American Gothic

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

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Loyal Patron Gary suggested this old chestnut, selected by our Patrons as our first request of 2024! Somewhat reminiscent of the classic painting with which it shares its title, American Gothic is chock-full of excellent actors acting excellently, even though the movie itself is rather silly. We enjoyed talking about it. Thanks, Gary, for the request!

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Automatic Transcript

American Gothic (1988)

Episode 379, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, we said we would wrap this month up with a request from a listener. This is 1987’s American Gothic, chosen by our patrons. It was a request from one of our patrons, Gary. So thank you, Gary, for this request. I was really happy to see it come up because I remember passing by this cover all the time on the shelves of the video store, being a little intrigued by it because it’s, it’s a takeoff on the actual American Gothic painting.

Where, you know, there’s a guy and a woman. Standing in front of an old house with a pitchfork and all that stuff. And but it’s a horror version and I’ve always been interested in seeing it had never picked it up And so I was really delighted to take this time to actually have an excuse to watch it How about you craig?

Did you ever seen it before?

Craig: Yeah, I’m sure I have. I, I don’t, I didn’t have, like, specific memories of it, but when I started watching it again, I, I, I’ve seen this. To be fair, I think that we’ve had several requests

Todd: for this movie. We probably have. The, Gary’s the one that I wrote down. Gotcha. Sorry, Gary.

It’s been a while. But

Craig: yeah, I, I think that I had mentioned to you In the, in, you know, the cut stuff, that I had recently re watched it. It was streaming for free somewhere, and I recently re watched it, and I was like, That movie is weird. We really should talk about it at some point, because it’s, and, So, you know, uh, for our patrons, we, we give them our unedited conversations.

So they get to hear those before and after things, and, and I guess Gary picked up on it, Was like, yeah, do it. So we put it in the poll, and, uh, here we are. And, yeah, I had seen it before, and, Fairly recently, I think I had seen it before that, and I watched it again a few hours ago. It’s something.

Todd: It sure is something.

Like I said, it’s a 1988. Or, uh, 87, depending on who you believe, either Wikipedia or, um, IMDb. I certainly wasn’t old enough to remember exactly. Directed by John Howe. Now, John Howe has a really interesting background. He’s directed a whole lot of stuff, just a range, I should say. He did horror, hammer things back in the 70s.

He was doing Disney stuff, like the Witch Mountain movies, which I remember loving as a kid. And we even did Watcher in the Woods, which he directed as well. And then, there’s quite a few stars in here, uh, and that’s one thing I can say really good about the movie, is some of the acting is quite good for the material that they were given.

I agree. We’ve got one of your favorites in here, Yvonne DiCarlo, Lily Munster. Yeah, I don’t

Craig: know if I would say she’s a favorite, but I really like her. I liked that show when I was that, that and the Addams horror related, especiall so easily attainable beca in reruns all the time. Y I thought she was very be in this movie, she’s stil really looks, she looks l Got beautiful eyes and beautiful bone structure and I think she does well in this movie.

It’s weird. Yes. Okay, so there’s one There are several

Todd: she was also mrs. Briggs in cellar dweller.

Craig: Yeah, I do I remember because we looked her up. We’re like wait, that’s Lily Munster

Todd: Well, you say there’s several like probably the most famous is Rod Steiger Who plays Pa, uh, to the Ma here, and he’s been acting since the fifties.

We’re talking, he was Judd Frye in the movie version of Oklahoma on the waterfront with Marlon Brando, right opposite Sidney Poitier in, in the heat of the night. And then in our, on our podcast, uh, Father Delaney and Amityville Horror. If you’re a fan of Mars Attacks, uh, that was out in the nineties, he was General Decker in there.

He, this guy’s great actor. He’s got a wide range. And I think, actually, he’s fantastic in this movie. He’s really good! He’s amazing. He elevates the material. I don’t think the material can be elevated too far, but he somehow manages to give it, I think, some of its most poignant scenes. And for a movie that otherwise would arise There’s almost no emotions in me.

With a couple exceptions. This guy’s scenes, holy crap, I actually for a moment, it felt real and I had a bit of sympathy for his character. And God bless you man, huge applause and hats off to you for pulling that off with this kind of writing. That’s

Craig: what makes this movie work. And it’s not just him. This script is wacky.

And these actors approached it with all earnestness. They went for it. It comes across as over the top because the characters are written over the top, but they just go for it, and they take it seriously, and they do it well. Yeah. And it doesn’t really surprise me that this director did something like Watcher in the Woods and Escape from Witch Mountain, because I would argue that this movie is almost like fantasy.

As well. Yeah. This, they, the, the characters, the dumb characters, the fodder for the slaughter, they encounter this world, isn’t a real world. Like these, this is, this is a fantasy place. Like it almost feels like a dark fairy tale and, and the characters that they encounter in any real world scenario would seem absolutely bonkers.

And they are, but you believe that that’s just really how they are. They live in their own little world, and they’re weird, and that’s just it, and, and they, the actors commit. Rod Steiger, I recognized his name, I recognized him from everywhere. The guy that I recognized, or was most excited to see, uh, was Michael J.

Pollard. He’s been in tons of stuff, but I remember him from Scrooged. He was the sweet, homeless man who was kind of crazy. Kind of plays a similar character to what he’s playing here. And, uh, he ends up freezing to death, and it’s, it’s a very sad moment of the movie. But he’s been in a bazillion things. Uh, he’s been in, he’s done horror, he’s done lots of television, he’s done everything.

He was in House of a Thousand Corpses, I looked at, I mean, literally, a huge, huge, list of films and television that he’s been in and you’ll recognize him because he’s very unique and he has a unique voice and I, and I thought he did a great job. And then the girl, I don’t have her name written down. Who played Fanny?

Janet Wright. Janet Wright. Again, a character actress that I have seen in a million times. But, if you asked me, I don’t think I could name a single one. Like, I don’t know, she’s just that lady. I’ve seen her in a million things. She’s got a really distinctive look. She has a recognizable face. Uh huh. And, and I think she’s great in this movie.

Did you look up

Todd: Teddy? No. William Hootkins. Again, a guy who I was like, I don’t know if I’ve seen him or not. No, you have seen him. He is Red Six in Star Wars. Oh. He is Major Eaton in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He is Eckhart in the Tim Burton Batman movie. Okay. Red Six, you know, he’s, I think you only really see him in the TIE Fighter during the major sequence at the end of the movie.

But, um, it’s weird, he’s like one of those bit characters in Star Wars that nevertheless, like You’re going down, you know, like everybody knows like that bit, that sequence of the movie, it’s so iconic and he’s in it. Actually, I think he was a fantastic actor too, in this film. A bunch of great actors in an, and it’s funny that you said the script is wacky and bonkers.

It is wacky and bonkers. It is nowhere near as wacky and bonkers as a lot of the stuff that we do. And I think what makes it so wacky and bonkers is that there’s such star power here and it’s filmed as a, you know, kind of a big budgety mainstreamy movie that it almost seems out of place amongst the fare we normally do.

If this were a Wes Craven picture or some low budget kind of seedier movie, we wouldn’t even think anything of it. We were like, yeah, this is just as bonkers as all those movies are, you know? Right. Because

Craig: it’s a totally classic, I mean, it’s a classic setup. It’s classic, really. The only, really the only thing that it doesn’t follow as far as formula is concerned, is there is no opening kill.

I, I guess there’s an opening death, which, okay, so it opens up with this woman, her name is Cynthia, and she’s in a mental institution, but she’s getting discharged, and the psychiatrist is talking to her husband, and I think the psychiatrist is like, I feel like she shouldn’t be around people or something, and he’s like, oh, that’s okay, we’re just going on vacation with a bunch of people.

Okay. But we see, I don’t remember if it’s now, yeah. I

Todd: don’t want to interrupt you, but the psychiatrist also, I mean, he’s a very recognizable face in a lot of movies. Did you? No, I didn’t recognize him. We did The Changeling, he was Sergeant Durbin in that, um, but in the IT miniseries back then, uh, in the 80s, Officer Neil.

Um, he was General West in Watchmen, and in the new Sonic movie I mean, the guy’s still acting. He’s in the new Sonic movie. He’s Father Zimmer. So, uh, I don’t know, I thought he looks He’s a nice looking guy.

Craig: No, I mean, he’s in it so briefly, I didn’t even notice.

Todd: Oh, it’s just a walk on role. Yeah, he’s one scene and

Craig: done.

We find out the reason that she’s been institutionalized is because they had a baby and she was giving the baby a bath and she got distracted by a phone call and something burning in the kitchen and when she came back the baby had drowned. And that’s terrible. It’s heartbreaking. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s absolutely terrible.

It would be enough to break a person, I think. But, supposedly she’s better and she and her husband and four of their friends, two guys, two girls, Take a puddle jumper. I don’t, like, they’re gonna, they’re gonna go to a, they have, they have a, apparently one of them has a plane and a seaplane or whatever.

Yeah, right? Yeah, the husband. So, when I say it’s a classic setup, okay, so it’s these, you know, city folk, um, going on a trip out into the wilderness. In this case, it’s an island, and instead of their car breaking down, their plane breaks down, and they have to land at this island. And then they get mixed up with the locals and chaos ensues, and they start getting picked off one by one, and it’s so formulaic in that way, that then it becomes jarring how different it is.

Because these characters, these characters aren’t like, the hills have eyes. They’re not gritty. They are dowdy, middle aged people who are a family. But the way that they’re introduced, and then ultimately who their characters are, is just so bizarre. It feels surreal, like it feels like you’re in a dream, like what is

Todd: happening?

Like they’re stuck in time. And, and you know, it’s really funny that you mentioned earlier, you know, I mean it’s not funny, it’s very apropos that you mentioned earlier, that this feels like a fairy tale, you know, it feels like they’re going to another world. This whole scene when they’re on the dock and they’re getting ready to go off, that called me back to April Fool’s Day.

Yep. Instead of on the dock getting ready to go on a boat to the island, they’re on the dock getting on a plane. And then, you know, they fly that plane over with the credits and the music, that is just like The Wicker Man. Uh huh. Which has a similar thematic thing, the city guy going into another world, really, where everything’s kind of different and follows their own rules and people there seem stuck in time and all that.

So it even calls back to these movies very directly, I think, uh, so it, you know, your assertion is very supported by I think very definite filmmaking choices here. And that’s how it feels. Like, they go to this island and like you said, instead of their car breaking down, the plane breaks down. They can’t get anywhere, so they need to look for help.

Uh, and so it is a classic horror movie setup. But like you said, unlike Wrong Turn or one of these other hillbilly like movies where everybody’s just crazy and monstrous and horrible, these people at least have Some kind of humanity, albeit an effed up, Well, Misguided sort of humanity. They’re

Craig: odd. So, so they, what’s his name?

Jeff or whatever. I don’t know what their names are. It doesn’t matter. Uh, the husband tries to fix the plane, but it’s not working. They stay the night, and they’re all coupled off. There are three couples. And then the next morning, they get up. Go look for help cuz Jeff’s like it’s it’s messed up like I can’t fix it We need to find out and so they go off and I totally missed the part where they left one guy behind Yeah, I was so confused in like 20 minutes.

I’m like, where did that other guy go?

Todd: Like he just one line. It was like Paul you stay behind and Yeah,

Craig: he just, he just disappeared and then they never talked about him again until the very, well, they never talked about him again until the, the very end when they find him dead. Now, I, I have a suspicion because I read that that guy was supposed to be the lead of the movie.

The movie was supposed to follow him, but when he came in to shoot, he had like gotten beaten up in real life and his face was all messed up. So they real quick rewrote it to make. Cynthia, the, the main character. So I’m guessing they just couldn’t use him. Like they had to use whatever shots they had and then they just killed him off.

And you didn’t even see his face when it was his body. He’s facedown in a boat later when they

Todd: find him. Yeah. Somebody else entirely actually is in that scene. Yeah,

Craig: so anyway, whatever. I was really confused because I was like, where is he? All of a sudden one person’s gone But they find a house. Didn’t

Todd: that raise some questions for you, too?

I’m like if he rewrote the script to suddenly center around Cynthia, there were some major rewrites going. Oh, yeah Yeah, Cynthia is so much a part of this story and her backstory and everything with the baby dying and the way the movie ends like I can’t even imagine it was certainly not just Oh, slip a woman in this role instead.

Right?

Craig: No, it had to have been some serious rewrites. I don’t I don’t know. Who knows? Maybe that whole thing with Cynthia because it’s kind of a Yeah. A bookend, maybe it was something different entirely, who knows. That’s probably true. But they find, uh, this house, and they go in, they knock, but then nobody answers.

So they go in, and there’s nobody there. But it’s clear that somebody

Todd: lives there! I know, this is so typical in these movies, right? People just help themselves into other people’s homes out in the middle of nowhere. Well this

Craig: is Frickin Goldilocks and the three bears like don’t just go somebody obviously lives there Don’t just go in and start messing around in their house Like it’s different if it’s like evil dead where it’s clearly, you know an abandoned cabin Yeah, like nobody’s living there.

That’s that’s an entirely different story. But this place is tidy. It’s clean um, they open up a closet and there are like They’re old fashioned, but like, brand new clothes, and like, this wardrobe. Everything is like, pristinely cl clean, like there’s an old Victrola, um, and they pull out the They pull out the records, and they start playing one, and of course it’s like, you know, 1920s music, and they’re all dancing around like flappers, putting on these people’s clothes.

What are you doing? One for you, one for me. And now we’re cooking. Oh no, this is weird. What do you

Todd: think? Huh? Alright! I had to laugh at this. Because isn’t it true that every 80s slasher movie that involves teenagers at some house or whatever, they always have to party by turning on the stereo and dancing awkwardly in front of it?

This was like, this felt like a parody of that scene. How many movies have we watched where this happened? But it was never like a Victrola and they’re dancing around and like mimicking Al Jolson. Yeah, and

Craig: it’s, uh, god, they, uh, Cynthia wanders around, makes herself at home, and like, finds a bedroom. It’s got all kinds of baby stuff, and of course she’s got all this baby trauma, so she’s drawn to that or whatever.

And then they’re just sitting there dancing, and one of them like looks over their shoulder, and this Older man and woman both kind of portly a little bit are standing there and I don’t remember what they say The kids are like I say kids. I think they’re supposed to be in their 30s. Yeah, Jeff says like, oh, we’re so sorry If there’s any damage we’ll pay for anything and he apologizes profusely and the ma’s the mom is kind of like oh, no I don’t know.

She’s she’s hospitable and welcoming and the dad paw They only go by Ma and Pa. Oh God, which hits really close to home. I live in rural Missouri, you guys.

Todd: You get this.

Craig: This is not

Todd: uncommon to me. It’s not even too far off from reality for sure.

Craig: No, but They tell them that they can stay and Pa’s like, Oh yeah, I gotta, I don’t have anything because we don’t have electricity, we don’t have gasoline, we don’t have a radio, we don’t believe in all that stuff.

Well

Todd: Pa’s really standoffish as compared to Ma. It’s these very sort of traditional roles where he’s the protector of the family, he’s the skeptical one. He’s the head. The head of the household. She is the, from the beginning of time up through the 1950s style housewife, right? Stay at home, be hospitable, be kind to strangers, you know.

Craig: Well, but, and, and they’re very conservatively dressed, like she’s in a very conservative dress that like covers her arms and is, is, you know, ankle length and she has her hair up in a bun and he’s like in coveralls and a hat and They look

Todd: like they’re out of time, just like the house.

Craig: They do look like they’re out of time and it’s reminiscent of the painting, the, the Movie is named after even though I thought that that painting was of a man and his wife forever.

It’s not that’s his daughter Did you know that? No,

Todd: I didn’t know that

Craig: it is

Todd: Because the man does look like, you know, 150 years old

Craig: But it’s that similar kind of very rural very conservative look, you know comparable to like fundamentalists Uh, in, in the United States and the Amish kind of, or Mennonites, that kind of look.

And they have an awkward dinner where they have to pray beforehand and then Ma chastises Cynthia for not eating her food and is like, Young lady, I can’t abide the wasting of good food. Now let’s see you wipe the platter clean like your friends done. Don’t you want to be in the clean plate club?

They’re weird, they also kind of talk to these people as though they’re children, and then, I don’t know, the girls go off into some other room, or Cynthia goes off, yeah, Cynthia goes off into some other room, and this person peeks from around a Venetian screen, or something, a corner. She’s in the kids room.

She’s like, yeah, she’s like, hi. And she comes out and she introduces herself and she is dressed in like a pink baby doll outfit with white bobby socks and black patent leather shoes.

Todd: We’re talking actual baby doll. We’re not talking about like lingerie.

Craig: Right, right, right. And a ribbon in her hair. And she introduces herself, you know, they chat briefly and I think that Cynthia asked her how old she is, and she says, I have a birthday coming up, and I’m going to be 12.

This woman is 50 if she is a day.

Todd: Yeah. It’s bizarre. Like, I don’t, I mean, of course, it’s bizarre, and we just go with it. But I did wonder, how did this woman get Through all of this time, uh, do the, is it just always her 12th birthday as far as she’s concerned? I mean, it’s a whole other level. It’s one thing if you’re stunted in, in a, you know, childlike way.

You’re just kind of kept that way by your parents the whole time, even though you’re obviously 50. But it’s another thing to actually believe that you’re 12 years old and have been for so long.

Craig: But if you didn’t know anything else. And that’s why I mentioned that, that Ma and Pa talk to these other grown adults like they’re children.

Like they scold them like they’re children and tell them to clean their plates and stuff. God, I can’t believe I’m even putting this much thought into it, but if this, these two people, Ma and Pa, raised these children from infancy and never stopped treating them like children, wouldn’t that stunt their

Todd: development?

It would. I don’t think you’d still think you were 12 years old when, you know, 50 years went by, but But yeah, I mean, I think you would still act, I, presumably, yeah, you’d still act like a child, think like a child, maybe? Although Doesn’t everyone get rebellious in their teenage years and say, F this? I don’t know.

I don’t know. If you didn’t have Maybe you

Craig: need outside influence for that. That’s what I was going to say. If you have no outside influence, I’m not sure. But, what I want to say about this is that this woman clearly believes that she is a child and this actress commits to it so hard that it comes across as like real psychosis.

Yeah. It also, especially for her, but really for the others, because they reveal them slowly. But there are actually three children. Yeah. This, this woman, I felt bad for her. A lot of the time. Yeah. Because it really, like, she’s wicked and evil and does terrible things. But she also has an innocence about her.

And a naivete, like, she’s just kind of surprised, so easily surprised by things when people do something that is unexpected, she’s genuinely surprised and genuinely shocked and you can see it in her face and she’s very wide eyed and she, uh, she’s a big lady. She’s tall. She looks like a linebacker, but she has a soft face and beautiful eyes.

Yeah. And she comes across as very childlike, and it’s weird!

Todd: It is, and honestly, this is, again, one of those points where a poor actor in this scenario would make this way cheesier and dumber than it ends up coming across. It’s still, you know, it’s still ultimately silly, but you do have sympathy for her at a lot of different points in this movie, and that’s one thing I’ve got.

I think the movie’s got going for it as there are moments here where suddenly I did kind of snap into a, as bizarre and dumb and as this is, and even as how horrible as these people are, I did feel sympathy for the characters at different moments. There’s a point a little bit later, I don’t want to jump too far ahead, but there’s a point very shortly after this where Lin One of the gals and Cynthia are outside, uh, standing by a tree and talking and Linda just outright tells Cynthia She’s like this this girl.

Did you see her? She’s ugly and she’s dressed in a horrible dress and yada yada yada What they don’t know is that Fanny’s around the corner behind another tree Overhearing all this and she starts crying and I was like, oh god, that’s horrible for anyone to hear Yeah, no, let alone this poor

Craig: And Lin is a bitch, like, that’s her, that’s her only character trait, bitch, all the time.

But what she says is really horrible and very hurtful, especially if you have the mindset of a child. Like, she goes hard, like, calm down, you don’t even know these people. And she’s calling them freaks and like, how can you even bear to look at them? And she specifically says something about how hideous.

Fanny’s faces. Oh my god. The only thing I think that you skipped was Fanny kind of takes a shine to Jeff Ma and Pa make them all go to bed And they make the boys stay in one room and the girls stay in one room And when they get up in the morning Rob, who’s just one of the other guys The dude bro Goes for a walk first thing in the morning He comes across Fanny pushing What is clearly a man In an enormous swing Like enormous.

That thing had to be what? Fifteen, twenty foot tall. It’s a swing

Todd: you would build for your stunted children who are now the size of adults. It’s very sturdy. I guess.

Craig: It’s enormous. It’s like a trebuchet or something. It’s huge. And it swings out over a cliff, which is dangerous, but awesome. When I was a kid, my, my grandpa, my mom’s dad lived on a farm, and uh, he made me a rope swing with just like a plank seat.

Uh, that was on a tree that was on a hill like that. So when you would, you know, swing back, you were very close to the ground. But when you would swing out, you were way up high in the air, and it was really cool. And I loved it.

Todd: Probably would never do that today. Right?

Craig: Probably not. Especially like, I remember that rope was so old.

Like I can’t believe it never broke, but I loved it. And I loved my grandpa. He was such a cool guy. So Fanny’s like, Oh, hi Rob. Hi, Rob. Hi. Hiya, Fanny. Whatcha doin up so early, Rob? Nothin much. Just walkin around. Who’s your friend? He’s not my friend. He’s my brother. Name’s Woody. Like President Wilson. You wanna ride in our swing?

Do ya, Rob? Sure, why not? Oh boy! Rob’s gonna ride a swing! Rob’s gonna ride a swing! Rob’s gonna ride a swing! It’s so consistent, and they commit to it so hard. Like, the mask never drops. Yeah. Um, and that’s impressive. Character acting is not easy. People think, oh, they’re just being goofy, they’re just being silly.

No, being funny is hard. It’s way harder. Then playing things straight, playing things straight is easy. So to commit to this kind of character, and I’ve only ever had to do it once. And I got a lot of compliments for it. I probably would never be cast in that role again, because I played a mentally challenged person and that’s such a debate about representation and whatnot these days.

I probably wouldn’t get cast, but yeah, I tried. To be very truthful in my representation because I at the time was working with children with special needs. This was before I started teaching in high school. I was done with school, but I graduated mid year and so, you know, I was just subbing until the next year when I could get a full time position and I spent, I don’t know, months in a second grade special education classroom and I, you can’t help but observe those kids and, and they were such wonderful kids.

But they had quirks and things that were consistent and I tried to play on those and like I said, I got compliments at the time. I don’t know how it would be received today, but it’s not

Todd: easy. Was that a mice and men by

Craig: chance? No, it was a one act. Uh, I don’t even remember what it was called. It was just a two person, uh, one act.

It was two people. I played opposite my sister. We played a special needs brother and sister who were also in an incestuous relationship, and the sister was pregnant.

Todd: Oh, Jesus.

Craig: And the director wanted us to kiss, and we said, no. And the director went on to be my sister’s.

Todd: There are layers there to unpack, but anyway, let’s not.

Craig: Good times. Okay. So anyway, uh, Rob finds them swinging and Fanny’s like, Oh Rob, it’s so cool. This is my brother, Woody. And it’s the guy from Scrooge. I can’t remember his name. For the

Todd: longest moment, I thought she was pushing a corpse on that swing. It was a very, he was very still, it was such an odd choice to not.

Show his face and to have him just completely still with his head down from the back for so long and and unresponsive So bizarre and then he just hops off and like like it’s nothing I was like that was weird And he’s

Craig: very animated and he’s very childlike again. I assume this man is in his 40s or 50s Yeah, he has white hair, but he acts like a kid And he, he acts believably like a kid.

He’s got a very childlike nature about him. And they talk to him and they’re like, Do you wanna ride in our swing? And he’s like, uh, sure, I guess, whatever. And they’re like, Rob’s gonna ride in our swing! Rob’s gonna ride in our s It’s silly, goofy kid stuff all the time. But they commit, and it works. So they put him in the swing, they like, buckle him in, like with a bar.

And then they start pushing him, they start pushing him really high over this cliff. And he’s like, okay, I’m done, I wanna get off now. And they just keep pushing him, and she’s like, Rob, let’s get off. She’s taunting him at this point. And Woody crawls up the side of the swing. And with an axe cuts the rope.

Now, the film would lead you to believe that with one strike of that axe, he cut two ropes that were at least ten feet away from each other. Yeah, I know.

Todd: I didn’t want to quibble too much, but yeah, I was thinking exactly the same thing. I also like how he was climbing up a ladder that was purposely built for this.

Craig: And he pulls, there’s an axe up there just at the ready. Like, they obviously planned this. And Rob just launches off the cliff.

Todd: It’s kind of funny actually. What I thought

Craig: was interesting was that, then there’s another scene where Cynthia, like, makes nice with Fanny, and Fanny talks about having a baby. And, oh, that’s, that’s right after, like, Cynthia’s comforting her, because Lynn was such a bitch.

And they, like, play horseshoes for a second. And then, Fanny shows, she’s like, Do you want to see my baby? And Cynthia’s like, Sure. And Fanny pulls out a mummified Human

Todd: baby. Yeah, I kind of saw that

Craig: coming. I figured something messed up

Todd: like that. Yeah, and Cynthia’s triggered, this is Cynthia’s thing.

Cynthia is constantly triggered throughout this whole thing, right? We’re constantly getting flashbacks to her feeling of responsibility for the death of her son, which honestly is her fault. Uh, even though Jeff tries to reassure her it’s not. What can you do? You gotta move on and you gotta stop blaming yourself.

But at the end of the day, uh, she’s also the one who finds Rob dead on the rocks, moments after he launches off the cliff. I’m not sure how the physics of all this works, cause it seems like the house is way, way up on the hill. I guess they’re just doing a hell of a lot of exploring. Cause she ends up down Low, where Rob is on the rocks.

And this triggers her as well. It’s like, I guess it’s just death, it’s the potential of death, it’s drowning, it’s whatever. At one point, when I think they were camping, the girls had said they wanted to go The other girls had said they wanted to go scuba diving. Which, I think what they meant was snorkeling?

I think so. Yeah, but anyway, like, um, Terry, one of the blonde gals, Slips on a rock and falls in and Cynthia’s the only one right there who could save her and she’s just paralyzed She just stares and it’s unable to move because this is the flashbacks to her baby drowning And so right you get that a lot which did actually come off as a little cheesy I thought if anyone in this movie was just a little ugh, it was her character sadly enough Well, I

Craig: think that she’s supposed to be she’s playing Fragile like she’s incredibly fragile.

Todd: Yeah, she’s on the edge of looniness herself, really.

Craig: Uh huh And so I think that that’s what she’s trying to portray, and I don’t think that she does a bad job of it. I don’t think she does a great job of it. Uh, well,

Todd: I just mean, like, in a movie where I just complimented and said so much of this could come off as cornier than it ends up coming off, like, I think her bits come off the corniest.

That’s what I’m trying to say.

Craig: Right, like, you almost expect, they do a lot of close ups on her face, and you almost expect her to, like, tick. Like, for her eye to tick, like, I’m a little crazy.

Todd: Right.

Craig: And I did miss that part, um, cause that’s important, that she finds the body, and at first I was like, is she gonna think that she’s hallucinating this? Right. No! She tells everybody, and like, they’re sad? But they don’t really act like it’s that big a deal.

Todd: Like Maybe nobody liked Rob that much, except even Lynn.

Actually, Terry was Rob’s girlfriend, right? Uh, I

Craig: think so. Yeah, I think so.

Todd: Yeah, even she, just after, just like It’s just your typical horror movie shit where people are starting to die off and then by the next scene They don’t seem as emotionally traumatized as they should

Craig: be right And then uh, jeff it keeps asking the dad like is your friend really coming and like the dad’s being really evasive about it And there are like three scenes where this happens and jeff just gets progressively more angry But not much really comes of it.

Dad’s promised

Todd: that a friend’s coming on a boat, right? I don’t remember if we said that earlier, but Oh, so, anyway, Lynn is out walking, uh, and she comes across, we, we, oh, how did the third guy get revealed? Oh, Teddy shows up in the corpse

Craig: room. In the corpse room, right, like, Cynthia reacts in shock and horror and starts to back away, and Teddy grabs her from behind, and he’s a big hulking guy too, he’s the

Todd: biggest of all of them.

That was a surprise, I’m like, where are these people constantly coming

Craig: from? Well, they, well, they just keep popping out of the woodshed, and in fact, one of the characters says that at one point, I think Lynn’s like, Yeah. These freaks that just keep Popping out of the woodshed. I don’t want to see who’s going to pop out of the woodshed next.

And it’s true. They do. They just randomly pop up. This is the last one, but he’s very menacing. Cause he’s so big and he like grabs her, but Fanny likes Cynthia. Yeah.

Todd: She’s protective of her.

Craig: Right. And she, she says, I would never let Teddy hurt you. Blah, blah, blah. Um, and then Fanny catches Cynthia and Jeff kissing and gets super horny and.

Like her face is sweating. Yeah, and Teddy’s like, no, we can’t do that again. I got beat last time. And she’s like, I don’t want you. I don’t want Woody either. We’re to believe that that dead baby is her baby with one of her brothers. Correct? Yeah. Ugh, it’s so gross. And I’m glad they didn’t go there, because I thought they might.

There’s another place where they almost go somewhere, and they don’t. They leave it implied, and I was so glad. We’ll get there soon. I know, right? But then, Lynn, Lynn goes out on a walk in the woods, and she finds all three of them jumping this enormous jump rope, and They taught her, which is fair because she was a total bitch about them.

Oh, yeah. Hi, Miss Lynn! Whatcha doin Just walkin Oh, you haven’t met my brother Teddy. No, Cynthia told us all about him. I’ll see you guys later. Nay. What did she tell you about me? Now, Teddy, you behave. Yeah, well, I just don’t like nobody saying no bad things about me. Maybe she feels bad because a friend got killed.

Whenever I feel sad, I just jump rope and then I feel all better. Don’t I, Teddy? Yeah. Why don’t you

Todd: jump rope

Craig: with us? I don’t want to jump rope. I just want to be left alone. Oh, please jump rope with us, Miss Lynn. Pretty please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? And then they start messing with her and tangling her up in the rope.

And they don’t show it, but it’s obvious where this is going. Yeah.

Todd: We know we’re gonna find her later, because we don’t see her again for a while. Right. Back to Fanny getting all hot and bothered. I forgot.

Craig: Yeah, I’m jumping all over the place, sorry. I had to take That’s okay. I had to take my notes on my phone, and so they’re really, really short, and I’m getting lost in them.

That’s okay, Craig, we forgive you.

Todd: Fanny gets horny. Yep, Fanny gets horny, says she wants Jeff, not her brothers, and good for her. Uh, so, she runs around to the other side of the wall and surprises the two of them, and in a poorly staged scene, I think, where they just let Fanny do whatever the hell she wants, she starts caressing Jeff’s face while he just sits there.

And then, she grabs, uh, I guess it’s like a Oh, it’s like a doll with a knight. I thought it was a unicorn at first. I think it’s a knight riding a unicorn or something. No, it’s like he’s

Craig: got a long Like a

Todd: lance or something, yeah. Stabs him right through what initially looked like the mouth, but I think turns out to be the eye.

And instead of helping, Cynthia watches in horror and screams a bunch and then runs right out to get Ma. And this is when Ma turns. Ma, Fanny’s gone crazy. Wicked girl. You’re all wicked. Come from your wicked world. And as the good book says, the wicked shall be punished. And so, Cynthia freaks out and, again, runs off.

Jeff comes stumbling out and collapses there on the porch where Ma was doing her knitting. And Ma stands up and, in my favorite line of the movie, goes, That child never does finish a chore. Takes her two knitting needles and stabs him and finishes it off. I thought that was great. It was so corny. It was so fun.

It was funny. The movie’s been relatively light on the gore so far. I mean, like, gory things are happening, but it’s not like you see them close up and in great detail. It’s more like the aftermath, some blood on the eye or some blood here or there. So you don’t really, like, see the stabbing in detail in either one of these cases.

Craig: This movie takes its time with its world building and its character development. Yeah. Before they really get to any action at all. And it’s not boring. No, I didn’t find it boring at all. I was actually kind of captivated. Mm hmm. And then when it gets to the action, then the action comes fast. Like Yeah.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So, I don’t know. What happens next? Ma finishes Geoff off.

Todd: Yeah, Ma finishes Geoff off. Terry’s wandering through the woods. Uh, oh, she’s, she’s going back to the camp, I think. And she sees that the plane is gone, uh, and she can’t find Paul. And Cynthia’s running through the woods. By this point, Jeff, before he died, had told Terry, like, You need to go back to the camp.

Yeah. Because we need to get out of here because these people are weird. Just before he gets off. Cynthia’s running through the woods, uh, away from the terror. And, uh, sees Lynn hanging from the tree by the jump rope. Right. So now it’s just the two girls and maybe Paul. We don’t know yet where he is. And then the two boys show up on a Hill as the, as Terry and Cynthia are standing there and they’re dressed like they’re playing Cowboys and Indians in what could have been, you know, him shooting a real arrow at her.

It’s an arrow with a suction cup on it. And Paul.

Craig: Yeah. Like he’s dressed like in like a kid’s cowboy outfit or whatever. And he pulls out these six shooters, but they’re just cap guns. And at this point, like. It’s weird, because they’re still just playing around, but the ma has already said the wicked shall be punished, and the dad has yelled at them, Ain’t none of you gonna get off this island alive.

So they’re just messing with them. Mm hmm. They’re planning to kill them. Yeah. Like they are actually children. But when

Todd: Terry was back at the camp, um, as Jeff had instructed her to get the flare gun, she has the flare gun with her. And so she manages to grab Fanny, cause Fanny pops out, and she holds her up with it.

So they call Ma and Pa out of the house. They walk Fanny back to the house, they call Ma and Pa out, who are suddenly very concerned. What’s interesting is, they don’t have, or at least they don’t project at this moment, this confidence like, no matter what you do, we’re gonna get you. Pause very much like, okay, nevermind.

Like, don’t, please don’t hurt her. I feel this is a genuine

Craig: fear. I do too. And I was, I genuinely believed that they were afraid, and I was genuinely, I genuinely believed that Fannie was afraid. Yeah. And even though that, even though she’s murderous, like I, I felt bad, not bad for her, but I felt for her because she fault, she also has the mind of a child.

Yeah. Right. And, and a child would be terrified in that. Situa I would be terrified in this situation, but anyway, I mean initially it works like Terry who is not a good actress I would say she’s the weakest of them all. Yeah, she tries to put on her best tough girl here And she doesn’t do a terrible job.

She’s just not a very good actress

Todd: I could have sworn Terry was that blonde girl from Friday the 13th has been in a couple horror movies I really thought Yeah, you know who I’m talking about? She’s not.

Craig: Part two or three. I know. I looked her up. She had been in things that I recognized, but everything I looked at was just bit parts.

Todd: I remember her in The Game. She was, um, oh I can’t remember the name, Maggie, the woman who seems to be working for the company and kind of befriends him. She’s got a pretty big I’ve only seen that movie once. Oh God, I love that movie. I wish it was a horror movie. I would totally, we could totally do it.

I’ve seen it a million times. Yeah, she was great in that movie. She clearly grew up and got some skills, but in this movie, she’s still a little fresh.

Craig: Well, she convinces, I mean, she tries to play tough and she convinces Pa to take them to a boat. He says, I think there’s a boat on the other side of the island, but I don’t really know anything about it.

I don’t know if there’s gas or if the motor runs or whatever. And she’s like, I don’t care, take me. And they go. And she’s also pretty smart, because he takes them to the boat, and then she says to Pa, make them come out. He’s like, what do you mean? And she’s like, you know what I mean. And so Ma yells to the boys, who were laying in ambush, you know, waiting for them to come by.

They get to the boat, but when they get to the boat, They freak out because Paul is dead in

Todd: there. Yeah, he’s got an axe to the face. In freaking

Craig: out Fanny runs off. Fanny runs off and they kinda get separated. And I think that we are to believe, Is this the moment that Cynthia breaks? This is where, this is where it begins.

I think like she is like paralyzed with fear.

Todd: Yeah, I think this must be the moment where she breaks. Honestly, I feel like her break is quite sudden. I mean, you can, you can chalk it up to the fact that she was always a little on edge, but I kind of wanted to see a little more reason or explanation besides that.

I don’t know. I don’t know what I was expecting. I was just expecting something a little more sophisticated than what it ended up being. Sophisticated. What am I saying? Right. That’s just the word I’m using. This movie is far from sophisticated, but yeah, like it’s funny too, because they run off and like an idiot, Terry just shoots the flare gun at nothing.

So she’s. Like their gun is useless now. She runs off, Fanny says, Can we play our game now, Ma, like you promised? And she’s like, Of course you can, sweetie. Now you boys don’t be late for supper now. And they burn the body in the boat. They dump gasoline all over it, which you can see the body twitch. Like you can see him blink his eye when the water comes.

Every single, I think every single one of the corpses in this movie breathes at some point. Yeah, that’s funny. Then they burn the body in the boat. They toss the boat out. And for some reason it explodes because it’s a movie. Uh, and then. They end up at another cabin after they run off the, the two girls. I guess it’s a fake out, like we’re supposed to believe, oh, maybe there’s somebody else on the island and they’re gonna get help.

Yeah. But it just turns out to be the kids’ playhouse because they’ve propped up. Um, Jeff, I guess

Craig: there, no. Well, I, maybe it was Jeff. I thought it was Rob, but it doesn’t matter. One of the

Todd: guys. I don’t remember who it was. Anyway, they prop somebody else up in there, and they’re surprised, and so then they chase her more, and they chase after Terry.

Teddy the big guy gets Terry up on a rock, and he’s shaking her and throttling her, and I thought, oh god, is he gonna rape her? Then he snaps her neck, and it Almost seems like something he intended to do or didn’t intend to do. I’m not quite sure. I think it

Craig: was an accident. I think that he was trying to rape her and I think that just in the struggle He broke her neck and I think that he was disappointed by that But not enough to let it deter him.

Todd: No, definitely not! Cause Woody’s watching and he goes I’m gonna go tell mom and dad, I’m gonna go tell mom and dad and he runs off and Teddy, sure enough, uh, starts molesting her body. Starts taking her clothes off. If this were some of the other movies we’ve seen, this would have happened in gory detail.

Yes,

Craig: it would have been very gritty and very uncomfortable and I’m glad they didn’t go there. Now, it still is because she’s lifeless Beneath him and he opens all of her clothes. There’s no nudity. She’s wearing a bra the whole time, but the way that the camera is, he rips her panties off, but the way that the camera is angled, you can see that he does it, but you can’t see the lower half of her body.

And then thankfully it cuts away.

Todd: I would kind of argue that this might have, I don’t know what you got to understand where I’m coming from here. This would have been a better movie. I think if it had been grittier, if it had been more in that vein, and they had gone there. Not, look, I mean, I think most of our listeners have listened to this podcast enough to know that we are not gorehounds, we hate sexual violence, all that stuff.

We end up watching a lot of movies with that stuff in it, and, uh, you know, an exploitation movie is meant to Shock you and, and make a lot of money and be, and be shocking and gross and, and things like that. And we’ve certainly watched a lot of movies, The Hills Have Eyes, God, even The Hills Have Eyes, um, remake.

Yeah. That did go there and were shocking and, and that, I would argue, is what these movies are supposed to do. And this movie is like, what happens if you take what It ends up feeling a little bit like more like a bigger budget studio film with higher level actors in it that’s not willing to go there.

And therefore I think it’s just sort of more or less been forgotten, you know,

Craig: see. And I think that if it had gone more in that direction, it would have been forgotten entirely. I think that the only reason that we’re seeing it is because of how different it is. It’s, it’s, uh, I, I, I don’t. I don’t know.

Todd: I think you’re right.

If it had been more drive and fare, it would have just fallen right in the pile with the others.

Craig: That’s, that’s what I think. Now, of course, I could be wrong, because like you said, those other movies that we’ve seen, you didn’t mention this one, but like Last House on the Left. Like, if it had really pushed boundaries like that, maybe it would have been notorious for that reason.

Right. But, there were so many of those types of movies, and really only a few of them stand out. True. So I don’t know, I think this might have gotten lost, uh, in the shuffle, if it hadn’t been so strange. But anyway, when, when Teddy comes back, they’re all waiting for him on the porch, including Cynthia, and he begs not to be punished, he says, I didn’t mean to, or whatever, but Pa begins beating him.

A big stick, and chanting in the name of God, and all of the family starts chanting with them, and then Cynthia starts, Cynthia starts chanting with them, and smiles. And she has clearly lost her mind, and they dress her up like a baby doll, like Fanny, and she is now acting like an infant. Oh God. And, oh God, it’s cringy to watch, but, I mean, it just seems like she’s

Todd: Yeah, and I thought, okay, this is how they’re going to end the movie, but it kept going.

And I was kind of surprised. They have this meal sitting down at the table. She’s finally celebrating the Fanny’s 12th birthday, and they bring in a cake and they blow out the candles, and the family’s treating her just like one of their own, and she’s now acting like a child and all that, and she’s super happy, and everybody’s lovely, and I thought, okay, fade to black in credits.

And then when another scene came up, I’m like, wait a second, and I looked, and there’s like 15 minutes left. Uh huh. Uh huh. So, it did sort of subvert my expectations in that way. Yes. That’s good,

Craig: I guess. Well, I think it’s really interesting because they could, you’re right, they could have just ended there with her like blankly staring into space like Pearl at the end of Pearl.

It could have ended

Todd: there. Yeah, it’s very typical for a horror movie to have this sort of twist ending and then leave it, you know. And the bad guys

Craig: win. Mm hmm. But here They take, after the birthday party, they take her down in the cellar for a surprise. Now, they had kind of been shady about the cellar before anyway, and they get down there and they tell her to close her eyes, and when she opens them, all of her friends are hung up on hooks, I guess.

Yeah. And, and they all, you know, are mangled and look disgusting. That looked good. I don’t know if that was those actors or if those were Dummies? Oh yeah, for sure. I don’t know what it was, but whatever it was, it looked good. And they’re hung there amongst a myriad of other bodies, too, in various stages of decay.

Some of them clearly years and years and years old, and Fanny calls them her big dollies.

Todd: Her big dollies, yeah.

Craig: Oh God. And then they, they tell the story. She, well, several of them tell the story of where they got those other dollies. And one of them was somebody who just pestered them too much. And one of them was somebody who likes the fishing on their beach so much that they were going to tell a bunch of people and they couldn’t have that.

Oh, and those two, those two thought they could get away with doing whatever sinful thing they wanted on their beach. Well, we surprised them. So they’re just like, they’re these moralistic territorial. Ah, I don’t even know. Look,

Todd: protecting, I mean, paw says it earlier. You know, there’s like this odd flashback that I, I’m not sure if it was a flashback to an earlier time or if it was just a, a scene in the cabin that was happening in concurrence.

It almost felt like it was shoehorned in, like they needed some explanation where P’S just standing by the fire. And he says to ma, you know. I’m worried about what the outside world’s gonna do to our kids, and so we’re just gonna keep them here, and we’re gonna, you know, keep them away from the sinfulness of the rest of society.

Kind of unnecessary.

Craig: It was a weird conversation, because it kind of came out of nowhere. It did. Yeah, you’re already doing that. Like, you don’t need to explain that to us now. I didn’t even know who he was talking about. I didn’t know if he was talking about their own

Todd: children, or the I think so. Yeah, no, he was talking about their own kids.

I really feel like it was just shoehorned in there because they felt like we didn’t get it. And, and the other thing I think, I think this, this scene that you’re talking about, the big dollies, would have been much more effective if it had happened earlier, before people were all dying. It would have been more shocking and interesting, I think.

In the midst of we’re discovering more about just how murderous this family is by this time We already know and so it’s not I didn’t find it that interesting. I was like, oh, okay. Well that tracks, you know Check the boxes there. Why isn’t the movie over yet? Well,

Craig: I mean, I found it kind of interesting that they like fetishize their victims That’s kind of weird and they had to do it after cynthia’s break to show that she’s really broken and she’s not faking it Unless she’s doing a really good job because she’s not disturbed by her.

She’s amused friends She’s amused by it. She even says something like, How do you do? Nice to meet you. Or something and giggles. And she is all in on this. Like, I really think that she has flipped. Like, she has flipped her lid. And she is a part of this family now. And she’s happy about it. And they’re happy.

And the dad prays and thanks God at dinner. Bringing her into the family. Until, Fanny and Cynthia are playing in their room. And Cynthia holds up a dress and says, This dress would look good on your baby, and Fanny’s like, yeah, I guess, and Cynthia’s like, well, aren’t you gonna put it on, and Fanny’s like, sure, I’ll put it on, so she pulls out the corpse baby, but she also pulls out a big basin, and, uh, Cynthia’s like, what is that, and she’s like, she says it’s a bassinet, which doesn’t make any sense, it’s a basin, and then she mimes turning the water on, but Cynthia hears it, and we know that, because we hear it, and then, as the, as Fanny is starting to, put that corpse baby into this empty thing.

Todd: It’s like a playbath that she’s gonna give it a playbath. Right,

Craig: it’s a playbath. But Cynthia starts hallucinating her own baby and reliving that moment and freaks out and starts screaming at Fanny to Get me my baby! Put my baby down! And Fanny’s like, Isn’t that your baby? It’s my baby. And then they fight over it like a couple of children and tear it apart.

And it falls apart, at which point Fanny looks horrified, Cynthia picks up that basin, it’s a metal basin, and starts beating Fanny over the head with it, and it gets, repeatedly. This is gruesome. It’s gruesome, and, like I said before, Fanny Like seems childlike because she’s so shocked like she doesn’t even know how to respond.

She doesn’t fight back. She doesn’t understand what’s happening to her and it cuts away from them to Woody coming in the house and he walks into the room to find Fanny dead on the floor covered in blood and he’s just standing there and Cynthia pops out of the closet with that That sword statue, that knight statue with the sword, and says, Naughty Woody!

And stabs him in the Throat with it or something. I don’t I don’t think we I don’t think we see we see her thrust it at the camera And then later we see the body and I think it’s in his neck. This all happens so fast

Todd: She just goes on a murderous rampage It’s a little lazy. She

Craig: kills them all in the span of like three minutes.

Yeah

Todd: She runs out ma’s knitting again. She grabs her knitting needles and stabs her with them then Teddy, who somehow manages to get in the house without seeing any of this, steals a cookie from the cookie jar, and when he comes out, she hacks him up and then goes and steals a cookie herself. Yeah, that

Craig: was kind of funny.

They’re children.

Todd: They are. And then she kind of disappears, and Paw comes back from hunting, so he’s got his rifle with him, and he finds Ma and Teddy dead on the porch. And now we get a long scene with Paw, which I actually really liked.

Craig: I mean, he did a good job.

Todd: Because he did a good job. By now I was really ready for the movie to be over.

Me too. I thought this ending was really protracted and he comes in and he just goes through a breakdown, but very slowly. He walks around, he sees everybody. What’s her name?

Craig: Cynthia’s playing dead. She plays dead on the bed in the room that Fanny’s in. Oh, I didn’t

Todd: catch that. You’re right. I thought he was gonna shoot himself, but then he walks outside and he kneels down and he calls up to God.

Again, fantastic actor, really pulls this off. Sells it. For a moment, I actually did, like, you know, I kind of got into the mindset of this guy. Look, he’s psycho and he’s done awful things, but at least you see where he’s coming from. Yeah, he

Craig: has an ideology.

Todd: Yeah, but he’s sticking to it even though it’s warped, you know, right but he’s broken now and he turns to God and I want you To listen to

Craig: me Listen My family Is dead And we live by your teachers I Beat it into him I taught it to them.

And what have you done? You did away with them. But I have news for you. I renounced you, God! Ha ha ha ha ha! I renounced you! And I give my soul to Satan!

Todd: And right at that moment, um, Cynthia pops up and shoots him in the back. And

Craig: then she goes back into the room and sits on the bed next to the baby cradle and rocks it and hums a lullaby. And that’s the end! Oh my gosh, so who knows what’s gonna happen next. I guess she’s just gonna live out there by herself.

That’s great. Whatever. I, I agree with you that by the end, by the time that Paul got back and we had just seen this really fast sequence of murders, I was like, all right, okay, let’s wrap it up. And to be fair, they do pretty quickly. And I thought that that was a pretty poignant moment with the dad. Like, nothing could break his ideology except Losing his family like that.

He didn’t think that was fair and I can understand that. I can understand, you know, devoting your life To God, and then feeling like you really got f ed over. Yeah. And I, I could understand why he would turn in that moment. It’s very melodramatic and stupid. Yeah. But I get it, and I thought that the actor sold it really

Todd: well.

He did, he sold it really

Craig: well. Overall, the, um, acting of all the members of the family was so compelling that it carried the whole movie for me. Yeah. I, beyond that, it was pretty typical. The ending subverted my expectations, and I like that. I wouldn’t go so far to say as I love this movie, but I do think that it’s really interesting.

And especially for big fans of the genre, I would definitely recommend you check it out. It’s odd. It’s really kind of different than Even though there are some typical things, it’s different. It’s unique, in its own way. And I’m glad to have seen it. I don’t know, I probably won’t watch it again anytime soon, but who knows, 5 10 years from now I may.

Pop it back on just kind of for the oddity of it. You

Todd: remember back when we did Alien and we were talking about how it was written by, you know, Dan O’Bannon, who has done a lot of like cheesy exploitation movies and could have been directed by Roger Corman But was instead directed by Ridley Scott and just elevated to this masterpiece, right?

Uh huh. I feel like this movie is when that sort of happens, but the pieces don’t work. Ha ha ha ha ha! Like, it’s an exploitation film. It’s written poorly. But is

Craig: it? I don’t know that it is an

Todd: exploitation film. I don’t know if it’s written poorly. It’s just, it’s just silly. It’s a silly, typical exploitation concept.

I don’t think the writing’s that great. No. But somebody probably, in Ridley Scott’s hands, this probably, in Ridley Scott’s hands, with this cast, it could have been A masterpiece, perhaps. I don’t know. Maybe I’m saying too much, but

Craig: Well, I, yeah, I don’t know

Todd: either. Alien was innovative for a lot of other reasons.

This is a lot more typical. But it’s just the cast that elevates this movie, honestly. And the filmmaking’s pretty good, too. Like, the cinematography, it’s got some sleeping camera angles. It doesn’t look cheap. Um, except when it comes to the gore effects and The fact that the bodies are moving half the time, but it’s just ultimately at the end of the day It’s just silly and we’ve seen a lot of other stuff like it And it’s I think it’s an oddity because of that and for that reason I would recommend it Otherwise, you know if you’re just looking for thrills and excitement and an exploitation film There are things that actually take the same material But sort of go all the way with it with an unknown cast of people Mostly bad actors and that’s kind of how we have fun with these kind of movies typically right?

Yeah, that’s that’s maybe what you’re more in the mood for That’s what you’ll be disappointed if you watch this movie and you’re expecting something more like that, but definitely see it Yeah And yeah This could have been a tribute episode to like four or five different actors if they’re either weren’t already alive or had long died So Yeah, I’m glad I saw it.

Thank you so much, uh, Gary for recommending this and thank you patrons for pulling this out of our pile and putting it in front of us. It was a lot of fun to talk about. It was. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you’d like to join our patrons, just go to patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast and for the very low price of five bucks a month.

You can vote on what we’re going to do. Starting next week, in fact, we are going to be doing an entire month of Child’s Play movies, which was one of our patrons suggestions as well. So, if you’d like to shape the show and have access to a bunch of goodies, as well as the unedited versions of our podcast that, uh, Craig had alluded to earlier.

Just go on over there and join the family. It’s a lot of fun chatting with, uh, with each other back there. Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast, and you can find us all over. Just drop us a message, let us know what you thought of this episode, and the best thing you could do for us is leave us a review somewhere and share this episode with a friend that you know would enjoy it.

Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.