adam:** But I really my thing is, I really love the book anyway.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So for me it was like, Ben Wheatley's doing a like he's adapting High-Rise, I'm probably going to be on board for that.
**Adam:** And then he did he did Free Fire.
**Adam:** Have you seen Free Fire?
**Chris:** Free Fire.
**Lee:** No.
**Adam:** Which is basically, I mean, it's not it's not like world shattering or anything else like that.
**Adam:** But it is just a really funny film about a shootout.
**Adam:** Where basically it's a lot of very stupid, very incapable people firing guns at each other for about an hour and a half.
**Adam:** But yeah, that's that's that's
**Adam:** It's entertaining, but it's definitely not a it's not like an essential movie, it's not a rush out and see job.
**Adam:** And actually he did a adaption of Rebecca as well.
**Adam:** Which kind of which I'm still not seen.
**Adam:** I'm I'm beginning to suspect that that is going to be like my version of The Straight Story, like it's the only David Lynch film I've never seen because basically everyone said, oh, it's nice and it's got a linear plot and it's not weird.
**Adam:** Well, fuck off then.
**Adam:** That's not why I go to David Lynch for.
**Adam:** You're fucking telling me about that.
**Adam:** And Rebecca seems like a bit of a hide and nothing because it's like, so you're going to do an adaption of an adaption of something that when Alfred Hitchcock adapted it, it's his only Oscar best picture.
**Adam:** And,
**Adam:** yeah, that seemed a bit of a hide and nothing to just sort of like do it.
**Adam:** And I don't know, I think it might have just been because Netflix were releasing it because I know Ben Wheatley said it's like it's the film that more most people have seen of his.
**Adam:** Because it because it's on Netflix, you know, far more than have seen any of his other films.
**Adam:** Apparently the next film he's doing, though, is The Meg 2.
**Lee:** Yeah, so I just seen that on his IMDB.
**Lee:** It's interesting, I guess.
**Adam:** Yeah, well, apparently he just was like, well, I really like the Meg one.
**Adam:** I'm going to get to meet Jason Statham.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Good a reason as any.
**Lee:** Oh, actually, yes, speaking of films that are yet coming up, Rob Zombie, of course, has confirmed during this week that he is doing The Munsters is his next feature.
**Adam:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah, I I said at the time I wasn't sure how I feel about it and I've had more time to mull it over.
**Lee:** And I still don't know how I feel about it, so.
**Lee:** either way, I'm going to enjoy it, or either way, I'm going to watch it and nobody's going to take my box set away from me, so that's fine.
**Lee:** Whether I like it or not, it's fine.
**Adam:** I think that's what we've got to go down the route of is in the end, it's like, well, it can't it can't necessarily harm, you know, it doesn't detract from or harm the original.
**Chris:** And because if that was the case, obviously we would be already saying about The Munsters today, which was a which was like pissing into the old grave of Lily Herman Grandpa.
**Chris:** That's funny.
**Chris:** Though, isn't it because sometimes people do feel like things detract from others they like, obviously we could say with George Lucas changing Star Wars that kind of detracts and not giving you the original, yeah, there is right, so I definitely get that, that's sort of a special case, but but you know, yeah, the idea that something should ruin something else seems kind of odd to me, but.
**Lee:** I think it's that thing of like, it's like I got it to a degree when all the torture porn you stuff come out because obviously I'm into horror and it's never it's not really been that kind of super mainstream and then Hostile and those films came out and they became very mainstream and as soon as you said I like horror, everybody immediately went, oh, like that hostile.
**Lee:** And I was like, no, not like and I think that's what it is, I think if you love something and then a shit version comes out, everybody goes, oh, yeah, the Karate Kid, that one with Jackie Chan.
**Lee:** No, don't make me punch you in the throat, the original, who's going to watch the remake?
**Lee:** And I think it's that, I think it's the kind of it it it gives other people a watered down version of what you like and it's like, it's yeah.
**Lee:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's kind of if it supersedes the original.
**Lee:** Yeah, in popularity and not quality.
**Adam:** If you Google Dawn of the Dead, the first one that comes up is the Zack Snyder what the Zack Snyder one.
**Adam:** Rather than the George Romero one.
**Adam:** And it's yeah, and I.
**Adam:** That I think also I think this is funnily enough, this was something I was thinking about the other day. I think it's also whenever it's people bring up the sequel.
**Adam:** It's like, Terminator is an incredible fucking movie.
**Adam:** Terminator 2 is an incredible fucking movie.
**Adam:** Everything else afterwards should have been shot at birth.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's so and it's like, oh, I don't know, even like Indiana Jones where it's like, he's now doing a fifth one.
**Adam:** They're now doing a fifth Indiana Jones.
**Adam:** You're like.
**Adam:** He did a fourth one that was pretty poor.
**Chris:** What is the chance that this is going to be bad? It might be, but.
**Adam:** Well, especially because I know Harrison Ford has stated it was like, oh, well, I want to do it before I'm too old to do another sequel.
**Adam:** And you're like.
**Adam:** You are nearly 80. I think you might already be too old to be Indiana.
**Chris:** To give him his choose, he's he's doing well, but.
**Adam:** I mean, he looks good that there's no there's no doubt on that.
**Adam:** But still, I think it's.
**Adam:** It's also that thing when it's, you know, even if they de-age him, he's still going to walk like he's crapped himself.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** That's what happens when you get old.
**Adam:** You either crap yourself, or you walk like you've crapped yourself.
**Adam:** Either way, you're walking.
**Chris:** He's going to be de-aged as well, that would be the thing, wouldn't it?
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I I mean, there's no cast mentioned for for for for for for for for for.
**Adam:** No, I know.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** No, yeah, Munsters.
**Adam:** Yeah, or anything.
**Adam:** Let's face it, we know that Sheri Moon is going to play Lily.
**Lee:** Yeah, got to.
**Adam:** Because that is without a shadow of doubt.
**Adam:** And also I would suspect that I think I think she'd probably be too old to play Marilyn.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And also I can't imagine she would want that part.
**Lee:** No, no, definitely not.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And but also, I mean, if if Rob Zombie goes from his old sort of, you know, like his rap company, I mean, it'd be quite interesting if you got like someone like Malcolm McDowell playing Grandpa might be fucking great.
**Lee:** Yeah, oh, yeah.
**Adam:** That would be really cool.
**Adam:** But I mean, yeah, it's going to it's also going to live on live or die on how much of it is sticking not sticking to the original, but sort of, you know, how far are you taking it away from the original?
**Adam:** I would suspect that he's going to be pretty respectful.
**Lee:** I would think so.
**Adam:** But then but then I thought the same about Halloween.
**Lee:** Yeah, and that was not the case.
**Lee:** So you're saying about Zack Snyder, this week, stuff that I've watched, Army of the Dead, which obviously everybody has been, going on about.
**Chris:** Oh, yes.
**Chris:** These are the episodes.
**Lee:** No, no, Army of the Dead.
**Lee:** So this is.
**Chris:** Oh, the remake.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** No, no, no.
**Chris:** You're thinking of Army of Darkness, Chris.
**Lee:** Yeah, yeah.
**Chris:** Oh, yeah, okay.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** So Army of the Dead is basically, a group of mercenaries is paid to Las Vegas has had a zombie outbreak and has been sealed off.
**Lee:** And somebody tells a group of mercenaries that there's 200 million in I think it's the bottom of the MGM, but in one of the big hotels.
**Lee:** Yeah, so if you can get in past the zombie hoard, grab the 200 million and get out, you can keep 50 million.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'll be I'll and they're on the clock because in 48 hours, the US military are nuking it to kill off all the zombies.
**Lee:** so they have to go in and try and do a bank raid.
**Adam:** So it's Oceans 11 with zombies.
**Lee:** Yeah, pretty much.
**Lee:** It's headed up by a David Bautista, who obviously you've just watched Chris from the Guardians movies.
**Lee:** He.
**Adam:** Who I have to say is a fucking good actor.
**Lee:** I was he's one of the highlights of this film.
**Lee:** I I didn't particularly like the film, I thought he was brilliant in it.
**Adam:** Yeah, he's he's only in it briefly, but like him in Blade Runner, he's fucking brilliant in it.
**Lee:** Oh, he was incredible.
**Adam:** He's fucking brilliant in it.
**Adam:** He's yeah, he's I think he's he's one of those rare occasions where it's like, no, actually you're probably this is probably your calling, because a lot of the time it's like, well, we'll get a wrestler in, why?
**Adam:** Because they're a big bastard who can do their own stunts, whereas actually, I think David Bautista is a fucking good actor.
**Adam:** It's yeah, it's.
**Lee:** He really is.
**Lee:** Yeah, and I mean this it's a fine film, it's it was on Netflix, so it didn't cost anything and it passed two and a half hours.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** It there was nothing original about it at all, it was all stuff we've seen before, I did like the way that it kept twisting and turning.
**Lee:** So like they kept chucking new elements in to change the direction and that quite worked quite well.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Like there's a character in it and straight away, it's like, right, you can come with us, but you have to promise us no matter what, you're not going to do this, you know.
**Lee:** And it's like, yeah, as soon as he said it, I was like, I guarantee that character is going to ignore everything he's done and just fuck off and do their own thing.
**Lee:** And yeah, like five minutes in.
**Lee:** And and then every and then it's back to the thing of that one person who's a prick has ends up getting everybody killed pretty much.
**Lee:** And you're like.
**Lee:** That's not my character, they say, this is back to the, what was the film I watched was it Overlord where it was the people who were supposed to be getting ready for the beach invasion on Normandy to make the beach safe.
**Lee:** But then they rescued hundreds of thousands of thousands of people's lives because a child got abducted and they wanted to go and rescue it.
**Lee:** And it's like.
**Lee:** I think your priorities are well out of fucking whack clear to be honest.
**Lee:** And this was.
**Lee:** Very much like that.
**Adam:** Well, I mean, like you said about that, the like Peter Cushion, the iconic fucking crossed crucifixes.
**Adam:** the cross candlesticks, sorry.
**Adam:** to form a crucifix was Peter Cushion's idea because he because apparently the script was Van Helsing pulls out a crucifix.
**Adam:** And it was like, well, I've been pulling out crucifixes all the way through this.
**Adam:** This.
**Adam:** I'm going to run out.
**Adam:** I'm going to run out.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, so he was like, so he came up with that.
**Adam:** But he also came up with the idea of running down the table and which again is not, you know, it's it's proper action stuff.
**Adam:** Which you don't immediately think that Peter Cushion's going to be doing.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** But like you say, you forget that he's in his prime.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh, go say, that is an action role.
**Lee:** Like the way he just leaps off of that table and just drags those curtains.
**Lee:** Like, I wouldn't want to shoot that shot and look terrible.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it was yeah, it was that came from him so I mean a lot of it a lot of it is very very much part of the collaborative nature of how they work, but I mean, you've got so you've got the obviously you've got the the classic sort of team but in terms of like behind the camera you've got is directed by Terence Fisher.
**Adam:** And the writer well, the adapter is Jimmy Sangster, and that is basically the classic Hammer lineup.
**Lee:** I love they work together.
**Lee:** They just.
**Adam:** Yeah, they are responsible.
**Adam:** They just got that magic.
**Adam:** Well, collectively they're responsible for like Curse of Frankenstein, Revenge, Hammer of the Baskervilles, The Mummy, Brides of Dracula, what else, Curse of the Werewolf, you know, between them and also you've got James Bernard's score.
**Adam:** Which.
**Adam:** He again who is all over this sort of like golden period of of Hammer.
**Adam:** Like he did Devil Rides Out and The Gorgon and The Mummy and stuff like that and I'll admit, I was singing along because famously the the three notes of the score, James Bernard said came from it was basically Dracula.
**Adam:** So it's Dracula, it's fucking Dracula.
**Adam:** He didn't.
**Adam:** He didn't put in the it's fucking, that was me, but.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He didn't.
**Adam:** He didn't.
**Adam:** He didn't.
**Adam:** He didn't put in the it's fucking.
**Adam:** That was me.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** You get the idea with that one.
**Adam:** But but that.
**Adam:** So yeah.
**Adam:** And that's like.
**Adam:** I mean that.
**Adam:** Yes.

---

## Mos Eisley Happy Hour - The Last Jedi

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/mos-eisley-happy-hour-the-last-jedi/
Air date: 13 June 2021
Duration: 01:50:22

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 2017, Brexit Britain is ravaged by terrorism and Tory negligence; Trump waddles into power; and “La-La Land” wins the Oscar for best picture. Sorry, that should be: “Moonlight” wins the Oscar for best picture. Our Star Wars watch-through tackles probably the most controversial film of the saga as we watch “The Last Jedi”. So stick on your best “not-really-the-Emperor-honest” golden dressing gown; cheer whenever Ade Edmondson appears; thrill at the sight of Kylo Ren’s big ol’ tiddies; and squeeze those very same Sith knockers to produce a glass of refreshing blue milk (just like Aunt Beru used to make!) •A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 2017, Brexit Britain is ravaged by terrorism and Tory negligence; Trump waddles into power; and “La-La Land” wins the Oscar for best picture. Sorry, that should be: “Moonlight” wins the Oscar for best picture. Our Star Wars watch-through tackles probably the most controversial film of the saga as we watch “The Last Jedi”. So stick on your best “not-really-the-Emperor-honest” golden dressing gown; cheer whenever Ade Edmondson appears; thrill at the sight of Kylo Ren’s big ol’ tiddies; and squeeze those very same Sith knockers to produce a glass of refreshing blue milk (just like Aunt Beru used to make!) • Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY. Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Welcome to horror.
**Lee:** Talk about Star Wars.
**Lee:** Good evening everyone and welcome to the Mos Eisley Happy Hour.
**Lee:** Where we are watching Star Wars all the way through, why I suddenly decided to mention that at this fucking late juncture, I don't know.
**Lee:** But spoilers are swearing, there we go. Got it out.
**Chris:** It's cozy and exciting.
**Lee:** I literally did just swear as well.
**Lee:** So, I thought I'd managed to get it before we did any spoilers or any swearing, but no.
**Lee:** Anywho.
**Lee:** Um, yes, and uh, this evening I am joined as always by the mighty Westley Sith.
**Adam:** Ding dong.
**Lee:** And CA88, Chris Allen, there he is.
**Chris:** Godspeed you there, black, no, wrong film, wrong, I don't know, what.
**Chris:** I don't know Godspeed you black Emperor very well.
**Chris:** But I know I quite like them, but that is my most annoying element of this film.
**Chris:** Is I don't know why they started saying Godspeed.
**Chris:** I was like, where did that come from, why, but it's stuck in my mind a bit too much.
**Chris:** But there you go.
**Chris:** I'll get it out now.
**Lee:** I'm I'm glad you've I'm glad you've I'm glad you've highlighted it because.
**Lee:** At the time I was kind of like, what the fuck?
**Lee:** And then it slipped my mind again.
**Lee:** But yeah, that is a very weird moment when you've You've already got a religion.
**Chris:** Yeah, we've never had.
**Lee:** Don't.
**Chris:** Maybe Westley has some answers.
**Adam:** No, not a sausage.
**Lee:** Not a sausage on that one.
**Chris:** And I I don't think that continue in in Rise of Skywalker, do they?
**Chris:** I don't remember, but anyway.
**Chris:** I'll I'll watch that for the second time again ready for next episode and find out, but yeah.
**Lee:** Yes, as tonight we are covering.
**Lee:** Star Wars episode eight, The Last Jedi.
**Lee:** A film uh that seemed to be oddly, well, not oddly divisive amongst uh Star Wars fans.
**Lee:** And as I've said before, I'm not going to go on too much about it, but is the main reason why I had not seen Solo or um Rise of Skywalker because I just got to the point of like, I'll piss off Star Wars fans.
**Chris:** Right, that that is quite interest though because yeah, I think I was my view of it was probably somewhat colored by um the the negative response.
**Chris:** And in my head I remembered the negative parts of it more than the positives, and and I found it for me there's way more to unpack now having watched it for a second time, and I don't know if I was just in the absolute right state of mind for it, but I really enjoyed it so much of it.
**Chris:** So much more than I yeah, I could remember.
**Lee:** My I mean, my exact words I think to Clare were, well, let's let's let's fang it on.
**Lee:** Because I think the same same as yourself is I think I'd sort of begun to not begun to agree with them necessarily, but I just sort of like it had created such a sort of stink around itself as a film around the film that you kind of start interpretin' that as your feeling towards the film.
**Lee:** Which as it turns out, it really isn't.
**Chris:** I I think um there was also something to do with Mark Hamill wasn't too happy with what they did with Luke, which I absolutely agree with for the you know, the first half of it.
**Chris:** I suppose, he didn't come across great.
**Chris:** But he he does I think redeem himself pretty good.
**Lee:** I think, well, it's it's interesting.
**Lee:** Yeah, go on, Wiz.
**Adam:** The thing is with the whole Luke Mark Hamill, when you actually analyze it as he was saying those comments, it actually is talking about it when it was first presented to him.
**Adam:** And he actually quoted saying it wasn't till he acted in it and it came out that he realized it does work.
**Adam:** But a lot of the negative Star Wars people are quoting the pre-film, they're making they're making a narrative fit to how they, you know, not even Mark Hamill likes it, but he did.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** All right, so yeah, I hadn't heard that, so that is interesting to know.
**Lee:** I I think also going back to going back to my sort of projecting the the projection of the theory of.
**Lee:** Um, you know, that it's playing out a lot of the original trilogy's sort of roles in different ways.
**Lee:** Luke certainly to start with is definitely Yoda.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Chris:** Yeah, he's a crazy hermit.
**Lee:** Literally, it's it's properly sort of um, you know, Mine, mine, mine and you'll be just ransacking bags and everything.
**Lee:** And.
**Chris:** I think where Yoda worked and it's hard to say how much of it was seeing it so much when you're young.
**Chris:** But like Luke just isn't as cute is he as Yoda when he's doing that role.
**Chris:** So it's like, you're just a bit too weird and not quite endearing enough at this point.
**Lee:** It's sort of commiserating.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He's a mixture of Obi-Wan and Yoda.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Well, I think I think it's yeah, I think it's probably just also weirdly enough, I'm not as keen on Yoda in the prequel.
**Chris:** Mm.
**Lee:** Because of almost like the opposite effect.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He is.
**Lee:** Because it's like, oh, I don't want you being a serious, you know, misery.
**Chris:** Serious.
**Lee:** It's much funnier when you're like, don't matter, fuck it, I'm I've been around for years mate, everything just.
**Lee:** Let it go.
**Chris:** Well, you do get that, then you get a whole lot of that in this where he decides to mock Luke with some lightning bolts and.
**Chris:** And telling him basically, you're totally wrong, you got it wrong again, you're useless, isn't you basically.
**Lee:** In in my notes as well, is that, um, I I put down that it's like sort of like two guys in a trailer park and one of them's accidentally set fire to his trailer.
**Lee:** And they're both pissed.
**Lee:** You know, there's a sort of element of resignation to it and also it's just great because again, yeah.
**Lee:** It is back to cheeky Yoda.
**Chris:** Yeah, absolutely.
**Lee:** Bit of a cheeky Yoda there, ladies.
**Lee:** So, yeah, I I sort of really, um, um, I I enjoyed it once he turns up and also, but like I say, I think, because that was another thing that's one thing that was leveled against it.
**Lee:** It's a lot of people didn't appreciate a lot of the humor in it.
**Chris:** So yeah.
**Chris:** Right.
**Chris:** So that's it, so I I'm I think I mentioned, we did talk about this previously like there are some bits that I still I'm not keen on it, mostly if it mostly of it is Luke, and I think I focused on that, whereas actually watching this again, I I was laughing and really did enjoy quite a lot of it.
**Chris:** A lot more than I remembered like in before, which I when I found it just a little bit awkward, to like too awkward to enjoy.
**Adam:** Po Dameron bit at the beginning, where he's pretending to be an answerphone message.
**Adam:** I really didn't like that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It's.
**Chris:** Yeah, I didn't like it, but I did enjoy it this time for some reason.
**Chris:** And it might have been because I Yeah, no, it seemed really, oh no, that's just too much the first time around.
**Chris:** For some reason, it was just amusing this time.
**Lee:** I I think the trouble is, I think that jumps it when he's basically it turns into your mum.
**Lee:** I think that's the point where it's like, oh no, you have turned this is just a prank call this is just see more butts.
**Lee:** So because I think I think again it's because of that thing we've established that.
**Lee:** You know, there's and this whole film has it in tons and tons of it is there's that kind of thing about almost like imposter syndrome where you've got a lot of people who aren't up to snuff or don't think they are, and oddly enough the ones who think they are on.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** General General Hux is just a dick.
**Lee:** Mm.
**Lee:** You know, he is a it's it's in the same way that it's like sort of, yes, he is clearly, you know, a mass murderer.
**Lee:** But in the weird way that you have with probably quite a few mass murderers, they're actually sort of boring nerdy pricks rather than, you know, there's there's no one who really is Darth Vader.
**Lee:** But there are a shit ton of Anakins is probably the best way of putting it, and similarly, I think General He's basically middle management, unfortunately for his murder.
**Chris:** Somehow.
**Chris:** But it's funny, Snoke actually addresses that by saying, you know, why do I have him so high up?
**Chris:** Well, he's I can't remember how he phrased it.
**Chris:** But essentially.
**Lee:** A rancor.
**Chris:** Yeah, yeah, and he can be manipulated, which is useful.
**Chris:** And yeah, he is like this crazy weapon that he can set off on the world and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Hopefully.
**Lee:** I think it's also like.
**Adam:** Like we were saying last episode, it's it's a bunch of kids wearing their parents shoes.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because there was no one, you know, it's almost as if they got the victory and then they didn't train those coming up.
**Adam:** So they're best fitting the way of doing it.
**Chris:** We really see that when Snoke dies and it's.
**Chris:** Like Kylo versus Hux and again, I found that really funny this time and I don't remember laughing at that before, but just the way that it's like he keeps him alive and then, you know, flings him against the side of the TIE when he's annoyed with him.
**Lee:** Like.
**Chris:** It's just kids running the show.
**Lee:** Cut into that bit towards the end.
**Lee:** Again, I there's there's probably stuff in this, there's a lot of stuff in this, one thing that I did me and Claire were talking about was there's something that doesn't happen in Star Wars very often and and it's unfortunate that um Finn gets like action hero dialogue.
**Lee:** Hmm.
**Lee:** When he calls Phasma chrome dome or whatever like that, and it's it's a bit, hey mouse say cheese.
**Lee:** You know, sort of from the Simpsons scratching land episode.
**Lee:** It's just it's like it's because action films have changed since Star Wars started.
**Lee:** So, yeah, weirdly enough that it's almost like someone put in a bit and it's like, oh yeah, Die Hard did come out after Star Wars.
**Lee:** So that's that's a bit that's a bit yippee ki-yay motherfucker.
**Lee:** But it's in no way shape or form in the in the same sort of way.
**Lee:** And it just does again, it rings a bit odd, much the same as the Godspeed you does the your mom joke does.
**Lee:** It's it's the.
**Lee:** But again, none of them are to a point of not wanting of not enjoying this.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** And it has to be said, that bit at the end when they're in the um, like Hux and Kylo Ren are in the the shuttle the like the um, the shuttle craft are suspended over the Rebel base where they've got like the attacks coming in and everything else like that.
**Lee:** And that entire sequence on board there is fucking hilarious.
**Lee:** In it because it is sort of stuff like there's just a bit where Adam Driver's brilliant where he just looks at um General Hux when he keeps repeating his orders.
**Lee:** Where it's like, uh, you know, like take them in fire when ready, yes, take them in fire them when ready, and he just sort of looks at him like, well, yes.
**Lee:** And also just the bit where it's he's he says, um, it's like something like power up all weapons and it's like, do you really want to do that and then he just full chokes him against the wall.
**Lee:** And then and then the pilot of the ship just goes, yes, sir, immediately, sir.
**Lee:** And it's.
**Lee:** Yeah, it's just.
**Lee:** Although I was and this is going to be I think second, second or third time that SpongeBob is evoked on this show, the bit where they're all looking because Kylo Ren has said, right, train all your weapons on that one man and fire.
**Lee:** And it's just going on and on and on and you know, everyone's there just like, this is this is awkward actually now, this is this is awkward film.
**Lee:** You're you're comments ain't quite badly here and for some reason it just reminded me of when SpongeBob uh accepts thinks he's been given the managerial ship of the Krusty Krab 2.
**Lee:** And then he's like, I'm just going to get quick Mr. Krabs, you want most embarrassing thing you've ever seen and it's even more embarrassing now it's coming through the microphone and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** It was just again.
**Lee:** Just.
**Chris:** Not.
**Chris:** Not a Star Wars moment, really.
**Lee:** But it's not a Star Wars moment, but I'm so pleased it is because I think there is this like there is space within it.
**Lee:** Hmm.
**Lee:** And certainly, but then other stuff in this really really doesn't pay off.
**Lee:** Um, I mean, I'm right.
**Lee:** So, um, we've sort of we've launched in, so it's 2017.
**Lee:** Um, and um, yeah, I don't think that I don't think I can be asked to go through everything that came out.
**Lee:** Because we're really into the swing of this.
**Lee:** So I apologize for breaking it out there.
**Lee:** And that's a really unprofessional thing I've done there.
**Chris:** See, I I think I think that's meta that fits this.
**Chris:** You know, this film is fine.
**Chris:** It doesn't matter.
**Chris:** Anything is available.
**Lee:** We're subverting all expectations.
**Lee:** And actually, that's something that this film does well, because it's like, oh, so I like the fact that a lot of people were sort of, well, I didn't think that that was going to happen.
**Lee:** And it's like, yeah, and that's the point of entertainment.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** They did have a serious amount of twists in this.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But also you've just got stuff like, you know, the this because weirdly enough, this is like.
**Lee:** I think also everyone was like, oh, well, they did so well doing um the Force Awakens and it was like a new hope.
**Lee:** So, obviously, they're going to do like the really dark Empire Strikes Back one.
**Lee:** And they sort of do, but not in the way that people expect.
**Lee:** And also just suddenly in the middle of it, just go, or suddenly just in the middle of it, plonk in the end of Return of the Jedi.
**Lee:** But twist it.
**Lee:** So Darth Vader kills the Emperor and then says to Luke, join me as father and son.
**Lee:** Which would I mean, imagine what a fucked up ending of fucking empire.
**Lee:** Where it'd been where that was the reveal.
**Lee:** So it's not just that he's like, you know, not that he's they're fighting over Cloud City or whatever like that.
**Lee:** But he takes him to the Emperor, kills the Emperor and it's like, by the way, I'm your dad, you fancy running the galaxy and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** And that wasn't even the end of the film.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No, or for me this film this film does have a lot of fucking endings.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** The impression that it it was quite designed like it was going to be, which in effect it is, the end of Star Wars, because the film ends and there's like, there's no way out of this, tune in next week.
**Adam:** Very Flash Gordon ending to it.
**Lee:** Well, because this is the thing as well that I hadn't remembered is that this literally starts from the end of The Force Awakens.
**Lee:** Finn Finn is still unconscious in the Medi Bay.
**Lee:** And I don't know quite how long Luke and Ray have been holding.
**Chris:** Quite a long time.
**Lee:** I would estimate roughly about a day and a half, which is a fucking long time really.
**Lee:** And um, yeah, and I hadn't sort of I hadn't recalled that element that sort of element to of how quickly this is like literally the like just it continues from that point, which I think he's a first for Star Wars.
**Lee:** Because most of the time.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah, they'll get between each one.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, because and that's essentially why you need the um like the opening scroll.
**Lee:** Of most Star Wars films because it's it's apart from apart from the very like apart from a new hope where it's literally setting everything up.
**Lee:** Um, in the later ones it is like, oh, so that's why Luke's there and that's why Leia's doing that or whatever, you know, and so yeah.
**Adam:** That's why they're on that's why they're on Hoth now and not Yavin and.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's all.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** That's all that.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Mhm.
**Adam:** Oh, the film has got one of my all-time favorite bits visually, which is the Hyperdrive ramming through the ships.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Chris:** Like yeah, no visually and the added effect of the sound dropping out for that.
**Chris:** I was like in the cinema, I was like like whether it's a cheap trick or what, I loved it.
**Chris:** I was like, that is amazing.
**Chris:** But I had the thought of, but I don't know if that is taking things too far using um lightspeed as a weapon.
**Chris:** It's like, oh, I don't know, does that fit and I've not actually looked into it.
**Chris:** So I don't know if you can comment on that.
**Chris:** But it felt a bit like that might be ruining, you know, because why don't they use that more often possibly.
**Lee:** I I think it's because it is a mutually destructive thing.
**Chris:** Well, potentially, but then, but wouldn't, but wouldn't you set up like remote ship or something?
**Chris:** It just it seemed just a little bit.
**Adam:** The thing is with the star a lot of people have argued that why did Laura Dern have to stay on board.
**Chris:** That must be hold.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Chris:** All right.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But then they can't kill.
**Adam:** Mm.
**Adam:** Either way they will be killing themselves or whoever is staying behind, so that's a Catch 22 situation for a droid.
**Chris:** So so but she didn't originally have that plan though, because she was just going to die in the ship while they all escaped.
**Lee:** She was just going to let it be the pursuit thing.
**Lee:** In and it has to be said, obviously, the majority of Empire Strikes Back is the Empire pursuing the Millennium Falcon, and so similarly, this does have a chase in the middle of it, but it is a fucking low speed chase.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Do you know what I mean?
**Chris:** It's like, but that's almost that's again, you know, they're just trying they are trying things in this that are different, aren't they?
**Lee:** Oh, definitely.
**Chris:** And it's like that could be really boring.
**Lee:** But.
**Adam:** I said.
**Lee:** But I think only by dint of the fact that the other bit of it is literally the bullshit that they.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Send poor Finn off to do.
**Lee:** So you're like, oh, thank God, we're we're back at the low speed car chase.
**Lee:** It.
**Lee:** It feels like in Father Ted where they re- they do there's a Father Ted episode called Speed 3.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** It's basically the plot of Speed on a milk float.
**Lee:** And he cannot go less than three miles an hour.
**Adam:** It's brilliant.
**Lee:** It does, but it does have that similar sort of thing.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** Actually, that's one thing that we've got to mention is that obviously.
**Lee:** Fuck me, there was a cheer in the audience when we all noticed Aid that first time.
**Lee:** Yeah, hey, excuse me, where was a.
**Lee:** I got a creeping barrage.
**Lee:** Now, I suspect um that that is Mark Hamill's doing because Mark Hamill is obsessed with Rick and Aid.
**Lee:** He.
**Lee:** Um, he's posted about bottom and the young ones and stuff like that loads of times.
**Lee:** And he even uh Mark Hamill is in has a very small role as a cafe owner in one episode of Man Down.
**Lee:** And he said that he took the role purely because and this was after Rick had died, like Rick Mayall had died.
**Lee:** But he took the role so that his name would appear on the same cast list as Rick Mayall.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** I mean, you know, he wanted to play the part as well.
**Lee:** Do you know what I mean?
**Lee:** He wanted to do the series as well.
**Lee:** But yeah, it was like he said, yeah, but then my name gets put I've got my name next to Rick Mayall's.
**Lee:** And it's similarly.
**Lee:** I'm assuming that's why Aid is in this.
**Lee:** Is.
**Adam:** He's jealous of Carrie Fisher that's why he got Dead Fred then.
**Lee:** Oh, that's true.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Course she was in that.
**Adam:** We went to pictures to see it.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** I forgot I forgot she was in that.
**Lee:** But I mean, I think, yeah, so.
**Lee:** And actually, speaking of Carrie Fisher, we didn't mention last time Billy Lord, like obviously her daughter.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Who, can I just say though, and I I like Laura Dern.
**Lee:** I haven't got a problem with Laura Dern.
**Lee:** I'm a bit confused as to why she's dressed like Mrs. Slocombe.
**Lee:** Um.
**Adam:** Perhaps it's because of her pussy.
**Lee:** Oh, right, of course, it would be, wouldn't it?
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Um.
**Lee:** But.
**Lee:** Um.
**Lee:** Um.
**Lee:** Um.
**Lee:** Would it it's just a weird one where there's like this sort of thing where Laura Dern comes into it and you're like.
**Lee:** Oh, so she's taken over now.
**Lee:** Okay.
**Lee:** And there's no backstory to it or anything.
**Lee:** I did see someone online.
**Lee:** I did see someone online saying that Lord the Laura Dern part should have been Admiral Ackbar.
**Lee:** Which.
**Lee:** I kind of I I I agree with mostly because it is so shit to kill off Admiral Ackbar off screen.
**Lee:** Where it's like, oh, yeah, we lost Admiral Ackbar.
**Lee:** Uh, Princess Leia apparently can do Mary Poppins shit now.
**Chris:** So that so again, I was a bit half and half when I saw that I I liked the look of it.
**Chris:** And I liked the fact that we saw Leia using some force, but I just wasn't sure if it was a little bit too.
**Chris:** Take it, but then it does sort of fit with the rest of the film.
**Chris:** So watching it again, I don't know, I I think I liked it.
**Adam:** I need to see all the jumping about Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn were doing in The Phantom Menace, I think that that was quite tight really.
**Lee:** Well, yeah.
**Lee:** My mind you if if there's one lesson to take from this from the Star Wars saga as a whole, is falling down very deep things doesn't really do you much harm.
**Lee:** Nah.
**Lee:** There's a lot of people who are apparently dead falling down things that aren't.
**Lee:** So, yeah, including people who have been fucking bisected.
**Lee:** So.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But having do you know that amazing fact about Laura Dern in this film is the fact that every time she held the gun, she kept going pew, pew.
**Lee:** And if you actually watch the film, there's a bit where she shoots this guy, you can actually see her mouth open up and start to make the pew sound as her arm comes up and hides her mouth.
**Lee:** It's actually in the film.
**Lee:** Isn't this this seems to be a problem though, doesn't it?
**Lee:** For everyone it's like when they said that everyone kept doing the fucking lightsaber noises.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Because you you sort of I suppose it's just because you grew up doing it, so you're your brain reverts.
**Lee:** That you're sort of.
**Lee:** You know, sort of muscle memory.
**Lee:** It's like, oh yeah, I'm I'm fighting with a lightsaber.
**Lee:** And.
**Lee:** So, I mean, I have to say.
**Lee:** If there's one thing that the uh, because they are the rebellion again at this point, aren't they, because it's first order is in charge, so it's back to being a rebellion rather than the Republic.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Get faster bombers.
**Lee:** Existent.
**Lee:** Wasn't it?
**Lee:** Resistance, that's it, resistance this time, isn't it?
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** But yeah, get get faster bomber ships.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Because because they take fucking ages and I know they're full of bombs, but you know, something with it.
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**Lee:** Well, I think.
**Lee:** Well, I think.
**Lee:** Well, I think.

---

## Ep 119 Wolf of Snow Hollow

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-119-wolf-of-snow-hollow/
Air date: 6 June 2021
Duration: 01:05:48
Film: The Wolf of Snow Hollow · Year: 2020 · Director: Jim Cummings

### Description

It’s Lee’s Birthday choice and he’s picked his favourite of 2020 - Jim Cummings’ second feature “The Wolf of Snow Hollow”. A snowbound comedic thriller in which we learn how not to wake a slumbering policeman in the occult section of the library; that pepper spray makes an ideal First Communion gift; and that Willie Nelson is not doing a lot of serious Police work (but then most of the actual Police force aren’t either). Along the way we discuss “Dagon”, “Inside No. 9” (again, but fuck you it’s brilliant) and horror/comedy podcast “The Monster Hunters”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Unknown:** Good evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
**Unknown:** I'm Chris.
**Unknown:** I'm Adam.
**Unknown:** And I'm Jennifer.
**Unknown:** That's right.
**Unknown:** What is she doing here?
**Unknown:** I was trying to work out. It's been about a year since you've been here.
**Unknown:** Well, I've been busy. You know, lockdown. There's a lot to do.
**Unknown:** I've been staying in. I've been staying in and occasionally staying in.
**Unknown:** She's so sick of the piss inside of me that as soon as I'm podcasting,
**Unknown:** she's like an hour and a half away from your face.
**Unknown:** It is true. I get a little bit of time to watch my own TV.
**Unknown:** And yeah, that's fair enough.
**Unknown:** I should also like to point out for the for those listening, if there are possible sound quality issues.
**Unknown:** Chris had forgotten we were podcasting this evening, despite the fact we've done it for the last three years.
**Unknown:** Every night.
**Unknown:** Every week.
**Unknown:** Every week at the same night.
**Unknown:** And he's recording from his car in Norfolk in a field.
**Unknown:** I just need to set the record straight.
**Unknown:** I forgot we were coming to Norfolk in a field, not that we were podcasting.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I was assured.
**Unknown:** I was assured that Norfolk has the most amazing connections you could ever have.
**Unknown:** I thought, that's fine.
**Unknown:** I can podcast in a field.
**Unknown:** I mean, they've had electricity since 1993.
**Unknown:** I heard something like that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And equally, it is young Teddington's birthday as well.
**Unknown:** So Adam is utterly...
**Unknown:** Hey!
**Unknown:** Hey!
**Unknown:** Who's going to sing for us?
**Unknown:** Lee, you like singing.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Singing, all right.
**Unknown:** No, I don't.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** For the benefits of the tape, I don't do singing.
**Unknown:** I used to mime when people used to all sing Happy Birthday.
**Unknown:** I now even refuse to do that.
**Unknown:** Ah.
**Unknown:** But we did make sure we didn't sing for you.
**Unknown:** I did make a point.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Jennifer's family made a point of not singing Happy Birthday to me,
**Unknown:** which I thought was a real sign that people get me.
**Unknown:** Which is lovely.
**Unknown:** I love the way you've escalated that to the point where it's like,
**Unknown:** don't sing Happy Birthday round him.
**Unknown:** Like in the care home.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** When you've got 80 and it's like,
**Unknown:** don't sing Happy Birthday round him.
**Unknown:** Why?
**Unknown:** He just wanks.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** He just drops his trousers and just fires one off just to try and diffuse the distraction.
**Unknown:** To clear the room.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So we are here this evening for my birthday, Joyce,
**Unknown:** to cover the Wolf of Snow Hollow.
**Unknown:** But in an abbreviated version of our normal lead-in to the full movie,
**Unknown:** Chris, how are you getting on with your MCU watching?
**Unknown:** Oh, well, remember, it's only the fifth week that I've been doing this for.
**Unknown:** As I've noticed, in fact, it's probably like, you know, it's probably more than that.
**Unknown:** But you'll be pleased to know I've reached the end.
**Unknown:** Really?
**Unknown:** Really?
**Unknown:** I've reached the end of the movies.
**Unknown:** So we've seen Endgame.
**Unknown:** And similar to Harry Potter, it gets way better than I expected it to get.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It gets a lot darker.
**Unknown:** And there was a lot more to Thanos and just everything sort of just it kept progressing.
**Unknown:** And I was thinking, OK, this is actually I should have watched this years ago.
**Unknown:** It's definitely it's better than, you know, I sort of think of superhero.
**Unknown:** Yeah, they're fun.
**Unknown:** But there was actually some depth sort of coming in.
**Unknown:** It's yeah, very good.
**Unknown:** And then we saw the new Spider-Man after that, which is Far From Home, which I loved because I'm trying to think, what do I not give away?
**Unknown:** It started to seem like the original Spider-Man cartoons.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because of what was going on in it, the characters.
**Unknown:** And yeah, I have a sense that Spider-Man is aimed at a younger audience.
**Unknown:** I don't know if you agree with that, Lee.
**Unknown:** You've seen it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, I think it's still got the it still works for everybody.
**Unknown:** But yeah, I see what you mean.
**Unknown:** You could definitely show the Spider-Man movies to a younger audience that you possibly couldn't show some of the others to.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And I think the comedy lends itself a little more to younger audience.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And so.
**Unknown:** So.
**Unknown:** But yeah, it had a nice twist in it.
**Unknown:** I won't say anymore.
**Unknown:** The twist was fantastic.
**Unknown:** Really good.
**Unknown:** And I love the actor.
**Unknown:** Donnie Darko.
**Unknown:** Jake.
**Unknown:** Gilliam Hall.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** He's fantastic.
**Unknown:** So yeah, I really enjoyed that.
**Unknown:** He's.
**Unknown:** Oh, what's his bloody name, isn't he?
**Unknown:** Fishbowl Head.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** So that's what I was trying not to say.
**Unknown:** I was thinking.
**Unknown:** Do we want to give that away?
**Unknown:** But he's a classic Spider-Man.
**Unknown:** Well, I've not seen it and I know he's in it.
**Unknown:** Fair enough.
**Unknown:** All right.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So Mysterio.
**Unknown:** That's it.
**Unknown:** Thank you.
**Unknown:** And I loved seeing him because I didn't realise he was going to be in it at all.
**Unknown:** And I remember him a lot from the comics as being Spider-Man's main nemesis.
**Unknown:** Certainly for a while.
**Unknown:** Obviously there's Green Goblin points as well.
**Unknown:** But yeah.
**Unknown:** Mysterio was always fascinating to me because of the way he could adjust reality.
**Unknown:** And I kind of like the way they've explained that in this.
**Unknown:** I thought it was brilliantly done.
**Unknown:** Really clever.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Technology use.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So yeah.
**Unknown:** I really enjoyed that.
**Unknown:** I'd really like to see them bring Kraven into it.
**Unknown:** Kraven the hunter.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Unknown:** Because I don't know him.
**Unknown:** He's basically.
**Unknown:** He's a big game hunter.
**Unknown:** But he's killed everything else.
**Unknown:** So it's like.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Spider-Man.
**Unknown:** He's like.
**Unknown:** He's an unusual specimen.
**Unknown:** So yeah.
**Unknown:** They'd look good though.
**Unknown:** The head on the wall, wouldn't it?
**Unknown:** Spider-Man.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That's your poster.
**Unknown:** That is the movie.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That would work.
**Unknown:** And I would definitely go and see that.
**Unknown:** Excellent.
**Unknown:** Well done.
**Unknown:** Congratulations on making it up to date then, Chris.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So we are watching the WandaVision now.
**Unknown:** Which is not a movie.
**Unknown:** But it's good.
**Unknown:** It changes.
**Unknown:** We're not at the end.
**Unknown:** But yeah.
**Unknown:** Excellent.
**Unknown:** I've not given it a go yet.
**Unknown:** But I will do at some point.
**Unknown:** Adam.
**Unknown:** Looking exhausted over there.
**Unknown:** Sorry.
**Unknown:** Oh, sorry.
**Unknown:** Just very quickly.
**Unknown:** Before we move on.
**Unknown:** Jennifer, you were drawing letters in the air with your finger.
**Unknown:** Were you trying to work out what the MCU stood for?
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** It's the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** I was trying to think of the name of the films.
**Unknown:** And I couldn't remember what they were anyway.
**Unknown:** I just thought I'd better clear.
**Unknown:** I'm sure the listeners know.
**Unknown:** Well, they might not.
**Unknown:** I thought if it's confusing.
**Unknown:** I'm listening and I don't know.
**Unknown:** That's fair enough.
**Unknown:** Adam.
**Unknown:** Sorry.
**Unknown:** What have you seen?
**Unknown:** I have seen nothing.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Unknown:** But I have heard many things.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Unknown:** Basically, I'm going to recommend because, yeah, it's been obviously been a fairly odd week.
**Unknown:** So there's plenty that I'm, I've got piles of stuff to go through as yet and just haven't got around to any of it.
**Unknown:** But I have completed listening to all, literally every episode of a podcast called The Monster Hunters.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** And this is of particular recommendation to our listeners because I think, I think it's one of those ones a bit that they would get it.
**Unknown:** It very much harks back to our horror comedy episodes because it's a full, it's a full cast, like, story.
**Unknown:** You know, it's not a podcast where it's just talking heads like us or it's an actual, you know, it's basically a radio play that they've released as a podcast rather than on the radio.
**Unknown:** But, yeah, it's called The Monster Hunters and it's written and directed by two guys, Peter Davis and Matthew Woodcock.
**Unknown:** And the reason I found it is Peter Davis does a really good, he does a podcast called The Hellraiser Podcast, which is literally, as you would imagine, a podcast all about Hellraiser.
**Unknown:** And I really enjoy, I really enjoy those.
**Unknown:** He also, the two guys, him and another guy who do that, they also do a podcast called Horror Movie Maniacs, which is kind of their, similar to us where it's just they go through classic horror films and stuff like that.
**Unknown:** But, yeah, so The Monster Hunters is, the best way I can describe it is it's the best thing that Matt Berry's not in.
**Unknown:** Because it has that total feeling.
**Unknown:** Apparently, they met whilst acting at the London Dungeon, which obviously is where Matt Berry sort of started acting as well.
**Unknown:** But basically, yeah, it's set in the early 70s and they said that their touchstone for it is kind of Dracula AD 1972.
**Unknown:** Nice.
**Unknown:** And it's that where it's like that sort of groovy 70s versus monsters thing.
**Unknown:** And they play, they play Laura McChesterfield and Roy Steele.
**Unknown:** And Laura McChesterfield is the brains of the outfit.
**Unknown:** He's like the sort of Giles from Buffy, the Doctor, Professor Quatermass type.
**Unknown:** And then Roy Steele is a two-fisted man of action.
**Unknown:** And, yeah, it's genuinely really good.
**Unknown:** And as they go on, there's, in the first series, there's like little sort of horror, there's references that you'll pick up anyway.
**Unknown:** Like there's, but it's all quite subtle things.
**Unknown:** Like at one point, one of them saying, someone says, what's going on down there?
**Unknown:** I want you to know that I don't find this in the slightest bit amusing, which is from American Werewolf and things like that.
**Unknown:** And, but yeah, they, it's genuinely really, really funny, really well produced.
**Unknown:** And they also, as, as it goes on, they sort of build up their repertory company almost where it's like, so you have villains come back and team up with new villains or you get sort of characters there.
**Unknown:** Like there's, there's, there's a love, there's a lovely, there's a thing in it where, because Roy Steele is basically meant to be a very sort of like a seventies sort of Bondy sort of like ladies man type guy.
**Unknown:** But they have a scientist who he hooks up with at one point and her name is Dr. Ladyface, which is just fantastic.
**Unknown:** But also the main, the real main thing for me is their boss is a guy called Sir Maxwell House, who is fucking mental.
**Unknown:** He, it's one of those ones where it sort of, it starts off and he's a funny character.
**Unknown:** And then by the time you get to like sort of series three, you're like, how would, how do you actually operate on a day to day level?
**Unknown:** Because he is just like balmy, genuinely, you know, I think he gets, he gets a lot of the best lines.
**Unknown:** He's just brilliant.
**Unknown:** But yeah, so I absolutely recommend everyone go and listen to that.
**Unknown:** You guys listen to it because it is just genuinely, yeah, it's just, it's just so good.
**Unknown:** So good.
**Unknown:** Listen to him in order as well, because like I say, they do actually, they have like a throughput of, they do have an overall story arc.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** As well as just being really good little comedy horror plays and stuff like that.
**Unknown:** Um, and then, uh, my other recommendation is of course, uh, as yet unexplained.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** From, uh, from our, uh, absolutely.
**Unknown:** Mos Eisley, uh, co-conspirator, Mr. Wesley Smith.
**Unknown:** Um, again, I, I mean, I trust Wes, you know, it's unknown for long enough.
**Unknown:** I trust, well, no, I don't trust him that way.
**Unknown:** No, not, not, not, not, not with money or, you know, dirty pictures or anything like that.
**Unknown:** But no, um, I, I trust that he would come out with something good, but it's really fucking good.
**Unknown:** And the production is out of this fucking world.
**Unknown:** He's really, he's really crafted that, hasn't he?
**Unknown:** He's really gone.
**Unknown:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Unknown:** Absolutely.
**Unknown:** Wonderful.
**Unknown:** Fantastic.
**Unknown:** Yeah, get out and check that out.
**Unknown:** Hmm.
**Unknown:** Strangely.
**Unknown:** Um, I, I, we have caught up on your recommendation, Adam.
**Unknown:** Let's say recommendation.
**Unknown:** We would have caught up on it, but we'd forgot that it existed until you recommended it.
**Unknown:** So, so we've caught up with the first two episodes of Inside Number Nine.
**Unknown:** Ah, yes.
**Unknown:** Um, yes, again, the, Inside Number Nine is one of those shows that I thought they'd run
**Unknown:** out of things to do after season two and somehow they still seem to be getting better each episode.
**Unknown:** I don't know how they manage it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah, just absolutely brilliant.
**Unknown:** I don't want to give anything away because, as always, with Inside Number Nine, everything
**Unknown:** hinges on the twist.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And it isn't always one.
**Unknown:** Um, but yeah.
**Unknown:** No, I think that's what they've innovated with now is that they, because it's like we're
**Unknown:** the twist show.
**Unknown:** So it's all right.
**Unknown:** So we'll, well, we'll turn it, we'll turn the screw about 10 minutes, then change it
**Unknown:** again about 20 and then just before the end, we'll rip the carpet out from under it.
**Unknown:** So.
**Unknown:** Oh, just incredible.
**Unknown:** It's fantastic.
**Unknown:** It's, I know what you mean though, because it is, it is a weird thing where you just assume
**Unknown:** at some point this must get, you know, you've got to run out of ideas or whatever like that.
**Unknown:** And it's actually, I think this is so far, this has been probably one of the strongest
**Unknown:** series.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You know, it's a real, um, really, really cracking, um, stuff, but they, um, on another
**Unknown:** podcast tip, there is on BBC sounds, there's Inside Inside Number Nine.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And after each episode, Rhys and Steve just go through what the episode's about and interview
**Unknown:** people and sort of talk about, um, bits and pieces with regards to the production and stuff
**Unknown:** like that and where the idea came from.
**Unknown:** Um, and they had, um, and also at the end of it, they will tell you where the hair was
**Unknown:** in the previous episode.
**Unknown:** Oh, yes.
**Unknown:** I've been looking out for it for the last two seasons and I haven't seen the damn thing.
**Unknown:** I think I've only spotted it a couple of times.
**Unknown:** Interestingly enough, in the, in the one with the, um, the script writer and the fan.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Uh, episode.
**Unknown:** Um, they said, apparently it's, they said where it was, but they also said, oh, um, it's wearing
**Unknown:** a little COVID mask.
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Unknown:** Um, and, but they said, we kind of thought, oh, that'll be a nice thing because we'll be
**Unknown:** able to look back on that and go, oh, yes.
**Unknown:** You remember when we, it was like, no, we're still here.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Um, yeah.
**Unknown:** So that's, uh, that's steaming ahead nicely.
**Unknown:** Um, we also, as we mentioned on the last one, following the Jason Buck reading that we
**Unknown:** had, uh, of the shadow over Innsmouth, I showed Jennifer Dagon for the first time.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Ooh.
**Unknown:** What did you make of Dagon, Jennifer?
**Unknown:** Well, I think it helped that I was in the mood for that, having, you know, to say, listened
**Unknown:** to the shadow over Innsmouth.
**Unknown:** But if I hadn't have just listened to that story and known what the film was kind of getting
**Unknown:** at, it was just a bit of a silly film.
**Unknown:** Like, you know, it was, I think that was the only thing that held it together for me
**Unknown:** was that I knew the backstory.
**Unknown:** It was the only thing that held it to the story.
**Unknown:** So I added something to it.
**Unknown:** I think if I'd just watched it cold, I would have been like, this is stupid.
**Unknown:** What's going on?
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** Fair enough.
**Unknown:** Is that fair?
**Unknown:** Did I see Lee's eyes start glowing then?
**Unknown:** Glowing red.
**Unknown:** I mean, it was sort of cheesy, well, cheesy 90s really, wasn't it?
**Unknown:** It is.
**Unknown:** It's one of those films where I know it's rubbish.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** But because, as Jennifer said, I think that's the thing.
**Unknown:** I think because I love the H.P. Lovecraft story on which it's very loosely based, I think
**Unknown:** that's why I, and again, so many people have tried to do H.P. Lovecraft stuff.
**Unknown:** It's one of the better adaptions, definitely.
**Unknown:** I mean, I didn't know how they were going to do it, to be fair, because when you listen
**Unknown:** to the story, it's very first person and you don't think that wouldn't work for a film.
**Unknown:** And so, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's clever what they've done, but I probably
**Unknown:** won't ever watch it again.
**Unknown:** That's fair.
**Unknown:** I've only seen it a few times.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yeah, I wouldn't rush out.
**Unknown:** You know, people out there, listeners, don't rush out and buy it.
**Unknown:** But, you know, if someone's got it for free that you can borrow, that's fine.
**Unknown:** Is that fair?
**Unknown:** Yeah, I think so.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** Well, I mean, I'd still like to cover it on the show one day.
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah, I'd be happy to cover it.
**Unknown:** You know, like Inside Number Nine, if we do start running out of things, then.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah, eventually.
**Unknown:** Season 20.
**Unknown:** Doesn't it look like we've run out of much so far?
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** Well, Adam and I were having a discussion during the week about what we're going to cover after
**Unknown:** this episode.
**Unknown:** And even that was born out of which of these three would we do next if we were going to
**Unknown:** do one of them?
**Unknown:** Not necessarily, because there's hundreds, but we are going to stick to it.
**Unknown:** We've decided.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And we've got something a bit special planned.
**Unknown:** Ooh.
**Unknown:** Ooh.
**Unknown:** Exciting.
**Unknown:** Well, it's Adam has very helpfully been back through the back catalogue and looking
**Unknown:** at things that are a larger influence that we should have covered more.
**Unknown:** And he basically came back and said, we're doing him a disservice because we haven't introduced
**Unknown:** him to this genre as much as we should, considering how important it is.
**Unknown:** So we're going to...
**Unknown:** Don't do me a disservice.
**Unknown:** I don't like that.
**Unknown:** I'll tell you what we might run out of is Halloween or Christmas themed.
**Unknown:** I imagine that might start to get a little harder.
**Unknown:** Could have been a Christmas film.
**Unknown:** I'd forgotten that it all happens at Christmas.
**Unknown:** That's very true.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Ooh.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So without further ado...
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** The Christmas film that we're covering on the 29th of May.
**Unknown:** We have just watched, as promised, The Wolf of Snow Hollow.
**Unknown:** I've heard of this a couple of times.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** I got a little bit excited and wouldn't stop talking about this film.
**Unknown:** And I don't know what's taking us until now to cover it because we've got such a massive
**Unknown:** back catalogue, I think.
**Unknown:** But, yes.
**Unknown:** So, Adam, I'm going to go to you first.
**Unknown:** Again, this was your first song.
**Unknown:** I've seen it also.
**Unknown:** What did you make of The Wolf of Snow Hollow?
**Unknown:** Well, I mean, I thought that...
**Unknown:** I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was excellent.
**Unknown:** Margot Robbie's great.
**Unknown:** It was great seeing Henry Zebrowski from last podcast.
**Unknown:** You know?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Sorry.
**Unknown:** I could not fucking resist.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** What I...
**Unknown:** I think the weird thing is, is watching this, is I sort of...
**Unknown:** I finished it and I just turned to Claire and I said...
**Unknown:** I can't...
**Unknown:** Not because it's not a good film, but I was like...
**Unknown:** I'm just shocked that Lee's like...
**Unknown:** This is a...
**Unknown:** You know, this is Lee's top film of last year.
**Unknown:** Because I was like...
**Unknown:** You know, it's kind of...
**Unknown:** It's funny.
**Unknown:** But it's also quite sort of...
**Unknown:** Moving.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** In its own sort of way.
**Unknown:** I am going to...
**Unknown:** At this point, we're going to put out...
**Unknown:** Right.
**Unknown:** There's going to be spoilers.
**Unknown:** So...
**Unknown:** For Christ's sake, go and see this.
**Unknown:** Because it is worth watching this film.
**Unknown:** It is not...
**Unknown:** Don't be...
**Unknown:** Sort of...
**Unknown:** Oh, well, I'll listen to that.
**Unknown:** See if it will...
**Unknown:** You know...
**Unknown:** I mean, we've done a hundred odd episodes.
**Unknown:** See where our tastes lie.
**Unknown:** I think all three...
**Unknown:** All four of us seem to be on pretty much the same page with this.
**Unknown:** So...
**Unknown:** Definitely stop the podcast now.
**Unknown:** Go and watch it.
**Unknown:** And then return.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Have you done that?
**Unknown:** Good.
**Unknown:** Now, because there's spoilers coming up.
**Unknown:** So...
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But also, it was, as it turns out, a non-supernatural film.
**Unknown:** It's much more of a thriller than probably anything else.
**Unknown:** Although, not to say that you...
**Unknown:** You know, these are not things that you don't...
**Unknown:** You wouldn't particularly like.
**Unknown:** But it was all like...
**Unknown:** Sort of like in a combo.
**Unknown:** I'm like...
**Unknown:** You know, it's unusual that it's a set of elements.
**Unknown:** So this is our mystery then.
**Unknown:** How can we work out what it is that really appeals to Lee?
**Unknown:** You're right.
**Unknown:** One of my most...
**Unknown:** One of my top turn-offs on a film is when it's supernatural until the end.
**Unknown:** And then it...
**Unknown:** But for some reason, this film, it just made me piss myself laughing.
**Unknown:** In no way, took anything away from the story.
**Unknown:** It...
**Unknown:** And I'll tell you what.
**Unknown:** More than anything, it just felt very Coen Brothers.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's not...
**Unknown:** Is that the same?
**Unknown:** It's not...
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's...
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, basically, it's Fargo.
**Unknown:** It's Fargo with the Wolves.
**Unknown:** Um...
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But it's not...
**Unknown:** It's not wisecracks.
**Unknown:** It's not necessarily...
**Unknown:** Funny dialogue is the wrong term, but it's...
**Unknown:** You know, the dialogue is funny because of the context it's in.
**Unknown:** Is it?
**Unknown:** I thought it was the style...
**Unknown:** The style of how the comedy is done.
**Unknown:** Because also, what I sort of wondered about was...
**Unknown:** Um...
**Unknown:** Wiley would necessarily like it.
**Unknown:** It's because it is a bit awkward in its comedy.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Because it's a bit of a...
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** It's a bit of a comedy tragedy, isn't it?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I think the thing...
**Unknown:** Really.
**Unknown:** I think the thing I got from it, having watched it last night for the fourth time now, um...
**Unknown:** This year.
**Unknown:** Um...
**Unknown:** It is just how...
**Unknown:** You're absolutely right.
**Unknown:** Because you go into...
**Unknown:** Some of it's very serious.
**Unknown:** Some of it's hilarious.
**Unknown:** And you go into every scene not knowing where it's going.
**Unknown:** And normally, for me, that's terrible.
**Unknown:** Because I'd be like, this is so up and down.
**Unknown:** I don't know if I'm supposed to be laughing.
**Unknown:** Or am I going to laugh at something?
**Unknown:** Or crying, yeah.
**Unknown:** It suddenly becomes inappropriate, which happens quite a lot.
**Unknown:** But for some reason, the way that it's all just smashed together, it just works for me.
**Unknown:** And it absolutely drew me.
**Unknown:** And it kept me on the edge of my seat.
**Unknown:** Because I never knew how I was supposed...
**Unknown:** Like, every scene.
**Unknown:** The scene where they go in to see the boyfriend of the first victim.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And he's in his mum's kitchen.
**Unknown:** And they're packing the stuff up.
**Unknown:** And I thought it was going to turn jokey.
**Unknown:** And then he got aggressive.
**Unknown:** And then he burst into tears.
**Unknown:** And I was just in this, like, rollercoaster of emotion.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And I didn't know what was going to happen.
**Unknown:** Literally, from sentence to sentence, this film just turned on a dime every time.
**Unknown:** I love that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Do you know what?
**Unknown:** It reminded me a bit of the lead character, Jim Cunningham, I think is the actor.
**Unknown:** He almost made me think he could be in, like, Letterkenny, something like that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Where it's just...
**Unknown:** It was funny, but with, yeah, dramatic elements.
**Unknown:** And just the way he's responding to the situations is just...
**Unknown:** He could flip or he could be, you know, understanding or it's just like, yeah.
**Unknown:** And it was that moment as well.
**Unknown:** That was the bit I loved was the fact that every time somebody spoke to him, he kind of stopped for a moment and everything went into a pause while he processed what he was going to do next.
**Unknown:** And then either shout, slap somebody in the face or go and secretly drink.
**Unknown:** And he didn't know which reaction was going to happen after anything that happened throughout the film.
**Unknown:** I'll tell you what, also, just as a...
**Unknown:** It's...
**Unknown:** One thing I really enjoyed about it was the fact that he spends most of the film having to argue with people.
**Unknown:** No, actually, this is your fucking job.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because of the amount of butt-passing and sort of...
**Unknown:** Yeah, but he was being a bit defensive as well, though, because ultimately everyone was saying, well, it's your job to catch them.
**Unknown:** And obviously...
**Unknown:** But it made me think that that was a serious element to it.
**Unknown:** Imagine something like that happening in a relatively small, remote town and how it would start to affect you.
**Unknown:** Because you're like, well, we sort of know a lot of the people here.
**Unknown:** What's going on?
**Unknown:** Like, who could it be?
**Unknown:** Especially when...
**Unknown:** Like, when they started doing those interviews with people, that's when it sort of stepped up in intensity for me.
**Unknown:** Because I don't know if, you know, it went with the music.
**Unknown:** But it was just like, yeah, we're all sort of a bit wary of each other.
**Unknown:** Like, we're pointing at it.
**Unknown:** It was definitely him.
**Unknown:** It was definitely him.
**Unknown:** He's a weirdo, you know.
**Unknown:** And it's like, you would all start to be a bit, well, what's going on?
**Unknown:** Like, how could this possibly be happening?
**Unknown:** It's like cabin fever, but on a slightly bigger scale.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You know, if there's a murder in London, it could be one of, you know, a million people.
**Unknown:** But if there's only 300 people in the village, somebody knows the person who's done it.
**Unknown:** Like, it's one of you.
**Unknown:** It's all hairy guys.
**Unknown:** Sure, look like that.
**Unknown:** Right at the start.
**Unknown:** But you've got some people obviously trying to really say it is a werewolf.
**Unknown:** So, like, just as the, you know, the chief of police, like, trying to make the decision about, well, obviously, we obviously know it isn't a werewolf because they don't exist.
**Unknown:** But, you know, it's like, what's going on?
**Unknown:** There's something weird going on here.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And at that point, of course, you don't know because you're watching a horror film.
**Unknown:** So, as the author, you know, you are like, well, yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah, who do you trust?
**Unknown:** Who is right?
**Unknown:** He's wrong.
**Unknown:** He's just, I think it's a normal person.
**Unknown:** And now it's obviously going to be a werewolf.
**Unknown:** And, yeah, it's quite clever.
**Unknown:** But also, you see the werewolf.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And, okay, as it turns out, it's Scooby-Doo.
**Unknown:** But there is a werewolf suit.
**Unknown:** So, you are kind of, you're lulled into that camp as well, where it's like, well, it is a werewolf because we've seen the werewolf.
**Unknown:** And I'm double taking it, Jennifer, now.
**Unknown:** That, you know, what suits is she making behind the scenes?
**Unknown:** Well, I know.
**Unknown:** I mean, isn't it always blame the taxidermist?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, oh, taxidermist, they're going to be the killer.
**Unknown:** I know.
**Unknown:** Ridiculous.
**Unknown:** Don't we blame the taxidermist?
**Unknown:** As Vix Lewis-Smith said, there is only one thing stranger than people who stuff dead animals.
**Unknown:** And that's people who stuff live animals.
**Unknown:** And very tall people.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** One thing I thought that I really, I really liked, and especially because right at the start, because I knew, basically, I got the disc.
**Unknown:** And I sort of avoided getting involved with, like, getting involved with trailers or spoilers or anything like that.
**Unknown:** You know, I didn't want to know anything going into it.
**Unknown:** But sort of like, you know, just, and people are saying also, it's, I think, is it Jim Cummings?
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** And obviously, he wrote, directed, and starred in it.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** And which, you know, not only that, but also when you see something like that, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up because you just cannot help but think Garth Marenghi.
**Unknown:** No, it does make you worry because there is a grand tradition in low-budget films of writer, director, stars, and most of the time, it's not a good combo.
**Unknown:** Yeah, no, I agree.
**Unknown:** They're either good at one and bad at the others, or just shit at all of them.
**Unknown:** Are there any films that we've seen where that is the case?
**Unknown:** Any others?
**Unknown:** I don't think so.
**Unknown:** I don't know what I can think of because we generally only show you good films.
**Unknown:** Well, yeah, that's true.
**Unknown:** I mean, well, I mean, if we were to show you, like, say, for example, I mean, like, the obvious one, The Room.
**Unknown:** No, that's an unfair example of a really, really bad film.
**Unknown:** But, you know, you're sort of coming from that, you'd come to it with that sort of thing where it's like, oh, and, but I didn't know who Jim Cummings was.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And at the start of it, you're kind of, they give you the first, like, the, the, the first, like, at the start of it, you've got the couple where obviously the girlfriend is murdered.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** But I wasn't sure, oh, are we following this guy around for this film?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because this guy seems a bit of a prick.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Um, but, I mean, and, but fortunately, but, and that's something that I really appreciate with this film is he does do a really good sleight of hand of every so often they introduce you to a character.
**Unknown:** And you, you go with it where it's like, right, you've given, given us a lot of backstory, you've shown us a thing.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And it's like, there's the, the woman who gets murdered, who's like the coach.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And they actually do the scene of her sitting at the table looking suspicious.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So you're already on the thing of, oh, is she the killer?
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** Or is this the, and then she gets killed.
**Unknown:** But you've been totally wrong-footed to sort of buy into this character who then dies within, like, five minutes of appearing on screen.
**Unknown:** And every time I forget how gory her death is.
**Unknown:** Like, when it literally rips her arm off and she's just flailing around with it.
**Unknown:** It's really, and I kept waiting for her to get away.
**Unknown:** Because as you say, Adam, like, it, you don't, obviously, when you look back at it now, you realise her strange reaction is because she's seeing the killer because he does turn up and groom these people.
**Unknown:** As it were.
**Unknown:** So that's her reaction to him.
**Unknown:** But as you say, at first, when you see it, you think, is that her looking at the, is that her being uncomfortable and wondering?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So you do kind of, so I kept waiting for her to get away.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** And it'd be, as you say, a slight of pain where she's going to turn out to actually be the, somebody's going to try and surprise her.
**Unknown:** I thought she did get away.
**Unknown:** Very much the second time we watched it, there were so many things that I was convinced were going to happen, which I think does show you how clever the sleight of hand is.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Or that my memory is terrible.
**Unknown:** But do you know what I mean?
**Unknown:** Because, yeah, your brain's going, oh, yeah, yeah, we're meeting this person.
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah, she definitely lives.
**Unknown:** And you just think you've remembered that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And then she doesn't.
**Unknown:** And I'm like, oh, I totally misremembered that.
**Unknown:** So that is interesting.
**Unknown:** And it's like with the couple in the opening sequence where they sort of come in and it's like, that just feels like the opening of 101 horror films.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You know, it could be Sinister or, you know, because it starts off with someone moving into a new house.
**Unknown:** It could be Amityville or something like this.
**Unknown:** You know what I mean?
**Unknown:** Where it's like.
**Unknown:** So, yeah, I assumed that we were with the couple for the duration, then at least with the boyfriend for the duration.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because of the way that they sort of do it.
**Unknown:** But no.
**Unknown:** And it's, I really, in a weird way, it follows a lot more police procedural than horror movie.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And I do like all the stuff where it's like him sitting there going, no, it's a serial killer because they do this, this and this.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And, you know, it's all stuff that is entirely accurate.
**Unknown:** And afterwards, I've sort of, I've seen, I've seen an interview, someone conducted, like it's on YouTube, like an interview with Jim Cummings.
**Unknown:** And he, what was it he said?
**Unknown:** Someone said, oh, you know, where do you stand on the thing of the, you know, people have said, oh, in terms of your film, the, you know, it's only women that get brutally murdered.
**Unknown:** And he went, yeah, but that's a serial killer.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You know, it's not something, it's not something you question in Silence of the Lambs.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** Well, he did, he did sort of point it out in the film, didn't it?
**Unknown:** Because they talk about the background of werewolves and, and then, and women getting attacked.
**Unknown:** And, and he's like, have women had to put up with this sort of thing for a long time?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** The way she looks at him is fucking great.
**Unknown:** I really liked her character.
**Unknown:** She was great.
**Unknown:** Because she, she was, she, like, because obviously throughout you're thinking he's losing it.
**Unknown:** He's just, you know, he's going to go wrong, completely wrong at some point, probably.
**Unknown:** Because he basically, his entire life is ruined from his anger issues, which he obviously dealt with with drink.
**Unknown:** And so that was a problem.
**Unknown:** But actually he's still doing police work pretty well, you know, as well as anybody else there is managing it.
**Unknown:** And especially with his, his relationship with his dad, obviously that's pretty complex because he's meant to be taken over.
**Unknown:** But, you know, he doesn't want that to be happening.
**Unknown:** And so that's quite a difficult situation to be in.
**Unknown:** But yeah, just the way she is sort of supporting him throughout, I thought it was great.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So yeah, I really liked her character as well.
**Unknown:** It's also one of those ones where all the way through it, I was thinking, because you kind of expect there is an element, you know, obviously he, well, in the end, they both take down the killer.
**Unknown:** And they both come to the conclusion at roughly the same point.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Which I loved.
**Unknown:** Where it's like, so she's twigged it because of the, the, the, the Bodkin, like the weird, the scene ripper, that's it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That has been left behind.
**Unknown:** And, but then he twigs it just because he's like, oh yeah, I'm not married.
**Unknown:** And it's like, yeah.
**Unknown:** And every other moment you've said, well, my wife's going to kill me when this goes out.
**Unknown:** Oh, my wife.
**Unknown:** And it's, so they both, they both solve it.
**Unknown:** But all the way through, you're like, she is so much more capable because he, you know, he's, he's morally right.
**Unknown:** But equally, there are enough people there where you think they probably do have a point when they're saying, well, you didn't fucking solve this.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Or you haven't sorted this out properly.
**Unknown:** And it's like, I'm just so glad that at the end she is the sheriff.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because it's like, yeah, no, the right person here has got the job.
**Unknown:** You know, I think that that's, that was something that I really, really appreciated with it.
**Unknown:** And, and actually Robert Forster as the dad, like the old sheriff.
**Unknown:** I mean, obviously, I think this, this is actually his last film role because he was really, he was really quite ill.
**Unknown:** Um, but for me that, that was again, another evocation of something where it's quirky small town stuff is he was the sheriff in the third series of Twin Peaks, like the recent one.
**Unknown:** Um, because the original sheriff Truman, um, has retired from acting.
**Unknown:** I think he's an agent now and he didn't want to come back and do it.
**Unknown:** So they brought him in as his brother.
**Unknown:** Uh, and, and apparently he'd actually been offered the role originally way back whenever and he couldn't do it.
**Unknown:** So it went to Harry Goaz and it's like, yeah.
**Unknown:** Um, but again, it's that thing, that thing that you can sort of, you kind of appreciate where it's like, for fuck's sake, dad, leave it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** When, when a parent gets to that point where it's like, look, you may not be able to hack this anymore.
**Unknown:** Can you please be fucking sensible about this?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Which is, which is that horrible sort of, there's that horrible moment.
**Unknown:** No doubt Ted will, I mean, Ted probably having about four weeks time, but you know, it's that horrible moment that you do have at one point where it's like, why am I the fucking parent now?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because you're having to tell them to fucking behave themselves.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Or, you know, do something properly.
**Unknown:** And yeah, I think that they, I think that, that plays out beautifully.
**Unknown:** And I, I love, I also love the economy of this film because at one point I was like, is this jumping around in time?
**Unknown:** Hmm.
**Unknown:** Which it kind of does.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But not, it's not sort of, it's not sort of over, like overly, you know, you're not sort of like picking up on shit from, oh, right, this is meant to be three weeks later or something like that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But there is just sort of like, there's certain bits like the, the second attack is played out with him being told that they've found the body, which is obviously the next day.
**Unknown:** Hmm.
**Unknown:** And so you get a bit of sort of odd transitions of time, but also there's a lot of, you, like you said, Lee, it's sort of, because it's where it slams you into every scene.
**Unknown:** But there's very little sort of walking, if you see what I mean.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** There's not much sort of, you just go into them.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And again, as you say, with the murders as well, obviously the passage of time, there's the first two killings on the full moon.
**Unknown:** Then there isn't anything for a month, but it doesn't, it doesn't have to tell you that.
**Unknown:** You just kind of get it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's a werewolf.
**Unknown:** So you just kind of work that in your head.
**Unknown:** But yeah, so you have, so there's anything that happens between finding the body and the next killing could happen any time in that 30 day window.
**Unknown:** And you don't know how much they've jumped from one week to the next.
**Unknown:** Is that apart from, you know, like you see the funeral.
**Unknown:** So you see him at the, him at the, at the crime scene.
**Unknown:** Then it's the funeral.
**Unknown:** And then it's, well, we know this is going to happen again tonight.
**Unknown:** So it's all smashed together.
**Unknown:** But yeah, it just does it in such a nice, not a nice way.
**Unknown:** Like, I don't know.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, it's jerky, but it's supposed to be.
**Unknown:** It works.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I don't, and you're absolutely right, Adam.
**Unknown:** This is a film that on paper.
**Unknown:** You should.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And I, I just, it is in my top 10 films of the last decade.
**Unknown:** It absolutely nailed it.
**Unknown:** And it's the comedy that just, that was what I picked up on to begin with.
**Unknown:** Like the laughs in this have made me laugh out loud.
**Unknown:** Like nothing else in so long.
**Unknown:** Like him slapping everybody.
**Unknown:** Do you think it is him?
**Unknown:** Like a lot to do with him as, as the actor or the character?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Cause.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I think because he wrote it and he acted, I think he obviously has, he's written it for
**Unknown:** his own comic timing.
**Unknown:** So that character just works so perfectly for him.
**Unknown:** But it's the same with the father, you know, like the, when they're all about to go out and
**Unknown:** he says, I won't ask you to join me in prayer.
**Unknown:** Cause of the God damn life.
**Unknown:** That's it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** There's a lot of down to earth elements in it.
**Unknown:** I think it's, and I, I completely related to the, you know, uh, to Jim Cummings.
**Unknown:** He just, yeah.
**Unknown:** He got it across so well.
**Unknown:** Somebody going through what he's going through.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** The interesting thing was, is that in the, in the interview that I watched is he said,
**Unknown:** um, uh, they said, Oh, you know, is it, you, obviously you have starred in this cause he's,
**Unknown:** he's done a film before this called Thunder Road.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Have you seen it Lee?
**Unknown:** I haven't, but I wanted it cause I'm going to watch it definitely.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Cause, cause that was based, that's based on like a short film he did.
**Unknown:** And again, he is playing the, the main character.
**Unknown:** Um, and they were sort of in the interview, they were like, so is this,
**Unknown:** like, uh, is this a budgetary choice or is it, he's like, this is absolutely budgetary.
**Unknown:** If I could get, actually he, it was, he said, he said, if I could get Jake Gyllenhaal
**Unknown:** or Ryan Reynolds to play these characters, you know, why would I have me doing it?
**Unknown:** You know, he, but I think, you know, I think, which has a lot of modesty if nothing else,
**Unknown:** I think, you know, but if he carries on the way he's done this, you know,
**Unknown:** I'd have to watch anything.
**Unknown:** A lot of, a lot of the, a lot of the reviews I saw for this were a lot of people were like,
**Unknown:** oh, it wasn't, wasn't as good as Thunder Road, but I think also there's, it's the usual story
**Unknown:** where it's like, right, so we've gone genre now.
**Unknown:** So immediately, immediately, that's not as good.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's not as good as it really, no, because it's got, it's actually got an interesting plot.
**Unknown:** What we actually want to see is a couple walk around Paris,
**Unknown:** how much they ignore each other.
**Unknown:** But you know, they're going to do it.
**Unknown:** And, and, and then the credits roll with Flaming Lips playing.
**Unknown:** Fuck off.
**Unknown:** I think it's so people can say, oh, no, I liked his earlier stuff.
**Unknown:** But, you know, everyone's into him.
**Unknown:** I think we're already at that stage where it's like, well, you know, it's not as good as early work.
**Unknown:** What, the film he did a year before?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That's not his fucking early work.
**Unknown:** And the thing is, so I watched the trailer for Thunder Road and I have ordered it and I'm definitely going to watch it.
**Unknown:** But basically, it looks like this film without a werewolf.
**Unknown:** Yes, that's what I gather.
**Unknown:** Yeah, it's a man who's a cop and his wife is divorcing him and then his mother dies.
**Unknown:** And he basically just has a massive mental breakdown.
**Unknown:** But it's still a comedy drama.
**Unknown:** So it feels, I think it's going to feel like if this happened to exactly the same thing happened to a different person in a different town.
**Unknown:** But it's ultimately going to be his reaction to everything.
**Unknown:** Because it's a curious thing as well, because I think that it's refreshing in a way where you've got something where it's like, yeah, this is a guy having a breakdown and it's horrible.
**Unknown:** But whatever happens, there is funny shit.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You know, it's like when you hear stories of people's, you know, people's struggles with like mental illness, with addiction and things like that.
**Unknown:** There is still levity.
**Unknown:** There is still humour because that's how life works.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So you still do have things where it's like, well, looking back on that, that was a fucked up situation.
**Unknown:** But it's a funny fucked up situation rather than, you know, it doesn't have to be abject misery wall to wall sort of thing.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And, but I mean, actually, the bit that got me more than anything is just because, well, I mean, as you can see the state of me in terms of tiredness.
**Unknown:** But just the bit where it was like, they, they do what turns out to be a dream sequence.
**Unknown:** But they do that like really good thing where he goes and researches about werewolves.
**Unknown:** And then there's the sort of, as it turns out, a dream sequence where like everything's coming together and there's people shouting and it's like, you should have sold this.
**Unknown:** And then the bloke just wakes him up.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Fuck off.
**Unknown:** And it was like, just like, yeah, you, look, you want to be thankful it's me.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Any, any of, any of the other boys down the precinct, you could have had a hole in your head.
**Unknown:** So.
**Unknown:** Just this justification of it.
**Unknown:** Just next time, ask yourself, has a policeman come in and taken all your books out on scary shit and then fallen asleep?
**Unknown:** Maybe.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Don't surprise him.
**Unknown:** How's that for an idea?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** But it's, yeah.
**Unknown:** And it's, it's also one of those ones where you sort of think, again, he manages to make it because he's, it's, it's not a nice character.
**Unknown:** It's a funny character, but he's not, you know, there is no way you wouldn't want to go for a fuck.
**Unknown:** You wouldn't want to live with him or go for a drink.
**Unknown:** No, you wouldn't want someone who worked like that, work with you.
**Unknown:** He's just so.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because they're so fucking intense.
**Unknown:** But actually in terms of, you know, he, he just manages to make that.
**Unknown:** He really makes that workable.
**Unknown:** So that you are on the guy's side, even though he is essentially appellant to everyone and everything.
**Unknown:** It's just, to me, the thing is, there is nothing, like, if you get upset with someone at work and punch him, like, that can be pretty, but an open-handed slap is like, I'm not even trying to hurt you.
**Unknown:** This is just telling you what a bitch you are being.
**Unknown:** And it's just, his answer to everything is just the slap around the face.
**Unknown:** You just want to be him, really, don't you, Lee?
**Unknown:** I do just want to be him.
**Unknown:** I don't like him much, but I really want to be him.
**Unknown:** When he slaps that coroner, he's clapping his head.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** I just screamed.
**Unknown:** It's so funny.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That, that, that totally fucking surprised me, that bit of story.
**Unknown:** It's like you say, like you say, you're used to watching things where it's like, oh, yeah, he decked him or whatever like that.
**Unknown:** But just the slap, it's like, it is, it is just like, it is a very sort of, it's just disciplinary.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Do you know what I mean?
**Unknown:** It's not, it's not like full-blown aggression or anything else like that.
**Unknown:** It's almost like, behave your fucking self.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Oh, it's just hilarious.
**Unknown:** But, and that's the thing, like, there's bits of it as well where, as you say, even like the, the quite dark scenes, like the scenes where you can see him drinking and stuff again.
**Unknown:** Um, and you see him, he takes those two cans out and drinks them and then immediately goes and drinks a whole bottle of mouthwash and stuff.
**Unknown:** And like, it's, it's getting quite dark.
**Unknown:** And then for him to just smash through the oven door, like, like.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** It takes attention to it, doesn't it?
**Unknown:** Because you kind of laugh and then you go, oh, I shouldn't have laughed at that.
**Unknown:** And then you're like, well, I've done it now and it's over and we've moved into the next scene and suddenly it's a completely different atmosphere.
**Unknown:** Like, and it just, everything just caught me off guard.
**Unknown:** Like, and it was the same with the humour.
**Unknown:** You'd get into, um, like the other way.
**Unknown:** You'd have a really funny scene and all of a sudden something really dark had happened unexpectedly.
**Unknown:** And mid-laugh and sort of take you off of it.
**Unknown:** And I really liked that.
**Unknown:** It shouldn't work.
**Unknown:** This film should have been an absolute mess and I should have hated everything about it.
**Unknown:** But I could not have loved it more.
**Unknown:** It's, yeah, I just don't know how he managed it.
**Unknown:** It's genius.
**Unknown:** And the, I mean, and obviously like the relationship with his daughter, but it's an interesting thing where it's because obviously both parents are fucking it up.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because like the mum's just absent and obviously he is a fucking wreck.
**Unknown:** But, and, um, but again, that, that even, even that comes down to it where it's like, it ends up with bits where the daughter's having to say to him, right.
**Unknown:** Like that, that is grueling.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Where she's just pleading with him to go to bed.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** That was really hard.
**Unknown:** That is, that is really, really harsh.
**Unknown:** But, but again, he's only do, it's exactly what he's doing with his father.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Where it's like, again, she's, or she's already having to step up and parent him because it's like, dad, you're a fucking mess.
**Unknown:** You know, please, can we not do this now?
**Unknown:** Can we just, yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And it's, you know, they do have some, that's, again, I like that it doesn't pull a punch to try and make, they don't at any point try and make him a likable character, but it just works.
**Unknown:** And you are still on his side because you can, it's that thing of, you can see that essentially at heart there's a decent person.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** His intentions are good.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** He just does everything the wrong way.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And it's, but also it's that same thing.
**Unknown:** And I, being a regular, like, well, being a true crime, you know, I have, I love true crime and things like that.
**Unknown:** And the amount of stuff where it's small town sheriff's departments in America where they just fuck shit up.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Through laziness.
**Unknown:** And through incompetence.
**Unknown:** And I'm glad that that's in there as well, where it's like, they do say a lot of the time, look, people, this is why people hate the police.
**Unknown:** This is why people say what they do about the police.
**Unknown:** This is what you guys are doing here is because none of you can be fucked to actually step up and do the thing properly or whatever.
**Unknown:** And it's like when he's arguing with the guy about, because again, it is over the fucking top.
**Unknown:** But where he's saying, right, take that fence, like the mailbox out of the ground.
**Unknown:** Or the telephone, isn't it?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** The telephone.
**Unknown:** That's the story, yeah.
**Unknown:** Just bring it to the station.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Just bring that.
**Unknown:** Take it.
**Unknown:** And it's like, really?
**Unknown:** Yes, really.
**Unknown:** Because this is a fucking murder investigation.
**Unknown:** You've got to do your job.
**Unknown:** Which again, I think this is another part of that thing like you were saying about where, like you were saying, Chris, where it's like, there's the small town thing of, well, we probably know this person who's doing this.
**Unknown:** But equally, it's the small town thing of, we're not fucking prepared for this.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** We're here to stop drunk drivers and, you know, teenage drinking or whatever like that.
**Unknown:** Whereas actually, this is something where, yeah, none of us are on the, none of us are on this level to be dealing with this.
**Unknown:** And it's like when they have to say, well, the FBI won't come in because there's only two.
**Unknown:** It's not.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And it's not, it's not being committed on a federal highway and that sort of thing.
**Unknown:** And it's lovely to see those little bits and pieces where it's like, oh, no, this is, this is the reality of it, you know.
**Unknown:** And I loved it.
**Unknown:** I loved the fact that they did have that conversation at the beginning where, yeah, they are just sitting in that diner and they're like, we're just small town cops.
**Unknown:** You know, the feds will come in and wipe this up.
**Unknown:** And he's like, no, we're the cops.
**Unknown:** Stop relying on somebody else because we've got to do this.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And it's that sort of thing of stepping up, even though he can't do that because of his own problems.
**Unknown:** But he still tries.
**Unknown:** And I guess that's what he's done.
**Unknown:** But he's still, yeah.
**Unknown:** And you do, I mean, that's the thing is you do, well, they solve it in the end because of, essentially because of the doggedness of the two cops who actually care.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And admittedly, one of them is incapable.
**Unknown:** And it's an interesting thing because I was, again, like reading up on it and stuff like that.
**Unknown:** And they said, obviously, there's the bit at the end where he says to his daughter, oh, there's something for your protection in the drawer.
**Unknown:** And she gets out the condoms and she's like, oh, well done, dad.
**Unknown:** You know, you're being mature about this.
**Unknown:** And then she looks in the drawer and they don't show you what's in there.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And, but most people have said it's his gun.
**Unknown:** Because obviously he's no longer a police officer.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So he's obviously had to just address the fact that, yeah, no matter how much I want to do this, I'm clearly not the right person to be doing this.
**Unknown:** And, yeah, so a lot of people have said, is it that he's left her his gun?
**Unknown:** Because it's, yeah, he's like.
**Unknown:** But does he, he sort of goes to come back, doesn't he?
**Unknown:** He looks like he's thinking about going back in.
**Unknown:** Yeah, it's when the two boys go past and they're like going on about.
**Unknown:** Oh, there's a girl in room six days.
**Unknown:** Fresh mate.
**Unknown:** Fresh mate, yeah.
**Unknown:** You assume he's going to turn around and punch the boys.
**Unknown:** And then he doesn't.
**Unknown:** So you're sort of like, oh, no, he's learning to control his anger.
**Unknown:** So you sort of feel like, yeah, he's moving forward.
**Unknown:** Perhaps that's it.
**Unknown:** I mean, he's got a lot less pressure if he's no longer having to step up.
**Unknown:** And I guess in that situation, it made sense for him to become the chief of police.
**Unknown:** I'm assuming he's worked in there for many years and obviously his dad is.
**Unknown:** So, yeah, he just couldn't handle that pressure.
**Unknown:** I think a lot of, from what I gather, again, like on true crime stuff, the cases and stuff
**Unknown:** like that, from what I gather, there is an element of, like, it's almost like a royal succession.
**Unknown:** Like a line where it's like, oh, yeah, my dad was the sheriff.
**Unknown:** So now I'm the sheriff and then my son will be the sheriff.
**Unknown:** It's like a separatism.
**Unknown:** Yeah, I'm getting my, you know, my kids to come back.
**Unknown:** Yeah, yeah.
**Unknown:** And it is regardless of merit.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, some might get through that, okay.
**Unknown:** And, you know, whether they do a good job or not, it might not affect them too much.
**Unknown:** But you can imagine if you've already got quite a lot of other stresses that you're not handling,
**Unknown:** you probably don't need that.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** And I think, you know, it's, yeah.
**Unknown:** I mean, the fact that this is essentially a wacky episode of Scooby-Doo, you know, it's
**Unknown:** quite interesting that we've drawn all of this out of it, but it doesn't take away the,
**Unknown:** doesn't take away the, any of the sort of, the actual dramatic meat of it is still there.
**Unknown:** But, and, yeah, I want to say it's more recommendedly.
**Unknown:** Absolutely, yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah, I mean, it's, and it is, it's one, as I say, I've watched this pretty much every
**Unknown:** month since January when I first saw it.
**Unknown:** And still there's stuff that I forgot.
**Unknown:** I forgot about him when she's unconscious using her thumb to open the phone.
**Unknown:** And then he turns up at the boyfriend's house with a T-shirt wrapped around his face, kicks
**Unknown:** his door in.
**Unknown:** And then when the mum pulls the T-shirt off and realises it's the sheriff, the first thing
**Unknown:** she does is start punching her.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Just, oh, yeah.
**Unknown:** This film is, it's just got so many little bits that it is one of those films I can just
**Unknown:** go back to again and again, you know, in a short time.
**Unknown:** And you just forget how, how fantastic it is.
**Unknown:** Like, it's so ridiculous and yet it doesn't feel unbelievable, you know, like that scene.
**Unknown:** It's like, somehow, it's, yeah.
**Unknown:** You can believe that possibly could happen.
**Unknown:** Yeah, and a small town would definitely do that.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Well, it's that, again, it is that Coen Brothers thing.
**Unknown:** The Coen Brothers real, real sort of knack is to make sort of stuff that feels, that shouldn't
**Unknown:** feel realistic, realistic.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** You know, you, you never, you never lose, in all the great Coen Brothers films, you don't
**Unknown:** lose any of the reality of it.
**Unknown:** No matter how fucked up the plot or fucked up the participants in that plot are.
**Unknown:** It's always, it's always like a wacky story in a mundane setting, which is why I love them.
**Unknown:** Like, they take an idea that should be lunacy and over the top and so unbelievable and then
**Unknown:** make such normal, average, everyday people have those experiences that kind of grounds
**Unknown:** it enough for it to, yeah, just kind of work.
**Unknown:** I'm also, I'm also going to say the music was fucking great in this.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And I can't, I can't remember his name, but the composer is the same composer as, um, uh,
**Unknown:** the ritual.
**Unknown:** Is it, it's not Jim Cummings?
**Unknown:** Oh.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** He didn't write the theme tune, sing the theme tune, you know, acts, everything.
**Unknown:** He hasn't taken it that Darth Maurenguy, it's not lying.
**Unknown:** Music by Stig Basvik has whistled, has whistled by Darth Maurenguy.
**Unknown:** So is it?
**Unknown:** Ben Lovett.
**Unknown:** Ben Lovett, that's it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And he did the ritual, which is another soundtrack that I really fucking, I mean, I like the
**Unknown:** ritual film, but yeah, the soundtrack to that was great.
**Unknown:** And again, this is quite sort of, you know, it's not, it's not a comedy score.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** It scores the actual, the content of the, the actual, the dramatic weight of the film,
**Unknown:** not the, you know, you don't have that thing of, well, it's a comedy, so obviously we've
**Unknown:** done Calypso music.
**Unknown:** The end bit though, with, is it Auld Lang Syne, isn't it, at the end?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And you've got the whole crazy scene, but then with that playing quite sort of calmly,
**Unknown:** and it just works though, doesn't it, really well.
**Unknown:** And the cinematography as well, we should mention, Sir Natalie Kingston did the cinematography
**Unknown:** on it.
**Unknown:** That opening scene of the mountains, where they keep, project like you see it, and then
**Unknown:** it fades out, the next lot is like upside down, and you keep getting massive, the massive
**Unknown:** scapes to show you just how small that town is, in such a massive range of mountains.
**Unknown:** As you say, do you get that real sense that the people who live there, live there and they're
**Unknown:** cut off.
**Unknown:** Nobody's coming in from outside to mess with anything.
**Unknown:** Yeah, you're not going to go down to the next town, because the next town is like over a
**Unknown:** fucking mountain.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Exactly, yeah.
**Unknown:** It's just, oh yeah, and that really was a really good way of sort of emphasising that
**Unknown:** and creating that, I don't know, it's not claustrophobic, but yeah, that very cut off,
**Unknown:** isolated, yeah.
**Unknown:** So yes, fantastic.
**Unknown:** Good one.
**Unknown:** I'm glad you both liked it, and that Jennifer liked it, and that's why she said, I will come
**Unknown:** on and talk about that film, because it's amazing.
**Unknown:** So technically, this means this is the first film that Jennifer's enjoyed for about a year.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Well, yeah, or the one that I've actually had, yeah, it was something different to talk about,
**Unknown:** I suppose.
**Unknown:** Because a lot of them are good, you know, the films you do are entertaining, but I suppose
**Unknown:** this stood out a little bit as a bit different.
**Unknown:** So, yeah.
**Unknown:** Excellent.
**Unknown:** So, Chris, as we've been discussing it behind your back, as it were.
**Unknown:** Oh, no.
**Unknown:** Adam pointed out in the week that, excuse me, we're now 120-odd episodes in, and we have
**Unknown:** not covered as much hammer as we should have done for what an important part of the genre
**Unknown:** it is, which I could not.
**Unknown:** It's certainly an important touchstone for us.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** We've always connected on Hammer.
**Unknown:** You know, that's, yeah.
**Unknown:** So, we have decided, Chris, that we are going to take you right back to where it all began,
**Unknown:** almost.
**Unknown:** Ooh.
**Unknown:** Almost.
**Unknown:** And so, Adam came back with some suggestions, and we had a little chat, and we've decided
**Unknown:** we are going to cover Dracula.
**Unknown:** Ooh.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** For our American listeners, that is horrors of Dracula.
**Unknown:** Mm.
**Unknown:** For those of us in the UK, it is just Dracula.
**Unknown:** Mm.
**Unknown:** Yeah, as soon as Adam said about it, I was like, I cannot believe we've not watched it.
**Unknown:** I really feel.
**Unknown:** Again, I think it's one of those kind of unwritten things.
**Unknown:** For Adam and I, because we've talked about it so much, and because we've seen it so much,
**Unknown:** we've...
**Unknown:** It...
**Unknown:** In a sense, we almost must have done it.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** It's always there, to such a degree that you never think about it, because it's always there.
**Unknown:** Mm.
**Unknown:** Also, it's just nice to actually cover, again, it's, you know, obviously, Dracula is one
**Unknown:** of the original horror stories or novels that sort of essentially spawns the genre.
**Unknown:** So is this a Christopher Lee?
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** So we've covered vampires, but we haven't covered the count.
**Unknown:** Mm.
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So we thought, really, this is a definite, definite one.
**Unknown:** We've done lots of vampires, but we haven't done any takes on Dracula yet, have we?
**Unknown:** Apart from...
**Unknown:** No.
**Unknown:** We haven't done...
**Unknown:** We haven't done...
**Unknown:** Or...
**Unknown:** No, we've not done Nosferatu.
**Unknown:** We've not done Bela Lugosi.
**Unknown:** So we saw Bela Lugosi, um...
**Unknown:** I forgot.
**Unknown:** Oh, Abbott and Costello.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** So got a little taste of Bela Lugosi.
**Unknown:** And we did do a bonus episode on the Steve Mothat, Mark Gatiss.
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** But that obviously did dive, you know, that, um, went off topic fairly quickly.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Like, in terms of, like, the, the sort of plot.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Because you, you, you essentially get the first, you essentially get the first sort of few chapters
**Unknown:** of Dracula.
**Unknown:** Then you get the bit that they don't tell you about in Dracula.
**Unknown:** Mm.
**Unknown:** The voice.
**Unknown:** Particularly.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** And then just a load of made-up shit with, um, the cast of Oli Oaks.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** I think that's fair, that's fair estimation of it.
**Unknown:** Maybe then.
**Unknown:** I still like it.
**Unknown:** Maybe for that in two weeks' time, you should all try and watch various Dracula-related
**Unknown:** or listen to or read.
**Unknown:** So everything you talk about could be Dracula-related.
**Unknown:** How am I doing that for 30 years?
**Unknown:** No, I'm, I'm just thinking that I'm Dracula, to be honest.
**Unknown:** That's the only thing.
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** I was trying to think through things that I could suggest.
**Unknown:** That's the only thing I can think of.
**Unknown:** How awful is that?
**Unknown:** Do you want to hear the brilliant Dracula joke I heard online the other day?
**Unknown:** Yes.
**Unknown:** Well, so I work at a factory making little plastic Draculas.
**Unknown:** There's only two of us on the production line, so I have to make every second count.
**Unknown:** Oh, yeah, okay.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** And on that, I'm going to go on that thing to myself until I fall through the door of the oven.
**Unknown:** Our oven's up here, honey.
**Unknown:** You don't have to be about to sit at all.
**Unknown:** He'd get a stepladder.
**Unknown:** Yeah, he might.
**Unknown:** If he does that, please record it.
**Unknown:** Excellent.
**Unknown:** So I'm glad you all enjoyed it.
**Unknown:** Thanks ever so much for listening, everybody.
**Unknown:** Thanks very much for listening to the Mos Eisley Happy Hour that everyone seems to be enjoying.
**Unknown:** Go and check out the Not For Everyone podcast.
**Unknown:** If it isn't up now, they are doing their 100th episode.
**Unknown:** I won't spoil what it's about, but we have seen behind the curtain,
**Unknown:** and you and I are going to be watching it probably tomorrow night.
**Unknown:** In preparation.
**Unknown:** I'm going to watch it because I've never seen it before.
**Unknown:** What?
**Unknown:** Yeah.
**Unknown:** Have I seen it before?
**Unknown:** God, are you in for an exciting film?
**Unknown:** Yeah, you have.
**Unknown:** Okay.
**Unknown:** It's wonderful.
**Unknown:** Excellent.
**Unknown:** So go and check out Dracula or Horrors of Dracula,
**Unknown:** and we will see you all in a fortnight's time.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Oh, that was kind of a werewolf film.
**Unknown:** What?
**Unknown:** What does it mean?
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.
**Unknown:** Good night.

---

## Ep10 Mos Eisley Happy Hour -The Force Awakens

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep10-mos-eisley-happy-hour-the-force-awakens/
Air date: 30 May 2021
Duration: 01:44:05

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 2015, half the entertainment industry gets put on the sex offenders register; fat bellend Jeremy Clarkson punches his producer (who unfortunately doesn’t punch him back); and there’s a murder conspiracy at Crufts. Our Star Wars watch-through reaches the latest trilogy with “The Force Awakens”. So settle down with a plate of your favourite inflatable bread; keep your eyes peeled for moonlighting MI6 agents; realise Kylo Ren’s main problem with his dad is that he wouldn’t let him paint his bedroom black; and reconsider your life choices when you find blood on your helmet. • Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 118 Attack the Block

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-118-attack-the-block/
Air date: 23 May 2021
Duration: 01:21:39

### Description

It’s aliens on a council estate as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Joe Cornish’s directorial debut: “Attack The Block”. A film in which we see the local kids celebrate Bonfire Night with “Penny for the Gollum”; Doctor Who gets mugged by a Stormtrooper; and Nick Frost plays against type, by portraying a massive stoner. Along the way we discuss the return of “Inside No.9”, “The Day of the Beast” (“El Día De La Bestia”), “The Secret of Crickley Hall” and the TV series of “Goosebumps”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

### Transcript

**Lee:** Good evening and welcome to Horror, I'm Lee.
**Chris:** I'm Chris.
**Adam:** And I'm Adam.
**Lee:** Yes, and we're here yet again for episode 130 I have no idea.
**Adam:** I think we're 118th.
**Chris:** Yes.
**Lee:** I think you're right.
**Lee:** I don't even know why I mentioned the number.
**Lee:** I've literally never done that before apart from on like, you know, important episodes. So,
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I should have thought about that.
**Chris:** Every episode's important.
**Lee:** You're quite right.
**Lee:** It's almost as if I don't think about this until I switch the mic on and then I suddenly go, oh shit, what am I going to say?
**Lee:** And I've been doing this for three years and I'm still hanging by the seat of my pants. Um,
**Lee:** but that's all right, because it's a special celebration because we are here for the birthday of our very own special slave Chris.
**Chris:** Oh.
**Chris:** Do I get do I get like special walkies?
**Chris:** You know.
**Adam:** You get you get special walkies and we're finally going to change your bucket.
**Chris:** We.
**Chris:** So that was the best thing about it, the the disgusting
**Adam:** Just looking just looking into it and seeing all the patterns that emerge after three sleepless nights and lack of food hallucinations.
**Chris:** Mmm.
**Lee:** Speaking of which, that's bit what this film felt like.
**Lee:** Um, so we are here to watch Chris's choice this week of Attack the Block from 2011.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** but before
**Adam:** In actual fact, in actual fact,
**Adam:** this month, I think we're recording this on the 15th, um, it 15th of May, it debuted in its premiere was the 13th.
**Lee:** Oh!
**Adam:** So it's the this month is the 10 year anniversary.
**Lee:** That's why we planned it like this.
**Chris:** It's like we knew it, yeah.
**Adam:** No, we just the only this is the only thing that makes me think we should keep doing the podcast is the amount of times we stumble on this shit.
**Adam:** It makes me think that unconsciously we're doing something right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Signs.
**Lee:** Uh, so yes, so we are covering Attack the Block.
**Lee:** Uh, but before we get into that,
**Lee:** Chris, have you watched anything horror related or adjacent?
**Chris:** We are getting so close, surely so close to finishing the MCU, so close.
**Chris:** And yet, somehow, still so far.
**Chris:** But yeah, so we're at Ant-Man and the Wasp.
**Chris:** Which was good.
**Chris:** I think it's still funny, um, you know, entertaining.
**Chris:** Um, maybe I don't know if it was as good as the first Ant-Man,
**Chris:** but that was so unexpectedly good that, you know, it's hard to live up to that.
**Chris:** And then, so we finished that and we're now onto.
**Chris:** And this is where it feels like, you know, we're getting up to date.
**Chris:** Uh, Avengers Infinity War.
**Chris:** Which is great because we've now got Guardians of the Galaxy back in it.
**Chris:** And it's quite funny.
**Chris:** With, um, uh, when, when what's his, the captain, no, it's not the captain, it's Thor, uh, lands on their ship and then, you know, it's it's quite entertaining between.
**Chris:** the the two groups.
**Chris:** Um, so yeah, you know, it's it's good, really.
**Chris:** It's very entertaining.
**Lee:** Um,
**Adam:** You must be on the final leg now.
**Chris:** Well, so it's this and then End Game.
**Chris:** It looks like.
**Chris:** Unless something else does get released.
**Chris:** Black Widow.
**Chris:** We would have then been one ahead of Black Widow, apparently.
**Chris:** But it says not out yet.
**Chris:** 2021 movie, so I don't know when they release.
**Lee:** I think it was supposed to come out during during obviously the pandemic, so it's been held back.
**Lee:** Um, but I was thinking during the week, actually.
**Lee:** Um, because I'm furlowed, I've got very little else to do than sit around and just ponder random shit.
**Lee:** Um, but one of the things I was thinking was, um, we've talked about, um, uh, Black Panther, and, uh, and Adam was saying that he enjoyed it.
**Lee:** And I was saying, I felt because they'd taken the comedy out, it lost a lot.
**Adam:** I've not seen it.
**Lee:** Oh, you've not seen.
**Lee:** Oh, okay.
**Adam:** No, no, I think it was where Chris Chris enjoys.
**Chris:** Oh, was it Wes that he liked it?
**Chris:** I think.
**Adam:** It may actually, yes.
**Lee:** Um, but I was thinking when I said about him taking the comedy out and that was what had affected it for me quite a lot.
**Lee:** But when I thought back during the week, actually, I think what happened was the original ones had some comedy, but not.
**Lee:** I mean like Iron Man had a lot, but other than that, I think they they only had a smaller amount.
**Lee:** And then it was the Avengers and Guardians that were particularly funny.
**Lee:** And then when you went back,
**Chris:** Guardians especially.
**Chris:** And Thor Ragnarok as well, I would say, but then it's a bit less.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Lee:** And now it's gone back to how it was, it felt like they'd stripped all the comedy out, so actually, it's they're probably as much in there as there was in the the Thor films and stuff.
**Lee:** But because I'd been given that little bump of comedy in the middle, it felt like it was starved of comedy.
**Lee:** So I would just like to correct myself because uh, yeah.
**Lee:** I was just having a ponder about them and that was a decision I came up with.
**Adam:** Because I think it's where Josh Weeden comes in on the on the Avengers films.
**Adam:** And he obviously does tend to be, um, you know, he he tends to have that sort of like snappy sort of comedy thing.
**Adam:** Uh, going on.
**Adam:** Uh, who's also apparently an atrocious bully and misogynist as well.
**Chris:** Yes, I did hear that.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Which seems which seems a shame considering that he created Buffy, which is like one of the most sort of like,
**Chris:** It's quite progressive at the time, I suppose.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But yeah, apparently yeah, just like everyone else in Hollywood, he's just a bit of a fucking fat weirdo.
**Adam:** So,
**Lee:** Oh.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It was a shame.
**Adam:** I said,
**Adam:** Fuck off, I'm not having us cancelled.
**Adam:** Not before 200 episodes.
**Adam:** Come on.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** so Chris, are you catching up on that, did you catch up on anything else or is that is that it?
**Chris:** We're all of our
**Chris:** all of our spare time is spent working our way through those.
**Lee:** It's a good use of time.
**Chris:** Not not many to go.
**Lee:** Adam, what have you been up to, I wonder?
**Adam:** I was having a ponder and I couldn't really think of much.
**Adam:** Um, I've started watching, I'm a bit late on this one.
**Adam:** Uh, I've started watching Devs.
**Adam:** Um, which is, um, sci-fi, uh, TV show like eight part series from, uh, Alex Garland, who did, who who wrote 28 Days Later,
**Adam:** but also then did Ex Machina and Annihilation.
**Adam:** So he's doing quite a lot of thought but it's basically,
**Adam:** sort of, well, the most reassuring thing I can think about this is that everyone who I heard talking about Devs couldn't describe it.
**Adam:** And I kind of see that now.
**Adam:** Having started watching it, I'm like, yeah, I'm not entirely sure.
**Adam:** I I can see there's a a story happening.
**Adam:** But equally, I'm not entirely sure what direction it's going in.
**Chris:** Mmm.
**Adam:** Um,
**Adam:** but it's, you know, so so far so interesting.
**Adam:** But it's definitely it's all to do with, um, quantum computing.
**Adam:** And, um,
**Chris:** That sounds great.
**Adam:** It's it's I think, to tell you the truth, Chris, I think you I think you'll probably dig it because it's really, um, really good, really sort of like smart sci-fi.
**Adam:** But it's one of those also one of those ones that keeps, um, kicking you in the teeth every sort of like 15 minutes.
**Adam:** Like you'll be watching it.
**Adam:** It's like, oh, so they've done that and it's like, oh, no, that was that wasn't happening, that was like that wasn't what that person's motivation was, they were pretending.
**Chris:** That's interesting.
**Adam:** Or, you know, it's one of those ones where at various points you'll never quite sure if you're.
**Chris:** That does remind me of Ex Machina, which was fantastic.
**Lee:** Yes, that was a good film.
**Chris:** And in fact, that does spill over into horror.
**Lee:** Really?
**Adam:** Oh, definitely.
**Adam:** I mean, I'd love to cover Annihilation on the show at some point, because again, I think that really.
**Adam:** Because Alex Garland, it's the weird thing when he because obviously he wrote, um, the Beach, um, like the book of the Beach.
**Adam:** And it was only when Danny Boyle did that and then got him to write 28 Days Later.
**Adam:** And basically, yeah, Alex Garland completely changed his career and it was like, oh, I'm going to be a novelist, and then it suddenly, oh, no, I'm actually probably one of the best sci-fi writers and directors of the last 10 years.
**Adam:** So I'll just bash that out in between like Leonardo DiCaprio pissing off a lot of people in Bali.
**Adam:** So, yeah.
**Adam:** Um,
**Adam:** but yeah, so I've started watching that, but I will I will report further.
**Adam:** Or at least just give you a yes or no.
**Adam:** But so far I'm I'm sticking with it, I'm going to watch watch more of it and just catch up when I can.
**Adam:** Um,
**Adam:** other than that, the only thing that I have the only thing I've watched and I don't know if you have, Lee, is obviously there's a new series of Inside Number 9.
**Lee:** I've
**Lee:** not, I'm waiting, but I am very much going to be, uh, getting involved in that ASAP, really.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I won't go I won't go too into detail with it, it's basically.
**Adam:** The the one thing that I found with it was, I watched it and I watched it and enjoyed it.
**Adam:** And then the BBC do a BBC Sounds do a podcast called inside Inside Number 9.
**Lee:** That's right.
**Adam:** Steve and Reese talking about and they've actually done some classic episodes now, I think, because they were heading towards doing series six.
**Adam:** Um, so they've done 12 Days of Christine, uh, Quiet Night In and the, uh, Riddle of the Sphinx.
**Adam:** They've done those three.
**Lee:** The Riddle of the Sphinx is still one of the best pieces of TV, I think, I've ever seen.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean, I mean, they're all they're all pretty terrific.
**Adam:** I mean, it's it's also interesting listening to that to hear Reese talking about the 12 Days of Christine, where he's obviously just a bit like, yeah, but it wasn't horrible, was it?
**Adam:** Quite nice.
**Adam:** Don't tell people that's your favorite.
**Adam:** Don't make it the favorite.
**Adam:** And.
**Adam:** He's sort of like, I think anyone else it's like sort of like, well, you've made this like genuinely moving Bafta winning piece of TV.
**Adam:** And I think Reese is like, yeah, but it's not a scary one or a funny one, is it?
**Adam:** That's what it should be, that's what they should like.
**Lee:** See, I agree with him on that.
**Lee:** They're my favorite, I don't like the depressing ones or the thought provoking ones, I like the comedy and the horror.
**Adam:** I mean, for me, I still Elizabeth Gadj is probably my favorite, the trial of Elizabeth Gadj.
**Adam:** Like the Witchfinder one, I just fucking adore that.
**Adam:** But,
**Adam:** um, but yeah.
**Adam:** And and but I kind of it's it's a weird one because the episode that was on the other day, it was only by listening to Inside Inside Number 9, where they kind of explained what it's based on.
**Adam:** Uh, because it's basically, without getting too highfalutin, um, it's based on the, uh, uh,
**Adam:** Commedia dell'Arte, which is basically the sort of strolling players from the 15 and 1600s.
**Adam:** And they would have like this basically they had this sort of archetype setup.
**Adam:** Where you had so many characters and that character always fulfills that role.
**Adam:** So your comedy troop would kind of put on the plays and they may be similar or kind of similar stories or whatever like that.
**Adam:** But much more to the point is you have archetypes in there like you have the, um,
**Adam:** cowardly, vainglorious military guy or you have the Harlequin or things like that.
**Adam:** And actually, yeah, having then having watched the episode and then heard them talking about it's like, ah, so that's what you're doing.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it was just yeah, it's just something that I've never, you know, I've never studied or, um, I've heard the term.
**Adam:** But I've never known anything more about it.
**Adam:** So it's one of those ones because they do sort of like, I think, uh, there is a thing in there where they're like, well, it's one for the.
**Adam:** It's one for the theater students.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** And, um, yeah.
**Adam:** I mean it's like I suppose like they did with like anything.
**Adam:** It's like with the crossword like with the riddle of the Sphinx like with the crosswords where it's they had someone come in and do like check their cryptic crosswords to see if they followed the rules of cryptic crosswords.
**Adam:** And, um,
**Adam:** but yeah, it's, um, but definitely definitely a, um, a bit of a bit of a weird one.
**Adam:** But still funny and funny in just whole routines of silly fucking jokes.
**Adam:** Of of of the nature of it's not one that's in there, but very much of the nature of, uh, my wife's gone to the West Indies.
**Lee:** Jamaica.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, it's very much in that like, in that sort of vein.
**Adam:** But, um, but yeah, well worth I mean, you know, the good thing is you get a different thing every week.
**Adam:** But yeah, it's just it's just good to have them back, really.
**Lee:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** Excellent, cool.
**Lee:** Um, I have been very busy since we were last together.
**Lee:** Um, so first of all, I went back, I realized that Lady Jennifer, I know, I think I think this is something that Adam and I discussed either on or off mic a couple of months ago, which reminded me of it.
**Lee:** Uh, 1995's Italian horror, The Day of the Beast.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** I realized Jennifer had never seen it.
**Lee:** Uh, because I watched it while she was at work when I borrowed it off of you, Adam, on VHS.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Um, so we went back and rewatched it.
**Lee:** It was the one that was I'm sure it was on a VHS with Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and Spider Baby.
**Adam:** That there's there was a VHS with that with those two on there, and I think the Day of the Beast was on with something was on another tape with something else.
**Lee:** Ah.
**Adam:** I can't for the fucking life of me remember what it was, but yeah.
**Adam:** Um, but they're from the same batch of VHS's around that sort of time, I think, yeah.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** I'd forgotten how funny this film was.
**Lee:** It's just brilliant.
**Lee:** It's it's just meant.
**Lee:** Like I mentioned it to Jennifer.
**Lee:** I said, oh, we just talking about this.
**Lee:** I'd like to rewatch it.
**Lee:** She said, I don't know anything about it.
**Lee:** And then she read the synopsis.
**Lee:** And it was just like, what?
**Lee:** A priest is trying to commit crimes so that he gets to meet the devil.
**Lee:** And he gets a man from a black metal band and an online cultist to join.
**Lee:** Um, yeah.
**Lee:** And they go on a drug fueled rampage.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** They have to they have to find they have to find the Antichrist.
**Adam:** It's
**Adam:** And not only that, but also because I think, I think when, um, we did our, uh, Christmas crossover with, uh, the not for everyone, uh, boys.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Mmm.
**Adam:** Um, and we were like sort of Christmas films and everything else like that, and just afterwards, I just had that fucking thing where it's like and I do I've done it with both of the ones.
**Adam:** We've done the crossover where it's like afterwards, like just stopping in the middle of the street going,
**Adam:** Oh, for fuck sake, I should have said that.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** And this was definitely one of them, where it's like because it's at Christmas.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** What could be more Christmas?
**Adam:** You know.
**Lee:** Oh, it's Christmas.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** it's, um, yeah, but it's I mean, we should we'll have to cover it at some point.
**Adam:** Because it's just we'll do it as our Christmas film this year or something, I don't know.
**Lee:** That's a great idea.
**Lee:** Yeah, I'd be more than happy to rewatch this again because it's it's just wonderful.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** so from there, I rewatched, uh, 2012's The Secret of Crickley Hall.
**Adam:** Oh, yeah.
**Lee:** Uh, the made for TV mini series, it was in three episodes, 50 minutes each.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** and it's brilliant.
**Lee:** I I completely forgot that David Walliams is even in it.
**Lee:** Um,
**Chris:** Oh, wow.
**Lee:** But yeah, it's it's uh, it's it's it's James Herbert.
**Lee:** I've read the book a couple of times.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** but this was actually a really good adaptation of it.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** yeah, traditional ghost story.
**Lee:** Uh, couple have lost their.
**Lee:** child, uh, he's gone missing and it's the one-year anniversary and the husband is worried that the mother is starting to lose her marbles slightly.
**Lee:** So he decides to take a job out in the Lake District basically.
**Lee:** And move them into a great big manor house and live there for a couple of months just while the year anniversary blows over to try and keep her mind occupied.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, and the house they move into used to be a, uh, an orphanage.
**Lee:** Run by a lunatic and his sister.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, and now the house is full of ghosts.
**Lee:** But yeah, absolutely brilliant.
**Lee:** Really, really good.
**Lee:** Well worth watching.
**Lee:** Uh, IMDB writes in a 6.9 to give you an idea of how good it is.
**Lee:** So, um, yeah.
**Lee:** Secret of Crickley Hall mini series.
**Lee:** Winner, winner.
**Lee:** Uh,
**Chris:** Excellent.
**Lee:** And then from then, I, uh, season one of Goosebumps has just appeared on, uh, Netflix.
**Lee:** Uh, I never saw it the first time round.
**Lee:** I think.
**Adam:** Me neither.
**Lee:** No, I mean, I think it's one of those, I think like my brother and a and his friends got really into it and my cousin Bust, um, were all really into it.
**Lee:** Because they were that couple of years younger, but I think it it came out in 95, so it came out just at that point where we were too cool to be watching kids' TV shows.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Hey, look at me now, I'm 43 years old and I've finally gone back and started watching it.
**Lee:** Um, but yeah, I thought it was oh no, it's too it's too aimed at kids, I won't watch it and I never did, but where it's turned up on Netflix, it's actually really good.
**Adam:** I think I think that's the problem.
**Chris:** I think the puppet looks like it's based on Jimmy Carr.
**Chris:** It came up, I was like, what was he doing on there?
**Adam:** I think we were at precisely the wrong age, Lee.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because like, like you say, it's like, oh, I said, I'm a fucking kid.
**Adam:** Like that and it's like, you know, we were at the we were at how many killings stage.
**Lee:** Exactly.
**Adam:** How many killings?
**Adam:** No.
**Lee:** But I mean, it's it's really it's, you know, it.
**Lee:** I'm watching it at the moment in bed because they're like 25 minutes an episode, so as you get into bed, chuck one of those episodes on and by the time it's finished, I'm ready to turn the light out and get some sleep.
**Lee:** Um,
**Chris:** So you reckon it would be a good thing for for the age it's aimed at?
**Lee:** Yeah, definitely.
**Lee:** I I mean, it's very it is very kid-friendly.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But still well written.
**Lee:** Oh.
**Lee:** Yes, oh yeah.
**Lee:** Really good.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** yeah.
**Lee:** Really tongue in cheek, it feels so 90s though.
**Lee:** Like so painfully 90s the film and everything.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** but yeah, I say they're really good and of course the film came out.
**Lee:** A couple of years ago, the two movies they did of Goosebumps, uh, which introduced well sort of hawked back to a lot of the characters from the TV show.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** so yeah, I thought it was worth going back and watching.
**Lee:** And I'm glad that I did.
**Adam:** On.
**Adam:** On that thing of child sort of child friendly horror or scares or whatever.
**Adam:** I haven't actually started watching it yet, but I have noticed that Round the Twist has turned up on, uh,
**Adam:** I think on Amazon Prime.
**Adam:** And.
**Lee:** Oh, my God.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And that is something that I'm definitely going to have to rewatch, I think, because.
**Adam:** It was again, it's one of those things of being, I was probably just a wee bit too old.
**Adam:** Or sort of like I would have thought I was a wee bit too old to watch it.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But equally, whenever I did watch it, I was like, that's fucking weird, or that's creepy.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Or.
**Adam:** You know what I mean?
**Adam:** It was it was quite just a very sort of strange show in that sort of.
**Adam:** It's.
**Adam:** It also has that sort of lovely feeling to it where you're just like, wow, I can imagine that if you watch this at six, that would fucking that would have just stuck in your mind for years.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yeah, exactly the same as Goosebumps.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah, like living scarecrows and people with bum mouths and things like that.
**Lee:** Oh, I think I need to see those as well now that you've mentioned it, I need to go back and rewatch it.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** yeah, so that's all.
**Lee:** Oh, and I did, uh, another Jason Buck, who I mentioned on the last episode, yes, uh, I've been and listened to two more of his readings.
**Lee:** So one of them was the Beryl Cornet, the Sherlock Holmes story.
**Adam:** Oh, yes.
**Lee:** Um, he did a reading of that.
**Lee:** And then my absolute favorite this week on Wednesday and Thursday over two nights for two hours each night, he read The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
**Lee:** Um,
**Chris:** Oh, nice.
**Lee:** Which again, I didn't know Jennifer hadn't read.
**Lee:** So she had no idea about it, so, uh, that was a a rare treat.
**Lee:** So, uh, yeah, all good.
**Adam:** I had a I had a sudden thing when you because following so many sort of like horror accounts and stuff like that on Instagram.
**Adam:** Just flicking through and then it's just like a clip from Dagon.
**Adam:** And I was just like,
**Adam:** shit, I've not watched that for a very, very, very, very long time.
**Adam:** To the point of almost thinking, did I even remember that film existed?
**Adam:** I think I might have actually just forgotten.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Lee:** We we're definitely going to rewatch it.
**Lee:** As I, we would have watched it last night if we didn't have to watch the tech the block for this evening, so, uh.
**Lee:** Dagon is very much on the list.
**Chris:** Was that a little hint, didn't have to watch.
**Lee:** No, no, it wasn't.
**Lee:** No, well, maybe, well, I don't know.
**Lee:** Let's get into it and let's discuss it.
**Lee:** So, uh, yes.
**Lee:** As we mentioned, we are covering, uh, Attack the Block from 2011.
**Lee:** A film that Adam had seen.
**Lee:** I had never seen, I'd watched the first 10 minutes.
**Lee:** And set it off.
**Lee:** Um, yeah, and Chris was keen to see what it was like.
**Lee:** So Chris, what did you make of Attack the Block?
**Chris:** Well, as you can see from my background, uh, if if I only took away the awesome teeth glowing as they do, a raver's nightmare.
**Chris:** Look at those, look at those wonderful glowing things.
**Chris:** Ah, it's killing me, but they're still glowing really nice.
**Chris:** You know, like that that's quite a unique aspect to the film.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** definitely the monsters, yeah.
**Adam:** I I do I do think they're um, very well executed.
**Lee:** I was backwards and forwards, I couldn't part of me was like, oh, it's really lazy, it's just a black shaggy outfit with somebody running in it and then part of me was like, yeah, but I did like the idea of it being so black that they were like, I've never seen anything that dark before.
**Lee:** So I was like, it's kind of cool, but then the other part was like, it's a bit of a cop out, really, but yeah.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** I I think also because the because when I was reading about it, Joe I think Joe Cornish said it was, um, the ring rates in the animated Lord of the Rings, like the batch in Lord of the Rings.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Um, but also and this is one where I had to Google it because I was like, what does he mean?
**Adam:** Um, the original arcade cabinet for Space Invaders.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Lee:** Yes.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And it's got that sort of like fuzzy, shaggy sort of outline where it's just a set of eyes.
**Adam:** And, um, yeah.
**Adam:** And I.
**Adam:** But I think I think the good thing is is that they they kind of make a virtue of the fact that they don't have.
**Adam:** sort of concentrate on the monsters that much.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Where it's like, right, so the monsters are there and they're doing their thing.
**Adam:** And that's it.
**Adam:** They don't have like, you know, if if this was if this was 19 1982 in Antarctica, there'd be an autopsy sequence or something like that.
**Adam:** But they just.
**Adam:** They just get on with it, where it's like, right, it's monsters run.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** I like.
**Adam:** I like them when they're when they're peering in through the window, though.
**Adam:** And you can just see the because it's the weird because the teeth look like eyes at first.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Until the mouth opens.
**Adam:** And I quite like that, especially because people are just it's that thing of people peering to try and get a grasp on what it looks like.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Chris:** But yeah, no, I I thought it was it was entertaining.
**Chris:** Um,
**Chris:** I was pleased to see John John Boyega.
**Chris:** Um.
**Chris:** because obviously we're going to be watching him again soon and I hadn't seen him in anything else.
**Chris:** So, yeah, he was completely unknown to me when I saw the Force Awakens.
**Chris:** And so.
**Chris:** I don't know.
**Adam:** This this was his first film.
**Chris:** It was, okay.
**Chris:** So this was 2011.
**Chris:** Um, I'm trying to remember now, Force Awakens.
**Chris:** That was probably a few years ago now.
**Chris:** This is kind of worrying.
**Adam:** But 2015, I think.
**Chris:** 15.
**Chris:** Mmm, okay.
**Adam:** Because I'm pretty sure yeah, because it came because we had that then it Rogue One.
**Chris:** Mmm.
**Adam:** And I think Rogue One's 2016 because they were sort of doing.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** They were sort of alternating saga versus spin-off stuff.
**Chris:** That's right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** So yeah, so I think it's.
**Adam:** I think it's 2015.
**Chris:** Mmm.
**Chris:** Okay.
**Adam:** So it was only only a few years old.
**Adam:** I mean.
**Adam:** This this is the the curious thing about Attack the Block is that it does predict English sci-fi for the next fucking decade.
**Adam:** Because you've got like John Boyega, who obviously is one of the sort of.
**Adam:** Well, certainly certainly the Force Awakens is one of the major stars of the series.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And one of the only non-Jedi characters to ever wield a lightsaber.
**Lee:** Indeed.
**Adam:** Um, and obviously Jodie Whittaker who is now the doctor.
**Adam:** In Dr.
**Lee:** Who.
**Adam:** In Dr. Who.
**Adam:** And the but the weird thing is is.
**Chris:** Oh, wait, so
**Chris:** wait, she must be the first female doctor then.
**Adam:** She is the first female doctor.
**Adam:** And that's the that's the weird thing is a lot of the time as a Doctor Who fan.
**Adam:** You watch stuff and there'll be a performance in it or something like that where you're like,
**Adam:** oh, that person would make quite a good doctor or whatever like that.
**Adam:** And but I remember sort of like looking back now, when I watched this, that wasn't a thing.
**Adam:** There was no sort of, you know, there wasn't a you didn't even have.
**Adam:** Because obviously because in they they change they changed the the master first.
**Adam:** First came back as a woman.
**Chris:** Mmm.
**Chris:** But does that mean the assistant became a man?
**Adam:** Uh.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Jodie Whittaker's got three assistants.
**Adam:** One of whom is Bradley Walsh.
**Adam:** And he's frankly fucking brilliant.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** He really, really is.
**Adam:** And it's still.
**Adam:** But, um,
**Adam:** but they've they've they have done it.
**Adam:** In a couple of episodes where people who know the doctor have turned up and assumed that Bradley Walsh is the doctor.
**Chris:** That's right.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Because they didn't.
**Adam:** But similarly,
**Adam:** you know, I'm I'm looking back at this now and it's like, there was no way in my brain that I would have been like.
**Adam:** Oh, that Jodie Whittaker would have made a very good doctor because it's just not.
**Adam:** You know, 10 years ago there was definitely not a thing where it's like, oh yeah, well, obviously anyone could, you know, any gender can play the doctor.
**Adam:** Although that has opened it up now.
**Adam:** Because at the moment my, um, mostly due to my own obsession anyway, but I think that fucking I always thought Maxine Peak would be a fucking great doctor.
**Adam:** But now, the trouble is, it does mean that everything is laid wide open.
**Adam:** Where you can just watch stuff and it's like, oh, that doctor's very good.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** Maybe he could be the doctor.
**Adam:** I don't know.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Because if because I mean, I suppose if I was if I was taking anything from this, it would have probably been, you know, I would have thought, oh, maybe John Boyega or something like that.
**Adam:** But yeah, so it's.
**Adam:** quite an interesting.
**Adam:** Uh, thing when, you know, that.
**Adam:** Especially because I mean, I don't think Jodie Whittaker had done that much then because she did she the reason she got the reason she got the part of the doctor is she did, uh, Broadchurch.
**Adam:** And the guy who's producing Doctor Who now or show running Doctor Who now,
**Adam:** um, created Broadchurch, like the ITV crime series.
**Adam:** And, um,
**Adam:** yeah, so that's that's the reason that's like the main reason that she's she got cast as the doctor.
**Adam:** But yeah, so it's just a very weird sort of.
**Adam:** thing there.
**Adam:** And obviously you've got Nick Frost who.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** who.
**Adam:** I mean, he was a very good Santa Claus in Doctor Who, it has to be said.
**Adam:** So.
**Lee:** Uh,
**Lee:** I was just looking.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten, yeah, so, uh, she was also in Marchlands, which I'd forgotten about entirely.
**Lee:** Now that's a fantastic supernatural mini series.
**Lee:** Oh no, it's a full series, I think.
**Lee:** Five episodes.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** yeah, that's outstanding.
**Lee:** I'd forgotten she was in that as well.
**Chris:** Mmm.
**Lee:** But yeah.
**Lee:** I think you're right, I think the takeaway thing from this film, uh, although I I took very little away from it, what I did take away was at least John Boyega got out there and got seen and then at least it was a stepping stone for him to be in Star Wars, because he's fantastic in Star Wars.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I mean,
**Adam:** I thought.
**Adam:** I thought he was good in this.
**Lee:** He is great in this.
**Lee:** Because I.
**Adam:** He is great in this.
**Adam:** Because I I I think he does manage to be, um,
**Adam:** because I mean that that the whole sort of opening sequence.
**Adam:** And I know that this is I know because, um,
**Adam:** me and Lee were talking beforehand and I know that the main, um, or one of the main issues that Lee has with it is obviously is you've got characters who start off doing something horrible.
**Chris:** Yeah.
**Adam:** And I think the film doesn't the film doesn't really pull away from it, it never tries to sort of say that that was anything other than horrible. Um, and but I think that that's I think that's the thing is because and interestingly enough, this is something that I was like reading about and I don't and this I don't think this is where I certainly don't think this is where you are, Lee, but there was a thing where they said like when it came out because we were talking to, um, Bobby from not for everyone who really likes who loves attack the block, and it's got like a weird it has like quite an unusually for what you'd think is a very English centric film, has quite a following in the states, but but the interesting thing was is that it sort of it did kind of tank over here.
**Adam:** It wasn't like a big smash or anything else like that.
**Adam:** I mean, half of that, I think is a lot of people were like, oh, it's just like Sean of the Dead, no, it's fucking not.
**Adam:** It's different, it's funny.
**Lee:** It's not.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** But it's a totally different thing.
**Adam:** This is more like Assault on Precinct 13 or something like that.
**Adam:** You know.
**Adam:** It's an action film with funny bits, not a comedy action film.
**Chris:** I I I I'd say the more entertaining lines, it's not not not comedy.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** It's not gag.
**Lee:** And that was the thing.
**Lee:** Like I only got two legitimate laughs for the entire film.
**Lee:** So.
**Chris:** But I I was constantly amused by it.
**Chris:** Rather than, yeah, just the unfolding of the story.
**Lee:** That's true.
**Lee:** I don't.
**Lee:** I don't I have to be on somebody's side.
**Adam:** I I'd say it's the more entertaining lines.
**Adam:** Not not.
**Lee:** Oh, they just fo.
**Chris:** You had it with Psycho Gorman as well.
**Lee:** I have I have to like the characters enough to care what happens to them.
**Lee:** Or.
**Chris:** I suppose it's the opposite, right, like um, Shaun of the Dead, everyone had high expectations but didn't really think it would necessarily be as great as it managed to be.
**Lee:** Oh, I still.
**Lee:** I just yeah, I didn't get that.
**Lee:** No, you're not.
**Adam:** You're not.
**Adam:** You're not.
**Adam:** You're not.
**Adam:** And I think again, I think that's the thing, I think people as I think you're quite right, I think people saw Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and then saw this come out and were like, right, this is the next big comedy and as Adam said, it is actually not a big it with some funny scenes in it, or it's funny lines, but ultimately, if you're going in expecting Hot Fuzz and just like wall to wall nonsense and hilarity, that's not what you're going to get. You're going to come away with flat.
**Lee:** No.
**Lee:** No.
**Chris:** In comparison, no.
**Lee:** You're not going to get it.
**Adam:** You're going to get far more, well, weirdly enough, I think also you're just going to get a far more realistic portrayal of,
**Adam:** uh,
**Adam:** of people.
**Adam:** They're not really characters, they are actually they're characters in the sense of they're fictional.
**Adam:** But they're not like played to a time to a sort of thing.
**Adam:** Or I think I've just rambled now.
**Lee:** No, no.
**Chris:** I may have had a stroke.
**Adam:** I may.
**Adam:** I may.
**Chris:** I may have had a stroke.
**Adam:** I may have had a stroke.
**Adam:** But that's only because.
**Chris:** Claire could reach.
**Adam:** No.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Chris:** They didn't they didn't have many jokes like that.
**Adam:** Exactly.
**Adam:** You know, and and that is clearly box office gold, which is why I, you know, that is that is why they get me in as a script doctor.
**Adam:** Um,
**Adam:** or was it a rug doctor?
**Adam:** I can't remember.
**Adam:** It was one, one or the other.
**Adam:** Involved a lot of foam, I know that.
**Adam:** Right.
**Lee:** So, uh, let's wrap it up there.
**Lee:** So, uh, don't forget everybody, next week, uh, the gentleman will be back with Wes.
**Lee:** And what will you be covering next week?
**Adam:** We should be covering Star Wars episode 7, The Force Awakens, starring a little known guy called John Boyega.
**Adam:** Keep an eye out for that guy.
**Adam:** Because I think big things are in the pipeline.
**Adam:** I don't mean he's having a shit.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** excellent, and the following week, the three of us will be back.
**Lee:** For my birthday selection this time, when we will be covering The Wolf of Snow Hollow.
**Lee:** Oh, I'm very excited to see this for the fourth time in about six months.
**Lee:** Because it's bloody brilliant.
**Adam:** So I.
**Adam:** I.
**Adam:** I've built this up a lot.
**Lee:** Well, yeah.
**Lee:** Don't don't let me overhype it.
**Adam:** Well, what what what as long as we won't be able to say that we've seen the graphic everywhere.
**Lee:** You're not.
**Adam:** You're not.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Adam:** You haven't attacked our block with it.
**Adam:** But.
**Adam:** No, I'm I'm looking forward to this because it's one of those ones that's just sort of cropped up in the periphery.
**Adam:** When I've been reading about like films coming out and stuff like that, that's one that's always got mentioned.
**Adam:** And then not really heard actually much about it.
**Adam:** So.
**Adam:** Yeah, I'm looking forward to this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm keen to see what you what you both make of it.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** excellent.
**Lee:** So, thank you ever so much for listening, everybody, uh, don't forget to come back next week for Mos Eisley and the following week for Welcome to Horror again.
**Lee:** Uh, don't I'm saying I'm slurring my words, I'm not even drinking.
**Lee:** Uh, don't forget to check out the, uh, not for everyone podcast.
**Lee:** Adam has got his hand up in the air.
**Adam:** Uh, I was also just going to remind people that we have coming up as yet unknown from uh, Wes and Mosley's background, which should be coming out.
**Adam:** By the time this goes out, I think it should be coming out the following week.
**Adam:** So,
**Adam:** yeah, just find them through our Instagram, subscribe and uh, you'll be kept updated on that one.
**Lee:** I'm very excited about that.
**Lee:** I Wes has always been, I've known Wes since school and that was used to be our math lessons was.
**Lee:** We'd get into math, we would they'd give us like a test or whatever.
**Lee:** Wes and I were quite good at it, so we'd smash out the whole lessons test in 15 minutes and then sit and talk about ghost and UFOs for the rest of the lesson.
**Lee:** So I'm very keen to hear what he's he's boiled down to his top six.
**Adam:** I think he will have done his homework for it, certainly.
**Lee:** Yeah.
**Adam:** Don't don't let me over hype it.
**Lee:** Uh.
**Lee:** Uh.
**Adam:** Well, what what what as long as we won't be able to say that we've seen the graphic everywhere.
**Lee:** You're not.
**Adam:** You're not you haven't attacked our block with it.
**Adam:** But no, I'm I'm looking forward to this.
**Adam:** Because it's one of those ones that's just sort of cropped up in the periphery when I've been reading about like films coming out and stuff like that.
**Adam:** That's one that's always got mentioned.
**Adam:** And then not really heard actually much about it.
**Adam:** So, yeah, I'm looking forward to this.
**Adam:** Yeah.
**Lee:** I'm keen to see what you what you both make of it.
**Lee:** Um,
**Lee:** excellent.
**Lee:** Right, yes, so go and check out all that good stuff.
**Lee:** And we will see you all back here in a fortnight's time for The Wolf of Snow Hollow.
**Lee:** Thanks very much, good night.
**Adam:** Good night.

---

## Ep 9 Mos Eisley Happy Hour - The Mandalorian

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-9-mos-eisley-happy-hour-the-mandalorian/
Air date: 16 May 2021
Duration: 01:51:31

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s November 2019, and what’s a pandemic? Still at least we’ve got 2020 to look forward to. Our Star Wars watch-through veers sideways to the small screen for series 1 & 2 of “The Mandalorian”. So prepare a suitable libation; pack some pickled eggs for the little ‘uns; thrill as Mr Krabs breathes fire; and... is that Apollo Creed..? • Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 117 Psycho Goreman

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-117-psycho-goreman/
Air date: 9 May 2021
Duration: 01:23:23
Film: PG: Psycho Goreman · Year: 2020 · Director: Steven Kostanski

### Description

Prepare for family-friendly carnage as our Hunky Boys sit down to watch Steven Kostanski’s “Psycho Goreman”. A fun-loving family film in which cyborg fascist angels eat cubed humans; the Arch-Duke of Nightmares plays drums on a rip-off of Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”; and we learn that nothing in the universe is quite as supremely evil as a 12 year old girl. Along the way we discuss “Spring”, The Werewolf brewery, “Meatball Machine”, “Coraline” and Jason and Rosalind Buck’s “Walpurgisnacht: Stories of the Witches’ Night”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 116 Village of the Damned

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-116-village-of-the-damned/
Air date: 25 April 2021
Duration: 01:32:05
Film: Village of the Damned · Year: 1960 · Director: Wolf Rilla

### Description

The team are joined by Westley Sith of the Mos Eisley Happy Hour for a thoroughly British nightmare; the 1960 adaptation of John Wyndham’s “The Midwich Cuckoos”, filmed as “Village of the Damned”. A film in which Shere Khan has to contend with a whole village of creepy man-cubs; the local Doctor ponces everyone’s cigarettes; and genial Harry Grout becomes a copper coming a cropper on a bicycle. Along the way we discuss “Ace of Wands”, “Psycho Goreman”, BBC Sounds podcast “The Sink”, Shudder original “The Power”, “Wolf Cop” and “Another Wolf Cop”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 8 Mos Eisley Happy Hour -  Return of the Jedi

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-8-mos-eisley-happy-hour-return-of-the-jedi/
Air date: 18 April 2021
Duration: 02:02:18

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 1983, Microsoft launch Word and McDonalds unleash the McNugget; plumber’s nightmare Dennis Nilsen is arrested and jailed; and Children’s ITV begins. Our Star Wars watch-through concludes the original trilogy with “Return of the Jedi”. So take care not to shut your Rancor in the door; realise that the Empire really can’t get the staff these days; sing along to 90s alternative rock classics with the Ewoks; and wonder who nicked Anakin’s harmonica. • Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 115 Jaws

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-115-jaws/
Air date: 11 April 2021
Duration: 01:36:10
Film: Jaws · Year: 1975 · Director: Steven Spielberg

### Description

Anchors away! The team are joined by the mighty Alex for an aquatic masterpiece - the impeccable “Jaws”. A film that highlights how helpful a wrist strap can be for a marine biologist; demonstrates that a Labrador retriever makes a lovely Amuse-Bouche; and reveals that Lee and Mayor Vaughn share a taste in fashion. Along the way we discuss “Shock Waves”, “Ghost Shark”, “Silent Running”, “Humanoids From The Deep”, “The Banishing”, BBC Sounds’ podcast “The Battersea Poltergeist” and the magnificent zine project “The Occultaria Of Albion”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 7 Mos Eisley Happy Hour - The Empire Strikes Back

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-7-mos-eisley-happy-hour-the-empire-strikes-back/
Air date: 4 April 2021
Duration: 01:54:51

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 1980 (and so 80s it hurts) - Pac Man and the Rubik’s Cube both launch; CNN starts broadcasting; and John Lennon is shot dead. Our Star Wars watch-through reaches probably its zenith with “The Empire Strikes Back” So get ready to watch Luke whacking his Wampa in the snow (dirty boy); realise that Yoda’s probably been on his own too long; witness Mr Bronson get all choked up; and come to the shocking conclusion that Ian McDiarmid is probably better than a redubbed woman in a hood with a set of chimp’s eyes.

---

## Ep 114 Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-114-abbott-and-costello-meet-frankenstein/
Air date: 28 March 2021
Duration: 01:22:34
Film: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein · Year: 1948 · Director: Charles Barton

### Description

It’s comedy horror time with the swan song of the original Universal Monsters as “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein”. A film in which the mysterious Dr Lejos looks an awful lot like Dracula in a dressing gown; The Wolf Man gets accused of making nuisance phone calls; and Frankenstein’s Monster almost looses his mind. Along the way we discuss “Demons”, “Guardians of the Galaxy”, “Night Stalker” and Lee realises he doesn’t need Rob Zombie’s new album. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Mos Eisley Happy HourStar Wars - A New Hope

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/mos-eisley-happy-hourstar-wars-a-new-hope/
Air date: 21 March 2021
Duration: 02:22:45

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 1977 - 2000AD launches; Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a plane crash; and no one on this podcast was born yet. Our Star Wars watch-through reaches a milestone with “A New Hope” aka “Star Wars”. So prepare yourself for an episode with a longer running time than the actual film; shut down all the garbage mashers on the Detention Level; have a drink in a really rough pub (good music though); and re-imagine Jabba as an avuncular fat Scotsman in a fur coat. • Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 113 - Gretel & Hansel

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-113-gretel-hansel/
Air date: 14 March 2021
Duration: 01:34:01
Film: Gretel & Hansel · Year: 2020 · Director: Oz Perkins

### Description

Once upon a time, 4 intrepid podcasters sat down to watch a very Grimm Tale - director Oz Perkin’s “Gretel & Hansel”. A film in which Jessica Hyde threatens to kill her kids; the Borg Queen comes down with a severe case of black finger; and a cat is either magical, or a Continuity Supervisor’s worst nightmare. Along the way we discuss “Rawhead Rex”;“The Lighthouse”; “February” aka “The Blackcoat’s Daughter” and choose-your-own folk horror interactive film “T’Was The Devil”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 5 Mos Eisley Happy Hour - Rogue One

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-5-mos-eisley-happy-hour-rogue-one/
Air date: 7 March 2021
Duration: 01:53:30

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 2016 - The UK votes for Brexit; The USA votes for Donald J Trump; and a multitude of celebrities die (which was probably a wise decision on their part, considering how everything’s been going since then). Our Star Wars watch-through circles back to the main saga via ”Rogue One - A Star Wars Story”. So prepare yourself for a go on Saw Gerrera’s sticky Mind-Squid; keep an eye out for Chief Inspector Grobelaar; marvel at what an eventful few days it’s been for Dr Evazan and BumFace; and get ready for a glimpse of Admiral Radish’s Hammerhead. Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## EP 112 The Fly 1986

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-112-the-fly-1986/
Air date: 28 February 2021
Duration: 01:27:23
Film: The Fly · Year: 1986 · Director: David Cronenberg

### Description

Having witnessed the original, the team turn to David Cronenberg’s reimagining of “The Fly” from 1986. A film in which an 80s super-sleaze invents the Reaction Video; Jeff Goldblum spunks his finger all over the bathroom mirror; and a baboon makes jam (but definitely not as cute as that sounds). Along the way we discuss “Possessor”, “Matinee”, “St Maud” (again, but it’s so good!), “Sputnik”, “Donnie Darko”, “Tales That Witness Madness” and “Willie’s Wonderland”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## EP 4 Mos Eisley Happy Hour - Solo

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-4-mos-eisley-happy-hour-solo/
Air date: 21 February 2021
Duration: 01:30:41

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 2018 - a dark time for the Rebellion: music is in its absolute nadir; Donald Trump holds total authority; Russian dissidents are dropping like assassinated flies and Toys ‘R’ Us closes it’s doors for the last time... Our Star Wars watch-through moves sideways into ”Solo - A Star Wars Story”. So clean the mud off your Wookiee; put some hazard tape around your gaping Maw; check your sleeves for Sylops; and wonder why one of Dryden’s men appears to be called “Eamonn”. Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 111 The Fly

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-111-the-fly/
Air date: 14 February 2021
Duration: 01:18:43
Film: The Fly · Year: 1958 · Director: Kurt Neumann

### Description

It’s atomic-age horror, with the original 1958 version of “The Fly”! A film in which a cat is dispersed into the ether; a common fly is dipped in Tipp-Ex to secure a starring role; and we see the world’s biggest lawn chair. Along the way we discuss “Saint Maud”, horror games reviewed by YouTuber Daz Black, “Xtro”, “Southland Tales” and the original BBC version of “Quatermass and The Pit”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 3 Mos Eisley Happy Hour - Revenge of the Sith

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-3-mos-eisley-happy-hour-revenge-of-the-sith/
Air date: 7 February 2021
Duration: 01:38:07

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 2005, Pope John Paul II dies; YouTube starts; Doctor Who returns to TV and Prince Harry dresses like a Nazi. Our Star Wars watch-through concludes the prequels with ”Revenge of the Sith”. So get General Grievous some Benylin; demonstrate Jedi stealth by clinging to a noisy chicken lizard; cheer at the sight of a planet full of Wookiees; and groan when those same Wookiees do that fucking Tarzan yell again! Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## EP 110 Dawn of the Dead

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-110-dawn-of-the-dead/
Air date: 31 January 2021
Duration: 01:24:57
Film: Dawn of the Dead · Year: 1978 · Director: George A. Romero

### Description

We return to George A Romero’s Living Dead universe for the second instalment in the series: 1978’s classic “Dawn of the Dead”. A film in which we learn that a screwdriver can be an effective substitute for a cotton bud; the consumerist dream is ultimately hollow, even when it brings you a fuck ton of guns and cheese; and the real secret to everyone (all genders, ages, races and religions) getting along is for everyone to be dead. Along the way we discuss “Bad Taste”, Netflix series “Lupin”, “The Fearless Vampire Killers” and “Dr Who & The Daleks” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## EP 2 Mos Eisley Happy Hour - Attack of the Clones

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-2-mos-eisley-happy-hour-attack-of-the-clones/
Air date: 24 January 2021
Duration: 01:50:40

### Description

A long time ago on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 2002, Blair and Bush have begun their war criminal love-in, members of the Royal Family keep dropping like flies and Napster is shut down, definitively ending the illegal downloading of copyright material forever... Our Star Wars watch-through continues with “Attack Of The Clones”. So saddle up one of those big testicle-flea-cows; moan to some poor sod about how you really don’t like sand; marvel at Christopher Lee’s dignity whilst surrounded by CGI insects carrying Airzookas and absolutely seethe with uncontrollable rage over R2D2’s ability to fly. Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 109 Scream

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-109-scream/
Air date: 17 January 2021
Duration: 01:27:42
Film: Scream · Year: 1996 · Director: Wes Craven

### Description

This episode we watch a classic film that’s so 90s it’s on tour with Oasis, in an Adidas tracksuit, with a Tamagotchi in it’s pocket and signing into it’s Compuserve Email account: Wes Craven’s “Scream”. A film that teaches the mainstream public the rules of slashers, and slasher fans the basics of postmodernism; spawns 15 years worth of unimaginative last-minute Halloween costumes; and features the definitive serial killer font of the decade: FF Confidential. Along the way we discuss “Night of the Creeps”, “Cooties”, “Blood On Satan’s Claw”, “Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends” and “Scare Package”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep1 Mos Eisley Happy Hour - The Phantom Menace

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep1-mos-eisley-happy-hour-the-phantom-menace/
Air date: 10 January 2021
Duration: 01:33:17

### Description

A long time ago, on a Podcast in Essex... It’s 1999, Clinton and Blair are still in charge, “Pretty Fly For A White Guy” is annoying everyone and Kevin Spacey is still a viable Oscar nominee. We kick off our Star Wars watch-through with “The Phantom Menace” (and at least from here it can only get better). So dust off your most offensive accents; stick some Midi-chlorians on the barbie; marvel at the knife edge excitement of a trade embargo; and ponder how anybody didn’t realise Palpatine was the Emperor! Watch (or more likely re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. FEATURES STRONG LANGUAGE. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 108 Vault of horror

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-108-vault-of-horror/
Air date: 3 January 2021
Duration: 01:27:40
Film: The Vault of Horror · Year: 1973 · Director: Roy Ward Baker

### Description

Another year, and we kick off in majestic style with another Amicus Anthology - 1973’s “The Vault of Horror”. A film in which Terry-Thomas experiences separation anxiety on a whole new level; the Massey siblings take it in turns to murder each other; Karl Stromberg reaches the end of his rope; and the Fourth Doctor feeds rats with the power of Voodoo! Along the way we discuss “The Living and the Dead”, “Elliot”, “Dead of Night: The Exorcism”, “The Prestige” and the BBC’s 2019 3 part adaptation of “A Christmas Carol”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Tales from the Crypt

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/tales-from-the-crypt/
Air date: 23 December 2020
Duration: 01:23:41
Film: Tales from the Crypt · Year: 1972 · Director: Freddie Francis

### Description

It’s nearly the end of 2020, and we bow out with a set of suitably dark stories in Amicus anthology “Tales From The Crypt”. A film in which Peter Cushing breaks our hearts before ripping one out; a group of visually impaired men don’t let it stop them from indulging in some amateur carpentry; and Joan Collins is horrified to discover her husband has crimson poster paint running through his veins. Along the way we discuss “Await Further Instructions”, “Blackadder’s Christmas Carol” (again!), Radio 4’s “The Haunting of MR James” and the work of The Uncanny Collective. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Bonus - Welcome To Everyone Christmas Special

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-welcome-to-everyone-christmas-special/
Air date: 20 December 2020
Duration: 01:23:07

### Description

You didn’t ask for it, but it’s here anyway: A Very “Welcome To Everyone” Christmas Bonus Episode! No one died last time, so we decided to do it again. The Not For Everyone Podcast’s Snobby Bobby and Crude Rude Dude team up with Welcome To Horror’s Chris, Lee and Adam to fight the Martians, rescue Santa and save Christmas! Well, OK, they drink and talk about Christmas. But that’s just as good. An early Christmas Present from the “Welcome To Everyone” team, we had a blast recording this, and hope you all enjoy it too.

---

## EP 106 Black Christmas

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-106-black-christmas/
Air date: 20 December 2020
Duration: 01:15:52
Film: Black Christmas · Year: 1974 · Director: Bob Clark

### Description

To quote Noddy Holder “IT’S CHRISTMAS!” and so we settle down before a roaring TV screen to watch festive family favourite; 1974’s proto-slasher “Black Christmas”. A film which highlights all the exquisite design features of a Canadian Sorority House: The house comes with extensive soundproofing, so you can study without being disturbed by the bloody curdling screams of your housemates. Our live-in maniac is located in the attic, and is always just a phone call away. That, plus an extensive range of alcoholic beverages stored in every nook and cranny, and a front door that only locks when you don’t want it to, really come together to enhance the college experience. Along the way we discuss “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “Blackadder’s Christmas Carol” and “Inside No.9: The Devil of Christmas” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, down a pint of Eggnog, stuff yer turkey, put on a paper crown, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 105 Suspiria

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-105-suspiria/
Air date: 13 December 2020
Duration: 01:04:55
Film: Suspiria · Year: 1977 · Director: Dario Argento

### Description

This week is a full on assault of the senses with Dario Argento’s classic “Suspiria”. A film in which there are more Nazi references than an online argument; soundtrack maestros Goblin have bought a lot of exotic instruments since the success of “Deep Red”; and the door knobs are far too high! Along the way we discuss the 2018 “Suspiria” remake, “The X-Files”, “Dr Terrible’s House of Horrible” and “Dramarama: The Snap” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY. VOLUME LEVELS MAY VARY, DEPENDING ON HOW ANGRY LEE GETS ABOUT GOBLIN

---

## EP 104 Slither

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-104-slither/
Air date: 6 December 2020
Duration: 01:01:20
Film: Slither · Year: 2006 · Director: James Gunn

### Description

This week we’re chock full o’ space worms as we infect ourselves with James Gunn’s body horror comedy “Slither”. A film in which Henry (Portrait of a Serial Killer) transforms into an angry haemorrhoid; Mal from Firefly leads a dry-land squid hunt; and we have a potential winner for “Best Comedy Mayor in a Motion Picture”. Along the way we discuss “Color Out Of Space”, “Tales From The Hood II” and “Get Duked!”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 103 The Omen

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-103-the-omen/
Air date: 29 November 2020
Duration: 01:19:39
Film: The Omen · Year: 1976 · Director: Richard Donner

### Description

It’s time to plaster the walls with pages from The Bible and check each other for numerical birthmarks as we watch 1976’s Antichrist caper “The Omen”. A film in which someone drops a church spire on the Second Doctor; the most sinister nanny in the world brings strange dogs into the house; and Rumpole of the Bailey gives us a step-by-step guide to religious infanticide. Along the way we discuss “American Psycho”, “Tales From The Hood”, “Piranha”, “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”, “The Blood Beast Terror” and Cannon Films’ “Hansel & Gretel” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY. PLUS THE EQUIPMENT KEPT BREAKING DOWN, ALMOST LIKE SOME KIND OF CURSE....

---

## Ep 102 Curse of the Crimson Alter

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-102-curse-of-the-crimson-alter/
Air date: 22 November 2020
Duration: 01:22:32
Film: Curse of the Crimson Altar · Year: 1968 · Director: Vernon Sewell

### Description

We get back to business with cult favourite “Curse of the Crimson Altar” (or “The Crimson Cult” for our US listeners). A film in which Christopher Lee auditions to present Grandstand; Boris Karloff mourns a good brandy; and Barbara Steele gets the horn(s). Along the way we discuss the “The Mortuary Collection”, “Brave New World”, “Critters Attack”, “Fido” and “Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 101 Room 101

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-101-room-101/
Air date: 15 November 2020
Duration: 02:02:40

### Description

So, episode 101; something a bit different. In the grand tradition of the long-running BBC series, we present “Room 101”. The team have been given a list of categories, and attempt to get their choices sent forever into Room 101, which contains “the worst thing in the world…” Categories are “Worst Horror Film” “Worst Horror Performance” “Worst Genre Trope” “Worst Cinema Experience” Along the way we discuss Nigel Kneale’s adaptation of Orwell’s “1984”, “Truth Seekers”, “Christine”, “The American Nightmare”, “Key & Peele” and the books of George Mann. Nothing to watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers this week, just perform the mandatory 2 minutes hate and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 100 The Woman in Black

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-100-the-woman-in-black/
Air date: 8 November 2020
Duration: 01:36:51
Film: The Woman in Black · Year: 1989 · Director: Herbert Wise

### Description

Wow. No one, least of all us, thought we’d get to 100 Episodes. To mark this milestone; we return, in a way, to our very first episode (where we watched Hammer Films’ 2012 adaptation) and sit down in front of the 1989 TV Movie of “The Woman In Black”. A film in which Harry Potter’s dad commits arson; a foetal Andy Nyman enthuses over Charlie Chaplin’s eating disorder; and a dog becomes very excited by the scent of trouser sausage. Along the way we discuss “Deathgasm”, “The Mandalorian” and (for some fucked up reason) Agatha Christie. Grab your preferred inebriant, slap on a party hat, watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY

---

## Ep 99 Night of the Living Dead

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-99-night-of-the-living-dead/
Air date: 1 November 2020
Duration: 01:40:36
Film: Night of the Living Dead · Year: 1968 · Director: George A. Romero

### Description

Episode 99 takes us to a small isolated farmhouse as the team experience George A Romero’s game changer “Night of the Living Dead”. A film which teaches us to always check the small print (or lack thereof); that armed posses can be somewhat trigger happy (who’d a thunk it?); and that offal is best served raw, and on the lawn, at night. Along the way we discuss “The Monster Club”, “Come To Daddy”, “The Crow”, “The Vast of Night”, “The Haunting of Bly Manor” and “The Wolf of Snow Hollow”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ep 98 Halloween

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-98-halloween/
Air date: 25 October 2020
Duration: 01:25:55
Film: Halloween · Year: 1978 · Director: John Carpenter

### Description

It’s only taken us 98 episodes to finally turn our attention to undisputed classic, slasher blueprint and seasonal favourite John Carpenter’s “Halloween”. A film in which Jamie Lee Curtis hides in the wardrobe and Donald Pleasence hides in a bush; heavy breathing phone calls are very popular; the local Sheriff apparently doesn’t recognise the smell of weed; and Michael Myers has a dog for dinner. Along the way we discuss “Never Hike In The Snow”, “The Running Man”, “The Halloween Tree”, “The Babysitter: Killer Queen” and the VR version of “Doom: Annihilation” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Welcome To Everyone Halloween Special

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/welcome-to-everyone-halloween-special/
Air date: 25 October 2020
Duration: 01:38:43

### Description

“The Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History” is finally here! (only 2 years after that meme was last relevant). Yes! Snobby Bobby and Crude Rude Dude of the mighty Not For Everyone Podcast, and Chris, Lee and Adam from the incredible Welcome To Horror finally come together (not like that!) to discuss all things Halloween. We had an amazing time recording this, and hope you all enjoy it too! A little Halloween bonus gift from the “Welcome To Everyone” team. Happy Halloween

---

## Ep 97 Hereditary

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ep-97-hereditary/
Air date: 18 October 2020
Duration: 01:27:45
Film: Hereditary · Year: 2018 · Director: Ari Aster

### Description

Heads-up! It’s another family friendly, feel-good romp from Ari Aster, as we watch his stark debut “Hereditary”. A film which features a great deal of old-person nudity; reminds you to take your bloody EpiPen with you to social gatherings (parties, funerals etc); and demonstrates that not picking up after yourself is how you get ants. Along the way we discuss Alan Moore’s “Show Pieces”, “Scare Me”, “Hubie Halloween”, “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and the BBC Radio adaptation of “Children of the Stones”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## 96 Sleepy Hollow

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/96-sleepy-hollow/
Air date: 11 October 2020
Duration: 01:35:54
Film: Sleepy Hollow · Year: 1999 · Director: Tim Burton

### Description

And so it begins. The nights are drawing in, the leaves are beginning to turn orange and fall from the trees, and it’s the season for spooky stories around the fire. Yes folks, it’s time for us to examine Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (fnar!). A film that features 3 Sith Lords, Queen Elizabeth the First, Dumbledore the Second and a Terrible C*nt. Along the way we discuss “The Evil Within”, “Haxan”, “Apaches”, “Dead Hooker In A Trunk” and “Utopia”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Sinister

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/sinister/
Air date: 4 October 2020
Duration: 01:24:39
Film: Sinister · Year: 2012 · Director: Scott Derrickson

### Description

The team gathers around the 8mm projector to view 2012’s perfectly named “Sinister” from Blumhouse Films. A film that teaches you that you never go into Dad’s office, that you never ignore a scared Sheriff’s Deputy and, perhaps most fundamentally, you never deliberately move your already dysfunctional family into a fucking crime scene! Along the way we discuss ITV true crime drama “Des” and 2007’s “Headless Horseman”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Drag me to Hell

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/drag-me-to-hell/
Air date: 27 September 2020
Duration: 01:17:56
Film: Drag Me to Hell · Year: 2009 · Director: Sam Raimi

### Description

Ear defenders at the ready as the team tackle their loudest film to date: Sam Raimi’s 2009 return to horror: “Drag Me To Hell”. A film that teaches you to keep your mouth clamped shut near bodily fluids, to always check the contents your envelopes and never hesitate to fuck over that one wanker at work. Along the way we discuss “It: Chapter 2”, “Gretel & and Hansel” and “Jesus Shows You The way To The Highway” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Psycho

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/psycho/
Air date: 20 September 2020
Duration: 01:46:50
Film: Psycho · Year: 1960 · Director: Alfred Hitchcock

### Description

From the Yankee Pedlar, the gang move on to the Bates Motel, for absolute bloody classic “Psycho”. An establishment noted for it’s bathroom facilities, with En Suite peepholes at no extra cost. Previous guests have recommended catching a late sandwich with the genial young manager, in his sinister Taxidermy room. Parking is not a problem, simply deposit your vehicle in the swamp at the rear of the property, and it can be winched free on your departure. Along the way we discuss “The Hollow”, “Cracker”, “Sorry To Bother You” and “Ghost of a Chance”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## The Innkeepers

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-innkeepers/
Air date: 13 September 2020
Duration: 01:06:54
Film: The Innkeepers · Year: 2011 · Director: Ti West

### Description

This week, the gang check into the Yankee Pedlar Inn for Ti West’s hybrid of slacker comedy and haunted house chiller: “The Innkeepers”. A film which teaches us that lying to impress a woman ALWAYS backfires; old actors don’t die, they just hit the spiritualist circuit; and never, ever, go down to the basement (how many times do we have to say it?). Along the way we discuss “You’re Next”, Oliver Park’s short film “Vicious” and original horror stories on the Nigel Kneale-based podcast “Bergcast”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Texas Chainsaw Massacre II

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/texas-chainsaw-massacre-ii/
Air date: 6 September 2020
Duration: 01:53:15
Film: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 · Year: 1986 · Director: Tobe Hooper

### Description

For our second look into the world of the Sawyer Family, we’re joined by a genuine real-life Texan, in the form of Pinball Bobby of the mighty Not For Everyone Podcast! It’s off to Dallas for “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”! A film in which Leatherface gets loved up, a small businessman gets it in the ass and two 80s Super Douches get exactly what’s coming to them. Along the way we discuss “Dolores Claiborne”, “Strange”, “Ganja & Hess”, “Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films” and The Evolution of Horror Pub Quiz Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Texas Chainsaw Massacre

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/texas-chainsaw-massacre/
Air date: 30 August 2020
Duration: 01:17:00
Film: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre · Year: 1974 · Director: Tobe Hooper

### Description

It’s time for a classic, as we finally turn to Tobe Hooper’s masterpiece “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”. A film that should dissuade anyone from picking up hitchhikers and/or randomly trespassing; whilst also proving the case for full traceability on all commercial meat products; and providing equal opportunities by featuring a disabled character who is as annoying as any able-bodied slasher victim. Along the way we discuss “Split Second”, “Crazyhead”, “Primal Screen”, “The Dead Don’t Die” and the first episode of “Lovecraft Country”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Host

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/host/
Air date: 23 August 2020
Duration: 01:30:01
Film: Host · Year: 2020 · Director: Rob Savage

### Description

Oh how the tables have turned! This week; Chris introduces Jennifer, Lee and Adam to a brand new horror- Rob Savage’s Pandemic inspired/necessitated “Host” (2020), streaming exclusively on Shudder. A film which uses Zoom more effectively than any work-related meeting you have had since Lockdown started. This film is brand new, absolutely of this time, and we really urge you to watch it. Not just for the podcast (we don’t get too spoiler-y anyway) but, genuinely, for your own enjoyment. Seriously, check it out. Along the way we discuss “The Flesh and the Fiends”, the short films of Ari Aster, “Smoke and Mirrors: The Tom Savini Story”, “Zomboat!” and Mark Haddon’s short story collection “The Pier Falls”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO (APPROPRIATELY) RECORD THIS EPISODE VIA ZOOM.

---

## Mandy

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/mandy/
Air date: 16 August 2020
Duration: 01:50:33
Film: Mandy · Year: 2018 · Director: Panos Cosmatos

### Description

Claire returns this week, as we discuss Panos Cosmatos’ psychedelic prog revenge movie “Mandy”. A divisive film for the team, in which we learn that cheese is best served vomited from a green puppet; hand-to-hand combat is difficult when you have a knife for a cock; and we get to see Ken Barlow’s son’s willy. Along the way we discuss “Slumber Party Massacre”, “Punishment Park”, “Vast of Night”, “LFO”, “Phase IV”, “Host” and the many lunacies of Nicolas Cage. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Theatre of Blood

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/theatre-of-blood/
Air date: 2 August 2020
Duration: 01:58:02
Film: Theatre of Blood · Year: 1973 · Director: Douglas Hickox

### Description

We have returning guest as Claire selects her birthday choice - possibly Vincent Price’s finest film: “Theatre of Blood”. A film in which Paddington Bear is torn to pieces by an angry mob; Captain Mainwaring is beheaded; and we learn that it’s ‘Dickman by name; Dickman by nature’. Along the way we discuss documentary “Lost Souls”, “RoboCop”, episodes of “The X-Files” and “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour”, “Return of the Blind Dead” and a video of a seagull eating a rat. Whole. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## 086 Let The Right One In

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/086-let-the-right-one-in/
Air date: 26 July 2020
Duration: 01:34:40
Film: Let the Right One In · Year: 2008 · Director: Tomas Alfredson

### Description

It’s Jennifer’s Birthday Request, and she has chosen the magnificent “Let The Right One In”. A film in which a nonce tries an extreme chemical-peel; we learn PE teachers are the same all over the world; and that Frankenstein created Kevin Eldon. Along the way we discuss “Witch’s Brew”, “Ju-On: Origins”, “Mr Vampire” and the book “Lovecraft Country”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Night of the Eagle

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/night-of-the-eagle/
Air date: 18 July 2020
Duration: 01:12:56

### Description

This episode we turn to a lesser known classic with 1962’s “Night Of The Eagle” (aka “Burn, Witch, Burn”). A film which in which Mr Peter Wyngarde discovers his wife’s keeping dead spiders in her knicker drawer; demonstrates that a good bitch-slap is more than a match for a pistol; and learns that a meat-jacket is not the best attire when participating in amateur falconry. Along the way we discuss “Castle Rock” Series 1, “Paranormal Activity” and “Blood Machines” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## A Nightmare on Elm Street III

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/a-nightmare-on-elm-street-iii/
Air date: 12 July 2020
Duration: 01:13:29
Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors · Year: 1987 · Director: Chuck Russell

### Description

Having covered the original “...Elm Street” last episode, we move onto, arguably, the best of the series with “A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”. A film in which we learn that a scrapyard can be consecrated ground if you have a flask of holy water; sometimes ALL the black characters in a horror film can survive to the end; and Freddy, finally, says “Bitch”. Along the way we discuss the 2010 remake of ANOES, “Tetsuo: The Iron Man”, “Murder By Decree” and the live action “Scooby-Doo” and “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Bonus A Nightmare on Elm Street II

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-a-nightmare-on-elm-street-ii/
Air date: 8 July 2020
Duration: 00:28:04

### Description

It’s a Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode! Adam and Claire discuss “A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge”. Whilst we’re covering ANOES 1 and 3 as part of the main show, ever the completist, Adam had to watch “Freddy’s Revenge” too and, having seen Claire’s reaction to seeing it for the very first time, felt that it really needed to be covered

---

## A Nightmare on Elm Street

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/a-nightmare-on-elm-street/
Air date: 5 July 2020
Duration: 01:56:55
Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street · Year: 1984 · Director: Wes Craven

### Description

The team head back to the birth of a true modern horror icon - man of your dreams Freddy Krueger. Yes it’s the Wes Craven classic “A Nightmare On Elm Street”. A film in which we learn that it’s best to keep a murder weapon as a souvenir after a traditional neighbourhood nonce burning; being analysed by Roger Rabbit can turn your hair white; and that Johnny Depp had a lot of blood inside him in his pre-standing on a box days. Along the way we discuss “Dream Demon”, the “Scream” films and Shudder series “Eli Roth’s History of Horror”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Dude Bro Party Massacre III

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/dude-bro-party-massacre-iii/
Air date: 28 June 2020
Duration: 01:07:29
Film: Dude Bro Party Massacre III · Year: 2015 · Director: Tomm Jacobsen

### Description

The team climb aboard Sminkle’s Bang Bus for hard-hitting, pulls-no-punches documentary “Dude Bro Party Massacre III”. A poignant study of Toxic Masculinity; including the dangers of hazing rituals within the college system, the tearing of shirts to express emotion and the terror of tiny hairy dog dicks. Along the way we discuss Shudder series “Cursed Films”, The London Horror Society’s Short film selection on YouTube, “Dark Towers”, “Veronica” and “Mystery & Imagination”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Young Frankenstein

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/young-frankenstein/
Air date: 21 June 2020
Duration: 01:24:03
Film: Young Frankenstein · Year: 1974 · Director: Mel Brooks

### Description

We return to the laboratory for Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s inspired mockery of the Universal horrors in “Young Frankenstein”. A film in which everything is huge; from the performances, to the knockers and on to the schwanzstucker; an off camera Mel Brooks portrays both a werewolf and a cat; and we can only speculate on what Frau Blücher has been doing to the horses. Along the way we discuss “House” (aka “Hausu”) and “Kwaidan”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Phantom of the Paradise

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/phantom-of-the-paradise/
Air date: 14 June 2020
Duration: 01:24:46
Film: Phantom of the Paradise · Year: 1974 · Director: Brian De Palma

### Description

We’re joined by returning guest Westley to watch Brian De Palma’s glam rock extravaganza “Phantom of the Paradise”. A film in which a scholar of Faust manages to miss a number of red flags - including signing a contract in blood; revenge is best served in a bondage suit and crow-shaped crash helmet; and we discover a novel new use for a plunger. Along the way we discuss “Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror” and “Eli Roth’s History of Horror” (both available on Shudder). Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Stoker

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/stoker/
Air date: 7 June 2020
Duration: 01:17:23
Film: Stoker · Year: 2013 · Director: Park Chan-wook

### Description

It’s creepy uncle time, as we dive into Chan-wook Park’s insidious “Stoker”. A film in which we learn that incest is fine, as long as you wait until they’re past the age of consent; some mobile phone networks still provide a signal 6 feet underground; and erotic piano recitals can lead to spiders in the pants. Along the way we discuss “Hour of the Wolf” and “Audition”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY

---

## The Beast Must Die

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-beast-must-die/
Air date: 31 May 2020
Duration: 01:21:23
Film: The Beast Must Die · Year: 1974 · Director: Paul Annett

### Description

The team sink their teeth into another slice of lycanthropy, this time with a dash of Blaxploitation and a garnish of Agatha Christie. Yes folks, it’s Amicus Films’ horror swansong “The Beast Must Die”. A film in which a millionaire dresses up in more leather and PVC than a biker’s convention at the Torture Garden, we observe the traditional dinner party game of “pass the candlestick” and Dumbledore auditions as a stunt driver for The Sweeney. Along the way we discuss “Nothing Really Happens” (again), excellent Hellraiser documentary “Leviathan” and “Hellbound: Hellraiser II”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Hellraiser

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/hellraiser/
Air date: 24 May 2020
Duration: 01:27:37
Film: Hellraiser · Year: 1987 · Director: Clive Barker

### Description

It’s time for the team to open the box and experience Clive Barker’s classic “Hellraiser”, a film which features a heavier dub than a Lee Scratch Perry B-Side; more pulsating meat than a Magic Mike show; and more degrading perversity than a Tory MP’s weekend. Along the way we discuss “Cats”, “Bliss”, “Odd Thomas”, “Nothing Really Happens” and “Dreamland”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Ring

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/ring/
Air date: 10 May 2020
Duration: 00:53:17
Film: Ring · Year: 1998 · Director: Hideo Nakata

### Description

It’s time for the team to experience some J-Horror and we sit down to probably the most (in)famous: Hideo Nakata’s adaption of Kôji Suzuki’s “Ring”. A film in which moody videos in hotel rooms get you killed rather than arrested, we discover the importance of a good manicure when trapped in a well and Brine-based frolics result in all kinds of goblinry. Along the way we discuss “One Cut of the Dead” and Neill Blomkamp’s Oats Studios. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Midsommar

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/midsommar/
Air date: 3 May 2020
Duration: 01:16:08
Film: Midsommar · Year: 2019 · Director: Ari Aster

### Description

Having been locked down for so long, the team just want to see the Sun, beautiful landscapes and gather together as a community; so to put them off all that, they watched Ari Aster’s “Midsommar”. A film in which we learn how to make a menstrual smoothie to wash down that traditional Swedish Hair Pie, the term “bear with me” takes on a grisly new meaning and we have a salutary lesson to never forget your other half’s birthday (and tripping balls is not an excuse!). We’re joined by returning guest Dr Dean of the mighty Pit Ponies, and along the way we discuss “Border”, “Trolls 2”, “The Devil’s Rain” and “Gods and Monsters”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Dog Soldiers

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/dog-soldiers/
Air date: 26 April 2020
Duration: 01:11:43
Film: Dog Soldiers · Year: 2002 · Director: Neil Marshall

### Description

More classic monsters for the team this week, as we turn our attention to 2002’s British Army Vs Werewolves flick “Dog Soldiers”. A film in which Ser Davos Seaworth regrows his fingers and drops the Geordie accent for a much posher and sinister one; Worzel Gummidge’s son plays tug of war with a dog using his own entrails; and Tommy from Trainspotting discovers you can catch far worse things off animals than Cat-Shit-Eye-blindness. Along the way we discuss “The Platform”, “The Final Girls”, “Red State”, and “The Velocipastor”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Near Dark

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/near-dark/
Air date: 19 April 2020
Duration: 01:06:00
Film: Near Dark · Year: 1987 · Director: Kathryn Bigelow

### Description

It’s vampire time again on Welcome to Horror, and this time it’s Kathryn Bigelow’s vision of dusty drifter/murderers “Near Dark”. A film in which the guy who goes on to stub his cigar out on Arnie’s tit gets his first taste of misplaced barroom bravado, Bishop goes all method at the nail bar and the sun comes up really quickly. Like, really quickly. Along the way we discuss “I Am A Ghost”, “Come To Daddy”, “Septic Man”, “Blackfish” and “Don’t F*** With Cats”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## Cast a Deadly Spell

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/cast-a-deadly-spell/
Air date: 16 April 2020
Duration: 00:20:28

### Description

It’s a Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode! Lee and Adam bring you another lockdown watch recommendation: HBO TV Movie “Cast A Deadly Spell”; a cross between film noir detective flick and Lovecraftian monster movie with a rich comedic vein and a cast to die for.

---

## Pontypool

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/pontypool/
Air date: 12 April 2020
Duration: 01:12:49
Film: Pontypool · Year: 2008

### Description

We’re joined once more by the legendary Pinball Bobby of the Not For Everyone Podcast to watch 2008 masterpiece “Pontypool”, a film in which Kill is Kiss, your friendly helicopter-riding weatherman is actually a nonce on a hill with a sound effects tape, and Sydney Briar is alive! Along the way we discuss “The Lure”, “Pieces” and the “Sleepaway Camp” films. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY

---

## Midwinter of the Spirit

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/midwinter-of-the-spirit/
Air date: 8 April 2020
Duration: 00:10:55
Film: Midwinter of the Spirit · Director: Richard Clark

### Description

It’s a Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode! As we all remain indoors for the foreseeable future; Lee and Lady Jennifer bring you a watch recommendation: Mini-series “Midwinter of the Spirit” - a mixture of detective and horror story - adapted from the novel by Phil Rickman by Ghostwatch creator Stephen Volk. This Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode is available now on the Apple Podcast App, Soundcloud (link in bio) and at welcometohorror.com

---

## Pumpkinhead

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/pumpkinhead/
Air date: 5 April 2020
Duration: 00:58:56
Film: Pumpkinhead · Year: 1988 · Director: Stan Winston

### Description

The gang turn their attention to the directorial debut of makeup/fx master Stan Winston; the marvellous “Pumpkinhead”. A film in which an 80s Super-Douche kills the Milky Bar Kid, Bishop is buff AF, and just what is the world coming to when you can’t even trust an ancient, cackling swamp witch, living in a shack full of rats and spiders? Along the way we discuss “Tiger King”, “The Living Ghost” and “Mid-Winter of the Spirit”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY.

---

## The Monster Squad

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-monster-squad/
Air date: 29 March 2020
Duration: 01:22:31
Film: The Monster Squad · Year: 1987 · Director: Fred Dekker

### Description

The team sit down in front of childhood favourite “The Monster Squad”, a film in which Uncle Rico tears up a Cop Shop, Dracula finds time to pimp his ride and (obviously) we find out Wolfman’s got nards. Along the way we discuss “The Shivering Truth”, Coffin Joe, “And Frankenstein Created Bikers” and “The First Purge”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. APOLOGIES FOR ANY SOUND QUALITY ISSUES -CURRENT QUARANTINE MEASURES MEANT WE HAD TO RECORD THIS EPISODE REMOTELY

---

## What we do in the Shadows

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/what-we-do-in-the-shadows/
Air date: 15 March 2020
Duration: 01:02:40
Film: What We Do in the Shadows · Year: 2014 · Director: Jemaine Clement

### Description

It’s episode 69! And we don’t even laugh about it! We do, however, piss ourselves laughing at Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement’s “What We Do In The Shadows” - possibly the best Vampire film (comedy or serious), and probably the best mockumentary ever made. Along the way we discuss “The Lighthouse” and “Color Out Of Space”

---

## The Uncanny

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-uncanny/
Air date: 1 March 2020
Duration: 01:25:59
Film: The Uncanny · Year: 1977 · Director: Denis Héroux

### Description

The gang’s all here! Lady Jennifer, Chris, Lee and Adam sit down for Adam’s birthday choice and listener suggestion, which is the feline-themed anthology “The Uncanny”. A film in which Donald Pleasence has incredible plumbing, someone replaces Joan Greenwood with a selection of beef cuts and a Canadian cousin is an absolute shit! Along the way we discuss “Borley Rectory”, “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”, “Doctor Sleep” and mourn the passing of Coffin Joe. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Horror Comedy TV II

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/horror-comedy-tv-ii/
Air date: 16 February 2020
Duration: 00:48:28

### Description

Lee and Adam conclude their look at great horror comedy TV. On this episode they discuss the legacy of “The League of Gentlemen”, as Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton bring us first “Psychoville” and then the anthology hit “Inside No.9”, and conclude with the sadly little known and pitch perfect spoof that is “Dr Terrible’s House of Horrible” starring Steve Coogan”. Seriously, if you love British Horror films of the 60s and 70s, you owe it to yourself to track this series down! Chris has been captured, and - once his “re-education” has finished - will be back with us next episode where normal WTH service will be resumed. We hope you enjoy, and maybe find some new ghoulish chuckles too. PLEASE NOTE: THIS EPISODE WAS RECORDED BEFORE THE BROADCAST OF THE “INSIDE NO.9” EPISODE “DEATH BE NO PROUD” - NO SPOILERS, BUT THOSE WHO KNOW, WILL UNDERSTAND WHY WE’RE MENTIONING THIS.

---

## Horror Comedy on TV I

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/horror-comedy-on-tv-i/
Air date: 2 February 2020
Duration: 01:10:00

### Description

Chris is still missing, and has possibly now been abducted by red-fingered aliens. This leaves Lee and Adam little to do except sit back and shoot the shit about great horror comedy TV. A chat that lasted so long, we’ve split it into two parts. On this episode they discuss the TV version of “What We Do In The Shadows”, cult masterpiece“Garth Marenghi's Darkplace” and the truly classic “The League of Gentlemen”. We hope you enjoy, and maybe find some new ghoulish chuckles too.

---

## Bonus Dracula

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-dracula/
Air date: 27 January 2020
Duration: 00:58:58

### Description

Chris has escaped down the castle wall, leaving Lee and Adam no choice but to record you lucky people a Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode! We take a big spoiler-filled look at the BBC/Netflix “Dracula” miniseries, and Lee gives us his non-spoiler-filled review of “D-Railed” which he caught at this year’s Horror-On-Sea Festival.

---

## Exorcist III

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/exorcist-iii/
Air date: 19 January 2020
Duration: 01:40:28
Film: The Exorcist III · Year: 1990 · Director: William Peter Blatty

### Description

Following on from our last episode, this time we’re watching “The Exorcist III”. A film in which an anecdotal trout haunts a hardened detective; heads roll in the Catholic church both figuratively and actually; and cantankerous bickering indicates a lasting friendship (or is that just the podcast?) Along the way we discuss Mark Gatiss’ Christmas Ghost Story “Martin’s Close”, the “Harry Potter” films and books, “Kuso”, “Chiller”, “Nightbreed”, “Shadows of Fear” and “The Usborne Book of Ghosts”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. And don’t forget, we’re on YouTube too!

---

## The Exorcist

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-exorcist/
Air date: 5 January 2020
Duration: 01:56:18
Film: The Exorcist · Year: 1973 · Director: William Friedkin

### Description

Welcome to 2020! And to celebrate, we have an extra special guest: Pin Ball Bobby from the magnificent “Not For Everyone Podcast”! And we’re kicking off the new decade with a classic: William Friedkin’s adaptation of William Peter Blatty’s “The Exorcist”. A film in which the director refrigerates a 12 year old girl, lets off guns willy nilly, causes life-changing injuries to his actors, ties a woman to a chair, slaps a priest and hires a genuine murderer. And that’s all behind the camera! Along the way we discuss HBO’s “Watchmen”, “Tigers Are Not Afraid” and the transatlantic differences on the McDonalds menu. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. Don’t forget, we’re on YouTube too!

---

## Gremlins

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/gremlins/
Air date: 22 December 2019
Duration: 01:42:12
Film: Gremlins · Year: 1984 · Director: Joe Dante

### Description

To quote Noddy Holder “IT’S CHRISTMAS!”, and so we’re watching a Christmas classic to celebrate: we’re back with Joe Dante for 1984’s “Gremlins”. A film in which a clearly already tense domestic situation means Mom escalates from stressed to merciless psychopath in a heartbeat, The Honorable Judge Reinhold goes missing (and no one cares), and 3 basic fucking rules apparently can’t be stuck to! Along the way we discuss the BBC’s upcoming MR James Ghost Story for Christmas and “Dracula” mini-series, their recent adaptation of “War of the World”, and how shit things were 100 years ago. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Quatermass and the Pit

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/quatermass-and-the-pit/
Air date: 8 December 2019
Duration: 01:20:51
Film: Quatermass and the Pit · Year: 1967 · Director: Roy Ward Baker

### Description

Having haunted the show since the very beginning - Chris finally gets to watch “Quatermass and The Pit”. A film in which the British working man is celebrated in all his insolent glory, the military are generating fake news, and the Martians aren’t coming; they’ve already come. Along the way we discuss “Shadows”, our brand spanking new YouTube channel and the feed back on our episode on Jordan Peele’s “Us” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Us

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/us/
Air date: 24 November 2019
Duration: 01:30:54
Film: Us · Year: 2019 · Director: Jordan Peele

### Description

After weeks of Lee’s prodding, the team finally watch Jordan Peele’s “Us”, a film with more rabbit than Sainsbury’s, that has the guys as divided as the movie’s characters. Will Lee’s 12 points of contention be resolved? How does the film match up to Peele’s first film, the mighty “Get Out”? Tune in and find out! HEADS UP: This is episode is also available on our brand spanking new YouTube channel, where you will be able to see, as well as hear, our lovely hosts in less-than-flattering close up. Head over to YouTube, subscribe to our channel and marvel at the facial hair and head wear. Link in the bio. Watch (or re-watch) “Us” to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Spider Baby

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/spider-baby/
Air date: 10 November 2019
Duration: 01:34:27
Film: Spider Baby · Year: 1964 · Director: Jack Hill

### Description

...and we’re back in the room. As a tribute to the late, great Sid Haig, the team watch Jack Hill’s “Spider Baby” - a film in which we learn about a rare and peculiar disease, drink driving legislation is flouted by the nominal hero and being polite is essential for survival. Along the way we discuss “American Horror Story”, the trailer for “Color Out Of Space”, the terrifying world of British Public Information Films and why we shouldn’t eat the mashed potato. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Halloween 2019 Bonus

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/halloween-2019-bonus/
Air date: 3 November 2019
Duration: 00:48:45

### Description

Testing! Testing! We’re trying something new for Welcome To Horror; recording an episode via Skype to see if it’s a viable alternative if scheduling prevents us being in the same room. But we thought we’d test it out with a little bit of bonus content, you lucky people. The team catches up with each other’s Halloween experiences, and look forward to next year’s Horror-On-Sea Festival, the line up for which was announced today. This Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode is available now on the Apple Podcast App, Soundcloud (link in bio) and at welcometohorror.com

---

## The Burbs

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-burbs/
Air date: 27 October 2019
Duration: 01:22:01
Film: The 'Burbs · Year: 1989 · Director: Joe Dante

### Description

Welcome To Horror Episode 59 ”The ‘Burbs” is available now on Soundcloud, Apple Podcast App/iTunes Store, and at welcometohorror.com Recaptured and strapped to his chair, Chris joins Lee and Adam to watch “The ‘Burbs”. A film in which learn that an old man never leaves his toupee on the stove, midnight gardening in the rain is not neighbourly behaviour and “Candy Man” didn’t have the first “live-bee-in-the-mouth” shot. Along the way we discuss “Stanley A Man of Variety”, “Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark”, “Crimson Peak”, “Chopping Mall” and “Prank Encounters”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Invader Zim

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/invader-zim/
Air date: 13 October 2019
Duration: 01:29:02

### Description

Chris is still missing presumed moving house, so, you lucky pugs, it’s another Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode! Lee, Adam and Lady Jennifer discuss a firm favourite; children’s cartoon “Invader Zim” and it’s recent Netflix resurrection “Enter The Florpus”. Is it horror? With more incredible sci-fi ideas, gross outs, body horror and laughs in each episode than most films achieve in 2 hours, we think it holds it’s own. Along the way we discuss “Joker”, “Mad Monster Party” and Jordan Peele’s “Twilight Zone”. Normal WTH service will be resumed shortly, but we couldn’t just leave you with nothing to stick in your ears this week, enjoy.

---

## The lost boys

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-lost-boys/
Air date: 29 September 2019
Duration: 01:13:17
Film: The Lost Boys · Year: 1987 · Director: Joel Schumacher

### Description

In a shocking twist, Michael, Horror Padawan Chris has disappeared! It may be that he’s moving house, or is that just a cover story concocted by his captors, Adam and Lee? But never fear, another horror novice has stepped up to the plate; former guest Claire watches “The Lost Boys” for the very first time, Michael. A film in which eyeliner = evil, a diet of worms is encouraged to keep that youthful undead pallor, and people say “Michael” a lot. Michael. Along the we discuss “Mom and Dad”, “AHS” (Apocalypse and 1984), Mind Hunter” and “It 2”, Michael. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us, Michael.

---

## 057 Dead of Night

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/057-dead-of-night/
Air date: 15 September 2019
Duration: 01:04:14
Film: Dead of Night · Year: 1945 · Director: Robert Hamer

### Description

The team sit down in front of a stone-cold classic- Ealing Studios only horror film;1945’s “Dead of Night” A film in which cigarettes are handed out like sweets, a teenage Truly Scrumptious is far too enthusiastic about being slapped by a middle-aged man and zee zychiatrist zpeaks viz zee cohrrecht akzent! Along the way they discuss “Houdini & Doyle”, “In Fabric”, “The Dead Don’t Die”, “The Banana Splits Movie” and the worst-named aftershave in history.

---

## Bonus The Boys

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-the-boys/
Air date: 31 August 2019
Duration: 00:22:40

### Description

Yes you lucky buggers! It’s a Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode! It’s not actually horror, but Lee and Lady Jennifer have just completed the first series of “The Boys”, adapted from the comic by Garth “Preacher” Ennis, and want to tell you all about it! Normal WTH service will be resumed shortly, but we couldn’t just leave you with nothing to stick in your ears this week, enjoy.

---

## 056 Hell House LLC

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/056-hell-house-llc/
Air date: 18 August 2019
Duration: 01:06:58
Film: Hell House LLC · Year: 2016 · Director: Stephen Cognetti

### Description

The team are re-united and raring to go on their first listener request episode: “Hell House LLC”. A film in which we learn that hiding under the covers categorically does not help, a clown that can’t turn it’s neck is probably just playing possum and that no matter how big and burly a guy you hire, he’ll still run when Sunn O))) turn up. Along the way they discuss “Nightmare Cinema”, “Hereditary”, “Stranger Things” series 3 and “House II”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Re-animator

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/re-animator/
Air date: 4 August 2019
Duration: 00:59:57
Film: Re-Animator · Year: 1985 · Director: Stuart Gordon

### Description

Heads up! Lee’s still in Canada, so Lady Jennifer, Chris and Adam sit down to watch Stuart Gordon’s first HP Lovecraft adaptation “Re-Animator”. A film in which we see a clear breach of flatmate/fridge etiquette, Arnie’s stunt double goes on a naked rampage and we agree that keeping a lock of someone’s hair is only romantic if they actually know you’ve got it. Along the way they discuss “The Quiet Room”, “iZombie” and “The House That Jack Built” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Bonus Dont hug me I'm Scared

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-dont-hug-me-im-scared/
Air date: 28 July 2019
Duration: 00:32:50

### Description

Bonus Episode! You lucky, lucky people. Whilst Lee is out of the country, Lady Jennifer, Chris and Adam discuss spoof children’s show/unbridled nightmare fuel: “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared”. All six episodes (so far) are available to watch on YouTUBE, and we recommend that you’ve watched them before listening in. Warning: all songs in the series are catchy ear-worms that may destroy your mind.

---

## Event Horizon

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/event-horizon/
Air date: 21 July 2019
Duration: 01:36:35
Film: Event Horizon · Year: 1997 · Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

### Description

The team are reunited to view Chris’s belated birthday choice; 90s cult science fiction/horror “Event Horizon”. A film in which eyes are not required, smoking in the workplace has been reinstated by 2047, and the salacious past of the UK’s (soon-to-be-former) Prime Minister is revealed. Along the way they discuss “Chernobyl”, “The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot”, “Hellier” and “Bros: After The Screaming Stops”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Troll 2

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/troll-2/
Air date: 7 July 2019
Duration: 00:47:22
Film: Troll 2 · Year: 1990 · Director: Claudio Fragasso

### Description

There are some film sequels that stand as classics in their own right, that may even eclipse the film(s) that precede them, to be set apart as true achievements of great cinema; “The Bride of Frankenstein”, “The Empire Strikes Back”, “The Godfather Part II”... Lee and Chris are about to experience one such masterpiece, as they settle down to watch 1990’s “Troll 2”. A film in which both tiny nuts and erotic popcorn are on the menu. Along the way we discuss “What We Do In The Shadows”, Lee’s “Pyewacket” synchronicity and “Iron Sky 2”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 052 Its my party and I'll die if I want to

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/052-its-my-party-and-ill-die-if-i-want-to/
Air date: 23 June 2019
Duration: 02:07:52

### Description

This episode the gang sit down to watch the 2007 debut feature from Scotchworthy Productions: “It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To”; a film in which the usual problem of not being able to get in the bathroom at a party is gorily explained, kick-ass kung fu ladies just happen to have Elvira costumes to hand, and we’re all hot for Uncle Tom Savini. In an exciting first for Welcome To Horror, we also have an interview! Lee chats with producer/writer/director Tony Wash about this and his other movies, something we’re very proud to bring you. Along the way we discuss “Burnt Offerings”, “Trilogy of Terror”, “Kolchak” and the TV series of “Critters”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Bonus Night of the living Dead

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-night-of-the-living-dead/
Air date: 16 June 2019
Duration: 00:16:30
Film: Night of the Living Dead · Year: 1968 · Director: George A. Romero

### Description

Bonus Episode! That’s right you lucky people. Lee and Lady Jennifer discuss the fantastic new stage adaptation of George A Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead”, following its run at the Pleasance Theatre. • This Welcome To Horror Bonus Episode is available now on iTunes Store/Podcast App, Soundcloud (link in bio) and at welcometohorror.com

---

## 051 Fright Night Remake

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/051-fright-night-remake/
Air date: 9 June 2019
Duration: 01:28:47
Film: Fright Night · Year: 2011 · Director: Craig Gillespie

### Description

After last episode’s celebrations, we’re back to our normal scheduled programming; this time we’re watching the 2011 remake of “Fright Night”, a film in which macho vampires hit on your mum, the 10th Doctor gets all sweary and McLovin is rapidly running out of limbs. Along the way we discuss “Game of Thrones”, “The Mist” and the TV version of “What We Do In The Shadows”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 050 Fang for all the memories

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/050-fang-for-all-the-memories/
Air date: 26 May 2019
Duration: 01:18:47

### Description

Welcome To Horror Episode 50: “Fangs For The Memories” is available now on Soundcloud, Apple Podcast App/iTunes Store, and at welcometohorror.com 2 Years. 50 Episodes. 71 Films. 8 guests. It’s our 50th episode, so we’re taking a quick look back over the past 2 years of the Podcast. Nothing to watch this time (although we make no promises on spoilers) so join us as we look back, and look forward to episodes to come. Thanks to everyone who’s joined us for the past 50 episodes, both contributors and listeners - you make the whole thing worthwhile, and without you, it’s three men bickering in a small room.

---

## 049 Fright Night

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/049-fright-night/
Air date: 12 May 2019
Duration: 01:00:29
Film: Fright Night · Year: 1985 · Director: Tom Holland

### Description

We’re joined by long-time listener, first-time guest Chris Jones! And this time we’re watching 1985’s “Fright Night”. A film in which indiscreet vampires eat a lot of fruit, a future porn star turns into a wolf and Roddy McDowall is the fucking man! Along the way, we discuss the career of the late lamented Larry Cohen, “Mega Time Squad” and “Love Death + Robots”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 048 Cabin In The Woods

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/048-cabin-in-the-woods/
Air date: 28 April 2019
Duration: 01:17:35
Film: The Cabin in the Woods · Year: 2012 · Director: Drew Goddard

### Description

Welcome To Horror Episode 48 “The Cabin In The Woods” is available now on Soundcloud, Apple Podcast App/iTunes Store, and at welcometohorror.com This week, the team are joined by Dani to watch 2011’s brilliant “The Cabin In The Woods”. A film in which we learn how to spot a husband’s bulge, ponder the apocalypse with stoners and every dumb horror movie trope suddenly has an explanation. Along the way, we discuss “Game of Thrones”, “Hannibal”, “Hey Duggee”, “American Psycho”, “Antfarm Dickhole”, the works of Darren Aronofsky and answer another #askwelcometohorror Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 047 Friday 13th Remake

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/047-friday-13th-remake/
Air date: 14 April 2019
Duration: 01:08:33
Film: Friday the 13th · Year: 2009 · Director: Marcus Nispel

### Description

Lee and Chris are joined by Drew, to watch the 2009 remake of “Friday The 13th”. A film in which Jason controversially takes a hostage (as opposed to Manhattan) and a speed wank seems like a good idea when someone’s just left the room. Along the way we discuss Jordan Peele, Mandy, Army of Darkness and celebrate our 2 year anniversary. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 046 The Evil Dead

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/046-the-evil-dead/
Air date: 31 March 2019
Duration: 01:17:30
Film: The Evil Dead · Year: 1981 · Director: Sam Raimi

### Description

If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise, as you’ll find the WTH team sat there watching Sam Raimi’s classic “The Evil Dead”. A film which teaches you how to perform some Derren Brown style card counting, the worst place to keep a pencil, and the benefits of having secateurs on you at all times. Along the way we pay homage to the man, the myth and the chin that is the mighty Mr Bruce Campbell and discuss Netflix original “Love, Death + Robots”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 045 Leprechaun

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/045-leprechaun/
Air date: 17 March 2019
Duration: 01:00:04
Film: Leprechaun · Year: 1993 · Director: Mark Jones

### Description

The team celebrates St Patrick’s Day by watching 1993’s absurd “Leprechaun”, in which a devious child-genius takes advantage of the mentally challenged, Warwick Davis has more vehicles than Batman and Jennifer Aniston learns to not accept collect calls from anyone called “Andy”. Along the way we discuss “True Detective”, “Hellier”, “Tentacles”, “In The Night Garden” and Adam’s gastroscopy.

---

## 044 Dr Phibes

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/044-dr-phibes/
Air date: 4 March 2019
Duration: 01:37:59
Film: The Abominable Dr. Phibes · Year: 1971 · Director: Robert Fuest

### Description

This week, we’re joined by Westley Smith, musician, artist and creator of our logo, to watch one of Vincent Price’s finest hours - The Abominable Dr. Phibes! A film in which we see Vincent Price talk though the back of his neck, the cutest killer bats ever, and Terry-Thomas pulls his handle off whilst watching a blue movie. Along the way we discuss “Wild At Heart”, “Horror Express” and “Overlord”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, join us, and find out.

---

## 043 Kill List

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/043-kill-list/
Air date: 17 February 2019
Duration: 01:13:06
Film: Kill List · Year: 2011 · Director: Ben Wheatley

### Description

It’s Adam’s Birthday choice, and he’s picked feel-good family favourite “Kill List”. (This is a joke! Seriously, don’t watch this with gran and the kids). A disturbing film from the brilliant Ben Wheatley in which we discover interesting uses for a hammer, observe the best way to deal with guitars at the dinner table, and The Shark Song has an entirely different meaning. Along the way we discuss “Split”, “Master’s of Horror”, “Mother” and morn the passing of Dick Miller. Will Chris enjoy Kill List? Will Lee make it to the end without anti-depressants? Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, join us, and find out.

---

## 042 Horror On Sea

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/042-horror-on-sea/
Air date: 4 February 2019
Duration: 00:32:04

### Description

The team return to Southend’s Horror-On-Sea festival for the second year in a row! Having enjoyed the selection last year, we again picked a day (Saturday 19th January), and bring you reviews of some of the excellent fare we stuck into our eyeballs. We review the features Mr Crispin, Hell’s Kitty and Cute Little Buggers, and the shorts Halloween Girls, The Ratman of Southend, Apostles, Backslash and Baby Monitor. Join us live from the pub, and from the comfort of our new recording space.

---

## 041 Bandersnatch

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/041-bandersnatch/
Air date: 20 January 2019
Duration: 01:35:36
Film: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch · Year: 2018 · Director: David Slade

### Description

The team are joined once more by Claire as they watch/play Netflix Interactive “Black Mirror” episode “Bandersnatch”. Will you choose the right path? Have you got the 3 letter code? And have you spotted all the lions yet? The team take a deep dive into the Black Mirror shared universe, enjoy a tasty snack and along the way discuss our favourite films of 2018, a proposed 10-step guide to horror for Claire and “Bros: When The Screaming Stops”. Watch/play (or re-watch/replay) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 040 Night Of The Demons

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/040-night-of-the-demons/
Air date: 6 January 2019
Duration: 01:15:06
Film: Night of the Demons · Year: 1988 · Director: Kevin S. Tenney

### Description

Happy New Year listeners! The team are back and they’ve brought a friend - Dr Dean joins us again! And what a film to kick us off for 2019: 1988’s “Night of the Demons”, in which Amelia Kinkade flashes her pants, Hal Havens flashes his arse, Linnea Quigley flashes, well, everything (again), and we have handy hints on where to keep your makeup in a dress with no pockets. Along the way we discuss “A Christmas Carol”, “Horrors of Malformed Men”, Mark Gatiss’ “Dead Room”, MR James on the radio and “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” (although more about that next episode...). Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us

---

## Xmas Bonus 5 A Warning To The Curious

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/xmas-bonus-5-a-warning-to-the-curious/
Air date: 20 December 2018
Duration: 00:15:01
Film: A Warning to the Curious · Year: 1972 · Director: Lawrence Gordon Clark

### Description

And now for the second of our two “A Ghost Story for Christmas” Bonus Episodes! We stay in 1972 for Lawrence Gordon Clark’s adaptation of MR James’ “A Warning To The Curious”. A bleak, haunting tale, where Chris’s dad takes a holiday, random farm workers adopt threatening positions and “there’s no diggin’ ere!” Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Xmas Bonus 4 The Stone Tape

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/xmas-bonus-4-the-stone-tape/
Air date: 18 December 2018
Duration: 00:26:44
Film: The Stone Tape · Year: 1972 · Director: Peter Sasdy

### Description

Yes! You lucky people, here’s the first of two Christmas Bonus Episodes! These are once again plucked from the BBCs on/off traditional TV “A Ghost Story for Christmas” strand. We first turn our heat sensors onto Nigel Kneale’s 1972 entry “The Stone Tape”, in which Jane Asher is menaced by lorries, lights and pretty much everything else, Ol’ Jackie just laughs and laughs, and one man manages to personify the 70s in all their tawdry glory. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us

---

## 039 An American Werewolf In London

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/039-an-american-werewolf-in-london/
Air date: 16 December 2018
Duration: 01:29:46
Film: An American Werewolf in London · Year: 1981 · Director: John Landis

### Description

The team stick to the road and head to East Proctor for horror/comedy classic “An American Werewolf in London”, in which there is naked balloon theft, a lot of services you definitely don’t get on the NHS anymore and John Landis insists on filming his erection metaphors under very bright lights. Along the way to The Slaughtered Lamb, we discuss “Stan Against Evil”, “American Horror Story Apocalypse”, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and Night of the Demons documentary “You’re Invited”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 038 12km

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/038-12km/
Air date: 2 December 2018
Duration: 00:44:04
Film: 12 Kilometers · Year: 2016

### Description

A rather special Welcome to Horror this week. Lee reached out to director Mike Pecci, and he’s given us the chance to watch and review his atmospheric short film “12KM”. Totally brand new to all the team, we offer our thoughts on this weird and creepy chiller. Along the way we discuss Matthew Holness’ debut “Possum”, “Under The Shadow”, “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”, “An American Haunting” and the art of the jump scare. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. Seriously, check this splendid film out, enjoy, then listen in.

---

## 037 The Bride  Of #askwelcometohorror

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/037-the-bride-of-askwelcometohorror/
Air date: 18 November 2018
Duration: 01:35:24

### Description

It’s the sequel nobody expected: Episode 37 “The Bride of # Ask Welcome To Horror” Lee, Chris and Adam answer your questions to varying degrees of seriousness, ridiculousness and mental competence in our second #askwelcometohorror episode. Yet again, we’ve had some excellent questions from loyal listeners SJ Thomas, Pinball Bobby of Not For Everyone Podcast and former guest Claire Dellow. No prep necessary for this ep, just jump straight in, enjoy and let us know your thoughts on the topics discussed at Facebook, Soundcloud and our website. If you want to #askwelcometohorror yourself - post your question(s) on Instagram, Facebook or Soundcloud using the hashtag - and we’ll be answering them in a future episode.

---

## 036 The Worst Witch & Bottom Terror

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/036-the-worst-witch-bottom-terror/
Air date: 31 October 2018
Duration: 01:01:50

### Description

A special little double bill for Halloween: First up we watch Lee and Lady Jennifer’s childhood favourite; the 1986 TV Movie of “The Worst Witch” - the show that introduced a young Lee to Halloween, kicking off his love of the macabre. In a complete volte-face, our second watch of the night is “Terror”, the Halloween episode of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson’s sitcom “Bottom” - probably the best way to explain to our US cousins how a UK Halloween felt in the 80s and 90s. Along the way we discuss our childhood Halloweens, as well as Mandy, Killing Eve, The Haunting of Hill House” and American Horror Story: Apocalypse. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. Have a fantastic Halloween and don’t forget to #askwelcometohorror

---

## 035 Rocky Horror Picture Show

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/035-rocky-horror-picture-show/
Air date: 14 October 2018
Duration: 01:26:58
Film: The Rocky Horror Picture Show · Year: 1975 · Director: Jim Sharman

### Description

We kick off October with a party at the ol’ Frankenstein Place, where we learn the benefits of keeping a decent spare tyre, take a jump to the left with Christopher Biggins and have Meatloaf for dinner. Along the way Adam and Lady Jennifer swap near death experiences, and we discuss “Electric Dreams”, Netflix original series “Maniac” and “Tales of the Unexpected” (inspired by Adam and Lee listening to brilliant podcast “The Oblong Babysitter” - check it out immediately. Well, immediately after you’ve listened to us). Watch (or, most probably, re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. And don’t forget to #askwelcometohorror

---

## 034 A Dark Song

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/034-a-dark-song/
Air date: 30 September 2018
Duration: 01:10:23
Film: A Dark Song · Year: 2016 · Director: Liam Gavin

### Description

After finally tackling a 1950s film, we race back to the twenty first century for 2016’s hidden gem “A Dark Song”. A magnificent film in which we learn the right consistency for drinking fresh blood and the hazards of not putting away after washing up. Along the way we discuss “Kohraa”, “Westworld”, “Yakuza Apocalypse”, “Skeletons In The Closet”, “Hereditary”, “Aaaaaaaah!” and Adam overshares about his stool sample. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. Seriously, this film is so worth checking out, make the time, enjoy, then listen in.

---

## 033 House On Haunted Hill

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/033-house-on-haunted-hill/
Air date: 16 September 2018
Duration: 01:07:31
Film: House on Haunted Hill · Year: 1959 · Director: William Castle

### Description

And we return to our regular scheduled broadcast. It’s a long overdue trip to the 1950s for William Castle’s “House On Haunted Hill”, where Vincent Price hands out handguns as party favours, a visiting doctor hands out tranquillisers like Smarties and the servants skateboard around the basement in the dark. We also look at the career of William Castle, King of Schlock and marketing genius. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. #welcometohorror #welcometohorrorpodcast #horror #horrorpodcast #horrormovies #horrorfilms #kurtarmy #williamcastle #vincentprice #carolohmart #elishacook #carolyncraig #alanmarshal #juliemitchum #richardlong #leonaanderson #howardhoffman #emergo #askwelcometohorror

---

## 032 You'll Know What We Did Last Summer

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/032-youll-know-what-we-did-last-summer/
Air date: 2 September 2018
Duration: 01:17:00

### Description

And we’re back. A quick catch-up this episode, just to get us all back into the swing of things. Lee, Chris and Adam discuss their activities during the summer break, including childbirth and meeting Pinball Bobby from Not For Everyone Podcast, which is still being touted as “The Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History”. Also the team rate/recommend plenty of eye-fillers for you to enjoy, and are inaugurated into The Kurt Army. Normal activities will resume in our next episode; where we’ll be watching William Castle’s “House on Haunted Hill” (1959). No prep necessary for this ep, just jump straight in. Enjoy. And don’t forget to #askwelcometohorror

---

## 031 #askwelcometohorror

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/031-askwelcometohorror/
Air date: 15 July 2018
Duration: 01:48:53

### Description

Bit of a change up for Episode 31 - we’ve had some brilliant questions for our #askwelcometohorror campaign recently, so much so that we’ve decided to devote a whole show to discussing and answering them! Lee, Chris and Adam are joined by long-time listener, first-time guest Adam Laws, whose question prompted this long form approach in the first place. We also have questions from loyal listeners Dario Bentley, Pinball Bobby of “Not For Everyone” Podcast and Sarah T; thanks for you excellent contributions folks. Let us know your thoughts on the topics and questions discussed at Facebook, Soundcloud and our website. If you want to #askwelcometohorror yourself - post your question(s) on Instagram, Facebook or Soundcloud using the hashtag - and we’ll be answering them in future episodes. No prep necessary for this ep, just jump straight in. Enjoy.

---

## 030 The Thing

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/030-the-thing/
Air date: 1 July 2018
Duration: 01:03:21
Film: The Thing · Year: 1982 · Director: John Carpenter

### Description

In attempt to combat the heatwave, we’re taking a trip to Antartica for John Carpenter’s The Thing, in which Kurt Russell plies his computer with drink, Jed the dog gives an Oscar-worthy performance and the mysterious underwear vandal is yet to be caught! Along the way we discuss Death Cafes, the audio adaptation of Clive Barker’s “The Hellbound Heart”, Lee and Chris open their birthday presents and a mysterious card arrives... Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 029 Dr Terror's House Of Horrors

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/029-dr-terrors-house-of-horrors/
Air date: 18 June 2018
Duration: 01:37:40

### Description

A couple of firsts for Chris; the first Amicus and (unbelievably) the first time Peter Cushing has appeared on the WTH screen! We take a trip to Dr Terror’s House of Horrors where Neil McCallum encounters a hairy heiress; James Bond’s boss and Fluff Freeman fight a killer plant; Roy Castle and Kenny Lynch chase the Voodoo down; Michael Gough makes a monkey out of Christopher Lee and Donald Sutherland allows an armed maniac to sit in a sleeping child’s room. Along the way we discuss Cobra Kai, Netflix’ Monkey remake, Belgian thriller Tabula Rasa and the CGI afterlife of Grand Moff Tarkin. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 028 Munster Go Home

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/028-munster-go-home/
Air date: 27 May 2018
Duration: 01:28:35
Film: Munster, Go Home! · Year: 1966 · Director: Earl Bellamy

### Description

Staying in Horror/Comedy territory, the gang head down to Shroudshire, where a four-time Dracula is slumming it as a butler at Munster Hall, the local barmaid knows a surprising amount about motor racing and unsuspecting visitors may be bashed on the cranium with something jagged. Along the way #askwelcometohorror prompts recommendations of horror literature, and we discuss AHS, Winchester and the all round God-like genius of Terry-Thomas. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 027 Carry On Screaming

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/027-carry-on-screaming/
Air date: 13 May 2018
Duration: 01:16:04
Film: Carry On Screaming! · Year: 1966 · Director: Gerald Thomas

### Description

Frying Tonight! The team get out their double entendres and take a trip to the Bide-A-Wee Rest Home, where a electricity-filled Kenneth Williams is up to something in the basement, the local police have employed two Time Lords and foul feet smell something horrible. The team also watch rather splendid horror comedy short “The Furred Man” from Evil Hypnotist Productions, as well as discussing “Ready Player One”, “A Dark Song” and “You Were Never Really Here”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 026 Pan's Labyrinth

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/026-pans-labyrinth/
Air date: 29 April 2018
Duration: 01:28:50
Film: Pan's Labyrinth · Year: 2007 · Director: Guillermo del Toro

### Description

The team (plus new co-host Alexa) polish off their English to Spanish phrase book and take a wander around “Pan’s Labyrinth”, where a small girl turns a frog inside out, some fairies meet a grisly end, and Guillermo del Toro makes us wish a man dead. Along the way they answer more #askwelcometohorror questions and discuss “Santa Clarita Diet”, “Blade Runner 2049”, “Tank 432”, “Annihilation” and the magic of Penn & Teller. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 025 Prevenge

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/025-prevenge/
Air date: 15 April 2018
Duration: 01:11:47
Film: Prevenge · Year: 2016 · Director: Alice Lowe

### Description

The team are joined by deeply pregnant woman Claire to watch Alice Lowe’s comedy slasher “Prevenge”, in which we see actual documentary footage of midwifery in the wild, and are given tips on both rock climbing safety and how to fit an 8 months pregnant woman through a dog flap. Along the way we forget which film we’re watching next episode, discuss horrific medical Instagram accounts, Mind Hunter and why Justice League is a load of old crap. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us

---

## 024 Deathline

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/024-deathline/
Air date: 1 April 2018
Duration: 01:26:11
Film: Death Line · Year: 1972 · Director: Gary Sherman

### Description

It’s Adam’s (somewhat belated) Birthday choice; and he’s picked 1972’s “Death Line” (renamed “Raw Meat” in the US of A). Set on the London Underground, this grimy shocker features Hyacinth Bucket’s husband contemplating cannibalism on the Piccadilly Line, Christopher Lee’s moustache making a bristly cameo, and Donald Pleasence demanding tea! A lot. Along the way we also discuss Altered Carbon, Lords of Salem, Inside No.9, The Prestige, and X-Men movies Vs. The Marvel Cinematic Universe. MIND THE DOORS! Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 023 In The Mouth Of Madness

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/023-in-the-mouth-of-madness/
Air date: 18 March 2018
Duration: 01:05:02
Film: In the Mouth of Madness · Year: 1994 · Director: John Carpenter

### Description

As requested by Bobby from the fantastic Not For Everyone Podcast; the gang sit down to watch “In The Mouth of Madness” from the maestro: Mr John Carpenter. A film in which Jürgen Prochnow cosplays as Neil Gaiman, the Police unveil interesting new community support strategies and Sam Neil wakes up screaming on the bus home (we’ve all been there). Along the way the discussion takes in our new #askwelcometohorror campaign, Lady Jennifer’s shoes, Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy, “2001: A Space Odyssey” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Splash”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 022 Bride Of Frankenstien

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/022-bride-of-frankenstien/
Air date: 4 March 2018
Duration: 01:11:49
Film: Bride of Frankenstein · Year: 1935 · Director: James Whale

### Description

Love is in the air for monsters, and the team are joined for this episode by special guest Lady Jennifer (The Bride of Lee’n’stein). We dial back the clock to another true classic of Universal Horror, and cinema in general: “The Bride of Frankenstein”, in which Ernest Thesiger grows his own, Karloff shares a blunt with a blind man, and Una O’Connor gets the fear. A lot. Along the way, Lady Jennifer roasts chestnuts on an open fire, Lee unboxes our Welcome To Horror T-Shirts, and Adam is swallowed by a sofa. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. [For anyone wondering - the outro music for this episode is the Bride herself, Elsa Lanchester singing “Fiji Fanny”, from her delightful album “Elsa Lanchester Sings Bawdy Cockney Songs”]

---

## 021 The Ritual

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/021-the-ritual/
Air date: 18 February 2018
Duration: 01:08:34
Film: The Ritual · Year: 2017 · Director: David Bruckner

### Description

In a change to our scheduled film, the Welcome To Horror team are joined by special guests (and genuine actual women) Ladies Jennifer and Sharon to watch Netflix original “The Ritual”. This adaptation of Adam Nevill’s novel, which seems destined to become a modern classic, has several important life lessons, including just hand over your jewellery, and absolutely never, ever, ever go camping. Along the way we discuss Rocky Horror, Altered Carbon, the British sense of humour and endurance double bills. Watch (or treat yourself and re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 020 Funny Man

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/020-funny-man/
Air date: 4 February 2018
Duration: 01:19:21
Film: Funny Man · Year: 1994 · Director: Simon Sprackling

### Description

Back by unpopular demand, the team are joined once more by special guest Dr Dean of the mighty Pit Ponies! This episode, they watch Simon Sprackling’s 1994 British Horror “Funny Man”; in which Christopher Lee advertises for Persil, and a sort of Northern Jester version of Freddy Krueger kills, amongst others, Velma from Scooby-Doo. The gang discuss the pros and cons of trying to make a low budget horror film in Britain in the 90s, the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes TV adaption (again!), Dean’s gaming habits, Netflix original “The Good Place”, and plan their own Psychedelic Wig Evening. Sorted. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-facts-in-the-case-of-m-valdemar/
Air date: 28 January 2018
Duration: 00:25:12

### Description

The third and final Poe-Cast Bonus Episode we bring you is “The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar”. The last segment from Episode 19’s “Tales of Terror” - adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories starring the great Vincent Price. Performed by SLUD (aka WTH’s Adam) with specially composed soundscapes, we hope you enjoy these little bonus additions. Normal service will resume next Sunday with Episode 20: “Funny Man”...

---

## The Cask of Amontillado

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-cask-of-amontillado/
Air date: 27 January 2018
Duration: 00:14:08

### Description

As promised on Episode 19 “Tales of Terror”; we’re bringing you 3 Bonus Episodes of the original Edgar Allan Poe stories that were adapted for the Roger Corman classic. These are the tales that inspired so many amazing films (and a few crap ones too), we hope you enjoy hearing the originals. Performed by SLUD (aka Adam) with specially composed soundscapes. Episode 1 is available now, Episode 3 coming tomorrow...

---

## The Black Cat

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/the-black-cat/
Air date: 26 January 2018
Duration: 00:23:29

### Description

We hope you enjoyed Episode 19 “Tales of Terror” - as promised; we’re bringing you 3 Bonus Episodes of the original Edgar Allan Poe Stories that were adapted for the film. Performed by SLUD (aka our very own Adam) we hope these will chill, entertain and give a greater insight into “Tales of Terror” itself. Keep your eyes peeled over the weekend for the next two.

---

## Horror - On - Sea

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/horror-on-sea/
Air date: 23 January 2018
Duration: 00:41:36

### Description

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside! The Welcome To Horror Team brave potential hypothermia by taking the Horrormobile to Southend in January, and attend Day 2 of the Horror-On-Sea Film Festival! Apologies re-sound quality as we recorded Gonzo-Style between films! Such a great day, an excellent mixture of shorts and features, all reviewed in this bonus episode. If you like what you hear, remember to check out the Horror-On-Sea facebook page, they have a full programme this coming weekend (26,27 & 28th of Jan 2018) - why not check it out yourself, we had a blast and caught some truly great stuff you probably won’t find at your local cinema. Features reviewed: “Egomaniac”, “Holy Terrors”, “The Snarling” and “Witches Brew”. Shorts reviewed: “Alex”, “Chihuahua Man”, “Devil Town”, “The Flytipper”, “Happy Valentines”, “Life of the Party” and “Weird World of Molly Brown”

---

## 019 Tales Of Terror

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/019-tales-of-terror/
Air date: 21 January 2018
Duration: 02:07:43
Film: Tales of Terror · Year: 1962 · Director: Roger Corman

### Description

It’s a full hit of classic Horror on this bumper episode of Welcome To Horror. With his eyes clamped open à la A Clockwork Orange, Chris is exposed to a series of firsts: His first Poe adaptation, his first film directed by Roger Corman, and his first with icons Basil Rathbone, Peter Lorre and Vincent Price. With 3 stories in one film, will this be all too much for him? Listen in and find out. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 018 IT

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/018-it/
Air date: 7 January 2018
Duration: 01:04:56
Film: It · Year: 2017 · Director: Andy Muschietti

### Description

Happy New Year to all our listeners! We kick off 2018 with a look at Chapter 1 of Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s “It”. The gang take the Horrormobile to Derry, Maine, famous for it’s random balloons and hungry storm drains. We float down to the Barrens and discuss quite how shitty childhood can be in a small town. Along the way they mention the recent revival of The League of Gentlemen, the true horror of Olaf’s FROZEN Adventure and that notorious bit from the book they (thankfully) left out. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Xmas Bonus 3 View From The Hill

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/xmas-bonus-3-view-from-the-hill/
Air date: 24 December 2017
Duration: 00:48:23

### Description

In the final of our Christmas Bonus Episodes, we turn to the BBC’s 2005 adaptation of M.R. James’ “A View From A Hill”. As well as the film, the convoluted conversation mentions nuclear thriller “Threads”, while Lee tells us in no uncertain terms why he doesn’t watch Torture Porn. Full disclosure: the gang are pretty wasted at this point, they’ve been drinking since noon; a heady mixture including Port, Craft Beers and Lee’s homemade “Krampus” cider, so this may be a little “relaxed”. But it is Christmas Eve, so why not grab a drink or three, watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, join us for the podcast and have yourselves a very Merry Christmas.

---

## Xmas Bonus 2 Whistle And Ill Come To You

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/xmas-bonus-2-whistle-and-ill-come-to-you/
Air date: 22 December 2017
Duration: 00:29:41
Film: Whistle and I'll Come to You · Year: 1968

### Description

Welcome To Horror Christmas Bonus Episode 2 “Whistle And I’ll Come To You” is available now on the Podcast App/iTunes Store, Soundcloud and at welcometohorror.com It’s the second of our Bonus Christmas Episodes, and we take the Horrormobile to the coast for some light archeology/grave robbing in Jonathan Miller’s 1968 adaption of M.R. James’ “Whistle And I’ll Come To You”. The booze is flowing, and Chris’s memory of Whitley Strieber is severely affected. Fortunately he can remember Paddington Bear, and Adam and Lee get to declare their undying love of M.R. James. Grab a drink, watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## Xmas Bonus 1 Crooked House

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/xmas-bonus-1-crooked-house/
Air date: 17 December 2017
Duration: 00:57:03
Film: Crooked House · Year: 2017 · Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner

### Description

In the first of our Christmas Bonus Episodes, the gang take the Horrormobile to Geap Manor for an anthology from the mind of Mr Mark Gatiss, 2008’s BBC Ghost Story for Christmas “Crooked House”. The gang discuss Gatiss’ career, from “Doctor Who” to “Sherlock” by way of “The League of Gentleman” and “A History of Horror” with an almost sickening level of obsession. The drinks are flowing already on this episode, so grab a glass, watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 0017 Rare Exports

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/0017-rare-exports/
Air date: 10 December 2017
Duration: 01:05:12
Film: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale · Year: 2010 · Director: Jalmari Helander

### Description

It’s the 2nd in our season of 5 Christmas Episodes, and this time we’re watching Jalmari Helander’s “Rare Exports”. Having opened their traditional Halloween crackers, the gang take the Horrormobile over to Finland’s Korvatunturi mountains for their first foreign language film. Staying in Krampus territory, the guys ponder the finer points of explosion radiuses and just how much old man cock is too much old man cock, particularly for a Christmas film? Along the way they report on what great horror films are available in your local pound shop and give their traditional Christmas viewing lists. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 016 Krampus

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/016-krampus/
Air date: 3 December 2017
Duration: 01:09:15
Film: Krampus · Year: 2015 · Director: Michael Dougherty

### Description

Well we have spoken to the big man in the suit and he tells us you have all been such good boys and girls that we have a Christmas treat for you all, we are putting an episode up every Sunday in December and an additional bonus episode during the week running up to Christmas so we will be keep you company more frequently over the festive period! We kick off our season of Christmas Episodes, with Michael Dougherty’s 2015 Christmas Creature Feature “Krampus”. Excited, the gang have come down early in their pyjamas to unwrap the dark mythology behind this festive follow up to “Trick R Treat”. They applaud someone keeping a fire lit whilst under siege, and meet Spoon Licker, Sausage Swiper, Doorway Sniffer and Sheep Harasser. Along the way, Lee reviews the “Limehouse Golem” and Adam reveals that North Korean propaganda videos are far more terrifying when accompanied by the entrance music of certain early 90s WWF wrestlers. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 015 Thankskilling

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/015-thankskilling/
Air date: 23 November 2017
Duration: 01:17:00
Film: ThanksKilling · Year: 2008 · Director: Q60833431

### Description

In honour of the Thanksgiving celebrations, the gang take the Horrormobile to the little town of Crawberg and experience their lowest budget so far! They settle down to dinner with a suspiciously short and feathery man with a moustache and glasses, and discuss the true comic insanity of “ThanksKilling”, without doubt the finest Killer Turkey/revenge/slasher film that we have ever seen! Around the dinner table, the conversation is lively, as Chris admits to his brush with the law, and the facts of Lee’s Stag Night emerge. Watch or re-watch to avoid spoilers and join us. GOBBLE GOBBLE MOTHERFUCKERS!

---

## 014 Critters

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/014-critters/
Air date: 12 November 2017
Duration: 01:35:03
Film: Critters · Year: 1986 · Director: Stephen Herek

### Description

To combat accusations of nepotism when Chris’ sister/Lee’s wife; Lady Jennifer, was our special guest last episode, this time we’re joined by Lee’s brother; Dr Dean - Pit Pony and founder of the Lin Shay Appreciation Society. The Horrormobile takes the gang to 1986, in the small American town of Bender’s Grove. They had hoped to get their original pressing 7” single of “Power of the Night” signed by angular pop hunk Johnny Steele, but instead have become overwhelmed by cute furry psychopaths with sharp teeth and bad attitudes. Fortunately, Dr Dean knows a thing or two about cats... Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 013 Ghostwatch

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/013-ghostwatch/
Air date: 29 October 2017
Duration: 01:09:13
Film: Ghostwatch · Year: 1992 · Director: Lesley Manning

### Description

Lee, Chris and Adam are joined by special guest Lady Jennifer as they conclude their 3 episode Halloween season for October. The gang sit down and relive that Halloween Night 25 years ago, when the BBC decided to scare the absolute living shit out of viewers across the UK. They mourn the passing of Mike Smith, address accusations of on-air farting, and definitely don’t laugh about the phrase “Glory Hole”. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us

---

## 012 Halloween III

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/012-halloween-iii/
Air date: 15 October 2017
Duration: 01:10:43
Film: Halloween III: Season of the Witch · Year: 1982 · Director: Tommy Lee Wallace

### Description

Join Lee, Chris and Adam as they continue their 3 episode Halloween season for October. The boys take the Horrormobile back to 1982 for that October Night when Michael Myers decided to stay in for a change. As well as hailing the incomparable Dick Warlock and questioning the significance of a handkerchief in Tom Atkins’ pocket, the boys discuss Charlie’s Angels and Twin Peaks (old and new). Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us for the Horrorthon. Hope you enjoy. And don’t forget to wear your masks..

---

## 011 Trick R Treat

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/011-trick-r-treat/
Air date: 1 October 2017
Duration: 01:14:38
Film: Trick 'r Treat · Year: 2007 · Director: Michael Dougherty

### Description

Join Lee, Chris and Adam as they kick off their 3 episode Halloween season for October. We start with Michael Dougherty’s brilliant portmanteau film “Trick R Treat”, we actually recorded this episode 2 years ago, but the studio have kept it on the shelf for no discernible reason. Will Adam’s obsession with Brian Cox become embarrassing? Will Adam and Lee mention seeing this at FrightFest 2009, or meeting John Landis afterwards? Of course they will (they’re incorrigible name droppers). Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. Hope you enjoy

---

## 010 The Witch

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/010-the-witch/
Air date: 17 September 2017
Duration: 00:57:52
Film: The Witch · Year: 2015 · Director: Robert Eggers

### Description

Join Lee, Chris and Adam as they take the Horrormobile back to New England 1630, to experience Robert Eggers' incredible "The Witch". Marvel as the guys go skyclad (Don’t worry folks this is audio only).Will they get Ergot poisoning? Will they mistakenly suckle a raven? Will they live deliciously? Watch (re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. Hope you enjoy.

---

## 009 Silent Hill

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/009-silent-hill/
Air date: 3 September 2017
Duration: 01:05:33
Film: Silent Hill · Year: 2006 · Director: Christophe Gans

### Description

Join Lee, Chris and Adam as the Horrormobile pulls up in the misty town of Silent Hill. Here, they discuss Survival Horror, the differences between the game and the film, the history of witch burnings and religion as the bad guy (but with funny bits too - honest) Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 008The Void

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/008the-void/
Air date: 20 August 2017
Duration: 01:09:52
Film: The Void · Year: 2016 · Director: Steven Kostanski

### Description

Join Lee, Chris and Adam as they visit Marsh County Hospital ER (still operating, even after the fire). Here, their discussion of this fantastic trans-dimensional, icky, weird siege movie somehow also encompasses recommended Disney films, and Whitley Strieber's bottom. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us.

---

## 007 House Of 1000 Corpses

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/007-house-of-1000-corpses/
Air date: 6 August 2017
Duration: 01:24:11
Film: House of 1000 Corpses · Year: 2003 · Director: Rob Zombie

### Description

Join Lee, Chris and Adam as they watch the debut film of musician/director Robert Zombie (we can't call him Rob as we've not been formally introduced). The discussion into this rollercoaster of death and mayhem somehow encompasses Roald Dahl and the mysterious circumstances of the death of Jennifer's hamster. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us. Hope you enjoy. Now, has anyone seen my Dr Zaius action figure..?

---

## 006 Big Trouble In Little China

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/006-big-trouble-in-little-china/
Air date: 23 July 2017
Duration: 01:10:25
Film: Big Trouble in Little China · Year: 1986 · Director: John Carpenter

### Description

It's Chris and Lee's birthdays, so Lee's picked John Carpenter's 1986 action/fantasy/horror/martial arts classic as the perfect viewing between pass-the-parcel and blowing out the candles. Join the birthday boys and Adam as they learn how many Hells the Chinese have and try to guess the contents of 6 Demon bag. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us for the discussion. Hope you enjoy.

---

## Bonus 002 Castlevania

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-002-castlevania/
Air date: 15 July 2017
Duration: 00:26:47

### Description

Bonus Episode! Yes, you lucky people. Here's a quick little ep between our usual schedule, where Lee, Chris and Adam discuss series 1 of Netflix' new animated Castlevania, some exciting news about Master of Horror Mr John Carpenter, and the recent study that says watching horror films can help you loose weight!

---

## 005 Legend Of Hell House

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/005-legend-of-hell-house/
Air date: 7 July 2017
Duration: 01:03:48
Film: The Legend of Hell House · Year: 1973 · Director: John Hough

### Description

Join Lee, Chris and Adam as they pay a visit to Belasco House, where Roddy McDowall body-shames a Poltergeist, and Pamela Franklin wrestles the world's hardest cat. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers, and join us for the discussion. Hope you enjoy. Apologies for the sound quality on this episode too, its perfectly listenable but its a little more muffled than usual, we have resolved the issue now

---

## 004 Devil Rides Out

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/004-devil-rides-out/
Air date: 25 June 2017
Duration: 01:21:47
Film: The Devil Rides Out · Year: 1968 · Director: Terence Fisher

### Description

This week join Lee, Chris and Adam as they dive into some vintage Hammer - Where Christopher Lee is menaced by a smiling man in a red nappy and we discover that on-road windscreen repair is best done with a fist! Please come and share your thoughts with us below, on our facebook group or via email at info@welcometohorror.co.uk

---

## 003 Prince Of Darkness

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/003-prince-of-darkness/
Air date: 11 June 2017
Duration: 00:54:57
Film: Prince of Darkness · Year: 1987 · Director: John Carpenter

### Description

Join Lee, Chris and Adam as they watch John Carpenter's underrated 1987 masterpiece Prince of Darkness, in which troubled Priest Donald Pleasence discovers the world's oldest Lava Lamp and Alice Cooper finds a novel use for a broken bicycle. Watch or re-watch to avoid spoilers, and join us for the discussion. Hope you enjoy Please come and share your thoughts with us below, on our facebook group or via email at info@welcometohorror.co.uk

---

## Bonus 001 Horror

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/bonus-001-horror/
Air date: 2 June 2017
Duration: 00:18:03

### Description

This is a bonus episode this week as the gentlemen of horror went to London's glittering westend to take in a horror show and wanted to share their thoughts

---

## 002 Wolfman Redux

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/002-wolfman-redux/
Air date: 27 May 2017
Duration: 01:26:00
Film: The Wolf Man · Year: 1941 · Director: George Waggner

### Description

Episode 2 - This week the guys get in the way-way back machine to check out 1941's universal picture “The wolfman” and see how it holds up to first time viewing from their horror noob Chris while Lee and Adam geek out over the golden age of horror cinema.

---

## 001 Woman In Black

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/001-woman-in-black/
Air date: 14 May 2017
Duration: 00:50:37
Film: The Woman in Black · Year: 2012 · Director: James Watkins

### Description

Episode 1 - This week Adam, Chris and Lee begin Chris's journey into Horror with the 2012 Hammer remake of the classic story "Woman in Black"

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## Welcome To Horror (Theme)

URL: https://welcometohorror.com/episodes/welcome-to-horror-theme/
Air date: 2 April 2017
Duration: 00:00:22

### Description

Welcome To Horror (Theme) by Welcome to Horror

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