1
00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:06,120
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:15,320
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

3
00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:18,320
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And

4
00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:20,759
Speaker 3: on today's episode of Weird House Cinema, we are going

5
00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:23,439
Speaker 3: to be talking about the nineteen eighty six sci fi

6
00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:28,080
Speaker 3: creature feature Critters. I was going to say it's our

7
00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:32,279
Speaker 3: first example from the Gromlins subgenre, but it is not.

8
00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:36,120
Speaker 3: We've actually talked we did Grimlins two last year, that

9
00:00:36,159 --> 00:00:40,120
Speaker 3: we haven't done Grimlins one. And also I think you

10
00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:43,720
Speaker 3: covered a sort of Gromlin's adjacent movie while I was

11
00:00:43,760 --> 00:00:44,640
Speaker 3: out last year.

12
00:00:45,320 --> 00:00:47,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, my friend David Streepy came on the show and

13
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:52,200
Speaker 2: we talked about the Gate, which, as we'll discuss here,

14
00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:55,720
Speaker 2: is gromlin esque without being like a like a hard

15
00:00:55,840 --> 00:00:59,400
Speaker 2: Gromlin or direct Gromlin feature.

16
00:01:00,080 --> 00:01:01,680
Speaker 3: But if it's okay with you, I thought maybe we

17
00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:04,760
Speaker 3: should start this episode by laying out a sort of

18
00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:09,480
Speaker 3: filmographic timeline of the Gromlin subgenre, or what you might

19
00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:13,720
Speaker 3: also call like tiny monster movies or small creature features.

20
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:17,600
Speaker 3: These were very popular in American cinema in the nineteen eighties,

21
00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:20,360
Speaker 3: and maybe by kind of laying them out in order

22
00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:23,440
Speaker 3: we can help get at what these films mean.

23
00:01:24,319 --> 00:01:28,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because Gromlins are always fascinating, like trying to

24
00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:31,600
Speaker 2: figure out like how they work, why they work, you

25
00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:36,920
Speaker 2: know why Grimlins spawned so many imitators, and not just imitators,

26
00:01:36,959 --> 00:01:40,560
Speaker 2: but also, as with this movie, I think Legitimate clearly

27
00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:42,880
Speaker 2: had an influence on films that had their own ideas

28
00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:46,920
Speaker 2: and had something different to offer, but still delivers on

29
00:01:46,959 --> 00:01:49,400
Speaker 2: that same energy and rides that Gromlin wave.

30
00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:53,080
Speaker 3: That's right. Okay, So the first big one is Grimlins

31
00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:56,560
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four. This is the mac Daddy. We covered

32
00:01:56,600 --> 00:01:59,400
Speaker 3: Gremlins two already, as I said, but not the original.

33
00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:04,480
Speaker 3: So the Grimlins are small monsters that are spawned as

34
00:02:04,520 --> 00:02:08,440
Speaker 3: a result of improper pet care. So they begin as

35
00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:12,280
Speaker 3: a cute, friendly, fuzzy little guy called a Magway. And

36
00:02:12,320 --> 00:02:14,720
Speaker 3: the Magua is great. He's a good buddy, but you

37
00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:20,160
Speaker 3: absolutely positively cannot get him wet, and unfortunately the humans

38
00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:23,440
Speaker 3: in the movie spill some water on their maguai, spawning

39
00:02:23,520 --> 00:02:25,800
Speaker 3: other creatures like him. They kind of pop off of

40
00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:29,360
Speaker 3: his back, but they're not exactly like him. They're not nice,

41
00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:33,440
Speaker 3: they're mean, and these creatures are made even worse when

42
00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:36,919
Speaker 3: another rule is violated and they are fed after midnight,

43
00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:41,000
Speaker 3: which the characters are told not to do. That transforms

44
00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:45,600
Speaker 3: the Mean Magway from just little trickster type things into

45
00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:51,120
Speaker 3: dull sized, scaly, reptilian chaos demons that exist to mock

46
00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:55,400
Speaker 3: and destroy all systems of order and organization, including human

47
00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:59,680
Speaker 3: life itself. But as we talked about in our feature

48
00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:03,400
Speaker 3: on Green Rimlins two, the Grimlins do kill people in

49
00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:07,079
Speaker 3: these movies, yes, but what makes them special as monsters

50
00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:10,840
Speaker 3: is that killing people is not their main goal. It's

51
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:15,440
Speaker 3: just one small part of their broader raisondetra, which is

52
00:03:15,480 --> 00:03:19,560
Speaker 3: to make a mess. Grimlins exist to make a mess.

53
00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:22,520
Speaker 3: They are chaos embodied and this goes back to their

54
00:03:22,560 --> 00:03:26,560
Speaker 3: origin in folklore from before the film. The standard idea

55
00:03:26,639 --> 00:03:30,760
Speaker 3: of where Grimlins came from is that British raf pilots

56
00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:34,639
Speaker 3: in World War Two would blame engine malfunctions on Grimlins.

57
00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:37,400
Speaker 3: They imagine little monsters that would get into the engines

58
00:03:37,440 --> 00:03:40,680
Speaker 3: of the aircraft and chew through wires, disconnect things, and

59
00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:41,920
Speaker 3: cause malfunctions.

60
00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:46,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in general, I would say the folkloric roots

61
00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:50,080
Speaker 2: of the Grimlin, or the basic Gromlin is yeah, any

62
00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:54,920
Speaker 2: kind of diminutive trickster being. So there's a whole host

63
00:03:54,960 --> 00:03:57,680
Speaker 2: of things that you can hold up to the light

64
00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:00,600
Speaker 2: as being in the same vein. I think, like the

65
00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:03,240
Speaker 2: basic that's one of the reasons Grimlins connects so well

66
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:05,560
Speaker 2: with an audience when it comes out is because this

67
00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:09,320
Speaker 2: is not something we haven't seen before to some degree,

68
00:04:09,360 --> 00:04:12,120
Speaker 2: and say cartoons, it's not something out of keeping with

69
00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:16,240
Speaker 2: folkloric traditions, and so we instantly latch onto it. I

70
00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:19,880
Speaker 2: would argue the other thing that really helps with Grimlins

71
00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:23,560
Speaker 2: and the more successful Grimlins imitators, even the bad ones,

72
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:29,360
Speaker 2: is that there is a handcrafted puppet quality to a

73
00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:33,479
Speaker 2: true Gromlin, where you know it's a puppet, you know

74
00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,000
Speaker 2: it's an artificial being that's being brought to life via

75
00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:40,480
Speaker 2: generally some sort of puppeteering, and that adds to the

76
00:04:40,520 --> 00:04:44,279
Speaker 2: effect and also makes the scares a little safer, and

77
00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:49,040
Speaker 2: it creates this special energy that is very consumable by

78
00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:50,000
Speaker 2: a mass audience.

79
00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:52,839
Speaker 3: I think that's a various due to observation, and I

80
00:04:52,839 --> 00:04:54,760
Speaker 3: want to come back to that when we talk about

81
00:04:54,760 --> 00:04:58,000
Speaker 3: the appeal of these movies. Okay, but so Grimlins is

82
00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:01,080
Speaker 3: the first one that's eighty four. Second main one that

83
00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:04,359
Speaker 3: most people recognize is Ghoulies, which came out either in

84
00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:07,160
Speaker 3: eighty four or eighty five. I've seen both year cited

85
00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:09,360
Speaker 3: for its release, maybe in different markets, I don't know.

86
00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:13,240
Speaker 3: It does seem to have come after Grimlins, because multiple

87
00:05:13,279 --> 00:05:16,799
Speaker 3: reviews at the time call it a Grimlins ripoff. However,

88
00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:19,719
Speaker 3: it seems these two movies were in development at the

89
00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:22,480
Speaker 3: same time, so I haven't done a deep dive on this,

90
00:05:22,640 --> 00:05:26,359
Speaker 3: but I think it appears that Goolies was not just

91
00:05:26,680 --> 00:05:29,360
Speaker 3: like looking at the success of Grimlins and saying, let's

92
00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:30,200
Speaker 3: do something like that.

93
00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:33,880
Speaker 2: We will have to watch a Gholies movie someday. Goolies.

94
00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:37,200
Speaker 2: If you're not familiar, and if you're not famili it's

95
00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:39,880
Speaker 2: almost hard for me to believe because having grown up

96
00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:44,880
Speaker 2: as a child in the eighties going to VHS and

97
00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:48,160
Speaker 2: later DVD rental stores, but especially VHS rental stores and

98
00:05:48,200 --> 00:05:51,279
Speaker 2: seeing the box art and or posters for Goolies, it

99
00:05:51,360 --> 00:05:55,520
Speaker 2: was horrifying because the VHS box art promises one thing,

100
00:05:56,040 --> 00:05:59,880
Speaker 2: Goolies will crawl up through the toilet and bite you

101
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:02,640
Speaker 2: in the butt. They are That is the threat that

102
00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:06,960
Speaker 2: is promised on the VHS I'm not saying the movie

103
00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:10,960
Speaker 2: completely delivers on that concept, but this is just indetachable

104
00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:11,800
Speaker 2: from the franchise.

105
00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:15,840
Speaker 3: The main box art is a green, bald Gholie creature

106
00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:19,159
Speaker 3: wearing I don't know, like red suspenders and a blue

107
00:06:19,200 --> 00:06:22,360
Speaker 3: T shirt. I don't know what this outfit means, but

108
00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:25,640
Speaker 3: it's this green bald creature with sharp teeth popping up

109
00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:28,279
Speaker 3: out of a toilet bowl with its hands on the seat,

110
00:06:28,680 --> 00:06:31,599
Speaker 3: and the tagline is they'll get you in the end.

111
00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:36,080
Speaker 2: I wish they mean the butt. Yeah. Yeah, so horrifying

112
00:06:36,520 --> 00:06:39,080
Speaker 2: as a kid, because this is not what you want

113
00:06:39,120 --> 00:06:41,479
Speaker 2: when to go to the bathroom.

114
00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:43,200
Speaker 3: Not at all though. So it's been many years since

115
00:06:43,200 --> 00:06:46,560
Speaker 3: I saw Gholies. I have only the vaguest memories about it,

116
00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:49,560
Speaker 3: but I recall this not actually being a thing that

117
00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:51,440
Speaker 3: happens in the movie. Am I right about that?

118
00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:54,719
Speaker 2: I think you're right. My memory too, is kind of

119
00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:58,080
Speaker 2: an amalgam of different bits from Goolies movies I watched

120
00:06:58,080 --> 00:07:01,400
Speaker 2: on like late night cable television. I think it might

121
00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:03,400
Speaker 2: not have been a thing in the first film, and

122
00:07:03,640 --> 00:07:05,640
Speaker 2: or it might have been like, oh god, we put

123
00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:08,560
Speaker 2: a Gooli coming out of a toilet on the vhs R.

124
00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:10,680
Speaker 2: Let's throw in a scene. It might even something like that.

125
00:07:10,920 --> 00:07:13,200
Speaker 2: I think by the second film they're definitely making sure

126
00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:15,920
Speaker 2: they get some some toilet humor in there. Well.

127
00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:19,400
Speaker 3: The general idea is that this is also a movie

128
00:07:19,440 --> 00:07:22,760
Speaker 3: with small monsters running around a house killing people, but

129
00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:27,520
Speaker 3: rather than being an improper pet care situation gone awry,

130
00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:30,800
Speaker 3: the small monsters in Ghoulies are servants of the devil.

131
00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:33,760
Speaker 3: They are summoned by an occult ritual to do the

132
00:07:33,800 --> 00:07:36,480
Speaker 3: bidding of a malevolent Satanic sorcerer.

133
00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:39,760
Speaker 2: Yes, they're demons for sure.

134
00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:43,120
Speaker 3: Which certainly seems like a more evil and adult kind

135
00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:47,240
Speaker 3: of spin on the small monster's idea than in Grimlins.

136
00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:52,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Grimlins there, Yeah, they're pets, they're vaguely some

137
00:07:52,320 --> 00:07:58,760
Speaker 2: sort of creature out of Chinese fantasy. But yeah, this

138
00:07:58,880 --> 00:08:01,520
Speaker 2: time servants of the Yeah, you have to take that

139
00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:04,600
Speaker 2: a lot more seriously because you know that they're underlings

140
00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:05,960
Speaker 2: for something else, something worse.

141
00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:09,160
Speaker 3: Okay, the next big Grumblins movie on the timeline is

142
00:08:09,160 --> 00:08:12,280
Speaker 3: the one we're talking about today, Critters from nineteen eighty six.

143
00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:15,440
Speaker 3: How is this one different? Well, the small monsters here

144
00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:19,520
Speaker 3: are not not little chaos goblins from you know that

145
00:08:19,880 --> 00:08:22,000
Speaker 3: sound like something out of a folk tale with little

146
00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:25,680
Speaker 3: pet care rules. They're also not servants of Satan. They

147
00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:30,320
Speaker 3: are science fiction alien fugitives from an asteroid prison, and

148
00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:33,800
Speaker 3: they are here to eat. Their main quality, the main

149
00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:36,400
Speaker 3: quality possessed by the Crites, as they are called in

150
00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:39,240
Speaker 3: the film, is that they are hungry and they will

151
00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:42,080
Speaker 3: eat anything and anyone that's right.

152
00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:46,040
Speaker 2: And I would describe them as being kind of little

153
00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:50,720
Speaker 2: round guys, kind of in the vibe of a cartoon porcupine,

154
00:08:51,080 --> 00:08:54,600
Speaker 2: but then with just a shark's mouth of teeth, ruby

155
00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:58,479
Speaker 2: red eyes. But they still have that, they still have attitude.

156
00:08:58,520 --> 00:09:02,560
Speaker 2: They have that kind of Grimlin's energy where they they're hungry.

157
00:09:02,559 --> 00:09:04,720
Speaker 2: They're mainly here to eat, but they're up for a

158
00:09:04,720 --> 00:09:05,840
Speaker 2: little mischief as well.

159
00:09:06,160 --> 00:09:09,920
Speaker 3: They're little humanoid hedgehogs that shoot poison quills and have

160
00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:14,440
Speaker 3: at least three rows of little thornlike teeth. Yeah, and

161
00:09:14,520 --> 00:09:17,160
Speaker 3: mean nasty eyes and they're like they're vindictive.

162
00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:20,400
Speaker 4: They're mean, yeah, but a little bit cute, A little

163
00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:21,880
Speaker 4: bit cute, a little bit cute too.

164
00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:24,559
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, the poster art for this one is also

165
00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:27,200
Speaker 2: pretty incredible. I remember this one from the video stores

166
00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:32,760
Speaker 2: of old because you have this wonderful illustration of a krite,

167
00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:35,280
Speaker 2: and I don't know if it's a one hundred percent

168
00:09:35,400 --> 00:09:37,800
Speaker 2: accurate representation of what they look like in the film,

169
00:09:37,840 --> 00:09:41,440
Speaker 2: but it captures the energy, it captures the mischief in Hunger.

170
00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:45,080
Speaker 3: I agree. So when you showed me this picture the

171
00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:49,000
Speaker 3: poster before we watched the movie, I was thinking, Oh, wow,

172
00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:51,160
Speaker 3: this is one of those great things where the monster

173
00:09:51,320 --> 00:09:54,079
Speaker 3: on the box art is fully revealed and it looks

174
00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:57,640
Speaker 3: awesome and is somewhat misleading, Like, it looks a lot

175
00:09:57,679 --> 00:09:59,680
Speaker 3: different than it does in the movie. Actually, once I

176
00:09:59,679 --> 00:10:01,559
Speaker 3: watched the the movie, I was like, it's not as

177
00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:05,280
Speaker 3: misleading as I first thought. It's basically on track. You know,

178
00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:07,719
Speaker 3: the eyes are a different color and stuff, but there

179
00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:11,080
Speaker 3: is some kind of energy that's different. This monster is

180
00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:13,160
Speaker 3: just kind of classier looking.

181
00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:17,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like he needs a little suit or something. Yeah.

182
00:10:17,240 --> 00:10:19,679
Speaker 3: Also, when you shared the poster with me and chat it,

183
00:10:19,679 --> 00:10:23,040
Speaker 3: it cropped it so that the title at the bottom

184
00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:24,119
Speaker 3: was just Ritter.

185
00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:28,960
Speaker 2: Ritter versus Critter. Was one of the great missed opportunities

186
00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:30,479
Speaker 2: of this franchise.

187
00:10:30,520 --> 00:10:34,240
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, problem child with Critters. Yeah, all right, but

188
00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:36,360
Speaker 3: that gets us up to nineteen eighty six. It did

189
00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:38,840
Speaker 3: not stop there. And by the way, we're not noting these,

190
00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:41,040
Speaker 3: but there are sequels popping up as we go along

191
00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:43,440
Speaker 3: to it, So you're gonna also get Grimlins two Gholies,

192
00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:47,240
Speaker 3: two Goolies, three, Critters two and so forth. But in

193
00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:50,680
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty seven we get Muncheese. This one is produced

194
00:10:50,720 --> 00:10:54,400
Speaker 3: by our old pal, Roger Korman. Allegedly he was like, hey,

195
00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:57,800
Speaker 3: you know these Grimlin ripoffs, they're making money. Let's do one.

196
00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:00,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, these other films as well, as we'll discuss with

197
00:11:00,760 --> 00:11:03,960
Speaker 2: Critters as well. You know, there are alternate takes on

198
00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,160
Speaker 2: it where they're like, well, this was already an idea

199
00:11:06,240 --> 00:11:08,320
Speaker 2: and we just tweaked it a little bit. But this

200
00:11:08,440 --> 00:11:10,000
Speaker 2: is Corman. You know what's up here.

201
00:11:10,160 --> 00:11:13,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like, let's do a Grimlins clone. So Munchies

202
00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:17,520
Speaker 3: was directed by Tina Hirsch. The plot concerns a man

203
00:11:17,640 --> 00:11:20,760
Speaker 3: who brings a creature that he finds in a cave

204
00:11:20,840 --> 00:11:24,880
Speaker 3: in Peru back to the United States, and the problem

205
00:11:24,880 --> 00:11:27,199
Speaker 3: seems to come when someone tries to chop the creature

206
00:11:27,240 --> 00:11:30,080
Speaker 3: in half and it just turns into two creatures and

207
00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:32,800
Speaker 3: so on and so on. So it's like it's like

208
00:11:32,920 --> 00:11:35,400
Speaker 3: Grimlins meets the Legend of the Hydra.

209
00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:37,160
Speaker 5: Yeah.

210
00:11:37,280 --> 00:11:40,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I've never seen this one, but the box

211
00:11:40,679 --> 00:11:43,280
Speaker 2: art is familiar to me because you basically have what

212
00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:47,360
Speaker 2: looks like a cross between a Grimlin and one of

213
00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:51,360
Speaker 2: those trolls with the spiky hair treasure trolls. Yeah. Yeah,

214
00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:53,560
Speaker 2: looks like a treasure troll and a Grimlin had a

215
00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:56,480
Speaker 2: baby and then that baby took up drinking beer and

216
00:11:56,520 --> 00:11:57,439
Speaker 2: smoking cigarettes.

217
00:11:57,600 --> 00:11:59,719
Speaker 3: Yes, and it's a pervert. That's the main thing you

218
00:11:59,760 --> 00:12:03,079
Speaker 3: need understand from the poster is it's like perven on ladies.

219
00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:05,559
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know if they I mean, I assume

220
00:12:05,640 --> 00:12:07,440
Speaker 2: this happens in the movie, who knows, But that's what

221
00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:11,760
Speaker 2: they're selling. It's like, we're the Grimlins, too tame for you.

222
00:12:11,800 --> 00:12:14,800
Speaker 2: Do you want Raunchy or Grimlins, Well, then meet the Munchies.

223
00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:17,680
Speaker 3: So I've never seen Munchies either, but I found a

224
00:12:17,720 --> 00:12:20,080
Speaker 3: screenshot and Rob, is it just me? Or are the

225
00:12:20,200 --> 00:12:24,800
Speaker 3: Munchies dressed like the Bounty hunters in Critters kind of?

226
00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:28,760
Speaker 2: They have some sort of weird futuristic doll clothing on,

227
00:12:28,800 --> 00:12:29,280
Speaker 2: don't they.

228
00:12:29,440 --> 00:12:34,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, similar color scheme that kind of underlying sort of

229
00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:37,960
Speaker 3: red brown clay color and then like the black stuff

230
00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:39,760
Speaker 3: on top. I don't know, it looks similar to me.

231
00:12:40,080 --> 00:12:42,599
Speaker 2: Looks like the puppetry has slid a bit from the

232
00:12:42,880 --> 00:12:45,960
Speaker 2: titles we've discussed already and is moving closer to the

233
00:12:45,960 --> 00:12:47,439
Speaker 2: title that we're going to discuss next.

234
00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:52,000
Speaker 3: The next movie from nineteen eighty eight is Hobgoblins, famous

235
00:12:52,040 --> 00:12:54,920
Speaker 3: for Mystery Science Theater three thousand. The origin of the

236
00:12:54,960 --> 00:12:58,320
Speaker 3: monsters here is that they crash landed from space, and

237
00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:00,680
Speaker 3: then they were kept locked in a vault in a

238
00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:04,720
Speaker 3: movie studio for decades. Now they have escaped, so it's

239
00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:07,600
Speaker 3: aliens again. This one feels more like it is ripped

240
00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:10,439
Speaker 3: from the plot of critters aliens crashing on Earth.

241
00:13:11,480 --> 00:13:15,559
Speaker 2: Hobgoblins is, of course terrific, just a terrific film. Yeah,

242
00:13:15,640 --> 00:13:19,240
Speaker 2: I mean, it's one of the great episodes of ms

243
00:13:19,280 --> 00:13:21,160
Speaker 2: T three k. It's a perfect film for riffing on,

244
00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:25,520
Speaker 2: though it also inherently has its own built in campiness

245
00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:28,640
Speaker 2: and intentional humor, some of which lands. Some of it

246
00:13:28,880 --> 00:13:32,720
Speaker 2: falls fantastically flat. But when it does fall flat, it

247
00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:34,760
Speaker 2: flands in such a way that it can then be

248
00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:36,120
Speaker 2: riffed upon and enjoyed.

249
00:13:36,480 --> 00:13:38,240
Speaker 3: I haven't watched this one in a while either, but

250
00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:41,679
Speaker 3: I remember it having a great quality of scenes that

251
00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:44,480
Speaker 3: go on way too long and become very funny.

252
00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:47,640
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeap, you get all sorts of cool. So yeah,

253
00:13:47,640 --> 00:13:50,160
Speaker 2: clubs what clubscum? I think they go to clubscum in that.

254
00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:53,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, m okay. So that's just a selection of the

255
00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:55,520
Speaker 3: main ones that came to my mind. I think those

256
00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:57,840
Speaker 3: are the main franchises you're going to get, are like

257
00:13:58,240 --> 00:14:02,880
Speaker 3: Gholi's Critters and Grimlins, but there are some other like

258
00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:05,880
Speaker 3: one offs in between there and addition to all the sequels.

259
00:14:06,160 --> 00:14:08,280
Speaker 3: So there were a lot of these movies and they

260
00:14:08,320 --> 00:14:09,400
Speaker 3: made a lot of money.

261
00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:12,400
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I think you can kind of divide

262
00:14:12,440 --> 00:14:14,079
Speaker 2: them up. I kind of divide them up into thinking

263
00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:17,040
Speaker 2: about like direct Gromlins and indirect Gromlins. So the direct

264
00:14:17,080 --> 00:14:18,760
Speaker 2: ones are going to be pretty much the films we've

265
00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:22,800
Speaker 2: already listed, Goolies, Munchies, Hobgoblins, you know, easy to point

266
00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:25,560
Speaker 2: out and say, hey, if I liked Grimlins, I might

267
00:14:25,720 --> 00:14:30,160
Speaker 2: like that, et cetera. But indirect Gromlins are going to

268
00:14:30,240 --> 00:14:32,720
Speaker 2: be situations where you have things in common with Grimlins,

269
00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:35,720
Speaker 2: and they're still likely to be cash ins to some degree.

270
00:14:36,520 --> 00:14:39,240
Speaker 2: If not creative cash ins. Then in many of these cases,

271
00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:43,000
Speaker 2: like clearly somebody with the money to finance that. Well,

272
00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:44,760
Speaker 2: this is a great idea because we know these sorts

273
00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:49,400
Speaker 2: of films actually so. But you may have different things

274
00:14:49,400 --> 00:14:52,640
Speaker 2: going on. For instance, you might have the effects leaning

275
00:14:52,680 --> 00:14:57,880
Speaker 2: more into monster suits as opposed to shrieking puppets, and

276
00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:01,000
Speaker 2: you also might see greater originality in some cases. So

277
00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:04,160
Speaker 2: for example, the Troll movies are sometimes mentioned as being

278
00:15:04,240 --> 00:15:07,040
Speaker 2: Grimlin's ripoffs. And you know, I don't know that I've

279
00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:08,800
Speaker 2: ever watched the first Troll all the way through, but

280
00:15:08,840 --> 00:15:12,760
Speaker 2: we talked about Troll two on here. Troll two definitely

281
00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:17,520
Speaker 2: has Grimlin energy going on, but the creatures are not

282
00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:21,120
Speaker 2: brought to life in such a way. The creatures are

283
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:26,200
Speaker 2: clearly people in costumes that actually comes off more threatening

284
00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:27,720
Speaker 2: because the costumes are so bad.

285
00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:30,280
Speaker 3: I agree in a way, I don't know if I

286
00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:33,480
Speaker 3: would put Troll two in the Gromlins category, because like

287
00:15:33,560 --> 00:15:38,080
Speaker 3: the trolls or the goblins, Oh yeah, that's right, they're goblins,

288
00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:41,440
Speaker 3: not trolls. Yeah, they're people in suits, like, they're not

289
00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:45,080
Speaker 3: the like the dull sized creatures running around, you know,

290
00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:47,760
Speaker 3: causing mayhem like that, and they've got a different mo

291
00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:53,000
Speaker 3: they they're not as mischievous, you know, as the creatures

292
00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:55,120
Speaker 3: in all the Gromlins movies are. They just want to

293
00:15:55,160 --> 00:15:56,920
Speaker 3: turn you into plant matter and eat you.

294
00:15:58,160 --> 00:16:01,200
Speaker 2: Another film that comes to mind is nineteen eighty five's

295
00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:04,840
Speaker 2: Cat's Eye, which was of course a horror anthology film

296
00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:09,480
Speaker 2: based on works by Stephen King, and the title story

297
00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:13,560
Speaker 2: in it concerns a little troll creature who is It

298
00:16:13,560 --> 00:16:16,080
Speaker 2: comes out of the hole in the wall to suck

299
00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:19,000
Speaker 2: out a child's breath at night while they sleep, and

300
00:16:19,360 --> 00:16:21,720
Speaker 2: the cats are of course blamed for it, but the

301
00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:24,280
Speaker 2: cat is like one of the direct lines of defense

302
00:16:24,640 --> 00:16:25,920
Speaker 2: against said troll.

303
00:16:26,320 --> 00:16:28,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, the cat has to save the day. I saw

304
00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:30,400
Speaker 3: that movie when I was way too young to see it,

305
00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:31,240
Speaker 3: and it scared me.

306
00:16:31,800 --> 00:16:34,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a scary looking creature. I think this one

307
00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:38,720
Speaker 2: they mostly did with a costume though, but with really

308
00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:42,880
Speaker 2: awesome gigantic sets, so the effects I think are really admirable.

309
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:46,760
Speaker 3: Here. Okay, another thing that's notable in the Gromlin space,

310
00:16:46,800 --> 00:16:49,760
Speaker 3: while it's not a movie, is I think best seen

311
00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:52,840
Speaker 3: as part of the cultural phenomenon of Gromlins, and that

312
00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:57,080
Speaker 3: would be Boglins, released in nineteen eighty seven, a popular

313
00:16:57,120 --> 00:17:01,240
Speaker 3: line of monster themed hand puppets for kids. You turn

314
00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:04,200
Speaker 3: your hand into a goblin, Rob, did you have Boglins

315
00:17:04,280 --> 00:17:05,840
Speaker 3: or do you know what I'm talking about? Oh?

316
00:17:05,880 --> 00:17:07,680
Speaker 2: I definitely know what you're talking about. I never had one,

317
00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:11,159
Speaker 2: but I wanted one at the time. These were created

318
00:17:11,160 --> 00:17:13,520
Speaker 2: by Tim Clark, who also worked on The Dark Crystal

319
00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:17,360
Speaker 2: and Fraggle Rock and the Creature and Muppet design areas.

320
00:17:17,560 --> 00:17:20,000
Speaker 2: For instance, he was on the team that created the

321
00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:24,919
Speaker 2: mystics for The Dark Crystal and I think I follow

322
00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:30,160
Speaker 2: him on Instagram because he's brought Boglins back. They've recreated them,

323
00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,680
Speaker 2: new materials and new designs for a new generation. I

324
00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:36,119
Speaker 2: would totally buy one if it were the kind of

325
00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:38,720
Speaker 2: thing that my son enjoyed at all. But I would

326
00:17:38,760 --> 00:17:42,120
Speaker 2: just be buying it for me, which feels which which

327
00:17:42,160 --> 00:17:44,239
Speaker 2: I don't feel strongly enough to do.

328
00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:47,000
Speaker 3: Rob, you can buy it for you. It's okay, I

329
00:17:47,119 --> 00:17:47,960
Speaker 3: give you permission.

330
00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:51,439
Speaker 2: I only have so much room for fake monsters in

331
00:17:51,480 --> 00:17:53,800
Speaker 2: the house, you know. And it's just I'm gonna have

332
00:17:53,800 --> 00:17:56,840
Speaker 2: to let somebody else buy that Boglin and love it

333
00:17:57,240 --> 00:17:57,840
Speaker 2: well anyway.

334
00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:02,959
Speaker 3: With this whole tiny Monster is phenomenon the Gromlins craze.

335
00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:08,040
Speaker 3: I started thinking, why was this a Why was this

336
00:18:08,080 --> 00:18:10,000
Speaker 3: such a thing at the time and place it was.

337
00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:15,000
Speaker 3: Why did groups of tiny, rampaging monsters with mischievous personalities

338
00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:18,360
Speaker 3: become such a phenomenon in American movies in the mid

339
00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:24,119
Speaker 3: nineteen eighties? Like, what about this theme resonated? I think,

340
00:18:25,080 --> 00:18:28,040
Speaker 3: I don't know this, This is still kind of only

341
00:18:28,119 --> 00:18:31,080
Speaker 3: half formed in my mind, but I think there is

342
00:18:31,160 --> 00:18:34,479
Speaker 3: something significant in the fact that these monsters are, in

343
00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:40,800
Speaker 3: their very essence like toys somehow, they are already merchandise

344
00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:46,359
Speaker 3: marketed to kids in their original form, but they're dangerous

345
00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:49,400
Speaker 3: and pretty close to R rated. So there's a kind

346
00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:53,080
Speaker 3: of ambiguity about the intended audience of a number of

347
00:18:53,119 --> 00:18:55,199
Speaker 3: these movies. The original Grimlins. I don't know if so

348
00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:59,360
Speaker 3: much for Gholies, but the original Grimlins and Critters. These

349
00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:02,640
Speaker 3: are movies that, on one hand, if you watch them,

350
00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:04,359
Speaker 3: you'd say, well, I guess this is supposed to be

351
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:07,600
Speaker 3: a regular horror movie for adults only, because you know,

352
00:19:07,640 --> 00:19:10,239
Speaker 3: they're pretty violent and they have some adult themes. But

353
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:15,119
Speaker 3: they're also on the tamer end of adult horror movies,

354
00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:18,280
Speaker 3: and they have elements that seem like maybe they're supposed

355
00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:20,879
Speaker 3: to appeal to kids, Like the fact that the monsters

356
00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:24,920
Speaker 3: are little makes them seem kind of cute in a way,

357
00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:27,919
Speaker 3: even the ones that are more ugly, and in some

358
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:32,080
Speaker 3: cases these monsters explicitly have cute avatars. Allow the Magwi

359
00:19:32,280 --> 00:19:36,920
Speaker 3: in Gremlins or Critters also are They're somewhere between scary

360
00:19:36,960 --> 00:19:40,119
Speaker 3: and cute. They are a little bit cute. Yeah, And

361
00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:43,200
Speaker 3: I wonder if this led to it seeming like kids

362
00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:46,400
Speaker 3: could maybe be allowed to watch these movies like Critters

363
00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:48,840
Speaker 3: is PG thirteen. It's not rated R, but it's a

364
00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:53,040
Speaker 3: rough PG thirteen. And of course a lot of kids,

365
00:19:53,119 --> 00:19:55,960
Speaker 3: you know, they love monsters. They love if the parents

366
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:59,080
Speaker 3: will let them watch a scary, bloody monster movie, they'll

367
00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:02,199
Speaker 3: be into it. So maybe something about the ability of

368
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:07,359
Speaker 3: these movies to defy marketing and content restriction pipelines and

369
00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:10,440
Speaker 3: end up in front of audiences that were technically too

370
00:20:10,520 --> 00:20:13,320
Speaker 3: young for them was part of the success. What do

371
00:20:13,359 --> 00:20:14,040
Speaker 3: you think about that?

372
00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:17,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, just looking back on my own childhood,

373
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:21,200
Speaker 2: it seemed like a time when more kids were watching

374
00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:26,760
Speaker 2: films without a lot of parent parental supervision, and so

375
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:29,000
Speaker 2: there was more room for films like this to sort

376
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:33,879
Speaker 2: of be gateways into other franchises of horror, And I

377
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:35,480
Speaker 2: don't know, I guess it's kind of weird though, to

378
00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:37,320
Speaker 2: think about them, because on one hand, like you're saying,

379
00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:41,320
Speaker 2: they're not like Disney Family films like you would rent

380
00:20:41,760 --> 00:20:45,399
Speaker 2: during this time period, but they're not like really really

381
00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:48,720
Speaker 2: hard horror with like really strong adult themes. They are

382
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:52,520
Speaker 2: this kind of like transitional place where kids could watch

383
00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:54,800
Speaker 2: it and feel like they're breaking the rules a little bit,

384
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:58,639
Speaker 2: but at the same time, like a parental unit might

385
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:02,639
Speaker 2: watch this and see and like, well, it's fine, it's fine.

386
00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:05,840
Speaker 3: It's not too bad. Yeah, another possible part of the appeal.

387
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:09,160
Speaker 3: I was talking to Rachel about this, and we were

388
00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:13,959
Speaker 3: wondering if maybe the movies are appealing to adults because

389
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:19,239
Speaker 3: the monsters are in some sense kids. So we were

390
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,560
Speaker 3: talking about whether it's possible that, like maybe a certain

391
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:27,520
Speaker 3: generation of filmmakers and audiences, we're all having kids around

392
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:29,600
Speaker 3: around the same time, and of course, you know, we

393
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:32,680
Speaker 3: love our kids, but there is sometimes a great temptation

394
00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:36,920
Speaker 3: to imagine our children in their more destructive moods, as

395
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:39,960
Speaker 3: rampaging little monsters that have gotten loose in your house,

396
00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:42,280
Speaker 3: and I can see how that could be part of

397
00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 3: the appeal. But of course earlier generations of filmmakers and

398
00:21:45,080 --> 00:21:49,080
Speaker 3: audiences would have been having similar experiences becoming parents and

399
00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:52,160
Speaker 3: watching their children unleash a flood of chaos through the home.

400
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:54,639
Speaker 3: So that still does leave us back with the question

401
00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 3: of like, what was so special about this theme in

402
00:21:57,359 --> 00:21:58,840
Speaker 3: the mid nineteen eighties.

403
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:03,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it. I think part of it is materials.

404
00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 2: It's the fact that they had to lean on puppetry

405
00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 2: and the puppetry in the creature effects of other forms.

406
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 2: They had to be pretty darn good, even in these

407
00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 2: cases where where we may laugh at the execution, like hobgoblins.

408
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:21,840
Speaker 2: I mean still hobgoblins look pretty good. Maybe not on

409
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:25,560
Speaker 2: the same level as Critter, is much less grimlins to grimlins,

410
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,520
Speaker 2: but they still look pretty good. You can buy into them.

411
00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:31,800
Speaker 2: And part of that is just the sublime magic of

412
00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:35,840
Speaker 2: puppetry as a storytelling medium. A puppet does not have

413
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:40,119
Speaker 2: to look one hundred life like because the puppeteer breathes

414
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:42,760
Speaker 2: life into it, and that's where the magic happens.

415
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 3: I think that's a very good point, though of course

416
00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:47,639
Speaker 3: you cite the example of Grimlins too, which has amazing

417
00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:51,000
Speaker 3: puppetry but also goes well beyond puppetry. And I don't

418
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 3: know whatever they were doing with electricity Grimlin. I think

419
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:56,359
Speaker 3: that was like animation on film or something.

420
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean some of these other like the

421
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:02,000
Speaker 2: Gate comes to mind, like they are little demon creatures

422
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 2: running around in there, and they use multiple different forms

423
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 2: of special effects to bring those to life, include stop

424
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:14,679
Speaker 2: motion stop motion, but also people in suits and so forth.

425
00:23:14,760 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 2: So you know it's it's gonna vary you're gonna end up.

426
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 2: Even in this one, there are cases where it's puppetry,

427
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:21,879
Speaker 2: and there are cases where it's clearly like a ball

428
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 2: of fur that people off off screen or rolling across

429
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:27,879
Speaker 2: across the set.

430
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you might really be onto something about

431
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 3: that with the with the effects that like the tactile

432
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,360
Speaker 3: nature and size of the effects, and also that may

433
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:38,720
Speaker 3: connect in a way to what I was saying a

434
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 3: minute ago about the the facts that these monsters are

435
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:45,640
Speaker 3: already in their original form, so similar to toys, which

436
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:48,639
Speaker 3: might have some kind of like merchandising appeal or something.

437
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 2: This movie actually touches on one possible connection, and that

438
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 2: is e t Yeah, this film features one of those,

439
00:23:56,320 --> 00:23:58,440
Speaker 2: and I definitely remember these from my childhood. I never

440
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 2: had one, but it's like this kind of like Naga

441
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 2: Hyde sort of et plush. That was very weird because, yeah,

442
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 2: it's not completely huggable, like it's not soft, that it

443
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 2: doesn't have fur, and it's based on Et, which I

444
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 2: was thinking about watching this film. It's like Et is

445
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 2: of course a classic film, very influential. You know, it

446
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 2: wouldn't have works like Pod People without it. But on

447
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 2: the other hand, it seems like the creature design is

448
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 2: one of the limiting factors of ET, because Et is

449
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 2: just ugly. Et is not cuddly, and you have to like,

450
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 2: they did a great job creating even a like an

451
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:41,360
Speaker 2: acceptable stuffy based on him. But yeah, you can't help

452
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:45,120
Speaker 2: but wonder what would Et be even have been even

453
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 2: more successful? Would it kind of like have have even

454
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 2: more lasting influence if the creature had looked differently.

455
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 3: I think part of the beauty of Et is the

456
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,239
Speaker 3: idea that you have to see past what Et looks like,

457
00:24:57,320 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 3: that you get to know that this is a this

458
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 3: is a friendly, benevol creature, and when you get to

459
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 3: know his personality, Et becomes beautiful but he's not like

460
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 3: when you just look at him, he's not cuddly looking.

461
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 2: No, he looks like a coat rack, the coat rack

462
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:13,560
Speaker 2: made out of like naked flesh.

463
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:15,959
Speaker 3: He also kind of looks like a like a stalagmite

464
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 3: in a way.

465
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah he does.

466
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 3: Oh but yeah, you were you were mentioning. There's a

467
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 3: scene with an ET toy in the movie and the

468
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,360
Speaker 3: critter or the crite is trying to like communicate with it.

469
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 3: It's like booping it, being like, hey, what's up, buddy,

470
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 3: But the et does not talk back, So the crit

471
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 3: becomes annoyed and I think just bites its head off.

472
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:38,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it just bites into it. All right, Joe,

473
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:39,639
Speaker 2: what's your elevator pitch for this one?

474
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,679
Speaker 3: Well you probably already know by this point, but he

475
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 3: basically furry little creatures which are also vindictive sentient fugitives

476
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 3: from space jail land in a sleepy Midwest farm village

477
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 3: and begin to eat everything in sight, and it is

478
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 3: up to two alien bounty hunters and a brave young

479
00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,359
Speaker 3: pyromaniac to stop them.

480
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 2: All right, let's listen to that trailer audio.

481
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:14,960
Speaker 6: Of all the planets in the galaxy, they chose ours,

482
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,200
Speaker 6: They hide in small places.

483
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:24,200
Speaker 2: This phone is dead.

484
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,399
Speaker 6: What they light the dark?

485
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 2: Ju just a minute.

486
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 6: There's nothing cute about them all. They've come a long

487
00:26:38,800 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 6: way and they're hungry Internet, and they're getting bigger.

488
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 5: Critters they bite, all right, If you want to go

489
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 5: watch Critters for yourself, well, it's widely available and currently

490
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 5: as of this recording, streaming along with only Critters three

491
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 5: on Max.

492
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 2: I don't know what David Zaslov has against Critters two

493
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 2: and Critters four, but I don't think they are streaming

494
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 2: alongside Critters one and Critters three. Masks.

495
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Max, what are you doing?

496
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 2: But if they're out there somewhere, they're not unavailable. And

497
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 2: there is also an excellent looking Critters collection Blu ray

498
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 2: box set, which features Critters one through four with extras.

499
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:12,679
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into the people involved here. The

500
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 2: director and one of the screenwriters on this is Stephen

501
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:20,160
Speaker 2: Herrick born nineteen fifty eight, accomplished mainstream Texan born director

502
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,120
Speaker 2: who launched his career with this film in nineteen eighty six.

503
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 2: He followed it up on a debut Yeah. I mean,

504
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's a it's a well executed film. Yeah,

505
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 2: and it's very watchable, very enjoyable. So it's not a

506
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 2: bad way to start off at all.

507
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 3: I'm not fully being ironic when I say I can

508
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 3: see the line from Critters to mister Holland's Opus.

509
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 2: Yes, because yeah, he goes on to do a number

510
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 2: of films that I would just roughly describe as feel good. Yeah,

511
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 2: there are a lot of feel good elements in this

512
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 2: particular film, and you can totally see that being something

513
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 2: that he, you know, he took up and ran with

514
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 2: and made a career out of, because they absolutely were.

515
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 2: And the score also goes along with it. The score

516
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 2: is great at times in ways that I really like.

517
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 2: Other times it has that kind of comedy energy where

518
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 2: it's like this summer, are you ready for the adventure

519
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 2: of a lifetime? The Critters are on the move, you

520
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 2: know that kind of thing. Ran odd, no, dear, Yeah,

521
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 2: but anyway, more in the score in a minute, anyway. Yeah.

522
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 2: He followed this movie up with eighty nine's Bill and

523
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 2: Ted's Excellent Adventure Ooh, and did especially well fro himself

524
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 2: in the nineties, directing stuff like The Mighty Ducks in

525
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 2: ninety two, The Three Musketeers in ninety three, which was

526
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 2: very nineties, but also had tremendous cast mister Hollins, Ope

527
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 2: is like you said in ninety five one hundred and

528
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 2: one Dalmatians in ninety six. His subsequent work includes a

529
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 2: lot of mainstream television two Dolly Parton specials, as well

530
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 2: as the twenty twenty three movie Dog Gone, which I

531
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 2: think is a movie about a lost dog.

532
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 3: Oh no, well, I hope they get dog back.

533
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 2: Oh, you know, they get the dog back.

534
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:05,920
Speaker 3: Of course, I know this guy's vibe. Now, Yeah, they'll

535
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 3: get the dog backed, and Dolly Parton will show up

536
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 3: at the end and sing a song and everybody's kind.

537
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean that. You know, I'm not knocking to

538
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 2: people need movies like that. Someone's going to make them,

539
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 2: and and this guy's got the skills to do it.

540
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 2: I haven't seen most of them, but they seem fine now.

541
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 2: Early in his career as an editor, he also worked

542
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 2: on such films as eighty two's The Slumber Party, Massacre Android,

543
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 2: which is a Kloskinski space movie, Space Raiders in nineteen

544
00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 2: eighty four City Limits. When when he's been asked about critters,

545
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 2: it's my understanding. He's also he's pointed out that Critters

546
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 2: was conceived prior to Grimlins, but that they actually went

547
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 2: back in and like had like, they changed it around

548
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 2: a bit to make sure that they weren't too close

549
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 2: to the Grimlins format, So it sounds reasonable to me now.

550
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 2: One of the other writers on this is Dominic Muir,

551
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 2: who lives Live nineteen sixty two through twenty ten. This

552
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 2: is his earliest credit on a produced screenplay, but he

553
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 2: went on to work on scripts for such movies as

554
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 2: two thousand and five, The Ginger dead Man.

555
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 5: OH.

556
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 2: Two and six is Evil Bong and the rest of

557
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 2: the Evil Bong movies. All of these are definitely their

558
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 2: own thing. But I think these movies, along with other

559
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 2: full Moon entertainment style fairs such as like puppet Master

560
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 2: and so forth, I think those are all kind of

561
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 2: in the shadow of Grimlins as well. Those aren't necessarily creatures,

562
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 2: but they're you know, evil, vindictive puppet type things running

563
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 2: around killing people.

564
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 3: I haven't enjoyed many a Z grade movie in my time,

565
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 3: but I recalled The Ginger dead Man being so painful

566
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:50,719
Speaker 3: to get through. It's like voice of Gary Busey, isn't it.

567
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's somehow. I haven't seen them, but he's somehow

568
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 2: involved with these pictures. Yeah, yeah, he's the He's in

569
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 2: that one. And then Tommy Chong is involved with the

570
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 2: Evil Bong franchise, as is Rabbit.

571
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I'd watch it just for Rabbit.

572
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 2: All right. Moving into the cast here. Top billing on

573
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 2: this one is d Wallace aka d Wallace Stone, playing

574
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 2: Helen Brown, the mom. This is an actor born in

575
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 2: nineteen forty eight. She's been a lot of TV and

576
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 2: film over the years, but really established herself as a

577
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 2: sci fi and horror staple. Her credits include The Stepford

578
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 2: Wives from seventy five, Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes

579
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 2: from seventy seven, The Howling from eighty one, Et from

580
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 2: eighty two, Kujo from eighty three. In nineteen ninety, she

581
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 2: was an alligator to The Mutation, Popcorn in ninety one,

582
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 2: and a whole string of more recent films. A lot

583
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 2: of times you'll have hard directors working today kind of

584
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 2: bring her back in, you know, in part because of

585
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 2: the nostalgia of these previous roles she had. So you'll

586
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 2: find her in a couple of rob zombie productions, including

587
00:32:56,880 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 2: The Lords of Salem. She also pops up in how

588
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 2: in the House of the Devil, she's still very active.

589
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 3: D Wallace is great as always, and you hear I

590
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 3: feel like you can really see her filling out the

591
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 3: full scale of feel good to feel bad films because

592
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 3: you get you know, okay, So at the full feel

593
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 3: good end, she's in Et. Great in that. At the

594
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 3: full feel bad end, she's in Kujo, just one of

595
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 3: the nastiest, most depressing horror movies ever. And then here

596
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 3: I'd say Critters is right in the middle. It's right

597
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 3: between Et and Kujo.

598
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, she does a great job in this film delivering

599
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 2: the idea of like the brave mom in this kind

600
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 2: of traditional, very traditional, almost nineteen fifties household, but is

601
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 2: also put through extreme terror by these attacking monstrosities. Now

602
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 2: we'll get to the rest of her family in a second.

603
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 2: We're gonna go ahead and go to the next build

604
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 2: actor and that this concerns the character Harve, who's the

605
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 2: local sheriff played by the legendary character actor him EMMITTT. Walsh.

606
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 3: So when we were trying to decide what movie to

607
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:01,719
Speaker 3: feature for this week, we saw that m Emmett Walsh

608
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 3: was in Critters, and I it was brought to my

609
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 3: mind that Roger Ebert had a rule. He said that

610
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,359
Speaker 3: he thought that no film, I think I'm getting this right,

611
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,040
Speaker 3: no film featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or m Emmett

612
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 3: Walsh could be entirely bad. And I was like, but

613
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 3: I bet he broke that rule with critters and gave

614
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 3: it a one star. Nope, three stars for critters. He

615
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 3: liked critters.

616
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, he whn't it's crazy about critics too, but he

617
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 2: liked critters one. I should also add, in trying to

618
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 2: decide which film to cover, here were and I've encountered

619
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:36,239
Speaker 2: this conundrum before with the Critters franchise is where do you?

620
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 2: Where do you go? Because all four films have the

621
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 2: critters in them, and each one has someone involved in

622
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 2: it that makes it seem irresistible, Like I mean, this

623
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 2: one you have m m At Walsh and it's the

624
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 2: first movie I think it's two is You has David

625
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 2: Towey working on the script, and then also Leonardo DiCaprio's

626
00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:00,040
Speaker 2: perhaps his film debut I don't recall off hand, and

627
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 2: in a later version of what I think, four has

628
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 2: Brad Doriff and Angela Bassett in it.

629
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 3: So oh, boy.

630
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you know, there's so many reasons to go

631
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:10,440
Speaker 2: with each one, we decided to go.

632
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 5: With the first one.

633
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll the next four weeks just do all of them.

634
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how this one of the

635
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:23,839
Speaker 2: matters for everyone. So anyway. Walsh Yes born nineteen thirty five,

636
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:27,439
Speaker 2: still active today, legendary character actor who's been active since

637
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 2: the late sixties. Up through the seventies, he tended to

638
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 2: play smaller roles in the likes of sixty nine's Alice's Restaurant,

639
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:38,440
Speaker 2: seventy one's Escaped from the Planet of the Apes, Cerpaco

640
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 2: in seventy three, Slapshot in seventy seven, he's the mad

641
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 2: Shooter in seventy nine of the Jerk. But during the

642
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,759
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties he this is when he really cemented his

643
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 2: status as this desired character actor that is both it

644
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 2: can to be threatening but also very humorous and also

645
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:58,919
Speaker 2: have this kind of like blue collar mentality he should

646
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 2: he pops up in nine he needs to do his

647
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 2: Blade Runner playing Bryant. This is Harrison Ford. This is

648
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 2: Decker's boss, right, yeah, Deckerd's boss.

649
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.

650
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 2: And oh and then of course he plays private detective

651
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 2: Lauren Visser in the Cohen Brothers' debut nineteen eighty four

652
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 2: film Blood Simple. Just a marvelous, villainous performance.

653
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 3: Fantastic in this role. Yeah.

654
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 2: He also has a fun but small role in the

655
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:31,919
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven Coen Brothers film Raising Arizona. So he's

656
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,320
Speaker 2: worked continuously in just any and everything, from indie pictures

657
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 2: to blockbusters. Can't possibly list them all here. I'll have

658
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 2: everyone know, though, that his episode of the nineties Outer Limits,

659
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:44,879
Speaker 2: The Refuge, is a really good one. He also did

660
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:48,720
Speaker 2: a Tales from the Crypt episode titled Collection Completed, directed

661
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 2: by Mary Lambert. All right, now back to the family.

662
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 2: We have Jay Brown the dad, a very traditional again,

663
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 2: kind of almost nineteen fifties dad always wants to be

664
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,240
Speaker 2: working on the car in the basement, tinkering with stuff.

665
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:05,399
Speaker 2: He's played by Billy green Bush born nineteen thirty five,

666
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 2: American character actor, whose earliest roles included an episode of

667
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 2: the original Outer Limits in the early sixties, but he

668
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 2: mostly made his name in the seventies, popping up in

669
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 2: films like Five Easy Pieces from nineteen seventy. His other

670
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:22,840
Speaker 2: credits include nineteen eighty six as the Hitcher and Jason

671
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 2: goes to hell Oh, where he plays Sheriff Landis in

672
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 2: his final role before retiring from acting.

673
00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 3: What a sendoff. I can't believe it.

674
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 2: Wow, all right, and then of course we have our kid,

675
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:35,360
Speaker 2: and we have a great kid in this. This is

676
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 2: a great child actor performance, a very fun vision of childhood.

677
00:37:40,400 --> 00:37:43,359
Speaker 2: Like this is, like you mentioned, he's a pyromaniac. He's

678
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 2: really into getting firecrackers and creating more powerful explosives, but

679
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 2: in a way that modern parents may watch and be like,

680
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,440
Speaker 2: this was not a good idea. But at the same time,

681
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 2: had I seen the original Critters back in the day

682
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 2: as a kid, I would have loved every second of this,

683
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 2: because the idea of standing up to alien monsters with

684
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 2: your own childhood ingenuity is just instantly appealing.

685
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,399
Speaker 3: Agreed in the very old fashioned picture of the main

686
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 3: family shown in this movie that the main character really

687
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 3: is like a boy with gumption. Yeah, but he's fun.

688
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a lot of fun. He's played by Scott

689
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 2: Grimes born nineteen seventy one, child actor of the eighties

690
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:29,840
Speaker 2: who continues to work in TV and film today. His

691
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 2: more recent credits include American Dad, The Oriville, and Oppenheimer.

692
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:37,800
Speaker 2: He's in the cast of Oppenheimer. Okay, you have a kid,

693
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 2: you also need a kind of braddy older sister, a

694
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 2: teenage older sister, and that's what we have in April

695
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 2: Brown played by Nadine van Derveld born nineteen sixty two,

696
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,360
Speaker 2: eighties teen actor who eventually transitioned into writing and producing

697
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 2: children's television. She has the honor of having acted in

698
00:38:56,160 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 2: not one, but two Gromlin's movies because she's also in

699
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven Munchies Wow. Yeah. Her other credits include

700
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 2: eighty three's Private School, eighty eight Shadow Dancing in eighty

701
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 2: nine's After Midnight, a horror anthology written and directed by

702
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 2: Jim and Ken Wheat.

703
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 3: She's also great in this, but also continues the trend

704
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:20,360
Speaker 3: of not very surprising characterizations. She is the teenager looking

705
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:21,280
Speaker 3: to get into trouble.

706
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 2: Yeah now, our next character is Charlie McFadden, who is

707
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 2: I guess the sort of the alcoholic geek of the

708
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:34,400
Speaker 2: of the picture. He's kind, he's kind of an outcast,

709
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 2: but a likable outcast for the most part. He also

710
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 2: has energy that may remind one of like a Michael

711
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 2: Richards sort of a role you know.

712
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, he gives a struggling, mostly comedic performance. He is

713
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:51,919
Speaker 3: the town drunk who is like always receiving messages from

714
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 3: aliens through the fillings in his teeth, he says. And

715
00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 3: then he has proved right in the end by the

716
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 3: alien invasion. But he's also he plays the role very

717
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 3: like clumsy, like he's always you know, his bicycle's falling

718
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 3: over and stuff, and he's having a hard time.

719
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's played by Don Keith Opper born nineteen forty nine,

720
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:13,879
Speaker 2: mostly known for Critter movies, but you'll also find him

721
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 2: in that nineteen eighty two Android film that I already referenced,

722
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 2: City Limits, which I also reference that's, by the way,

723
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 2: an MST three K film as well. He pops up

724
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty six's Black Moon Rising, and various TV projects.

725
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 2: He has a very small role in nineteen ninety three

726
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 2: he's ghost in the Machine, which we've previously discussed on

727
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. Oh and then also he has an

728
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 2: additional additional dialogue or additional scenes credit on the script

729
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 2: for this picture. So I don't know, maybe he wrote

730
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 2: his own lines. I'm not sure what the full story

731
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 2: is there. Now someone who's not in All four is

732
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:55,839
Speaker 2: April's boyfriend Steve. Steve is played by Billy Zay.

733
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,959
Speaker 3: Absolutely unforgivable under use of billy z Ay and Billy Zayne.

734
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 3: It's eaten by the crits too early, and they do

735
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 3: not they do not get maximum Zaine out of him.

736
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean he's good.

737
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 2: He has a little bit of you see a little

738
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 2: bit of the Billy Zane charm in this role. This

739
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 2: is only a second role, following a small part in

740
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five's Back to the Future. But yeah, it's

741
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 2: it's weird because they don't do a lot with him,

742
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 2: and this film also is just too nice to give

743
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,839
Speaker 2: us like a deplorable boyfriend that we're okay with the

744
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:31,840
Speaker 2: monsters eating. No, Steve seems fine.

745
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, he's all right.

746
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:36,280
Speaker 2: He's a decent guy. He's just in the wrong place

747
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 2: at the wrong time.

748
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 3: It's funny because it feels like when we're first introduced

749
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 3: to him, they're setting him up to be a real jerk,

750
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:44,759
Speaker 3: and then he's just not like he seems like a

751
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 3: nice guy.

752
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, even has nice table manners. All right. We also

753
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:53,360
Speaker 2: have Ethan Phillips in this playing a less likable character.

754
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 2: This is like a deputy by the name of jeff

755
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:01,280
Speaker 2: Ethan Phillips was more nineteen fifty five. That's another exceptional character.

756
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:06,000
Speaker 2: Actor Treki's know him best as Neelix or Neeelix. I'm

757
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 2: not sure how to pronounce this this creature, but he

758
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 2: was on Star Trek Voyager, which is not when I

759
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 2: ever watched. But his other credits include nineteen eighty seven's Werewolf,

760
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four is the Shadow, two thousand and five's

761
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:22,239
Speaker 2: The Island. He pops up on Better Call Saul, and

762
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 2: he had a terrific role on Avenue five that ran

763
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:31,200
Speaker 2: two seasons on HBO, where he plays veteran astronaut Spike Martin.

764
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 3: In this he plays like a lazy and lovelorn police

765
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:39,839
Speaker 3: officer who's always trying to ask out the dispatcher over

766
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 3: the radio.

767
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he has an unmistakable voice. It is a

768
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 2: lot of fun. I've enjoyed him in many things. He's

769
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 2: especially good again in Avenue five.

770
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 3: Oh but wait, we really delayed getting to one of

771
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 3: the great screen presences in this movie, a character with

772
00:42:55,239 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 3: very few lines but an unforgettable look.

773
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 2: That's right talking about Ugg here. But more as we'll discuss.

774
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:06,360
Speaker 2: Ugg is a shape shifting alien, but he takes on

775
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 2: the form of Johnny Steele, a rock star that the

776
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 2: aliens see on television.

777
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 3: If this is confusing, we'll explain it in the plot section.

778
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 2: So Johnny Steele and Ugg are both played by Terrence

779
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:22,800
Speaker 2: Mann born nineteen fifty one. Highly accomplished actor of stage, screen,

780
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 2: in television. He's a three time Tony nominee who has

781
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 2: played major roles and in just an impressive array of

782
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:33,360
Speaker 2: Broadway plays and musicals, including playing Frankenfurter at one point

783
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:37,000
Speaker 2: in the two thousand's revival of The Rocky Horror Show

784
00:43:37,080 --> 00:43:37,760
Speaker 2: on Broadway.

785
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:39,439
Speaker 3: I bet he was great in that role.

786
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I saw some like kind of crappy

787
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:45,840
Speaker 2: footage that was taken of him in the role, and

788
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 2: it looks great. And in seeing him in this, especially

789
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 2: in the rock Star get up, it's like you can tell,

790
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, yeah, this guy was born to play Frankenfurter.

791
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 2: Not everybody is, but this guy certainly was. Now on

792
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 2: top of his his stage career his musical career on Broadway.

793
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 2: Many of you will also know him as the actor

794
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 2: playing the multiple elder clones of Emperor Cleon aka Brother

795
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:14,879
Speaker 2: Dusk in the Apple series Foundation. He's incredible in that,

796
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 2: with Lee Pace playing the younger incarnations. So basically you

797
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 2: have a dynasty of clones in that show, and at

798
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 2: any given time, three of them are awake, a child,

799
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 2: a mature man, and then an aging man. So you

800
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 2: have brothers Don, Brother Day, and Brother Dusk, with the

801
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:39,240
Speaker 2: central brother being the one in full command, with Brother

802
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 2: Dusk being kind of more in an advisor role and

803
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 2: also as a kind of a scribes role. But it's

804
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 2: amazing because even though they are all clones of this

805
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 2: original emperor, we see different variations in how they're presented,

806
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:57,880
Speaker 2: and it'll carry over from say Lee Pace's performance in

807
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:02,720
Speaker 2: one episode to Terrence Mann's performance of that same emperor

808
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 2: in the next episode after several decades have supposedly passed.

809
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 2: So anyway, I can't say enough nice things about Terrence Mann.

810
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 2: We can discuss to what extent he gets to flex

811
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 2: his acting muscles in this film, but his film and

812
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:24,400
Speaker 2: TV credits include all four original Critter movies, the Netflix

813
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 2: series Since eight, the Dresden Files, and he's also in

814
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 2: Big Top Pee Wee. I believe he plays a clown.

815
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 3: He has one of those screen presences that's just hypnotic,

816
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:37,320
Speaker 3: like anytime he's on screen, you're looking at him, or

817
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 3: at least I was.

818
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 2: Now a quick note here when it comes to the crites,

819
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 2: the crites do speak in their own weird alien language.

820
00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:48,160
Speaker 2: I don't think they had a linguist to invent this,

821
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 2: but they do squawk to each other and we get

822
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:55,759
Speaker 2: subtitle translations of what they say, and their voices are

823
00:45:55,800 --> 00:46:01,240
Speaker 2: provided by veteran or certainly now veteran voice actor Corey

824
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 2: Burton born nineteen fifty five. He's done so much work again,

825
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 2: can't even begin to mention everything he's worked on. But

826
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 2: I know him best from Star Wars the Clone Wars,

827
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:13,320
Speaker 2: where he did a number of voices, including the voices

828
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 2: of Count Dooku and also the voice of Cad Baine,

829
00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:19,320
Speaker 2: who he also voices in the Book of Boba Fet.

830
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 3: The crites have no word for thank you, but the

831
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:26,840
Speaker 3: Chrit voices are good, despite the fact that you know,

832
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 3: it doesn't really sound like a language.

833
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:33,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just they're cartoon creatures. Now, the crits physically

834
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:37,319
Speaker 2: were created by the Chioto Brothers Chioto brother Productions. These

835
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 2: are brothers Stephen Charles and Edward Chioto, best known for

836
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 2: their nineteen eighty eight film Killer Clowns from Outer Space.

837
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 2: That is their magnumums, which which is a lot of

838
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 2: fun and has some just terrific creature effects in it.

839
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:56,479
Speaker 3: You know, I think the Critters actually look pretty great.

840
00:46:57,320 --> 00:46:59,320
Speaker 3: I like the creature effects here.

841
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're puppety, but very good, very solid. They did

842
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,479
Speaker 2: the effects on all four Critters movies. They also worked

843
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 2: on nineteen eighty eight's UHF, nineteen ninety one's Ernest Scared Stupid,

844
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 2: which I remember enjoying quite a bit in finding scarier

845
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 2: than I expected.

846
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 3: I think this is a really common memory. I've talked

847
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,360
Speaker 3: to other people about this, about this is a movie

848
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,760
Speaker 3: that's supposed to be funny and for kids, but lots

849
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 3: of kids found it actually terrifying. The troll in it.

850
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're responsible for patrol effects there. They also

851
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:34,360
Speaker 2: worked on two thousand and three's Elf. That's the actual

852
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:38,360
Speaker 2: Elf movie, the one that you may watch for Christmas

853
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:40,759
Speaker 2: this year. They also worked on two thousand and four's

854
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 2: Team America World Police, And there has long been talk

855
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 2: of a new Killer Clowns movie coming into being. I

856
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 2: don't know where that project currently stands. And then finally,

857
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:53,919
Speaker 2: the score is by David Newman born nineteen fifty four,

858
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 2: prolific composer for film, mostly working on films that I

859
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 2: haven't seen or don't want to see, or have no

860
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 2: memory of the score from having seen, which again is

861
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 2: not necessarily a bad thing. As I've said before, a

862
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:10,399
Speaker 2: film core, a film's score can be effective and kind

863
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:13,840
Speaker 2: of invisible, especially when you're dealing with comedies and the like.

864
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 2: And it looks like he did a lot of comedies.

865
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 2: This was only his second score, following the nineteen eighty

866
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 2: four Tim Burton short Franken Weenie. And you know, some

867
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 2: of the feel good music and it is just a

868
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 2: little mushy, but I did really like the musical number

869
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 2: that they play over the end credits, some fun synthesize

870
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 2: they're working there, and then also some of the tensor moments.

871
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 2: Some of the action music is also pretty fun.

872
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:38,959
Speaker 3: I know that's your style and that stuff is good.

873
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:40,920
Speaker 3: But I'd give him credit also and say that the

874
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:44,359
Speaker 3: kind of like mushy sentimental feel good music is important

875
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 3: in establishing the feel good themes of this movie, Like

876
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 3: it really helps you feel like, ah, okay, we're home

877
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:53,320
Speaker 3: on the farm now and everything's okay.

878
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:59,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, and clearly that was important to the film they

879
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 2: were trying to make. Yeah, absolutely no problem with it.

880
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:06,239
Speaker 2: Like when this like very much rescuing a cat from

881
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 2: a mailbox music that kind of yeah.

882
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:21,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Okay, you want to talk about the plot.

883
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:23,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get into Critters one.

884
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 3: Here we begin in space, so there's stars twinkling in

885
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:30,200
Speaker 3: the background, and then we see a giant, shadowy wad

886
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:34,040
Speaker 3: of gray rock floating in the middle distance. A subtitle

887
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:39,320
Speaker 3: tells us that this is prison Asteroid Sector seventeen, maximum Security.

888
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,360
Speaker 3: Then we get some like space space traffic control on

889
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 3: the radio channels, there's there's chatter, voices are speaking in English.

890
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 3: By the way, we don't have to deal with subtitles

891
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 3: for this. They say radar control. This is Prison Transport

892
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 3: nine ninety sixty one, requesting permission to land, and the

893
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 3: prison transport ship explains the it has a cargo of

894
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 3: eight krite prisoners. Krits is what the aliens are called

895
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 3: in this movie. You might think that they're called critters,

896
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,160
Speaker 3: but actually that just comes from a kid calling them

897
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:14,480
Speaker 3: critters later in the film when he doesn't know that

898
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 3: they're called krits. I haven't dug into the origins of

899
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 3: this movie to figure out where the word krite comes from,

900
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 3: like why they picked that. If it has something to

901
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 3: do with cr Tyrian, I don't know.

902
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 2: That would be great criterion collect crite Heian collection, Yes.

903
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,399
Speaker 3: Whatever a crit is. The space traffic controller says, they've

904
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 3: been expecting the ship for a while, but weren't you

905
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:39,919
Speaker 3: supposed to have ten crites rather than eight? And oh yeah,

906
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 3: the pilot confirms they originally had ten, but they've had

907
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 3: such problems. The crits are eating everything on the ship.

908
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 3: Two of them were killed along the way, or they

909
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 3: wouldn't have had enough food to make the journey. So

910
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 3: these are eating machines whatever they are.

911
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:56,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have questions about the ethics of this prison system,

912
00:50:57,840 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 2: but clearly crites are bad news.

913
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 3: So now we're inside the prison facility and we see

914
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:06,959
Speaker 3: a humanoid alien sort of zipping around on a personal hovercraft.

915
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 3: The alien is wearing insulated armor with hoses snaking around

916
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:14,080
Speaker 3: connected to various nozzles. It has a big head like

917
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:19,120
Speaker 3: Exeter in this Island Earth, with like scalp flaps connecting

918
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 3: its shoulders to its head like a skin hood. The

919
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 3: skin is sort of pale blue gray, and this guy

920
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:27,719
Speaker 3: is called Zante.

921
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 2: I love how this movie, much like Terra Vision, just

922
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:37,360
Speaker 2: kicks off with this unreal, slightly hammy, but well crafted

923
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:41,839
Speaker 2: science fiction alien scenario from which we are then going

924
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:44,360
Speaker 2: to remove ourselves to re enter a human world.

925
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, nothing else will take place here after the prologue.

926
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:50,680
Speaker 3: We're just like seeing this world and then we're going

927
00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:52,160
Speaker 3: to spend the rest of the movie on Earth. And

928
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:55,879
Speaker 3: I kind of like that dynamic. So something goes wrong

929
00:51:55,920 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 3: with the prisoner transfer. People on the radio are calling

930
00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:01,000
Speaker 3: for backup and they say the crist are up to something,

931
00:52:01,040 --> 00:52:04,960
Speaker 3: and then there are explosions coming from somewhere, And yeah,

932
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:07,360
Speaker 3: I like the little view we get of this like

933
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 3: multicultural alien facility. There are obviously multiple different kinds of

934
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:14,880
Speaker 3: sentient aliens working here. It's not just like one species

935
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 3: from one planet, and we don't get a great look

936
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 3: at most of them. We see just flashes of, like

937
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:25,040
Speaker 3: some interesting silhouettes and the shadows and the smoke. And

938
00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:28,080
Speaker 3: I like stuff like this. I like intriguing little glimpses

939
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:30,760
Speaker 3: of an unfamiliar world without too much detail.

940
00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just a hint of the interplanetary world from

941
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:38,840
Speaker 2: which the crites are.

942
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:43,080
Speaker 3: Arriving anyway, word comes down to the alien control room

943
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:46,400
Speaker 3: that the crites have hijacked a ship and escaped. Oh no,

944
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:50,600
Speaker 3: And we see close ups of tiny, slimy clawed hands

945
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:53,800
Speaker 3: operating levers and pushing buttons in a sci fi cockpit,

946
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 3: and we don't see what the creatures look like in

947
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 3: full yet. The stolen spaceship blasts its way out of

948
00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:03,520
Speaker 3: and then soars off into the void and then back

949
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:07,279
Speaker 3: on the prison asteroid. The operator announces their next move.

950
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 3: They call the Alien Bounty Hunters, and here we are

951
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 3: treated to a suiting up bontage. And this raised a

952
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:18,239
Speaker 3: question for me, where does the visual meme of the

953
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:23,720
Speaker 3: suiting up montage come from? I mainly associated with Batman movies,

954
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:27,400
Speaker 3: starting with Tim Burton's Batman in nineteen eighty nine, but

955
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 3: it's in basically all of them. Rob I've got a

956
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 3: link actually to a YouTube video I found that's just

957
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:35,799
Speaker 3: a compilation of all the Batman suiting up montages. So

958
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 3: the way it usually works is you get extreme close

959
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:43,720
Speaker 3: ups of buckles, fastening buttons, snapping, gloves sliding onto hands,

960
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:47,880
Speaker 3: gear sliding into holsters in the case of Batman, sometimes

961
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:50,319
Speaker 3: you just get like the bat symbol or just like

962
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 3: butt cheeks flexing in batpants, so you see all of

963
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:58,080
Speaker 3: the elements of the outfit being donned and locked into

964
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 3: place before you see the character in full costume. And

965
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:03,879
Speaker 3: in the case of Critters, we get the same thing.

966
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:07,680
Speaker 3: With the Bounty Hunters. They have these like kind of

967
00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:11,440
Speaker 3: weird brown and black studded leather costumes, a little bit

968
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:14,479
Speaker 3: sci fi, a little bit conan, the barbarian, a little

969
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:18,799
Speaker 3: bit just leather, and we see the buttons snapping, the

970
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:22,160
Speaker 3: belts and straps, pulling tight knife going into a sheath,

971
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:25,759
Speaker 3: et cetera. But Critters actually came out before the eighty

972
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 3: nine Burton Batman, so obviously it didn't get it from there.

973
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 3: I assume this must be something that was in movies

974
00:54:31,719 --> 00:54:35,759
Speaker 3: or TV shows already, But where does it come from?

975
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 2: I don't have an answer. I would like to explore

976
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:44,000
Speaker 2: explore this topic more because I would guess it probably

977
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 2: does have something to do with leather and a kind

978
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,200
Speaker 2: of fetishization of leather. It probably has something to do

979
00:54:49,239 --> 00:54:53,359
Speaker 2: with biker movies and or like full body leather catsuits.

980
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 2: I can't help but wonder if we might find an

981
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:58,200
Speaker 2: answer and say nineteen sixty eight's The Girl on a

982
00:54:58,200 --> 00:55:02,440
Speaker 2: Motorcycle starring Maryann Faith or or something of that nature.

983
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 2: You know, something to wear. Like, clearly the leather costume

984
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:08,880
Speaker 2: is key somehow to the vision for the picture, and

985
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:11,600
Speaker 2: we're gonna have a filmmaker that's insightful enough to add

986
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 2: all those small details leading up to the whole.

987
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:16,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you see all the buckles and the clasps

988
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 3: and everything before you see the outfit.

989
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:21,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I don't know. I this is a mystery

990
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 2: to me. I haven't haven't looked into it yet.

991
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,000
Speaker 3: Though I will say the suit up montage here has

992
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 3: a nice twist because usually I'm used to seeing Batman

993
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 3: after this montage is done. But here, when the Bounty

994
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 3: Hunters are finally shown in full, they're standing side by

995
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 3: side in the dark corridor and they are faceless. Their

996
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:45,280
Speaker 3: heads are just smooth, featureless, pale green orbs good design choice.

997
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:48,880
Speaker 2: I like it, Yeah, I think the overall I'm instantly

998
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:51,640
Speaker 2: in love with this cotton concept because, yeah, the green,

999
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:57,320
Speaker 2: featureless faces this, you know, this has a lot of

1000
00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 2: alien mystery to it. And then their costumes are very

1001
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 2: like Bounty huntry in the sort of Star Wars since

1002
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:07,600
Speaker 2: the words because they have they kind of have some

1003
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:11,120
Speaker 2: very worn and kind of rough looking elements, you know,

1004
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:14,920
Speaker 2: like they're kind of some of the fabric looks looks

1005
00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:17,840
Speaker 2: very worn out. But then also like the loll the

1006
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:21,120
Speaker 2: leather stuff looks like it's very utilitarian, like these are

1007
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:24,720
Speaker 2: guys or something that are used to getting stuff done.

1008
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:28,959
Speaker 3: It's not the clean, new, freshly pressed look of Star Trek.

1009
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:29,359
Speaker 2: Here.

1010
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 3: Space looks lived in more like Star Wars. Everything's kind

1011
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:33,439
Speaker 3: of messy and worn out.

1012
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:36,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're kind of like space bikers to a

1013
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:37,879
Speaker 2: certain extent too. Yeah.

1014
00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 3: Well, anyway, these creatures are now on the case. A

1015
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 3: Zanti here charges them with tracking down the crits and

1016
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,560
Speaker 3: destroying them before they can feed, and he offers them

1017
00:56:47,640 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 3: full payment when the job is completed. So now we

1018
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:54,640
Speaker 3: cut to Earth. Here we get farmland, golden wheat fields,

1019
00:56:54,719 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 3: a windmill, a wooden rail fence, an axe wedged in

1020
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:01,520
Speaker 3: a chopping block, except why is it a fire axe?

1021
00:57:01,560 --> 00:57:03,960
Speaker 3: It's got that like the Pulaski back. I don't know,

1022
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:07,640
Speaker 3: but nice homie music letting you know that it's just

1023
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 3: a sleepy little village vibe. Everything is a Okay, no

1024
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:15,120
Speaker 3: flesh gobbling aliens, no bounty hunters roaming around this place.

1025
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:20,040
Speaker 3: Is doing fine. Inside the house, d Wallace is making breakfast.

1026
00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:23,080
Speaker 3: She's like sizzling bacon and a cast iron pan. There

1027
00:57:23,120 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 3: is a bottle of vegetable oil next to the pan.

1028
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:28,480
Speaker 3: And I don't know if this is what it's implying,

1029
00:57:28,520 --> 00:57:30,680
Speaker 3: but folks, you do not need to add oil to

1030
00:57:30,760 --> 00:57:33,440
Speaker 3: the pan when you're making bacon. Bacon will render its

1031
00:57:33,480 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 3: own fat.

1032
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 2: Maybe it's vegetarian bacon.

1033
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:37,280
Speaker 5: I don't know.

1034
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 2: Oh maybe, Okay, no, it's it's it's bacon.

1035
00:57:42,440 --> 00:57:47,040
Speaker 3: So we meet the Brown family here. The mom is Helen.

1036
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:50,800
Speaker 3: That's d Wallace. She is kind, loving and self sacrificing.

1037
00:57:50,840 --> 00:57:53,680
Speaker 3: She works hard to take care of her family. You

1038
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:55,840
Speaker 3: see that she doesn't have a lot of time for herself.

1039
00:57:55,920 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 3: Like there's one moment and you know she's like constantly

1040
00:57:58,240 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 3: trying to do things for the family and the kid

1041
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 3: and they're barely noticing. And then there's one scene where

1042
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 3: she tries to sit down and read a book but

1043
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:10,640
Speaker 3: is interrupted by the alien invasion. Though she shows herself

1044
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:14,120
Speaker 3: to be ferocious later on in the film in beating

1045
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 3: Chrits with the butt of a shotgun. There are like

1046
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 3: multiple scenes where the aliens are coming at the family

1047
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:24,240
Speaker 3: and she's just whacking them with a gun held backwards.

1048
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1049
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 2: So they initially present a very again kind of like

1050
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 2: fifties and sixties era TV mom, but then they're able

1051
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:34,480
Speaker 2: to twist that a little bit and show that, yeah,

1052
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:36,640
Speaker 2: she can also get in there and kill some crits.

1053
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 3: Okay, we got the dad Jay. On one hand, he's

1054
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:43,800
Speaker 3: just like a real down home, like chicken fried steak

1055
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:46,440
Speaker 3: of a man. You know, his mother was a tractor,

1056
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,560
Speaker 3: his father was a cow chip, and he wears overalls.

1057
00:58:50,040 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 3: And on the other hand, though, he's in some kind

1058
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:56,360
Speaker 3: of Ghostbusters themed bowling team.

1059
00:58:56,760 --> 00:58:58,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it took me a while to figure that out.

1060
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:02,440
Speaker 2: I was like, what is Dad's off brand Ghostbuster where about?

1061
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 2: And then I realized, Oh, it's a it's a bowling pin.

1062
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:07,400
Speaker 2: This is the mascot for this bowling team, because we

1063
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:10,520
Speaker 2: do see it a lot. Yeah, he's a fun character,

1064
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 2: like he has very seems very checked out. Like at

1065
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:16,439
Speaker 2: one point in the film, when April the daughter's about

1066
00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:19,720
Speaker 2: to go on her date there with billy' zayan, he's like,

1067
00:59:20,360 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 2: have you had the talk with our daughter, and she's like, yes,

1068
00:59:23,720 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 2: of course, I've had the talk with our like clearly

1069
00:59:26,400 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 2: twenty five year old daughter at this point, it was

1070
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:35,720
Speaker 2: years ago, and he's like years ago. Oh. He's also

1071
00:59:36,160 --> 00:59:39,960
Speaker 2: constantly drinking out of mason jars for some reason. Oh yeah,

1072
00:59:40,120 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 2: like I think he gets served coffee in a mason jar.

1073
00:59:42,920 --> 00:59:45,800
Speaker 2: Everyone else is drinking out of glass, normal glassware. He's

1074
00:59:45,880 --> 00:59:48,600
Speaker 2: drinking his coffee out of a mason jar and stirring,

1075
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:52,200
Speaker 2: if not honey, then possibly jam into it.

1076
00:59:52,200 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 3: It looked like honey. Yes, he was adding honey to

1077
00:59:54,640 --> 00:59:55,320
Speaker 3: his coffee.

1078
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:58,960
Speaker 4: Where it's like, okay, dad, whatever, whatever you need. I

1079
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:01,560
Speaker 4: guess I don't know why that seems so weird. People

1080
01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 4: add honey to their tea, but for some reason, I

1081
01:00:04,120 --> 01:00:06,240
Speaker 4: don't think about that with coffee. Maybe because coffee is

1082
01:00:06,280 --> 01:00:08,880
Speaker 4: already acidic and honey is also acidic.

1083
01:00:09,480 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 2: I've never added honey to a coffee. I mean, it

1084
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:14,200
Speaker 2: may be some people's thing. If it's your thing, right in,

1085
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:16,440
Speaker 2: let us know why you made this choice of life.

1086
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:17,120
Speaker 2: All right.

1087
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:19,840
Speaker 3: Now on to the kids you mentioned. April the daughter,

1088
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 3: she's your classic country girl yearning for a no good

1089
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:26,760
Speaker 3: city boy with vanity plates on his car, uncreative ones,

1090
01:00:27,360 --> 01:00:31,920
Speaker 3: Billy's Aine's vanity plates. Say what do they say? Too great?

1091
01:00:32,120 --> 01:00:36,120
Speaker 3: G R eight? Come on, Billy's saying that is that's

1092
01:00:36,160 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 3: not very good. You're trying to think of it while

1093
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:39,440
Speaker 3: you were standing in line.

1094
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:42,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, and plus it's just it's too prideful. You're gonna

1095
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:45,360
Speaker 2: get eaten by space aliens with that fanity plate.

1096
01:00:45,800 --> 01:00:48,680
Speaker 3: April has low tolerance for the geeky antics of her

1097
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:52,560
Speaker 3: little brother, and she lashes out at him in spite.

1098
01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:56,080
Speaker 3: The little brother with the geeky antics is Brad, the

1099
01:00:56,120 --> 01:00:58,400
Speaker 3: son of the family. He likes to hog the bathroom

1100
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 3: when his sister needs it. He likes to play hooky,

1101
01:01:00,680 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 3: skip school, and manufacture his own firecrackers. But like I said,

1102
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:05,520
Speaker 3: he has gumption.

1103
01:01:06,080 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1104
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:08,920
Speaker 3: So we get to meet the family over breakfast, get

1105
01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 3: to know them, see the tensions between brother and sister.

1106
01:01:11,640 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 3: They're they're like tattling on each other about things and

1107
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:17,880
Speaker 3: running off to school. I don't think we ever see

1108
01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:20,400
Speaker 3: them at school, We just see them later back at home.

1109
01:01:21,480 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 2: Now in the notes here, you point out that they

1110
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:26,240
Speaker 2: have a chimex. That's how they're making their coffee.

1111
01:01:26,400 --> 01:01:26,800
Speaker 3: That's right.

1112
01:01:27,040 --> 01:01:30,120
Speaker 2: Also alarmed me because I didn't even know they had

1113
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:32,680
Speaker 2: them back then. I didn't. I wasn't exposed to them

1114
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 2: untill I was in my early thirties or something where

1115
01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, a bold new way to make coffee.

1116
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 2: But it's not so bold or so new.

1117
01:01:41,360 --> 01:01:43,320
Speaker 3: I love pour over coffee and we use a chemex

1118
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 3: here at home. And yeah, they've been around for a while.

1119
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:50,280
Speaker 3: They were famous. They were like a famous product design

1120
01:01:50,480 --> 01:01:52,720
Speaker 3: in mid the mid century. I think they're from the

1121
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:56,280
Speaker 3: forties or the fifties. Originally, there's some kind of thing

1122
01:01:56,280 --> 01:02:00,160
Speaker 3: about like the Kimmicks caraffe being like featured in the

1123
01:02:00,160 --> 01:02:02,800
Speaker 3: the I don't know, Museum of Modern Art or something.

1124
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:06,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh that's interesting. Yeah, I don't know much about it.

1125
01:02:06,040 --> 01:02:09,520
Speaker 2: But so would you find it out of keeping with

1126
01:02:09,560 --> 01:02:12,080
Speaker 2: the character of the family as otherwise presented here that

1127
01:02:12,120 --> 01:02:14,440
Speaker 2: they have a chemex or do you find it acceptable?

1128
01:02:14,560 --> 01:02:15,920
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's out of keeping or not.

1129
01:02:16,000 --> 01:02:18,400
Speaker 3: I don't know who normally would use a Kimx at

1130
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:20,720
Speaker 3: this time, but I just was like, hey, I've got

1131
01:02:20,720 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 3: one of those that's in their kitchen, looks just like ours.

1132
01:02:24,280 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 2: I tend to think of it as the coffee maker

1133
01:02:26,520 --> 01:02:29,560
Speaker 2: that coffee shops and sometimes individuals will have on a

1134
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:33,360
Speaker 2: shelf and if you were to ask about it, they'd

1135
01:02:33,360 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 2: be like, oh, it's just for show. Nobody uses that.

1136
01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:38,480
Speaker 3: Well, it does look nice, but no, it makes.

1137
01:02:38,240 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 2: It because it's a beautiful, beautiful vessel, that's sure. That's

1138
01:02:41,880 --> 01:02:42,240
Speaker 2: for sure.

1139
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:44,520
Speaker 3: I think the main thing is is like a simple design.

1140
01:02:44,600 --> 01:02:48,280
Speaker 3: And then it's got these filters, sort of rectangular filters

1141
01:02:48,320 --> 01:02:52,120
Speaker 3: that are a thick kind of paper that is supposed

1142
01:02:52,120 --> 01:02:54,040
Speaker 3: to I guess because of the thickness or something is

1143
01:02:54,040 --> 01:02:57,040
Speaker 3: supposed to make coffee that is like less bitter or

1144
01:02:57,480 --> 01:02:59,240
Speaker 3: I don't know, has like a cleaner taste. I don't

1145
01:02:59,240 --> 01:03:01,080
Speaker 3: know if that's really true. I'm not a coffee geek

1146
01:03:01,080 --> 01:03:03,640
Speaker 3: and I haven't ab tested all this, but yeah, we

1147
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:05,480
Speaker 3: like the coffee we make in our chimacks.

1148
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:06,480
Speaker 2: Cool.

1149
01:03:07,200 --> 01:03:09,120
Speaker 3: They didn't pay us for that. Oh maybe we should

1150
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:12,040
Speaker 3: try to get them as a sponsor. We can as

1151
01:03:12,120 --> 01:03:17,280
Speaker 3: seen in Critters, as seen exactly. Yeah, okay. So also

1152
01:03:17,320 --> 01:03:19,439
Speaker 3: we're gonna check in with some more characters at town

1153
01:03:19,520 --> 01:03:23,080
Speaker 3: police headquarters. So we get Harve, the police chief. That's

1154
01:03:23,240 --> 01:03:27,640
Speaker 3: Mment Walsh. He's somehow greasy and creaky at the same time.

1155
01:03:27,760 --> 01:03:30,480
Speaker 3: If this metaphor makes sense. It's like he needs a

1156
01:03:30,520 --> 01:03:33,120
Speaker 3: spray of WD forty, but he got a squirt of

1157
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:36,920
Speaker 3: chicken fat instead, and now the hinges are squealing louder

1158
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:39,840
Speaker 3: than ever. He is the dyspeptic arm of the law.

1159
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:43,200
Speaker 2: That's some inimit Walsh magic right there. It's like the

1160
01:03:43,280 --> 01:03:44,920
Speaker 2: that's the perfect formula.

1161
01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:49,560
Speaker 3: We've also got Sally, his assistant. She's a bit aloof

1162
01:03:49,640 --> 01:03:51,760
Speaker 3: from the here and now because her head is wrapped

1163
01:03:51,840 --> 01:03:54,440
Speaker 3: up in stories she's reading in the tabloids featuring the

1164
01:03:54,480 --> 01:03:58,280
Speaker 3: top headline mister Spock is the father of my baby.

1165
01:03:58,760 --> 01:04:00,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's somewhat checked out.

1166
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:04,360
Speaker 3: You also got Charlie mcfatten. This is the otis of

1167
01:04:04,400 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 3: the story again. He's the town drunk. He's also an

1168
01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:11,200
Speaker 3: auto mechanic. I think Jay earlier is like working on

1169
01:04:11,280 --> 01:04:13,760
Speaker 3: a car in the basement of the house. I guess

1170
01:04:13,800 --> 01:04:18,600
Speaker 3: they've got like a garage underneath their house. And Jay

1171
01:04:18,720 --> 01:04:20,800
Speaker 3: was like, where's Charlie? So he was supposed to be

1172
01:04:20,840 --> 01:04:23,680
Speaker 3: there helping him, but he didn't show up. Charlie says

1173
01:04:23,680 --> 01:04:26,400
Speaker 3: he used to have a promising baseball career ahead of him,

1174
01:04:26,440 --> 01:04:29,280
Speaker 3: but then he started receiving messages from aliens in the

1175
01:04:29,280 --> 01:04:33,440
Speaker 3: fillings in his teeth, and this interfered with his baseball prospects,

1176
01:04:33,440 --> 01:04:36,400
Speaker 3: and now his prospects are Rye whiskey and a jail

1177
01:04:36,440 --> 01:04:40,160
Speaker 3: cell every night. Now, let's check in with the Bounty Hunters.

1178
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 3: Their crews in the galaxy in their ship when they

1179
01:04:43,640 --> 01:04:47,120
Speaker 3: get a holograph message from their boss, Zanti. Zanti says

1180
01:04:47,600 --> 01:04:50,200
Speaker 3: they have tracked the crits to a solar system with

1181
01:04:50,280 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 3: only one planet that supports life. It is called Earth.

1182
01:04:54,680 --> 01:04:57,400
Speaker 3: They should be able to use their shape shifting abilities

1183
01:04:57,440 --> 01:05:00,960
Speaker 3: to blend in when they arrive at Earth. Earth, and

1184
01:05:01,120 --> 01:05:04,320
Speaker 3: he's sending a data tape with information about the planet

1185
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:07,520
Speaker 3: and its civilizations. And he also starts telling them not

1186
01:05:07,680 --> 01:05:10,040
Speaker 3: to destroy everything in sight once they get there, but

1187
01:05:10,080 --> 01:05:11,680
Speaker 3: they like hang up on him in the middle of

1188
01:05:11,720 --> 01:05:12,600
Speaker 3: this exhortation.

1189
01:05:13,520 --> 01:05:16,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, as we'll see, they have a very rough hand

1190
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:18,480
Speaker 2: when it comes to critter elimination.

1191
01:05:18,960 --> 01:05:22,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they roll the tape containing what aliens know

1192
01:05:22,440 --> 01:05:26,000
Speaker 3: about Earth. It literally says Earth is a culture of

1193
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:29,760
Speaker 3: many contrasts, like did the Simpsons get it from there?

1194
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:30,280
Speaker 5: Maybe?

1195
01:05:30,840 --> 01:05:33,080
Speaker 3: But they sort of do that the David Bowie thing

1196
01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:35,240
Speaker 3: from the Man who Fell to Earth. They're watching a

1197
01:05:35,240 --> 01:05:39,360
Speaker 3: bunch of random different TV footage spliced together at superspeed.

1198
01:05:39,920 --> 01:05:41,920
Speaker 3: There's like, I don't know, I was just trying to

1199
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:43,800
Speaker 3: pause it and see what are these things. There's like

1200
01:05:43,840 --> 01:05:46,240
Speaker 3: a dude in a lab coat talking at the camera

1201
01:05:46,360 --> 01:05:49,160
Speaker 3: with a bunch of beakers. There are car crashes, the

1202
01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:52,600
Speaker 3: hydrogen bomb, Robin Hood, I think a Robin Hood movie,

1203
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:57,080
Speaker 3: aerobics routines from the nineteen twenties. But then finally it

1204
01:05:57,200 --> 01:06:00,160
Speaker 3: lands on a music video. It's rock and roll.

1205
01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:03,320
Speaker 2: Oh. I think we also saw just a glimpse of

1206
01:06:03,400 --> 01:06:06,080
Speaker 2: Klaskinski from Android in there as well.

1207
01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:06,360
Speaker 3: Did we.

1208
01:06:06,720 --> 01:06:06,880
Speaker 5: Oh?

1209
01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:07,480
Speaker 2: I think so.

1210
01:06:08,040 --> 01:06:10,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, the director's own films. That's part of the training.

1211
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:13,200
Speaker 2: But you mentioned the rock and roll, and that's key.

1212
01:06:13,600 --> 01:06:15,480
Speaker 3: Yeah. So once they get to the rock and roll,

1213
01:06:15,520 --> 01:06:18,760
Speaker 3: they slow it down to normal speed because this is educational.

1214
01:06:19,600 --> 01:06:22,280
Speaker 3: The artist is called Johnny Steele and the song is

1215
01:06:22,320 --> 01:06:24,560
Speaker 3: called the Power of the Night. We will hear it

1216
01:06:24,720 --> 01:06:27,520
Speaker 3: many times in the film. You get like, I don't

1217
01:06:27,560 --> 01:06:30,560
Speaker 3: know how many minutes of audio time for the Power

1218
01:06:30,600 --> 01:06:34,120
Speaker 3: of the Night, but it's clearly a favorite of the

1219
01:06:34,160 --> 01:06:35,280
Speaker 3: Earthlings at this point.

1220
01:06:35,800 --> 01:06:37,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, rocking.

1221
01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 3: The Bounty hunters are digging the music, as Johnny Alucard

1222
01:06:41,600 --> 01:06:45,640
Speaker 3: would say, another Johnny, I've just I've wrote down some

1223
01:06:45,680 --> 01:06:49,640
Speaker 3: of the lyrics. Here's one night Times on Fire. We

1224
01:06:49,880 --> 01:06:53,960
Speaker 3: are the heat, the flame is desire burns in the seat.

1225
01:06:55,840 --> 01:06:57,960
Speaker 3: But the Bounty Hunters are like, now that's what I

1226
01:06:58,040 --> 01:07:01,080
Speaker 3: call music, and one of them feeling the power of

1227
01:07:01,120 --> 01:07:04,520
Speaker 3: the night so hard that his face melts, or I

1228
01:07:04,520 --> 01:07:06,800
Speaker 3: guess I should say his non face melts, like the

1229
01:07:06,880 --> 01:07:10,120
Speaker 3: green orb melts away, it dissolves, and then it is

1230
01:07:10,200 --> 01:07:13,560
Speaker 3: replaced by what is this. It's a human skull with

1231
01:07:13,680 --> 01:07:16,840
Speaker 3: flesh and blood slowly building up around it through a

1232
01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:20,800
Speaker 3: pretty cool reverse melting effect. There are multiple parts of

1233
01:07:20,800 --> 01:07:24,800
Speaker 3: this movie that use reverse footage effects. There's one part

1234
01:07:24,880 --> 01:07:28,800
Speaker 3: later where like a blown up house is reassembled through

1235
01:07:28,800 --> 01:07:32,640
Speaker 3: a reverse footage here, but this is obviously reverse footage

1236
01:07:32,680 --> 01:07:36,440
Speaker 3: to put a mask onto a face. I guess they

1237
01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:39,040
Speaker 3: filmed it maybe melting away, and then reversed it. But

1238
01:07:39,160 --> 01:07:41,400
Speaker 3: by the time it's done, the bounty Hunter is Johnny

1239
01:07:41,400 --> 01:07:43,880
Speaker 3: Steele from the music video. Looks exactly like him.

1240
01:07:44,080 --> 01:07:47,240
Speaker 2: Great effects sequence and also just solid choice with the

1241
01:07:47,280 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 2: shape shifting aliens choosing a rock star to be their

1242
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:52,600
Speaker 2: avatar on Earth or one of them does, the other

1243
01:07:52,640 --> 01:07:55,520
Speaker 2: one hasn't made up their mind yet and just can't

1244
01:07:55,520 --> 01:07:56,919
Speaker 2: find something that suits them.

1245
01:07:57,680 --> 01:08:02,360
Speaker 3: So back on the Brown family farm, Brad and Charlie

1246
01:08:02,400 --> 01:08:05,560
Speaker 3: are playing with firecrackers while Charlie is supposed to be working.

1247
01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:07,800
Speaker 3: Charlie is supposed to be helping Jay fix his truck,

1248
01:08:08,680 --> 01:08:12,320
Speaker 3: but instead Charlie is hanging out with the kid doing firecrackers,

1249
01:08:12,360 --> 01:08:17,120
Speaker 3: I think, repairing his slingshot. And then April brings home

1250
01:08:17,160 --> 01:08:20,800
Speaker 3: her new boyfriend, and by god, it's Billy Zane. The

1251
01:08:20,880 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 3: character is named Steve Elliott. They pull up in a

1252
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 3: car that is a city car, and unfortunately Steve is

1253
01:08:27,160 --> 01:08:29,840
Speaker 3: a city boy and that does not fly around here.

1254
01:08:29,920 --> 01:08:33,040
Speaker 3: Jay comes and investigates billy Zane's car and he observes

1255
01:08:33,080 --> 01:08:35,360
Speaker 3: that one would not be able to hold much hay

1256
01:08:35,439 --> 01:08:35,760
Speaker 3: in it.

1257
01:08:37,360 --> 01:08:40,000
Speaker 2: I like Billy Zane's reaction to that line. It's just

1258
01:08:40,040 --> 01:08:43,800
Speaker 2: like a little glimpse of like the natural charisma and

1259
01:08:44,120 --> 01:08:46,679
Speaker 2: an ultimate acting ability of Billy Zaye. You just see

1260
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:48,280
Speaker 2: a little peak of it here, but you can see

1261
01:08:48,280 --> 01:08:49,439
Speaker 2: why he went on other things.

1262
01:08:49,680 --> 01:08:51,680
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, I can't hold much hay in this,

1263
01:08:51,800 --> 01:08:58,040
Speaker 3: and Billy Zaye's like yep. But there's an unfortunate slingshot

1264
01:08:58,080 --> 01:09:01,440
Speaker 3: incident in the scene. So Charlie is trying to demonstrate

1265
01:09:01,479 --> 01:09:04,280
Speaker 3: that he has fixed brad slingshot, and he shoots a

1266
01:09:04,320 --> 01:09:07,880
Speaker 3: pebble at like a coke can up on a fence post,

1267
01:09:07,920 --> 01:09:12,040
Speaker 3: but misses and hits April in the butt, and then

1268
01:09:12,360 --> 01:09:15,519
Speaker 3: she turns around angry, but she assumes it was Brad

1269
01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:18,960
Speaker 3: who did the sling shotting, and Brad heroically takes the

1270
01:09:19,000 --> 01:09:21,160
Speaker 3: blame even though it was Charlie. He doesn't want Charlie

1271
01:09:21,160 --> 01:09:23,960
Speaker 3: to get in trouble and loses his mechanic job with

1272
01:09:24,000 --> 01:09:26,599
Speaker 3: his dad, so he's like, yeah, okay, I did it.

1273
01:09:27,000 --> 01:09:28,200
Speaker 2: He's noble, he's a good kid.

1274
01:09:28,560 --> 01:09:31,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's sent to bed without supper. So we

1275
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:34,320
Speaker 3: follow Brad to his bedroom where I was looking at

1276
01:09:34,360 --> 01:09:38,320
Speaker 3: the posters. He has posters for Bruce Springsteen, the police

1277
01:09:38,520 --> 01:09:42,719
Speaker 3: as in the band Stinging the Police, not the Police,

1278
01:09:43,520 --> 01:09:47,760
Speaker 3: tree leaves and ferns, the United States map, and he's

1279
01:09:47,840 --> 01:09:50,400
Speaker 3: listening to a cassette tape of Power of the Night.

1280
01:09:50,520 --> 01:09:52,160
Speaker 3: So he is a Johnny Steel fan.

1281
01:09:52,640 --> 01:09:54,920
Speaker 2: I think we've discussed this before on the show. I

1282
01:09:55,000 --> 01:09:58,000
Speaker 2: Love a Good Kids room represented in a movie. I

1283
01:09:58,040 --> 01:09:59,920
Speaker 2: love to look at all the details and see the

1284
01:10:00,120 --> 01:10:03,080
Speaker 2: what degree they pulled it off and made it believable,

1285
01:10:03,320 --> 01:10:07,000
Speaker 2: to what extent they're acknowledging actual franchises that a child

1286
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:09,080
Speaker 2: in this time period would have been into, And I

1287
01:10:09,080 --> 01:10:11,920
Speaker 2: feel like they nailed it pretty well. I've seen plenty

1288
01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:14,400
Speaker 2: of especially more recent films, where I'm like, oh, you

1289
01:10:14,560 --> 01:10:16,920
Speaker 2: just you printed out some stock art. Those are not

1290
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:20,120
Speaker 2: real movies, those are not real comic book characters. Not

1291
01:10:20,280 --> 01:10:22,679
Speaker 2: buying it. But this one does a good job.

1292
01:10:23,240 --> 01:10:26,080
Speaker 3: I agree for the most part, except I don't know.

1293
01:10:26,080 --> 01:10:27,800
Speaker 3: I could be wrong about this, but I'm like, were

1294
01:10:27,840 --> 01:10:30,519
Speaker 3: they that many like twelve year olds who really liked

1295
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:31,240
Speaker 3: the police?

1296
01:10:33,400 --> 01:10:36,400
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, okay, I don't know why the

1297
01:10:36,439 --> 01:10:39,639
Speaker 2: police here. It would have been, but you know, he doesn't.

1298
01:10:39,720 --> 01:10:41,120
Speaker 3: Johnny Steele makes more sense.

1299
01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:44,320
Speaker 2: Johnny Steele makes sense, and maybe he, you know, a

1300
01:10:44,320 --> 01:10:46,200
Speaker 2: different kid would have been more into metal, But I

1301
01:10:46,200 --> 01:10:48,160
Speaker 2: don't really buy that Brad would be. It would have

1302
01:10:48,160 --> 01:10:51,479
Speaker 2: been a metal head, so maybe. I mean, there's all

1303
01:10:51,520 --> 01:10:54,519
Speaker 2: sorts of weird realistically, when you look back in the

1304
01:10:54,520 --> 01:10:56,960
Speaker 2: bands you get into when you start getting too music,

1305
01:10:57,040 --> 01:11:00,360
Speaker 2: sometimes there are weird fits, you know, like that's true. Yeah,

1306
01:11:01,240 --> 01:11:04,479
Speaker 2: look for examples from your own musical paths listeners. I'm

1307
01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:06,000
Speaker 2: sure you can think of some good ones.

1308
01:11:06,240 --> 01:11:09,240
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to imagine, like Brad sitting there in

1309
01:11:09,240 --> 01:11:12,800
Speaker 3: his bedroom making firecrackers, listening to Walking on the Moon.

1310
01:11:13,640 --> 01:11:17,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, rock Sanne Okay.

1311
01:11:17,760 --> 01:11:20,640
Speaker 3: Well, anyway, while he's in his bedroom being sent to

1312
01:11:20,640 --> 01:11:23,640
Speaker 3: bed without supper as punishment, April and Billy's ay and

1313
01:11:23,640 --> 01:11:26,519
Speaker 3: are having dinner with their parents, including corn on the cob.

1314
01:11:26,600 --> 01:11:30,360
Speaker 3: And oh man, you go home to meet your boyfriend

1315
01:11:30,439 --> 01:11:33,240
Speaker 3: or girlfriend's parents and they have corn on the cob,

1316
01:11:33,320 --> 01:11:35,920
Speaker 3: it just seems like it's recipe for disaster. How do

1317
01:11:36,000 --> 01:11:37,559
Speaker 3: you not get it in your teeth? How do you

1318
01:11:37,640 --> 01:11:38,439
Speaker 3: keep your dignity?

1319
01:11:39,080 --> 01:11:41,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean maybe that's intentional. It's like there's no

1320
01:11:41,040 --> 01:11:43,280
Speaker 2: way they'll be making out later if we serve corn

1321
01:11:43,280 --> 01:11:47,639
Speaker 2: in the cop But but like we said earlier, this

1322
01:11:47,640 --> 01:11:50,760
Speaker 2: this meal actually goes pretty well, and I feel like

1323
01:11:51,880 --> 01:11:55,040
Speaker 2: the boyfriend is respectful. And also we should note at

1324
01:11:55,040 --> 01:11:57,639
Speaker 2: this point in the film, everyone is still marked safe

1325
01:11:58,200 --> 01:12:02,160
Speaker 2: from critter attacks. We have not had any fatalities. I'm

1326
01:12:02,160 --> 01:12:04,040
Speaker 2: Planet Earth due to critters.

1327
01:12:03,920 --> 01:12:07,240
Speaker 3: That's right. So but eventually April and Billy z Ain.

1328
01:12:07,760 --> 01:12:10,360
Speaker 3: They leave to go for a ride, I think, but

1329
01:12:10,439 --> 01:12:12,600
Speaker 3: April is actually just taking Billy's Ain in to the

1330
01:12:12,600 --> 01:12:15,519
Speaker 3: barn to make out with him, and he's clearly like

1331
01:12:15,560 --> 01:12:17,280
Speaker 3: freaked out. He's like, I don't know if this is

1332
01:12:17,320 --> 01:12:19,400
Speaker 3: such a good idea of it. She's like, ah, come on,

1333
01:12:20,400 --> 01:12:25,000
Speaker 3: my parents will never think to look in the barn. Meanwhile,

1334
01:12:25,040 --> 01:12:28,320
Speaker 3: Brad sneaks out through his bedroom window and while climbing

1335
01:12:28,360 --> 01:12:31,720
Speaker 3: on the roof, witnesses the arrival of an alien spaceship.

1336
01:12:31,760 --> 01:12:35,080
Speaker 3: It flies over the farm, causes a mighty rumble, and

1337
01:12:35,200 --> 01:12:38,120
Speaker 3: Jay sees it too. He catches Brad sneaking out, so

1338
01:12:38,240 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 3: you think Brad's going to be in a lot of trouble.

1339
01:12:40,240 --> 01:12:42,320
Speaker 3: But then there's a kind of I don't know, there's

1340
01:12:42,360 --> 01:12:44,120
Speaker 3: the thing I liked here. It's kind of sweet, where

1341
01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:47,479
Speaker 3: like the dad catches Brad doing what he's not supposed

1342
01:12:47,520 --> 01:12:49,800
Speaker 3: to do, but he's but instead they're like, okay, well

1343
01:12:49,840 --> 01:12:52,599
Speaker 3: let's go investigate see what this is. It's kind of sweet.

1344
01:12:54,640 --> 01:12:56,280
Speaker 3: Oh but what they find is not so sweet. They

1345
01:12:56,320 --> 01:12:59,799
Speaker 3: find a mutilated cow. So we're back in cattle mutilation territory.

1346
01:13:00,240 --> 01:13:02,599
Speaker 2: This is I didn't I don't remember if this came

1347
01:13:02,680 --> 01:13:07,679
Speaker 2: up when we talked about The Return, which is definitely

1348
01:13:07,680 --> 01:13:11,559
Speaker 2: a cattle mutilation movie. So yeah, clearly they're dipping into

1349
01:13:11,640 --> 01:13:13,760
Speaker 2: cattle mutilation panic a bit here.

1350
01:13:14,240 --> 01:13:18,000
Speaker 3: They say what could have done this? Well, it was Chrits,

1351
01:13:18,080 --> 01:13:21,080
Speaker 3: of course, But we don't see the crits until I

1352
01:13:21,120 --> 01:13:23,040
Speaker 3: think the first time we see them is when Jay

1353
01:13:23,120 --> 01:13:25,720
Speaker 3: the dad has to go down in the basement.

1354
01:13:26,560 --> 01:13:28,160
Speaker 2: Or wait, is the deputy killed first?

1355
01:13:28,560 --> 01:13:32,759
Speaker 3: Oh? Maybe? So the police deputy is driving around, something

1356
01:13:33,160 --> 01:13:35,400
Speaker 3: goes out in front of him in the road, He swerves,

1357
01:13:36,120 --> 01:13:38,240
Speaker 3: and then he is He gets out of his car

1358
01:13:38,360 --> 01:13:41,240
Speaker 3: and is attacked by Krits. We don't see them, but

1359
01:13:41,240 --> 01:13:43,679
Speaker 3: there's some kind of furry creature that pulls him underneath

1360
01:13:43,680 --> 01:13:45,439
Speaker 3: the car and gobbles him up.

1361
01:13:45,880 --> 01:13:48,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then comes the basement attack scene.

1362
01:13:48,840 --> 01:13:52,040
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, So the phones and the power are out

1363
01:13:52,160 --> 01:13:54,760
Speaker 3: and Jay thinks he has to go back to go

1364
01:13:54,800 --> 01:13:56,760
Speaker 3: into the basement to flip the breaker. But when he

1365
01:13:56,800 --> 01:13:59,240
Speaker 3: goes down there, what is that? There's something moving on

1366
01:13:59,280 --> 01:14:02,160
Speaker 3: the shelf, pulsing in the dark. What could it be?

1367
01:14:02,240 --> 01:14:05,960
Speaker 3: He goes to investigate and it is this strange furry

1368
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:11,599
Speaker 3: hedgehog like creature that these creatures start jumping out biting him,

1369
01:14:12,040 --> 01:14:15,880
Speaker 3: and it becomes an actually quite visceral, bloody attack. They

1370
01:14:15,960 --> 01:14:19,479
Speaker 3: like shoot at him with these quills and when this,

1371
01:14:20,040 --> 01:14:23,000
Speaker 3: I guess the elements of a cried attack involve biting

1372
01:14:23,000 --> 01:14:25,759
Speaker 3: with razor sharp teeth, which draws a lot of blood.

1373
01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:29,040
Speaker 3: There are the poison quills, which when they hit you

1374
01:14:29,200 --> 01:14:33,320
Speaker 3: render you unconscious, though typically when they're pulled out people

1375
01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:37,839
Speaker 3: wake up immediately. And then there's also the the crites

1376
01:14:37,880 --> 01:14:41,120
Speaker 3: can move quickly by turning into a tumbleweed and rolling,

1377
01:14:41,240 --> 01:14:42,360
Speaker 3: or like Sonic the Hedgehog.

1378
01:14:42,880 --> 01:14:44,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're kind of like a cross between Sonic the

1379
01:14:44,840 --> 01:14:49,160
Speaker 2: Hedgehog and a mythic version of a porcupine, you know,

1380
01:14:49,600 --> 01:14:51,840
Speaker 2: like the sort of myth that a porcupine can fire

1381
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:55,400
Speaker 2: it's quills at you. Well, chrites certainly do. And yeah,

1382
01:14:55,439 --> 01:14:57,760
Speaker 2: there's a lot of blood here. I had not. I'm

1383
01:14:57,800 --> 01:14:59,760
Speaker 2: not sure if I ever saw critters one. I think

1384
01:14:59,800 --> 01:15:03,280
Speaker 2: ma I saw critters too back in the day. But

1385
01:15:04,640 --> 01:15:06,960
Speaker 2: either way, not remembering what happens here, I thought Dad

1386
01:15:07,040 --> 01:15:09,000
Speaker 2: was done for. I thought, like this, he's lost too

1387
01:15:09,080 --> 01:15:11,360
Speaker 2: much blood, he's got too many krites on him, He's

1388
01:15:11,400 --> 01:15:11,720
Speaker 2: done for.

1389
01:15:12,160 --> 01:15:14,400
Speaker 3: It really did seem that way. There's a lot of peril,

1390
01:15:14,479 --> 01:15:19,120
Speaker 3: but Dad is rescued. D Wallace and Brad are able

1391
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:21,040
Speaker 3: to grab him and pull him up the staircase out

1392
01:15:21,080 --> 01:15:24,479
Speaker 3: of the cellar and get him to safety. And yeah,

1393
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:26,519
Speaker 3: like you were saying, there's a lot of blood, there

1394
01:15:26,600 --> 01:15:29,240
Speaker 3: is a lot of blood, just generally in this movie,

1395
01:15:29,840 --> 01:15:33,519
Speaker 3: for PG. Thirteen especially, but the blood is often poorly lit.

1396
01:15:33,640 --> 01:15:36,599
Speaker 3: So in some of the most violent scenes, it'll be

1397
01:15:36,640 --> 01:15:39,080
Speaker 3: in like a dark room and the blood appears as

1398
01:15:39,120 --> 01:15:42,120
Speaker 3: just like dark wet patches on the clothing rather than

1399
01:15:42,200 --> 01:15:43,759
Speaker 3: like bright red and running.

1400
01:15:44,560 --> 01:15:46,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we don't really get a lot of what

1401
01:15:46,800 --> 01:15:50,040
Speaker 2: I would say like gory human kills. Yeah, most of

1402
01:15:50,080 --> 01:15:53,800
Speaker 2: the gory kills we get really are are krites getting blasted,

1403
01:15:54,439 --> 01:15:56,840
Speaker 2: though sometimes in a very comedic fashion, which we'll get

1404
01:15:56,840 --> 01:15:57,880
Speaker 2: to right.

1405
01:15:58,160 --> 01:16:00,479
Speaker 3: And we do get another tragic human death. So you know,

1406
01:16:00,520 --> 01:16:03,680
Speaker 3: nobody really cared about this, uh, this police deputy who

1407
01:16:03,680 --> 01:16:05,519
Speaker 3: got eaten. But but now they're going to do it

1408
01:16:05,520 --> 01:16:08,400
Speaker 3: to Billy Zay and I can't believe it. So Crits

1409
01:16:08,439 --> 01:16:10,800
Speaker 3: attack April and Billy Zaine in the barn while they're

1410
01:16:10,800 --> 01:16:13,479
Speaker 3: making out, and they like bite Billy Zane in the

1411
01:16:13,560 --> 01:16:16,559
Speaker 3: stomach and start chomping on his guts. And at this

1412
01:16:16,640 --> 01:16:18,920
Speaker 3: point I was just I was so torn up about it.

1413
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:19,720
Speaker 3: How could they?

1414
01:16:20,320 --> 01:16:22,439
Speaker 2: I think this is this is the scene where he

1415
01:16:22,479 --> 01:16:24,400
Speaker 2: reaches for the radio and they bite his fingers off

1416
01:16:24,520 --> 01:16:27,439
Speaker 2: and yeah, yeah, so that's right. Yeah, it's a rough

1417
01:16:27,479 --> 01:16:31,160
Speaker 2: death for this actually, like seemingly likable young man who

1418
01:16:31,160 --> 01:16:33,200
Speaker 2: made the mistake of going to the country.

1419
01:16:33,640 --> 01:16:35,920
Speaker 3: He should not have should have stayed in the city.

1420
01:16:36,400 --> 01:16:41,040
Speaker 2: Don't listen to Neil Young. Wait, what do you.

1421
01:16:41,080 --> 01:16:42,720
Speaker 3: Mean, Oh, are you ready for the country?

1422
01:16:42,800 --> 01:16:43,559
Speaker 2: Yeah he was not.

1423
01:16:44,320 --> 01:16:48,519
Speaker 3: No, it seems like a warning. Actually, I think I

1424
01:16:48,560 --> 01:16:49,679
Speaker 3: think he should have listened.

1425
01:16:49,920 --> 01:16:53,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's about christs. I think Neil Young is singing like,

1426
01:16:53,640 --> 01:16:55,960
Speaker 2: are you ready for the country because they've got some crimes.

1427
01:16:57,040 --> 01:16:57,160
Speaker 6: Uh.

1428
01:16:57,320 --> 01:16:59,439
Speaker 3: But Brad comes in and he saves the day by

1429
01:16:59,479 --> 01:17:02,559
Speaker 3: convincing a Kright to eat one of his firecrackers, and

1430
01:17:02,600 --> 01:17:04,560
Speaker 3: then it like blows up inside the Kright and you

1431
01:17:04,600 --> 01:17:07,360
Speaker 3: think the Cright's gonna like just like explode with chunks

1432
01:17:07,360 --> 01:17:10,240
Speaker 3: going everywhere, but instead there is a comedic like it's

1433
01:17:10,280 --> 01:17:12,680
Speaker 3: sort of its belly pooches out and then it just

1434
01:17:12,800 --> 01:17:13,839
Speaker 3: like keels over.

1435
01:17:14,240 --> 01:17:17,040
Speaker 2: Smoke out of the mouth basically like a cartoon coyote

1436
01:17:17,160 --> 01:17:24,760
Speaker 2: ate a hot chili pepper kind of yes, so solid.

1437
01:17:28,880 --> 01:17:32,240
Speaker 3: So there are a bunch more sort of just krite

1438
01:17:32,360 --> 01:17:35,799
Speaker 3: battling set pieces that I'm not going to recount in detail.

1439
01:17:35,840 --> 01:17:38,120
Speaker 3: The whole way there are battles is the family tries

1440
01:17:38,160 --> 01:17:40,320
Speaker 3: to make it back to the house. They battle krites

1441
01:17:40,320 --> 01:17:43,160
Speaker 3: along the way. There's one part where krights are chasing them,

1442
01:17:43,200 --> 01:17:45,160
Speaker 3: but then they managed to get behind There's like a

1443
01:17:45,200 --> 01:17:48,000
Speaker 3: waist high picket fence that the crits get stuck behind.

1444
01:17:48,400 --> 01:17:52,240
Speaker 3: There's just banging on the picket fence. Then there are

1445
01:17:52,240 --> 01:17:55,639
Speaker 3: also battles inside the house. The family gets in there

1446
01:17:55,960 --> 01:17:59,439
Speaker 3: and the crates attack them. They fight them in various ways,

1447
01:17:59,479 --> 01:18:01,800
Speaker 3: and yes, there is a scene with a with a

1448
01:18:01,880 --> 01:18:04,719
Speaker 3: critter in the toilet. So that's a milestone achieved.

1449
01:18:05,120 --> 01:18:08,320
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah. They really seem to just spare no part

1450
01:18:08,320 --> 01:18:10,120
Speaker 2: of this house. They're like, have we had a crate

1451
01:18:10,200 --> 01:18:14,280
Speaker 2: attack in the gift drafting room? No, well let's do it.

1452
01:18:14,439 --> 01:18:16,160
Speaker 2: Let's do it. We have to cover every room in

1453
01:18:16,200 --> 01:18:16,599
Speaker 2: this house.

1454
01:18:17,520 --> 01:18:21,960
Speaker 3: There's also just random scenes of the bounty hunters, you know,

1455
01:18:22,080 --> 01:18:24,400
Speaker 3: roaming around and going to various places. They go to

1456
01:18:24,520 --> 01:18:28,639
Speaker 3: church and they like accidentally back their car. They steal

1457
01:18:28,680 --> 01:18:32,479
Speaker 3: a police car. Once they arrive. It's the deputies backwards,

1458
01:18:32,560 --> 01:18:34,880
Speaker 3: yeah yeah, and they drive it backwards because they don't

1459
01:18:34,880 --> 01:18:36,479
Speaker 3: know they're not from Earth. They don't know how you're

1460
01:18:36,479 --> 01:18:39,360
Speaker 3: supposed to drive, so they're driving it in reverse everywhere,

1461
01:18:39,960 --> 01:18:42,680
Speaker 3: and they like back it through the I don't know

1462
01:18:42,680 --> 01:18:44,759
Speaker 3: what you call it, like the porch of a church

1463
01:18:44,880 --> 01:18:47,120
Speaker 3: while church is in session and the reverend is talking

1464
01:18:47,160 --> 01:18:50,680
Speaker 3: about Sodom and Gomorrah. And then they go into the

1465
01:18:50,760 --> 01:18:54,920
Speaker 3: church and the and one of the bounty hunter that

1466
01:18:54,960 --> 01:18:58,080
Speaker 3: had not transformed into Johnny Steel turns into the reverend

1467
01:18:58,120 --> 01:18:58,800
Speaker 3: from the church.

1468
01:18:59,280 --> 01:19:04,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, he'd previously taken on the form of the dead deputy,

1469
01:19:04,840 --> 01:19:08,559
Speaker 2: so he looked like a zombie previously. This is the

1470
01:19:08,640 --> 01:19:12,120
Speaker 2: non Johnny Steele, the non ug bounty hunter who can't

1471
01:19:12,160 --> 01:19:15,479
Speaker 2: make up his mind, who keeps choosing a new form.

1472
01:19:15,960 --> 01:19:17,880
Speaker 3: Then they go to the bowling Alley and the reverend

1473
01:19:17,920 --> 01:19:21,559
Speaker 3: one transforms into looking like Charlie, the guy who thinks

1474
01:19:21,560 --> 01:19:25,080
Speaker 3: he's been talking to aliens the whole time. And then

1475
01:19:25,160 --> 01:19:27,960
Speaker 3: eventually they're driving around later and they're gonna make it

1476
01:19:28,000 --> 01:19:31,839
Speaker 3: to the house. So inside the house. Brad, he becomes

1477
01:19:31,840 --> 01:19:34,720
Speaker 3: heroic the son, and he's like he ventures out. He says,

1478
01:19:34,720 --> 01:19:36,920
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go get help. So he goes out and

1479
01:19:36,960 --> 01:19:39,479
Speaker 3: he flags down a police car after being chased by

1480
01:19:39,520 --> 01:19:41,800
Speaker 3: crits of course for a while, and it is being

1481
01:19:41,920 --> 01:19:44,280
Speaker 3: driven by the Bounty Hunters. So this is the scene

1482
01:19:44,280 --> 01:19:47,519
Speaker 3: where we get the use of the word critters. Brad,

1483
01:19:47,760 --> 01:19:50,080
Speaker 3: not knowing that these are christs, says, hey, there are

1484
01:19:50,120 --> 01:19:52,840
Speaker 3: critters attacking my family. You've got to come help, And

1485
01:19:52,880 --> 01:19:55,880
Speaker 3: the Bounty Hunters do go to investigate, though they're very

1486
01:19:56,600 --> 01:19:58,960
Speaker 3: they're not very communicative. They just sort of like stare

1487
01:19:59,040 --> 01:20:00,200
Speaker 3: at people most of the time.

1488
01:20:00,640 --> 01:20:03,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do a lot of terminatory sort of behaviors,

1489
01:20:03,880 --> 01:20:06,720
Speaker 2: but generally for comedic effects. I love the scene in

1490
01:20:06,760 --> 01:20:10,479
Speaker 2: the bowling alley. The ug character like palms a bowling

1491
01:20:10,520 --> 01:20:13,200
Speaker 2: ball and then he looks down at the pins and

1492
01:20:13,320 --> 01:20:16,360
Speaker 2: just hurls it straight at the pins and shatters them.

1493
01:20:17,160 --> 01:20:19,920
Speaker 3: It's like he wanted he wanted everyone there to know

1494
01:20:20,000 --> 01:20:23,160
Speaker 3: that he could beat them all at bowling. Yeah, that's

1495
01:20:23,200 --> 01:20:25,200
Speaker 3: just part of his strategy for finding out where the

1496
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:25,840
Speaker 3: crits are.

1497
01:20:26,800 --> 01:20:29,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it this. I think it's a it's a

1498
01:20:29,640 --> 01:20:32,360
Speaker 2: specific example of a thing this film does really well,

1499
01:20:32,360 --> 01:20:36,920
Speaker 2: Like it's clearly drawing on these various obvious mainstream sci

1500
01:20:36,960 --> 01:20:41,960
Speaker 2: fi influences, but manages to figure out a way to

1501
01:20:42,680 --> 01:20:45,400
Speaker 2: reweave them into something that feels unique and new.

1502
01:20:45,760 --> 01:20:48,840
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the bounty hunters arrive at the house on

1503
01:20:48,880 --> 01:20:52,200
Speaker 3: the Brown family farm and they start scouring it for Chrits.

1504
01:20:52,280 --> 01:20:54,320
Speaker 3: They like blow up one of the Krits in a

1505
01:20:54,400 --> 01:20:58,920
Speaker 3: toilet with with their like laser blasters. Meanwhile, Emmett wallsh

1506
01:20:59,000 --> 01:21:01,759
Speaker 3: arrives and is generally not very helpful. He's like shooting

1507
01:21:01,760 --> 01:21:03,800
Speaker 3: at rolling fur balls and missing and then he gets

1508
01:21:03,800 --> 01:21:04,639
Speaker 3: thrown out a window.

1509
01:21:06,320 --> 01:21:10,120
Speaker 2: Is this the part maybe getting ahead of us, But

1510
01:21:10,160 --> 01:21:12,640
Speaker 2: there's a great scene where we get some subtitles for

1511
01:21:12,720 --> 01:21:15,960
Speaker 2: the Crits. Yes, and they're like, they have weapons, and

1512
01:21:15,960 --> 01:21:17,559
Speaker 2: then the other one says the F word.

1513
01:21:18,680 --> 01:21:21,080
Speaker 3: It's and I laughed, well, I think one of them

1514
01:21:21,120 --> 01:21:24,160
Speaker 3: says they have weapons and the other one says, so what,

1515
01:21:24,439 --> 01:21:26,400
Speaker 3: And then the one that said the head weapons gets

1516
01:21:26,400 --> 01:21:30,120
Speaker 3: blasted by the and then the other one just says

1517
01:21:30,160 --> 01:21:30,799
Speaker 3: the F word.

1518
01:21:32,640 --> 01:21:35,559
Speaker 2: It's it's tremendous, but says the F word and it's

1519
01:21:35,600 --> 01:21:38,400
Speaker 2: in the crit language. And then the subtitles tell us

1520
01:21:38,400 --> 01:21:40,880
Speaker 2: what he's saying. So I thought that was legitimately funny.

1521
01:21:41,080 --> 01:21:43,760
Speaker 3: Now somewhere along here, one of the crites becomes enormous,

1522
01:21:43,800 --> 01:21:46,640
Speaker 3: like it grows up and becomes bear sized, and like

1523
01:21:46,760 --> 01:21:49,320
Speaker 3: Brad sees it grow by watching its shadow in the

1524
01:21:49,439 --> 01:21:51,559
Speaker 3: light of the moon while he's running to get help

1525
01:21:52,600 --> 01:21:56,280
Speaker 3: and then coming to the final showdown, April, the sister

1526
01:21:56,400 --> 01:21:59,280
Speaker 3: is knocked unconscious with the poison quill and kidnapped by

1527
01:21:59,280 --> 01:22:01,960
Speaker 3: the big crit Megacrite is like dragging her back to

1528
01:22:02,000 --> 01:22:05,160
Speaker 3: the spaceship, I guess, for I don't know. Inflight, Snack

1529
01:22:05,360 --> 01:22:09,160
Speaker 3: probably and the remaining handful of Krites are getting ready

1530
01:22:09,160 --> 01:22:12,479
Speaker 3: to escape. They're like getting the ship, you know, pulling

1531
01:22:12,520 --> 01:22:15,280
Speaker 3: up the landing gear and all that. So in the end,

1532
01:22:15,760 --> 01:22:18,439
Speaker 3: Brad has to save his sister, even though they've been

1533
01:22:18,600 --> 01:22:20,960
Speaker 3: fighting the whole time, along with the help of Charlie

1534
01:22:21,000 --> 01:22:25,400
Speaker 3: the mechanic. So Brad infiltrates the alien ship, pulls April out,

1535
01:22:25,479 --> 01:22:29,800
Speaker 3: and then throws his giant homemade firecracker inside the spaceship.

1536
01:22:30,360 --> 01:22:33,760
Speaker 3: And then Charlie also helps by igniting the fuse of

1537
01:22:33,800 --> 01:22:38,000
Speaker 3: the firecracker by throwing a Molotov cocktail inside the closing

1538
01:22:38,040 --> 01:22:41,360
Speaker 3: door of the spaceship, and then the Krits, out of

1539
01:22:41,439 --> 01:22:45,360
Speaker 3: just pure spite as they're flying away, shoot a laser

1540
01:22:45,400 --> 01:22:49,920
Speaker 3: beam and blow up the family's house. But then of

1541
01:22:49,960 --> 01:22:52,439
Speaker 3: course the fuse on the firecracker burns through and their

1542
01:22:52,439 --> 01:22:57,840
Speaker 3: ship explodes. So finally the Crites are defeated, not just

1543
01:22:57,840 --> 01:23:01,040
Speaker 3: by the bounty hunters but by Brad and Charlie. So earthlings,

1544
01:23:01,080 --> 01:23:05,599
Speaker 3: you know, unassuming earthlings to the rescue, and I guess

1545
01:23:05,640 --> 01:23:10,519
Speaker 3: because Brad has proved his worthiness, the alien bounty hunters

1546
01:23:10,640 --> 01:23:13,360
Speaker 3: leave him with a sort of communicator device. It's like

1547
01:23:13,400 --> 01:23:17,800
Speaker 3: a little radio contact thing. And then upon their departure

1548
01:23:18,280 --> 01:23:22,840
Speaker 3: they somehow use the magic power of their ship to

1549
01:23:23,080 --> 01:23:28,200
Speaker 3: reverse footage reassemble the family's house after we saw it

1550
01:23:28,280 --> 01:23:30,880
Speaker 3: like nearly adamized, just blown to toothpicks.

1551
01:23:31,760 --> 01:23:34,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have the technology to do this, and yet

1552
01:23:34,520 --> 01:23:36,800
Speaker 2: to kill a cry they have to manually hunt it

1553
01:23:36,840 --> 01:23:39,080
Speaker 2: down and shoot it with some sort of a space shotgun.

1554
01:23:39,560 --> 01:23:41,120
Speaker 2: Maybe that's just how it is. I don't know.

1555
01:23:41,560 --> 01:23:43,519
Speaker 3: But so now the family has their house back. All

1556
01:23:43,520 --> 01:23:47,040
Speaker 3: members of the family are safe. Of course, Billy Zain

1557
01:23:47,360 --> 01:23:50,439
Speaker 3: is no longer with us, but the family is all

1558
01:23:50,479 --> 01:23:52,320
Speaker 3: all right, and that seems to go with like the

1559
01:23:52,360 --> 01:23:54,439
Speaker 3: feel good vibes. At the end of the movie, everybody

1560
01:23:54,479 --> 01:23:57,080
Speaker 3: in the family's okay. But we do get a final stinger,

1561
01:23:57,560 --> 01:24:00,800
Speaker 3: which is the camera sort of like Alli's into the

1562
01:24:00,880 --> 01:24:05,200
Speaker 3: chicken coop and we see these leathery looking studded black

1563
01:24:05,360 --> 01:24:08,559
Speaker 3: eggs in there, and they're in the chicken coop, which

1564
01:24:08,640 --> 01:24:10,680
Speaker 3: I started laughing at because I was like, does this

1565
01:24:10,720 --> 01:24:14,240
Speaker 3: mean the family's gonna like just use them like eggs,

1566
01:24:14,240 --> 01:24:15,080
Speaker 3: like make an omelet?

1567
01:24:15,320 --> 01:24:18,920
Speaker 2: I would hope not. That would prevent the sequel from

1568
01:24:18,920 --> 01:24:20,360
Speaker 2: taking place, I assume.

1569
01:24:20,479 --> 01:24:23,040
Speaker 3: So upon reflection, I noticed what I thought was a

1570
01:24:23,120 --> 01:24:25,599
Speaker 3: kind of interesting theme in this film. I didn't notice

1571
01:24:25,640 --> 01:24:29,320
Speaker 3: while I was watching, but thinking back on it, there

1572
01:24:29,360 --> 01:24:33,120
Speaker 3: are many acts of spite in the movie, Like there

1573
01:24:33,120 --> 01:24:36,639
Speaker 3: are multiple times when someone just sort of casually does

1574
01:24:36,720 --> 01:24:39,839
Speaker 3: injury to some other party as they are leaving a scene,

1575
01:24:39,960 --> 01:24:42,400
Speaker 3: like the brother and sister do it to each other

1576
01:24:42,520 --> 01:24:45,559
Speaker 3: early on, the crits do it to the farm while escaping.

1577
01:24:45,600 --> 01:24:48,559
Speaker 3: They're getting out there, leaving this planet, but they're just like,

1578
01:24:49,240 --> 01:24:51,240
Speaker 3: the heck with you, They just blow up the house.

1579
01:24:52,240 --> 01:24:53,559
Speaker 3: And I don't know what to make of that. But

1580
01:24:53,600 --> 01:24:57,000
Speaker 3: it's there in the subtext, though in all cases the

1581
01:24:57,080 --> 01:24:59,559
Speaker 3: wounds caused by spite are healed at the end of

1582
01:24:59,560 --> 01:25:00,400
Speaker 3: the film.

1583
01:25:00,479 --> 01:25:04,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just spiteful little creatures. They're hungry and they're hateful,

1584
01:25:05,200 --> 01:25:07,640
Speaker 2: and you never want them to show up on your planet,

1585
01:25:07,840 --> 01:25:09,160
Speaker 2: but if you do, you need to take care of

1586
01:25:09,200 --> 01:25:12,639
Speaker 2: them quickly. And they everyone managed to pull this off,

1587
01:25:13,040 --> 01:25:14,360
Speaker 2: or so it would seem.

1588
01:25:14,720 --> 01:25:17,600
Speaker 3: Another thing that I think is interesting. We sort of

1589
01:25:17,640 --> 01:25:20,760
Speaker 3: talked about this earlier, but it's a misimpression I had

1590
01:25:20,800 --> 01:25:23,360
Speaker 3: about them, which is I thought of the crites before

1591
01:25:23,400 --> 01:25:27,320
Speaker 3: I watched this movie as just animalistic eating machines, but

1592
01:25:27,360 --> 01:25:29,639
Speaker 3: that's not what they are. They have synians like they

1593
01:25:29,680 --> 01:25:32,599
Speaker 3: talk to each other in their different language subtitled they

1594
01:25:32,640 --> 01:25:36,799
Speaker 3: work machines, they fly spaceships. Does this make them different

1595
01:25:36,840 --> 01:25:40,639
Speaker 3: from most other movie monsters? I was thinking that actually,

1596
01:25:40,880 --> 01:25:44,599
Speaker 3: most of the creatures in the various Gromlins movies are

1597
01:25:44,720 --> 01:25:48,760
Speaker 3: able to like work machines and communicate and coordinate with

1598
01:25:48,800 --> 01:25:52,240
Speaker 3: one another, whether verbally or nonverbally. That's sort of part

1599
01:25:52,400 --> 01:25:55,920
Speaker 3: of the Gromlin thing, that they're not just mindless, roaring,

1600
01:25:56,240 --> 01:26:00,000
Speaker 3: you know, chompers, but they have intention behind their behavior,

1601
01:26:00,080 --> 01:26:05,479
Speaker 3: you're usually malevolent intention, even if that intention is rather

1602
01:26:05,560 --> 01:26:08,880
Speaker 3: just sort of like crude impulses. Like they they have

1603
01:26:09,000 --> 01:26:12,880
Speaker 3: plans and they enact them. Does this inform something about

1604
01:26:12,920 --> 01:26:14,800
Speaker 3: the appeal of the Gromlin subgenre.

1605
01:26:16,200 --> 01:26:19,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, that they're schemers, that they're you know what, they

1606
01:26:19,439 --> 01:26:24,599
Speaker 2: lack in size and perhaps even in like pure visual threat,

1607
01:26:24,680 --> 01:26:28,000
Speaker 2: because generally speaking, they're not the size of bears. But

1608
01:26:28,040 --> 01:26:30,919
Speaker 2: they have they have plans, they have schemes. They're tricky,

1609
01:26:31,920 --> 01:26:35,240
Speaker 2: they're they're little, They're little devils. They're little demons working

1610
01:26:35,240 --> 01:26:36,160
Speaker 2: their mischief in the.

1611
01:26:36,080 --> 01:26:39,400
Speaker 3: World, getting into the chicken coop, knocking over the fence,

1612
01:26:39,640 --> 01:26:46,880
Speaker 3: eating your billy's and boyfriend. Yeah, causing all kinds of mischief. Well,

1613
01:26:47,000 --> 01:26:48,879
Speaker 3: I think that's all I've got to say about critters.

1614
01:26:48,920 --> 01:26:50,280
Speaker 3: But I enjoyed this one.

1615
01:26:50,840 --> 01:26:53,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a I think it's a very enjoyable film

1616
01:26:53,240 --> 01:26:56,000
Speaker 2: that holds up really well. So if you haven't seen

1617
01:26:56,000 --> 01:26:59,400
Speaker 2: it and you're looking for just a pretty pretty harmless

1618
01:26:59,439 --> 01:27:04,000
Speaker 2: but fun and at times funny creature feature, I don't

1619
01:27:04,000 --> 01:27:06,360
Speaker 2: think you can go wrong with Gromlins. I'm sorry, I

1620
01:27:06,360 --> 01:27:08,320
Speaker 2: don't think you can go wrong. You can go wrong

1621
01:27:08,320 --> 01:27:10,160
Speaker 2: with Gromlins in general. I don't think you can go

1622
01:27:10,200 --> 01:27:14,080
Speaker 2: wrong with Critters one though, fun movie. All right, we'll

1623
01:27:14,120 --> 01:27:15,920
Speaker 2: go ahead and close it there, but we'd love to

1624
01:27:15,920 --> 01:27:17,760
Speaker 2: hear from everyone out there if you have thoughts on

1625
01:27:17,960 --> 01:27:21,599
Speaker 2: Critters or the Critters franchise, Gromlins movies in general, wright

1626
01:27:21,680 --> 01:27:23,519
Speaker 2: in we would love to hear from you. Just a

1627
01:27:23,520 --> 01:27:25,320
Speaker 2: reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a

1628
01:27:25,360 --> 01:27:28,719
Speaker 2: science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays,

1629
01:27:28,720 --> 01:27:30,639
Speaker 2: we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about

1630
01:27:30,640 --> 01:27:32,920
Speaker 2: a weird movie on Weird House Cinema. And if you

1631
01:27:32,920 --> 01:27:35,759
Speaker 2: want to see a complete list all of those movies

1632
01:27:35,800 --> 01:27:38,080
Speaker 2: that we've talked about in Weird House Cinema, you can

1633
01:27:38,080 --> 01:27:40,240
Speaker 2: go to letterbox dot com. That's L E T T

1634
01:27:40,360 --> 01:27:42,880
Speaker 2: E R B O x D dot com. You'll find

1635
01:27:42,920 --> 01:27:45,680
Speaker 2: us on there as Weird House, and yeah, there'll be

1636
01:27:45,680 --> 01:27:47,960
Speaker 2: a list of all the movies we've covered. Also, if

1637
01:27:47,960 --> 01:27:51,439
Speaker 2: you're on Instagram, go to STBYM podcast that's Stuff to

1638
01:27:51,439 --> 01:27:54,559
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind's account and our social media team has

1639
01:27:54,600 --> 01:27:58,479
Speaker 2: been putting up little video features for these episodes that

1640
01:27:58,560 --> 01:28:01,160
Speaker 2: have some of the trailer footage. So we always feature

1641
01:28:01,160 --> 01:28:04,360
Speaker 2: the trailer audio if we can find it for the

1642
01:28:04,360 --> 01:28:06,519
Speaker 2: movies we talk about here, but it's also nice to

1643
01:28:06,600 --> 01:28:08,000
Speaker 2: check in on the visuals as well.

1644
01:28:08,400 --> 01:28:11,679
Speaker 3: Oh yes, huge thanks as always to our excellent audio

1645
01:28:11,720 --> 01:28:14,400
Speaker 3: producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in

1646
01:28:14,439 --> 01:28:16,920
Speaker 3: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

1647
01:28:17,000 --> 01:28:19,120
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

1648
01:28:19,120 --> 01:28:21,840
Speaker 3: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff

1649
01:28:21,920 --> 01:28:29,880
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com.

1650
01:28:30,000 --> 01:28:32,960
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1651
01:28:33,040 --> 01:28:36,880
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1652
01:28:36,960 --> 01:28:39,000
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.